A small thought on what is wrong with the game's development vision

"

QuiquePoE wrote:

You still haven't answered my question: What's their vision?

Because, if the intended goal was/is to make the game slower and reduce power creep, they chose the opposite route to achieve that and they knew it:

https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/gvh29i/were_ruining_the_game_with_this_league_chris/

And they chose that route twice.

No. It's more like they don't know what their vision is or they change it in a whim.

I figured that question was rhetorical since clearly a random person on the forum can't answer that question fully. All I can do is go off what they've said, and their actions along the way.

They've said they want a hardcore game for hardcore players. Now it's hard to say if they literally meant hardcore, like hardcore league but since they added a non-hardcore league I would assume they mean figurative. Again I'm not then so just going off the context that is available.

They've added deterministic crafting at some various levels of power to include essences, fossils, crafting bench and harvest. The've also scaled back each of them to some extent because they felt they offered too much power. So from that context I would say they want deterministic crafting to augment items but not to be the alpha and omega of gearing.

They've said that they want the loot on the ground to be valuable. This is something they've clearly lacked a good answer for, but they aspire to it. That is part of their vision I would assume.

Also, they've continuously said POE is an ARPG so I would assume that they will generally maintain consistency with that genre even though they've played with other genre elements like tower defense and platforming games.

It's a mistake to assume that vision has to be specific. As an example, It's okay to know you always want to vacation in a sunny place you can swim and not even know which country you want that to be in. Eventually you'll have to try out some places and see if they work, but a vision is outward looking, and does not require a country, hotel, hotel room and specific dates to start with. You can even go on beach vacations multiple times and not like where you went and choose another place still searching for that right place to vacation. That's what Harvest league and 3.13 were. Attempts to find the right level of deterministic crafting and not getting it right in terms of what you envisioned.

You're wrong on Harvest being chosen twice btw. It has been chosen three times. You're forgetting that the current iteration of it is the power level they seem to be comfortable with, and it is the 3rd attempt. The first two iterations they overshot on power level and had to pull it back.

POE 2.0 is likely a big part of that vision too, and we are not privy to much on that front, but POE 1 and POE 2 will converge and those two ships need to be in alignment.

There is more I can add about context of their vision from my point of view, but it's all an opinion based upon what they've said and done. They are the only ones that know the end state.

"

Hackusations wrote:

Oh boy... another steam charts scientist on the attack. Sorry, but those are far from pure objective facts.



Notice how at the 6-month zoom you can clearly see the line goes from smooth to erratic. This is because the most recent data is plotted daily, but anything older than about 3 months gets 1 data point per month and this skews things. For example, right now both June 30th and July 22nd show the 116,106 peak for 3.15 because June is now a single data plot of July's highest peak. July will eventually be converted to August's highest peak of 64,671 and August will be converted to September's peak of 28,338.

That means if you want to make a more fair comparison with the 28k/155k, 44k/157k, and 122k/38k numbers then the 2 month in peak for 3.15 is actually 28k not 18k. Quite a bit of difference, though none of that really matters because its not particularly accurate data to compare anyway. It basically lacks the obvious context like when in the month the league starts can skew both the averages and peaks for monthly snapshots, that 3.15 is the 3rd league/repeat of the Maven expansion, and that 3.15 had players sapped away at the end for D2R and New World.

Look what WoW classic did to the numbers 2 years ago.

Those numbers looked way scarier for PoE than 3.15 does.

Best Post. Finally a guy that can read graphs.

@the other guys: I predict a higher player count this league then 3.15. Its because of people are loving the game again and come back. GGG did a great job. (maybe it could be a higher player count because now its autmn and not summer but you people didnt account summer for ggg losing players in 3.15 so i guess its fair).

"

camar1s wrote:

"

Hackusations wrote:

Oh boy... another steam charts scientist on the attack. Sorry, but those are far from pure objective facts.



Notice how at the 6-month zoom you can clearly see the line goes from smooth to erratic. This is because the most recent data is plotted daily, but anything older than about 3 months gets 1 data point per month and this skews things. For example, right now both June 30th and July 22nd show the 116,106 peak for 3.15 because June is now a single data plot of July's highest peak. July will eventually be converted to August's highest peak of 64,671 and August will be converted to September's peak of 28,338.

