GGG think carefully about your audience.

"

That experience is already at the endgame sorry. I've experienced both ends of the drop rng and it is absolutely infuriating. If this was EA where they were going to make changes, I'd have moved on after my first character was stuck in level 5-7 blues and whites at level 15 without enough currency to trade for anything. My second character however was blessed with a unique, multiple useful rares and plenty of currency by 15. Interestingly, since the loot change neither character has seen a useful rare. I do focus on the beginning experiences since the devs have stated that if a player makes it to end game the player stays, so making sure the beginning game is smooth and not a frustration is important. This does not mean making it zoom zoom, or lacking challenge however.

But herein lies the problem. I rolled a warrior last night just to test gear drops out. I got a rare hammer, rare shield and the rest I have are blue magic items. I’ve upgrade using the mats that have dropped, and I was smoking the mobs and named mini bosses.

Rust king was basically, roll, earthquake, roll earthquake, stun, bone shatter rinse and repeat. It was freaking simple.

Now I’m not saying I didn’t have fun while doing it, but I believe GGG needs to find the balance of not making it to easy.

That’s where in IMHO the monsters should scale based on your total item level.

"

Turddog#8292 wrote:

POE2 is a different vision and they took a lot of lessons learned from POE1. They have a vision and are executing it and to deny that they don’t know what they are doing and just need to listen to existing POE1 playerbase is foolish.

POE1 was a niche game. Their vision is to reach a much broader audience with POE2 in which so far have been successful in doing.

If the direction of the game was left up to the POE1 players and what they want, you wouldn’t see half of the success as they have seen just with an EA beta.

What sucess? Hype you mean? The game isnt a week old and at least 30% of the playerbase already left, 2 more weeks and you will have less than half of that, and that´s a new game with lots of hype around it and shiny new graphics (at least the sound and art direction did an amazing job), the game is in a really bad state right now, some systems do not work in this type of game and the balance is atrocious, be it the trials, constant one shots out of nowhere with basically no way to counterplay etc.

Btw im lvl 87 and doing tier 15 maps, so i know what im talking about.

"

MakaveliPT#7753 wrote:

"

Turddog#8292 wrote:

POE2 is a different vision and they took a lot of lessons learned from POE1. They have a vision and are executing it and to deny that they don’t know what they are doing and just need to listen to existing POE1 playerbase is foolish.

POE1 was a niche game. Their vision is to reach a much broader audience with POE2 in which so far have been successful in doing.

If the direction of the game was left up to the POE1 players and what they want, you wouldn’t see half of the success as they have seen just with an EA beta.

What sucess? Hype you mean? The game isnt a week old and at least 30% of the playerbase already left, 2 more weeks and you will have less than half of that, and that´s a new game with lots of hype around it and shiny new graphics (at least the sound and art direction did an amazing job), the game is in a really bad state right now, some systems do not work in this type of game and the balance is atrocious, be it the trials, constant one shots out of nowhere with basically no way to counterplay etc.

Btw im lvl 87 and doing tier 15 maps, so i know what im talking about.

What? You don't like dying once to a one shot and not only losing hours of exp but everything related to your node on the atlas and having to start over again? (this is sarcasm, please fix endgame)

"

What sucess? Hype you mean? The game isnt a week old and at least 30% of the playerbase already left, 2 more weeks and you will have less than half of that, and that´s a new game with lots of hype around it and shiny new graphics (at least the sound and art direction did an amazing job), the game is in a really bad state right now, some systems do not work in this type of game and the balance is atrocious, be it the trials, constant one shots out of nowhere with basically no way to counterplay etc.

Btw im lvl 87 and doing tier 15 maps, so i know what im talking about.

No, you don’t know what you are talking about. You are only projecting an emotional opinion. Not trying to be rude here.

A lot of people are playing the game slowly. A lot of players might only be able to play 2 hrs the most each night.

With no data to back up your claims of “who is dropping” from the game can only be left up to assumptions.

Let’s conduct the exercise…”I assume the drop of players are those who don’t like challenging games and maybe even those people who already put over 70 hrs into the game and are burned out.

While the rest of the large player base is still taking it slow and steady.”

That is my assumption exercise.

"

Turddog#8292 wrote:

"

What sucess? Hype you mean? The game isnt a week old and at least 30% of the playerbase already left, 2 more weeks and you will have less than half of that, and that´s a new game with lots of hype around it and shiny new graphics (at least the sound and art direction did an amazing job), the game is in a really bad state right now, some systems do not work in this type of game and the balance is atrocious, be it the trials, constant one shots out of nowhere with basically no way to counterplay etc.

Btw im lvl 87 and doing tier 15 maps, so i know what im talking about.

No, you don’t know what you are talking about. You are only projecting an emotional opinion. Not trying to be rude here.

A lot of people are playing the game slowly. A lot of players might only be able to play 2 hrs the most each night.

With no data to back up your claims of “who is dropping” from the game can only be left up to assumptions.

