Checking in on PoE: What happened to Exalts???

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Orbaal wrote:

Why do you always argue from a negative standpoint without knowing or understanding what really happened?
This might make sense in your head but you are deadwrong - again.

Because arguing from a positive standpoint is unnecessary by definition of "argument" :) There are already more than enough people here spamming Niiiice, POGGERS after each news post. PoE has a number of things done very good, I fully acknowledge that, and my only concern are things done not very good (from my opinion).

As for "what really happened", I have heard that at the time, Standard was even created based on no other need than a need of somewhere to dump all these league characters and stashes. Not because GGG were interested in developing a permanent progression gameplay.

And ever since coming here, all patch notes I've read were directed at league and other temporary content first and foremost. While in Standard, you'd just consider yourself lucky if you weren't screwed this time, and can just keep playing without cleaning smoking ruins or your characters first. If you think all this is wrong, feel free to elaborate.

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Echothesis wrote:

As for "what really happened", I have heard that at the time, Standard was even created based on no other need than a need of somewhere to dump all these league characters and stashes. Not because GGG were interested in developing a permanent progression gameplay.

Good start, but the final sentence is wrong.

What you need to understand is that when this game went live, there was nothing and I mean nothing. If I had to guess, back then we might have had about 5% of the content we do have now - for better or worse.

GGG figured that they need to add more content and a good way to iteratively add new stuff would be temporary leagues, which also offered the functionality of a beta-test, if you will.
Which in turn allowed GGG to churn out content on a low budget, with a tiny staff while also generating the hype of new leagues providing new stuff and the opportunity to sell supporter packs. This is all about business and nothing else.

However, leagues would inevitably end and GGG had the choice between deleting all progress made in any given league or dumping it somewhere. This is what standard league is and always was meant to be.
Its not to put down players or anything, its a smart business decision and can be done on a tiny budget, which allows full focus on leagues, which is where the money is at. Again: Business.
There never was any malice involved, thats just happening in your head.


Now, the counter argument you are going to make is: GGG should be taking better care of standard, because now they do clearly have a bigger staff and could pull it off - so why dont they?

They could do it for sure, if they wanted.
This would require them to destroy ALL legacy items and mirrored items (granting standard players at least 10x the powerlevel of leagueplayers) in the process. This needs to be done, if you really wanted standard to be anything else than an item graveyard.
The tiny change - by comparison - GGG made when they switched exalt and divs should give you an idea what the outcome would be, if they destroyed legacy/mirror items. Standard would literally be on fire.


This is the result of decision made some 10 years ago in order to find the best and cheapest solution to a problem their business model created.
Changing this now is not going to end well, so they dont touch it.
Might be disappointing for you but tis also a smart business decision.

What you want, a permanent and never changing environment, is the exact antithesis (pun intended) of what GGG is trying to accomplish.
This means they dont need nor want to cater to your wants and needs, it also means you are in the wrong place.
Its like going to a pizza joint and demanding Thai food. This is simply not how it works.

This is the price you have to pay for an ever evolving game.
If you dont like it, dont play games like this and play finished products instead, which will never be touched after release and simply remain in a maintenance zombie mode for the rest of their shelf life.
Thats the 2 options available. Both have their ups and downs.

Pick your poison and deal with it.

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Orbaal wrote:

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However, leagues would inevitably end and GGG had the choice between deleting all progress made in any given league or dumping it somewhere. This is what standard league is and always was meant to be.
Its not to put down players or anything, its a smart business decision and can be done on a tiny budget, which allows full focus on leagues, which is where the money is at. Again: Business.
There never was any malice involved, thats just happening in your head.
...

Lol I am aware there is no inherent malice on their end, as well as about their initial budget limitations. But by now this model of business itself contains elements of malice by how they still disregard anything but their main cash generator part of the game.

Not only standard balance, but league balance too (every race event consists of next Y best OP builds after first X best OP builds were banned by event rules :)), numerous QoL requests (UI and loot pickup), exp penalty requests, feedback requests (floating damage and death log), etc.

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This would require them to destroy ALL legacy items and mirrored items (granting standard players at least 10x the powerlevel of leagueplayers) in the process. This needs to be done, if you really wanted standard to be anything else than an item graveyard.

There are other options you don't consider because you are not interested in the matter in general. By now, item balance became more or less streamlined, for both rares and uniques. It is unlikely we'll see such crazy differences between current and legacy gear as it was with legacy items from few years ago. Which means opening new permanent league without any legacy items would work too, and can also be a chance to fix long-standing issues like exp penalty inside this league.

if GGG is willing to do things like permanent div-ex swap in its most crude execution with regards to standard players currency, opening another permanent league isn't too far off.

Also, you can stop repeating how GGG does not have to cater to my needs :) From that perspective, this forum could have been closed long time ago, because they aren't interested in 99% people's opinions, not just mine. Keeping posting here has no less and no more sense than playing videogames at all - it is just pixels in the end.

