The huge divide between "good" players and "normies"

one recent thread that popped up in this forum is suggesting to make campaign content harder. i am surprised to see a number of people supporting that thread, this highlights the biggest divide in POE community.

people who play efficiently vs people who dont.

there are many reasons of why people dont play efficiently whether because they are new, to do their own thing or whatever.

its logical to assume the ones who are vocally supportive of harder content.

to me i would say this simply alienates a HUGE amount of players.

i know that the player base is split between steam/standalone client but GGG did say the numbers are similar.

it would also be safe to assume most newer players are using steam client.

based on steam achievements we can see that

52% players actually killed brutus. (quite interesting no?)
47% actually killed merveil/finished act 1

this then tapers down all the way to

15% of players actually completing act 2
9% of players actually complete the eternal lab
7% actually reach level 90

the numbers above are all rounded up since the numbers are still large.

now we get further to the end game.

3.2% have cleared exarch/eater, thats 2 void stones
1.8% have actually cleared maven. for the 3rd/last void stones.

interestingly i am in that 1.8%. I cleared maven thanks to my insane legacy gear and i actually cleared her back in sanctum by myself. even that 1.8% in all honesty is not a very accurate number of how many players actually cleared maven as you could unlock the achievement by having someone carry you.

despite being in that 1.8% i identify as a weak player. each temp league i only do 1-2 million dps NON SIRUS. even in my std character i do 3-5 million dps NON SIRUS.

i've been playing this game for almost a decade but off and on. AN was the worst thing to happen to weak players. every league after the introduction of AN was an unpleasant leveling experience. this league gave me the WORST campaign experience i have ever experienced in my "1 decade" of playing. soul eater, cannot leech, prevent healing below 50%, regenerates, blocks attacks, cycling resistances.

i play slowly and normally take 3-5 days to get to mapping, my fastest is 2 days. one reason is i love killing EVERYTHING that is in my way. this league is the FIRST league i actually SKIPPED rares as they were just to difficult to kill. i barely scratch them.

i know that i do not represent most of the playerbase but i can say that i am a slice of how the player base could be.

i know there are many GOOD players in the forums/subreddit or even not participating with the community. i say GOOD with no sarcasm. but instead respect. i once threw a challenge clear tidal island boss, one with a ranged skill another with a STRIKE skill. one dude actually took the challenge and cleared the boss hitless under 7 seconds equal time for both. I AM FUCKING IMPRESSED. my experience with him while being ranged has him predicting my move and freezing me. while as melee, i get chilled/slowed/frozen a lot. its a VERY different experience.

this is also a very good example of how different experiences can be between "weaker" vs "stronger" players.

it is VERY easy to just say git gud. learn the game. adapt. etc. but i would also remind the good players, with good knowledge, experience and skill, it is easy to forget or even relate to the struggles of a weaker player.

its like telling a depressed person to "not be depressed" gee thanks i m no longer depressed now (just an example i m not depressed).

what is the purpose of this thread? i would like to highlight the differences of player experiences in this game that we love/hate. different groups of players have different experiences. i see a lot of good players kinda shitting on weaker players for being weak.

why does it have to be like that?

what do you guys have to lose for the game to be more "weak player friendly"?

weak players hate AN as it makes the game "too hard"

good players love AN as it makes the game more rewarding

one interesting note is that weak players can struggle to even get 1 million dps. its a struggle for them to improve. an AN mob can cost them a literal minute or two

on the opposite side a good player can afford to lose a few million dps when theyre doing a shit ton of dps, and it would only cost them a few extra seconds to kill the monster.

theres no reason to antagonize each other.

are we forgetting the purpose of a forum is to leave opinions? feedback and suggestions are for people to leave their feedback BASED ON THEIR EXPERIENCE.

if i hate something its my experience. you can disagree and say that you liked it but you dont need to antagonize me.

i see this happen a lot in this forum to me and to others.

not only this forum but many other places too.

but all that said and done, my biggest disappointment is not at the playerbase. it is towards GGG.

we are at this point because of how GGG tailored the game. GGG has been actively and constantly tailoring the game towards better players.

AN is still forced onto players. newer league content seems to almost always cater to the top percentile.

its ridiculous where the best "new league advice" is to avoid league content until later.

for sure beyond sucked ass with its double regen mods. but "back in the day", we had perandus and navali. paper thin content but they HELPED during the campaign.

i cant remember how many times navali helped me get a 5 link. perandus giving me some bro deals (never actually got big ticket items but he did help).

but its a good indicator of how GGG's direction is moving forward. they dont want to help newer players enjoy the game. they want newer players to git gud. adopt a build and play as efficiently as possible. if you refuse to adapt you will get an inferior experience and its the player's fault for not being good.

everything is never the players fault. AN could have been coded so that certain mods dont appear together, but no. GGG wants players to have a memorable experience. good players may find that mob taking longer to kill and perhaps dropping good loot. but to weaker players? fuck that mob. its a huge waste of time and could be especially dangerous/frustrating. it turns from being a challenge to being unnecessarily frustrating.

its really BS that we have the atlas tree for years and yet we still dont have a way to deactivate AN mods.

with GGG always catering to the top percentile, its not hard to see how the good players expect weak players to adapt.