Let’s conduct the exercise…”I assume the drop of players are those who don’t like challenging games and maybe even those people who already put over 70 hrs into the game and are burned out.

While the rest of the large player base is still taking it slow and steady.”

That is my assumption exercise.

The thing is, just because we experienced it faster doesn't mean the slower players won't hit these issues. We've seen all the content slower players are enjoying still, slower players have not hit the endgame wall, but want to try to dictate what endgame should feel like based on absolutely nothing. If you spent your 2 hours a week or night and not only did not progress but lost hours of progress, would you enjoy that?

"

Turddog#8292 wrote:

I never said player feed back isn’t warranted, but you have to be careful upon listening to it because you can move the game in the wrong direction if you are making adjustment based on bad data.

I agree. But you don't have the data, neither do I. What I can say is player stats at launch on Steam DB are basically double Settlers league launch. It is not therefore far fetched to assume that roughly a third (if you add in console) of the current POE 2 playerbase are POE1 players. Their opinion and future engagement matters too (pointing out the obvious here).

Now, that doesn't mean all of them don't like the game in its current state, neither do we know whether all or a majority of the newcomers like it. We just don't know. With a few more weeks player retention will be a good indicator I think, and the launch of a new "early access league" (say a new class) will also be a good indicator. And in the end that's the metric that really matters and will validate or not the approach GGG takes (and the possible adjustment one way or another along the way).

"

Turddog#8292 wrote:

How can you deny the success of what the current vision is?

Very easily. Not enough data to conclude at this point.

"

Turddog#8292 wrote:

Did you even listen to Jonathan explain how they were not expecting the amount of EA supporter packs being sold that surpassed their expectations? It’s because their VISION is connecting with a lot of people.

Fact is POE2 is offering a lot of what people want, which is solid gameplay, CHALLENGING bosses and mobs, a good story etc…

You really like this "vision" thing don't you ? :) What you mean to say is the messaging and marketing had an impact on the early access key sales. That's true.
1- That does not translate into long-term success, see above
2- That does not mean I have to like the game the way it is. Sucks for me I guess
3- Even if I'm in the extreme minority, that does not mean the new formula makes sense business-wise, if the new crowd behaves and transacts with the MTX shop in a way that doesn't generate enough revenue (ie they treat the game as a one time thing basically, which is my opinion)

So a lot of unknowns at this point. You don't have the data to prove I'm wrong in thinking that the game is currently too tedious, not fun, and will not retain its playerbase. I might be wrong, but that's my feedback, GGG can take it and do with it as they please, and they have more data anyway.

So just make your opinion known, preferably in a respectful and non insulting manner, and suffer us old cranks also voicing our feedback. It's the whole point of this early access and of this forum.

"

The thing is, just because we experienced it faster doesn't mean the slower players won't hit these issues. We've seen all the content slower players are enjoying still, slower players have not hit the endgame wall, but want to try to dictate what endgame should feel like based on absolutely nothing. If you spent your 2 hours a week or night and not only did not progress but lost hours of progress, would you enjoy that?

I don’t disagree that you have experienced the end game before a lot of other players and no we are not trying to dictate end game right now.

What I am saying is there isn’t enough data to make a decision right now.

Similar to the beginning of the game, you had this handful of people complaining about how hard the game is and you have another group who is enjoying the challenge.

It’s different experiences for different people based on skill, classes played, and if you are a fan of more challenging content.

Again, knee jerk reactions shouldn’t happen until there is better data out there. Collecting data from a few vocal people on the forums and making a change based on that would be a terrible mistake.

literally week 2 of ea and there has been 3 patches(?)

"

MakaveliPT#7753 wrote:

What sucess? Hype you mean? The game isnt a week old and at least 30% of the playerbase already left, 2 more weeks and you will have less than half of that, and that´s a new game with lots of hype around it and shiny new graphics (at least the sound and art direction did an amazing job), the game is in a really bad state right now, some systems do not work in this type of game and the balance is atrocious, be it the trials, constant one shots out of nowhere with basically no way to counterplay etc.

Btw im lvl 87 and doing tier 15 maps, so i know what im talking about.

The game is 0 weeks old, don't you know what beta means? The player loss is natural, the hype skyrocketed after that last stream, but it is an early beta after all, no matter how much content it has. You're also ignoring the fact a portion of players with spare keys may give them to people who simply didn't like the game and already quit. You're also ignoring that some people have other shit to do, other games to play, and will not dedicate their entire free time to beta testing.

Also, your appeal to authority there shows the problem is not the game, it's you.

Not saying the beta is without flaws and there are no legitimate complains, but you need to at least try to explain why the beta is in bad state, why the balance attrocious, etc

"

just_dont#6539 wrote:

"Stick with dwindling PoE1 audience and don't even think about anyone else!" (c) topicstarter.

Wouldn't call the POE1 audience dwindling. the last few leagues have been poe1s most popular in terms of player count and retention. (necros doesn't count). If anything poe1 is more popular now than ever.