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

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mushioov wrote:

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Yohanu wrote:

So, you want GGG to abandon their vision entirely to create a bigger appeal for the game? Plenty of Companies do that, I say let us have an untainted game for once. I'd rather have the game fail commercially and stick with its guns, than have yet another auction-housed casual experience. Fact is, some of us actually LIKE manual trade. For one, it slows down inflation by having a barrier of effort for trading, secondly it allows you to actually make good deals if you work for it.

This.
Also the game is NOT dying at all. In the last few weeks I've got at least 10 of my friends interested in playing PoE and the numbers are only growing when they tell their friends about it. "Complex itemization with complex character building with no hand-helding or casualized shit." has been the sentence that catched their interest.

Is there really no middle-way to go to? does it really have to be either "Hardcore grind till you drop" or "here are all uniques you ever need" game?

why can we not have a fixed reward (besides skill points) for reaching a certain level or point in the game?

Pick 1 unique from a random list of 10 when you kill Dominus on merciless for example.
Have maybe some achievements (which are doable for SF and casual player) with an actual prize..

I am not saying to open up the floodgates and let it rain Bis items everywhere, just a little nudge here and there. Why cant there be an awesome reward be for finishing the game on normal? there is nothing currently... maybe something could be there (probably needs to be account/character bound) that will push you forward a bit?. just a bit.

The carrot is too far away from the donkey and its slowing down!

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xchokeholdx wrote:

The carrot is too far away from the donkey and its slowing down!

So far away actually that the donkey sometimes wonders whether it's a carrot or a shrivelled donkey-penis.

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Quantume wrote:

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Aetherium wrote:

question is, do you need to be the very best of all to enjoy the game? if answer is yes, thats not the game for you, why not just play singleplayer game to be the hero in it :)

Tell me how is one supposed to enjoy the game when you lack the gear to progress?
Stash is loaded with ok items that would sell as low/mid leveling gear (especially in HC+nem),
but one can't sell them because there's no AH?

Yeah it's not really worth waiting online and scan the trade chat spam for 3 hours,
just so one can bump into the right potential buyer/seller to get a few chaos and burn them in 3 seconds on their item which they hoped would get upgraded but infact got downgraded.

Game is broken till they give us a auction house type practical system to instantly buy and sell what we need and want to.

With the current drop rates of currency (which was ironically supposed to act as a crafting system), upgrading your own gear remains a joke, and farming currency is the only way to buy gear from others. And again, even then you have to tab out of the game and use poexyz.

You can't sell bacause there is no AH? do you even know how to trade???

Take all the items you want to sell in a thread, maybe set some BO too. They will be present on POE XYZ and then buyers will try catch you online to buy the items. Selling an items takes no more than 2 minutes if you have BO, a little more if you're willing to barter.

If you're trying to sell leveling/mid gear/nice gear on trade chat, you're doing it SO. DAMN. WRONG, trade chats are usefull for currency trade or very high rated gears, NOT for selling mid items

And broken is your entitlement, not the game. This game doesn't needs any AH, stop with this crap D3 bullshit

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xchokeholdx wrote:

Is there really no middle-way to go to? does it really have to be either "Hardcore grind till you drop" or "here are all uniques you ever need" game?

why can we not have a fixed reward (besides skill points) for reaching a certain level or point in the game?

Pick 1 unique from a random list of 10 when you kill Dominus on merciless for example.
Have maybe some achievements (which are doable for SF and casual player) with an actual prize..

I am not saying to open up the floodgates and let it rain Bis items everywhere, just a little nudge here and there. Why cant there be an awesome reward be for finishing the game on normal? there is nothing currently... maybe something could be there (probably needs to be account/character bound) that will push you forward a bit?. just a bit.

The carrot is too far away from the donkey and its slowing down!

First person who replied to my post sincerely, without being rude. That gets you a reply.

You know those quest rewards you get? Those _are_ the little "nudges" to help you go forward. I agree that maybe some of them are a bit lackluster and could be more powerful, but that is only a thing of tweaking. The issues with uniques is that it would saturate the market far too quickly to have any meaning and then people would be here asking why the unique rewards are so bad. You see, the feeling of "reward" is proportional to the exclusivity the reward you get. The more "rare" and powerful reward therefore feels a lot more rewarding. You need those lowpoints of grind and "work" in order to have the satisfying moments of getting a reward. This is also why the droprates are what they are. (and they are fine)

So, in conclusion, you already get the rewards for completing quests (which some are a bit boring, I know), it's only that you've lost your perspective of what is rewarding by playing the game to the highest levels. The progression curve is exponential, like getting levels, so you can't expect to get "rewarding feelings" as often as on lower levels and in the beginning. The anwser is: There is no fix to that "problem". Wrong perspective is the problem.

