GGG has to decide whether or not they want this game to be mainstream or remain niche

Even if they fix every one of the other issues with a casual mode, the design of the passive tree is off-putting to most people and makes the game niche.

"

alhazred70#2994 написал:

I will just say this: people who use vague sky is falling popularity narratives in their feedback almost always have terrible feedback, extremely superficial understanding of game design or why things are intended to work a certain way.

In any case every game has to pick an audience to some degree.

I'll never not find it annoying that everyone who has feedback insists that their personal feedback is existentially important and by implication or quite often outright assertion: if you don't do what I want the game will die or be less profitable.

You can't please everyone and when you try you will end up with a shallow game.
This doesn't mean your game will be a hit or a flop though given triple AAA games recently it does seem to be tending toward the latter.

its so true.


its ok to just have an opinion. i have an opinion, i happen to think my opinion is the most important opinion in my world because im usually right, thats what its like to be the person having the opinion. but its just my opinion, and thats fine, it doesnt need to be more than that all our opinions are valid in some sense.



as soon as you see the "...and thats why the game has lost X players in X weeks" or the threats of bankruptcy from not catering to a wider audience (who are presumed to all want what the person posting wants obviously) and all these other emotional blackmail type pressures its so cringe.


sometimes discussing player counts, new player experience and mass appeal is appropriate but when its being used to try and add this huge weight to what is just someones opinion its pretty lame.




its ok to just have an opinion. if your opinion or your idea really is a great one the devs will listen to it. many opinions and ideas from the community make it into path of exile. we dont need to do the whole threat of extinction if you dont do what i say thing to be heard. you are enough just as you are, one person giving an opinion, believe in yourself, back your idea, back your opinion, its a good idea right? of course it is, so just present it and it will sell itself.

Being talking about this since the release.

Grinding Gear really need to stop pretending they are a small hippy company where players will give them space to double down on stupid mechanic design or "logical" decision.

Grinding Gear Game is a studio with 10 years of experience with a very rich backer. Path of Exile 2 enter the market as a challenger to Diablo yet the fanboys like to pretend Path of Exile 2 is exclusively to the hardcore idiots.

The success of Path of Exile 2 lies on the semi-casual and casual. Like it or not, Grinding Gear can no longer pretend they are not mainstream.

Grinding Gear also need to learn to take responsible and allow layers of security over their outdated system. Their stance over trading is nothing short of irresponsible. Full stop.

Campaign is way shorter than PoE1

Also

>Designing for casuals

lmao lol

"

_rt_#4636 написал:

All the design choices that made PoE 1 a niche game are here in PoE 2, and they're worse to an extent that even PoE 1 players are frustrated:

1) Long and boring campaign that has to be repeated for every new character is now even longer

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Even MMOs already give you an option to skip the initial phase of the game after your first character. Let's not forget in MMOs you're not creating several characters every few months and the universe needs to be more immersive.

The fact GGG still hasn't given us that option only makes me doubt their skill as game designers. Development? Decent. Visual design? Very good. Game design and choices? Bad.

2) Cheap and artificial difficulty mechanics that are unavoidable or exist only to push you into senseless grind

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Phantom one-shots, detonate dead mobs exploding stuff from outside the screen, exploding mobs, dying to a random set of small and hidden mine-like attacks thrown by mobs that died 2+ seconds ago = cheap and artificial

One-death maps = artificial, and if you want the adrenaline of avoiding death as if you'd die in real life, go play hardcore

One-death bosses = senseless grinding into trying to get to a boss only to learn the fight, die, grind and go again to learn a bit more

Honour system = pushes senseless grinding (becomes a non-factor when you acquire decent relics)

Chaos damage = cheap and artificial difficulty. The amount of time and resources required to max out chaos resistance without running CI makes no sense. And if you're not willing to do it, prepare to get one-shot by some random chaos damage source later in maps. Just make Chaos resistance much easier to obtain or remove it completely from mobs and bosses.

And let's not forget the extremely outdated notion that EXP penalty on death should exist in any game played primarily by adults with limited time. One extra point towards my belief that GGG lacks in the game design department.

3) Lack of diversity

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Very early into mapping I already knew melee was going to be a no-go unless I was prepared to invest way more time in grinding and farming than I was willing to.