That means if you want to make a more fair comparison with the 28k/155k, 44k/157k, and 122k/38k numbers then the 2 month in peak for 3.15 is actually 28k not 18k. Quite a bit of difference, though none of that really matters because its not particularly accurate data to compare anyway. It basically lacks the obvious context like when in the month the league starts can skew both the averages and peaks for monthly snapshots, that 3.15 is the 3rd league/repeat of the Maven expansion, and that 3.15 had players sapped away at the end for D2R and New World.

Look what WoW classic did to the numbers 2 years ago.

Those numbers looked way scarier for PoE than 3.15 does.

Best Post.

Haha yup, 3.15 wasnt an issue, it was totally ok



You want pure objective fact? Fuck Steam, go straight to the horse's mouth from the lead dev.

Chris indicated himself, both with client and steam numbers which nobody but they have, that during launch weekend (4 days), they lost over 50% player concurrency, and over a 30% revenue shortfall from expected.

3.15 was a horror show. Players know it, and so does GGG. He admitted that a similar performance in subsequent leagues could threaten game operations.

The next two to three leagues are absolutely vital.

No reason to tint hard on 3.15, everyone on both sides of the equation know it was a failure.

Yeah still people use a graph and try to make arguments for their case.
But they dont understand the data.
They just pick what fits them best without looking at the whole picture.

Just doomsdaytalk to try to push their agenda.
Perhaps 3.15 wanst the best but its far away from what you people try to convince us.

Its just black or white. Total fail or super sucess. Always extremes. I dont like that kind of people and attitude. Sorry.

"

camar1s wrote:

Perhaps 3.15 wanst the best

You think?

wow at least you are able to post pics.

"Jeder kann was."

"

Nubatron wrote:

I figured that question was rhetorical since clearly a random person on the forum can't answer that question fully.

I really don't mean to sound like a prick, but then why use that phrase to support your arguments if you don't exactly know what it entails.

"

Nubatron wrote:

All I can do is go off what they've said, and their actions along the way.

As do I. And their actions seem erratic to me.

"

Nubatron wrote:

Spoiler

They've said they want a hardcore game for hardcore players. Now it's hard to say if they literally meant hardcore, like hardcore league but since they added a non-hardcore league I would assume they mean figurative. Again I'm not then so just going off the context that is available.

They've added deterministic crafting at some various levels of power to include essences, fossils, crafting bench and harvest. The've also scaled back each of them to some extent because they felt they offered too much power. So from that context I would say they want deterministic crafting to augment items but not to be the alpha and omega of gearing.

They've said that they want the loot on the ground to be valuable. This is something they've clearly lacked a good answer for, but they aspire for it. That is part of their vision I would assume.

Also, they've continuously said POE is an ARPG so I would assume that they will generally maintain consistency with that genre even though they've played with other genre elements like tower defense and platforming games.

It's a mistake to assume that vision has to be specific. As an example, It's okay to know you always want to vacation in a sunny place you can swim and not even know which country you want that to be in. Eventually you'll have to try out some places and see if they work, but a vision is outward looking, and does not require a country, hotel, hotel room and specific dates to start with. You can even go on beach vacations multiple times and not like where you went and choose another place still searching for that right place to vacation.

No, I don't think so. And your example is specific, btw: You want to go on vacation to a sunny place where you can swim. So you'll discard the places that don't meeet that criteria.

"

Nubatron wrote:

That's what Harvest league and 3.13 were. Attempts to find the right level of deterministic crafting and not getting it right in terms of what you envisioned.

This I don't buy, sorry. They knew perfectly well they were introducing a very strong crafting system. They even acknowledged the impact it would have on the game. They went ahead and did it anyway. To then nerf it because it was deemed too powerful?

^


Indeed, Chris's "we are probably ruining the the game with this" was, and is, on of the better memes and sound bites in PoE history.

"

DarthSki44 wrote:

You want pure objective fact? Fuck Steam, go straight to the horse's mouth from the lead dev.

Chris indicated himself, both with client and steam numbers which nobody but they have, that during launch weekend (4 days), they lost over 50% player concurrency, and over a 30% revenue shortfall from expected.

3.15 was a horror show. Players know it, and so does GGG. He admitted that a similar performance in subsequent leagues could threaten game operations.

The next two to three leagues are absolutely vital.

No reason to tint hard on 3.15, everyone on both sides of the equation know it was a failure.

