Path of Exile is a MAJESTIC incline

[tritosine2k]

So it's great for longevity, while not destabilizing the meta. We also had a baseline increase in difficulty and the top end has also been increased. Personally, I need all the power I can get right now. Next league recombinators are going to be super rare anyway, making it a big investment crafting even just one slow with them.

It's the opposite of being great for longevity, for the same reason harvest wasn't great for it either. It cuts down on the time/effort/resources required to get the items you want. This means you will finish a build much faster and either quit or play something else, it devalues mediocre items much faster (with the exception of the ones people would buy for specific mods to recombine) and ultimately it creates yet another level of powercreep. None of these things are good for the longevity or health of the game.

Item's like this should not exist.

that whole build shouldn't exist

 

[Kjaska]

To add to that, the problem with crafting systems like beastiary crafting, synth crafting, harvest/meta crafting and now recombining is that it widens the gap between the high-end players and the more casual player, who has no idea or understanding of these things.

The new player still profits from this, because he can buy stronger items. It took me leagues to learn many of the systems of PoE back in the day. It was a great experience seeing my improvement every 3 months.

This is ultimately a pretty bad thing for new player acquisition, as systems like these are counterproductive to the goal of increasing player retention, while scaring away potential new players with systems that they feel they need a PHD and copious amounts of excess currency to understand and use for themselves.

I'm just gonna call BS on all of this unless you have a degree in player acquisition. People have been touting this shit for as long as PoE has existed and yet it keeps growing (with almost no marketing). You don't need to master any of the crafting methods to get into the game and get into the end-game even. I still have people in my guild who never understood any of the crafting and simply farm currency and trade for their upgrades.

In fact the recombinators are perfect for new players, because you don't need a galaxy brain to smash two items with good mods together and have fun time winning or losing your gamble. It's a much easier system to understand and it's nuances have been made public a few weeks into the league already.

No one likes to feel like they cannot access or engage with certain parts of the game, especially the parts that hold a metric fuckton of player-power.

But you can still reach it if you put in the effort. You're not barred from the system forever, unless you're really dumb or something. Which is a good thing. I don't want dumbs in my game.

 

[Saark]

It means the opposite. You can min-max your build even harder, making you play for longer.

Harvest had the same possibilities and features. It had one of the worst player retentions in the history of the game.

But it makes bases remain more valuable, because you're constantly destroying them.

Bases which the casual player will never understand why or how they are valuable, unless they are using third-party software to price things for them - which the regular player does not use.

but the game got H A R D E R with a bigger top end. Chris also said they want to expand the end game every league now.

If the game gets 20% harder but you introduce 20% more player power, the game doesn't become harder. It just becomes longer. It is the padding of content (since the new uber uber bosses aren't new bosses either) because without it, people would burn out/leave the game faster. Which is my point.

The new player still profits from this, because he can buy stronger items. It took me leagues to learn many of the systems of PoE back in the day. It was a great experience seeing my improvement every 3 months.

Whether or not the new player can afford these items is dependant on other factors, i.e. which map mods are available and for what price, as those are one of the biggest driving factors for currency devaluation. Most regular players do not trade in exalts but in chaos, and having a 1:180 conversion rate does not benefit the casual player. Neither does not having a proper exalt-sink anymore, and any new crafting system will lessen the value of exalts as crafting currency for metacrafting as you no longer need to metacraft. It's happened in every single league so far that introduced new crafting methods.

I'm just gonna call BS on all of this unless you have a degree in player acquisition. People have been touting this shit for as long as PoE has existed and yet it keeps growing (with almost no marketing). You don't need to master any of the crafting methods to get into the game and get into the end-game even. I still have people in my guild who never understood any of the crafting and simply farm currency and trade for their upgrades.

I don't need a degree in anything to look at player numbers across leagues that gave people accelerated currency or gear acquisition (harvest, blight, ultimatum) and how that affected player retention. Of course there are more variables to this, i.e. the lack of introduction of new skill gems last league, or how fun the actual league-mechanic is, but the overall correlation is quite clear to me (and anyone with a brain, really).

But you can still reach it if you put in the effort. You're not barred from the system forever, unless you're really dumb or something. Which is a good thing. I don't want dumbs in my game.

I agree. Doesn't mean that players won't be discouraged and will just play something else instead in a market where competitors don't have to be of the same genre. That's why releases like Cyberpunk or Elden Ring are enough to impact player numbers noticeably.

In fact the recombinators are perfect for new players, because you don't need a galaxy brain to smash two items with good mods together and have fun time winning or losing your gamble. It's a much easier system to understand and it's nuances have been made public a few weeks into the league already.

The perfect way for new/mid-level players to use recombinators is to sell them and buy upgrades, like it has always been with newly introduced currency, fossils and the likes. As both the recombinators and the bases that are worth combining are worth far more than what the regular player can afford to lose in raw currency, and they are typically able to buy upgrades much cheaper than crafting them themselves. This is the exact gameplay loop that has caused a lot of issues in PoE over the last few years, including massive power-creep that requires constant buffing of bosses or the introduction of uber uber uber uber uber versions of old bosses, as GGG cannot afford to develop PoE 2 alongside a new endgame expansion every year alongside new league content every league. Not if they keep giving the player more and more and more power every league.

 

[Kjaska]

Harvest had the same possibilities and features. It had one of the worst player retentions in the history of the game.

Harvest was(and still is) gay to interact with. Recombinators are fun. How is the retention this league?

Bases which the casual player will never understand why or how they are valuable

Good. You have to put in the knowledge task. Part of the fun is learning the ropes. They will understand eventually. If they don't, it is because they never cared in the first place, so the point is moot.

It just becomes longer. It is the padding of content

But it's not padding. It's literally NEW content. The crafting methods are new and fun. I would argue the new uber versions feel substantially different to be called a separate version.

because without it, people would burn out/leave the game faster. Which is my point.

So your point is that all of this padding is good for retention then?

Whether or not the new player can afford these items is dependant on other factors, i.e. which map mods are available and for what price, as those are one of the biggest driving factors for currency devaluation. Most regular players do not trade in exalts but in chaos, and having a 1:180 conversion rate does not benefit the casual player. Neither does not having a proper exalt-sink anymore, and any new crafting system will lessen the value of exalts as crafting currency for metacrafting as you no longer need to metacraft. It's happened in every single league so far that introduced new crafting methods.

I don't want casuals to be able to afford the best gear in the game. I wasn't talking about people who play only 2 hours every week. I was talking about motivated individuals, who are prepared to grind their ass off, but who don't want to learn the ropes of crafting. You can literally specialize in an area of the game now and just farm the stuff people need instead of raw currency. Yes, Softcore Trade economy is completely fucked after some time and somebody who plays very little will also have very little. But then why should that player even think of getting giga items or doing the hardest content? We have a guy who literally just posted his big find of 7ex and how his highest ever character is lvl91 and guess what? He sounds like he's having a blast with the game despite not interacting with all those crafting methods you speak of.

but the overall correlation is quite clear to me

Correlation != causation. You're reducing a multi-factor issue into just "lol it gives currency and good gear too fast". People quit Blight, because they didn't like the playstyle. People quit Harvest, because they didn't like interacting with it and learning how to use it. Ultimatum had the same issue as this league does - it was a summer league and people tend to spend more time outside and less in front of their computer.

