It's time for GGG to take back reigns of trade for the sake of the game

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AdRonZh3Ro wrote:

@Phrazz
I'm forced to disagree because they are constantly skewed towards "If the best can do it easily, the noobs will probably do it too", which never was the case even when Harvest was around in full effect. If you had the knowledge to make a 6xT1 item with Harvest, you probably can do it now too, you just won't because instead of 1 mirror, it now needs 10 mirrors, 100 mirrors in some cases.

The game is alredy beatable (main story, Maven, Elder, Sirus), literally, without using any league mechanic for crafting. I've done the main story with a 5 link, base game uniques and no fancy shit rares. I can't understand any argument that the game must be a shore when everything beyond that is for fun, and i simply don't see fun in the unreachable just for the sake of being unreachable.

Regardless, the point of making a game is for the devs to profit. Alredy bought 2 packs, which is more than some people that complain without spending a cent. I understand it's their game. I won't support it ever again, but i understand.

Things aren't unreachable for the sake of being unreachable. They are "unreachable" for the sake of giving min/maxers something to work towards - something to achieve when they've done everything else (or to give a immense feeling of luck if you happen to "lotto" yourself to an item like that). As you so nicely described; you don't need "the best" items to beat the game or the toughest bosses - so I don't see the issue. Is it so bad that even the most dedicated players have something to strive towards?

You use the words "just for fun" about everything beyond Maven - but it's the same idea as act one: Keep improving your gear/character to fight harder bosses - and as ALL ARPG, your progression will be slower the further you progress. Personally, I need goals to have fun - and will probably never start a map unless I have some kind of goal(s). If I see it as unrealistic for me to progress further, I quit - or start a new characters, loaded with new goals. And I know many players like this.

What GGG understand, is that 'most' players need goals to keep playing. Therefore, they provide 'most' players with goals, no matter the kind of player they are. Sure, you can say that this is "to make profit", but everyone knows that every developer wants players to keep playing.

@Phrazz
What Gx3 doesn't understand is that there isn't any amount of rarity that will impede the min-maxers to acquire what they want. You can set all t0 uniques to Mirror rarity and all of them will acquire it every league. Same for crafting.

What's most hilarious is that every league they keep introducing innocuous crafting methods and/or outright deterministic methods(that they claim they dislike so much) that end up being abused by min-maxers, and then are reworked or deleted altogether. So Gx3 either don't know how to balance with them in mind, don't know their game nor the implications of introducing crafting methods or don't care, either are bad enough.

I alredy beat the game a thousand times over, with the bare minimum or otherwise. Time to find something else, i guess.

hoho.

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AdRonZh3Ro wrote:

@Phrazz
What Gx3 doesn't understand is that there isn't any amount of rarity that will impede the min-maxers to acquire what they want. You can set all t0 uniques to Mirror rarity and all of them will acquire it every league. Same for crafting.

What's most hilarious is that every league they keep introducing innocuous crafting methods and/or outright deterministic methods(that they claim they dislike so much) that end up being abused by min-maxers, and then are reworked or deleted altogether. So Gx3 either don't know how to balance with them in mind, don't know their game nor the implications of introducing crafting methods or don't care, either are bad enough.

I alredy beat the game a thousand times over, with the bare minimum or otherwise. Time to find something else, i guess.

This is exactly what happens when you balance the game around the 1%. The chase items are chase items for them. The crafting is determined by currency rng, so if you are rich you simply brute force what you want, and control the markets (so you can craft more)

There are quite a few items the game most people will never see, or craft, ever. Maybe that's a good thing for some people, I dont personally agree with it.

That's how it was designed though. Elite balance for elite players. You can dangle the carrot for the masses, but that trick only lasts for so long, at least that's what I believe. Folks didnt have real options in the past few years, but that's rapidly changing. Lets see how things play out when players get to actually choose.

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AdRonZh3Ro wrote:

I alredy beat the game a thousand times over, with the bare minimum or otherwise. Time to find something else, i guess.

Which is fair. How many other games have you "beat a thousand time over"?

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Phrazz wrote:

Things aren't unreachable for the sake of being unreachable. They are "unreachable" for the sake of giving min/maxers something to work towards - something to achieve when they've done everything else (or to give a immense feeling of luck if you happen to "lotto" yourself to an item like that). As you so nicely described; you don't need "the best" items to beat the game or the toughest bosses - so I don't see the issue. Is it so bad that even the most dedicated players have something to strive towards?

