Has anyone from GGG acknowledged or apologized for the last few leagues?
" No never played WoW, and I cannot think of another game that requires the amount of open tabs and programs PoE does. Its definitely not "usual corporate stuff" "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."
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" Whenever they (GGG) start talking about how are specific metrics "vanity metrics" and so on and when Chris talked about how "they would just need about 10 000 players" for them to game exists and make money I find it really weird because I have a memory of what he said after 3.15, where they lost almost 1/3 of their revenue. "Few more leagues like this and we would have to let people go". So you see, about a 3/4 of a year with -30% revenues would probably lead to many people in GGG getting fired. I think they designed a PoE2 and it turns out it's a worse system (less fun, by a lot) and they have the sunk cost fallacy. So they don't want to admit this to themselves. However I think a lot of people are really angry and they will feel this financially, it is the only thing to make them reconsider. The "strong talk" of how they need only 10k players will immediately stop in the prospect of telling people "yeah you are fired because of our vision". Last edited by Kekurikekukaka#1541 on Nov 22, 2022, 5:35:32 PM
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" This actually raises a really good point although one that I feel is way out of the scope of the thread. I HAVE played WoW without any third party add-ons, and Eve, and FFXIV, and a bunch of other games where, if you look at youtube vids of it, especially the endgame stuff, the game screen is cluttered with tools, analytics and meters that definitely don't come standard. And why was I able to do that? Because I never played any of them to such a degree that I cared enough to feel I needed those tools to enjoy said game. In gamer parlance, I was a dirty casual and remain so to this day. It just seems standard that the onus of creating 'extra' tools for enhancing (or even just normalising) endgame activities falls to the players. I can think of several reasons for this, but gun to head I'd say it's because most game developers still believe they can present a challenge to these players by way of limited information delivery -- where players almost inevitably see that as a hindrance to be fixed. Simple example from my own experience: I did play GW2 to something resembling endgame with no external tools, but right as I was getting bored of it, I discovered a popular third party overlay that ArenaNet neither condemned nor condoned. It did really neat things like reveal the locations of resources that the game deliberately would not. I realised upon using it that I was at the point where the game was so close to 'work' that I needed a third party tool to complete it. I quit soon thereafter. Great game, but I think this threshold is almost inevitable and unavoidable. The problem with PoE in this regard is that threshold hits a player *real* early. Well before what should be considered endgame, if we take into account it took me weeks of doofing about in Tyria before even thinking about needing any player made resources beyond the wiki, and even then I think ArenaNet contribute to that, making it a de facto game manual of sorts. Because PoE wears its proudly overcomplicated nature on its sleeve, player made tools are a given. And I have to wonder how many players know that, as far as trade goes, anything more intricate than the in-game character to character window was originally a player made tool and is, to this day, mostly player maintained (the official trade function on this site is more of a backup, or was last time I checked). Same with all the builders, the wiki, and so on. The question for me is then, would a game die if its third party tools were obliterated instantly and irrevocably? Or, more realistically, would the devs be able to create their own versions in time? Which naturally leads into the follow-on ponderance: just how 'optional' are these player-made add-ons? As a general rule, as I illustrated with my Gw2 example, I realise a game has gotten too deep under my skin when I find myself attracted to third party tools that directly affect my gameplay. I'm cool with character builder sites, with reading wikis, and other 'assistances' when it comes to doing things my own way. But relying on third party trade indexers, or an in-game overlay, or having to watch a video guide just to learn the precise steps to beat a boss (XIV is fucking notorious for this), or any 'plug in'? Nope. Big nope. I'm going to die of old age before trying every game worth trying, and I'm not wasting that time getting caught up in any single game's attempts at perpetuity by way of player-solved problems. No one game should be played forever, and players should not be duped into helping devs meet that less than admirable goal. 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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" People made overlays for GW2 that literally told you to stand on the tip of a cliff clapping your hands behind your back during the full moon because developers thought it would be a good idea of an endgame is to implement mandatory puzzles that you would spend weeks figuring out by yourself. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mD19FsWthA But on the other hand you could spend a month playing the game out of the box just for the story mode alone and so we did. Path of Exile story mode is a guy stepping on your face saying: "Here, enjoy it" Endgame starts as soon as you wake up on the shores of Wraeclast. |
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" I think that's the core point, although "die" here is a bit subjective. When does QoL reach a point that it's a key feature or function in the game that it becomes harmful or even detrimental to not have it? I would argue if a game cannot maintain existing players or lacks an attracitve experience for new players, as a result of some 3rd party QoL features, then that is a result of poor development planning, or perhaps not sound priority implementation. If it's that vital it should have been foreseen and developed. Or at the very least when they "found out" it should be a priority. If you took away all the key tools in PoE (especially PoB and Item Filters), my opinion would be that it would harm player retention and general game experience. To me that's an unacceptable risk. GGG has said they are "working on" an internal version of PoB, but after this many years I cannot be 100% certain that's true or just a talking point to placate folks. YouTube guides, and general information sites are fine here. We are talking about real, in-game, game enhancements or resources.
