Offline SSF. There is no good argument against it.

"

Dxt44 wrote:

"

Crimvaal wrote:

Hardly. That game is buy to play. They already made bank the moment you boot up offline mode.

Key words: long run.

It won't kill the game....I predict it will just make it so an expansion or a Last Epoch 2 will need to come sooner than the timeframe between PoE 1 and PoE 2. And that expansion will cost another $60.

And even then, if the cosmetics are popular, it might not make any difference to LE's bottom line. The real difference here is that LE is STARTING with an offline mode, whereas PoE has spent 12 years WITHOUT an offline mode. They are both operating on totally different design tables.

"

Dxt44 wrote:

"

Crimvaal wrote:

Hardly. That game is buy to play. They already made bank the moment you boot up offline mode.

Key words: long run.

That is what they have live service cycles (leagues) for. Nah, they are and will continue doing just fine.

problem is that they'd need to write the server side code from the scratch just to make sure that the cheats cannot affect online side of things

OP says there is no good argument against offline mode, but I'd quip that OP just doesn't know of any, or doesn't want to know.

PoE handles like 99% of calculations server-side, meaning they'd have to write a new client from scratch to support offline mode. This leads to a myriad of problems that OP chooses to be ignorant towards:

- opens the door for cheaters since the code can be analysed and threatens online play if exploits are found
- puts even more strain on the player's system
- would need to be split from online which increases time & investment into maintaining both

And for what gain? The ability to play on your Steamdeck that wasn't able to run PoE even before the change?

I'd rather they invest that money where it matters, which is developing new content and PoE2.

"

ValfaderTV wrote:

Here are a couple of great arguments against it:

- DRM. Always online prevents piracy to a much larger extent than offline games.
- GGG's main stream of revenue comes from the sale of MTX. By being offline you're not exposed to other players when logging in, which means you will not see their MTX and be tempted to buy some for yourself.
- Lack of social features means that player retention will rest solely on the game and its mechanics rather than community interaction.

In addition to these I would also say that you will be isolated from game updates that help fix bugs and unintended mechanics.

I'd be happy to hear what you're thinking about these arguments.

lol bro this game doesn't exist in any regard due to social features

"

Dxt44 wrote:

"

Crimvaal wrote:

Hardly. That game is buy to play. They already made bank the moment you boot up offline mode.

Key words: long run.

Well, everyone is killed by something in the long run. Nothing lasts forever. That’s okay.

"

GusTheCrocodile wrote:

Well, everyone is killed by something in the long run. Nothing lasts forever. That’s okay.

Disagree with this....I personally am immortal.

tell us your secrets

I think there's plenty of good reason not to do it from GGG's side of things even besides the best one making money.

Have you seen GGG's behavour when something isn't highly popular? Afterthoughts like STandard and Ruthless modes, PvP, racing etc.? Offline would serve only a subset of POE's target audience of terminally online gamers.

Still I think a solo mode would be cool just from a lag and rubberbanding standpoint. POE is dogshit above about 60ms ping which my rural internet pretty much constantly dips into and out of. I'm definitely aware of why they wont do it.

There's also the expense of converting the server code to run on the client PC (and security issues) along with a client that doubtlessly (and very obviously) is using every ounce of our PC's performance (seriously they keep trying to introduce some graphics changes that keep tanking performance for wide swaths of the playerbase). Something with how they want to "stream" and dynamically load shaders and assets keeps going to shit. This tells me they don't have the head room to run the server on the same machine.

"

Dxt44 wrote:

"

Crimvaal wrote:

Hardly. That game is buy to play. They already made bank the moment you boot up offline mode.

Key words: long run.

I mean I think LE is currently merely a good ARPG but I can't see any reasonable threat to their game long or short term by having offline mode. LE's done a ton of things very right and very strategically smart. The timing of 1.0 trailing off repeated failed D4 seasons, but before the next major POE thing. Positioning the game as deeper than "casual" but not as obtuse as POE. Learning a BUNCH of lessons POE still doesn't recognize as mistakes. I can't honestly see anything but success for that game if they do nothing but add fresh seasonal stuff a few times a year.

Here's a twist on the money argument angle:
The lack of an offline client and the continued deterioration of the game with every update are the major reasons that I stopped giving money to GGG.

I will reconsider the support question if they ever start moving in a positive direction again - judged from my very own subjective position on that matter. But not until they've shown several times over that they have started adding enjoymment to the game instead of removing it bit by bit.