Diablo Immortal is the real POE killer

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wjameschan wrote:

And the advent of Diablo Immortal should only accentuate that. I'm half-surprised GGG aren't being more aggressive in their capitalising on the collective shockwave of horror DI is sending through the gaming community, but I suppose at this point it would be beneath them to acknowledge it. Still, talk about your competitors serving you their own head on a platter!

I think GGG will be quiet for the same reason McDonalds and Burger King will talk up their own burgers but will not talk shit about their competitors' burgers. They do not want to "kill the category".

Otherwise...

MCD: BK burgers are 30% cat meat!
BK: MCD burgers contain 5% rat shit!
Customers: I will never eat a burger again.

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zakalwe55 wrote:

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wjameschan wrote:

And the advent of Diablo Immortal should only accentuate that. I'm half-surprised GGG aren't being more aggressive in their capitalising on the collective shockwave of horror DI is sending through the gaming community, but I suppose at this point it would be beneath them to acknowledge it. Still, talk about your competitors serving you their own head on a platter!

I think GGG will be quiet for the same reason McDonalds and Burger King will talk up their own burgers but will not talk shit about their competitors' burgers. They do not want to "kill the category".

Otherwise...

MCD: BK burgers are 30% cat meat!
BK: MCD burgers contain 5% rat shit!
Customers: I will never eat a burger again.

Nah, GGG know they've got the premium beef in this metaphor. Blizzard know it too. But premium beef isn't always what people want, and in some cases can actually ruin the experience. Although I'd say it's less premium beef and more premium venison -- it doesn't matter how high quality game meat is, it's still game meat and will always be an acquired taste. Cheap beef, on the other hand, is all you need to make a Big Mac. And which is more popular?

In this case, I'd say GGG know not to get too smug given the drubbing 3.18 gave them. It's one thing for players to redirect their ire from GGG to Blizzard, another altogether for GGG to encourage it I suppose.

Either way, they can likely sit back and wait for people to decide maybe they can get used to the taste of really strong venison if the alternative is 30% cat meat...

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zakalwe55 wrote:

]

I think GGG will be quiet for the same reason McDonalds and Burger King will talk up their own burgers but will not talk shit about their competitors' burgers. They do not want to "kill the category".

Otherwise...

MCD: BK burgers are 30% cat meat!
BK: MCD burgers contain 5% rat shit!
Customers: I will never eat a burger again.

Yeah, so much ire directed at blizzard, but then...


-Looks up omniscience stacker builds that content appears to expect you have comparable dps to
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTAPsc3S4MA


-Checks prices for gear

-Checks RMT prices

-Comparable to DI high end character.

Meanwhile Archnemesis changes pushes more non-RMT builds off the radar.

Oh yeah, but they are totally different and in no way comparable right??

/whoosh to all the people ranting about DI not seeing what is going on in PoE.

There's a big difference between dev-sanctioned/operated p2w and p2w by illegal means arguably encouraged by the devs failing to see that 'normal players' aren't hardcore streamers who literally get paid to be good at the game.

I would strongly caution against forgetting that difference. One satisfies the accepted definition of 'pay to win'. The other merely projects it onto the player's perceived inability to rise to the challenge. If you can PROVE a game cannot be beaten without illegal means, then you may have a case. But if it's simply a case of 'illegal RMT makes the game easier'...well, duh.

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wjameschan wrote:

But if it's simply a case of 'illegal RMT makes the game easier'...well, duh.

The RMT is optional on GGG's side too though. Hundreds, if not thousands of players, pushed GGG to keep Harvest but make crafts soulbound so you cant trade or RMT them.

GGG would not.

Their reason - the objects don't have 'value' if you can't sell them. But that makes zero sense. If they let you destroy content, how do they not have value to YOU. The only person losing value are high end sellers and RMTers.

GGGs stance on not allowing any soulbound items destroys the game for casual players (by nerfing mechanics like harvest, and recombinators soon) while promoting TFT and RMT solutions. (And unless you are living under a rock, you know TFT is extraordinarily profitable to the people who run it.)

Is that even really in question? How can we argue that point?

Is there such a huge difference between sanctioning RMT by refusing to make soulbound items (and building the game around TFT or RMT) and offering the service yourself?

At least Blizzard is transparent. They are ugly and simple. GGG just creates the market, tunes the game around use of the market, and pretends to be virgin mary and you buy it.

We don't argue that point because you're still firmly in 'connect the dots' territory ie speculation. Compared to what Blizzard is doing with DI...well, there's no comparison at all.

But by all means, you believe what you will. I shall do the same. One of us is closer to the truth than the other, and we'll very likely never know which. :)

I appreciate the fairness/harmonious nature of your reply, but also wonder what part is speculation?

Harvest nerfs? Fact

GGG refusing to make items soulbound? Fact

Self created (harvest) and soul bound items being detrimental to trade/RMT? Thats gotta be fact, right?

Archnemesis mods making the game generally harder requiring more currency? Is that not a fact?

Support gem nerfs making game harder making builds require more currency that before the nerf? Is this not a fact?



