Why is GGG Stopping Phrecia?

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Belegur85#5784 wrote:

They just posted update about these events. Looks to be all private events to me.

lol wasn't ever a doubt.....other guy just failed to comprehend what he read (and even quoted.....

Yeah, but in his defense it did sound like there was some ambiguity in the announcement. Was also so confident that it got me to second guess it.

Also what he is suggesting is probably what they should be doing, beyond having left Phrecia running.

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cowmoo275#3095 wrote:

[...]
And this is all totally irrelevant anyway.....the original argument you were trying to make is that new players start and play in standard. They don't. Even if the campaign takes them some absurd number of hours. If they like the game and continue it, like 90+% of the rest of the players they are restarting a new character when the next league releases.

No, my original claim is that there's a minority of players that ends up playing in Standard (these days : Settlers), that should not be dismissed because they will also tend to be the most casual and least experienced players that other players should try to welcome instead of dismissing / making fun of.
And in fact you seem to agree with me when you say that ~10% do continue to play in Standard (these days : Settlers).
(I have also seen rumors about GGG saying that 10-20% of players play in Standard, but the source is kind of questionable - also depends what they meant by that - anyone knows what they were referring to ?)

But no, instead there's a bunch of people here that keep failing reading comprehension, like this one :

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ARealLifeCaribbeanPirate#2605 wrote:

And that's before we even mention that your "sources" are things like youtube comments, and literally every single verified account puts new player campaign clears in the 30-40 hour range.

(Meanwhile, not even weak proof provided for the numbers.)
Verified account = not sure if this is the same thing as setting your profile to public, but if so (didn't I already mention it ?) it's the toppest end of the engagement and player skill curve by definition.
30-40 hours : comfortably inside the 24-96h range I gave, and much more than the 12 hours I had an issue with.

And hey, some more player quotes for you :

« As a new player (started in Necropolis) and being the stubborn I'm not going to look any thing up or follow any guides and just jump into SSF. I can for sure say the onboarding tutorial stuff could use some work. It took me about 500 hours to get through the campaign alone.
[...] »
(This one did shock me, and I do suspect that there was a LOT of AFK involved here... maybe like me, it was mostly sitting next to Tujen waiting for ships ??)

« [...]
I also have no clue what people are talking about with POE1 campaign being as quick as they say. I played back in 2018 and put about 60 hours in. Coming back this year, it took 15-20 hours to go through all of campaign. You can go quick, but no new player is experiencing that AND before Settlers you could not respec your character realistically so bricking your character is infinitely more common.
[...] »
(Sadly, not much of a data point, considering how vague those '60 hours' are.)

All of these are anecdotic of course, but I have yet to see a single comment in the vein of :
« No, it's not that long : I was a new player, and it only took me [10-20] hours to do the campaign »
And yet I keep seeing a bunch of (experienced) players saying that new players are able to do this, or even average new players !

So for now my theory is that a lot of experienced players are suffering from such a social media bubble issue of spending their time with other experienced players (and using statistics that have a massive bias towards experienced players) that they massively overestimate the skill of a lower than median (or even average) player.

(Then there's also the issue of console players being even more "cut off" than median. And I guess also Chinese-PoE1 players - at which point it's even not worth counting them any more ??)

----

GGG itself isn't being new player friendly either with Phrecia and especially not the private leagues, but I guess they do have a bunch of fires to put out...

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BlueTemplar85#0647 wrote:

No, my original claim is that there's a minority of players that ends up playing in Standard (these days : Settlers), that should not be dismissed because they will also tend to be the most casual and least experienced players that other players should try to welcome instead of dismissing / making fun of.
And in fact you seem to agree with me when you say that ~10% do continue to play in Standard (these days : Settlers).

Not at all what you originally said.....and also not what I said. Double whammy of incorrect information right there.

I said 10% of TOTAL players might play standard, most of whom are NOT new players. I explicitly said new players hardly EVER start in standard because it is simply the worst possible place to "play slow". Unless we are talking the ridiculous pace you seem to think the "average" player takes (which is wildly inaccurate). Additionally, the game itself steers new players into the league by having it be the default option. And the vast majority of "new" players are going to learn about the game from advertising online (especially now, 13 years later), which nearly every source is ONLY talking about leagues.

