Why (in my opinion) you guys are missing the point overall (and what to do) / HUGE TEXT ALERT!!

reasons why i think you guys are missing the point:
1. first and the more obvious one, is that you are trying to change your player base so they will like poe2 gameplay, instead of changing your game so ppl will like it

2. poe1 has tons of limitations that make it harder to reach more players out there, its just a dense, complex and dificult game to ppl to understand as a beginner (ive been here since 2013, but every friend I try to bring on to play with me, I have to make a month of ted talks so they start to get the game, and they have to invest so much to learn most just give up), so I hope and I get if poe2 would be a less complex game but the real problem here, is that GGG has long relied upon the community to do there work for them: wiki/pob/filter/poeninja/streamers/etc so it became so convenient that they forgot that they have the responsability to give information about their own game, how many years has been that they said the game would show minions DPS inside the game? or calculate correctly on skills like lightning ball? Its like mandatory for ppl to use pob, its just not optional, that is ok for the community to help, but dont forget you guys have the responsability to INFORMATE ppl, primarily begginers

3. when chris wilson was thinking of a game to be played forever he forgot one crucial thing: the older a game gets, the more knowledgeable the player base gets, the more comparison there will be and the more demanding their players will be, the same formula will NEVER work, even the 13 weeks should be revisited (not saying it need to be changed, maybe it does, maybe something about it should, just an example) the point is: you guys became a machine of obvious changes and mechanics, just hammering each time harder so it would be lauder than the last, instead of really creating things new and exciting, lake of kalandra is a great example of that: its just a mixture of old stuff: memorie lines, currenty mechanics, bla bla bla but there will be new uniques to drop wow.... thats not exciting... the most "exciting" thing this league, if we can call it that, was that crazy exalt/divine overturn, thats beeing laud without saying anything meaningful, you know what I mean?

4. The nerfs and nerfs, then the buffs, then the broken mechanics just cloud the real problem: bad testing quality made by ppl that dont really play the game on all its fronts (wont even speak about the pvp, lets just say that pvp in poe is non-existence), its a lot of theoricrafting and poor judgment

5. Wanting a slower pacing game, i think is you guys trying to make a more meaningful player experience while actually playing, or just extend player retention, both are fine and I get it but you guys TOTALLY miss the point, first there is 2 types of players on this take: the ones that by the 3rd day are already on red maps and ubers, and the ones that will get there on the second week or so.. Ppl engage on the game as they possibly can and that changes EVERYTHING... the acts already feels slow AF and ppl done it so many times already that they just do it without reading or paying attetion to anything really, its just mechanical the only diferent ingredient that should be meaningful is the new league mechanic that once again is each time less interesting and less thought thru... what is the point of leaving the standard so we just have to lvl a char from lvl 1 once again? (i will say what i think you guys should do later in this post about that)

6. wanting the game to be "hard" in all the wrong ways possible: frustrating one-shots ppl dont know where came from, frustrating itemization, frustrating clicking, frustrating nerfs, frustrating crafting rng.... you guys want the game to be hard instead of CHALLENGING, want it to be slow instead of MEANINGFUL, just think about this: how will ppl take their time to enjoy the game if everything works around kill before get killed, be the first to do that mirror tier item to get rich, be the first to get to that map/boss/item to find any breachs on balance changes to exploitto get ahead etc.... every league is the same thing now... it got to the point that i say to my friends that will start the game to wait 2-3 days when a league starts to let ggg correct the crapier stuff and check poe ninja to see what skill/item you should really look for and just go with it cuz who in there right mind would chose to be weaker? if you like a build type and you can get far enough with it is one thing, but there is tons of skills that just wont EVER be good enough, so it snot a real choise there!