Doesn't mean that players won't be discouraged

I don't want players that are easily discouraged. IMO players like that never even make into the end-game because they get filtered by the Passive Tree, Brutus and whatever the next biggest drop off is.

That's why releases like Cyberpunk or Elden Ring are enough to impact player numbers noticeably.

But not permanently. Those games impact everybody's numbers. Those games also have even worse long term retention. Nugi and Raiz aren't playing those, they are playing Lost Ark.

The perfect way for new/mid-level players to use recombinators is to sell them and buy upgrades, like it has always been with newly introduced currency, fossils and the likes. As both the recombinators and the bases that are worth combining are worth far more than what the regular player can afford to lose in raw currency, and they are typically able to buy upgrades much cheaper than crafting them themselves. This is the exact gameplay loop that has caused a lot of issues in PoE over the last few years, including massive power-creep that requires constant buffing of bosses or the introduction of uber uber uber uber uber versions of old bosses, as GGG cannot afford to develop PoE 2 alongside a new endgame expansion every year alongside new league content every league. Not if they keep giving the player more and more and more power every league.

Perfect only if the player doesn't want to engage with the crafting at all and just wants currency. In that case the recombinators actually solve the problem you posed earlier with the devaluation of currencies like Chaos/Exalts, as everybody can find recombinators. If somebody does actually try engaging with the systems however, they'll be greeted by a much more fun way of crafting compared to anything we had before barring maybe Exalt Slamming the past.

The fact that it is cheaper on average to simply buy upgrades in trade league than to attempt to make them yourself is an issue that inherent in systems where trade and specialization are allowed. It's inherent in our own world economy. It would be great, if it weren't like that in PoE, but what do you expect GGG to do? They tried soulbound crafting already and nobody likes Rog.

Power creep and the introduction of new difficulty ceilings at regular intervals is what every game of this nature does. It's what keeps it fresh and exciting.

GGG will be fine. The people required to work on PoE 2 aren't the same people doing the updates to the live game. NZ borders are re-opening. I wouldn't throw the towel in just yet.

 

[Saark]

Harvest was(and still is) gay to interact with. Recombinators are fun. How is the retention this league?

About as bad as Archnemesis, which had games like Lost Ark and Elden Ring releasing throughout it's first few weeks. Do with that information as you wish. 1-week retention for Sentinel was 57%. Blight had 59% in 2-weeks, Harvest had 51% in 2 weeks. Sentinel had 46% in 2 weeks. One of the worst retentions ever, with lots of people quitting because they feel the league mechanic and newly introduced content is only designed for the top 10% of the playerbase, on top of a horrendous state of Archnemesis rares on release.

Good. You have to put in the knowledge task. Part of the fun is learning the ropes. They will understand eventually. If they don't, it is because they never cared in the first place, so the point is moot.

It is fun, but most players do not actually use this knowledge, same as most people didn't use beast splitting/imprinting, used harvest-crafted sextant-saved double beyond fractured maps in delirium, run wave 30 simulacrum or fight uber uber bosses. It's content for the top-end, and the gap between the regular player and the top-end players is widening, not closing. This is not healthy for the game, or sustainable for that matter. A "higher and higher" approach every league is not working.

But it's not padding. It's literally NEW content. The crafting methods are new and fun. I would argue the new uber versions feel substantially different to be called a separate version.

What made PoE pretty successful in the past was the fact that regular leagues would expand the content sideways, while the winter leagues with atlas/core system changes would expand it upwards. What I mean by that is that the game has a pretty clear history of adding new content in non-expansion leagues to offer new ways of enjoying the game in slightly different ways, while the expansion-leagues like Conquerors or Maven would add a new layer on top of the already existing one. When the game starts adding new content on top every league, it will drive away returning players that already felt like they had an uphill battle the last time around, and now the peak of the mountain is even further up.

So your point is that all of this padding is good for retention then?

My point is that it's not good for retention because the regular player will never experience this content, while the top-end will reach it in the same amount of time. None of this powercreep was necessary to beat the new Uber Uber content. They could've released it just fine without introducing a new system of massive powercreep. But they did, and so players are still face-tanking mechanics that are supposed to kill you no matter what (tanking maven memory game should not be possible, for example) and kill or phase bosses in a matter of seconds with hundreds of millions of DPS. So what are they gonna do next league, Uber Uber Uber bosses? And the league after we get Uber Uber Uber Uber bosses? You see how quickly this gets out of control? You don't hand people the tools to trivialize the new content you just released in the same league. You give them the tools later, so the hardcore players can challenge themselves, and the people who missed that content in one league can look forward to the next one that will allow them to finally tackle those challenges that they couldn't last time.

Correlation != causation. You're reducing a multi-factor issue into just "lol it gives currency and good gear too fast". People quit Blight, because they didn't like the playstyle. People quit Harvest, because they didn't like interacting with it and learning how to use it. Ultimatum had the same issue as this league does - it was a summer league and people tend to spend more time outside and less in front of their computer.

That's not what I'm doing (I even specifically stated that theres more variables to it, but thanks for trying to put words in my mouth). You're trying to introduce your own headcanon of what the main causes or problems are with these leagues. I'm saying what the GGG devs have talked and expressed worries about multiple times in Baeclasts and other podcasts/interviews, as well as trade-related manifestos: A faster gear/currency acquisition leads to players leaving faster. Which they are fine with, to some degree, but not when it affects the first 1-2weeks which is where they make most of their sales. Whether or not the retention is very good during the last 4 weeks of the game as the actual hardcore grind-oriented players are still enjoying themselves, matters very little for GGGs bottomline.

I don't want players that are easily discouraged. IMO players like that never even make into the end-game because they get filtered by the Passive Tree, Brutus and whatever the next biggest drop off is.

But you will need them, as the people who originally played the game are aging and have less and less time to play the game with the same fervor and dedication. So you will need to attract new players, and GGG has been doing a worse and worse job at doing so, especially when it comes to making them stay and not feel left out in the open. There are some that see this as a challenge, but the game is too bloated and too big, and adding new crazy shit will make a few percent happy, but it is not healthy for the game as a whole.

Power creep and the introduction of new difficulty ceilings at regular intervals is what every game of this nature does. It's what keeps it fresh and exciting.

