Why is GGG caving in to casuals' demands?

OP has no chara over Level 60, I recommend to first try the endgame before judging over the difficulty ;)
Play selffound/solo and try to get your chara over Level 80, then come again. Even in Standard league this is pure hardcore imho and even more so in hardcore leagues.
In opposition I have more the feeling that GGG listens more to hardcore gamers that want the game even more hard/unfair. Yelling about the need of nerfing this, nerfing that, 'Cast when damage taken' is soo OP... blah blah blah...
Of course, the most people that think PoE is to easy do play in groups and simply buy their gear. ;) Sure, with expencive OP gear PoE may be easy but that does not cout for the normal players.

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Robert_Paulson wrote:

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mushioov wrote:

Why is GGG caving in to please the flimsy casuals who we all know will abandon this game the instant their instant-gratification meter is full?

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mushioov wrote:

I had over 6 months break from this game

Indeed.
GGG should be balancing their game around those that don't play it.

Spread the gospel.

I fail to see why this thread continued after the above.

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geniusbean wrote:

cba to make a list, but a lot of mobs have been nerfed since release

ie Caliga, devourers, etc among many other mobs have been made faceroll easy due to whiners on the forums

many things they do don't make it into the patch notes by the way

QFT

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Fusion_Power wrote:

Play selffound/solo and try to get your chara over Level 80, then come again. Even in Standard league this is pure hardcore imho and even more so in hardcore leagues.

That's easy once you did it at least one time and know what to expect about difficulty
(how hard bosses hit et al).

Level 80 is achieved by farming Piety.
I know because I'm solo self-found in nemesis.

Did my first ever Shipyard (w00t!) yesterday.

Well, all I can say the only hard pieces in the game are
a) devourers
b) some map bosses.

Bazaar "bosses" are like the biggest joke in the game.

As for Devourers,
I try very hard to not do certain types of high maps because D. could realistically spawn there (Dark Forest, I'm talking about you!)

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Nephalim wrote:

this game is already too easy for some, look here:

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Ventor wrote:

~b/o 140 exa each FIRM.

9 left

i smell RMT with them mirrors

GGG is a company first and foremost and as such if they don't generate enough revenue then they will go out of business. No revelation in that statement so GGG has to be flexible and shift its game focus with the prevailing wind of the majority of PoE players. If GGG determines that over 50% of the current players making microtransactions are time limited "casual" players who don't have the high grinding time available due to real life (work, family, etc.) then they need to make PoE more accessible to that ARPG player segment. If that entails reducing difficulty a notch or 2 or 3 from where PoE was in OB or CB then that is a "so be it" requirement. Sorry that that disappoints the hardest of the hardcore players but the alternative is GGG keeps PoE super hard core and keeps only 1/4th or 1/5th of the current players due to quitting over too many deaths from hitting too many difficulty walls.

The reality of all this tweaking of difficulty in an attempt to find the "goldilocks" zone to satisfy the most players is that the extremes are felt left out. There are and always will be players that love PoE but find it too hard or too easy for them.

GGG does have a way to satisfy both ends of the player spectrum and that is leagues. GGG could create 2 new leagues that addresses the easier and harder playing desires of these individuals. I know that involves time to tweak the huge databases of everything but it would go a long way to alleviate the current situation of only having Standard and Hardcore permanent leagues. So far with all the posts GGG has remained silent on this. What say you GGG?

I agree with OP as far as permanent allocation goes. Loot tension is definitely a more hardcore experience, adding a PvP element to coop, and was the counter-argument to the "get carried by your party = game was never hardcore" argument expressed in a page 1 reply. I agree that "ninja" looting was a problem, but I believe the "choose your loot mode" solution GGG chose was oversimplified and wrong; I would have preferred some kind of karma system which tended to group players with similar "ninja" proclivities, while never fully removing the ability for a player to grab loot allocated to another, and thus never destroying the tension.

That said, a small number of "cater to casuals" changes doesn't mean that's GGG's overall proclivity. The Dominus fight is a thing of hardcore gaming beauty and a great example of GGG catering to the opposite crowd; same thing with their refusal to make an increased-drop SFL. And things like (slightly) toning down Caliga aren't catering to casuals, that's just toning down some extreme masochism.

And acting like desync is tolerable is just silly. Even if the forum community might exaggerate its severity at times, it's a (motherfucking) bug, not a (motherfucking) feature, and should be fixed like any other bug.

In short, just because GGG has made some mistakes catering to casuals doesn't mean it's fair to characterize them as adopting it as a policy, because they haven't changed their core attitude.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

because they haven't changed their core attitude.

Their 'core attitude', their 'core design', their 'instant gratification, buy anything you want, from anyone, anywhere, any time - and fuck you if you don't want to cheapen and casualise your aRPG game play such';

Was and still is the biggest motherfucking casualisation of PoE, the genre and the gaming world in general.

Nerfing spork, kaoms and shavs (somewhat) was caving to casuals? Why do self proclaimed 'hardcore' players think they're so special and why are they blind to changes in their favor?

.. i guess that question kind of answers itself.

Obvious troll. He didn't know the difficulty of the game before his break and he still doesn't know the difficulty of the game now. How can he say the game got easier when he's never even completed merciless? Or done a single map?