7. I wont speak about hardcore/solo selffound directly cuz I dont play them, but is also clear to me that they in many cases (the one-shotsfor hardcore/crafting crap rng for solo self found) have even worse experience many times... you guys dont really care about them either i guess, as long as ppl buy the packs on the first 2 weeks you guys are all good right?
Well, i spent a lot on this game already, and thats becuz i love the game and the concept behind it, but it got so frustrating that I stoped completly spending any money and im sure more feel the same


NOW, what I think you guys could do, and I will tackle each topic at once:

1. I hope poe 2 bring so many new mechanics and mesmerising things, with that poe background that made we all love poe, just like each hary potter movie made me like it each time more BUT forcing down our throats something you guys may like or just want, or just think it will be better is just insane, tacle the problems how they are, forget about poe 2 for a minute, look at poe1 with love and look at how it should be improved, im sure poe2 will come more naturally after that them you guys would think, we will like it if its refreshing and inovative, not becuz its just diferent in X ways just for sake of changing how things are done currently (wow lets change this just to add some twist to it)

2. information is key, but a progressive, interactive and meaningful gameplay will worth pages and pages of information alone, just imagine this:
-instead of giving random crap rares as quest rewards, what about giving the player to craft for free a item piece with some limitations: like a witch will be able to craft a wand with 20 orbs and she will be able to chose from the most common to the most complex orbs along the acts, the first quest she will be able to use alterations, trasmutations, scourings and augmentation/ after that on the next quest of this type, she will be able to use alchemys and chaos orbs too, and so on, you know that timed craft bench? just like that but without the timed part, so ppl will be able to think and understand what those orbs do without thinking about losing currency and so.. and boy they will learn so much by that and will really get something interesting from the quest without being so overpowered...
-about understanding links and skills, just make them available to buy a act 1 instead of act 6, the lvl requirement is already enough to ppl not to use them at lvl1, and in the quests instea dof giving some crap skills to choose the player will pick a skill he is already using and the npc will show all the support options that can be linked to that skill in two lists, one focusing only in dps and will give in order from more to less what support can be linked to that skill at the current player lvl and gives more dps output, and the second list will be supports that focus more in functionalities and that list wont have any specific order (like increased area, or proliferation or mult projects etc) so the new player will understand firstly how many options he will have for each skill, the more lvl he gets, the more options he will have and if he wants to change the skill he is currently using he just pick that new skill in the next quest upgrade, this again will bring so much knowledge to the skill system and will also work for future poe2 as well
-minions, auras, curses and triggers should have a separated tab for each of them and at least 1 quest for each type: minions becuz I know that dps will be trickier as you guys until today dont have placed their dps ingame yet, and becuz their AI is very diferent in many cases, so I suggest 1 quest for each of this types along the acts at least, where the player will chose one of the gem types and will see a "gif" image of the skill beying used before getting it (most ppl dont even know what to chose from and why!), btw when buying a skill gem form the npc by clicking on it that gif should pop up (you could change it on UI so it wont show if you ar enot a new player), Im saying a gif but you know what I mean... just a fast visual about what to expect form that skill... in the case of triggers, thats more harder to some ppl to understand so i would go for the most obvious one: on that "last gem type quest" the player will chose a trigger type and will get it and a portal gem (yes it will be a quest reward) and them the player will see that everytime that thing happens a portal will open and thats very visual and helpful for new players, they will figure out the rest easier and smoothier later on...
you know what i mean here by all that?? the game cna be so much more informative and meaningful without much you know?? why not do that??
quests that give crafting options would be a must too.. most new players dont even know where and when you can start crafting simple things like+dex on a boots... just give some quests here and there that will give a option to craft an attribute, then a resist, and in other a dmg craft in an item of your choise for free... much more useful and will tech so much with so little..

3. the take on rebalancing many old uniques was very good but it was so clouded by a crap new league mechanic.... we want new skills, new triggers, new minions too, what about those? I know each new skill means a lot fo work cuz you guys have to think every combination with all old itens and support gems but thats sooooooooooooooooooooo much cool for the players it really worths it, I would like so much a new minion like a "leecher" that would possess a monster feed from it inside out and jump to the next target, a new cold bow skill that would throw a cold spike instead of an arrow that would impale a monster that would do cold damage but use physical damage reduction only to resist the damage and ignore cold resistence, a second hit will explode the first spike splitting shards in an area around it, a new damage type around "nature/cure" that will hit more the more chaos resistence the target has, being very effective on energy shield, and chaos inoculation targets, theres so much new things to take on you know? I know you guys are looking more at poe 2, and wont put so much work on poe 1 right now, i understand, but think about that in some way please, CREATE NEW THINGS, really new