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Orbaal wrote:

This would require them to destroy ALL legacy items and mirrored items (granting standard players at least 10x the powerlevel of leagueplayers) in the process. This needs to be done, if you really wanted standard to be anything else than an item graveyard.
The tiny change - by comparison - GGG made when they switched exalt and divs should give you an idea what the outcome would be, if they destroyed legacy/mirror items. Standard would literally be on fire.

This. Standard would need a wipe to be considered for any form of balance and/or developement in the first place.

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Echothesis wrote:

Which means opening new permanent league without any legacy items would work too, and can also be a chance to fix long-standing issues like exp penalty inside this league.

Can you elaborate on this, how adding new standard would fix exalt-divine flip for old standard? or adding god-mode would be a fix? would it be extra payed version of the game to be profitable for GGG?

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Mendujo wrote:

Can you elaborate on this, how adding new standard would fix exalt-divine flip for old standard? or adding god-mode would be a fix? would it be extra payed version of the game to be profitable for GGG?

Same way as it did for temporary leagues: by clean start. Problem is not the swap by itself, problem is not giving exalt hoarders any chance to save their investments, which are more than just pixels this time - it was a symbol of time and effort dedicated to PoE. And now it become a noob and a loser brand.

About amount of players willing to come to league like this, I cannot know for certain of course, but saw many people on this forum with similar pov to mine. From technical point of view, this new league won't induce additional maintenance cost. My guess is that league is just a flag in the character data, and if it is functionally identical to Standard, no great effort is required.

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Echothesis wrote:

But by now this model of business itself contains elements of malice by how they still disregard anything but their main cash generator part of the game.

Its called a cost-benefit analysis - not elements of malice.

Ofc they are disregarding anything thats not benefitting them, as they should.
Id love to see you running a business and catering to every single snowflake request. Wonder how long that business would last.

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Orbaal wrote:

Its called a cost-benefit analysis - not elements of malice.

Ofc they are disregarding anything thats not benefitting them, as they should.
Id love to see you running a business and catering to every single snowflake request. Wonder how long that business would last.

Don't be surprised, but I actually answer our players complaints in our info hub, and investigate their reports. And consider feedback from both casual and hardcore arpg players when it comes to making decisions. We are a small "business" of course, but not quite dead yet.

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Echothesis wrote:

Same way as it did for temporary leagues: by clean start.

I guess you don't want SSF, because you want trade? How often do you want clear start in perma league? Every time they would need to add now extra perma league - how many we would end up with after a year or two? Where would all toons from current temp leagues go? to old old standard? to old new standard? or maybe newest standard? This seems like a lot of cost for little to no benefits. Fresh start is in every temp league.

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Echothesis wrote:

Problem is not the swap by itself, problem is not giving exalt hoarders any chance to save their investments, which are more than just pixels this time - it was a symbol of time and effort dedicated to PoE. And now it become a noob and a loser brand.

Everyone had equal chances - and they have same amount of exalts as before, they are just perceived as less by people. When Aura Stacking was nerfed, those poor souls that had expensive, multimirror gear lost way more, should they also be compensated by GGG for game balance changes? Same goes with all other nerfed builds. Change is part of life, not only in video games (and no, pixels don't even come close to real life money).

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Echothesis wrote:

About amount of players willing to come to league like this, I cannot know for certain of course, but saw many people on this forum with similar pov to mine. From technical point of view, this new league won't induce additional maintenance cost. My guess is that league is just a flag in the character data, and if it is functionally identical to Standard, no great effort is required.

oh it will require a separate database, changing whole way of importing temp leagues to standard as there will be more standard leagues now (and there were issues with it before already), also, it will make a question of how often new standard leagues should be released, because for sure someone that will start year from now will want a "fresh perma league to start in". What with items that will become legacies, should they be allowed to be taken into new perma league after temp league ends? PoE have temp leagues for fresh starts

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Echothesis wrote:

Don't be surprised, but I actually answer our players complaints in our info hub, and investigate their reports. And consider feedback from both casual and hardcore arpg players when it comes to making decisions. We are a small "business" of course, but not quite dead yet.

Thats corporate speech for: You wont act on feedback for various reasons and simply opt to pacify the crowd with a few words costing you nothing instead.
Great, if it works out for you and the business.

Id rather not have to read BS like that. Id prefer a cold Yes/No or nothing at
all over corporate sweet talk.

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Orbaal wrote:

Thats corporate speech for: You wont act on feedback for various reasons and simply opt to pacify the crowd with a few words costing you nothing instead.
Great, if it works out for you and the business.

Id rather not have to read BS like that. Id prefer a cold Yes/No or nothing at
all over corporate sweet talk.

Which is exactly why you still cannot understand me after so many posts. We are not corporate and don't answer to one. And do not want to be one. In our internal discussions, PoE is mostly used as the most negative polar example of how we should not design, because GGG is focused way too heavily on one group of players and can barely control what is happening in their game.

If you get your revenue, and have some spare time, there is nothing wrong in making some QoL improvements even if they are not related to revenue generation in any way. This is a concept long lost to GGG after they become corporate themselves.

Sorry I cannot provide any more cold answer than this.