I've got a theory -- GGG is trying to get rid of most of us.

"

innervation wrote:

What CAN'T a non-streamer, non-racer player do today that they used to be able to do?

JoeUtopia had a good answer. I will add my opinion.

They used to be able to craft their own good items (3.14) instead of playing a trade simulator (3.16 and later).

They used to be able to make different skills work by crafting their own progression gear, compared to just buying different trees in 3.21. (Explody totems being powerful is not a fun shift being able to make many different skills work).

maybe ggg wants to get rid of most players for whatever reason, but tencent sure doesn't want that. they want money, lots of it.

and game development is mostly fixed costs. spinning up some extra servers for more people is much less costly and also trivial to do in times of cloud computing where you just buy resources and not necessarily physical hardware hosting. spread these millions of dollars it costs to make a league over more players just makes sense. the economies of scale are just very much in favor of this.

The numbers clearly don't show all these "leaving players" actually stop playing the game. All the community has done with the whining is stop the dev's engaging with the commmunity, and why would you?

"

trixxar wrote:

"

innervation wrote:

What CAN'T a non-streamer, non-racer player do today that they used to be able to do?

JoeUtopia had a good answer. I will add my opinion.

They used to be able to craft their own good items (3.14) instead of playing a trade simulator (3.16 and later).

They used to be able to make different skills work by crafting their own progression gear, compared to just buying different trees in 3.21. (Explody totems being powerful is not a fun shift being able to make many different skills work).

Is it a good answer? The answer was 'harvest'. The thing that the game has never been about before or since - which to me makes that answer disingenuous. That was an experiment for one league, then the experiment ended. I can appreciate that people liked that level of ease and power, but that's not coming back in this game. Last Epoch absolutely has that feel though if that's what you're into.

I'd also disagree that you can't craft your own gear now. https://poe.ninja/challenge/builds/char/Huskies/CruWucibwle?i=0&search=class%3DInquisitor%26skill%3DVaal-Flameblast

This is one of the friends I play with who always tries to craft his own gear, this league I know he crafted the chest, gloves, and weapon (including crucible skill tree), so to me its a meme that you can't craft good things. You don't know how. That's ok. Or you do know how but feel like farming and trading is a more fun experience than crafting (that's me too btw!).

So yeah, I think you're both off-base here.

"

innervation wrote:

so to me its a meme that you can't craft good things. You don't know how. That's ok. Or you do know how but feel like farming and trading is a more fun experience than crafting (that's me too btw!).

This feels a little disingenuous, but perhaps its not.

I know of almost no one who enjoys trade. And the vast majority (that I am aware of, or talk to on the forums) would enjoy crafting or finding their gear rather than trade.

However, its many times more efficient from a time/resources standpoint than self crafting.

Enabling self crafting or finding gear to be competitive with trade would require significant changes, but does not fundamentally need to increase power. If Harvest made gear account bound, there would be little impact on top end power as crazy items were made with the combined resources of hundreds of players on TFT.


Anyway, saying other people don't know how to craft or like the horrible trade system we have is pretty dishonest when GGG nuked the best self crafting options from orbit, and then funnels players straight to their 1990s trade system.

You can disagree with me, sure, but do you really believe what we have now is actually the best possible mix of options for crafting/finding/trading, if the goal is game satisfaction and fun?

"

innervation wrote:

"

trixxar wrote:

"

innervation wrote:

What CAN'T a non-streamer, non-racer player do today that they used to be able to do?

JoeUtopia had a good answer. I will add my opinion.

They used to be able to craft their own good items (3.14) instead of playing a trade simulator (3.16 and later).

They used to be able to make different skills work by crafting their own progression gear, compared to just buying different trees in 3.21. (Explody totems being powerful is not a fun shift being able to make many different skills work).

Is it a good answer? The answer was 'harvest'. The thing that the game has never been about before or since - which to me makes that answer disingenuous. That was an experiment for one league, then the experiment ended. I can appreciate that people liked that level of ease and power, but that's not coming back in this game. Last Epoch absolutely has that feel though if that's what you're into.

I'd also disagree that you can't craft your own gear now. https://poe.ninja/challenge/builds/char/Huskies/CruWucibwle?i=0&search=class%3DInquisitor%26skill%3DVaal-Flameblast

This is one of the friends I play with who always tries to craft his own gear, this league I know he crafted the chest, gloves, and weapon (including crucible skill tree), so to me its a meme that you can't craft good things. You don't know how. That's ok. Or you do know how but feel like farming and trading is a more fun experience than crafting (that's me too btw!).

So yeah, I think you're both off-base here.

You are being a bit disingenuous with this. Harvest league and the redo of Harvest two leagues later prove that GGG evaluated and came back with a different, modified solution. I formally believe that GGG NEVER considered the effect of tarading gear/crafts to the point it became. As a player who wants to create my own stuff, based on my playing only, harvest wasn’t a problem.

And I never said I cannot craft, I think the fact that dropped items in an ARPG are used for anything (mostly) except a crafting base misses the point of the genre. This game is too dependent on crafting and therefore by extension - trading.

You can like the system and think it is fine, but don’t pee in my Cheerios because I disagree based on my likes and playing.

"

Harvest league and the redo of Harvest two leagues later prove that GGG evaluated and came back with a different, modified solution.

It's been 8 leagues and 2.5 years since Ritual; it clearly wasn't part of the vision.

Speaking of the vision and getting back on track, what is the evidence that the game is being made for streamers again? The game, not the league launch queues that is.

"

I know of almost no one who enjoys trade.

Between your two posts it sounds like no one enjoys trade and no one enjoys crafting. How are we to understand this when paired alongside the numbers these leagues keep pulling - especially in the context of this thread? Most players are not streamers or racers obviously. Yet here we are with a lot of players trading and crafting.

One doesn't have to think the current system is ideal to believe that common criticisms of the game are exaggerated, or ignorant of the fact that 'solutions' are likely to cause more problems than what we started with. It's like the KMQ thread. I think Crucible is a bottom 5 league they've ever done, but agree with what I think is the point of the thread. There is tons of criticism flying in that has really bizarre premises and/or conclusions.

"

innervation wrote:

Between your two posts it sounds like no one enjoys trade and no one enjoys crafting.

People enjoyed crafting. It was massively nerfed because of TFT (Chris Wilson said directly in the nerf post), not because of individual users. The nerf, regardless, hit individual users the hardest.

What EXACTLY is hard to understand here Innervation? That's a genuine question.

What do you not understand about that?

"

innervation wrote:

One doesn't have to think the current system is ideal to believe that common criticisms of the game are exaggerated,

No, but if the system is not ideal then there is room for improvement.

Why are you arguing against those suggesting changes instead of proposing changes you think would be ideal?

If you fundamentally agree there is room for improvement, but argue against any and all criticism, how you are not whiteknighting for the game?

Disagree with the proposal, suggest your own improvements, point out why the suggestions are bad and propose a better way.

But you wont, and we both know why.

"

ZenJelly wrote:

Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. See you next league.

weird take. I've skipped sanctum and it's likely I'll also skip this league.

I don't even give a damn about league mechanics, as I rarely interact with the league mechanics in challenge leagues. Kalandra is the league I've played the most with one 100 and one 99 despite having one of the worst league mechanics of all time. I will simply not play the game until they stop making shortsighted changes (looking at saboteur changes this league) and balance the game properly.

oh no!

..but we hit player records each league hmmm.