Then, as I approached T15 maps, I started to see the same pattern I saw in PoE 1 repeat itself: even among the ranged ones, most skills weren't going to be viable due to a lack of damage (unless, again, you spent a ton of time grinding for high-end or specific gear.

4) Lack of sense of progression

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Gambling, I mean, crafting, actually got worse than it was and feels less an option than it was in PoE 1.

Trading has had zero actual improvements and the amount of bots, price fixers and players that do not respond turned trading into a time waster unless you're desperate for a given item.

Item drops got worse: drop quality hasn't improved at all but drop quantity was severely reduced.

The endgame Atlas feels awful and a chore if you want to sustain T15+ maps:

1) Exhaust good nodes with your T15+

2) Run very low tier maps in shit notes and lost towers

3) Activate lost towers and use tablets

4) Run very low tier maps in shit nodes

5) Exhaust good nodes with your T15+

6) Repeat endlessly

I've played 80h of this game, all on a single character, and have been running T15+ for a few hours. It feels like I've finished the game and have nothing else to strive for.

Creating a new character is definitely not an option in the current state of the game. The campaign wasn't fun even the first time I've played and it felt like a chore: just farming for lvls because I was forced to, getting the permanent buffs because I was forced to. There's no way I'm doing it all over again, even if I have some gear to speed it up (it'd still take 15+ hours anyway).

This game had potential to be mainstream. The 580k player peak and 400k+ players online on Steam after release are proof of that. GGG's stubbornness on keeping nonsense mechanics catered towards streamers and hardcore players will ultimately push PoE 2 out of the spotlight and back into its previous niche corner very quickly (and considering how many players dropped the game for the holidays and did not come back, it feels like it has already started).

Or maybe GGG is aware and this is their intention.

Not all games need to be for you. The sooner you accept that the sooner you can find another game that you will enjoy more.

"

Snorkle_uk#0761 написал:

"

alhazred70#2994 написал:

I will just say this: people who use vague sky is falling popularity narratives in their feedback almost always have terrible feedback, extremely superficial understanding of game design or why things are intended to work a certain way.

In any case every game has to pick an audience to some degree.

I'll never not find it annoying that everyone who has feedback insists that their personal feedback is existentially important and by implication or quite often outright assertion: if you don't do what I want the game will die or be less profitable.

You can't please everyone and when you try you will end up with a shallow game.
This doesn't mean your game will be a hit or a flop though given triple AAA games recently it does seem to be tending toward the latter.

its so true.


its ok to just have an opinion. i have an opinion, i happen to think my opinion is the most important opinion in my world because im usually right, thats what its like to be the person having the opinion. but its just my opinion, and thats fine, it doesnt need to be more than that all our opinions are valid in some sense.



as soon as you see the "...and thats why the game has lost X players in X weeks" or the threats of bankruptcy from not catering to a wider audience (who are presumed to all want what the person posting wants obviously) and all these other emotional blackmail type pressures its so cringe.


sometimes discussing player counts, new player experience and mass appeal is appropriate but when its being used to try and add this huge weight to what is just someones opinion its pretty lame.




its ok to just have an opinion. if your opinion or your idea really is a great one the devs will listen to it. many opinions and ideas from the community make it into path of exile. we dont need to do the whole threat of extinction if you dont do what i say thing to be heard. you are enough just as you are, one person giving an opinion, believe in yourself, back your idea, back your opinion, its a good idea right? of course it is, so just present it and it will sell itself.

You guys need to learn how to read and interpret properly at this point.

Quote me where I said being niche is bad or unhealthy for the game.
Quote me where I said the dip in player means this game is a failure.

The more I think about this, the more I realize GGG is like Cipsoft and PoE is just like Tibia: no palpable progress after a certain point, death = roll back dozens of hours invested, dated design choices/mechanics, re-do everything from scratch with every new character, "new world" to play every few months to keep the game fresh and keep players engaged with their game.

And there's nothing wrong in being a niche game development company with a niche game and niche design choices. Cipsoft still makes a good profit with a 2D game that's almost 30 year old now.

My post simply said: this game had potential to become more mainstream because it had double the players PoE 1 ever had. As the current trend shows (and comparing PoE 1's chart to PoE 2's), it looks like most of that is getting lost very quickly and what will soon remain are the ~200k players we had in PoE 1's July 2024's league launch (and the old PoE 1 league cycle will just keep repeating itself, but now in PoE 2).

