Dear GGG: You NEED to watch this video! I cannot emphasize this enough! WATCH THIS!

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_rt_#4636 wrote:

We must be talking about different games, because I have yet to see someone who plays this game to chase items.

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Gang5ter15#1071 wrote:

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Gwonam#5505 wrote:

True, but at the same time, that's no reason for 90% of the game's skills and items to suffer while a few easy builds are leaps and bounds better than everything else. That makes for a boring game; PoE1's greatest strength is that it lets you make viable builds out of almost anything due to the sheer number of options and interesting interactions available. Which, of course, are possible due to over a decade's worth of updates and leagues. But it should still be something the devs keep in mind when tuning PoE2.

Believe it or not, relative balance actually does matter in an ARPG.

I mena there is quiet a bit of diversity in the game. Yes that some builds like Spark are so omnipresent because they are the easiest ot build and to play. Does not mean other not viable. I can name you 20 different viable builds that work.

From Bleed, Poison, Spark archmage, Tri element spark, ice monk, lightning monk, stat stacker, fire witch, minion witch, Dodge spark caster, Hammer of the gods chronomancer, Curse explosion build, Chaos Curse Chayula Monk, 100% Temporal Chains Build. Its all viable.

You have so many builds that you can play and you can beat maps and pinnacles with it.

It is a problem that some builds are so much better than others. And those have to be nerfed a bit, but thats a topic for later until we get a blance patch.

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_rt_#4636 wrote:

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Snorkle_uk#0761 wrote:

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_rt_#4636 wrote:

I also never quite understood why GGG makes their own lives so much harder. Just give everyone easy 6-links and balance out the game around that fact. Same for gear: why bloat the game with full-RNG-crafting and unidentified drops only to force yourself to balance another set of weights and numbers that will dictate each skill's power?

its an item hunt game, the primary goal is to have really rare, random and desirable loot, not to have a balanced game. in fact making loot and builds exciting can only really happen when there is the potential for things to become extremely unbalanced if you get a jackpot outcome.

We must be talking about different games, because I have yet to see someone who plays this game to chase items.

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Gwonam#5505 wrote:

This is probably by design, unfortunately. It's good for business, and good for addicts. Bad for everyone else. But hey, it's what makes money. I'll just copy and paste what I posted on that video here:

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These playerbase booms and busts are by design. I know this because GGG devs themselves admitted to such, back when I attended a media event for Ascendancy in 2015. This was also around the time when David Brevik was helping GGG bring PoE to China.

After sitting down to play the then-WIP Labyrinth, some other game journalists and I got to chat with Chris Wilson and the other devs. One of the questions that came up had to do with player retention in the long run, and how GGG planned to monetize their game in the future. Chris' response: PoE was modeled after MMOs, where the highest periods of player spending were at the start of major patch cycles. While we tend to think of sweaty whales as the big spenders, MMOs tend to earn most of their money when dolphins and minnows re-sub every season to try the new patch, play for a few weeks, then bounce until the next major patch rolls around. Path of Exile is no different. PoE rakes in the cash at League start, where casual players trudge through the campaign once again, make a few impulse purchases on MTX and supporter packs, then play maps for a week or two before leaving. The fact that they don't stick around hardly matters. What matters is that they bought supporter packs, and that's how GGG earns their cash.

So yeah. That was 10 years ago, but the fact that GGG hasn't deviated from the rollercoaster playerbase model means it either works for them or it's too comfortable for them to change (as in, their dev cycle is strictly structured around hooking players for a few weeks so they make impulse purchases). And they won't change it until they see a reason to change how they run their games.

Interesting to get confirmation. That's basically what I said in other posts regarding GGG's stance about this game's periodic cycle and their FOMO-driven strategy.

My only question is whether or not Tencent will allow them to maintain this with a smaller game, or they'll force them to grow their playerbase

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Suchka_777#4336 wrote:

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Gang5ter15#1071 wrote:

I mena there is quiet a bit of diversity in the game. Yes that some builds like Spark are so omnipresent because they are the easiest ot build and to play. Does not mean other not viable. I can name you 20 different viable builds that work.

But can you name one not 1-button build with clearing speed at least as good as 1-button builds like spark? If they all 1-button, they are basically the same build in terms of the gameplay.

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_rt_#4636 wrote:

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Snorkle_uk#0761 wrote:

its an item hunt game, the primary goal is to have really rare, random and desirable loot, not to have a balanced game. in fact making loot and builds exciting can only really happen when there is the potential for things to become extremely unbalanced if you get a jackpot outcome.

We must be talking about different games, because I have yet to see someone who plays this game to chase items.

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Gwonam#5505 wrote:

Oh, I'm well aware. I make my own offmeta builds nearly every season in PoE1. Here, I'm running a Monk with all of its trash physical skills (Wind Blast, Staggering Palm, etc.). I've beaten nearly every pinnacle with it and can run T16-18s just fine. It takes a lot more work than a meta build, though. My current hurdle? Mana costs. Even with mana regen and efficiency nodes, mana economy is just absurd in PoE2. But that's a discussion for another thread.

Anyway, balancing meta builds does matter in a game built around its trade system because those builds quickly dominate the market.

Also, I'm not sure if I'd consider stat stackers to be offmeta. HOWA is already a core Invoker item, and Pillar Monk/Gemling is already rising in popularity.

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Suchka_777#4336 wrote:

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DemonikPath#1311 wrote:

Actual retention in the past wasn't as bad as steam numbers would suggest

Even if only 10% of people used Steam at those years, it doesn't change retention what Steam numbers show, because there is no reasons to expect that people with Standalone client behaviored differently than players with Steam client.

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Gwonam#5505 wrote:

The devs being that frank with their monetization model shocked me at the time, though. It's a lesson I haven't forgotten, and it's one that I think is even more relevant in today's gaming market.

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Gang5ter15#1071 wrote:

Depends if you are at bosses or not. Outside Bosses most builds are just one button press. At bosses many builds need a lot more stuff.

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DemonikPath#1311 wrote:

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Suchka_777#4336 wrote:

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DemonikPath#1311 wrote:

Actual retention in the past wasn't as bad as steam numbers would suggest

Even if only 10% of people used Steam at those years, it doesn't change retention what Steam numbers show, because there is no reasons to expect that people with Standalone client behaviored differently than players with Steam client.

Wrong. In the past Steam client was terrible, so a lot of people who would stick switched from Steam to standalone. Meaning steam numbers would represent for the most part people who would try game and leave. People would complain about Steam after nearly every patch and others would recommend switching to standalone because it didn't have same problems.