State of POE forums 2024
" This is because GGG wanted to work with a Damage reduction System AND Evasion. Blizzard nerfed D2 reduction in 1.10 because with 75% Reduction, Arcaines 08 and Maxblock you were almost unkillable. D2 used an evasion based system. Here is an example of how Evasion played pre OneShot Changes. Really wacky but doable if you are careful. https://www.twitch.tv/devmoon/clip/SteamySpikyPartridgeDerp?filter=clips&range=all&sort=time Evasion was simply bad and even Rangers would either run several 10k Granites or go for STR/Dex Armors. CB PoE was Armorbased. You either played Armor or ES with Granites. Shadow was plain horrible and Ranger had the issue of running out of Mana and high risk of dying. Lightning Arrow used to be a great skill to dish out shockstacks everywhere but it was not sustainable even with RMC once you added a few support gems so players kept it at level 8 I think. When PoE was Armorbased players would just run 2h Weapons stack Life, Regen and Armor. After the OneShot patch Evasion was heavily buffed and Auras had their cost increased because party play literally had all Auras but the bad ones active. The result of the One Shot patch was damage was designed around 90% reduction not 75% not 50%. You lacked the gearcheck you could be certain you'd die in one hit against overtuned mobs. Melee became more and more unplayable. Nemesis league had the Volatile mod which would certainly kill you if you ran into a high HP mob. Example of GGG_Neon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ot_H7z287aQ You could easily see that players HATED Archnemesis years later. When checking some character names/sigs or reddit tags they literally spell "Remove Archnemesis" In the opposite direction GGG removed unique and champ suicides packs back in CB because they killed too many players. You could already see early on that Melee became Pseudo Melee. You ran Spectral Throw+Double Strike vs bosses where you rather learned the pattern. You ran Cleave with AoE increase. Ground Slam with AoE Increase(possible but not meta) What you could play without issue though were Trappers, Searing Bond, any Ranged Skill hitting several mobs, totem builds etc. Then you had skills like Cylcone but don't think you hit mobs in Meleerange. Just like Cleave your damage radius was half the screen. Trying to go with Reduction and Evasion alone is already hard to deal with. A damage too low allows Evasion to survive hits but makes reduction too strong.(only armor viable) Overtuned damage on the other hand makes Reduction useless. Evasion becomes the only option but even at 90% Evasion it takes only time till you get oneshot.(armor useless, evasion long term gambling) The only viable option would be a low reduction cap with moderate damage so evasion does something. This doesn't even account stuff like endurance charges. The end result was basically Dark Soulsx2 without Parry and lots of RNG. Fights like Atziri, Map bosses etc were all about learning the patterns. You played to not get hit. It didn't help that the servers/clients were pretty unstable. PoE2 won't be in a much better state when you add too much stuff and add more and more mechanics to overcomplicate things. I predict it will go the same direction CB players are happy, OB a few players get unhappy, major change in OB more players are unhappy. Mechanics people dislike gets permanent after a league same situation as in PoE once they cannot be undone. The only solution would be to never add leagues as permanent mechanics to the game. Well I cannot really speak for the majority of the time because I only played till engame 2012+13 and races a few more years. But back then players were bashing players SC and called it "Scrubcore" when somebody died on the ladder with a message they got flamed and mocked in a PM. Diamond/Exalt supporters got antagonized for "preferential treatment for their unique" or because "the unique sucks". Charan's first step to the I call it "Dark side" was the mistreatment of his unique. When somebody controversial got handed over item designs and the designs were "powercreeps to the masses"(kinda how Charan described it) and Charan got attacked for his "bad unique" which was compared to a powercreep unique. Ingame I have zero clue. On forums I don't see those posts anymore but that could be because they are constantly deleted. Back then there used to be active trolls constantly responding with "Git Gud GGG perfect" and their playing experience was limited to 1-2 meta builds not even that far, never having faced the issues the threadstarter described. I also cannot speak about current achievements but I remember they became a lot easier because they used to be "All or Nothing", reaching 2x level 90 was very timeconsuming and in leagues like Invasion you could quickly get killed by BS. There also used to be a market with a focus on End Boss/Uberboss items and those players were selling kills of those bosses for achievements. Those still might exist. When it comes to trading experience GGG deserves all the criticism thrown at them. SSF ladder must be a result of the poor trading experience. I feel for the scam victims going to reddit venting there when on the forum they get mocked by trolls "You are an exile you are in Wreaclast. Wraeclast is a ruthless world" or something along the lines. If the game had been to my liking you could be certain I would have written a browser extension labeling BMTraders/Marketmanipulators/Flippers(manipulating the market value to buy up everything and then sell for large profit), Scammers(self explanatory) and RMTers(given what I read there was collateral damage when some RMTers got what they deserved.) | |
