As TFT -> RMT connection is confirmed, no action from GGG?

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BearishHarbor58 wrote:

There's 21 mirrors available right now on pc trade hardly seems like the biggest problem. Improve and simplify crafting and let the very top end muck around with mirrors.

there maybe be 21 mirrors on trade, but tft potentially has thousands in their stash. Hard to really say, but some individuals have over 500 in this league alone according to some reddit screenshots.

Look at vivid vulture for example. They are needed for making mirror synth bases. When i check trade, their are like 660, but tft has 8000 listed.

Stuff has gotten more expensive in trade because of tft hoarding of high end crafting mats. They can let people in or out selectively, monopolize the market (this league they banned beast rotas), ruin competitors trade rankings through their system (this bleeds into other sites and tools).

It is just antithetical to everything I remember the trade manifesto was actually about. I don't know why they allow mirror services.

Like is it ok with players feeling unable to play because they made JeNeBu mad and got perma'd from tft?

I think it isn't. I also think any amount of RMT is not ok. It leads to broken in game economies that make players have to play more to achieve their goals because some stonks-reddit bro is cornering an ingame market to make 50$.

When you decide to balance your F2P game around streamers and hardcore no-lifers, with more casual players bound to have frustrating and miserable experience, you then discover that majority of your revenue also comes from said streamers. Which means you now need them almost as much as they need your game, hence you cannot angry them in any way, even when they set up huge RMT shop right before your eyes.

And even besides RMT, it looks funny how common players get banned for using trade software, while streamers keep doing same things on twitch without any consequences.

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Echothesis wrote:

When you decide to balance your F2P game around streamers and hardcore no-lifers, with more casual players bound to have frustrating and miserable experience.

This is a complete fabrication though both in principle and reality, they clearly continue to sell MTX to the masses despite having adopted this model for their games lifetime and the whole idea that streamers and no-lifers are the only ones that get anything done is a laughable excuse generally used by players who can't accept that result X requires effort Y, be that knowledge, playtime or talent.

I'm not supporting TFT or RMT either but both of those have absolutely fucking zip to do with the games balance and everything to do with personal choices. You can play without either and never notice they even exist.

There is an extremely small minority of players who have enough experience, playtime and talent to craft great items but can't due to a lockout of resources and they have a very legitimate complaint, but it is an absolutely tiny group. The overwhelming majority of players already have everything they need to circumvent RMT and TFT completely so trying to mix that TFT have all the mirrors and casuals in the same problem category is just ridiculous.

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Draegnarrr wrote:

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Echothesis wrote:

When you decide to balance your F2P game around streamers and hardcore no-lifers, with more casual players bound to have frustrating and miserable experience.

This is a complete fabrication though both in principle and reality, they clearly continue to sell MTX to the masses despite having adopted this model for their games lifetime and the whole idea that streamers and no-lifers are the only ones that get anything done is a laughable excuse generally used by players who can't accept that result X requires effort Y, be that knowledge, playtime or talent.

Okay, if you pretend to not understand what I was referring to, let's elaborate, even though this is deviation from RMT topic here.

"frustrating experience" does not apply to returning players who already know secrets of how-to-fit-enough-defenses. If you get through mapping once, you are fine, and probably a regular MTX buyer.

However when new player hits the endgame for the first time, and starts climbing past level 80 in maps with his home-brewed build, he hits difficulty wall + exp penalty + lack of information about how to fix this + lack of resources to fix this. At best, this player could have bought MTX while playing acts, and is now facing a choice to either stop there and abandon his investments, or spend a lot of time and effort trying to push through and join regulars.

Considering operational costs of project like PoE, combined with limited pool of target audience ("stubborn enough people"), I think GGG cannot afford to antagonize the most active regulars they have by taking active measures against RMT hubs, which is what I was trying to say above. Hadn't seen that many people with 40+ support badges on this forum.

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BearishHarbor58 wrote:

There's 21 mirrors available right now on pc trade hardly seems like the biggest problem. Improve and simplify crafting and let the very top end muck around with mirrors.

You missed the revelation that certain players hold onto 100s of mirrors and control the price of them by only putting a small amount on the market at a time.

I agree with Draegnarr though...the class of people that this problem really affects is an incredibly small subset of people who care. @Echo: you seem to think new players won't play the game and figure things out for themselves, and their ONLY recourse is interacting with trade or other mechanics controlled by TFT. But this is precisely the problem with your entire line of thinking: this isn't true.

