GGG should probably address the player retention rate
" And what people are saying, is that PoE is not a hardcore game by any stretch of the imagination. The fact that if you played hardcore games and you can "pick up" PoE is irrelevant. PoE is a game that rewards time investment, not skill or strategy. Not saying that skill or strategy doesn't exist, but if you compare it to the actual hardcore games on the market, PoE gets seriously shunned in this area. Games like DotA (which I played competitively and in tournaments) give no fallback if you fail. If you are shit, you fail, there is no easy to grind area, there is no partying to trivialize content. Simply put, in Dota2, if the enemy team is better than you, then you will fail, and no amount of playing with bots again and again will improve your chances if you try to verse someone like Alliance or Navi And its not a genre thing, aRPG's set no limitation on what grind, how often, and when it is. Thats all design choice. The fact is, PoE copied D2 in a lot of areas, and D2 was never designed to be a hardcore game If you want an example of a hardcore game that is at least somewhat similar to D2, look at nox Its becoming more apparent that you are just whiteknighting the game " There are only 2 competing aRPG's at the moment, D3 and TL2 D3 had its own set of failures which obviously I am not going to document in this post (half of which are being fixed with RoS). Then there is TL2, which executed very well, but didn't innovate enough, particularly in the skill tree area (this is being fixed with mods, like synergy mod, but its not part of the actual game) So in terms of aRPG's, there hasn't been any real aRPG released in the past half decade. PoE is luckly that its main competition is either hitting a different demographic, or just majorly screwed up in certain areas I said this before and Ill say it again, if it wasn't for the skill tree/skill support system, I wouldn't touch this game with a ten foot pole Last edited by deteego#6606 on Jan 5, 2014, 5:35:18 PM
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" Yes, yes and more yes to this. Pretty much that is the ONLY thing that sets PoE apart in my opinion. Mechanics need serious work, desync needs work, trading needs work, grind needs work, etc, etc. |
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For me, and I'm sure many many other, POE scratches an itch that no other game has in a very long while. It's clearly satisfying on whatever level it needs to be in order to keep people who publicly despise the game actually playing the game.
And, isn't that saying something? Think about that. There are people who frequent this forum, who spew the most vitriolic bile towards GGG, yet still log in and grind away for 8-24 hours a day. Clearly something is very right, and very wrong. It's not like we are starved for forum content laying out the perceived issues with the game. We can only relate our anecdotes to each other, and hope that someone with clout is eavesdropping with intent. So that being said, I'd like to relate my personal grievance. I love this game to death, and despite the problems I may have with it, I can't see myself walking away from it for years to come. That being said, there are times that I feel completely unrewarded. I've been playing since June, and for most of that time, I've been grinding maps. I play solo, and with enough MF that I can reasonably sustain enough chaos/chisels to keep myself going with a good pool (diving occasionally into the garbage heap of trading to swap alts for other materials). Until a few days ago, I had never even seen the inside of a 74 map. Then, RNG flipped on me, and now I have a handful of 75s. It's satisfying to have finally climbed that rung on the ladder, but until those lucky drops I absolutely felt like I was being gypped-- like I was doing everything right, but getting absolutely nowhere. This is just one instance of a dude getting owned in a particular way. I am lucky in other ways... For example I had two eternals drop in two consecutive days. BUT, I think you can extrapolate from this experience the deeper issue here. The game is at times difficult in a very cheap way; relying so heavily on RNG to progress in the game is the problem. You can play the game well and still fail completely, while others completely succeed while playing poorly. I do see that GGG is taking steps to alleviate this pain. Baby steps, but steps nonetheless. Vendor crafting is a very good start, and I hope it's a trend that continues. You may hate the current recipes, but if there are enough of them you will start to see all the trash on the ground as a safety net against terrible swings of luck. I'm not sure I have a coherent point here, just relating my feeling on the matter. A comprehensive, easy on the eyes loot filter:
http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1245785 Need a chill group exiles to hang with? Join us: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1251403 |
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" Very good point. Also, I've never seen a forum like this one, where discussions about the game AS A WHOLE could go on over 10 pages or longer. Usually it extends to bickering about one class or skill being OP or UP or unwelcome balance-changes or whatever. But here everybody seems to have a stance on everything. I think that's great but it propably causes a lot of headache when you're the developer. |
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" Oh believe me, there are plenty of "Thing is OP wahhh" threads that go on for an eternity. I feel the reason for such deep discussion of the game as a whole stems from the fact that the game as a whole is pretty deep, with an immense potential. Contrast this with D3, where the metagame is very shallow. I would never roll more than one witch doctor in D3, because why bother? You can just respec, swap some gear, and boom, you're a whole new toon. Some people have argued that the skilltree in POE isn't all that great, that it doesn't provide all that much diversity. OK, maybe there is a point to that in the current iteration. But, the core system provides the devs with endless potential, almost limitless choices in where to steer the thing. Overall, the potential with POE is (I think) what keeps people here. A comprehensive, easy on the eyes loot filter:
http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1245785 Need a chill group exiles to hang with? Join us: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1251403 |
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" Don't feel offended but sooner or later you will change your opinion about PoE :( There is already a long list of divine, ethernal, bronze etc supporters that had same defensive opinion about PoE that just gave up. And i don't believe it was easy for them to give up after so much support they have put into the game. It's never easy to admit you are wrong, but when it comes remember you are not alone there :) IGN: PojzonAbyss
[3.2] Immortal Indigon Poet's Pen Hirophant - https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2129766 [3.1] Yamata No Orochi - Oni-Goroshi Jugg http://poeurl.com/bHB9 [2.4] The True Queen Of The Forest - Poison LA/BR Pathfinder http://poeurl.com/M6u [Retired] |
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You can still support the game while critiquing it.
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Since a few days before 1.0.4 was deployed, our average number of players online (measured over a seven day moving average) has been going up at a decent rate. This is the opposite of the gradual decline that's generally seen in the middle of four-month leagues.
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" I want to say thanks for responding and say that it isn't that I am being negative about the game itself but that there is this feeling that something is missing and that was something I think may have to do with how the community members interact with each other. It isn't that there aren't people to play with or talk to in the game, there are, but there is an inescapable feeling that renders it meaningless when no matter who I talk to or help in game I know they won't be here next week. When I look at my xfire and ingame friends list and they vanish from the game seemingly overnight. To feel like I'm playing a solo game and to be watching my friends having fun co-op in other games. Without a sense of true attachment and a community to anchor onto it seems that otherwise small issues snowball and cause people to quit and they bring others with them. And without that sense of belonging that a niche tight knit community would have then it seems to bring the worst out of us and we turn on each other much easier and faster (since most of them will just be gone soon anyway). That is why I asked what we as a community can do to address this, and maybe extend it to how GGG can work to help mold us into such a community that can help to anchor those who might of left to find that sense of community elsewhere. After all, this is a online multiplayer game and that I think is what keeps us playing games like this, once we feel like we're just playing a solo game with a chat room there may not be anything keeping us here and it can snowball fast. Last edited by Jiero#2499 on Jan 7, 2014, 1:26:08 AM
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" what about this then? " and what is surprising about people playing more during the holidays? true test would be to see if these people that started to play because of more free time remain active. Last edited by sidtherat#1310 on Jan 7, 2014, 2:03:42 AM
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