Different people play for different things. The 1%ers mean nothing to 99% of the playerbase, so why design around those people? Most people play to get the best gear, not to beat bosses. Beating the bosses is just the benefit of having the best gear.

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Phrazz wrote:

You use the words "just for fun" about everything beyond Maven - but it's the same idea as act one: Keep improving your gear/character to fight harder bosses - and as ALL ARPG, your progression will be slower the further you progress. Personally, I need goals to have fun - and will probably never start a map unless I have some kind of goal(s). If I see it as unrealistic for me to progress further, I quit - or start a new characters, loaded with new goals. And I know many players like this.

Again, fun is subjective. Most people, according to GGG, never make it to yellow maps. So do you envision that everyone keeps starting over after clearing white maps league after league? I highly doubt that considering how absolutely mind numbingly boring the Acts are and how many complain about having to do them over and over again. I believe people quit because they hit a gear wall created by the loot scarcity. Once you get into upper yellows/reds, you start to need a lot of decent gear. You can't just hodge podge garbage in red maps.

The truth is they should offer a super ez mode for those of us who like to touch grass and have all the best gear. I would be a lot more tempted to keep playing if gearing up wasn't such a slog.

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Nulledout wrote:

Different people play for different things. The 1%ers mean nothing to 99% of the playerbase, so why design around those people? Most people play to get the best gear, not to beat bosses. Beating the bosses is just the benefit of having the best gear.

'Most people play to get the best gear'? Do you have a source to that claim? You can't start a sentence with 'different people play for different things', and then pull that shit out of nowhere. I would've agreed, if you said 'most players play to get better gear'. I think 'most players' play to progress, and I firmly think that is the driving force of 'most (A)RPG players'. There are probably two points where that progression end: A player get the "best" gear, or the player have progressed as far as he feel comfortable, seeing any further progression as unreachable. Both of which should be OK. PoE has chosen the latter for 'most people'.

And regarding the "1%": They are players too. It's not like act 1, act 2, all acts, white maps, yellow maps, red maps... Are 'designed around' the "1%". But yes, some small percentages of the game are designed around/for them. Is that so bad? I don't think I've ever read any argument that came close to making me understand the negatives here - and that is coming from a non-1%, that will probably never beat the uber bosses, let alone have "the best gear".

I think I've played 'most' ARPGs, and I can't say that I've had perfect/the best gear in any of them, let alone all of the best, most rare uniques.

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Nulledout wrote:

The truth is they should offer a super ez mode for those of us who like to touch grass and have all the best gear. I would be a lot more tempted to keep playing if gearing up wasn't such a slog.

"The truth"? Ok, we'll just end it here - because we're on two different planets when it comes to gaming as a whole.

League of Legends, which actually has a good method of rewards with free skins. More you play, more you get. Got to Diamond when it ment something, if that counts as beating the game. Have Victorious skins from 3rd year to 8th, i think.

Skyrim, tons of mods, wink wink.

World of Warcraft up to Lich King, several characters up to max level.

Counter-Strike 1.6, Source, played for years in school.

Cities: Skylines, beat all challenges, tons of good QoL mods to make it more alive. I still manage an UNIT of a city with 800k pop or something from time to time.

Forza Horizon 4 and 5, at least 2k hours, Grandmaster in FH4 competitive, FH5 doesn't have competitive in-game, which is sad. Both do have Rivals, which i have records in the top 1000th in several of them, and some in top 100th.

Osu!, top 100 in the early 2009s to 2011s, but the game went full weeaboo, so i quit it altogether.

Tibia, my first MMO(ish) when lv100 actually was impressive. Knight, naturally. Now that i remember, i also played a lot of private servers focused on PvP with increased xp gain, the only way to get xp was to kill other players. Literally 200x200 players in the maps of cities from the main game, those were the days.

Tera, when it went free. Always best gear with Sorcerer up to 1 season after Reaper release, can't remember the name. PvP was great, Conquer the Castle type 20x20 Battleground, you attack then defend, balanced gear for everyone. My role was crowd control/high dps output.