Spoiler
and not to get super off track, but when you outsource on a scale like this, you lose a decent amount of control. TFT and Awakened PoE Trade are good examples. TFT has gotten so big, and out of GGG's jurisdiction, they are now trying to reel in a monster they created. It's tough. And with Awakened PoE, there are so many users, even though its technically against ToS, it's become too big to ban/stop it. They would have to ban nearly a quarter of the playerbase (including many content creators). It's shocking that they have let the community push them right out of their own ToS.
"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."
- Abraham Lincoln |
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u should thank ggg lol now u dont have to play this dead game anymore
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Apologize for what?
Can't you play something else? |
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" In fairness, looking at the 3.19 data, many people did do that. Edit: without asking for anything, or really saying anything at all. "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt." - Abraham Lincoln Last edited by DarthSki44#6905 on Nov 23, 2022, 11:58:34 AM
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" post-completion warning: this response is only mostly on-topic. 'Die' is only mostly subjective. *snicker* What I meant by that is are third party tools 'assisting' your game, 'supporting' it or just outright making it 'playable' for your average consumer? And we both know I'm way too far out of the Wraeclast loop to even begin to make that call but I don't have to -- those of you still playing probably should though, if only to yourselves. On the other hand, if you're still playing, you probably have...if only to yourselves. And judging from your spoiler addendum, yeah...ugh. Wow. My gut says no, that PoE wouldn't die without its tools, for the same reason as I don't believe that Constant Player is necessarily PoE's main concern -- the internet is vast and full of fresh meat. For every burnout, there's a newcomer utterly in awe at what they've found. My god, it's full of passive points. This...this is FREE? And it doesn't have pay to win at all? What have I been doing with my life!? Why, it would be completely inexcusable for me not to buy a support pack every so often when other game companies are charging a hundred bucks for some 20 hour janky pseudo-movie. And I'd say it'd take at least a few years for that feeling to begin to approach the burnout transition. Subjective, of course, but again, going by what I've seen for myself. Chris was shooting for the moon when he tried to impress the bigwigs at GDC with the 'how to make a game people want to play forever' call, but maybe 'here's a game that will forever have someone wanting to play/support it' is a little less hyperbolic. PoE is as close to that right now as any other game out there. It's outlasted a whole slew of attempts at forever-appeal, and is showing zero sign of seriously slowing down. As I have said so many times, the only sign of that will be a dramatic drop in relative uptake per league. Anything else is at least acceptable -- same way no one really cares if an apartment is empty for most of the year as long as rent is paid regularly and on time. Of course, if that rent being paid on time is dependant on how much the renters like living there, then it's relevant. Otherwise, not at all. If anything, some landlords would prefer that: less upkeep, less chance of tenants ruining the place. I'm not sure how or if that translates into PoE's financial system, but it's enough to say in both cases, a happy constant tenant and an absent renter who might spend only a few weeks every few months there (for whatever reason) are largely the same thing. An unhappy tenant who has been 'choosing' to pay for various QoL upgrades is a problem, but again only if that can then be read as a chance of them moving elsewhere -- a chance minimised by the fact that they can't take their QoL investments with them. As I already said, in GGG's case, it is absolutely the landlord's market, which is why they can have a free option in the first place. And as this thread makes pretty clear, the long-term paying tenants are happy to talk them up as very generous landlords and gosh if you've any complaints MAYBE YOU SHOULD JUST MOVE? NEED WE REMIND YOU YOU ARE LIVING HERE FOR FREE? (all the while possibly ignoring that they themselves haven't lived here for free for years -- or maybe that's the real argument: 'you're living here for free and complaining and demanding apologies, but I don't live here for free, in fact I'm paying the rent FOR YOU, and you don't see me complaining and asking for apologies, so who the hell are you to dare do so?' I dunno, it's almost like...projection...) And that's part of why (I'm bringing it back to the topic, promise) GGG doesn't need to apologise or even worry that much about how reliant the game is on third party tools (i.e. they don't need to burn too many