Path of Exile Questions Thread - August 04, 2021

Timers: You pop a Delirium mirror, suddenly there's no time for looting, you just gotta zoom-zoom through the map, looting comes later, or else you lose out on rewards. Since the game has a lot of "FOMO: Fear of Missing Out" stuff in the game, there's time pressure everywhere in general. Pop a Breach, enter an Incursion, open a Legion Monolith... they all force you to go fast.
Slows: They are everywhere. Especially with how unspecific the game is, or rather how unnecessarily complicated it is, i.e. movement speed and action speed slows. If you equip The Stampede boots, for example, you'll still get slowed down by the instant Delirium slow and Chilled Ground, because those are classified as action slows. Here's an example of me dying to the instant Delirium slow last night, same as this guy from 1 year ago.

Vine Snare, Cyclone's movement penalty, Maim and Hinder, however, are purely movement slows and cannot be countered by Kaom's Roots, but The Stampede works. Imo all slows should be categorized as one, with items that can counter slows as that is their primary purpose.
On-Death Effects: Same as slows, they are everywhere. There are instant ones such as porcupines and Martyr's Touch, and delayed ones such as Bearers or Volatile Flameblood. The fairest of them all? Volatile Flameblood. I hate Martyr's Touch with a passion, and I hate how it's still in the game when it's basically old Volatiles but for every monster the ghost touches. Everything else either instantly blows up in your face or covers the entire screen.

The worst offenders imo are lingering on-death effects, i.e. Maven's DoT ground effects or her replicating bosses that stay after death and are not removed (which was supposed to be fixed). What is baffling to me is how GGG managed to go backwards in this, as some stuff as old as Beyond bosses actually instantly despawn upon death. I.e. when I fight the SRS/Flameblast spamming Beyond boss called "Tzteosh, Hungering Flame", I can watch his Flameblast stack on top of me until the last second and have it instantly despawn when I kill him. How they cannot manage to do this 7 years later is beyond (ha!) me.
On-Hit Effects/Triggers: Thorns, Lightning Mirage, Corrupted Blood, Delirium special effects, Hexfont... while I don't see them as problematic in general (with some exceptions; f*** Lightning Mirage!), they are the worst if you find them on monsters that are super beefy. They just drain you over time, so the best solution usually is to just blow them up. If your build is attacking very fast but lacks damage, then you just kill yourself to some of those anyway. Especially now after the flask changes, an immune to Corrupted Blood jewel feels almost mandatory, same for Anti-Freeze.
Too much spam in the game: Open a Delirium mirror in a map and suddenly you find yourself in a bullet hell simulator. Homing projectiles everywhere, instantly spawning monsters, rares and uniques with special abilities that are typically huge AoE skills. There's a reason why people claimed for the actual Delirium league to be "very stressful" (check the feedback during that time).

Everything in the game rushes into your face, from instantly spawning Conqueror packs that immediately start shooting, to rares with Haste auras and Quick modifiers + Soul Eater instant kills, to charging Rhoas as early as Act 1. Just look at how fast snakes are in Act 2. Then you have added danger such as some modifiers being super deadly if you get unlucky, i.e. you have a map with extra projectiles and suddenly Redeemer decides to spawn out of nowhere. Or you do a Baran influenced map with AoE and suddenly you find yourself constantly out of Mana.
You cannot stand still in this game unless everything around you is dead: There's just no breathing room anywhere. You want to stop and read a modifier? Here, get fucked by goats casting Ice Spear from off-screen or have 5 enemies rush into your face and apply Puncture. This is actually best noticeable when you try to do this league mechanic in peace or try to talk to Zana or, as it was before it was fixed, tried to do your Syndicate board when Sirus would randomly decide to nuke your ass while you were in the menu.

There just is no safe zone, there is never any peace. Be honest, when was the last time you played this game and were confident and felt comfortable with leaving your character alone? They claim that enemies don't wander to seek out players, but my personal experience says otherwise. Even Grace Period isn't always safe. They want you to read the modifiers and apply strategy, but I can't do that when I'm being attacked and probably killed if I stand still for a moment too long.
Monster damage is too high/damage feels too random: The one thing in this patch that really bugs me is how unbalanced still certain enemies are in the game, some of which are a direct result from said patch. I.e. Redeemer, Baran and Sirus mobs are deadly af and incredibly annoying to deal with. They nerfed Molten Shell and Leap Slam damage on goatmen, but didn't touch their AoE. Monsters can and will attack simultaneously, i.e. Redeemer packs love to do this. Rhoas will charge you from off-screen and stun-lock you (because this is what we veterans want, right?! Good ol' times! /s). There are many other less noticeable such cases, i.e. the Flicker Strike using Wendigo-looking a-holes (oh, look! They are actually called "Vendigos", who knew!).