No, it's not. Most games replace old content with new one, so the gameplay loop until the absolute endgame stays about the same when measuring the amount of time/effort spent to get there. As new content gets brought in, old content becomes obsolete. This is something PoE specifically wants or at least wanted to avoid in the past, as it instead tried to offer more content that could be enjoyed in parallel. As I said before, PoE had a history of expanding sideways for 3/4 leagues of the year, and adding new stuff (while replacing large amounts of the old stuff) once a year. Shaper/Eldge atlas stratregies got replaced by conquerors, and while the fun parts of the Shaper/Elder era are still around, the path to getting there was shortened. Conquerors got replaced by Maven, but not really, and it increased the requirements needed to enjoy the full endgame. That's why they cut that short in some of the more recent leagues, because it hurt the game. But they keep going down this same path again, and it retains the same issues.

GGG will be fine. The people required to work on PoE 2 aren't the same people doing the updates to the live game. NZ borders are re-opening. I wouldn't throw the towel in just yet.

Never said that GGG or PoE was dying. I'm just saying its unhealthy for the game long-term and that these decisions they made lately are very questionable, as is evident in the loss of peak player numbers, the fading interest in new leagues and the player retention of the first 2 weeks becoming lower and lower - all of which will not only affect the regular player but will also affect GGGs ability to benefit financially from their new leagues.

 

[Saark]

One thing about this recombinator issues that I haven't touched on at all, by the way, is that it is also driving away the permanent players in standard. You likely don't give a shit about those whatsoever, but they make up a sizeable portion of the playerbase, and making existing legacy items obsolete, massively devaluing eternal orbs all of a sudden and drastically changing the standard high-end item economy is not going to go over well with those players either.

 

[T. Reich]

Saark , pearls for swine...

 

[Kjaska]

About as bad as Archnemesis, which had games like Lost Ark and Elden Ring releasing throughout it's first few weeks. Do with that information as you wish. 1-week retention for Sentinel was 57%. Blight had 59% in 2-weeks, Harvest had 51% in 2 weeks. Sentinel had 46% in 2 weeks. One of the worst retentions ever, with lots of people quitting because they feel the league mechanic and newly introduced content is only designed for the top 10% of the playerbase, on top of a horrendous state of Archnemesis rares on release.

It would be interesting to see what the numbers for a "good retention" league look like for comparison. I wasn't looking at numbers, I was just going off the activity in guild chat. It's much more active even in week 5 compared to last league, where most of them left for Lost Ark. Usually people will complain about trade being dead in a bad retention league, but that was also absent so far. Maybe the amount of unique users went down, but the people who left are playing more and longer? The amount of total play hours would be an interesting metric to compare.

It is fun, but most players do not actually use this knowledge, same as most people didn't use beast splitting/imprinting, used harvest-crafted sextant-saved double beyond fractured maps in delirium, run wave 30 simulacrum or fight uber uber bosses. It's content for the top-end, and the gap between the regular player and the top-end players is widening, not closing. This is not healthy for the game, or sustainable for that matter. A "higher and higher" approach every league is not working.

And the beast splitting blueprints and fractured deli maps got yeeted because of that exact reason. GGG is aware. By contrast doing Simu 30 is more rewarding than 20, but the investment/reward ratio isn't so out of whack that it makes you outpace everybody else by a factor of 5x. Same thing goes for the uber uber bosses. They are way more difficult, but the loot is only sometimes worth it. Chris explicitly mentioned that the top end is going to get harder and harder, but the rewards do not scale 1:1 so as to not let the top players skew the market. The top players will still dominate, because they invest more time and effort into the game.

What made PoE pretty successful in the past was the fact that regular leagues would expand the content sideways, while the winter leagues with atlas/core system changes would expand it upwards. What I mean by that is that the game has a pretty clear history of adding new content in non-expansion leagues to offer new ways of enjoying the game in slightly different ways, while the expansion-leagues like Conquerors or Maven would add a new layer on top of the already existing one. When the game starts adding new content on top every league, it will drive away returning players that already felt like they had an uphill battle the last time around, and now the peak of the mountain is even further up.

You can't draw that conclusion. I never thought like that, when I was still trying to get into t16s while Uber Elder got introduced. My IRL friend, whom I got addicted to the game, doesn't think that. He is happy about reaching lvl96 this league, which is higher than his previous characters. The guy a couple of pages ago, who posted his lucky full stack of Scout doesn't seem to think like that. My other IRL friend isn't even thinking of the end game bosses, she was just looking how long she can go in the campaign without dying.

Same thing goes for the success of PoE being reliant on that formula. My guess is that GGG views Lost Ark as the major long term threat and Lost Ark can spam content for a year+ until they catch up to the Korean realm. So they try to counter that by expanding the end game every league now. I don't remember anyone ever praising side content like Lab/Heist/Delve in recent times for it's ability to retain them playing.

My point is that it's not good for retention because the regular player will never experience this content, while the top-end will reach it in the same amount of time.

That's just not true. The new uber ubers took the top players much longer to defeat than the new bosses in the past.

You also can't draw the conclusion that the new top end is going to drive regular players away. They could have just as easily quit because of many other reasons or didn't quit at all.

None of this powercreep was necessary to beat the new Uber Uber content.

Ben was using recombinators to make his Scepter afaik. Not sure about other gear slots. I would also argue that it is necessary for most players who aren't the absolute best mechanically. It's definitely required, if you're going to do shit like 8-mod invitation with Height of Hubris allocated.

tanking maven memory game should not be possible, for example

I see this take from time to time, but why shouldn't it be? Players have been outgearing boss mechanics since the beginning of time. IMO the ultimate goal of an ARPG is to make a god-like character eventually.

So what are they gonna do next league, Uber Uber Uber bosses? And the league after we get Uber Uber Uber Uber bosses? You see how quickly this gets out of control?

This is a slippery slope fallacy. Time will tell how GGG goes about handling the expansion of the end-game every league. They can just as easily expand the end-game in the side content, like they did with Delve, Simus, Blight and Breachstones before.

and the people who missed that content in one league can look forward to the next one that will allow them to finally tackle those challenges that they couldn't last time.

Doesn't that contradict your theory about how people quit when they can't beat the new end-game in the same League it is released?

You don't hand people the tools to trivialize the new content you just released in the same league.

I'm not aware of a build that can ignore all of the mechanics of all of the uber uber bosses, care to provide some video proof?

You're trying to introduce your own headcanon of what the main causes or problems are with these leagues.

Not my own headcannon, it's what the players have repeatedly expressed during those leagues.

That's not what I'm doing (I even specifically stated that theres more variables to it, but thanks for trying to put words in my mouth).

You lamp-shaded those variables. Your own words are that recombinators are the main reason for retention being bad, when the much more likely reason is the Archnemesis Rares implementation during the first weeks of the League.

I'm saying what the GGG devs have talked and expressed worries about multiple times in Baeclasts and other podcasts/interviews, as well as trade-related manifestos: A faster gear/currency acquisition leads to players leaving faster.

