No straightforward dialogue with players?
" With good reason, imo. |
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Ironically I think it's long overdue. They listened and reacted to players for years, abandoning their vision out of fear of losing players and supporters. What they didn't realise was that players don't really know what they want, only what they don't want. It's sort of the devs' core job to read into what players don't want and deliver what players didn't know they wanted. Stuff that on paper might look risky or even flat out bad but in practice makes the game feel new and worthwhile.
It's sort of hard to take risks when you openly say stuff like "the players are the boss". Honestly one of the most demoralising things I've seen a dev say, and it came from one of the few I really thought had it all together. And now that GGG seem to have no idea what players do or don't want because they allowed the loudest, most profitable voices guide them, now they're apparently in siege mode. I have no idea what their goals are so maybe this is all according to plan. Maybe mtx and support sales are just fine. Wouldn't surprise me. But where they should I think have been more guarded five or seven years ago, radio silence at this juncture just seems as recklessly reactive as their earlier lack of resilience and hesitation to stick with their plan. And whatever else might be true or untrue, I do believe that PoE as it is today would mortify GGG circa 2012 in any way other than financial (and even then, was being owned and ultimately restricted by a Chinese megacorp even thinkable?). On the other hand, GGG circa 2012 were delightfully naive, and genuinely thought players would enjoy the challenges they'd throw their way rather than come to see them as personal affronts. At any rate, I hope they can pull their wings out of the dull embers for PoE 2. There, I used their name for it just this once. Just to show how sincere I am in that hope, because honestly belief in and hype for PoE 2 seems to be all they have left beyond the plate spinning of increasingly unpopular leagues. If I like a game, it'll either be amazing later or awful forever. There's no in-between. I am Path of Exile's biggest whale. Period. Last edited by Foreverhappychan#4626 on Nov 12, 2022, 6:41:18 PM
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" Do you think they're in radio silence/siege mode? Or are you taking other people's word for it? https://old.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/x1loe8/so_are_we_done_with_communication_for_the_league/ Because the community is up their own ass about what constitutes 'radio silence' and 'abandoned league'. The thread above came on the heels of 6 chris posts (not all just replies, real posts, you can read them yourself if you like https://old.reddit.com/user/chris_wilson) and many bex posts as well. Between them they did 7 posts and 6 patches in 12 days to start LOK league. In the middle of it all was asinine childish posts about 'radio silence'. If you are taking others' word for it, I would remind you that 'radio silence' to the reddit masses has been re-defined as 'not doing the litany of things I demanded' in almost all cases.
Spoiler
With all that said, they shouldn't have needed to do a bunch of patch fixes and damage control posts, but LOK was a dumpster fire of huge changes to the game that were either untested (Chris would disagree) or are evident of an absolute canyon between what GGG think is fun and what the players do.
To that end, ruthless can't come soon enough, and I hope they do lean into it just a little in terms of getting out there old school game design ideas and be just a little more chill to the main SCTrade league realm. I think it might make a lot of people happy if they throw a few balance bones to the Ruthless/SSF crowd while lightening up on softcore trade. " Again I have to ask, do you think recent leagues were unpopular from your experience, or from hearsay? Sentinel was great. Anyone who stuck around long enough in Archnem to build a decent character (and wait for the GGG nerfs) thought that league was fine (b/c AN was opt-in). If they fix AN/loot and have a fun league mechanic everything goes right back to normal. The real problem with LOK was that it was a boring + unrewarding + overtuned league mechanic that came layered on top of some of the biggest fundamental changes to the game simultaneously. I say this as someone who has been in the chair for every league launch at launch time: it was a bottom 3 league ever released. But its nothing irreparable. - Looking forward they have 4-5 manifestos on the way which are the most valuable communication they can do. The trade manifesto from years and years ago is the gold standard. 'Here's what we believe, here's why were never doing x, y, and z, here are the game design reasons we believe this is the right course'. This is so much better than any kind of 'straightforward dialogue with the players' for the reasons you already touched on - that gives credence to the idea that players are the boss. A sentiment that breeds hatred when 'the boss' doesn't get listened to. Can't get listened to, because players being the boss is a split-personality hydra with n heads. |
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" This is why I used words like "seems" and "appears to be". It SEEMS to me that you are refuting the OP's core premise, upon which I only built. If it eases your mind somehow, approach my response from the perspective of assuming the OP is arguing in good faith. I think you know as well as anyone here that I am content to do that because frankly the worst that can happen is they're wrong and I've wasted ten or so minutes working with that. So do take this up with the OP. I appreciate your efforts in refuting it but it wasnt my argument. Mine was IF that is true, then it is too late. As for experience with recent leagues, I gave my feedback on AN -- not that my personal experience is ANY indicator of the vox populi -- but here's a friendly TLDR for you: fun for a bit; good idea, terrible execution; quit at act 6. Please dont then use that as a springboard to claim my stance is inadequate to judge a league -- GGG go to pretty great lengths to make a league gimmick prevalent early into the game. That and I much prefer to use hard numbers such as the fallible but vaguely indicative steamcharts to track the trajectory of league popularity and endurance. I get it -- you know I will respond civilly and comprehensively but your quarrel is not with me. So let's not. Instead lets assume you are right and the OP is wrong. Well then, not much to discuss. That said, I make no excuse for my disdain of the subreddit or staff overusage of it (goes against the spirit of reddit as an unofficial platform and Chris knows this very well -- he MADE that subreddit but could not moderate it due to conflicting interest) but hey, given how outdated this forum is and how quickly staff posts rise to and stay at the top thanks to how reddit's voting works, it's only smart for them to do so. I frequent other games' subs and devs rarely use them to maintain radio contact, if that is the opposite of radio silence. Discord and official pages are much more likely, which could be part of why the PoE subreddit has a reputation for toxicity and hivemind-like content: all those kids clamouring for Mummy and Daddy's attention... Or maybe I am totally wrong! :) guess what? So what? If I like a game, it'll either be amazing later or awful forever. There's no in-between.