Act 1 mobs in maps are too deadly now, it's not even funny. Seriously, open some rippy maps that typically don't have Undead, Sea Witches or Goatmen in them, and then go do them again with said monsters. If you can't notice the difference, then I don't know what to tell you. Goatmen, Undead and Sea Witches used to be the sit-back-and-relax mods that you were happy to see because it meant you'd have an easy time. Now, however, all the sirens, skeleton casters and goatmen casters hit like trucks and I try to avoid those mods if I can. They often hit harder than the actual map boss. 2 days ago, I ran a Shaper influenced map and a single caster skeleton did more damage to me than tanking all Shaper balls (and he scales with map mods!). I've never felt this squishy as I have this patch.
Resource management scales with speed: Speed is key. Speed is Quality of Life. Leech scales with instances. Guess how you get many Leech instances on a single target quickly? Speed. Guess what Life/Mana/ES on hit scales with? Speed (or many hits per second). Guess how flask charges are sustained in general? By killing many monsters quickly, especially now that we get 1/4th as many charges. Which is again amplified by what? Speed. You need speed to close gaps (Close Combat underrated Support gem btw).

In general, because the game is so rippy, we rely on quick recovery, as this is how we bounce back from all the nasty damage we can take in less than a second. Play a melee build without Overleech for once and see how Life on Hit/high Life Regen/Life on Block can become a necessity. Enemies deal too much damage, thus you cannot sustain with just Life flasks that you'd press whenever you needed them. Speed is also needed for kiting, and kiting is how you deal with rippy enemies. People always try to highlight how players' high recovery is a problem, but never mention how it's the best way to deal with the game's burst damage that resulted from trying to counter said speed and recovery. The rippier the game is, the more we rely on those things. (And on a sidenote: Stop nerfing Fortify!!!!!!)
GGG themselves constantly encourage speed: Challenges with huge grind that force you to go fast, i.e. the map grind challenges and the like. If you only have a certain amount of hours to play per day/per week, then you gotta go fast or die trying. To me those are not really challenges anyway, but rather direct encouragements to embrace the grind. Something like "defeat X boss without getting hit by X" is fine, but then again we have another problem: Spawn rate of things.

How am I supposed to go slow when going slow means I will probably never see the league boss that has a super low spawn chance? Here's a fact: In Abyss League I never got a certain Lich to spawn, and I played the entire league. And in Ultimatum I stopped playing because I couldn't get a Trialmaster to spawn when I did every single one and cleared them all ~95% of the time (skipped some, died to a few others). We need more deterministic encounters in the game so that everyone can eventually experience a league in full. Gating some encounters behind difficulty is imo fine, but asinine spawn rates are not.

They put in rare rewards where you can only get them if you reach the end, i.e. just look at Breachstones. This is an inherent problem with game design, I think, and not directly a GGG created problem. It's just that we need a fresh take on those things.

submitted by /u/HoldMySoda
[link] [comments]

The unfortunate truth

Posted: 04 Aug 2021 03:48 AM PDT

submitted by /u/Merqury
[link] [comments]

Perfecting timing Quin69 rip

Posted: 04 Aug 2021 02:00 PM PDT

submitted by /u/ArcaRS_
[link] [comments]

GGG, can you please move the item description down a bit. I want to see how much currency I have left before I roll something. Thanks!

Posted: 04 Aug 2021 06:24 AM PDT

submitted by /u/eeaaglee
[link] [comments]

DatModz on GGG design philosophy

Posted: 04 Aug 2021 11:20 AM PDT

submitted by /u/Kryonixc
[link] [comments]

Maven's heal should be nerfed

Posted: 04 Aug 2021 07:05 AM PDT

Maven's heal creates a situation where you must reach a certain threshold of DPS or else you cannot kill the boss without running frost bomb. With player DPS hit so hard globally on patch 3.15, this causes problems with more builds than ever struggling to outpace Maven's heal.