Yes, and recombinators extend this period, they don't shorten it. You can grind for even more ridiculous items now than previously was feasible.

Whether or not the retention is very good during the last 4 weeks of the game as the actual hardcore grind-oriented players are still enjoying themselves, matters very little for GGGs bottomline.

That's just a guess on your part. It could still be a significant part of the income. It is certainly something they care about or else why make the new 40/40 so much longer?

But you will need them, as the people who originally played the game are aging and have less and less time to play the game with the same fervor and dedication.

They also have more and more money to spend on the game. Besides, age is not a useful metric in this case, as the players get filtered by complexity not by their hand-to-eye coordination.

So you will need to attract new players, and GGG has been doing a worse and worse job at doing so, especially when it comes to making them stay and not feel left out in the open.

I have to call BS on this one. Do you have any actual proof of this?

There are some that see this as a challenge, but the game is too bloated and too big, and adding new crazy shit will make a few percent happy, but it is not healthy for the game as a whole.

Again, this is conjecture on your part. Do you have any proof of people quitting in white maps in droves, because of all the content the game has? By this logic any type of new side-content(which you site as the preferred way of expanding on the game instead of the end-game) would have the same effect on the new player. Besides GGG literally gave you an anti-bloat solution this very League.

No, it's not. Most games replace old content with new one, so the gameplay loop until the absolute endgame stays about the same when measuring the amount of time/effort spent to get there. As new content gets brought in, old content becomes obsolete.

The only game I know that actually removed content like that and kept end-game difficulty static was GW2 and they are in the process of bringing all of it back now and also power-creeping with new Ascendancy Classes or whatever they are called. Every other online game just adds new content on top and increases the power ceiling players can reach. Besides, players are skipping a lot of content in PoE already, side or main. Didn't you yourself claim that because recombinators are in the game, the total amount of time needed to reach the new end-game remains the same as before? By your logic the new uber uber bosses do exactly that: somebody who can farm them is no longer farming the normie versions. Also Ultimatum, Scourge, Perandus and Prophecy are no longer in the game. These too are recent decisions made by GGG.

Shaper/Eldge atlas stratregies got replaced by conquerors, and while the fun parts of the Shaper/Elder era are still around, the path to getting there was shortened. Conquerors got replaced by Maven, but not really, and it increased the requirements needed to enjoy the full endgame. That's why they cut that short in some of the more recent leagues, because it hurt the game. But they keep going down this same path again, and it retains the same issues.

And the new uber uber bosses don't require any special Atlas setup strategy. No bloat added there. The Conqueror/Maven time to setup the Atlas wasn't about shortening the end-game it was about players feeling like they had to do a lot before they could actually start playing the game.

I'm just saying its unhealthy for the game long-term

It's literally the first time ever they did an arrest on the meta and this type of end-game expansion. You're drawing a trend from a single point of reference. GGG might just as well scrap this idea, if they deem it unproductive. Lets wait until next League at least and see what they will do with balance and how they will expand the end-game there.

that these decisions they made lately are very questionable, as is evident in the loss of peak player numbers, the fading interest in new leagues and the player retention of the first 2 weeks becoming lower and lower

They also got raped by NZ covid policies, making development of big scope leagues more difficult. Chris made a big statement about how they'll no longer try to overextend on the new Leagues in order to insure smooth launches. Back then I already was against that shit. I want interesting Leagues like Synthesis, even if it means waiting for a month after launch for all of the fixes. But the players endlessly cry about buggy launches and how we are all "beta testers". Maybe GGG eventually goes back to a more risky approach to League design, only time will tell.

 

[Kjaska]

You likely don't give a shit about those whatsoever,

You know me too well.

is not going to go over well with those players either.

Yes, but will those players actually quit? It looks to me like the standard players are all weirdos who can't be motivated by regular means and by the same token won't quit playing for the same reason a normal player would.

 

[tritosine2k]

Saark , pearls for swine...

Lootporn,buildporn,gearporn -> gearslut / HOG pipeline confirmed

 

[Saark]

Yes, but will those players actually quit? It looks to me like the standard players are all weirdos who can't be motivated by regular means and by the same token won't quit playing for the same reason a normal player would.

A bunch of them will stick around due to sunk cost fallacy. Others have already indicated that they're done with the game after spending thousands of hours on items that were made obsolete now.

It would be interesting to see what the numbers for a "good retention" league look like for comparison. I wasn't looking at numbers, I was just going off the activity in guild chat. It's much more active even in week 5 compared to last league, where most of them left for Lost Ark. Usually people will complain about trade being dead in a bad retention league, but that was also absent so far. Maybe the amount of unique users went down, but the people who left are playing more and longer? The amount of total play hours would be an interesting metric to compare.

So you're comparing your anecdotal evidence to the compiled data of the last 5+ years of league releases and their player retention over 1/2/4/8 weeks. Gotcha.

And the beast splitting blueprints and fractured deli maps got yeeted because of that exact reason.

Which is why I said that recombinators are a mistake that hopefully get yeeted too. They're too powerful.

You can't draw that conclusion.

I just did. PoE as a whole is a game that prefers giving their players lots of options and letting them run wild with it, instead of designing a very narrow experience that is much deeper but ultimately locks people into only a handful of viable choices.

The new uber ubers took the top players much longer to defeat than the new bosses in the past.

You mean how it took 7 days to kill Uber Elder in HC, and it took 9 days to do the same thing with Uber Maven in SSFHC? Or the 6 days on Uber Sirus compared to the 5 days of Oshabi? Yeah, much longer indeed.

Ben was using recombinators to make his Scepter afaik. Not sure about other gear slots. I would also argue that it is necessary for most players who aren't the absolute best mechanically. It's definitely required, if you're going to do shit like 8-mod invitation with Height of Hubris allocated.

If you really think you need mirror-worthy recombined items to beat the toughest content, I have some snake oil to sell you.

Doesn't that contradict your theory about how people quit when they can't beat the new end-game in the same League it is released?

There's different types of players, and most veteran PoE players will experience new content in the league it is released. New players will not. They will end their first league making it to yellow or maybe red maps, maybe beating a handful of bosses. They will return the next league as there is still content left for them, provided they feel they can actually get there. As much as it sucks to say, but only the hardcore players will stay - the ones that actually enjoy the struggle and the fact that you need third party software and calculators and craftofexile to really play this game efficiently. Most new players will not touch the game a second time if they barely got to experience the games end-game after their first attempt. Not unless they think they can get there faster or more efficiently, or know they have more time on their hands. They will look at the game as a single-player experience that they are done with after 1-3 leagues, they will not keep coming back every league, they won't buy supporter packs or lootboxes every league. Eventually you'll have cycled through all the players that have an interest in this type of game, which is why I said this approach is not sustainable. You can make crafting that is easy and usable by a wide part of the community, or you can make synthesis-level crafting that only a select few can really use (or afford) to make great items. Recombinators belong to the latter category.

