Wow GGG, there is something seriously wrong on console.

First of all, I'd love the idea of reducing maps in atlas as it is intended for more players to engage end game content, this is definitely the right move on all platforms.

As a player having leagues over leagues on PC and recently move to Console, I have noticed something seriously wrong on console and I also noticed why players are less attached to console league, here are list of what I have experienced.


1. It is much, much harder to enjoy end game content due to lack of good amount of gears available from trades.

Problem:
Searching and listing method on trademarket is not able to display
items efficiently of what a buyer wants from seller.

Solution:
In the current trade system, instead of displaying faded item, let buyer fill in specify mods in the search bar, and only display items that are matched with the keyword.

2.insufficient late game materials harvested for end game content.

Problem
Console players are casual prone and not often have comparable gameplay time to PC players,many of them stopped at early atlas and result of lesser fragments,items and maps available for exchange in trademarket.

Solution
Improve item rarity drop rate on console, this definitely boost more players to stay.

Lastly,I hope GGG is making cross progression for POE2

Just some thoughts from a player who play POE on both PC and Console

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realm9thfeb wrote:

1. It is much, much harder to enjoy end game content due to lack of good amount of gears available from trades.

Problem:
Searching and listing method on trademarket is not able to display
items efficiently of what a buyer wants from seller.

Solution:
In the current trade system, instead of displaying faded item, let buyer fill in specify mods in the search bar, and only display items that are matched with the keyword.

EDIT: I think I misunderstood your suggestion at first. What I wrote here is all still true, it just doesn't respond as precisely to your suggestion as I intended.

The trade market filter (and stash filter) are Regex. You can do (almost) any search you want if you learn Regex and understand how to filter it. The only things you basically can't do are "pseudo" searches, like "total resistances over 100". But, for example, if I want a chest with 100 or more life and 30 or more fire res, that goes like this:

"1[0-9][0-9] to maximum life" "[3-9][0-9]% to fire res"

There are lots of other things too.

Additionally, GGG has addressed many times that Console Trade and PC Trade are balanced differently. PC trade it's easy to find the item on the site, and then annoying to actually make the trade (in theory). Console trade it's annoying to find the item, and then easy to make the trade (in theory).

The are two flaws in this: 1) it's not actually that annoying for PC players to make trades. Unless they want something insanely rare, it's super fast to both find the item and make the trade. 2) It's not actually easy to make trades on console, even when you find the item. Too large a percentage of the items are monopolized and/or price-fixed by bad actors, and there's no way on the trade market to see if someone is AFK, and no way for anyone to respond to trades in any way in the middle of content. (as compared to PC, where you might get a response of "in map, give me 2 mins")

This does make console trade much more frustrating and takes much longer than PC trade. But giving us an easier way to search for items won't change that.

"

realm9thfeb wrote:

2.insufficient late game materials harvested for end game content.

Problem
Console players are casual prone and not often have comparable gameplay time to PC players,many of them stopped at early atlas and result of lesser fragments,items and maps available for exchange in trademarket.

Solution
Improve item rarity drop rate on console, this definitely boost more players to stay.

Percentage wise, at least as many PC players stop early. It's just that there are *vastly* more PC players. Last time I ran numbers, console accounted for about 1.5% of the playerbase (1% on PS, 0.5% on XBox). So, there are literally 100-200x as many items on the PC trade market.

Improving console drop rates is not the answer. I'm pretty confident that improving the console drop rates enough to make a difference would ruin the game. There are maybe *certain items or materials* that could stand to have drop rates increased, but a generic 10x or more drop rate hike would will the game. Even 2x has a pretty good shot at killing the game. And believe me, you need more than 2x to get the result you want. 2x on XBox just gets you the PS market, which is still trash.

"

realm9thfeb wrote:

Lastly,I hope GGG is making cross progression for POE2

Just some thoughts from a player who play POE on both PC and Console

Cross Progression is a lovely idea, until you consider that the game is economy based and so forth. It would give an astronomical advantage to players who have access to the game on PC, which *many* console players do not have.

