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

ignoring sinns post:


i will admit that once you get though the first two difficulties and most of the third

you go from smoothly progressing to needing to grind the same thing a few hundred times


most people say re roll a character, but they are forgetting that re rolling character is only a temporary solution , that is a very short life expectancy.

took me 2 days of casual play to get my alt character to the same predicament as my main .

and now what. there is a strictly finite number of interesting builds in the game, and what if i wanted to play on my main because it was fun?

"

Snoozey wrote:

Stop trying to make builds that need kaom's and vol bow. 200 hours in I had a char that can handle his own just fine. You don't need to be running 78 maps 10 minutes into the game. There are plenty of builds that work with low budget. The biggest reason imo that people quit is this game babys you for too long. Normal is so boring and so stupid easy.

normal only lasts 3 - 4 hours. trust me the problem is not normal difficulty

If you go fast enough and aren't twinking, normal is challenging enough. It can't be too much harder or new players will have no chance.

Every single game out there, even non-f2p ones, tend to have high attrition rates. At least, if you look at steam cheevos, at least 20% of players don't even play the games they fucking buy lol. Another 30-45% get 1-3 achievements and never anything more. Only 20-25% of players who buy a game actually get far in it, maybe half of them beat the game entirely, maybe another half will try it play it a second time.

Path of Exile just needs a solid base of 100k to 400k users (not concurrent, just active), with 5%~ of those users making microtransaction purchases. If 5000 players spend $5 a week, GGG has a cashflow of $25k a week, or $75k a month, which could be just enough to keep the game running - realize the cost of living in NZ is much lower than in US or Europe. This game can probably flourish is 10k players spend $5 a week, or 5k spend $10 a week.

Considering we've had 50k+ concurrent active user peaks, I'd say we easily have the playerbase we need to keep the game alive for a long while. If GGG can continue to address concerns with their regular patches, the game shouldn't shrink or probably even remain constant, I'd expect it to grow.

By design, this game isn't for everyone. By design, a large portion of players who try the game will leave.

"

JoesGetNDown wrote:

I don't know about you, but after about 400 hours of play since launch, I have successfully played well over a dozen different builds up to level 60+. That's not even close to 1500+ hours per character.

Your opinion of what is a "finished" char differs from his. Not all of us are happy having a dozen budget built level 60 chars. The progression climb to 80 is a flight of stairs, while item progression after that turns into climbing mountains without arms and legs. I got to level 78 during the 1w race playing solo. His gear is pretty comparable to my Nemesis Scion with 600 hours played. That's a problem.

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Sinnesteuer wrote:

5/10 for troll potential in the OP.

Would be better if it weren't the EXACT SAME ARGUMENT that the poster posits in every one of his/her threads.

If thread originator = Crackmonster then thread will have title of doom and gloom, first post content will spell out doom and gloom by using hyperbole in which fringe cases are expected to be accepted as the norm in order for poster's argument to have any validity.

Any posts that dispute outrageous claims made in initial post will be met with belittlement from initial poster who will point out that expecting anything less than what is detailed in the initial post defines you as "a casual". Being "a casual" is a fate worse than eternal damnation in the eyes of the initial poster.

Sinnesteuer you make me laugh.

Out of now almost two-thousand posts, hyperbole has been used in maybe 5-8 posts ever, mainly just in guides and shop threads. Shows your level of self-criticism when you make a claim.

The good thing is, people like you who love to discredit cannot address what i say. You prefer to say things such as hinge cases and pretend it is true. Why don't you try to specifically disprove any of my claims, and remember to include the full wording as that is essential. One with your ability to comprehend cannot, first your understanding must grow.

Many people in this thread have worthwhile things to say, also things that goes against my OP, but your posts are always useless when addressing me.

Stick to arguing and less about trying to discredit, that will suit you well and one day you may discover in following the path of true arguments that what i say may be more correct than you assumed.

"

JoesGetNDown wrote:

I don't know about you, but after about 400 hours of play since launch, I have successfully played well over a dozen different builds up to level 60+. That's not even close to 1500+ hours per character.

But that depends on what you want to do with your builds. I have 5 lvl 74+ builds, and I have no chance of gearing them or leveling them to where I want.
How much time would I have to put in, if I wanted a 6L on every build? Months/Years of doing nothing but farming for fusings, then burning through them and with no result? And GGG believes this will keep people interested and playing? This game is dream come true for RMT companies. Game becomes a pointless grind at about lvl 80, this is what I've found with every build I've played.

GGG need to help players with the end-game progress, not spend all of their time thinking about the next artificial obstacle they're gonna throw our way, how to nerf existing builds into the ground, or their placebo fixes (scraps for fusing, or reach lvl 100 in Docks.. yeah, after 20 years of grinding Docks, maybe! lol).

while i do not think that having BiS gear is mandatory to have fun (well, it isnt) i would like to chime in and say this:

artificialy prolonging the gameplay with time-tax'es encourages RMT

when you reach act3 merc and have your trusty 150dps 1h non-crit weapon and after 3 days of farming piety find NO UPGRADE to said weapon (i havent had dropped 250dps weapon in MONTH of playing!) you can: trade (That also requires mindless grind to play exuberant price) or RMT

RMT is a very tempting proposition

seeing guys (on this very forum) with one 70+ Dom character having 3 mirrored pieces equipped you just wonder just HOW BAD the RMT stuff is and how is that possible that nothing is being done about that..