Not my own headcannon, it's what the players have repeatedly expressed during those leagues.

The day I start believing/listening to the whiny loud minority on reddit is the day I shoot myself with a poisoned noose where the water is deepest. Those are the kinds of players that complained about too much MTX in Oriath, showcasing that they didn't even kill Sirus a single time. Those player need to shut the fuck up. I'd rather go with the actual data provided by GGG, you know, the people who make the game and have the actual sales numbers. The ones that stated that the most important part of any league is the release as that is where they make almost all their money.

That's just a guess on your part. It could still be a significant part of the income.

See above. You're straightup ignoring facts provided by the people who have the actual sales values and have been outspoken about how it affects their development priorities in the past.

Your own words are that recombinators are the main reason for retention being bad, when the much more likely reason is the Archnemesis Rares implementation during the first weeks of the League.

I never said it is the main reason. I said it contributes to it. Nice try though.

Yes, and recombinators extend this period, they don't shorten it. You can grind for even more ridiculous items now than previously was feasible.

That would be true if you had a linear progression and wouldnt start using recombinators until after all the other options are exhausted. That's not how anything works, though, and you will simply skip part of the previous gear progression as recombinators are more efficient and deterministic in getting the items you want, than the crafting options we had available up until Sentinel. So you get better gear, and you get it faster. How does that extend the gear progression, exactly?

I have to call BS on this one. Do you have any actual proof of this?

There are metrics called player retention and peak players on launch. You know, the ones we have been talking about a bunch now. Numbers (and retention) peaked in early 2021. The latest Atlas rework drew in a lot of people, but Sentinel peak numbers are already down again by ~20% (which is to be expected as its not a full expansion, but not to this degree) compared to the <10% drops weve had after the 2021 and 2020 winter expansions and the followup spring league. Overall the growth has stagnated and the game stopped acquiring more players than it is losing. Which means that either more people are quitting than before, less people are returning to the game, or the game stopped acquiring as many new players as it did before. Which is what I said.

Every other online game just adds new content on top and increases the power ceiling players can reach.

Wrong. WoW is releasing new raids and expansions that make any previous raid or expansion obsolete. You do not play old content before you access the new one, you get there immediately through catch-up mechanics. Lost Ark specifically has upgrade research in its stronghold so any alt or new character you play can get to the highest level content faster. BDO has specific servers with increased XP and droprates that you play on as a new or returning player to be able to catch up, before you get put on the "regular" servers. Diablo 3 increases the droprates in lower torments so you typically skip multiple difficulties there as they add more torments at the higher level. You don't go through them one at a time. The entire business model of seasonal games is for people to quit quite a while before a new season even starts as their desire to play a game again after a month-long break is much stronger than the desire to keep playing continuously without break. Feel free to watch the PoE talk that Chris gave at GDC.

They also have more and more money to spend on the game. Besides, age is not a useful metric in this case, as the players get filtered by complexity not by their hand-to-eye coordination.

A 20y old student with loads of free-time on their hands and lack of self-control when it comes to their finances is more likely to drop money on a videogame than someone in their early thirties who is working a job or has a family to feed while worrying about bills, rent, retirement funds et al. Any game that has lived for 5-10years or longer now is struggling with the fact that their core playerbase is losing interest not because of the game itself, but their real life. Games that live this long struggle to acquire new players without driving away the people that still play it. It is much easier to make a new game from scratch and desing it specifically for one generation of players, than trying to satisfy multiple generations at the same time. Some might argue it is actually impossible to do the latter.

GGG might just as well scrap this idea, if they deem it unproductive.

Which would be my point. I think they should.

I want interesting Leagues like Synthesis, even if it means waiting for a month after launch for all of the fixes. But the players endlessly cry about buggy launches and how we are all "beta testers". Maybe GGG eventually goes back to a more risky approach to League design, only time will tell.

You and me both. Synthesis still remains one of my favorite leagues, and the era of Delve, Betrayal and Synthesis marks the height of PoEs design and gameplay to me, personally.

I'm not aware of a build that can ignore all of the mechanics of all of the uber uber bosses, care to provide some video proof?

You likely won't be able to make one build that can ignore all mechanics on all bosses, as some are degens that need a different kind of mitigation than direct hits do, etc. This is 2 weeks into the league, for example. Took a full Uber Eater beam to the face on that build and lived. Can link you the youtube of that as well, if you don't believe me.


You can typically tank anything that doesn't straightup oneshot you, and there are few one-shots left in a game where Mageblood, Melding of the Flesh and spell suppression exist. Whether you play an Aegis build, a Wardlooper, Melding or some Agnostic or Corrupted Soul MoM stuff, face-tanking Uber Bosses is not really an issue if you have the currency available to you. The problem is that most people focus on DPS first and play builds that suck defensively, and it doesn't help that 9/10 times the answer to "how do I get a lot more tanky" is to get a Mageblood.

 

[Alpan]

No new info on a PoE 2 beta. Chris mentioned an alpha multiple times, but also said that there is no way to join it.

My guess is that the development of PoE 2 got massively cucked by NZ's covid policies.

Coming to this thread after a while (dropped this league after two weeks or so and reaching T16s), Chris stated during the reveal livestream interview for Sentinel that he knows the exact number of patches remaining between Sentinel and PoE 2. So sure, PoE 2 took much more time than anticipated, but from that statement I gathered that they were on track.

 

[Jaedar]

No new info on a PoE 2 beta. Chris mentioned an alpha multiple times, but also said that there is no way to join it.

My guess is that the development of PoE 2 got massively cucked by NZ's covid policies.

Coming to this thread after a while (dropped this league after two weeks or so and reaching T16s), Chris stated during the reveal livestream interview for Sentinel that he knows the exact number of patches remaining between Sentinel and PoE 2. So sure, PoE 2 took much more time than anticipated, but from that statement I gathered that they were on track.

Man who has made incorrect predictions before about release dates says he is now sure about the release date of biggest project yet - but also won't reveal what it is.

 

[Kjaska]

Others have already indicated that they're done with the game after spending thousands of hours on items that were made obsolete now.

I had a long time player quit on me as well. Only to come back 3 Leagues later. If the item is obsolete, then that means you can have an upgrade again in that slot, no? Shouldn't that be exciting for a player who is trying to make the ultimate character in Standard?

So you're comparing your anecdotal evidence to the compiled data of the last 5+ years of league releases and their player retention over 1/2/4/8 weeks. Gotcha.

I don't see you posting that data here. You're also talking about how people feel and think, not about raw numbers. I'm not disputing the numbers for Sentinel, I'm disputing your claim that it has to do with recombinators or the added uber uber bosses.

Which is why I said that recombinators are a mistake that hopefully get yeeted too. They're too powerful.