I think this ability runs counter to what GGG's design philosophy seems to be. They want players dealing less damage, so that they are having to actually interact with bosses. Well, playing a low DPS build is already punishing enough on bosses, since the boss living longer means you need to handle more mechanics (and therefore have a higher chance of dying to bosses than a high DPS build does). I don't think we need to add further punishment by having the heal also extend the fight even longer for low DPS builds.

Please address this, GGG. No one wants to slot in frost bomb for every boss fight. As it is, Maven's heal is going to cause anyone playing relatively low single target DPS builds to get so frustrated as to not want to play low single target DPS builds anymore. I believe that will end up greatly hurting build variety.

submitted by /u/Poincare_Confection
[link] [comments]

[Grimro] My Thoughts On The 3.15 Nerfs after Playing

Posted: 04 Aug 2021 10:32 AM PDT

submitted by /u/nixed9
[link] [comments]

Can we get it fixed? It's been 2 leagues already.

Posted: 04 Aug 2021 02:02 AM PDT

submitted by /u/Qewso
[link] [comments]

Highlighting Maps not working for anyone else? Lower section has border, crucial upper section not.

Posted: 04 Aug 2021 10:09 AM PDT

submitted by /u/Finrod_C
[link] [comments]

Sirus Patch 3.15 ��

Posted: 04 Aug 2021 07:17 AM PDT

submitted by /u/7f7cyx5xc89gotx4z
[link] [comments]

If poe changes to have a more reactive playstyle I would like to have some time to react

Posted: 03 Aug 2021 03:53 PM PDT

Stacking haste auras from enemies is not fun, how am I supposed to react to anything that happens?

I just got killed by mobs running at lightspeed that spawned at the same time in a ritual.

I like the flask changes and the general direction of the game but something really needs to be changed here.

Edit: Quite some insightful comments here! Thanks for keeping the discussion civil and thanks for the awards :)

submitted by /u/BlueManiac
[link] [comments]

Just change the color no one will notice…

Posted: 03 Aug 2021 09:00 PM PDT

submitted by /u/jwill2489
[link] [comments]

The game wants to tell me something...

Posted: 04 Aug 2021 02:27 AM PDT

submitted by /u/Japanczi
[link] [comments]

Zana didn't open portals to a T15 Blight map and gave me an error message, effectively wasting my mission.

Posted: 04 Aug 2021 07:53 AM PDT

submitted by /u/Zoltekk
[link] [comments]

Fishing theory: Song of The Sirens + The Writhing Jar

Posted: 04 Aug 2021 07:54 AM PDT

Introduction

Not long ago, while researching and documenting existing material for Fishing in PoE, I came across an interesting coincidence in the properties of fishing rods and known confirmed items for Fishing. This prompted me to one interesting and turning everything upside down theories, which I will try to present below.

For a rather long time, many have tried to discover the secret of Fishing, exploring certain combinations of skills and items. Quite a lot of interesting theories have been published here on Reddit and even more in Fishcord, none of which has ever been confirmed (the LORE one for example). My idea still has a fairly large number of gaps, but, as it seems to me, it can claim to be a theory just as well as others.

First, let's put some ground for concept of Fishing we are assuming to be true for the theory below:

Fishing is an action caused by a certain combination of some fishing items (Fishing rod + [0; N) other items) and caused by some player based (or not) trigger.

Fishing rods

If we talk about a combination of items, it's hard not to recall the Reveal of Reefbane Fishing rod video by ItsYoji, where they clearly point us to one of these options - a fishing rod and Albino Rhoa Feather.

However, during the analysis for affixes of fishing rods, I was haunted by the fact that the Alluring prefix value - Rhoa Feather Lure - has an extremely similar meaning to the one of the items shown in this video - Albino Rhoa Feather.

Moreover, another value of Alluring prefix is Siren Worm Bait, that can be correlated with the The Writhing Jar flask (a Fishing item confirmed by Baited Expectations divination card) that releases 2 Writhing Worms (!) on each use.

The Writhing Jar

For a long time I pondered these facts and tried to construct a theory that would try to explain these coincidences. And here's what I came to, while thinking it over and over:

On every fishing rod, the prefix Alluring and suffix of Snaring are in fact required (!) Fishing items, rather than fishing modifiers.

However, if some (2/4) analogies can be made for the Alluring prefix - for the suffix of Snaring everything is somewhat more complicated. At the moment, I can not offer anything except speculation here. It is possible to draw analogies with existing civilizations in PoE and try to correlate existing confirmed items with them.

There's no good background for of Snaring suffix values and correlated items.