Neverwinter, always had best gear up to when artifacts were released, then they shit the bed. I was a menace in PvP, control the flag type PvP, i could manage 2x1 often. They had a 20x20 PvP Battleground too, my guild had some of the best strategies and i was (basically) the assassin, always getting high kill scores.

Both Tera and Neverwinter have the power creep expansion theme which make the former gear irrelevant. Both are still great games in their own rights, but the never ending commitment gets boring quick.

Actually, thanks for asking me, great forgotten memories, lol.

So yeah, my favorite theme is skill based games, which PoE hasn't really given much challenge, nor incentive for. MTX can be argued as incentive, but when you stop playing they become useless. I do have over 200 skins in LoL too, Elementalist Lux, Pulsefire Ezreal, Spirit Guard Udyr, Star Guardian and Spirit Blossom Ahri, Project Ashe, Dark Star Jhin and Thresh(both my favorites), Nightbringer Yasuo(gotta feed in expensive skins or what's the point), and my favorite Splash Art, Frostblade Irelia, because... um, reasons.

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Nulledout wrote:

The truth is they should offer a super ez mode for those of us who like to touch grass and have all the best gear. I would be a lot more tempted to keep playing if gearing up wasn't such a slog.

I wouldn't mind a mode opposed to Ruthless, but it should still have some challenge, not just handouts. 10-20x drop rate would be fine by me. Or Ritual, i wouldn't mind Ritual patch.

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Phrazz wrote:

'Most people play to get the best gear'? Do you have a source to that claim?

Bro, what else is an ARPG for? People play for the gear progression. Hence why it is called a looter. Do you really believe people play league for the game mechanics? They play league because of the fresh new experience of gearing up a character to be powerful, while the fresh economy is also a draw as it values your time more than Standard. All of the successful leagues were based around mechanics that provided an accelerated way to get better gear.

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Phrazz wrote:

Are 'designed around' the "1%". But yes, some small percentages of the game are designed around/for them. Is that so bad?

Yes, yes it is that bad. By designing around the no lifers, it eliminates people who do things other than play video games for a living. I have over 4000 hours in PoE, never saw a natural HH, never saw a natural MB, never saw a mirror or a mirror shard. Those are arguably the best items to have. Why do I need to farm 100s of hours to just buy 1? I don't want that, most players don't want that. You know who wants that? The RMT'ers and the 1%ers, which aren't mutually exclusive.

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Phrazz wrote:

I think I've played 'most' ARPGs, and I can't say that I've had perfect/the best gear in any of them, let alone all of the best, most rare uniques.

I would look at your characters to try to figure out your play style, but you have it set to private for some reason. So for all we know you are completely lying about your gear and progression.

People need to feel that their efforts are worth something. If people find that their efforts are being sidestepped with dollars, than that's going to hurt the game. PoE will eventually get the reputation that you can win with money. Why play PoE then? Might as well play some competitors game which while has p2w at least you know you're on an even playing field. The argument that manipulations are done elsewhere or that you can obtain endgame results without TFT is nothing more than tu quoque AKA, the "common practice" fallacy, and a red herring.


I think it's pretty clear from the recent YouTube videos posted on the subject that currency is being manipulated and controlled for monetary benefit. Chris Wilson stated that the currency market is sacrosanct. I think he's pretty spot on in the reasoning why he said that.


I've seen stories in the past where people were fired for simply liking someone's tweet or following someone on twitter, and this is fairly similar in its circumstance. Most of the time a PoE streamers discord is built off of people watching the guides and going to the discord to ask questions, and these people were being banned out of spite.

There are multiple streamers which I have joined their discord not because I supported their person but because I wanted to be updated on the information they were providing. I don't know much about Belton. I don't know if I've ever watched one of his videos before any of this, but I found the screenshots and personal testimony of other people which involve themselves in RMT with TFT to be extremely concerning. Certainly it warrants being looked into.


Back in the previous Mayhem event in 3.19 I was checking out some of the streamers on twitch and there was a group, I don't remember their names, but they were bragging how they were able to corner the market and control all currency. I disliked the way they were so arrogant and braggadocious that I immediately moved on to a different stream, but if this is being done with real money involved to control markets then I very much so hope that GGG brings a hammer down and bans all of them.