Recombinators aren't content somebody is running vastly outscaling the capabilities of regular players. By your logic we should yeet all forms of high stakes gambling and crafting. Chasing the ultimate item is one of the most powerful draws PoE has to offer.

PoE as a whole is a game that prefers giving their players lots of options and letting them run wild with it, instead of designing a very narrow experience that is much deeper but ultimately locks people into only a handful of viable choices.

You're contradicting your own claims from before now. So is more content bad or good now?

9 days to do the same thing with Uber Maven in SSFHC?

28% more compared to previous longest attempt. Big increase compared to the power available, general level of competition involved and also compared to how much it took people to down feared during last launch.

If you really think you need mirror-worthy recombined items to beat the toughest content, I have some snake oil to sell you.

So every use in recombinators results in a mirror-worthy item now? Stop being a nigger.

Most new players will not touch the game a second time if they barely got to experience the games end-game after their first attempt.

You're pulling this out of your ass. Show me some data that specifically shows new players not coming back after the first league.

Recombinators belong to the latter category.

Wrong. Recombinators can be used at any gear level to create upgrades. The synthesiser didn't produce anything of value unless you knew exactly what you were doing.

The ones that stated that the most important part of any league is the release as that is where they make almost all their money.

Launch is important but I don't remember them saying anything about making "almost all" of their money there. Why even release new MTX in Week 4 or 5 then?

You're straightup ignoring facts provided by the people who have the actual sales values and have been outspoken about how it affects their development priorities in the past.

Where are they providing actual financial data? Last time Chris said anything about finance was that they lost 30% revenue due to the flask nerf.

I never said it is the main reason. I said it contributes to it. Nice try though.

What's the main reason then? Nigger, you've been dancing around the bush for two days now, if it's not recombinators. Your whole shit started with you posting some okay shield and saying "this shouldn't exist".

That would be true if you had a linear progression and wouldnt start using recombinators until after all the other options are exhausted. That's not how anything works, though, and you will simply skip part of the previous gear progression as recombinators are more efficient and deterministic in getting the items you want, than the crafting options we had available up until Sentinel. So you get better gear, and you get it faster. How does that extend the gear progression, exactly?

Stop bullshitting me. Did you make your shitty shield in week 1 or week 5?

There are metrics called player retention and peak players on launch. You know, the ones we have been talking about a bunch now. Numbers (and retention) peaked in early 2021. The latest Atlas rework drew in a lot of people, but Sentinel peak numbers are already down again by ~20% (which is to be expected as its not a full expansion, but not to this degree) compared to the <10% drops weve had after the 2021 and 2020 winter expansions and the followup spring league. Overall the growth has stagnated and the game stopped acquiring more players than it is losing. Which means that either more people are quitting than before, less people are returning to the game, or the game stopped acquiring as many new players as it did before. Which is what I said.

Those only say something about retention and peak players on launch. They don't tell you about how somebody feels. You said:

especially when it comes to making them stay and not feel left out in the open.

You're holding up a graph with numbers and presuming you know how an entire segment of the PoE playerbase feels. It's just a theory of yours for which you have no proof.

WoW is releasing new raids and expansions that make any previous raid or expansion obsolete.

You're such a nigger. You're literally explaining to me how it is ADDING SHIT ON TOP and telling me I'm wrong. Fuck you.

Lost Ark specifically has upgrade research in its stronghold so any alt or new character you play can get to the highest level content faster.

That's for alts, not for completely new people entering the game at a later stage.

Feel free to

Feel free to go fuck yourself, nigger. You just told the same shit back at me I told you. They put content on top of existing one. That's what I've said. Fucking nigger.

A 20y old student with loads of free-time on their hands and lack of self-control when it comes to their finances is more likely to drop money on a videogame than someone in their early thirties who is working a job or has a family to feed while worrying about bills, rent, retirement funds et al.

Pulling out of your ass again. Do you have any data on age breakdown vs amount spent on PoE or not?

Some might argue

Some might argue you're a nigger talking out of your ass about shit you have not the slightest experience with.

Which would be my point. I think they should.

I'll pass it on. I'm sure Chris will award you with a medal.

Synthesis still remains one of my favorite leagues

A League that was notorious for being unwelcoming to new players and introducing power creep never seen before up to that point? I fucking hate you.

You likely won't be able to make one build that can ignore all mechanics on all bosses, as some are degens that need a different kind of mitigation than direct hits do, etc. This is 2 weeks into the league, for example.

<div style="width: 100%; height: 0px; position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.250%;"><iframe src="https://streamable.com/e/woduk8" frameborder="0" width="100%" height="100%" allowfullscreen style="width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute;"></iframe></div>

Wardloopers can tank anything that doesn't straightup oneshot them, and there are few one-shots left in a game where Mageblood, Melding of the Flesh and spell suppression exist.

What are the mods on that invitation? Is Hubris allocated? Also where is the damage? You claimed "trivialization" and I don't see it. People can make very strong build if they invest a lot of time and effort -> good.

In conclusion: I think your takes are heavily exaggerated and you move your goal posts. I'll accept that the retention numbers aren't looking great for this league as it is the only claim you can actually substantiate. Any talk about what new players are "feeling" is your own, as you say it, "head-canon". When was the last time you actually introduced a new player to the game?

 

[Kjaska]

Chris stated during the reveal livestream interview for Sentinel that he knows the exact number of patches remaining between Sentinel and PoE 2.

I don't remember that. Are you sure he meant it in earnest and not in jest?

 

[Saark]

If the item is obsolete, then that means you can have an upgrade again in that slot, no? Shouldn't that be exciting for a player who is trying to make the ultimate character in Standard?

Boy you really are clueless. Imagine having years of your work made obsolete all of a sudden, having thousands of exalts devalued, and standard mirror-worthy items are now going to get replaced by new ones. Yeah, that sounds fun. Add to it that most of these people are selling large quantities of currency for real money, so some now have to worry about their income. Truly a great feature that everyone should be happy about.

By your logic we should yeet all forms of high stakes gambling and crafting. Chasing the ultimate item is one of the most powerful draws PoE has to offer.

Yes, we should. Beast-splitting/imprinting was way too powerful a tool that only a select few individuals used, and it was around for much longer than it should've been. Most other insanely profitable strategies got nerfed as soon as they were discovered, or were nerfed into the ground within a league. The amount of people playing PoE that are chasing the ultimate item are not even in the triple digits.

You're such a nigger. You're literally explaining to me how it is ADDING SHIT ON TOP and telling me I'm wrong. Fuck you.

Insults aside (not sure what those are supposed to accomplish), but if you cant understand the difference of something new replacing something old and something new being an addition to something old, then I don't know how to help you. If you have a washing machine and you buy a dryer, that's new content. If you buy a more modern washing machine, you'll still only have one useful washing machine. You don't put your clothes into the old one first and then the new one. You just use the new one.