4. poe is so complex, and math is so incredible that numbers can get out of hand pretty easly, I get that, and dps being able to go from 10dps to 1billion dps shouldnt be possible in so many ways, pob being able to reach "infinite" to effective hit pool shouldnt be able either and thats whats so broken about it but instead of cutting off the edges you guys drop off a truck of sand all over the plain field, and I know why you do that, becuz you worry that if ppl dont see those big crazy numbers they wont be hipped and thats even a possibility, but the price for that is much bigger, your paying for medicine with your own blood, that wont work! streamers will be fine becuz they are, in the majority, good players and knowledgeble about the game, and well, they work with that so they will study and show ppl what ppl want to see, league of legends dont have crazy numbers and ppl watch gameplays and streamers even more.. the hipe will be there for the right reasons: new skills and things to do, and not more a bunch of broken mechanics to exploit! thats a double-edged knife, the crazier the numbers gets for the players, the crazier you guys must get the mosters to make them ̶c̶h̶a̶l̶l̶e̶n̶g̶i̶n̶g̶ hard, and the more difference btwing skills there will be and then, less real diversity... a first thing to do here would be some limits control, max 500% crit multipler / max 10 attack and casts per second / max 100% increase to reservation efficiency / 100% increase to move speed
all of that are clear nerfs look on the player perspective BUT the monsters will be tone down a lot as well instead of 10 - 1billion dps we will have like a 10 - 10m dps but the monsters wont have crazy one shots, or crazy buffs to regen/leech etc, 100% dellirium wont be like 96% nerf to dps but a 70% less for example and so on, so ppl will invest more in diferent things and skills, this needs a lot of more work and maybe is just better to start from scratches and just do it better in poe 2, but whhile thats not done, just make the progression smoothier, just give ppl an easier time on this last feel months of poe1 and think better about this one poe 2 you know? why the hell pick a fight? you just cant win against ppl who put in their money and their time

5. making the changes on 2/4 of this list will already make the game slower and more meaningful but other important thing is: if you waste the time, no matter if its hard or not, you want to gain from it, if I do a easy work but i need 2 weeks to do it, i want to be payed for 2 weeks work and if you want to keep my attetion all the way, you need a consistent feedback patern in this case reward "checks", you guys had to shorten the time to get to the pinacle bosses cuz the time you spent just to get there was not rewarding enough, thats why.. so you want to rush to the end as fast as you can... if we had more rewards along the way that wouldnt be needed cuz ppl would like the "climb" so much more, for example each map should have a unique cool item that would only drop from it (dont think about ultra hard drops, its not about running the same map 28349238492348 times after a unique item, its about somethign special about it that you can get only from it, it dont need to be an impossible drop, neither it should), other thing is making the last boss fight much more rewarding and much slower (100x the hp but 100x the drop! like if you kill it the map completion will be something on its own and its like almost garanteed tog et that unique drop plus a bunch of random currency, so no more bosses avoidance, but again, remember of balances cutting the edges so we dont have immortal 1 shot bosses, regen in this case must be completly reworked of course... and minion as well...)
rare mobs, should be RARE wow, thats the thing you guys got right... cuz if you look at 10 at the same time, thats not rare at all right? or jsut change the name to yellow... the drops could be so much better... you guys putting a bunch of quantity and rarity is soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo out dated... the items could drop as 4 options: normal clean itens, influenced itens, unique itens, corrupted itens (those could come really unpredictably), no more magic and rare item drops BUT much more currency drops
most of itens are left on the floor or stashed away into oblivion, never beeing used or traded... thats just stupid waste of player time, effort and so on... maybe it will be worse for your common stash sales but im sure you guys can work around that creating new mechanics with new specific stash tabs <3 those ar emore expensive anyways right?... the point is: think of going to a hard boss that will drop 1 unique item(30% chance), 3-4 normal itme base types, 2 exs, 1 divine, 15 chaos orbs, 23 alchs and 12 scourings, I pick a normal base that i want and i will waste more currencies cuz they are more easy to get and i will try to craft somehting useful to me and i will only sell it later when i craft somehtign better etc.. ppl will be much more envolved into crafting, the drop will be much more meaningful... its like if its your birthday what would you like to get as a gift? the best realistic gift is money so you buy yourself what you want/need so instead of dropping tons of itens ppl wont ever use or even pick.. make them more meaningful by that... and i will give here a much more crazy sugestion but that i think its much more realistic:
>>monsters shouldnt even drop itens! wow crazy right? but think about it, why a zombie would be carrying a bow? what if they droped only orbs and things like that? the bases would be sold from npcs only, with the top ones more expensive like a vermillion ring base would be like 10chaos, the influence would come from the orbs only and the only items able to drop would be unique itens found from its unique monster, the most strong unqiue monsters having multiple unique itens to drop, so quill rain would only be able to drop from "ironpoint the forsaken" unique monster for example and he would use it, that would be SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH COOLER
not all unique monsters need to have a unique item to drop from, but could have some twist to it like a unique monster that drops only divinations cards (theres already one like that right doedre? xD) but you guys get what i mena right?


