How do you like the direction POE took since the investment of Tencent?

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GusTheCrocodile wrote:

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Snorkle_uk wrote:

no one rly wants to tackle the idea that the harvest strikes back league was not a sustainable long term phenomenon either. if i press a button and made it rain money tomorrow, a foot deep of bank notes covering the ground youd all run outside and spend 12 hours collecting every last note.

shall we conclude that if i make it rain money every night that every day for the next 20 years youre gonna run outside and pick up bank notes for 12 hours?


no, cause ull get bored, the bank notes will lose all value due to the removal of their scarcity, the economic structure of our countries will fall apart and the world will go to shit. you want money to rain from the sky... but you dont actually want money to rain from the sky, not really, if you think you do its a delusion and you just cant really grasp the reality of what that would be like as a long term phenomenon.

I mean, real money isn't getting collectively deprecated every four months or so; if it was, people would absolutely go back outside and pick up some more.

And it's all relative anyway. The main game is "raining money" compared to Ruthless, for instance, but Ruthless is still a valid mode that people enjoy playing. Trade leagues rain money compared to playing self-found, but that's still a valid, popular way to play. POE has been at various times throughout its history slightly more and slightly less generous than it is today. It has at times bored some people, and not other people, with those groups changing. It's not like the devs landed on the one optimal value for how common / easy to get certain things should be, because there isn't one.

Sure, maybe GGG's assessment is that a POE that's slightly more generous with items isn't as popular, but as you said, they're not out for raw universal popularity, so that would be okay. It's a valid game if that's the game they want to make.

yes, the main game is raining money, and the casuals who asked for that were saying if u make the game rain money we will have our build diversity, if you make the game rain uniques we will be able to play as casuals and have our build diversity and your leagues wont empty out in 2 weeks, they will be like perandus that we all loved and we will all play for the entire league. the game is dying, the leagues are failing and its because you took away perandus and if you give us perandus back we casuals can all play our builds and it will be amazing....



and now it rains everything like they wanted and it did exactly NONE of the things they claimed it would. just like adding harvest back will do none of the things people are now claiming it will.

it produced a player retention spike because it was an abnormal amount of item power on offer to players. the item power was not what made them stay, the reason there was a player retention spike is because the power of the items was abnormal.

suddenly they could make tons of items that were way more powerful and easy to make than what they could normally find and make. to look at that spike and conclude that if we add this to the core game forever that this spike will remain forever, which is what is being claimed by the harvest fans, is a fantasy.




my entire point is that its all relative, harvest was not some golden fountain of player retention, it was relatively absurd in terms of what it gave the player and as such spiked a relatively big player retention.




it also invalidated every other means of getting gear and hence all other content. its a game about items ultimately and if you have 1 way of getting items that completely eclipses all others, and that method is maximised by speed farming yellow tier maps, basically ignoring mobs and just spamming for harvest, then its terrible for the game and leads to a power spike for those harvesting that will cause the game to be rebalanced around this new power and suddenly it wont be insane power any more, which leaves non harvesters where exactly? its just terrible for the game.

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GusTheCrocodile wrote:

Sure, maybe GGG's assessment is that a POE that's slightly more generous with items isn't as popular

im saying their assessment is that a game with massively increased item generosity will not cause a significant sustainable long term boost in player retention the way people are claiming. people have claimed this many times, and theyve done it many times. its never worked because by increasing the generosity you break down the mechanism that made people want those items, the effect is always short lived because its self defeating over time.


i used to be hyped when a chaos orb dropped. when i started having stacks of 1000s in my stash i stopped caring about them. got hyped for exalts... started having stacks of 1000s of them, stopped caring. ive never found a mirror, i would be over the moon if one dropped. if they dropped so much that i had 2000 of them in my stash i would not be hyped for every new mirror. its relative. the only reason im hyped for a mirror and really really want it to drop is because it doesnt drop.

you set a standard and that standard feels mundane, when you then give people something lightyears beyond that standard its extremely seductive, addictive, exhilarating. the moment that becomes the new standard it will start feeling mundane.


i really dont see how anyone can deny this and why its not factoring into peoples conclusions about harvest. its the most basic player psychology.











i didnt buy crafts off tft, i self found harvest crafts for the 1 league cycle it was added to core and in that 1 league i crafted an absurd amount of powerful gear, it was absolutely ridiculous. i probably crafted 5x as much powerful gear in 1 league playing self found than i had in the 15,000 hours of poe i played up til then combined. thats how stupid it was.

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trixxar wrote:

The rest of your 'psychology' discussion is just, I believe, you opinion based solely on your playstyle and experience.

its based on looking at the situation in a rational, detached way and taking into account how every other instance of them upping player item power and accessibility has played out long term.

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Snorkle_uk wrote:

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trixxar wrote:

The rest of your 'psychology' discussion is just, I believe, you opinion based solely on your playstyle and experience.

its based on looking at the situation in a rational, detached way and taking into account how every other instance of them upping player item power and accessibility has played out long term.

Then what do you say to how Ritual was the most popular league in the history of PoE, and numbers started dropping as soon as they nerfed deterministic crafting.

You say /hand waving, maybe the numbers would have dropped anyway cause people who play 6+ hours a day and abuse TFT would have gotten tired of loot?

I am not so much asking you to agree with me, but just to recognize that is a weak argument to someone who is starting poe, who doesnt play enough to exhaust harvest, who doesnt use TFT.

Now, to be fair, if you argument is GGG should only care about players who play tons, stream, abuse TFT, then yes I agree with you the actions make sense.

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trixxar wrote:

maybe the numbers would have dropped anyway

To be fair: Maybe? Having a game with just one mechanic worth doing, becomes stale pretty quick.

i think, new content became less interesting after they started development of poe2. it's understandable, but very questionable resource allocation. most players do not want another long campaign to repeat it every 3 month

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geddim wrote:

i think, new content became less interesting after they started development of poe2. it's understandable, but very questionable resource allocation. most players do not want another long campaign to repeat it every 3 month

Ironically that's all that will be "new" content wise in PoE 4.0 is an alternative campaign, which will undoubtedly age quickly replaying every league. The endgame is shared with PoE1.

There will be new ascendies and mechanical tweaks to skill gems, with two new weapons classes, but overall I think people will come away saying "that's all?" for the many years of development drain that we have seen.

It's tough and the timing is horrific. The newest "beta or alpha" will be available at Exilecon a month after D4 is released. The side by side comparison might be brutal...

d4 has pretty skill icons and im sure it will be the best part of this game. they don't know what makes arpg fun and just trying to copy dead game from 20 years ago. i think poe2 will be better in every aspect, but why not just make huge upgrade to the existing game - its a big riddle to me