I hope that reply is sufficient.

-mushiooov

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xchokeholdx wrote:

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mushioov wrote:

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Yohanu wrote:

So, you want GGG to abandon their vision entirely to create a bigger appeal for the game? Plenty of Companies do that, I say let us have an untainted game for once. I'd rather have the game fail commercially and stick with its guns, than have yet another auction-housed casual experience. Fact is, some of us actually LIKE manual trade. For one, it slows down inflation by having a barrier of effort for trading, secondly it allows you to actually make good deals if you work for it.

This.
Also the game is NOT dying at all. In the last few weeks I've got at least 10 of my friends interested in playing PoE and the numbers are only growing when they tell their friends about it. "Complex itemization with complex character building with no hand-helding or casualized shit." has been the sentence that catched their interest.

Is there really no middle-way to go to? does it really have to be either "Hardcore grind till you drop" or "here are all uniques you ever need" game?

why can we not have a fixed reward (besides skill points) for reaching a certain level or point in the game?

Pick 1 unique from a random list of 10 when you kill Dominus on merciless for example.
Have maybe some achievements (which are doable for SF and casual player) with an actual prize..

I am not saying to open up the floodgates and let it rain Bis items everywhere, just a little nudge here and there. Why cant there be an awesome reward be for finishing the game on normal? there is nothing currently... maybe something could be there (probably needs to be account/character bound) that will push you forward a bit?. just a bit.

The carrot is too far away from the donkey and its slowing down!

I for one like the rarity of endgame uniques and the random nature of the game. I think that around 1000 hours is a good measure for getting a BiS or a Voltaxic, etc. It is what keeps me playing, if I could get op stuff with no time spent, I'd have quit ages ago. The whole entitlement-mentality is why the MMORPG genre died for me.

Actually, POE is dealing with Schrödinger's donkey.
There is both a carrot and no carrot. While the donkey ponders about this, it starves to death.

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Hyskoa wrote:

Actually, POE is dealing with Schrödinger's donkey.
There is both a carrot and no carrot. While the donkey ponders about this, it starves to death.

And the only way to find out if there is a carrot is to come bitch on the forums until GGG gives it to you?

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GeorgAnatoly wrote:

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Hyskoa wrote:

Actually, POE is dealing with Schrödinger's donkey.
There is both a carrot and no carrot. While the donkey ponders about this, it starves to death.

And the only way to find out if there is a carrot is to come bitch on the forums until GGG gives it to you?

No, the only way(according to all the high level players+ those who stream) is to rmt a carrot, make some profit and rmt back a few carrots before moving on to another game.

Also, my solution would be to not emphasize the carrot. Let's upgrade the donkey, making the ride more fun without a hardcore necessity of the carrot.
(ie less gear focus, more skill focus).

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Hyskoa wrote:

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GeorgAnatoly wrote:

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Hyskoa wrote:

Actually, POE is dealing with Schrödinger's donkey.
There is both a carrot and no carrot. While the donkey ponders about this, it starves to death.

And the only way to find out if there is a carrot is to come bitch on the forums until GGG gives it to you?

No, the only way(according to all the high level players+ those who stream) is to rmt a carrot, make some profit and rmt back a few carrots before moving on to another game.

Also, my solution would be to not emphasize the carrot. Let's upgrade the donkey, making the ride more fun without a hardcore necessity of the carrot.
(ie less gear focus, more skill focus).

God do we hate rmt. And I think we should upgrade the donkey by making rare and magic items more interesting so gearing up the character in that regard isn't just a rote exercise. So much complexity in skill gems, the passive tree and uniques yet rare and magic itemization is a snooze fest.

Exactly. What kept D2 fun for 10 years was that I could mix and match different skills. Hence guided arrow sorceress. Not because I had ubergear. Because the ubergear was only necessary for pvp. In here, you simply can't wear lesser gear or experiment with gear or skills because the game is balanced around having level appropriate gear.

Hell, I WANT to use bringer of rain, because the item is cool as fuck. But my resists go down the drain, and I lose a lot of other things that make me survive. So I have to keep wearing the same boring gear and transfer it to all my other characters until I find enough gear in different slots that offer the same resists and defences so I can wear my bringer of rain again.

That's basically owning the carrot, having it in your hands but still not being able to eat it.

In fact, I would say RMT helped Diablo 2, because it made the game even less about gear so we could enjoy every single skill combined with every other skill and have a completely different gaming experience every single time.