I am not saying GGG themselves sell RMT directly. Maybe they do, maybe not, I dont know and don't assume. But ignore that, lets say they dont. Look at their design choices in a game in which there is a hugely robust RMT market... you say "there is a big difference"... why is that a big difference?

I am honestly curious.

I am working under the core assumption that when GGG say they hate RMT, they're not lying. Without that, none of this works.

Okay, so:

I know nothing about Harvest so I can't speak to that. Perhaps someone else can.

The notion of items being 'soulbound' goes against probably GGG's biggest asset with PoE -- a completely fluid market where anything goes and everything is for sale. Once you introduce soulbinding, you start to give players incentive not to use your awesome economy. Consider the opposite: SSF (effectively a completely soulbound gameplay experience, no?) is 100% detrimental, provided you are willing to engage with trade. They put absolutely no incentive into SSF, even though logic would dictate that an increased drop rate to offset the opportunities trade provide would be a good way to encourage people to try it. Conclusion: GGG *don't* want people to play SSF/SSFHC. But hey, it's there if you want the cred. And if GGG passively discourage this simulated soulbinding, then we can probably infer that they have no interest in any sort of soulbinding. So I'd say any argument for soulbound items dies in the face of that evidence until proven otherwise.

Again, I know nothing of harvest but largely agree that yes, soul binding is detrimental to RMT. However, I'd argue that's collateral damage; it's also deeply damaging to the aforementioned deep and ongoing love affair GGG have with PoE's economy.

Archnemesis mods being introduced into core game at their current difficulty level was a mistake. As I said in my write-up of Sentinel, I LIKE the simplicity of AN rares vs the little walls of text the game used to have, but the potential for utterly ludicrous difficulty when you combine AN mods with existing difficulty factors AND then throw Sentinel empowerment on top...yes, big mistake. And although GGG went to amusing lengths to try to blame 'normal players' for not being up to the task, we've seen enough backlash from streamers as well to know that, oops, yeah, maybe it's, to use Chris' own toothless understatement, 'a little too hard'.

So any difficulty introduced by 3.18 is, again, incidental to encouraging RMT I'd say.

As for Support gem nerfs (or indeed any nerf), all that tells is GGG felt the game was made too easy by whatever was nerfed. We have to assume that's the reason for any nerf, rather than some nebulous 'we want the game so hard people are forced to RMT to play it' because, well, at this point they are making so much money based on their ethical reputation (yep, even now) that they'd be foolish to risk that by dabbling with some sort of kickback from RMT. A player might think it makes sense, but when you look at the sort of revenue GGG pull in legitimately, whatever they'd make any other way isn't worth the risk.

Also, if DI continues to erode players' resistance to true p2w in ARPGs, then GGG will have even more wiggle room to push their own boundaries there.

Which brings us to the 'big difference'. I will lay it out, although I felt I made it fairly clear the first time.

Note: I am only speaking of official monetisation here, not 'RMT' or other avenues outside of the devs' control.

Diablo Immortal has overt pay to win baked into its endgame loop. It straight-up monetises its version of Map runs by giving players the chance to pay real money to improve each run's yield of in-game power (legendary gems). There is no arguing this is pay to win. None. Talking head gamerdude Asmongold already calculated it can cost somewhere around $100k USD to fully kit out a character with top tier legendary gems.



Path of Exile, even now, has at worst stash tabs which are still considered pay-for-convenience or quality of life, the least of the p2w crimes you might find in any F2P RPG. PoE's devs continue to vehemently disavow P2W in their game and even a slight tilt towards it is a minor scandal.



I hope this is sufficient an explanation why I say there's a 'big difference' between dev-sanctioned/operated P2W (as with DI, 'fact' as you'd put it) and a game's balance decisions making RMT (which is not P2W by the accepted definition of devs themselves selling in-game power -- RMT is really just cheating) seem a little more attractive to those who aren't willing to play the game as the devs want them to play it. Devs cannot stop people from cheating, not completely, and equally they should not balance their game around this fact. I've played games where the devs made it so hard to play for free that it wasn't just pay to win it was pay to not completely suck -- I'm talking overtuned monsters that only became manageable with 'runes' sold by the devs that straight up boosted your power. That is dirty, dirty business.

But until GGG do something like that, the difficulty of the game has to be measured as intended challenge rather than an overt encouragement to cheat.

I appreciate your thoughtful reply.

Is the economy more important than having gameplay that encourages your own development and not PWT mechanics? Is the difference in experience for a player who (1) hits a wall in PoE and realizes they have no shot without RMT vs (2) DI explicitly just throwing it in your face, all that different? Is a company exempt from the environment it creates if it claims to be against it (i.e. is Apple free from sweatshops that make it products when it really just contracts with their company for an end products, vs PoE creating a market for currency farmers), is this better than embracing it and just being clear from the start.

Is being 'overt' worse than being encouraging a system you know exists and giving lip service to saying it is bad (but somehow not actually banning currency farmers???).

I dont have answers to that, and like you said before even if I did, it would never be clear who was right.

Thank you for the conversation.

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zakalwe55 wrote:

MCD: BK burgers are 30% cat meat!
BK: MCD burgers contain 5% rat shit!
Customers: I will never eat a burger again.

LOL getting a great laugh out of this analogy its superb