How can PoE2 become (or be seen as) AAA in 2023?

you mentioned the need of a game to have "rewarding goals"

thing is, those goals permanently shift towards the end if you got a stable player base playing league after league.

i a player had 2 magebloods dropped in kalandra, everything less than 4 magebloods and 2 headhunters will be a "shitty league" for the spoiled elite player they nurtured.

--

anyway, i think the solution to the problem at hand is to somehow force players to trade for items to lessen the gap betwen non-trading folks and trading folks.

AAA refers to the studio, since any game made by that studio automatically would be top-tier.

GGG is operated by self-taught (often times, or really almost all of the time under-taught) persons.

It can't be a AAA studio until that is rectified.

GGG is a pet project, that's all.

Poe is prolly the best game released in the genre, ever - but's still a minor player.

Elden Ring is a AAA title and is far harder than PoE, Diablo IV will be a triple A title, PoE could join both as a AAA title if PoE 4.0 delivers quality graphics and QoL.

AAA titles are the break from this game. OP has got it straight backwards.

The AAA label has nothing to do with gameplay or reception, it is entirely based on budget, factoring in number and skill of employees involved, and marketing.

PoE/GGG is an order of magnitude away from the AAA label. Elden Ring isn't even an AAA game, FromSoftware is a AA studio.

GGG would need like 5 times the developers working on PoE2 with like 10 times the budget (and all the improvements to visuals/presentation that comes with) for it to be considered an AAA release.

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muzein wrote:

Blizzard games always see immediate success followed by immediate decline.

I have no doubt D4 will sell millions of copies... and 3-4 weeks after launch, 90% of those players will have moved on to something else.

Based on what metric exactly are you thinking this abandonment of a Diablo game will happen? D2 and D3 have been a couple of the most successful games ever made. They have had people playing for many many years. Both the LoD expansions in D2, and RoS expansion in D3 where highly successful, and the D2 ladder / D2 seasons are and have been popular.

The flash in the pan notion for Diablo is completely an invalid argument to me, strictly on the facts. I see no reason it would diverge with D4. In fact their quarterly live service plan would mirror what PoE is doing.

Also the irony is not lost on me how the PoE season model works with very good numbers in a couple of weeks, to pretty much nothing by the 3rd month. I suspect after the 6-months to a year, that will be a similar flow with D4, but in far greater total numbers. That siad it wont be a binary choice anyways. There is going to be alot of crossover players between the two titles.

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DarthSki44 wrote:

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muzein wrote:

Blizzard games always see immediate success followed by immediate decline.

I have no doubt D4 will sell millions of copies... and 3-4 weeks after launch, 90% of those players will have moved on to something else.

Based on what metric exactly are you thinking this abandonment of a Diablo game will happen? D2 and D3 have been a couple of the most successful games ever made. They have had people playing for many many years. Both the LoD expansions in D2, and RoS expansion in D3 where highly successful, and the D2 ladder / D2 seasons are and have been popular.

The flash in the pan notion for Diablo is completely an invalid argument to me, strictly on the facts. I see no reason it would diverge with D4. In fact their quarterly live service plan would mirror what PoE is doing.

Also the irony is not lost on me how the PoE season model works with very good numbers in a couple of weeks, to pretty much nothing by the 3rd month. I suspect after the 6-months to a year, that will be a similar flow with D4, but in far greater total numbers. That siad it wont be a binary choice anyways. There is going to be alot of crossover players between the two titles.

Well this is currently bumped so I can jump in real quick.

Dudefriend, why are you responding to a completely untrue assertion? Blizzard games have historically *insane* staying power and very, very gentle curves of decline overall. This has been true since Diablo 1, it was true of Warcraft 2 and 3, of Starcraft. It was true of WoW. It was even true of Diablo 3, which had a terrible launch and was very predatory in its original form -- but dropped that 2 years after release and had a big console resurgence. And it's true of Overwatch (I just checked).

There have been a few serious faceplants like Reforged and to a lesser degree the surprisingly fun Heroes Of the Storm, but those are exceptions. Blizzard as a company have a LOT of house-cleaning yet to go and a LOT of legitimate trash to take out, so it always baffles me when detractors just make stuff up about them like this. Pretty clear unforced error.

People still dunk so hard on D3/Blizzard here; Blizzard players and communities generally don't care about GGG/PoE (other than those who find it in their hearts to just happily play both PoE and D3, bless 'em) and haven't for years. It's not hard to see which of the two 'sides' wants to keep the generally pointless fight going. These days, when an Exile takes a stab at D3, it's almost like punching down. And D4? Shit, let the poor game come out and prove itself worthy or otherwise before really judging it, please.

I don't know about GGG themselves but the very nature of this thread, this whole 'how can PoE (2) be seen as AAA' query (with 'AAA' seeming like a stand-in for 'good enough to be great') betrays a weird and completely unjustified inferiority complex. PoE is already better than a lot of AAA games in a lot of ways, and it does things a AAA game never, ever could.

It's so baffling. One of PoE's greatest strengths is it has the flexibility a AAA game typically doesn't. You'd NEVER find a AAA game with a metagame a tenth as complicated as what PoE has achieved.

It dethroned the AAA title of its genre and NOT just because D3 went in a different direction. It's fended off all challengers easily. PoE is the greatest game of its genre ever made and very, very few fans of Diablo-clones would disagree -- even if they don't actually *enjoy* it.

