Is the New 2-Month League Schedule Hurting PoE?

i have a feeling since PoE2 came around, the game started massively leaning into faster character progression. Loot has never been so abundant in the last leagues (excluding Keepers) and i never again had the urge to play more than 2, 3 weeks into a league because by that point i'd be long maxed out. I remember playing for MONTHS before i had enough of a league.

Maybe it is a coincidence, but i believe it is made by design so people can be done with the league's content in the new 2 months window and bounce back and forth from poe1 to poe2.

now that begs the question: how long until we see retention numbers going lower and lower because players get burnt out? should GGG review their plans and bring back 4-month schedules?

(granted, leagues still last 4 months, but the last 2 months are a wasteland for the most part because majority only play the newest league. that combined with the fact stated of progression being so hasted to the point there is no incentive to play the third and fourth months)

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tchanks#2034 wrote:

Maybe it is a coincidence, but i believe it is made by design so people can be done with the league's content in the new 2 months window and bounce back and forth from poe1 to poe2.

You are right. There is some misconception with player retention too, like better = good, when in reality the most money is in first 2 weeks of league. Servers cost money, we don't know how much more money they can get along with good retention and it's better if players will end faster so they will come back.
We lack data, but I know for sure that good retention is no priority.

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Dxt44#4050 wrote:

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tchanks#2034 wrote:

Maybe it is a coincidence, but i believe it is made by design so people can be done with the league's content in the new 2 months window and bounce back and forth from poe1 to poe2.

You are right. There is some misconception with player retention too, like better = good, when in reality the most money is in first 2 weeks of league. Servers cost money, we don't know how much more money they can get along with good retention and it's better if players will end faster so they will come back.
We lack data, but I know for sure that good retention is no priority.

I am very sure I have heard a remark from Mark or Jonathan that strong retention is not necessarily good thing for them. Which makes sense, as you said, they make most of their money in the very beginning of the league, after that each user is nothing but cost (burden) to them.

Though I don't actually think they want poor retention and the remark was made to illustrate objectively the state of things rather than their position.

I think so - although my concern would be more along the QA side of things.

A company that used to release challenge leagues every three months with league launches sometimes being pushed back only to then be followed by a dozen or more minor patches & hotfixes as well as "What We Are Working On"-style posts is now aggressively increasing the frequency with which they release major content updates.

Regardless of the team's head count - there comes a point where each added employee comes with diminishing returns in terms of productivity and greater costs (particularly in terms of time) where keeping everyone on the same page is concerned.

Even if literally every person on the planet was employed full-time by GGG and working on challenge leagues - building each client would still take a set amount of time, and the time spent on playtesting would still be non-zero. A company is only able to scale so far.

Those playing on macOS, Xbox, and PlayStation have had things rough for the last while - and even the somewhat first-among-equals people playing on Windows have, I think, seen things slip a bit.

If the current release cadence, by necessity, results in worse client & server stability and inferior client-side performance, then the release cadence may prove to be unsustainable regardless of how many people GGG chooses to hire. They have to adhere to a certain minimum standard...

Yes.

Way more bugs and poor optimization. Its clear that the patches are rushed out for both games, and I don't think it can last very long.

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Toforto#2372 wrote:

Yes.

Way more bugs and poor optimization. Its clear that the patches are rushed out for both games, and I don't think it can last very long.

Once people start feeling like they give up on one game to try and bait you into the other people will drop both.

Whats happening now reminds me of the past few years of Destiny, ignore your base's complaints for so long that they eventually just mostly go to Warframe lol.

The devs have to remember this is a community born out of a love for Diablo 2, and that they're setting themselves up for a mass exodus second someone else launches a better title in the genre.

Its fine for now because there isn't a dominantly strong competitor since Diablo lost its identity. But second there is, most of us will be gone if they don't start trying or at least being more respectful to their consumer. Right now you get the feeling PoE devs take their base for granted/don't appreciate them at all....

That doesn't make people want to stay.

what constitutes of a "dead league"? How many players you need for league to feel alright?

Current async trading system largely mitigates the problem of dead leagues and nobody answering. You just click buyout and there you go.

I'm geniuinely curious because I saw 'dead league' posts a week into it.

This league had exceptionally fast power growth though. I was seeing HOM gambles and voided suicides in the second week. And not just singular. Many happened.

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Esubane#6099 wrote:

what constitutes of a "dead league"? How many players you need for league to feel alright?

Current async trading system largely mitigates the problem of dead leagues and nobody answering. You just click buyout and there you go.

I'm geniuinely curious because I saw 'dead league' posts a week into it.

This league had exceptionally fast power growth though. I was seeing HOM gambles and voided suicides in the second week. And not just singular. Many happened.

I don't think there is particular definition or numbers but the moment top streamers suddenly stream other games, there is an increased number of "end league gamba" and "end league give aways", then there is some indication that things aren't great.

But this only applies to trade, you don't really care about any of that in SSF.

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Everything_is_taken#0515 wrote:

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Dxt44#4050 wrote:

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tchanks#2034 wrote:

Maybe it is a coincidence, but i believe it is made by design so people can be done with the league's content in the new 2 months window and bounce back and forth from poe1 to poe2.

You are right. There is some misconception with player retention too, like better = good, when in reality the most money is in first 2 weeks of league. Servers cost money, we don't know how much more money they can get along with good retention and it's better if players will end faster so they will come back.
We lack data, but I know for sure that good retention is no priority.

I am very sure I have heard a remark from Mark or Jonathan that strong retention is not necessarily good thing for them. Which makes sense, as you said, they make most of their money in the very beginning of the league, after that each user is nothing but cost (burden) to them.

Though I don't actually think they want poor retention and the remark was made to illustrate objectively the state of things rather than their position.

If i dont see a point of playing longer = no money from me, why would I pay if I dont like the league? like this one for example? xd

Aboslutely hurting the game. Basically you play for 2-3 weeks and start planning 1 week before it starts so you have 1 month between cycles. Not enough to play anything else specially if games collide like this league collided with arc raiders.

Also players are insanely burned out with this much poe in general.