" i remember that once upon a time, layered defences were a thing. it was retardedly OP. players stacked evasion, with dodge and with block. mathematically it was "impossible" to damage. i would also say this is back when poe was still growing and GGG was financially unstable, so they kinda were stuck in between a rock and a bad place. they SHOULD have nerfed the mechanics or rebalanced them way back then but i guess the top players all already utilized layered defences to the point that any change to these mechanics would upset a large amount of PAYING playerbase. so GGG prolly pussied out and instead opted to introduce high damage spikes as a way to counter the layered mechanics, so that it was very unlikely to get hit but if you DID get hit, you just flat out died. this of course came at the huge detriment of players who did not utilize layered defenses. as for AN, i like the IDEA behind tough mods existing in POE. but, i preferred how they implemented it in Nemesis, where these tough mods only existed on mobs with nemesis mods enabled, or on nemesis maps. i still feel that GGG should make it an opt in rather than how it is right now. even on regular maps, a bad combination of mods could be deadly or hard to deal with enough, but stack that on top of a league mechanic, it becomes bonkers. how "fun" is it for players to run rituals with a dozen monster mods working together to kill you? one mob could have the invulnerability aura, another could have a soul eater, and another could be having lightning mirages while one more could have the mana siphon ring, all while being surrounded by a ton of ranged mobs. not to forget ritual itself could throw some aoe effects that further limit your movement. its so much BS that i dont want to deal with that i actually use atlas passives to block a lot of league content. would be easier if i could block "nemesis" mod from appearing to begin with but nope. GGG loves AN a lot and loves making memorable encounters. for me its more of rage inducing quit moments where it just feels cheap and unfair. the stuff u mentioned about pseudo melee, its something i really hate about how some gamers only care about "game definition". a lot of people saying melee is fine usually see the best examples such as cyclone or lightning strike, which fall into stuff that i would consider as pseudo melee. lightning strike basically is a projectile spell holding a melee weapon. all because it carries a melee tag. for sure by POE's definition, it is melee. but it's not what people consider as "true melee". for me tru melee doing damage by tapping an enemy with your stick physically. swing or poke, you need to touch the enemy with your weapon to do damage. that is melee. this all happened due to circumstance where GGG realized melee sucked in clearing compared to other skills in the game which had huge ass aoe/clear area. molten strike, spectral weapon etc. cleave and cyclone are actually very close to being true melee but the problem came when players could easily add more aoe, and the end result is we have a magical attack that hits the entire screen. how does that equate to hitting an enemy with your weapon? the feel isnt there. in the current meta theres almost no reason to go melee. even with the recent melee buff i tried some t17 maps. some of the bosses, has huge ass aoes. so as a trumelee enthusiast, i have to get into their face, sneak in a few quick hits, then dash out when the next huge aoe is going to happen. all it does is make me feel like i should have used an aoe skill instead so i can maintain a constant amount of damage from a distance. this is especially true given how we have limited skill slots. it reminds me of a friend of mine. he sucked ass at poe but seeing how he played reminds me of how i used to make the same mistake. i had a look at his character as it was very weak. turns out he has 3 main attacks. 1 for bossing "close combat" where he could afford to just face tank. 1 for trash mob clearing, where aoe was emphasized, 1 for "ranged attack" for when the boss is too scary to face directly. on paper it makes sense, but due to how limited our slots are, it actually makes us weaker as we only get access to two 6 links via 2handers. and most players only have access to one 6 link normally. i m so fucking happy that GGG is introducing a new gem system that actually addresses this issue. big shame that its not being implemented into POE1. i really hope that it eventually does. i m really sick and tired of having to choose between gear with better stats vs gear that allows me to use my skills. one thing i find ridiculous is that reave, a 1 hander skill, could easily out-aoe any 2handers in a short amount of time. " lol i remember the gaming landscape really was just that toxic. softcore was seen as an insult. its really interesting to see how gaming environment has changed where POE evolved into a game that it's possible to play hardcore, but due to how spikey everything is, its technically a waste of time to even try playing on hardcore. i for sure RESPECT hardcore players as they do spend more time and effort playing the game properly. one thing i do ponder from time to time, is are they really worth respecting? for sure there are many of them that legit know the game in and out, but how many of them are just following meta builds rather than doing their own thing? following a meta build can get you VERY FAR in the game. going off the beaten path will often leave you simply beaten. nowadays softcore players arent seen in too much negativity i believe. for sure some may still choose to be mean but i dont see it as much. on the flipside, i do see a rise of new bias against standard/permanent players. as the gaming landscape overall has evolved where 3-4 month temp cycles are the new norm, a lot of these temp league enjoyers cant fathom how anyone can enjoy playing on a standard/stagnant league, and even throw shade at them. i know this to be true because whenever i say stuff about how the game is becoming worse for standard players, there will be a few oddballs that will throw shade at me "that what you get for playing standard" etc. in fact its so weird. i always had the idea that POE has its roots from diablo, which