The reason for the low level of active players in Path of Exile

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Jojas wrote:

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tinko92 wrote:

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TheAnuhart wrote:

That depends on the time.

But needless to say, in a loot finder.. probable, in a shopping game.. improbable.

Damn I miss loot finders.

Edit, but your point was that; that sort of upgrade would be overlooked.

This is a loot finder, which I already "explained" few posts earlier.

In another thread I told you that everything that goes beyond the casual pew-pew, every meaningful thing, is gated behind acquiring and spending currency. You acknowledged this by saying:

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... and all that in a game which is trade oriented, that's shocking.

Now here you are calling PoE a loot finder, as opposed to a "shopping game". What happened? A memory wipe?

Anyone who suggests that this game is a loot finder - and means or implies by that that you will find your own loot - is crazy. It is masochistic to play self found and ever hope to get a character into anything resembling endgame unless you have, as OP stated, like 1k+ hours to zombie farm content.

This game is as much a trading sim as Diablo 3 was an auction house sim.

There's just a much better game underneath the trading sim.

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Jojas wrote:

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tinko92 wrote:

This is a loot finder, which I already "explained" few posts earlier.

In another thread I told you that everything that goes beyond the casual pew-pew, every meaningful thing, is gated behind acquiring and spending currency. You acknowledged this by saying:

"

... and all that in a game which is trade oriented, that's shocking.

Now here you are calling PoE a loot finder, as opposed to a "shopping game". What happened? A memory wipe?

I'll quote myself again:

"I'll quote myself:

"everybody found that needle, just not for themselves.

So, you trade that useless needle for another needle, or, since it's also very hard that someone who has "your" needle needs "his" needle which dropped to you, you trade that needle for currency, and then that currency for "your" needle."

The needle would be an item."

And now you tell me, why can't a game be both?
Or is loot by your thinking only an upgrade of your gear? Which I disagree with.

EDIT: I've never, ever said PoE is a trading game/simulator, in fact, it's nothing even close to that for those who don't want to play like that.
It's not a memory wipe, it's more likely that you read between the lines.


@nGio
I have severely under-average luck overall, I can't go to casino, I can't play cards for money, etc. without emptying my wallet.
Not to mention how my "crafting" went in PoE... so after I was done with my shield, I won't be crafting anything ever again.

I don't want to sound like a shitbag, but I really don't know what to say in your case.

I find the most enjoying part making new builds and leveling them. End-game tends to get boring quick, after a few maps I'm already bored. I have to admit it's because it doesn't feel rewarding. It's like a constant struggle with RNG.

For Self-found to sustain high tier maps isn't impossible since they are all maze now. You will rotate among maybe 3 characters to handle all kinds of difficult rolls, so that no currency or experience is wasted.

Even though that, alchs still run out, you'll have to farm them from somewhere else.

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Crackmonster wrote:

Some people are satisfied being mediocre while doing what they spend their majority of time on, yes, that is correct, CRYSTALWITCH.

To play games is to escape from the pressure of life, people seek something fulfilling.

Hey! That's me! You're talking about me! Yay me!

Sure as hell I'm mediocre and goddamn happy too.

While some of you high-tier, end-game hardcore players are bitching about spending hundreds of fusings, (if you're LUCKY) on getting that elusive six-link item; being forced to pay another player's prices for that super-rare unique that you neeeeeed to make your build actually WORK; having to farm the same boss twenty, fifty times in a row just to get something worth trading to get the exalts that you need just so that you can THEN spend days in trading just to find someone selling that item that you neeeeed for your build; or even spending ages browsing poe.xyz becuase damnit you don't have TIME to spend in tradechat, you've got farming to do!...

I'm stumbling about with my hardcore league, normal/cruel characters, dying from stupid mistakes, equipping whatever junk I think works better, manually spawning skeletons, using storm call because I had a gem drop earlier and can't be arsed swapping it out for an arc, using cleave instead of leap slam simply because you get that gem right away as a duelist, trying to get 9 zombies just for the achievement, comboing traps and minions together just because I want to see if it works...

I find fun a hell of a lot easier to find than fulfilment.
It's a good thing I get both from Path of Exile.

And when I die? Well, thanks to what I perceive to be a robust character growth system and highly customisable skill tree I've already got three other character concepts in my mind.

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tinko92 wrote:

And now you tell me, why can't a game be both?
Or is loot by your thinking only an upgrade of your gear? Which I disagree with.

Here is the difference between the one and the other: In the one you get drops that might surprise you or excite you or give you ideas for a new build or a nice, little boost to your existing builds.
In the other you don't. There you get half-decent stuff that you can sell for small change and when you sold enough, you can buy other stuff. No surprises, no excitement, just a long, straight one-way street of buying and selling and filling up the slots with the required gear.
I know trading can be fun, and getting rich can be awesome. But for many people it stops being awesome when there is no other way to progress.

