why PoE is dying

The game is dead... for some people.

The false premise energy is high.

"

bobpoexa wrote:

If you are a new player who play diligently and farming low to mid tier maps you will never reach true end game, because things like head-hunter/mageblood only drop from end boss,

First of all: HH and MB do not only drop from Endboss.
Found my first MB ever this league dropping from a random monster in a map.

This is my second account, I am playing since open beta.
I NEVER found a HH / MB before... and was still playing endgame every league. You really don't need these belts. In quite a few cases, there are actually way better belts for the build you are playing.
I'll play with my MB for a few days more, because I think if you have access to an item like that.. you have to play it for a few days. :) .. and then I am gonna trade it away to buy some stuff that helps my char way more than a Mageblood.

Path of Exile – dying for you since 2013.

We're all dying.

my take on POEs path is quite simple. endgame isn't fun. It pushes players to play skills they don't like, use defenses they might not enjoy, or just is tedious to be tedious. Who enjoys grinding out 100 maps to fight maven once or whatever. Or who enjoys trying to get the 4 key fragments to fight a boss that dies instantly, and drops nothing, or when they drop the item you are actually looking for, server crash.

its asinine.

Game used to have a very low dps ceiling, for both monsters and characters. The passive tree was, at least in beta, where most of the power came from. Grinding to 100 was a huge power increase. Gear was important but not the pinnacle of player expression. six links were luxury items not needed. Most people didn't do endgame content. It was really really rippy on release.

then league after league the atlas was pushed and developed. Gear and aquiring it through crafting or trading was where player power came from. Mod tiers were enhanced, new combos. Skill gems that synergized with each other more. the passive tree remained largely the same. Six links were becoming mandatory, but a five link was ok. Most people don't do endgame content, didn't drop good items, very very rippy.

Now we have the passive tree is modified by items. If you don't get the cluster and jewel setup you want, good luck. HO HO. Six links are mandatory except in like a few cases. The passive tree has masteries that imo suck. Most of the nodes remain unchanged. Some builds use 12 link and 8 link setups. Imagine trying to tell beta people that you could even have a 12 link.

In short the grind in items takes longer and longer every league. Passive points rarely matter, since in the end the cluster setup gives most of the damage and defense anyway. In fact one league I made a character that didn't have any passive points allocated just as an experiment. It wasn't a good character, but it got further than expected into maps.

GGG has a real problem that they are pushing people into a grind that most consider not fun. It isn't the grind that was in beta. The beta grind was longer, but way simpler. Trying to hit the mods you need in crafting or trading is exhausting. Essentially the game doesn't have enough determinism to have meaningful upgrades at enough intervals to keep new players. When new players hit the wall of your items in trade cost 200 chaos... well they usually quit.

POE just has too many avenues for failure. Read any crafting guide. Almost all of them have a go back 2 steps, your item is gone. all that time and effort is gone. I have been watching a guy create mirror tier items. He goes through 1000s of divines and gets nothing *most* of the time. Getting the one combo pays for his crafting. It is how he has fun, but I don't enjoy that.

Question: is PoE dying?
Answer: can you join parties?

I see that each league more and more people playing, but it just doesn't feel like it. Personally, it feels like there's less people playing now than 5 years ago - when there was usually a page of parties open from start to end-game.

I've only played about 5 of the leagues. The rest of the 10+ years has been on Standard. Leagues have more party-play available, though now, I haven't seen a party on standard for a very long time. It's 5-way carries for 2 divine a pop and even that's one every few hours.

It's sad because open parties were how I made friends on PoE. All those people don't play anymore and so I've lost what used to break up the monotony of the grind.

Has the game changed that much to the point where (almost) literally everyone plays league and nobody plays Standard? I get the comedic value of saying standard is trash, though I don't have the time to start again every 3 months.

Note:
Just in case you were wondering, I understand you need to go to town to see parties.

idk this league seems to be doing fine? for once

210 launch and 90k still playing a month later?

"

hmcg020 wrote:

Question: is PoE dying?
Answer: can you join parties?

This is something of a black box that's sorta interesting to me, as I find PoE to be really antithetical to party play. The chat is 20 years too old, it uses it's own wierd imput method (like serious /p and /w are bascially universally normal, @, % and & are so wierd of choices), the text box feels awful to read in bascially every way, and PoE's other big problem child, visual clarity, only gets worse if the two players are within a screen of each other (plus edge cases in mapping, where one mod is a no fly zone, each player has to know which modifiers can't be used.

I basically never use public groups, and only rarely play directly with friends, generally only to double up on maps early league (though do nonplay stuff, like we help each other find items for builds, share resources, etc).

It's interesting to see people who consider multiplayer aspects to be much more central to them.

That said, this is an interesting metric for a games vitality, though a flawed one, or rather, an incomplete one. Heck a popular mod is Solo Self Found.

It is only a matter of time for POE.

Im confident that almost every player is just waiting for that new game to take its place. I know i am

Even for those players who know POE really well and say its all fine and easy will jump games if that new game has what it takes. And lets be real even the top players complain and are frustrated with most things in POE, they just know how to deal with it better than some others or as streamer players play cause its their source of income.

If the game was in fact really good, most players wouldnt care or want a new game to replace it and i dont think POE holds that kind of reputation

When this day comes, it wil be POE's reality check.