Another gap in the theory is the lack of an explanation for the possibility of using a Fishing rod without these properties at all. A possible answer (at least fitted to the theory) is the following:

Non-unique Fishing rods without the Alluring prefix and suffix of Snaring might not be usable or do have restrictions on use.

Unique Fishing rods

Now let's move on and take a look at the unique versions of the rods: Reefbane and Song of The Sirens. The most obvious observation is the following:

None of the unique rods have the suffix of Snaring and both have Alluring prefix.

Song of The Sirens

Moreover, there's just an amazing coincidence in the item properties: Song of The Sirens Fishing rod has an already known (at least guessed) Alluring prefix value - Siren Worm Bait. Which gives us and opportunity to simply exclude suffix of Snaring from the search list (at list for now)

Song of The Sirens is an ideal Fishing rod for testing: no suffix of Snaring and a good value of Alluring prefix. The rod is unique - it has to be used as is, no guesses for required modifiers.

Trigger

So, according to our theory, we have already decided on the set of items - this is Song of The Sirens Fishing rod and The Writhing Jar flask. The next part is to look for a trigger - which is still unknown. In fact, almost anything can be a trigger and I have little guesswork, for example:

One of the best is the chat command, similar to co /dance. Most likely something like: /startfishing, /castaway, etc.; drawing analogies with various aspects of Krillson's Fishing quest line and dialogues.
Some interaction with the worms from the flask (can be even a chat command while they're alive for example).
Key combination (read, cheat code): F + I + S + H or any other combination. - In my opinion, unlikely, but possible.
There are 2 basic actions in the player's starting interface: Attack and Move. Does Cast exist under any conditions?
Hidden skill gem. Can be purchased from NPCs for example or acuired somewhere else.
A set of other possible triggers and conditions not considered here.

In his dialogue Krillson says: "...Fishing is the simplest thing in the world. With your rod equipped, just approach a pool of water and cast away. It's really intuitive..."

Most likely, the trigger should be a simple action that is available to players from the very first levels.

One way or another, there is evidence that fishing in cities is possible so the trigger options may be limited to be usable in city. Though it might be a false lead.

The trigger may be required to be usable in city. Another thought is that the trigger can be different for different rods and item combinations. - Unlikely, but possible.

Water pool

The last important thing in our theory is a water pool. There will be no speculation here, as Krillson talks about any available body of water in the game without any restrictions. The most reliable and time consuming (unattainable at the moment) is the reservoir next to Krillson itself. A good place can be reservoirs in cities or reservoirs in zones of shelters and active zones.

You can use any location with the area_with_water tag (example) or the one where Reefbane Fishing rod glows.

Conclusion

The main idea of the theory of this Fishing research approach is to use the combination of Song of The Sirens + The Writhing Jar while looking for a proper trigger of Fishing action.

Main idea: Song of The Sirens + The Writhing Jar + Trigger

Thought the idea is pretty a bold one we still might be mistaken. It's always good to keep in mind every tiny hint we know about fishing. So just to be absolutely safe I'm also recommending to include Albino Rhoa Feather in case all other tests fall, as it might have bigger impact than we can predict. There are many possibilities in this world and who knows where will it lead us?

Main idea: Song of The Sirens + The Writhing Jar [ + Albino Rhoa Feather ] + Trigger

Testing

Anyways the only way to find everything out is to go and do some fishing today :)

Once we can figure out what is the Fishing action trigger for one small combination of items, exclude any existing misconceptions - we will be able to reveal the whole Fishing thing.

So in specific, you can follow these steps to try the suggested approach:

Get Fishing equipment	Approach pool of water	Activate trigger
1. Get Song of The Sirens	1. Find an area with `area_with_water` tag	1. Look for any triggers you can think of
2. Get The Writhing Jar	2. Approach any pool of water	2. Research and document anything that might be useful
3. [OPTIONAL] Get Albino Rhoa Feather	3. [OPTIONAL] City area with `area_with_water` tag

Which can be expanded in a more generic steps for any Fishing rod and equipment:

Get Fishing equipment	Approach pool of water	Activate trigger
1. Get Fishing rod	1. Find an area with `area_with_water` tag	1. Look for any triggers you can think of
2. Roll desired hook/bait	2. Approach any pool of water	2. Research and document anything that might be useful
3. Get items required for hook/bait

These suggestions means to reduce the amounts of tests needed to verify any theory you may come up with. However, there are still many unanswered questions.