It could work fine for SSF, but given your complaints, I don't think you're interested in that.

the thing is on console trade, you absolutely cannot acquire items that exist on PC. Mostly well crafted rares, nobody is crafting them to sell and they just do not exist. You cannot acquire the thousands of fossils/essences/whatever else to craft these items either because they do not exist. Something to think about if you ask me.

The way PC trade players craft, they will craft a base and if they hit on something that they cannot use they can easily sell it and get another base and make profit. You also cannot do that on console, nobody will look for it and most players are bad on console and don't know how to value a well crafted rare unless there are many crafted just like it that they can compare it to. It just doesn't work the same way that it works on console. Not enough players and way too difficult to search.

It is not about how to search an item on trademarket, as we all know how to do it.

It is about how search result being display ed in the sense of punishing player from progressing.

For example, I was searching for "player are cursed with xxx" mod, I would have to flip 500 pages of items and only gets 3 results i needed, this is very frustrating and eye constrain.


As for drop rate, I agreed with abovementioned that lesser player base in console and that's the best reason to boost the drop rate, so when the minority gets to touch the end game floor, they will be sharing those clips or streaming it live, this method is what GGG is currently doing for PC, more people watching = more player join = more mtx sales.

It is the theory of driving players back to console and keep them stayed as long as possible.

If mageblood or headhunter is 5x times easier to drop on console, wouldn't it be more interesting to attract the 99% on PC to join console?

Let's think about it.

"

If mageblood or headhunter is 5x times easier to drop on console, wouldn't it be more interesting to attract the 99% on PC to join console?

Why would GGG want that? Platform stores take a cut on MTX and a purchase on Xbox or Playstation is strictly less profitable than one on PC. Add to that the likelihood you're right about attach and "stickiness" being worse on console and PC players wanting to migrate to a console would be a horrible thing for the company.

If anything, it's in GGG's interest to encourage players to migrate from console to PC, which I don't conspiratorially think they're doing but if you did want that to happen, the way you'd do it is to keep the core game fun and engaging but surround it with rough edges (see: F2P games and their means of encouraging optional subscriptions).

GGG has proven to be very analytical and data-driven in much of their marketing strategies. Console clearly makes enough money to recoup costs, but that necessarily needs to be coming from players who wouldn't be playing otherwise.

I do agree with you on scarcity frustrations (I've been looking for days for a Skin of the * with the right colors—a minute to do on PC) but I don't think the incentive exists for GGG to make PoE "the best it can be on consoles." RoI is tight and the 80/20 rule is going to end up permitting if not outright encouraging not spending too much time and ultimately money; that's time and money that could be going elsewhere for a much larger and more predictable gain.

I still enjoy the game despite all its limitations (console-specific and otherwise) and have no desire to return to playing on PC, but I can't rationally expect a whole lot of revolutionary changes. Our best hope is that consoles are being thought of as a first-class citizen for PoE2, and that seems pretty plausible.

The game is balanced around trade league with 50-100K active players. On console, there's probably 500-1000 players at any time. It doesn't seem right to have the same rates and everything. The new uniques don't even exist on the console trade market for example.

"

Anton__Chigur wrote:

The game is balanced around trade league with 50-100K active players. On console, there's probably 500-1000 players at any time. It doesn't seem right to have the same rates and everything. The new uniques don't even exist on the console trade market for example.

Completely agree.. I have countless hours in this game and the super rare stuff needs a slight buff in drop rate.

It wont kill the game either. Playing on console is like playing hardmode 24/7/365.

More like SSF with minor trade functionality...lol

"

Nyrin wrote:

Why would GGG want that? Platform stores take a cut on MTX and a purchase on Xbox or Playstation is strictly less profitable than one on PC. Add to that the likelihood you're right about attach and "stickiness" being worse on console and PC players wanting to migrate to a console would be a horrible thing for the company.

That's why the prices on console is 2x more expensive (at least in my country, is more them 2x). GGG probaly makes the same money for each purchase, since the psn and xbox taxes is payed with those surreal overprices


But yeah, they have no reason to want the people to move to console. But they do have reasons to want MORE CONSOLE players PLAYING the game. And for that, they NEED to think about console version of the game.