GGG is now at a crossroads regarding PoE 2. They have to decide if they want to double down on their game vision (which will ultimately turn PoE 2 into PoE 1 v2.0), or to make changes to try to engage a wider audience. There's no objectively right or wrong decision here, just what they want to do.

By the way, if they want this game to grow bigger, not only they need to boost player retention on the long term (which was what I addressed in my original post), but they also need to add a step-by-step tutorial that takes newcomers by the hand and teaches them all the important mechanics: skill gems and types of skill (spell vs. attack), support gems, spirit gems, tags, mods, types of defense, resistances, etc.

There were A LOT of people in global chat asking "basic" things that are a must-know if you want to understand how your character does damage and survives. I bet a lot of them will ditch the game once the character they're building starts dying dozens of times in maps and even going through the campaign starts to become a struggle.

"

RKxZlcLUUF#5704 написал:

Not all games need to be for you. The sooner you accept that the sooner you can find another game that you will enjoy more.

I had stopped playing PoE 1 a long time ago for the exact same reasons I mentioned in my original post. I came to PoE 2 with hopes that GGG was changing things on a more fundamental level. It seems they're not. This is the PoE 2 EA feedback subforum. I came here to provide my feedback about Poe 2 EA after basically finishing the game.

And yes, I am ditching PoE 2 for now. The game doesn't cut it for me as it is. And I'm not even mad. The price I paid for a few extra premium tabs and 80h of gameplay? Worth it.

"

_rt_#4636 написал:

You guys need to learn how to read and interpret properly at this point.

Quote me where I said being niche is bad or unhealthy for the game.
Quote me where I said the dip in player means this game is a failure.

where did i say i was talking about you?


i was just browsing the thread, saw als post an added a comment. weve seen 12 years of people using steam charts and predictions of doom to weight their rants about the game around here, while the reality is the game has grown every year and is the most successful long term arpg.

"

_rt_#4636 написал:

this game had potential to become more mainstream because it had double the players PoE 1 ever had. As the current trend shows (and comparing PoE 1's chart to PoE 2's), it looks like most of that is getting lost very quickly and what will soon remain are the ~200k players we had in PoE 1's July 2024's league launch (and the old PoE 1 league cycle will just keep repeating itself, but now in PoE 2).


By the way, if they want this game to grow bigger, not only they need to boost player retention on the long term (which was what I addressed in my original post),

the game launched a month ago and is sitting at a little over half its launch concurrent players, which is in line with how poe1 leagues go. the only difference is its launch had more than double poe1s highest ever player count and we still today have more than poe1s highest count.


they dont want to boost retention. jonathan talks about this in interviews, that its not what you should aim to do for long term success. players will burn out eventually, you cant keep people forever. the key to the success of poe1, 12 years of growth, is that people come on league launch, they play a few weeks, a month, and then they leave. go do other hobbies, live their life, unburnout, then a few months later they come back for the next league.

they talk about this as the key to the success. they do not want higher retention. i know since the game has been on steam weve had a million posts saying if GGG doesnt do exactly what i want the game will die and the lack of player retention as shown by this graph proves it, but GGG know better and the fact that the most successful ever poe1 league was the last league proves the point.






we are playing an alpha test version of 1/3 of the game that hasnt even gone through a first proper balance pass yet and is locked behind a paywall... yet its got roughly the same retention as a normal poe1 league but with more than double its player numbers. right now a month in there are more people playing this EA than poe1s highest ever launch moment.

they are not looking at these numbers and worrying at all, and they are not looking at feedback posts trying to use these numbers to sell an opinion with any more seriousness than any other opinion being put forward.

and theyre not trying to be 'mainstream', theyre trying to make the best game possible by their own standards. if you can convince them what you want will make the game better thats a post theyre gonna take very seriously.

Yeah, they definitely kept it for the more hardcore base. There isn't going to be a game for casuals that has XP loss, lol.

Brother the trading in this game is not even close to an issue.

i agree with some of this sentiment but i think the campaign is a masterpiece so far. very memorable locations, very varied designs and good bosses. the grind in the endgame is real but on the other hand map sustain has never been an issue and i speced out of almost any waystone node.