resources making them themselves) -- as long as the game is operational and doing what it's always done, they will not lack for happy supporters, content to furnish their dwellings for themselves (read: come up with tools to make living there more comfortable). When I say 'doing what it's always done', what I broadly mean is giving players a huge theoretical space in which to do just that. Because honestly, the rooms might look small from the outside but if any game is the GAAS equivalent of a TARDIS for Very Smart People, it's PoE. So in order for that 'death' to occur, it would have to stop attracting (and pulling back every 3 months or so) people who are willing to make that effort. And even then I'm probably missing the mark -- it's might not be 'players' per se making and maintaining these tools. It could be people playing the metagames, which almost incidentally interact with the game itself. And they WILL be gone well before GGG genuinely scuttle PoE, whether of their own volition or, far more likely, because they're told to. (Pray for an offline version come that day, O ye Exiles of Great Faith!) And when the lights do gown and the end is come, the very last player to log off will be happy to have been the very last, because there's no chance it'll be some rando. They'll probably even throw some sort of weird fireworks mtx party in-game, for lack of A moon-sized meteor to drop on Wraeclast in the hopes of the Realm being Reborn, better than ever, at some later date.
Why I'm (still) here, maybe
I spoke of PoE burnout and GGG newcomers and PoE burnout, of that particular cycle that no one player experiences more than once (they might feel otherwise, but then it's not true burnout and they're not true newcomers -- that which is being cycled is the assembly line of surprisingly fungible 'player' units), and I suppose I'm still here because I want, in some futile way, to witness it over and again from Outside, in some vain attempt at historical poignancy. The so-called white knights from one year to the next change; the so-called doomsayers do too, although far more turgidly. Those most ardently attacking detractors on this forum right now are mostly newcomers, and that has been true for years. Speaking from experience, it takes a lot more energy to constantly defend something complicated and thus pregnable than attack it a few times with savage, passionate fervour and move on. But that's what makes this a strange sort of Forever War: both besieged and assailants can cycle in new units indefinitely. A siege works in real life because that is fundamentally untrue.
And that's what I find so fascinating here, DS44. That someone with an account made in 2021 can almost spontaneously pop up as the new champion of the castle, while the champion from 2020 has either flipped or just fucked off to a different game. And that someone with an account not even a year old can materialise from the game itself and hurl their stones at the walls. Never a stone we haven't seen before; I think they bounce off the walls and just at its base, waiting to be picked up by someone who has no clue how many times it's failed to crack the defences. This is, in that light, like a sci-fi episode in which the warriors have no clue how ancient the conflict is because their experience of it is new and fresh. I don't really recognise any of the names of those attacking or defending GGG here, but I probably will in a year or so when they're due to cycle out. Hell, this approach of mine even takes into account the occasional forced holiday I'm given for forgetting GGG abhors my paradox -- I can still witness in silence, although it's much more fun to witness loudly. ^_^
Maybe?
The 'maybe' in the spoiler tag is a nod to the absolute fact that I'm (still) here for one reason and one reason only, and it has surprisingly little to do with how I act or what I say. ;)
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 23, 2022, 9:37:23 PM
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" A few years ago I would have agreed completely with this conclusion that PoE didn't really have any critical third party tools, especially after GGG implemented trade database interface. I no longer agree though, at least paint me skeptical. What has happened in the last few years is that PoE has gotten much more opaque. I used to routinely create my own builds when playing PoE. Now, I think it unlikely that I could routinely create my own builds that could clear the atlas. If I couldn't easily grab builds using Path of Building, I don't think I'd keep playing for long. Now if it wasn't for PoB it could be argued that build guides in the forum would still be popular. That is probably true. This would make PoB optional again rather than critical for a large portion of the players like it is now. Over 430 threads discussing labyrinth problems with over 1040 posters in support (thread # 1702621) Thank you all! GGG will implement a different method for ascension in PoE2. Retired!
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