It started in a garage and is now worth over a hundred million dollars.

How in fuck isn't that 'good enough to be great'? No AAA title can claim *any* of that.

The slick but limited trappings of a AAA game would, if anything, be a step down for PoE and Exiles deserve better.

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

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DarthSki44 wrote:

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muzein wrote:

Blizzard games always see immediate success followed by immediate decline.

I have no doubt D4 will sell millions of copies... and 3-4 weeks after launch, 90% of those players will have moved on to something else.

Based on what metric exactly are you thinking this abandonment of a Diablo game will happen? D2 and D3 have been a couple of the most successful games ever made. They have had people playing for many many years. Both the LoD expansions in D2, and RoS expansion in D3 where highly successful, and the D2 ladder / D2 seasons are and have been popular.

The flash in the pan notion for Diablo is completely an invalid argument to me, strictly on the facts. I see no reason it would diverge with D4. In fact their quarterly live service plan would mirror what PoE is doing.

Also the irony is not lost on me how the PoE season model works with very good numbers in a couple of weeks, to pretty much nothing by the 3rd month. I suspect after the 6-months to a year, that will be a similar flow with D4, but in far greater total numbers. That siad it wont be a binary choice anyways. There is going to be alot of crossover players between the two titles.

Well this is currently bumped so I can jump in real quick.

Dudefriend, why are you responding to a completely untrue assertion? Blizzard games have historically *insane* staying power and very, very gentle curves of decline overall. This has been true since Diablo 1, it was true of Warcraft 2 and 3, of Starcraft. It was true of WoW. It was even true of Diablo 3, which had a terrible launch and was very predatory in its original form -- but dropped that 2 years after release and had a big console resurgence. And it's true of Overwatch (I just checked).

There have been a few serious faceplants like Reforged and to a lesser degree the surprisingly fun Heroes Of the Storm, but those are exceptions. Blizzard as a company have a LOT of house-cleaning yet to go and a LOT of legitimate trash to take out, so it always baffles me when detractors just make stuff up about them like this. Pretty clear unforced error.

Yeah I might have been baited a bit, but this annoying virtue signaling with Blizzard platform products seems to get at me more than the typical "anything but PoE sucks" logic youn get here time to time. Which is somewhat understandable on a PoE forum. I'm not expecting love for LE, LA, Torchlight, Diablo or whatever the fuck else people in the genre play, but cmon.

The last point of basically disliking them, but fully willing to buy their products and enjoy it... its just so cringe.

Not to mention "someone" completely dismissing the entire future of D4 live service and declaring post launch a failure before it's even out because they may have sampled one portion endgame and perhaps some pre-25 leveling is wild. "No long term Fun" because reasons is a hell of a take for something no one has seen in even close to its completed state. Pretty on brand actually now that I think about it, and looking at some of the D4 articles post Beta-NDA.

Meh, I'm only human when I read this kinda stuff. At least when I rag on PoE or GGG development strategy I have some data or backup on things they said. This is hating on D4 and Blizzard, for hates sake, for a game that isnt even out, with unfounded claims that are easy to refute... ugh

I literally dont know why. Objectively this is ridiculous (which should have stopped me to being with)

Blizzard has always - and will probably always make great games - for a lot of people.

When people are downtalking Blizzard, it often comes from a personal, egoistic standpoint, with a historical connection to some of their games. Be that long-time WoW players displeased by the game's direction over the last years, long-time Diablo 2 players displeased by the direction Diablo 3 took, long-time Warcraft players watching the disaster that was Reforged and so on.

I know, I've been there. I was MAD when they decided to scrap 95% of what (I think) made Diablo 2 great when they made Diablo 3. It has become so important for them to cater their games towards as many people as possible, which indirectly means they are probably not catering to ME anymore, because I'm a not-so-precious snowflake.

Can you blame Blizzard for making good, popular games that caters to a lot of people? Of course not. All power to them. But from an egoistic point of view; can you blame them for making games worse, seen through your overly-subjective eyes? Of course you can, no matter how unfair it is.

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Phrazz wrote:

can you blame them for making games worse, seen through your overly-subjective eyes? Of course you can, no matter how unfair it is.

Lol that's so insanely elitist in thought process though, idk what to even do with it. "Worse?" You cant just qualify something like that with "I know its unfair...but, and then go on to say objectively dumb things". Then in an absurdly large number of cases, go on to buy the product they are on a high horse about to begin with.

That makes you a Kim K level hypocrite, at best. And I dont mean "you" as you here Phrazz. Just generally speaking with this logical hoop jumping.

With something you did say though, to be actually "MAD" about accessibility in games is just so mind-boggling, at least to me. Do people actually believe the mechanical nightmare in PoE in terms of information, damage scaling, item filters, passive planning, crafting, and more is really a feature or some signal of how good a gamer you are?

Hell in the most recent patch notes there were a handful of literally non-functioning mechanical interactions no one even knew about. That's a joke tbh. That scaling and information is so bad you dont even know if the game is working properly.

Let alone looting, visual clutter, and mob interactions being totally overwhelming. More than half the time in PoE mapping you cannot see what is really happening.

Idk theres got to be some nuance here between a brainless mobile game like Candy Crush, and whatever fuck PoE is considered from a user perspective at the moment. The most recent "QoL" that beast flask crafting now actually say what they do is a hilarious testament to PoE.