What are the mods on that invitation? Is Hubris allocated? Also where is the damage? You claimed "trivialization" and I don't see it. People can make very strong build if they invest a lot of time and effort -> good.

It's a survivability showcase, if you think the mods or Hubris matter when you can afk-facetank 4 elderslayers without them even dipping into your HP, then you truly are clueless. But since you asked, the build had something like 80 or 90mil DPS at that point. I've sold off my SC builds a few weeks ago, the Arakaali one went for ~500ex, cause I once again realized that PoE is just pretty damn boring and the same shit every league, so I only play for a week or two, sell off the gear for a nice payday and then I just troll around in HC a bit, since it doesn't have a fucked up economy and makes the game actually challenging and choices become more meaningful - largely due to the economy being so much more healthy and the fact that most items you want don't exist, so you have to make them yourself.

Launch is important but I don't remember them saying anything about making "almost all" of their money there.

Whether or not you remember it doesn't matter. It's true. I already told you the source as well. Want me to wipe your ass for you as well and then look for the timestamp? Are you willing to educate yourself on a topic you think you are knowledgeable enough to talk about?

At this point I'm just gonna stop engaging in this discussion. I've wasted enough time trying to show you how and why easier gear acquisition is not something that makes people play more, but that the opposite is actually the case. It seems weird, but it's been something multiple game devs have talked about at this point, and that this is one of those things where the player is simply wrong. If the gear progression is too slow, people will get bored as they do not feel that their time is being valued or respected, and they move on to games that have shorter gameplay loops with more regular "rewards" or positive gameplay experiences. If the gear progression is too fast, people will quit your game faster because contrary to popular belief, the amount of people who finish a build and then start a new one from scratch is fairly small. Most people play 1 build, swap to another one once theyve acquired the currency, and then they minmax it to hell. Then they quit. They don't repeat this process over and over until the next league hits. Some do, usually because they sell off a couple dozen mirrors at some point for a nice payday, but the majority doesn't. All of this is anecdotal of course, and you're free to go back to wherever the fuck you came from where people agree with you. But don't come in here trying to lecture people on not knowing what they're talking about when you're pretty damn clueless about some of the most basic things of the games economy, financial success or development priorities.

As for PoE, it's been talked about by the devs in trade manifestos, Chris talked about it in Baeclasts as it was a hot topic around Harvest and Ultimatum, and you can find more on this phenomenon if you're actually willing to look for it, which I'm sure you aren't. Obviously there are a dozen or so more issues that all lead to the player stagnation and drop-off we've been seing, and neither recombinators nor the original harvest crafting nor archnemesis rares nor server instability are the sole cause of it. It all contributes, it adds up, and some of these things GGG can do something about. That's really all I was trying to say. Why you felt the need to make this a massive discussion, I have no clue. I just want them to nuke recombinators, same as I wanted them to nuke beastsplitting/imprinting and nerf metacrafting back in 2019. Because being able to make top-tier items too quickly makes the game less fun for me, my friends, and most people I've gotten to know in the game over the years.

Obviously none of this says anything about any individual player. Some players like longer gameplay loops, some like the dopamine rush every few hours. But the playerbase as a whole has been reacting negatively to the more recent GGG decisions and development priorities, and I'm not talking about the vocal minority on reddit, because they don't know what the fuck they're talking about it either. You'd fit right in.

 

[Sharpedge]

I am with Saark on this one, I hope recombinators die. The game has been on a downward trend since they started adding various influence types, with power creep forcing them to inflate numbers at endgame over and over again just to "keep up." There are a large proportion of players (myself included) who, when they build a character, stop improving it when they can clear all the content with it. I do not feel compelled to keep making upgrades or min maxing it, or even playing it at all, once I can clear anything in the game with it. Items like recombinators lower this bar significantly because they don't just increase what is possible at the high end, they also devalue what is available at the low end and you do not need a completely min maxed character to clear everything that exists. This means that the rate at which that "good enough" character is built increases dramatically and thus the stop point is approached far faster.

Pretty much the only time I have spent time min maxing a character, was when I was playing PoE in a group with 5 other people and I only did it so that I had something to keep me occupied, while my main enjoyment came from chatting with a group of friends after work.

 

[Kjaska]

I am with Saark on this one, I hope recombinators die. The game has been on a downward trend since they started adding various influence types, with power creep forcing them to inflate numbers at endgame over and over again just to "keep up." There are a large proportion of players (myself included) who, when they build a character, stop improving it when they can clear all the content with it. I do not feel compelled to keep making upgrades or min maxing it, or even playing it at all, once I can clear anything in the game with it. Items like recombinators lower this bar significantly because they don't just increase what is possible at the high end, they also devalue what is available at the low end and you do not need a completely min maxed character to clear everything that exists. This means that the rate at which that "good enough" character is built increases dramatically and thus the stop point is approached far faster.

Pretty much the only time I have spent time min maxing a character, was when I was playing PoE in a group with 5 other people and I only did it so that I had something to keep me occupied, while my main enjoyment came from chatting with a group of friends after work.

Influence is fine. Downward trend since Shaper? Game would be in ruins right about now, if that was true. Influenced items made regular rares you find on the ground more obsolete, that's about it. Sounds like a you problem more than anything. You want recombinators gone, because you don't like min-maxing and don't want others to have that option? Where is that large portion of players and how many are there? Again, you guys are talking about feelings. You're also the first people who complain about them, everybody else I have seen mention them have been excited about them. Sure, you don't need to be fully min-maxed to do uber uber bosses or simu 30, but that will depend on your build and skill. Some people will need more gear to complete. You still have even harder content beyond that in form of stuff like 8-mod Feared with Height of Hubris and empowered by Sentinels. Can you kill something like that without ever recombining gear?

Boy you really are clueless. Imagine having years of your work made obsolete all of a sudden, having thousands of exalts devalued, and standard mirror-worthy items are now going to get replaced by new ones. Yeah, that sounds fun. Add to it that most of these people are selling large quantities of currency for real money, so some now have to worry about their income. Truly a great feature that everyone should be happy about.

I couldn't give less of a fuck what some standard weirdo is feeling. If that nigger is RMT-ing to boot, then good fucking riddance. Why are you even defending players like that? He had his run with his mirror worthy items, now somebody else will have his turn. One standard homo leaves, another one takes his place. Are you actually asking GGG to balance their game around people who live in 3rd world countries and rely on RMT for their income? What the fuck.

The amount of people playing PoE that are chasing the ultimate item are not even in the triple digits.

Again, you're just pulling numbers out of your ass.

Insults aside (not sure what those are supposed to accomplish), but if you cant understand the difference of something new replacing something old and something new being an addition to something old, then I don't know how to help you. If you have a washing machine and you buy a dryer, that's new content. If you buy a more modern washing machine, you'll still only have one useful washing machine. You don't put your clothes into the old one first and then the new one. You just use the new one.