is a game that is centered around permanency. POE is a diablo clone and thus has its roots in permanency. GGG innovated the genre by coming up with the idea of temp leagues. back then it was marketed as letting players enjoy a fresh economy and try new mechanics and even earn gear before they get nerfed or even removed from the game (not brought over to core). essentially temp leagues were beta test servers for new mechanics to be brought over to core, but with a lot of incentive for players to jump in. but now i do see some people on the forums saying "POE has ALWAYS been designed around temp league content, temp leagues ARE the focus". i would agree that temp leagues are the main focus now, but i dont think it was back then. in fact i refrained from even touching temp leagues for the longest time as i came from the oldschool mindset where i wanted my progress to matter. frustratingly, a lot of old information is lost to time. i can no longer find the relevant posts. similarly, i recently mentioned how POE was classless. i remember very clearly having read a post from GGG themselves promoting POE as a game that was classless, specifically mentioning "classless". to me one reason why i know this is true and is a fact, is because that is the very reason why i gave poe a try in the first place. i love the concept of classlessness and making my own builds. similarly, the forum has been pruned a lot by the staff over the years, the search feature doesnt even allow us to search older posts. " i seriously believe that due to the F2P nature of POE, GGG is not 100% entirely transparent with the game. they were gamers themselves and iirc some of them would do shady stuff in D2, such as botting and RMT. this actually led to the funding of POE. they know how people RMT, what people do to RMT etc. the fact that achievements that are not "single player bound" exist, is a big indicator of this. they know that there will be carry services. they know some players will profit from this. as such, there is a possibility that trade was made difficult, simply to allow bad players to exist in the game. bad players could make money in the game and would in turn be motivated to spend money in game. in fact, theres no guarantee that behind the scenes that any GGG staff are not in bed with these bad players. back before the exalt/divine switch, a staff member or two could have "tipped" certain people off to offload their exalts. etc. we do not know. GGG claimed that the divine to exalt drop rate was equal. GGG could have kept standard players happy by giving them access to a limited time vendor recipe which allowed players to trade divines and exalt 1:1 via vendoring to NPCs. but GGG did not do that. i m not too good at POE back then but having 200-300 exalts on standard back then, was a huge accomplishment for myself. the flip made all my hardwork and effort turn into a few dozen of divines. there are other players with literal thousands of exalts. they got hit way harder. i would also say that not allowing naming/shaming is an "easy" way for GGG to shake off any staff responsibility in handling scams. players are adults, you should check before trading. blablabla. they offload all the problems back to the players. but all that said, i blind myself a huge lot because the game still is one of the best arpgs to exist. [Removed by Support]
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" As mentioned it's thanks to certain "Worlds First" D3 streamers audience and other D3 players. He is now a zombie(aging 20+ years in 10 years) playing Autochess most of the time and his MMO audience is gone because he isn't playing the next MMO upon release. There were several of those in early PoE. One became a shunned cultleader and scamartist, another had too much of a MC Syndrome so he got Permabanned on Twitch constantly threatening people with his guard dog during the Pokemon Go phase. Their associates became failed streamers some of them got banned for RMT/Botting. " Is it though? I remember players doing new bosses on SC first trying builds before trying it on HC. To me going in blind and being able to beat it is true HC. This isn't something PoE offers. Your build is not viable to beat something you have to do things on another character etc. GGG intentionally added BS to HC leagues where going in blind could very likely cost your char eg Invasion. While the desynch skeleton caused more deaths it was BS like Kamaq in Merciless Twilight Strand+Ledge, Flicker/SmokeMine Invaders vs ES/EV chars. PoE is learning patterns and run certain builds. It's closer to a Bullet Hell Shooter/Soulslike Games and with the Elden Ring DLC you could see how much tolerance their fans had with finding gaps for an attack. HC makes no sense in that regard. I don't think it's fair to compare D2 to PoE. D2 was developed till 1.10f (2000-2003) then Blizz North was disbanded. It had broken builds with little to no changes over the patches. In D2R they fixed some bugs and made more builds viable but added broken stuff like Mosaic and development is halted again. I think a comparisation to WoW would be fairer. WoW had expansions players liked and others they hated the same applied to leagues. You need active development to keep a game alive. Otherwise you need a PVP scene or something else keeping the game alive. The closed beta board got pruned with OB. The only thing you still see are the announcements. " I think what you refer to is a comment on a Kotaku article and that webarchive link to google discussions or whatever it was called where you could find out Chris having an account on Diabloworld using the same e-mail. But that's no real evidence though. But I fully agree with you that comes with PoE experiencce. I remember a thread in GD being closed the OP removed to "Protect the Privacy of our investors". I clearly remember the Aaron C. name in that thread, it way before the reddit "GGG Scandal" came to light. I remember them disabling