Newer players will play the game: period. They aren't dealing with 3rd party software, they aren't building a major trade market, and they certainly aren't crafting high or even mid-tier items. It can take multiple leagues to even get a handle on the most basic mechanics of this game. Even longer with experimentation into endless amounts of builds. New players simply don't care if they hit an insurmountable wall: their gut reactions are going to be to restart and create a new build, or continue to mess around until they can finally overcome that barrier. That is the essence of actually playing the game. It takes a very very small, very very special subclass of player that immediately turns to a resource like tft to solve all their problems without actually playing the game.

@Echo: it is clear from your previous posts that you are projecting your own playstyle onto the mentality of a new player who just wants to play the game. There is zero need to know/care about TFT, price fixing, or anything for the vast majority of players. They aren't dealing in the items being fixed. I usually don't like to toot my own horn wherever possible....but I've been playing this game since the beta and I have yet to ever use Exilence, or Awakened Trade, or anything like that (beyond PoB). I use NO third party tools, and yet I have crafted mirror-tier gear in the past, I have beaten all that there is to beat in the game, and I have had zero perceivable issues come from price fixers. Did some things cost more or take longer because of price fixers I didn't know existed? I'm sure the answer is yes, but since I didn't know or didn't care it's like they never existed for me.

It is the incredibly loud minority that actually cares about this whole issue. It's a single player game. What others choose to do has almost no bearing on my gameplay, except if I end up at that super high-tier that less than 1% of all players ever reach, where the rmt and tft blocks have an effect. In fact, at all other levels of the game, they only serve to make everything else CHEAPER and more affordable for the average player.

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jsuslak313 wrote:

...
@Echo: you seem to think new players won't play the game and figure things out for themselves, and their ONLY recourse is interacting with trade or other mechanics controlled by TFT. But this is precisely the problem with your entire line of thinking: this isn't true.

Newer players will play the game: period. They aren't dealing with 3rd party software, they aren't building a major trade market, and they certainly aren't crafting high or even mid-tier items. It can take multiple leagues to even get a handle on the most basic mechanics of this game. Even longer with experimentation into endless amounts of builds. New players simply don't care if they hit an insurmountable wall: their gut reactions are going to be to restart and create a new build, or continue to mess around until they can finally overcome that barrier. That is the essence of actually playing the game. It takes a very very small, very very special subclass of player that immediately turns to a resource like tft to solve all their problems without actually playing the game.

True, and experience like this is pretty negative for the willingness to buy MTX, no? I never said PoE will get devoid of playerbase, only that discouraging people with things like exp penalty is counterproductive for the revenue.

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@Echo: it is clear from your entire argument and many of your posts that you are projecting your own playstyle onto the mentality of a new player who just wants to play the game. There is zero need to know/care about TFT, price fixing, or anything for the vast majority of players. They aren't dealing in the items being fixed. I usually don't like to toot my own horn wherever possible....but I've been playing this game since the beta and I have yet to ever use Exilence, or Awakened Trade, or anything like that (beyond PoB). I use NO third party tools, and yet I have crafted mirror-tier gear in the past, I have beaten all that there is to beat in the game, and I have had zero perceivable issues come from price fixers. Did some things cost more or take longer because of price fixers I didn't know existed? I'm sure the answer is yes, but since I didn't know or didn't care it's like they never existed for me.

It is the incredibly loud minority that actually cares about this whole issue. It's a single player game. What others choose to do has almost no bearing on my gameplay, except if I end up at that super high-tier that less than 1% of all players ever reach, where the rmt and tft blocks have an effect. In fact, at all other levels of the game, they only serve to make everything else CHEAPER and more affordable for the average player.

I also never used any 3rd party tools (including POB) to progress here, and yes, becoming a loud toxic minority was my own choice. Often I formulate phrases in very uncompromising way, which unfortunately triggers personal offenses. It was never my goal here.

I may be wrong in my opinions, and it is okay that majority of people here would disagree with me, and rather decisively at that

so your previous point about frustrations had absolutely nothing to do with this forum post then and you were talking about something completely different?

Your post offers that the frustrations and miserable experience is directly because of tft and rmt issues, because that's what this entire thread has been about. Hence Draegnarr's response, and then your attack...

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Echothesis wrote:

However when new player hits the endgame for the first time, and starts climbing past level 80 in maps with his home-brewed build, he hits difficulty wall + exp penalty + lack of information about how to fix this + lack of resources to fix this. At best, this player could have bought MTX while playing acts, and is now facing a choice to either stop there and abandon his investments, or spend a lot of time and effort trying to push through and join regulars.

