What is wrong with you GGG, seriously!

"

vio wrote:

what the userbase usually understands as "fun", is to have the illusion to get better at the game and get more rewards and faster progression and so on.

Well, let's say that was true. If the vast majority of the playerbase considers that "fun", why wouldn't you cater to that? Yes, sometimes some nerfs are necessary to keep the game healthy, but they've taken it way way too far.

3.15 was a hard pill to swallow, but I trusted ggg that it was necessary for the health of the game. It felt bad to suddenly be a lot weaker though, but I could live with that being the new baseline. It also helped that it had a really good league mechanic (Expedition). 3.17 was a league I actually liked a lot.

Then came 3.18 where they introduced the archnemesis system. That is where I really thought "wtf?". Such an overwhelming majority of the players hate the system, and they keep it in anyway. Why?! It only serves to aggravate people. Sure, it feels a little less awful with every change to it, but it is a fundamentally bad system. The whole way it is set up is that certain mods hard-counter certain builds, which get worse with some combinations. Throw in some awful ground effects and on-death stuff, and it's just not fun anymore.

That they kept it in for 3.19 was weird, and they made some really questionable changes to minions, but what they did with the loot was straight up baffling. Almost nobody plays the game super-juiced, but it is something we're aspiring to. And they killed it so badly, it's no wonder most people who did that left. They also promised buffs to underused skills and what we got was just insulting. That shows more than anything that us having fun doesn't seem to be on their priority list at all.

I understand some of the choices, but ggg keeps making decisions that makes people angry, probably costs them money, and don't seem to make the game better. Ggg actually feels more malicious than anything nowadays; ruining our fun just because they can. Pretty sure that's not the case, but that's what it feels like. And I have to wonder, if it angers the playerbase and isn't needed to maintain the health of the game, why would you do it?

Back when delirium league i only need to grind around 50 ex to start have fun with aura stacker. And it's huge grind for me. Each exalt worth a lot. Right now even found 4-5 div item drop or make some profit doesn't feel the same. every build cost a lot to having fun. Carrion golem build cost a mirror to have same feeling like 1 ex build before. And even deal less damage

I just did wave 30 Simulacrum on a 15-20 Divine budget with a niche build. So needing a mirror to feel good is complete crap.

"

Johny_Snow wrote:

I just did wave 30 Simulacrum on a 15-20 Divine budget with a niche build. So needing a mirror to feel good is complete crap.

Hammer time :) Grats though, helix been op for leagues now

Having yet another death-by-rubberbanding right now is super fun. You dash away from AN ground effects (shock totems + orbs this time), server does not acknowledge it for whatever reason and you are still taking damage at the old location, which you cannot see in your client, thinking that you have dashed successfully.

And by the time you are rubberbanded on client, it is too late, and you are wiped out by masses of overlapping spheres on ground, and experience wonderful death penalty at level 98.

Any more GGG employees gonna lie about how they actually play their own game? If they would, and would do it beyond recording promo footage in sandbox areas, death penalty BS would have been adjusted years ago.

I don't know who is making the decisions or who is dictating the direction of this game but this person (or these people) are totally out of touch with the playerbase and/or dont give a shit.

This game doesn't respect your time, this game doesn't want you to have powerful items (except when you are part of the 0,01% of no-lifers who can sink 12h a day into it). This game is bloated with boring league meachnics just because they think to stay relevant they need to have 4 leagues a year or because their overlords at tencent expect the profits to rise indefinately.

There is so much wrong with how PoE is handled and all of it makes the user experience so much worse.

I really love this game, there is not a single arpg that will ever come close and thats why it hurts even more to see it go to shit like that.

But I can not bring myself to play when at every corner I am reminded, that this game hates me, a veteran player who happens to also value his own free time.

GGG is not out of touch. They just want PoE to be something else and that is their business plan. CW said multiple times they are willing to take the financial hit to make their vision come true and I'll take his word for it.

I don't have any expectations of this game or PoE 2 to get any better.

Stop being drama queen. You can write more methodically and more argumentative comments. Ppl will listen to you much more. Also your biggest lvl of char is 95 and you are playing deadeye... OFC YOU ARE DISAPPOINTED. That ascendency requires 5 mirrors worth of gear to feel good and you are playing it on SSF. Sometimes you have to play meta to have fun. This league has like 50000 good builds for ssf but you picked the one that requires sooooooo much grind to get good gear. That killed your vibe and its understandable but try picking some better starter next time so you dont end up in same place. Trust me bad build is biggest mood killer. I did 1 league break as well because i took minion build and it was BORING AF. It happens, but dont make habit out of it :D :D :D Bad expensive character with boring playstyle (my case) or hard progress(your case) is not same as bad league.

@vio: usually I agree with many of your posts, and you have even more time in the game than I do.

But

How can you say all that with a straight face? GGG is healing the game? A successful game is determined by the number of players, and especially the number of sustained players. This is not a subjective comment or opinion, it is a fact of the industry. It is a business and the number of consumers is king. A game's popularity is all that matters. At the moment, the game has comparable players to 2015....I'll say that again, 2015. There was a reason player counts rose above 10k, above 20k, above 50k. "Healing" doesn't even make sense if it means backtracking 8 years in player numbers. In fact, those numbers suggest the exact reverse of your analogy: the cancer went into remission and the game exploded in popularity, but now we see a resurgence of the cancer that is (not so) slowly killing the game.

I don't think in the history of poe steamcharts have I ever seen a 24 hour peak and current amount of players this low. That certainly doesn't scream of a healthy game to me...

And yea yea I get the old saying, it has to get worse before it gets better...but thats where the analogy stops. If too many players leave, and too many players stop recommending the game, then the game will dry up and die off on its own. It will be impossible to recover, especially with a game that is now considered "old". No way they are going to start the entire 2015-2022 growth cycle again with a 10 year old game...

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nikola061 wrote:

...
Sometimes you have to play meta to have fun.
...

You meant always, right? :)

Either you choose something that allows to squeeze both millionaire dps and several defense layers at once, or you'll never take off in poe, be it SSF or trade. And with how often and how wild GGG rotates said meta on each major patch, game is basically a hamster wheel.