I am Path of Exile's biggest whale. Period. |
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" For sure, its actually closer to my real name, amusingly =) I was asking in (my attempt at) good faith. I dont feel owned communication, though I have appreciated it when it has been open in the past. But I get that it has at times stoked the fires, not cooled them. I do have a lot more respect and will give more leeway ( in where I choose to spend money) with companies that are open vs not. I dont think its worth debating that there has been an intentional, thoughtful move away from talking with the community. I never said 'dead league zomg' or similar. But if you look at choice to discuss design philosophy and state of the game, is someone really saying we are not at a... 5 or so year low this league? |
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Reddit especially has been completely unusable for the last few weeks.
This mob mentality has started to be a thing in PoE after a few other big games did poorly like WoW:Shadowlands and Lost Ark over the last 2 years. A lot of these players want an entirely different game than PoE. There's no amount of changes the devs could make to make those players happy and they're going to leave after some other game like the WoW-expansion releases anyway. They're just here to fuel a fire and that's what makes the entire thing so stupid. So why bother discussing mechanics directly with them? It's wasted dev time. They've already said they're going to post some manifestos. That's plenty imo. |
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Thing is the official communication-only they've been doing for the last 4-5 leagues isn't working that good either, feels like there's a frozen conflict between GGG and a part of the community that only gets reignited every league start where GGG inevitably fucks something new up.
Wonder if Chris got tired of saying sorry each league, maybe he should get a little more involved in the league-making process instead of devoting himself 90% to PoE 2 and mobile. Second-class poe gamer
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" Thank you, nothing personal of course, and sorry. Few things trigger me like the famous 3 piece meal right off of the reddit menu: misuse of language, adults acting like children, and non-sequitur arguments. I don't even know why this trend of aggressively redefining words bothers me so much. I'm not an author by trade or by hobby... maybe because it reminds me of 1984 and that makes me bristle right up. Anyway its supremely funny that you mentioned GGG posts rising to the top on the reddit - the Chris posts I referenced were so heavily downvoted that mods had to pin them to the top for visibility. D: Is that funny? Ironic? Like I said, not an author. |
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" I agree. But men smarter than me would probably call this "natural" as a company grows. We see TONS of start-up, indie developers talking, discussing and interacting with the community in the early stages. As this company (and game) grows, and has a lot of grinding wheels in its machinery, they interact less directly, but has way more numbers to do the talking. The answer is probably clear: They no longer feel that the interaction in question is as valuable as it used to be, be that because of hostility, childishness, a split community, entitlement, too time consuming or directly counter productive. Bring me some coffee and I'll bring you a smile.
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" Agree that there is a lack of dialogue. " About the "toxic community": I think there are several reasons for that: 1. The community got the impression that whatever it says is disregarded by GGG. Due to that there is no incentive for constructive comments. So people post "toxic" stuff instead. 2. GGG attracted and nurtured that kind of community. By designing the game in that manner with munchkin powercreep, feature creep and everchanging "reworks". Instead of focusing on quality and balance and stability. 3. After attracting community with powercreep they now took it (to some degree) away from them. Its obvious that those previously attracted then get angry that they cant have it anymore. 4. Part of their plan seems to be to experiment with the game/players. Its obvious that players do not like that. 5. Certain recent changes like the Divine vs Exalt thing show disrespect to players. Like Standard players or Divination card creators. There was no proper reason to screw these players/creators over like that. They still did it. This gives a "we dont care about you" message to players. Its understandable that players do not react well to that. 6. Their communication seems to be very dishonest. Like calling the Harvest nerf "rework" without mentioning the nerf part. So basically the onesided communication that is there cant really be trusted from a players perspective. 7. They dont even fix simple things like loot goblins being affected by player rarity/quantity. "Depends what their plan is. If it includes getting rid of part of the playerbase then it may work out. No wonder it's lost, it's in the middle of the jungle!
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