Short thoughts on Developer Intent

This is my first forum post, so sorry if its not edited correctly. I probably could have done a better job.

I just wanted to share some thoughts about the recent changes of the game, and how people have been dealing with them.


One of the first and foremost thing we should be trying to grasp is developer intent: What is the developer trying to achieve with changes like this.
My thoghts on this wont be very popular (Maybe thats why im hesitant to post this on reddit); but I'll do my best to sumarize them:

Maps are not meant to be lootboxes , If the gameplay cycle is going to be juicing a map and then strife through content spamming potion buffs, and get rewarded, only to Juice again and doing it again then thats not a healthy gaming cycle, and not one we should be aiming thowards.

It may be popular for streaming, thats why unboxing is a thing. It may be popular because is pathologically addictive, but its not even by a long shot desired gameplay, its a subproduct created by the genre itself and the community constantly aiming thowards efficiency.
People tend to say "Oh, GGG Microtransactions" when in fact, Microtransactions is one of the most healthy things of PoE, its hardcore gameplay loop is what its unhealthy.

Players should ingage with content: Mapping rewards should never be on par with things like, for example, Delve, or other things like Blight. Systems and mechanics that have more player agency and interaction.
Why? Well, because as a Developer, we want players to interact with our game, not to simply optimize the fastest and most efficient way to generate currency and then spam it; Then stream it, and make it an even bigger problem.

When playing, always being on the most optimal path is not possible. Most games are about not being on such path, and thinking "Ok, how can I go back ?"
Here in PoE, once you reach the optimal, thats it, now you reap rewards. You stop playing and you start farming.

The Economy is a priority, even at player expense: The only thing currently rescuing the economy is the brilliant solution of making the currency itself a sink.
But the enfasis on the word "rescuing" is huge: Why?
Well, as Sink is only as good as it can; if the influx of currency is too big, then inflation is unavoidable.
And why is it bad? Well, because the prices and values of everything become unachieable for most players.
Not everyone is playing one of the top 5 builds to farm. Not everyone is reaching top juice maps. And who is to say that someone on acs is not meant to buy something from the market?

Of course, for those playing the most efficient way, the market worked perfectly, expectacurlaly even. But for the rest of the majority of players, the market is non existant.
An Economy, any economy(Yes, even Crypto) is driven by its most powerful actors, always, and if someone has the currency to pay then someone will take advange of that and sell it at that price.

Closing Thoughs: Well then, in retrospective, the change to drops of mobs now kinda makes sense a bit. At least for me.
Why players love farming? Because of the loot. But as a Developer, maybe I dont want my game to be about farming, I want it to be about the action, or leveling up your character, or progressing, god knows. Sadly since Im no developer, I cant do more than guess.
So the first problem is solved, Maps are not lootboxes anymore, there is no point in doing the same content over and over again, juicing and doing to juice and keep doing.

The second issue is also kinda solved, isnt it? I mean, less drops from mobs its just mobs in the end. Legion, Delve, Abyss, Heist and those kind of rewards should be unchanged. So now players are a bit more incentiviced to actually using them; instead of well, mapping.

And the economy? Well, the only thing keeping prices down sometimes is the ability of the people to farm such currency.
If people have less, naturally, prices should eventually lower. Im no economics expert of course, but its not a too far fetched train of thought.
Lower prices means more players will be able to actually participate with the system, not only those aiming towards optimization. In the end, this will allow more items being avalaible, driving prices even lower because of more offer.
Lower prices of course means the loot nerfs are less impactful overall
, 1c is worth more than before and remember its *only mobs* that are nerfed all other rewards are unchanged. Brilliant!


Three issues, all solved with 1 change. The problem? Well, as I said, some cycles are not healthy. Some cycles are a bit addictive.
We as a community need to think is if we want PoE to be about farming currency, or about ingaging with the mechanics the developers we always loved have created. Thats all

Thanks a lot for reading, and Im sorry for the long post, some thoughts were not as short as expected

Well, the biggest problem is that killing en masses and collecting loot is fun and what they are replacing it with isnt, it needs a lot of work to make that slower gameplay more fun.

With slowed gameplay they could make more interactive combat- more interesting enemies and gives more options to player how to deal with encounter. Also graphical/sound combat (not just textures) improvemets could help too.

Also what they released seems half baked. Im sure we will soon see patch like this:
-boss health made as 4x mod archnemesis so they feel like toughest enemy, heist nerfed in contract rarity, harvest buffed but made rare so players wont feel bad visiting.
Not that im waiting for exactly that.

I agree completely. It is fun. And I have a feeling that we need something impactful to replace it.

Yeah, the problem up to this point was that if you made an enemy too strong, or maybe made it so that it required some thought, some voices in the community would say that that enemy was unfair, or too difficult and slowed down mapping.