6. the harder the game is, the more QoL is required and the less time ppl will want to waste on trivial things, so things as simple as clicking in 1 orb and grabing all orbs alike in an area around you is an example... if you guys changed the things i wrote in the last topics, ppl will already pay more attention to the quest and so on cuz the rewards from the quests will already be worth while, in many cases ppl wont avoid them even in races cuz the option to craft a boots you already own with+move speed in a quest would be so more meaningful than chose from 3 rare crap boots that will probably be crap and avoidable.... making somehting challanging is much diferent than making something hard...hard is just hard... most bosses in the game are just about memorising their AI, avoiding them most as you can and killing it as fast as you can... there is a challenge there, but not the challenge you would want...what about this:
A boss that has more unpredictable AI that will change on 3 aspects: the class you chose, the type of defences you have and the type of dmg you most deal, so if you are a witch the boss will try to get you more up close while if you are a marauder, the boss will change to a more ranged style AI, if you hit him with a huge cold dmg it will try to avoid being frozen but to do that he will use righteous fire for example getting rid of its regen but granting imunity to freeze or chill, if you them hit him with a huge fire dmg it will cut off the righteous fire and chnage to a block state or something else entirely, just examples.. about your defences, if you come capped of suppression, he will hit you and see that it did lower dmg than expected so he will start using more melee skill but will have to change weapons and doing so he will be slower
this kind of AI that is much more inteligent will make the boss more challanging and will make him change fluid while you fight, even mroe on party playing making it much mroe interesting (of course you guys need much testing)
a cool top boss could for example split into 6 and tackle each party member at the same time with a diferent archtype but in doing so would split its hp as well so would be more weak against area skills... and so on.. so ppl would have so many takes on killing them, and not just one mechanical way you just memorize its AI patern and do it over and over again in the same way... each battle, each class, each skill you use would make that boss work in a diferent way, and that would be REALLY CHALLENGING

7. about hardcore and solo selffound, i think everything i said til now would already be great for them as well
there could be a dungeon like mechnic in the game (like the mine) that gets harder each time and theres a ladder so hardcore players would be ranked on that, but it needs to be somehting more clear and aligned like:
-each dungeon level = 0.1% more dmg taken from all sorces / 0.1% less dmg done from all sorces / 0.1% more global currency drop in all game
-the dungeon wont be random, becuz if you get unlucky it may cloud the point on there being a ladder and the dungeon here is solo to rank the players, most important for hardcore players that will only get one shot at it never being able to die
-the monster and boss will be the same in the dungoen, only playing harder and harder dificulties
-if i get to dungeon lvl 200, i will have a 20% more drop in currencies in my maps as well but would have to finish the dungoen with 20%less dmg and 20%more dmg taken, like a fixed reward for being able to do so, there can be a party option but that wont have that kinda bonus, or else ppl will just go for "carry" and wont try to do it themselves
- clearly as you reach near 100% dps penalty it will be virtually impossible to reach lvl 1000 dungeon and there will shine the great players
with most probably reaching max at 80-90% (if you guys ballance thing sas i said before, not enabling crazy billion dps builds of course...)
this would create so many new content options for stremers as well im sure
the "dungoen" part of it is also an example, please be more creative than that, my point here was just to be more visual
about solo selffound, being more able to waste currency and having more currency at hand but much less item would be much better as well, and to tackle them even more i would sugest a ladder for uniques completion ( that would only make sense if the uniques droped from unique monsters like i said in last topics...) so the guys would like conquer the entire game... dont need to be crazy dificult drop.. the monsters would already be more challenging and the point here would be to be the one to kill all of them at least once you know? that alone is already overwhelming, dont need to be something like asting days to chase a single unique item...




you guys are making things HARD instead of CHALLENGING
think about that please
and think about new players perspective as well so we have more and more players and much more fresh ideas
i love this game, i hope you guys read this, and if so that i would help in any way
that really comes from a good place


o//


ps.: Im Brazillian, so english is not my native language, so be nice out there cuz you probably dont speak portuguese fluently as well, also I have a bit of dislexia so many letter may be rearranged some times (soemthing=something)

I don't understand the point of slowing down and player retention. Finishing the game for a casual takes a week or more, if they can finish at all. that is more than most games out there. What they expect, that it should be an impossible task that require a second job?