How to prove or disprove the theory?

The most interesting part of what can be done for further research without explicit testing:

Figuring out the rest of links between Alluring prefix and of Snaring suffix.
Proving there are none of such links.
Proving that The Writhing Jar is not linked to Siren Worn Bait.
The prefix Alluring and suffix of Snaring are not required items, but something else.
(Partial) Non-unique Fishing rods can be used without any restrictions.

These are the ones I could come up with, so any constructive thoughts are appreciated!

P.S. You may find out that some links in this article will lead you to a new Fishcord project: Path of Exile Fishing Wiki (Beta)

P.P.S. Here's a full list of available values for Alluring/of Snaring Fishing rod modifiers can roll (special thanks to u/poorFishwife for the help with the list!):

 Alluring prefix mod list: {1, Rhoa Feather Lure} {2, Siren Worm Bait} {3, Totemic Wood Lure} Special, Reefbane only: {4, Thaumaturgical Lure} Suffix of Snaring mod list: {1, Karui Stone Hook} {2, Ezomyte Shell Hook} {3, Vaal Soul Hook} {4, Eternal Iron Hook}

><>

submitted by /u/Mephody
[link] [comments]

Visual clarity and flask management don't eat in the same table...

Posted: 04 Aug 2021 12:08 PM PDT

submitted by /u/Kalhard
[link] [comments]

This is the state of PoE on playstation. I cannot believe this. Restarted my game 3 times, my system once. It also got worse after we slugged our way to the Curio Cases, this is ridiculous.

Posted: 03 Aug 2021 08:49 PM PDT

submitted by /u/BAJDE-
[link] [comments]

Here's an event idea. Just in case GGG is planning to run one in the near future.

Posted: 03 Aug 2021 03:56 PM PDT

submitted by /u/Prace_Ace
[link] [comments]

Perspective from a long-time GGG customer - a small "whale" since Beta

Posted: 03 Aug 2021 11:23 PM PDT

TL;DR at the bottom.
I wanted to give this league and the changes a fair shake... but... At the end of the day, I have to admit it. This game is now a chore. I've been playing since Beta. I am what GGG probably considers a small whale. I regularly spend $100+ per league. I don't know how much that adds up to over 8 years but it's a fair amount.

So, Expedition and 3.15? Level 90 with Absolution. The only way I got there with this terrible new skill was because GGG 400+% buffed the skill after launch. Actually... also because I just put Spectres in my 6L and Absolution was a distant second even after the big buff.

I told myself not to listen to the vocal minority that is *supposedly* the Reddit crowd. I figured it was an overreaction. It wasn't.

I understand the "vision" that normal players shouldn't be able to waltz into red maps and destroy the content. I really do. I remember the days when a red map cost an exalt and running them by yourself was basically impossible. You had to group up, do rotas. That's how you sustained red maps. And you know, today is better in that regard. A solo player can sustain red maps these days and I think that's awesome.

But at what cost? The gameplay when you're actually there? Garbage. Frustrating. Difficult but not for the right reasons. It has become a game not about skill and interacting with mechanics but about trying to offscreen or be offscreened by mobs that you often can't even see. About 90% of my deaths this league have been from things I never saw coming and honestly still don't know what caused them.

There's no in-between. The forced zoomed-in camera contributes to this. The faulty design philosophy of "just throw more mobs at the player in a smaller space" amplifies it. In what world does a person only get to see 40 feet in any direction? The answer is: Only in the world where Chris Wilson thinks it forces "gameplay". It's artificial difficulty and it's just plain lame, lazy design.

Then you add on all of the other problems. Layers of RNG where it's not needed. Clicking and lack of QoL where it should be but isn't. Trade is a mess but hey, player interaction. Well, after I already whispered 20 people or scrolled down far enough in the search results to maybe have a 50/50 chance of a response.

Oh btw, my trading experience is this: Alt-tab and hope my play session survives that because we can't have something actually work in-game, then search and copy/paste the search string, accept invite, teleport to hideout, click currency, make sure I'm not getting scammed (player interaction!), click accept, kthxbai. 99.9% of the time I never interact with that person again. I never say anything to them and they never say anything to me besides thx gl hf (canned response who f'ing cares). Because it's tiresome and because lots of times it's a bot anyway so... what's the point?

