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

I bet PoE2 is still years away LOL

Watching this AI trying to convince me it understands basic business is fascinating.

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DarthSki44 wrote:

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.

A lot of points here:
Did I say that it was the accessibility of D3 that made me "MAD"? No. You assumed this based on my other paragraph, where I spoke more generally. A game can be both accessible and in-depth. D3 and PoE both fail on that.

And all this about "elitist"? Do I see myself as a better, smarter or more important gamer just because I like a little bit more in-depth mechanics, grind or more focus on planning? Hell no. It is JUST my subjective taste in games, which I thought I was pretty clear on in my PERSONAL critique of D3, based on MY subjective taste. I don't play many games, but the few (PvE games) I play always tend to be games where you can sink a lot of hours into, and where this time sink generally pays off in some way or another.

"

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?

Absolutely not. Where does this "good gamer" even come from? But some of those points are what I find "fun". I don't measure myself with other gamers. I don't compete directly with others. I don't strive to be better than others, I strive for my builds to be better than it was yesterday.

My taste in game is not "elitist", and I can't possibly phantom where you fished that word from. What the actual... What? We have a saying in my country: "You know yourself through others" (vague translation). I think this has to be some kind of example of that. I'm seriously lost for words. Good gamer? Elitist? You make it seem like I judge Diablo 3 players just because I don't like the game, which I don't.

^

Maybe there is a misunderstanding on what you mean by "egotistical standpoint" and that not referencing some sort superiority standard.

Can someone be egotistical and think they are inferior in that context? No I dont think so. So yeah I'm not sure what you mean exactly, or how you wanted to convey being egotistical without being elitist?

Again maybe that's on how I read it?

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DarthSki44 wrote:

^
"egotistical standpoint"

...As in "I want(ed) the game to cater to ME and MY priorities". I wanted Diablo 3 to have X, Y and Z, because I liked those elements in Diablo 2. It had none of them, making it a crap game for me personally, which again made me "MAD" (exaggeration, of course). I don't play game based on its playerbase, how popular it is, how it looks or how polished it is. I play it based on how fun they are for ME.

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Phrazz wrote:

"

DarthSki44 wrote:

^
"egotistical standpoint"

...As in "I want(ed) the game to cater to ME and MY priorities". I wanted Diablo 3 to have X, Y and Z, because I liked those elements in Diablo 2. It had none of them, making it a crap game for me personally, which again made me "MAD" (exaggeration, of course). I don't play game based on its playerbase, how popular it is, how it looks or how polished it is. I play it based on how fun they are for ME.

But you specifically equate that to being "worse" in general.

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Phrazz wrote:

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.

Blame them for catering to a larger base? That's inherently bad in some way? I hear this casual argument all the time, and many people on the PoE side here embrace it. I have no idea who it serves tbh. It's like some weird internt status symbol or something. "Oh you like D3? And nose shoots up". Bizarre, and I've seen it way too often to be an outlier situation.

You even seem to acknowledge its unfair, but then fail acknowledge that it sounds super elite? I mean what do you think is unfair in that context then?

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DarthSki44 wrote:

Blame them for catering to a larger base? That's inherently bad in some way?

No, it's not - generally speaking. But based on how they cater to a larger audience, the game can be 'worse' for Johnny.

Take PoE as an example: if they removed damage conversion, bow scaling, spell scaling, attack scaling, evasion, spell suppression, armor, energy shield and switched the game to "defense" and "offense", the game would probably be tremendously more "accessible" - and would probably cater to more people, as a lot of people aren't looking for a lot of customization and depth. But would the game be 'worse' for me, as I actually like to customize my characters with different kinds of offenses and/or defenses? Yes, it would.

I very much respect that some games are made to cater to a wide audience. The market needs them. But I also expect people to respect that all games do not have to. It's totally OK for some games to stay "niche", catering to a certain crowd. So sure, Blizzard did an economical smart move by making D3 easier, more accessible and less time consuming than D2. Does that mean that PoE has to go the same route? Should EVE Online do that too?