Sadly , when you make something interactive it requires input, and when requires input, it goes against the phylosopy of "Faster farming, more loot"
Equilibrum between this is impossible, because it feels half baked. We can only wait and see. Thanks for the input, I really appreaciate it, you seem way more experienced than me

major, major, MAJOR problems with the assessments in the OP.

1) "Maps are not meant to be lootboxes": Uh...yes, that's exactly what they are. What OTHER purpose do they serve other than to provide loot for further character growth? They don't advance the story, they don't "lead" anywhere in particular. At least, not anymore.

2) "Players should engage with content": YES they should...so why did GGG make it WORSE to engage with content?! Their most recent changes are completely antithetical to your assessment of their priorities lmao.

3) "The economy is a priority, even at player expense": this makes zero sense...like in all interpretations of that statement it just doesn't hold up. The economy is dictated by gameplay, and CREATED by the players. GGG sets no prices, except with their own NPC vendors. GGG only has an indirect influence on the market through drop rates, and guess what? No matter what they do the ECONOMY will always balance around the player experience. Because that is what a market is...The actual "market" is a reflection of the game. If the market is TRASH, the game is TRASH. If you are suggesting that GGG is trying to "game" the market instead of fixing the GAME then that is just completely ass backward.

Additionally, your description of the market as it works in PoE is just completely wrong. Sure the top players control a lot of what the market does, but they can only do so IF the majority of players can interact with the market in some form. The market isn't solely the miror-tier items...it is EVERYTHING. From the cheapest unique, to the most absurdly crafted triple-mirror gear. What you describe is ONLY the highest possible level of the market, yet the vast majority of players interact heavily AND successfully with the market on a regular basis.

"

Manël wrote:

Maps are not meant to be lootboxes , If the gameplay cycle is going to be juicing a map and then strife through content spamming potion buffs, and get rewarded, only to Juice again and doing it again then thats not a healthy gaming cycle, and not one we should be aiming thowards.

Mapping rewards should never be on par with things like, for example, Delve, or other things like Blight. Systems and mechanics that have more player agency and interaction.

This is where I think you're wrong, and maybe where I (and many other players) think GGG is wrong.

What made this game so unbelievably amazing was the sheer amount of options you had when playing it. Options are crucial because they build diversity, and a playerbase thrives on diversity.

You didn't have to play the game one way or another - you could play it however you liked and achieve the goals you set towards. You didn't have to be efficient or inefficient. You didn't have to play fast or slow (admittedly, sometimes GGG screwed this up with time capped mechs which forced you to play fast but eh). You didn't have to juice maps, you could just alch/vaal and go and still do decently.

You didn't have to do any league mechanic if you didn't like it. And no, despite what people were saying, Harvest was never mandatory. Yes it was stupid powerful, but because it was accessible, the prices for god tier items became accessible too, so you could just buy items if you didn't want to do Harvest. And because so many people were doing it, you wouldn't have difficulty finding almost any mix of mods (unlike now).

Point is, the game would just let you play it however you wanted, and that was what was so great about it. Build diversity aside (since this was always an issue in POE, with some builds not being viable even in white maps), the content and the way you played it was up to you. This is what's currently missing from the game - you have to play this build, this way, using this particular mechanic, otherwise you starve. You cannot progress in any direction, because any kind of progression (even mapping) requires some amount of currency, and some amount of player power. If currency is gone due to gut nerfs, and player power is gone due to also currency drops, but at the same time AN mobs being stupid powerful, you cannot progress and you cannot play. Basically 3.19 sums up to "play meta or get rekt".

When you have to tell people how they should or shouldn't play your game, that's when your game has failed.

im not sure if AN were buffed (havent played much previous league), but speaking about drop and currency nerf its more "time" nerf and less so "viability". But with limited time they fill similar role.

"

jsuslak313 wrote:

major, major, MAJOR problems with the assessments in the OP.

1) "Maps are not meant to be lootboxes": Uh...yes, that's exactly what they are. What OTHER purpose do they serve other than to provide loot for further character growth? They don't advance the story, they don't "lead" anywhere in particular. At least, not anymore.

Do you mean that playing the game in itself is not a purpose? Because thats what they do , they give you a place where you can keep playing the game and progressing.
Isnt that fun enough? Is fun intrinsictly tied only to loot?

I think the intent, for example, would be to use the maps to get sulphite, and then go delve and get the loot there. That would answer your point number two, the content is not worse, its just mobs drops that are down, the content its exactly the same.

One could argue "Oh, but its not fun" as it was previusly said above, and I can only agree. The challenge for the game to keep growing is not keep turning up the loot drops, is giving more ways to getting it in an interactive way. I think, of course.