POE2 will not fix these issues because these issues come from the people who designed POE1. Namely Chris Wilson who apparently thinks he's the god of ARPG game design. Chris and company aren't going to magically wake up tomorrow and change their ways. They're making the best game they can make. And I don't regret spending the money on POE over the years. It's just... it's not the game I hoped it would become. Obviously I'm passionate about POE and I still love the journey it has taken over the years. But it has taken a really bad turn lately and I don't think Chris is willing to admit that there are fundamental issues with the design he's pushing.

TL;DR
- Game is artificially difficult, frustrating and incredibly poorly balanced (lol build diversity?)
- Lore-wise it makes no sense - white mobs stronger than Sirus
- Trade is a joke and SSF same loot table so good luck having fun with unique builds in SSF
- Screen clutter is at all-time highs and it's eye-cancer in endgame maps
- One more time, with feeling: there is no build diversity in this game anymore

submitted by /u/BananTarrPhotography
[link] [comments]

Financial Perspective on GGG Changes

Posted: 04 Aug 2021 11:43 AM PDT

TLDR: A lot of GGG's changes make sense when you consider the business environment for doing so. If they felt they needed to rip off the Band-Aid to get things to a better spot moving forward this is basically the perfect time to do so.

I haven't seen any financial perspectives on the approach GGG has taken recently, so I wanted to share my thoughts as a tech banker for the past 10 years working with companies similar to GGG and Tencent (note: I don't work with either professionally).

GGG reports earnings on a quarterly basis to Tencent, who then provides them to investors via press releases as regular intervals. Q2 numbers are already in, and they will be shared with the public along with general themes and a few questions from analysts on August 18th. Their Q3 books will close on September 30th, and the Q3 shareholder meeting will be held mid-October once the finance team has time to fully close the quarter.

Let's not cast any judgement on GGG's vision for the game - just assume they believe that significant negative changes must be made for the long-term health of the game which will disrupt a portion of the existing player base. We already knew that player numbers would be down with the concurrent launch of D3's season (a small but significant impact) and given the Sept 23 release for D2R /August beta for D2R we can assume this league will see unprecedented numbers in terms of player retention based on meta factors within the gaming space alone. We can also reasonably assume that GGG has a business plan to defend its customer base from D2R - potentially a major expansion for their Q4 release although that is speculative.

Given this environment and set of assumptions now is an ideal time for GGG to push forward any nerfs they feel they need to make to the game. Revenues are expected to face headwinds this quarter given the challenging release environment regardless of what they do. When they close the books on Sept 30 I expect them to be at all-time low concurrent player numbers given the release of D2R regardless of what they do. By the time they need to speak to these numbers and GGG is providing their internal memos it will already be mid-October, meaning that they will be 3 weeks into D2R consuming their player base and media coverage. Conveniently this is also almost exactly when their press release will start ramping up for the Q4 expansion, which should have plenty of runway to offer much more player-friendly changes having gotten many of the extremely negative changes out of the way.

If Chris and other senior leaders at GGG have had to listen to their devs tell them for months that the game is reaching a critical level of power-creep and they cannot move forward with the design elements desired to set up to next several quarters of PoE development, I can't imagine a better time for them to bite the bullet and bury the negative numbers in what was going to be a bad quarter regardless. From a financial standpoint the success of those changes will really be driven by their Q4/Q1 earnings when they should have much less competition in the AAA ARPG space to release against.

submitted by /u/Lyeel
[link] [comments]

Can we get this Instilling Orb enchant added?

Posted: 03 Aug 2021 03:52 PM PDT

submitted by /u/Stoichio
[link] [comments]

If GGG is doing well financially, the negative reviews and low playerbase mean very little to them. Somewhat long post on marketing and sales tactics.

Posted: 04 Aug 2021 01:16 PM PDT

Inspired by one of the top posts at the moment and a comment I saw last night on a thread on the topic of additional changes this patch, I wanted to break down some points on how GGG's marketing and sales work.

Before I begin, I'd like to establish some information. Last year GGG profited $51,864,128 (seen on page 6), thanks to the post by Aggnon. They are by no means a struggling company, or the "small indie company" they once were. All the talks of "vanity metrics," money is the largest importance to them, they are a company selling us, the consumers, a product.. This means that the most effective, and sometimes, only way to convey dissatisfaction is through money.