receipes or mechanics creating legacy items and then the sheer amount of those legacy items in the market. Not to mention all the duped legacy Lightning Coils with the same itemlevel while there was PR talk "There are no dupes" In SC there was even Mirrored BiS dagger that had RMT origin. How the heck were those legacy items on the market when there were only ~50 HC players being able to generate those yet those were in the RMT market en masse? The RMTers I could identify were selling drops for an RMT currency to buy ingame currency to improve their chars. You see claims like somebody RMTed 6 exalts and got instantly RMT banned. Then you read the discord drama and find out that in those discords the majority of RMTers are noobs buying currency from sites/bulk sellers. So what is more believeable now? On the other side you saw "bans" because somebody named a char "RMT_Delivery_to_ Havoc" Then there are recent "Void league" deaths and RMT sites as characternames?! There was even a(believable though) that mods couldn't ban RMT spambots because they create a character spam and instantly delete it. But then you'd need to ask youself why not apply ranged IP bans. I can write several pages and that only accounts 2013-2015. One of my naming and shaming probations was literally pointing out that a botseller is a 0 post 0 char Diamond supporter with his custom pic being the mascot of his product. Last edited by Hilbert on Sep 20, 2024, 5:17:44 PM
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Interesting topic with a lot of historical details in it.
Before I weigh in with my thoughts, I think it's helpful to consider the range of people that are likely to engage with these forums. Super-casual players probably won't bother but you will still get everyone from the entry level gamer through to experts, many of whom have been here from the start. This is frequently a mix that results in conflict due to old timers being worn down by seeing the same topics ad infinitum, not helped by the underlying design of this game which goes out of the way to make things complicated and to obfuscate information. Atop that we should consider the type of person that is drawn to games like this, both the ARPG element but also the complexity inherent in the game. It's hardly surprising that a certain contingent of players would exhibit detail oriented behaviour and a lack of empathy or tactful communication skills. This often results in dismissive behaviour and a complete lack of willingness to consider the other point of view, resulting in what we'd identify as toxic behaviours. I have participated in many forums over the years for similar cohorts and have even moderated a few myself. I objectively believe that the PoE forums could be significantly better, but it would require a more active moderation approach to achieve the culture change necessary. Setting forum rules is one element, but applying those rules fairly and encouraging the right behaviours is essential to maintaining the standard that is sought. Unfortunately it seems pretty obvious that GG doesn't believe it is worth investing in, and they're probably right. PoE 1 is doing its thing for the company and realistically its just a testing ground for PoE 2, so why would you invest a lot of effort in the old game? The cost of doing so and the energy required is unlikely to have a significant return on investment, although player engagement and company culture are often undervalued and can be quite impactful when done right. Even just an upgrade to a different forum software would help but that requires time and effort (and therefore money) and there seems to be no appetite for it. It's very clear that the Indy game developer is long gone and the company is squarely focussed on the next big thing instead. |
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" lol i like how i think i know who it is by this vague description yet enough wiggle room to give some doubt. " fuckme, i meant to say IMpossible. yeah technically possible but its exactly as you said it. its highly unreasonable for any new player to organically learn to play poe and go HC. the damage spikes are just too high. sometimes the damage areas are just too vague. one example i always use is sirus die beams. before doing that he puts his arms out before kamehamehaing. how do you contrast that with a synthesis boss who puts his arms out, then starts spinning around with beams coming out of their hands? LE's character models and environments are way behind POE, but their telegraphs are well defined and easy to see albeit immersion breaking. but that said, if i had to choose between immersion breaking and knowing what to do, i ll always opt for the latter. in warhammer inquisitor, the game devs actually give players the ability to toggle between regular visuals vs a tactical one, where the tactical one clearly highlights all areas with exact circles/rectangles/cones. as for kotaku. damn.... talking about kotaku articles.... i used to love kotaku once upon a time. one day i realized that most of the posts are not even about gaming anymore and decided to quit checking the site after a while. you know what? i m really thankful for you and the sword waifu guy for sharing about the past. a lot of stuff you guys share, i legit did not know or just know vague details about. oh and while we're there, any chance anyone can gift me a drop bear pet? lol " yeah, sometimes i always try and remind myself. a lot of us are passionate folk and sometimes due to passion our fov is just so narrow. and yeah a lot of stuff have been lost in time. these forums... i hope ggg just archives everything and makes a new forum one day. reminds me of an old monster hunter forum that existed once upon a time. minegarde. the community wasnt too big so people werent necessarily toxic to each other and it felt comfy. poe forums is pvp [Removed by Support]
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Fixed my prior post.