Regarding the economy I think Im not versed enough to explain in the lenghs I should explain to you things like inflation on games, money sinks, and the sort of clogs and buttons GGG can touch and is touching to influence the economy.
Less loot means less currency on the system, which means lower prices, lower prices means the loot nerfs are more dramatic than it seems(thinking optimisticly)

Regarding the post(hopefully) above, of Felix. I agree completely. Options is key to success in a game like PoE.
I have a feeling League mechanics are not League mechanics anymore, they have now become proper game mechanics, and for them to stay on the game means that they need to fulfil a purpose.
If maping is where players do everything, then there is no point on doing Heists, if thats the case why were they implemented?
Sadly the game cant grow if we dont add mechanics, and the only way to add them is for them to be meaningful. Which sadly means less loot outside of them.

Is that good, or is that bad? I dont know, sadly. I hope in the end we will be able to play the game however we wanted. Maybe we need a new mechanic similar to what used to be doing Juiced maps.
Maybe the next league mechanic needs to be lootboxy by design, to fulfil what mapping once was

"

Manël wrote:

I have a feeling League mechanics are not League mechanics anymore, they have now become proper game mechanics, and for them to stay on the game means that they need to fulfil a purpose.
If maping is where players do everything, then there is no point on doing Heists, if thats the case why were they implemented?
Sadly the game cant grow if we dont add mechanics, and the only way to add them is for them to be meaningful. Which sadly means less loot outside of them.

Is that good, or is that bad? I dont know, sadly. I hope in the end we will be able to play the game however we wanted. Maybe we need a new mechanic similar to what used to be doing Juiced maps.
Maybe the next league mechanic needs to be lootboxy by design, to fulfil what mapping once was

Nobody ever said mapping is where players do everything, the loot nerf affects ALL mechanics except chest-bound ones like Blight rewards, Heist rewards, Legion rewards. But the rewards from Blight monsters for example, were gutted to the ground (Legion mobs too for that matter, although they didn't really drop much to begin with). Incursion, Delirium - dead. Just off the top of my head.

Mapping is the glue holding everything together. A lot of people didn't play the uber-juiced map strategy and that is fine, but a lot of players used largely maps for solid currency farming. Because to run said league mechanics, you need currency.

Delve? You need sulphite. Incursion? Alva missions. Delirium? - need orbs. Etc. So you need to map in order to do anything else, but if maps give you nothing except a pass to a league mechanic you like, that means you spend most of the time doing something you don't like, aka mapping.

A lot of players just wanted to do maps, and that's fine. POE didn't force players to interact with Heist, or Delirium, or anything really - and that was perfectly fine. Players who like mapping should be allowed to map and have fun, and players who love Heist should still be able to do Heist and have fun. And content - ANY content is hardly ever fun if it doesn't reward you.

Me for example? I like Blight and Legion, sometimes Expedition. These 3 rely heavily on mapping. It's not like Heist where you can just run endless Heist. So in order to run my favorite content, I have to do maps, and it's gonna be pretty damn boring if I don't get any loot out of it, even worse if I can't sustain alch/vaal on my maps!

Yes , I totally see your point, thanks a lot for your input.

Sadly right now, maps were fun because of the loot. Without it, they may not be rewarding enough to drive players into the other, more desirable, content.

Thats a problem of the game as a whole. If suddenly, because loot does not exist anymore, people say the game lost its purpose; then the flaw is deeper not only inside the game, but on the community.
Progress is way more than just currency, for me atleast. But that progress is not fun without it

I hope all the thoughts we are sharing, even if we disagree between us, help to achieve the game we desire.

Is there any other thing maps could have that would make them fun to you, other than loot? I know is kinda a bullshit philosophic question, but I had to ask it

People play this kind of games for two main reasons, at core - killing mobsters just for the fun of killing mobsters and blowing up the screen, and the promise of great rewards in the form of currency, exciting items, lore pieces, whatever.

You can't miss one of these two and expect an ARPG to be fun.

I believe - and I may be entirely wrong, and please correct me if so, but it feels to me like you believe a lot of people play just for the sole purpose of amassing currency. Which is absolutely wrong.

People don't play to "get rich" (ok, some do, but they are definitely not the majority - most are just streamers creating content for their viewers), they play to unlock better gear and exciting content (endgame bosses for example). The gear serves a purpose in itself, because it's so damn satisfying to see that power spike when you get an upgrade, but it also serves as the next step to, say, beating Maven.

You map for progression, and mapping is fun because of its loot mostly - at its core, there are no exciting mechanics except for the occasional league content inside which is at most 30% of the map.

And for POE players, a lot of currency also means you can do a different type of content that is incredibly awesome, fun and rewarding - endgame crafting. A vast majority of players cannot afford to craft mirror-worthy items, which is incredibly sad if you ask me.

But imagine killing mobsters for 3 mins, running a map you've ran before, killing a boss you've killed before, and getting nothing for it. Worst off, you don't even get what you invested in it (which can be an alch and 4 chisels or 200 chaos in scarabs/fragments/whatever)

An ARPG without loot is sad, pathetic and dead.