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B00b wrote:

I don't understand the point of slowing down and player retention. Finishing the game for a casual takes a week or more, if they can finish at all. that is more than most games out there. What they expect, that it should be an impossible task that require a second job?

A week? Yeah, without sleep maybe and if you're jobless or took off from it for the league specifically.
The average joe makes it roughly into red maps by that time at best.
I would say there's quite a chunk of people who're not in red maps after week 2 still, or just setting up their atlas.

=//

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Kulze wrote:

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B00b wrote:

I don't understand the point of slowing down and player retention. Finishing the game for a casual takes a week or more, if they can finish at all. that is more than most games out there. What they expect, that it should be an impossible task that require a second job?

A week? Yeah, without sleep maybe and if you're jobless or took off from it for the league specifically.
The average joe makes it roughly into red maps by that time at best.
I would say there's quite a chunk of people who're not in red maps after week 2 still, or just setting up their atlas.

As a casual+ player who mostly just shits around in the game to try out different builds and make my own, I hardly ever reach red maps within leagues.

Game is just way overcomplicated and requires so much knowledge, just to get started you have to go through a week of Ted talks. Now with all the changes it took me my usual time to get to maps...

But now I've just hit a roadblock. Wasted all my chances buying maps to get started, out of the 12 I've managed to finish a single map fully. Its been impossible for me to get my resistances capped, or enough defenses to survive a single fucking unjuiced white map. NEVER have I had to struggle so hard for so little. Before I could run white maps without worrying about my resistances being capped. I'd be able to make enough return investment to beef up and move on... but there's just no chance. I picked a wonderful league to come back to.

Slowing down the game, does not make sense to me at all.

If you make your game fun and keep the entertainment value high, and the brain extacy pumping, people will keep playing the game. Either hoarding riches, min/maxing builds, create unorthodox and wonky meme builds, chase achievements / challenges ....

It's a game. People want to have fun, break away from RL stress, and OD on endorphins, after a long day of work. Give them that, and you will have your money and retention. This tunnel vision of your vision you forcing the game in, is for a tiny fraction of the people that love PoE. Give them hard mode.

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PurpleBlades wrote:

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Kulze wrote:

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B00b wrote:

I don't understand the point of slowing down and player retention. Finishing the game for a casual takes a week or more, if they can finish at all. that is more than most games out there. What they expect, that it should be an impossible task that require a second job?

A week? Yeah, without sleep maybe and if you're jobless or took off from it for the league specifically.
The average joe makes it roughly into red maps by that time at best.
I would say there's quite a chunk of people who're not in red maps after week 2 still, or just setting up their atlas.

As a casual+ player who mostly just shits around in the game to try out different builds and make my own, I hardly ever reach red maps within leagues.

Game is just way overcomplicated and requires so much knowledge, just to get started you have to go through a week of Ted talks. Now with all the changes it took me my usual time to get to maps...

But now I've just hit a roadblock. Wasted all my chances buying maps to get started, out of the 12 I've managed to finish a single map fully. Its been impossible for me to get my resistances capped, or enough defenses to survive a single fucking unjuiced white map. NEVER have I had to struggle so hard for so little. Before I could run white maps without worrying about my resistances being capped. I'd be able to make enough return investment to beef up and move on... but there's just no chance. I picked a wonderful league to come back to.

No offense, but your character is awful. I mean mine is awful too, I die all the time, but I have no issues doing tier 16 red maps. If yours can't do white maps I can't imagine how terrible it is.

Those are some very good points that hit home for a lot of the issues.

it looks like the real working ppl are taking care of poe 2 while they left chris wilson do whatever he likes with poe1

by what chris posted lst, it looks like i was right