POE is a game for the top percenters. everything new has the top percenters in mind.

that said. i just hope for more understanding from the good players.

as for the suggestion to make the campaign stronger. i am actually all FOR it, but with the caveat that its an OPT in. i am a huge proponent of player choice. that said i feel GGG really has a lot of room to give players more choices.

I was always vouching/ranting for more signature poe BS to become optional (not removed, mind you), and for more consideration of players not interested in sweating like a third real life work here to get at least moderate results.

All I hear is mostly gitgud. Ironic, how those people accuse me of wanting to change the game just for myself, while I spoke of options, and they were ones who thought only of their own hubris, and defended current elitist system, which was basically built for them by GGG.

Well the campaign really is too easy. I recently played for the first time since Heist, and I was constantly 8, 9 or even 10 levels above zone level because you get waaaaaay too much XP. And I didn't do any current league content while leveling, or I would have had even more. It makes all of it a complete joke. I think they could easily halve the XP gains in most campaign zones, and it would feel a lot better.

Yes and no. I think as a more knowledgeable and skilled player you should do better, but I agree the gap is way to huge and it seems like nothing gets done to improve the situation.

Using the steam achievement statistics on a f2p game is just fundamentally wrong to make any reasonable point whatsoever.

The thing is that most people consider themselves "good" players, especially when reading the forums and most replies to news posts there is quite an elitist behaviour among the playerbase. But honestly it's basically impossible if you're not living and breathing PoE to get past a surface level of knowledge.

And that's what's really the issue, the game is just so convoluted, it's hard to just play the game and enjoy yourself, to learn and grow as a player, because the game itself teaches you almost nothing, you also need to have to have open the wiki, trade site, build guide, PoB and whatnot on a different monitor.

Just think about it, how many mechanics did you figure out yourself and how much did you research on the Internet or have a guildy explain to you?

The main difference between weak/strong players is knowledge, the knowledge what you can do and when and what not. I just wish the game wouldn't outsource it so much.

Here's my take:

I would LOVE to see the loot explosions from the YouTube videos about "do level 7 map, spec into Abyss and get as many wisps as possible while having the +2 projectiles mod on your map".

Yes, I try. I really, really try.

Doesn't work.

Then I dig some more.

People talk about "spires" and whatever, but wtf are "spires"? I need to "let them grow"?

What? What is a "spire" and what does "let it grow" mean?

THAT is the issue here. So I'm back to heisting, in Crucible I got at least around 100 divines out of it so I could do all of the content with my WoC ignite build.

Its because GGG dont want to make actual challenging content. This game is incredible unpolished post 4 voidstones. Not only in content but also builds. There is a reason why everyone plays TS these days. If you have more than 2 Mirrors in currency to spent try to even find a build that scales with so much. Everything stops scaling at T16 map difficulty/Zone Level 83 which is just ridiculous. How long has this zone been the endgame now? This game is over 10 years old. There are players who play this game over 10 years. Of course the playerbase has gotten really good at playing this game. But what is there to do other than juice T16 maps harder and harder and harder or go back in Acts and complain about them being too easy? Unfortunately GGG is very stubborn to add real endgame. Chris said once he thinks it exhausts players too much or something. So they add Archnemesis mobs, make Acts harder, put Ruthless in. But honestly neither do i think new players want to play against Uber Uber Brutus and die 50 times nor do i think someone who plays this game for 10 years is excited to fight a slightly changed version of Brutus for the 5000th time. Whenever they add something like Mageblood or Void Maps you can really see the community getting excited, but it almost feels like accident when they add those things. They work 5 years on Acts in POE2 no sign of endgame. Sure it will be fun for a few weeks maybe months and then what? I always wonder does Jonathan wants to make a online game that lasts for 10 years or does he wants to make a singleplayer game that people play through once or twice and then throw away?

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exsea wrote:

based on steam achievements we can see that

52% players actually killed brutus. (quite interesting no?)
47% actually killed merveil/finished act 1

this then tapers down all the way to

15% of players actually completing act 2
9% of players actually complete the eternal lab
7% actually reach level 90

the numbers above are all rounded up since the numbers are still large.

now we get further to the end game.

3.2% have cleared exarch/eater, thats 2 void stones
1.8% have actually cleared maven. for the 3rd/last void stones.

Those numbers would be meaningful, if Steam removed accounts from those stats that havent played for a year or whatever. Thats not happening and so these stats do unfortunately include players who simply wanted to check out a free game, figured it wasnt for them and dropped out for whatever reason.

If you disregard those players and you´d arbitrarily set the bar for "real" players at completing at leat the campaign to even count in a meaningful way, then those numbers would shift dramatically.


Lets do some quick & dirty math:
Its quite normal for F2P games to lose about 80-90% of all players checking out the game. PoE is no exception and the above quoted stats show that.
If you assume that about 10% of all players manage to complete the campaign and can therefore be counted as the more serious players and then elevate those 10% to the only fraction of players that matter, then your argument falls apart.