You are lying.
1) Numbers in comparison to last league, not to "expected". (I also think the 50% player concurrency was never even stated but I'm not going to go through hours of podcasts, your post is already wrong on so many levels that that isn't important). Launch weekend also has more to do with how good/bad their marketing was (overstating the nerfs, underselling the positive changes).
2) Chris did not state that similar performance in subsequent leagues could threaten game operations. Not literally nor implied. That is just made-up by your interpretation of his comment that several leagues in a row like that would of course require adjustments company-wide. Not great, but for from termination of operation...

Besides those lies your point about 3.15 being a failure is also written as fact. But that depends on what you look at. Revenue? Probably yes, we don't know how it evolved over time. Player numbers? Maybe, but that is much harder to assess. At what point does it count as failure? Keeping 80% of normal numbers in a heavy nerf league is a failure or a win? Design goals? Probably not failed those, given several changes stayed in. In the end, we have no clue if it was actually a failure - after all it did succeed in changing several parts of the game to lay the groundwork to be developed upon. That can hardly be count as a failure. In my opinion the only failure is that they did not also completely remove Harvest from the game while already at it. That league was the worst thing ever to happen to PoE.

What is a failure though is the way you try to make your points sound more valid by just insisting really strongly that you are right. Your state your opinion as fact, expecting that no one will challenge it. And if someone does you try to mock them. That's a very typical tactic to drown out those that see no sense in talking with someone that sees his opinion as fact and lying as alternative reality. And the worst thing is that at some point when no one challenges your views anymore you believe that is because you are right and have convinced everyone. Change your ways man, it will enrich your life.

"

Serdoa wrote:

"

DarthSki44 wrote:

You want pure objective fact? Fuck Steam, go straight to the horse's mouth from the lead dev.

Chris indicated himself, both with client and steam numbers which nobody but they have, that during launch weekend (4 days), they lost over 50% player concurrency, and over a 30% revenue shortfall from expected.

3.15 was a horror show. Players know it, and so does GGG. He admitted that a similar performance in subsequent leagues could threaten game operations.

The next two to three leagues are absolutely vital.

No reason to tint hard on 3.15, everyone on both sides of the equation know it was a failure.

You are lying.
1) Numbers in comparison to last league, not to "expected". (I also think the 50% player concurrency was never even stated but I'm not going to go through hours of podcasts, your post is already wrong on so many levels that that isn't important). Launch weekend also has more to do with how good/bad their marketing was (overstating the nerfs, underselling the positive changes).
2) Chris did not state that similar performance in subsequent leagues could threaten game operations. Not literally nor implied. That is just made-up by your interpretation of his comment that several leagues in a row like that would of course require adjustments company-wide. Not great, but for from termination of operation...

Besides those lies your point about 3.15 being a failure is also written as fact. But that depends on what you look at. Revenue? Probably yes, we don't know how it evolved over time. Player numbers? Maybe, but that is much harder to assess. At what point does it count as failure? Keeping 80% of normal numbers in a heavy nerf league is a failure or a win? Design goals? Probably not failed those, given several changes stayed in. In the end, we have no clue if it was actually a failure - after all it did succeed in changing several parts of the game to lay the groundwork to be developed upon. That can hardly be count as a failure. In my opinion the only failure is that they did not also completely remove Harvest from the game while already at it. That league was the worst thing ever to happen to PoE.

What is a failure though is the way you try to make your points sound more valid by just insisting really strongly that you are right. Your state your opinion as fact, expecting that no one will challenge it. And if someone does you try to mock them. That's a very typical tactic to drown out those that see no sense in talking with someone that sees his opinion as fact and lying as alternative reality. And the worst thing is that at some point when no one challenges your views anymore you believe that is because you are right and have convinced everyone. Change your ways man, it will enrich your life.

Meh, not gonna argue with someone that calls me a liar, then says they wont go back to hear what Chris actually said, (which then how you even came to the liar conclusion in the first place seems dubious, but w/e) then proceeds to provide their own interruption and opinions of what league performance means, despite information from GGG themselves (but choosing not to review it apparently)

Hell I dont even know if you listened to any of the media/twitch appearances or not, or if this is just your feelings on PoE in general.

Point is feel however you want about my opinions or 3.15, you do you, but let's pump the brakes on calling me a liar or spreading lies. I didn't pull this stuff out of thin air. Take some time, do your own research if are really uncertain, or dont, but again take it easy slinging mud.