" I don't know if there were more beginner questions over the time, then a FAQ or special subforum would have been better. But what I strongly remember are trolls and let's call them "People who only respond so they can hit the report button" as I am sure the term for them gets removed. The posts were really valid feedback. Sustaining maps, damagespikes, unviable builds, destroyed builds after Gemchanges during those 3 week patches(nowdays you'd call it Gemnerfs midleague) very common issues back then. Common troll responses were the likes of "Git gud" Unviable builds or nerfed gems resulted in angry players and there 2 really bad offenders who were constantly pissing people off in those threads while avoiding punishment. The user I hated the most responded to like every thread in a dismissive whiteknighting manner. I was honestly happy when I saw a banned tag under his name and unhappy when he was unbanned because the botdetection hit him spawning too many cruel(the area before crossroads in a2) instances. I think after he got unbanned was the only time he got probated. But God I hated him, if I had liked PoE I would have made it my mission to bully him out of the forums+game. And his responses included highlights such as:"My opinion is more worth because I have Alpha access/I am a Gold Supporter". It was obvious that he was playing troll+report. Ingame I met all kinds of people but as you mentioned they didn't use the forums. " You give players more credit than they deserve, when the response could be reduced to "I follow a guide I am better than you" Early PoE was like "Play around with Skill Gems" but they added a basic tutorial (I think). The next step is getting walled by restrictive freedom. When I played it was common to play on a 4(rather 3) link level. Run Auras with RMC, have a single Attackskill, have a secondary skill and have an AoE skill. IIQ and IIR were common Gems inside. Solo skills were skills like decoy totem. You will learn, thats better just to replace the skillgem than running multiple skills. When I made a Ranger I had all gems ready and even had a 5 link Quill Rain. This was when I was hit with restrictive freedom. The cost multiplier exploded I could only attack 2-3 times before I was out of mana(without any aura), so I was forced to use regret Orbs and go for a regen Blood Mana build. You will quickly find out that 100% build freedom is a myth and you need to use the skill tree planner. Ascendancies would only make it more complicated. Overall you would be experiencing failure. Now imagine the player only gets told how to build his char instead of why X was chosen. I can only imagine that it became easier to brick your character over time. Or at least getting stuck for a few levels because you cannot reach a node. " Early on they went to reddit and explained they wanted the forum to be more like reddit. TLDR: GGG saw that the community doesn't accept everything. They denied stealth nerfs to drops in the past and gave the "On the average" response. With Kalandra "Miscommunication" wasn't flying anymore. This was their "Sense of pride and accomplishment" moment. Checking recent league videos you have "Level 100 in 30 min" and on the other side "Quitting the league because you cannot avoid Necropolis mechanics" LR: Not being able to avoid mechanics was a point for many leagues and a thin lines for others. Imagine the Rogue Exile league where you had kill the Rogue Exile to leave the area or not being able to outrun them. Then add overtuned Damage and players would have hated it. Invasion was the first offender, I was the first one to kill all Vaal Side Area bosses and Invaders. Given the mechanics back then we should consider ourselves lucky that the Spam Firestorm, Puncture Shocking Ground and Soul Eater Vaal Side Area Bosses weren't into the invaderpool. After one week the league was dead. Examples: Invader Punishing party play early on if you engaged. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKdhTNVQ2TY Still normal... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h44qGIHNVzg This desynch skeleton caused many deaths and it spawned in common leveling areas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFoLQeQblX8 One major offender was C'shaka or whatever the ranged Atziri boss was called: This was a boss you'd call unavoidable because you didn't see her in Dungeon/Crypt areas and once she used her overtuned Spikestorm it was game over. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTC7hKhRIUk https://youtu.be/TlFz2ElNXo0?t=150 I couldn't find any videos of Kamaq pre-Nerf killing people on the Strand/Ledge(could be because mobs like the Goat invaders were way more common) but you were greeted by 8-12 devourers with a Far Shot (LMP?) Rolling Thunder one. I don't have all entry maps in my head but I know Dungeon was one(C'shaka), Dried Lake(Kamaq), Dunes(Kamaq) but you get the idea. Dungeon/Temple Types had C'shaka in the pool, Crypt/Skeleton ones likes were likely to have the Desynch Skeleton and Forest/Sand ones had Kamaq. There were other offenders like Trappers/Flickerstrikers/Puncture Snakes punishing Eva/Es builds. So you had a few unavoidable "Surprise MF" invaders and in general you had to tiptoe which is not fun. I didn't play Beyond+ but major feedback was you couldn't avoid the Beyond mechanic playing normally. Bloodlines I remember there was a massive negative feedback on something called Phys Lacteral Link? and Frozen Sky. I don't know how avoidable/unavoidable those were but it could be something along the lines you kill some champs and you are done so you have to carefully tiptoe. Years later I still see the same feedback "Necropolis unavoidable" "Time Gated missions ruined by unavoidable AN mods" I don't understand how they still make this mistake after so many years. Some players want new content, others want an economical reset. There are casuals, regular players and tryhards. Even tryhards leave when the new leagues don't feel rewarding. Regular players don't want to interact with league mechanics if it is not rewarding or ends in deaths. Several league mechanics aren't a strongbox you just can leave closed. This isn't even feedback it's pure logic. Regarding not engaging feedback there are many reasons: Lots of players mean lots of different feedback. https://youtu.be/yGsHq-mZI8U?t=74 Meaning feedback becomes a mess. Then there were incidents where taking the feedback of single person turned into utter failure(eg PVP when they flew somebody to NZ), but there was more to it such as selective balancing, not disabling freeze for PVP etc. People turning very hostile towards the devs after changes: Example Gemnerfs. When I played there used to be Skilltree and gem balance patches mid league. I think there were even 1-2 full resets. Players hated those. Antagonistic memes like "No Fun allowed" "Path of Nerfs" were born. There were even some talks between devs who thought they had some sort of connection to some players. They were understandbly furious when their build became useless. They didn't have other leveled skillgems and their gear was very specific for their nerfed build. There were posts such as: Dev:"Balance is a moving target" Response:"Yes balance is a moving target and you are missing every shot" Such a post would be vaguely removed nowdays but back then it wasn't because it didn't break any rule but delivered the hostile message. That was ~2014 and devs moved to reddit where there was some kind of Person Cult for Chris. But there were early signs that PR talk wouldn't fly especially some tryhard players/streamers. It was an unstable house of cards that crumbled 2 years ago. I can understand the mental health aspect to not engaging anymore but I cannot understand the aspect when there is so much feedback that players dislike something and it even shows in player retention. For some reason the devs still follow reddit where you constantly see a mocking meme called "The Vision"(I guess it's taken from a clip or post) but it won't get better when fundamental flaws still exist. " Changing forum software isn't the issue. Forums aren't used by the younger generation as you mention appetite. GGG is still very Indy but in the hands of TenCent. It will get technical at this point so you might not understand it. AAA companies invested millions into anti-tampering to waste time. They obfuscate their binaries using several methods eg Opaque Predicates For example if there is a 0xFF instruction you can add jz 3 jne 1 0xE8 0xE8 is a junk byte that a decompiler will read a CALL instruction. The jz and jne are conditional jumps that jump on the original instruction 100% of the time. The code works the same but if somebody is decompiling the binary you will see Conditional Jump+1 Conditional Jump+1 Junk CALL You can be really creative using those such as hiding real instructions within jumpig OP codes to jump to a real codeblock while adding lots of junk code. You can obfuscate lea instructions: Let's say you want rcx at 0x3000 lea rcx, [4000] sub rcx, 1000 RCX is at 3000 but you never display that value. They obfuscate the IAT, encrypt pointers, mutate instructions, add crc checks add bogus control flows. If GGG did any of that the Skiddies would throw the towel. " Always has been |