"

anubite wrote:

If you go fast enough and aren't twinking, normal is challenging enough. It can't be too much harder or new players will have no chance.

Every single game out there, even non-f2p ones, tend to have high attrition rates. At least, if you look at steam cheevos, at least 20% of players don't even play the games they fucking buy lol. Another 30-45% get 1-3 achievements and never anything more. Only 20-25% of players who buy a game actually get far in it, maybe half of them beat the game entirely, maybe another half will try it play it a second time.

Path of Exile just needs a solid base of 100k to 400k users (not concurrent, just active), with 5%~ of those users making microtransaction purchases. If 5000 players spend $5 a week, GGG has a cashflow of $25k a week, or $75k a month, which could be just enough to keep the game running - realize the cost of living in NZ is much lower than in US or Europe. This game can probably flourish is 10k players spend $5 a week, or 5k spend $10 a week.

Considering we've had 50k+ concurrent active user peaks, I'd say we easily have the playerbase we need to keep the game alive for a long while. If GGG can continue to address concerns with their regular patches, the game shouldn't shrink or probably even remain constant, I'd expect it to grow.

By design, this game isn't for everyone. By design, a large portion of players who try the game will leave.

I agree essentially with this, except one point. I also estimate active users at peak to be about 35-55k. I think that can make the game survive, and i don't think i have ever argued against it.

I do think however that it reveals limitions of the game. In life, when dealing with lack of courage to change something in your life, you must sometimes accept and "know" that there is a path for you to succeed, that will give you courage to continue till you find that path. In fact that is a large part of why culture develops and each person does not build it from scratch, they can see others have found the way before them so they feel less hopeless that it is possible. In the exact same sense i know there is a way for ARPG's to succeed because ARPG's are not inferior games, and if an ARPG reached its full potential, then 50k is but a small fraction of players that would be playing it.



In other words, there is a path to create a more developed and advanced ARPG, a better and more fulfilling game experience than that of the current version of PoE.

The confusion that your argument reveals and that many of the players also have is entirely similar to that of modern celebritism. Celebrities confuse being known with being successful. There is a clear relationship between how successful you are and how known you are, and so people think that being known is being successful. With games, there is a clear relationship between how good a game is and the number of players playing it, but the aim of it is not to get players(be known), but rather to make the game good enough which will automatically bring the players. Therefore you can use player numbers to reveal that the game is simply not good enough yet. That is what i want to draw attention to.

Never have I said PoE was not a great game. It is, and i love it. All i want is for ARPG's to rise. Even dota games now are vastly overshadowing ARPG's, even if PoE is a resurgeance, APRG's have fallen so far. I will continue to advocate for making ARPG's better instead of being satisfied half-way through the journey.

"

toyotatundra wrote:

"

JoesGetNDown wrote:

I don't know about you, but after about 400 hours of play since launch, I have successfully played well over a dozen different builds up to level 60+. That's not even close to 1500+ hours per character.

But that depends on what you want to do with your builds. I have 5 lvl 74+ builds, and I have no chance of gearing them or leveling them to where I want.
How much time would I have to put in, if I wanted a 6L on every build? Months/Years of doing nothing but farming for fusings, then burning through them and with no result? And GGG believes this will keep people interested and playing? This game is dream come true for RMT companies. Game becomes a pointless grind at about lvl 80, this is what I've found with every build I've played.

GGG need to help players with the end-game progress, not spend all of their time thinking about the next artificial obstacle they're gonna throw our way, how to nerf existing builds into the ground, or their placebo fixes (scraps for fusing, or reach lvl 100 in Docks.. yeah, after 20 years of grinding Docks, maybe! lol).

You don't need a 6 link. Players need to stop thinking they need the best of everything. Lets give everyone 100 mirrors 6 link everything and see how long the game lasts. The drops are fine.

"

Snoozey wrote:

You don't need a 6 link. Players need to stop thinking they need the best of everything. Lets give everyone 100 mirrors 6 link everything and see how long the game lasts. The drops are fine.

surprising fact: if the game is GOOD you can do that and people would STILL play the game. this might be surprising but it is like this

fun game -> people play a lot
but
game forcing you to play a lot != fun game

i think that some design decisions poe took were taken because someone though that the first implication is <- not ->

"

sidtherat wrote:

"

Snoozey wrote:

You don't need a 6 link. Players need to stop thinking they need the best of everything. Lets give everyone 100 mirrors 6 link everything and see how long the game lasts. The drops are fine.

surprising fact: if the game is GOOD you can do that and people would STILL play the game. this might be surprising but it is like this

fun game -> people play a lot
but
game forcing you to play a lot != fun game

i think that some design decisions poe took were taken because someone though that the first implication is <- not ->

You're joking right? An Arpg without an item hunt. That would be swell.