Most players spend literally no time in that zone anymore, this is what the game was like if you played when Shaper was the boss of the atlas now there is so much information available you'd have to be actively trying to avoid it to not be handed a solution to your problems immediately so the question is how easy do you actually think it should be?

Games that are easy from start to end might be more appealing to the general populace but aspirational gameplay is extremely important to keep players going and that happens at all levels of play.

Now most players automatically think that means ubers, and it doesn't that lvl 80 period where you hit a wall is the noobs aspirational gameplay, some will quit because they don't actually enjoy adversity however to some players it is absolutely fucking key to keeping their interest over multiple leagues.

Basically I think you are guilty of taking a specific design choice, applying it to yourself, finding out it doesn't fit then assuming that is the case for everyone and it isn't. Its a choice, there isn't a right or wrong answer. For every customer they gain for making shit obvious they lose one who wants a game they can get stuck into properly.

As to antagonizing the regulars I agree they can't, but most of the regulars aren't into RMT and view TFT as a necessary evil they tolerate due to the function it provides. They are pretty hard to actually antagonize enough to leave, all you have to do is look at some of the massive changes we've had 3.13 onwards to see that. Also if they have 40 supporter badges you know for sure they were here before TFT and before many of the things you think would make them leave, they won't they love the game enough to rock all those badges.

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jsuslak313 wrote:

so your previous point about frustrations had absolutely nothing to do with this forum post then and you were talking about something completely different?

Your post offers that the frustrations and miserable experience is directly because of tft and rmt issues, because that's what this entire thread has been about. Hence Draegnarr's response, and then your attack...

That part was a bit offtopic, but I do believe that frustrations exist, and GGG isn't doing enough to fix design problems causing these frustrations. Now, RMT scale and demand is derivative of summary hardship a potential buyer has to endure, which may push him to resort to RMT for resolving his problems with the game.

Of course this correlation does not spread to all new players, a number of factors have to converge to risk RMT over other options, but it is still a problem worthy of solving. And I also believe GGG is lenient with solving it because they value their "influencers", who may have had a hand in organizing or advertising that (I can have an opinion here, right?)

The cornerstone of this misunderstanding seems to be me saying "with more casual players bound to have frustrating and miserable experience", which sounded uncompromising. I did not refer to all playerbase there, and have already elaborated it 2 times. If Draegnarr considers that elaboration an "attack", I am sorry.

Lastly about your argument of "RMT is tiny part of playerbase, why bother mentioning it", well this topic was about RMT, I have said what I think about RMT, and how RMT demand partially derives from what you have to do to progress in this game at all, with or without 3rd party software.

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Draegnarrr wrote:

Most players spend literally no time in that zone anymore, this is what the game was like if you played when Shaper was the boss of the atlas now there is so much information available you'd have to be actively trying to avoid it to not be handed a solution to your problems immediately so the question is how easy do you actually think it should be?

Games that are easy from start to end might be more appealing to the general populace but aspirational gameplay is extremely important to keep players going and that happens at all levels of play.

Now most players automatically think that means ubers, and it doesn't that lvl 80 period where you hit a wall is the noobs aspirational gameplay, some will quit because they don't actually enjoy adversity however to some players it is absolutely fucking key to keeping their interest over multiple leagues.

Basically I think you are guilty of taking a specific design choice, applying it to yourself, finding out it doesn't fit then assuming that is the case for everyone and it isn't. Its a choice, there isn't a right or wrong answer. For every customer they gain for making shit obvious they lose one who wants a game they can get stuck into properly.

As to antagonizing the regulars I agree they can't, but most of the regulars aren't into RMT and view TFT as a necessary evil they tolerate due to the function it provides. They are pretty hard to actually antagonize enough to leave, all you have to do is look at some of the massive changes we've had 3.13 onwards to see that. Also if they have 40 supporter badges you know for sure they were here before TFT and before many of the things you think would make them leave, they won't they love the game enough to rock all those badges.

If you are specifically asking/commenting about my personal preferences, then yes, I am "guilty" of trying to play this game the way I wished.

After discovering that it is impossible, I have suggested potential changes in forum, long time ago, with thought through long walls of text and without any negative emotions, like a lot of people do every day here.

Then I happened to experience interaction with some of GGG support, which shifted my opinion of them, and I realized where their priorities lie.

Since then, I am indeed guilty of excessively sarcastic posts here. Would you actively despise me for it? It is your right, but I don't carry disrespect for other players here, except for those who like to openly brag their skills ("gitgud" guys).