And the sad thing is, GGG thinks it must be either the one way or the other. It doesn't matter whether I or anyone else thinks it can be both, as long as GGG says it can't. I do, by the way.
But they don't.
And the really sad thing is that it's not even their original vision. If only it was. But from I hear of the CB, the current state is nothing but a result of the fear that people will get bored to quickly. From tests that were made when PoE was so different from what it is now that it was basically an entirely different game.

So what to do? You see this game with such a great potential just out of reach, you know how awesome it could be, but for some reason its developers don't dare to make a leap of faith, if only a little one.

I have played this game for 2 years and have dumped hundreds of hours into it. By looking at my gear you can tell. The main thing keeping me from continually enjoying POE is the feeling of being rewarded for my efforts. Being rewarded once every week or two weeks with a decent unique item is not enough and has kept me from really enjoying the game to the fullest and trying new characters.

As a player who can solo any map in the game I do not want to risk death at the chance of a few more items by applying magic find gear. Its a choice I have made to survive above all things. I should not have to suffer in the unique item finding department because I choose to keep my experience and level up.

If I decided its worth the risk to put on magic find gear at the risk of a quick death I should at least be rewarded with items nearly equivalent to the difficulty and not the same beginner unique's over and over again. It becomes infuriating getting 20 plus red beak equivalent unique's a day on a magic find character.

Even as a hardcore player we still would like reward.

I think the point is that OP wants this game to be around a long time in the way other online games have thrived. This may be a misguided notion because obviously GGG has met incredible success for being an indie developer and that it's probably just not fair to compare the player base of League of Legends to a player base of POE.

I think we can all identify with OP's concerns in one way or another. Despite some problems you may have with the game(RNG,Desync,Economy,etc), you probably have some love for POE and want for it to keep succeeding and improving. There are many of you that have stopped playing but you are still checking these boards and reddit. You're still interested in new and future content (new leagues/new acts). It's been said that GGG is planning multiple acts for this game and we want GGG to keep producing while being financially successfull.

This game IS complex and it isn't as newbie friendly as other games. But POE was never supposed to be that in the first place. Being a F2P game certainly helps, though. ARPGs aren't as popular as other genres but Diablo 3 is STILL an ARPG. I know alot of us have negative feelings towards D3, but if anything, it's still a good gateway to these types of games. Reaper of Souls will come out and D3 will get a flux of new players being introduced to this genre. Many of these players will trickle over to POE and they will appreciate the more intricate system.

GGG is in a challenging position. They made this game because it's a game that they would like to play. They are lovers of D2 and they wanted to create an homage to it. But now they aren't D2 players anymore. They are Game Company that wants their product to thrive. Chris probably never though his game would even get this far, but now he has to think about things like accessibility along with sustaining their demographic. The great thing is GGG is very involved with the community and is trying to keep the player base involved and happy. I believe that as long as GGG is continually communicating, listening and creating for the players, this game will be around for a long time. There will be other bigger, more popular online games with more twitch streamers and new players but in the end all we can ask for is for GGG to keep with their philosophy and business ethic.

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Skorched wrote:

The main thing keeping me from continually enjoying POE is the feeling of being rewarded for my efforts.

The MAIN reward in games like this, is (or should be) the progress you make - with every 'single' kill. That this becomes more and more decreasing the further you go, should be obvious: or you play the wrong game.

Epic drops (especially uniques) are just the cram on top... Just one thought: one good unique per week? how many valuable "enough" uniques has the game actually? And what will you do in 5 month, when you have them all, start to trade the next ones? Or start to demand more powerfull uniques to give your ingame life the (next) meaning?

for the topic:
a) (most) people have a life.
b) players base is divided into (up to) 24 time zones
c) "some" people realize that this game went NOT to MMO
d) (many) people are impatient with the 'demand' of "their" feature(s) - like CT/PvP...
e) there are enough other reasons why this game may not be (or become) what player xyz likes

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Jojas wrote:

Here is the difference between the one and the other: In the one you get drops that might surprise you or excite you or give you ideas for a new build or a nice, little boost to your existing builds.
In the other you don't. There you get half-decent stuff that you can sell for small change and when you sold enough, you can buy other stuff. No surprises, no excitement, just a long, straight one-way street of buying and selling and filling up the slots with the required gear.
I know trading can be fun, and getting rich can be awesome. But for many people it stops being awesome when there is no other way to progress.

And the sad thing is, GGG thinks it must be either the one way or the other. It doesn't matter whether I or anyone else thinks it can be both, as long as GGG says it can't. I do, by the way.
But they don't.
And the really sad thing is that it's not even their original vision. If only it was. But from I hear of the CB, the current state is nothing but a result of the fear that people will get bored to quickly. From tests that were made when PoE was so different from what it is now that it was basically an entirely different game.

So what to do? You see this game with such a great potential just out of reach, you know how awesome it could be, but for some reason its developers don't dare to make a leap of faith, if only a little one.

Wrong right there in the start, saying that there are no surprises and excitement in drops is utterly inaccurate and false.

I realize that people would like to get excellent items way sooner than they can get now, but I've asked for a suggestion how would the improved loot system work out, I'd really like to know.
Still no answer.