"

I hear this casual argument all the time, and many people on the PoE side here embrace it. I have no idea who it serves tbh. It's like some weird internt status symbol or something

Who it serves? It serves them, because they are trying to keep PoE in-depth, complicated, grindy and in some cases; time consuming. Why? Because they see themselves as "better gamers" than casual players? No. They do it because they find it FUN, and will keep that fun.

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Phrazz wrote:

Who it serves? It serves them, because they are trying to keep PoE in-depth, complicated, grindy and in some cases; time consuming. Why? Because they see themselves as "better gamers" than casual players? No. They do it because they find it FUN, and will keep that fun.

I think there is still an extremely big gap between Blizzard dumbing down WoW versus needing to run crafting scenarios in a browser before you feel comfortable doing it in game.

In wow they had it setup that 99% of players never saw Illidan unless they came back after the fact. Probably not that much different from the bird egg dude prior to him who I can't remember...

OPINION

Nothing in the leveling tree and skill setup is that bad. The only overly complex thing in the game is making items and figuring out how to get to specific content objectives

If I needed to check a boss fight in wow, I would either read an explanation of abilities that took a few minutes or we would wipe a few times depending on how early we got there.

You also had some content gated behind PVP, but it was a very small portion and when I played, the PVE gear at a certain point destroyed PVP gear even with the defensive bonuses.

In POE, 99% of players don't see end game bosses and don't spend anything beyond an alch or a regal crafting. The boss explanations again are pretty light.

Also they make it incredibly painful to trade all the time.

Any learning you have to do is done extensively outside of the game(mainly crafting, but sometimes new content can be pretty awkward to understand). I feel like GGG gets such a big pass from the community on explaining content behind the facade of it's supposed to be difficult. It was cute for a while, these days I hate it. Unless I am really motivated to get a steam achievement that particular patch, odds are whatever new boss is around isn't getting killed because I burned out before I finished grinding my way to it or wasn't sure how.

The difficulty of most of GGG's content is tied to either not knowing how to get to it or the massive amount of things happening on the screen at once and whether or not you can see what you need to be avoiding.

Not saying I am quitting the game by any means, I killed multiple bosses for the first time in 3.19 and got my first atlas completion(only after approaching 3,000 hours), doesn't mean I don't think they should make changes.

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Shardbearer wrote:

I think there is still an extremely big gap between Blizzard dumbing down WoW versus needing to run crafting scenarios in a browser before you feel comfortable doing it in game.

I somewhat agree, and I do think all 'mandatory' resources should be available in-game.

But my main point: If a player plays PoE because of all the options, in-depth mechanics, grind and so on, I understand perfectly well that he might get defensive when other players are trying to advocate for the game to change - especially when the game is (and has been) advertising itself as a "hardcore ARPG". Would it hurt the game/player numbers to be "dumbed down"? Probably not, but it would hurt his enjoyment of the game.

Dumbed down point: PoE serves a niche corner of the market. Let it keep serving that corner. Between Diablo 3/4, Torchlight, Last Epoch, PoE and so on there's no need for all those game to cater to the same (exact) crowd.

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Phrazz wrote:

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Shardbearer wrote:

I think

I somewhat agree... to the same (exact) crowd.

lolwut?

Can you make up your mind?

Diablo has never catered to the most hardcore of players... ever.

I literally have 0 idea why you would bring up Diablo, the 2nd or 3rd most profitable franchise in Western gaming history.

Path of Exile had 65k 24hr players after 10 days in 3.19

Path of Exile is not a AAA title and until someone like Epic or EA or Amazon Game Studio takes over, which ofc will never occur, it will be a single A sandbox pet-project

It's still the best game in the genre, don't get me wrong, but it's made by enthusiasts, not dyed-in-the-wool professionals.