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

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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.

That's also what Cipsoft has done with Tibia the past 10-15 years.
They have a very small playerbase and they monetize their games almost exactly like GGG does with PoE, or rather, GGG monetizes PoE just like Cipsoft does with Tibia.

They also report on revenue and profits and I must say, because they were allowed to stay as lean as they want, Cipsoft has a very high profit per employee ratio and it's a very successful business.

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Snorkle_uk#0761 wrote:

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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.

you have yet to see someone who plays poe to chase items?


lol ok. sry i thought we were having a serious conversation, my bad.

No problem, I'm used to this when I'm interacting in the forums with the average user showing stacks of supporter packs.

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Snorkle_uk#0761 wrote:

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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.

why?


every game has to earn enough money to pay for its development. why would they not be open about their monetisation model considering its a complete fine, fairly ethical model in an industry full of really unethical arm bending, p2w and feature warping models openly being used?

It's not that there's anything wrong with it. It's that most people don't realize games make their money from casual players, and that making games more casual-friendly isn't necessarily a bad thing.

There's a misconception that making games more casual-friendly means coddling them, which isn't true. Teaching players harsh lessons, but then letting them learn from their mistakes to become stronger is a pretty broad-reaching way to appeal to casuals. The campaign does this very well. Endgame? Not so much.

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Gang5ter15#1071 wrote:

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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.

Tried the physical skills from monk and its annoying. Its good at bosses, but against hordes of enemies it sucks.
Made a post about them here: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3679540

Hehe, I gave your thread a bump the other day, actually. I'm really hoping GGG pays attention to the lesser-used skills like phys quarterstaff skills.

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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.

Well... it looks like the game will never be fixed then.

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Gwonam#5505 wrote:

It's not that there's anything wrong with it. It's that most people don't realize games make their money from casual players, and that making games more casual-friendly isn't necessarily a bad thing.

There's a misconception that making games more casual-friendly means coddling them, which isn't true. Teaching players harsh lessons, but then letting them learn from their mistakes to become stronger is a pretty broad-reaching way to appeal to casuals. The campaign does this very well. Endgame? Not so much.

fair


i think endgame has some major problems for sure.

the ports for bosses fix is a nice start and i really like the core mechanic of the atlas. but its very bare bones, what they were talking about guiding players more, having meaningful endgame questing not just complete 10 maps from the next tier, it really does need all that stuff and more.






i do wonder if ggg will regret releasing such an early and incomplete test version of the game without, imo, emphasising just how incomplete it would be at first? they kept saying it will have as much content as a full game, and maybe it does, but they were also saying we want it to be almost complete.

what is actually here seems like 1/3 of what the full game will be on launch, and nowhere did i hear them say come play our EA, at first itll be about 1/3 of the game in an early testing balance state. thats what it is but i never heard anyone say that and theres a lot of threads on forums and in comment sections that suggest theres a lot of players who think of this like the full finished game it seemed like ggg were selling?

thats where i wonder if they have made a decision thats pulled in some extra money now but might cost them players who give the game a shot, its not the experience it should be and dont come back.

+1. He's on point. Worth watching

Oh Dear GGG: Are you going to Listen? Dun dun dun.

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Signs of Any Change? Time will tell. Lol. GL to them.

This has to be stated clearly and with as few words as possible. Some people aren't getting the main point and get sidetracked arguing over the consequences and not the main reason.

Currently the endgame mechanics and whole endgame structure reward two things:
1. Huge AOE blasting.
2. One shotting (quickly melting) big single targets.

Why?
1. Look at breaches, delirium, ritual and pack size, speed, power of mobs in general.
2. Look at bosses one shotting players back, so if you don't melt the boss as quickly as possible you give them more time to one shot you.

What if you can't?
1. If you can't aoe blast hordes of enemies the following happens: Delirium\Breach ends prematurely not giving rewards, ritual rips you because they spawn on top of you along with a tornado or volatile plants.
2. The bosses one shot you eventually once you make a mistake.

What if you can?
1. You get rewarded by breaches and not even see the rippy ritual mechanics.
2. You minimize engagement with boss mechanics that can one shot you.

Why is this bad?
1. No matter what your build is, it absolutely MUST be good at AOE blasting and one shotting bosses. You may call it whatever, chronomancer hammer of the gods, chayula whatever, gemling stat stacker, comet combo - it can be called absolutely whatever you want. BUT it is essentially the SAME build - it does aoe blasting, it kills bosses quickly. IF it isn't - the game DOES NOT ACCOMODATE IT. So there's ONE VIABLE ENDGAME BUILD - the only thing that varies is its name and the color of the explosions you do. The playstyle is the same. (There's also minions to be fair but that's it).

3. Counter intuitive design. Glass cannon style of character should be fast, powerful but also RISKY. That's the definition of stacking damage in ANY GAME - you become less tanky the more you double down on damage. As it is, it's actually LESS risky to spec heavily into aoe blasting. You kill things super fast AND you die less often because you kill them so fast they can't even get an attack off. Actually building tanky is MORE RISKY - the enemies are super fast and powerful, and they have to be to pose even a semblance of a threat to the blasters. So the longer you let them live the more room they have to one shot you. So by trying to build something with an emphasis on survivability you actually DO THE OPPOSITE.

2. As these 'Meta builds' get refined, as people are able to jam more health and ES into blaster builds the devs are FORCED to add more and more FAST and UNFAIR one shots. So as time goes on it becomes harder to pivot. Your whole gameplay devolves into AOE one shotting the mobs from range VS them one shotting you if you have to hesistate to blast them for half a second. The powercreep is gonna be INSANE. Back in 2012 I've played poe 1 hardcore closed (I think) beta and when I quit some year(s) later it still wasn't as dumb as poe 2 is now, not nearly. The speed at which the game is getting 'solved' is INSANE. IF devs don't pivot the the NEXT BIG GAME PATCH, the meta WILL be unsalvageable unless you scrap the whole thing and start over. So what this means is that things will keep getting EVEN WORSE without anyone having any control over it.

Well that was my attempt at putting it as simply and briefly as possible. Maybe someone else can do it better but for now I'm sorry but if you struggle to comprehend the above eat a sugary snack or something idk

it's sad

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Azimuthus#1135 wrote:

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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.

Well... it looks like the game will never be fixed then.

Yep, thats why its important to leave such projects untill u see REAL changes.
Most online games work with same pattern, dont let them fool you. If the goal of GGG is to drop online to the ground > good luck them, im not gona be a part of it till i see real changes.

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brusin#1479 wrote:

it's sad

So to put it in even simpler terms:

It's not that the game has one or two or a dozen of overpowered builds. That'd be a minor easily fixable issue.

The game actually INCENTIVIZES one particular style of builds - AOE blasting and by doing that it punishes all the rest.
The game also has all these puzzle pieces to build something different - there's dots, tools for kiting, blocking damage, leeching, crowd control etc etc etc - even now in EA the game has variety.
But does the endgame structure accommodate all this variety? NO ABSOLUTELY NOT
And the devs' response - it's the power fantasy. I'm sorry but what about the power fantasy of let's say being super tanky? The power fantasy of dotting a huge horde of mobs and slowly watching them die while being out of their reach? Those are some popular rpg power fantasies btw. Nope... only our one power fantasy is cool.

I'm sorry but this feels like extremely amateurish game design. The whole 'power fantasy' argument is so weak I sometimes can't even believe that's what they actually opt to counter criticisms with...

so sad