With GGG's $50m profit last year, one could simply write this off that the community is overreacting, that the low playerbase and awful retention, and negative feedback across multiple platforms are dispositional to the players happy with the game. In a free-to-play game the vast majority of money is coming from the whales. One article from Forbes back in 2014 said this,

"There's a new report out from Swrve which says 0.15% of mobile players account for 50% of mobile games revenue. The general idea isn't exactly groundbreaking news, but those specific numbers seem even more imbalanced than previously thought."

While I do somewhat doubt that PoE has this level of disparity between whales and non-whales (considering this was for a mobile game and it was 7 years ago) the point still stands - the whales are the biggest demographic to please. I have seen many different viewpoints on here the last few weeks, and many people have started memeing about the "vanity metrics" to an extent. However, the most likely case is actually true that they actually are vanity metrics because again the most likely case is financially GGG did just fine, due to the whales, their impressive marketing, and longtime supporters. I've already talked about whales, now I'd like to shift into their marketing and supporters.

When a new League is revealed, the supporter packs are also released alongside them. This is very much intentional - imagine if supporter packs were released a month into the league, the sales would be vastly different. In Culinary, there is a saying, "The eyes eat first." It is the simple idea that food that looks good will be more appealing and therefore must taste good! This approach is utilized with the League reveal to hook players by combining impressive visuals, music, features on new and exciting elements, and great looking supporter packs. If you've ever thought "Wow this next League is looking absolutely amazing, I'm getting a supporter pack right now!" then they have succeeded in making you believe your food is delicious before you've even taken a bite.

Another problem with getting a supporter pack before the League has launched means GGG has very little incentive to improve their product. Awful launch? You already paid for it. No more balancing or improving the current league? You already paid for it. To continue the food analogy, there is a reason you tip at the end of your meal at a restaurant - by having a monetary gain based on the service you receive, it incentivizes your server to take care of you and for the food to come out correctly. When services and food are satisfactory, then the reward is extra money for the company. This dynamic promotes a positive relationship between the consumer and the product. The PoE community does not have this dynamic due to people buying Supporter packs before they've had an actual taste of the League.

The term "Supporter pack" is very intentional as well, however, it is commonly used by smaller companies who actually need revenue to continue their work. A company that profited $50m last year is not in dire need of your support to continue their work. Now to flip this around, buying a Supporter pack is your way of giving a thumbs up to GGG that you SUPPORT their actions. You've seen them on the forums, the people who have 10 Supporter pack badges under their name and complaining about the League...these are the longtime supporters who care about the game but are doing the absolute worst thing if they are unhappy with the direction or current state of the game.

These packs also feed a bit into "Fear of missing out" (FOMO) by releasing an amazing set of items that will never be available again. Combined with all the other tactics listed above, it's no wonder that GGG does so well financially. I hope you were able to learn a few things from this post, and that when the next League comes around, you remember this information before you decide to spend money.

submitted by /u/Yashimasta
[link] [comments]

The DPS nerfs were extra heavy handed to HC players

Posted: 04 Aug 2021 01:05 PM PDT

For us HC players, pressing into the 1-2 million DPS while also maintaining 6-7k HP with layers of defense was the peak of HC. Back in delirium I hit 100 with a HOAG jugg with 95% perfect items for the build. It peaked at 8k HP with 1.5 million DPS. I loaded it into POB and its DPS is now averaging around 600k.

I noticed this because I decided to play a HOAG again this league and with incredible gear, I couldnt Kill Drox #4 because he spawned flags faster than I could kill them. My POB is 500k right now and it just feels awful to be wearing close to what you know is BIS gear for the build, and not be able to take it much higher.

Its really disappointing GGG's approach to this league as it its ruining the HC community. We used to be only 10% of the community, but its feeling less and less every league. This one may be the death of us.

submitted by /u/Damnation13
[link] [comments]

Why does Chains of Command unique not have chance to create animated weapons on hitting a unique enemy so it can boss?

Posted: 04 Aug 2021 10:39 AM PDT

basicly the title. one of my favourite unique items, enabling the beautiful animated voidforges, i just wish it could do bosses a bit more easily..

submitted by /u/darkowozzd97
[link] [comments]

Breaking News

Path of Exile

Wednesday, August 4, 2021

Path of Exile Questions Thread - August 04, 2021

Path of Exile Questions Thread - August 04, 2021

Introduction

Fishing rods

Unique Fishing rods

Trigger

Water pool

Conclusion

Testing

How to prove or disprove the theory?

No comments:

Post a Comment

Popular

Blog Archive

Fashion

Beauty

Travel