Fuck it, this is just too retarded to respond to. All I'll say is that every game out there has been doing the content on top forever and side content is nice. GGG will do both from now on and it's going to be fine.

It's a survivability showcase, if you think the mods or Hubris matter when you can afk-facetank 4 elderslayers without them even dipping into your HP, then you truly are clueless. But since you asked, the build had something like 80 or 90mil DPS at that point. I've sold off my SC builds a few weeks ago, the Arakaali one went for ~500ex, cause I once again realized that PoE is just pretty damn boring and the same shit every league, so I only play for a week or two, sell off the gear for a nice payday and then I just troll around in HC a bit, since it doesn't have a fucked up economy and makes the game actually challenging and choices become more meaningful - largely due to the economy being so much more healthy and the fact that most items you want don't exist, so you have to make them yourself.

Cool story, bro. If it doesn't matter, then just show it then. Why even brag about the ability to facetank, if you have 80mil dps? So is the game shit or the economy in trade shit? If it is so boring, why are you even coming back every league? This is why I hate you: you'll put the game down in one sentence, as if it is irredeemable, then tell us how much fun you're having in the next two sentences. I can't argue in good faith with you, because you're insane.

At this point I'm just gonna stop engaging in this discussion.

Great, go fuck yourself. Oh wait, you still go on for 3 more paragraphs after that.

Whether or not you remember it doesn't matter. It's true. I already told you the source as well. Want me to wipe your ass for you as well and then look for the timestamp? Are you willing to educate yourself on a topic you think you are knowledgeable enough to talk about?

Yeah, go look for it. You're the one claiming this shit. It's not true, because there is no official info beyond what Chris said in a Baeclast. I am not claiming insider knowledge into this topic. You are. I am not the armchair dev in this thread, claiming to know how players are feeling based on statistics about retention numbers.

But don't come in here trying to lecture people on not knowing what they're talking about when you're pretty damn clueless about some of the most basic things of the games economy, financial success or development priorities.

I wasn't lecturing anybody. I questioned your bullshit on how people feel about the game and you have yet to provide any proof of any of your claims. I trust GGG to have way more knowledge in all of those departments than you do.

Obviously there are a dozen or so more issues that all lead to the player stagnation and drop-off we've been seing, and neither recombinators nor the original harvest crafting nor archnemesis rares nor server instability are the sole cause of it. It all contributes, it adds up, and some of these things GGG can do something about. That's really all I was trying to say.

So a big nothing-burger. Should have said that from the very beginning. Thanks for your input. We finally have your actual statement. You have a vague feeling that recombinators will contribute in some non-quantifiable capacity to the decline of the overall retention.

Game is going to be fine.

 

[Saark]

Guess I just can't help myself, so I'll reply one last time.

Why even brag about the ability to facetank, if you have 80mil dps?

Because with that number most Uber bosses still live a good minute or two? I thought as an expert player with expert opinions you would know that. My bad.

why are you even coming back every league

Because it's fun for a week or two. It used to be fun for longer than that.

Why are you even defending players like that?

Because if some idiot is willing to spend their hard earned cash on easily earned currency, it'd be retarded to not benefit from that. I have no problem with people boosting or selling services, whether it is for ingame currency or real one. I have a problem with the people buying these services, not the ones selling them.

Can you kill something like that without ever recombining gear?

Yes.

If it doesn't matter, then just show it then.

https://pastebin.com/DizByuFF

you'll put the game down in one sentence

Where did I do that?

I trust GGG to have way more knowledge in all of those departments than you do.

because there is no official info beyond what Chris said in a Baeclast

Game is going to be fine.

I agree. But it could be better.

 

[Alpan]

I don't remember that. Are you sure he meant it in earnest and not in jest?

Timestamped embed, 27:10.

 

[Sharpedge]

Influence is fine. Downward trend since Shaper? Game would be in ruins right about now, if that was true. Influenced items made regular rares you find on the ground more obsolete, that's about it.

Downward trend in the subjective sense of, "the game is not conforming to the vision its allegedly supposed to fit." Yeah, obviously its more popular now, no shit. Fast food like Mcdonalds is also popular, that doesn't mean that its a high quality product. Popularity is not a measure of quality. The reason why influences etc have been bad for the game, aside from just the power creep, is also because they have done a great job at removing the niche of many unique items, which actually were popular and widely used, but then their mods got added to an influence pool instead of being unique to an item and now why would you use that item to begin with when you can just craft a rare that does the same thing better.

Sounds like a you problem more than anything. You want recombinators gone, because you don't like min-maxing and don't want others to have that option?

I have nothing against min maxing, so do not put words in my mouth, I simply said that I have no interest in doing it personally. What I do have an issue with is gear progression being as rapid as it is now. Regardless of whether recombinators exist or not, people will try to min max their gear. There were mirror tier items before recombinators. There were mirror tier items before harvest. People were crafting mirror tier items back when the game only had 3 acts. All that has changed is what is considered mirror tier, not the fact that people are min maxing at all. If recombinators were not there however, the "ceiling" would be lower than it is now, so gear progression would be slower at the low end.

Where is that large portion of players and how many are there? Again, you guys are talking about feelings. You're also the first people who complain about them, everybody else I have seen mention them have been excited about them.

Completely irrelevant, see my comment about popularity and Mcdonalds. Games are developed for specific demographics. When PoE was first made available to play, that demographic allegedly was me. Someone who wanted some hardcore action RPG with lots of character customization etc. The game has been moving further and further away from that with each upgrade and as it is now it is almost a mobile clicker game in terms of how it plays.

 

[Alpan]

As for recombinators, I don't have a strong opinion on them but I would be very surprised if GGG decided to keep them, for the very simple reason that they bypass mod weightings on items entirely. GGG is very peculiar about the kind of abuses they allow inflicted on the itemization system and this is abuse of the highest order, even more so than what I understand Harvest used to be (I didn't play during Harvest's heyday). In fact I wouldn't even be surprised if it turned out recombinators weren't actually planned features -- just a cool side product of Sentinel recombination technology that a dev decided to go ahead and add and the leads signed off on it because it'd be cool for a league.

 

[T. Reich]

Remember the Loath Bane? Pepperidge Farm remembers.

Eternal orbs were the first big mistake. Mostly because of existence of mirrors.
Instead having the possibility of finding and crafting the items that mattered despite not being 6xt1, the game's crafting game became a matter of concentrating effort for the creme de la creme of the playerbase, who proceded to consistently vomit out mirrorable obscenely OP gear at affordable prices (relative to the cost of crafting one).
And GGG responded by trying to catch up with toughening the content, while powering up the uniques and passives... and adding more powerful item affixes? And meta-mods? And annuls? And Harvest? That seems sensible.

Unless, of course, it was the plan all along, but it never looked like it.

 

[Saark]

 

[T. Reich]

"Crafted this bad boy on my lunch break, talk about lucky".