Because if those 10% of players, the ones who are sticking around, were treated as the playerbase that actually matters, then the percentage of those having achieved certain milestones would look roughly as follows:

- 90% completing eternal lab
- 70% reaching lvl 90
- 32% killing Eater/Exarch
- 18% Killing Maven

Like I said: This is extremely quick & dirty math - almost guaranteed to be incorrect but still way closer to the truth than the Steam numbers.
Those numbers arent bad at all. 70% of the serious gamers reaching lvl90 means this is pretty much guaranteed.
Almost a third of those players getting 2 Voidstones is also pretty good.

Looks healthy enough to me and shows there is no huge divide between "good" players and "normies". It showns edngame content is fine as is and doesnt need to be tuned down.


Does this mean the campaign should be harder?
I dont think so. I wouldnt mind too much if the campaign was harder but then I can always play the Gauntlet events, if I need to scratch that itch. Thats just me tho.

What I personally dislike about this discussion is that a lot of players dont want to min/max their builds and still expect to be able to clear topend content. It doesnt matter which phrases their using to make their point, could be "casual" or "doing their own thing" or "normies" or whatever else - I dont care.
If you want to clear topend content you have to be a topend player or play a build thats capable of carrying you to glory.

Im mechanically not a great player, I know my shortcomings and I will never be able to compete the highest level, which is perfectly fine.
Ill just pick a build thats complementing my own flaws and shortcomings to overcome this hurdle. I dont like the idea that everyone should be able to do it no matter how or what they play.
Simply because it would ruin all sense of accomplishment and all reason to push for that those milestones if everyone could do it no matter what.

And yeah that means you cant just do whatever and expect everything to be handed to you, which would be the result, if there were no gear and/or skillchecks in place.

To quote Tora: Adapt or die, exile

They could EASILY adopt a system like almost every other RPG out there....have a difficulty setting for the campaign. If you want an extra challenge, select "veteran" campaign for monsters dealing 25-50% more damage with 25-50% more life.

Games don't have to create a one-size-fits-all, even fully online games. As long as the drop rates remain constant (per monster, mind you), you can always fold someone who chose the easier route into the larger pool of players (or vice versa).

Rather than split the playerbase into "Ruthless", "Standard", "League", blahblahblah.....just have their be a choice within the same league. At least up to a point: perhaps once you hit maps the difficulties merge.


All that being said, I disagree with the OPs assessment of "good" vs "normie". In modern PoE, it has become increasingly regular for players (including totally brand new players) to watch youtube videos or follow build guides on their first interaction with the game. This is completely backward from what the first few years of PoE looked like. And you can SEE it in the forum comments and the achievement levels of players based on their starting date with the game. The players most likely to complain about the difficulty and "lack of information" in this game are those players that most likely started playing in the last few years. This of course cannot be 100% attributed to newer players being unwilling to actually "play" the game themselves, but it certainly plays a larger and larger role in the forum complaintfests.

PoE gaming society, as a collective, seems to have forgotten how games work and how REAL learning can occur. Following a step-by-step guide that does all the thinking for you, or watching random youtube videos of players with YEARS of added experience and power gives a false sense of what SHOULD be possible on the first playthrough of the game. This game is and never has been designed to be a 3-month game....it is designed to be a long-term learning curve and infinitely replayable rpg that folks just seem to be unwilling to admit.

It's not a "gitgud" in the sense that people are calling others out for simply not having the skills or reflexes to succeed: it is more of a "gitgud" in the sense that....think for yourself! Let the game teach you what it teaches you at every turn. READ the skills and item descriptions. LEARN what the language means. You really don't need a guide, or a wiki, or a youtube video for 90% of the game mechanics.

Thank god they will never do that.

The bigger the gap the better.

Dam right.

The thing you want is literally in the game already. It's the difficulty gap between 2 mod tier 1 maps and 8 mod T16 Delirium maps.

The issue is not a lack of content for less good players, it's that most less good players have no idea which group they belong to. Not "some," not "many," MOST. Every single time GGG gives us a league with a selectable difficulty mechanic, half of the posts here immediately become a variation on "I MICROWAVED MY BURRITO TOO LONG AND NOW IT'S BURNING MY MOUTH, PLEASE NERF MY MICROWAVE!"

I have long since lost track of how many times I've seen someone complaining about "OP ONESHOTS" and then you look at their build and they have under 130% tree life and an Abyssus equipped. And you can't even reason with these people 99% of the time, because they've convinced themselves that they know things because they watched half of a Zizaran video once. I have literally had more than one person argue with me when I pointed out that he/she was using an Atziri flask on a Brutality build.

I hope you know I'm not talking about the OP at all when I say this, because I'm definitely not, but this community has a plague of unwarranted clueless arrogance. And it's that arrogance which leads to the passive aggressive pushback OP is talking about vis a vis, "Git Gud." Arrogance is the difference between "I can't beat Shaper, what am I doing wrong?" and "Shaper is the worst designed boss in THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE." I've literally never seen anyone ask for tips and not get page after page of genuinely good advice, cheap build tweaks to add life or damage, and so on.