The only folks playing standard, probably a good 99.999% of ALL standard players, are veterans who have years of gear and fun toys to mess around with.

And yes......you can dismiss them. Entirely. GGG has dismissed them since 2014. Actually even worse, GGG has actively worked AGAINST them in multiple big ways since 2014.

You are arguing that you should consider the person emphatically claiming that clouds are made of cotton candy, simply because they might happen to exist.


And now you are completely walking back what you said, equating "settlers" with "standard". Settlers is STILL a temporary league, regardless of how long it has been. And it is nowhere NEAR as damaged as standard is. STANDARD is standard, period. To compare and equate the two shows.....that you have no idea what you are talking about.

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BlueTemplar85#0647 wrote:

more bad faith nonsense

Are you seriously doubling down on your suggestion that it is taking people, and by people I do in fact mean literally anyone playing this game for the first time, an average of FORTY MINUTES to clear each area?

Because that's how the math works, which is why two seconds of conscious thought would indicate that this is definitely not happening. Nobody is spending forty minutes in the mud flats. Nobody is spending forty minutes on the ledge. Nobody is spending forty minutes, even in the biggest area in the entire campaign ( which I believe is the ruined square?).

And that's the problem with your claim: the math just doesn't work. Game knowledge is irrelevant. Skill level is irrelevant. You simply cannot spend that much time in the campaign unless you're just idle in town for hours and hours, which I'm pretty sure I said in the post you literally quoted.

Even if we accept all of that as truth (which I don't).......NONE of it says new players are starting in Standard. Because they aren't.

Even one of your own new linked quotes of a presumably new player says started in Necropolis lol. In case you aren't aware.....Necropolis isn't standard, just like Settlers isn't standard.

Also why the hell are you linking videos that have nothing to do with the completely random comment you pull out? SHOW me the players taking that much time playing through the game, rather than some rando commenting on a random youtube video completely unrelated to the comment. And then show me them playing in Standard.



Oh and that Necropolis new player posting about a 500 hour campaign? He is completely full of crap, if you even read the paragraph. In two leagues (his words), he went from 500 hours in the campaign, to clearing t17s in a week. "Gambled away 3 mirrors" lol. THAT is your source, congratulations. A source exaggerating every single claim, and even making some impossible ones, while ALSO not supporting your original argument.

So started the new necro settlers private league.
The good: I actually enjoy POE1. It is sad that all resources go to POE2 which I stopped playing in hopes that maybe next patch... or one day...

The bad: The private league is effectively SSF with friends. This is not as fun... why making it private? Why not just creating 5 templates for league? The private league is heavily restricting trade... It becomes bit un-fun to run that lab for 10th+ time in hopes to get a transfigured gem you need... and still not get it

Sigh, between the guy that thinks that you cannot possibly play slowly and you can only stay idle in town and the other one that fails to understand what I am arguing about and why I am adding player quotes (while asking for FAR more proof than they gave themselves) - I give up.

Still, a couple more examples :

Isn't even done with Act 1 after 10 hours
(I kind of forgot myself that some players might not only fully clear all areas, but even do it several times for some of them !)

24.6 hours and level 36 now around the end of Act 3.

« I’ve been playing the game for about 45 hours and I am on act 5 »

« 40 plus hours into this game and only on act 5 » ... while following a guide !!

FINALLY I found again that comment I mentioned in the beginning :
« I've been playing for nearly 10 years. I've only started mapping and trying leagues out this year. It's insane. »
(with then some details as to how that happened)

There's no way you are being serious anymore....

Your original point: don't shit on standard because leagues are too short for players to reach endgame. Next point: doubling down on the the time range of the campaign is 24-96 hours, 24 hours being the D2-D4 vets WITH help. That is ridiculous, basically EVERY PoE player was a Diablo vet. Your next point? Are leagues really THAT popular?

Every one of your links is nonsense. You think it's "proof" of your point, but there hasn't been one believable post from an "average" player.

I don't need to offer proof because your point is SO so wrong it doesn't warrant any on my end. You have now even jumped into the deep end of EXTREME "examples", a staple of folks who don't actually have real data to stand on. Because it doesn't exist. Normal players don't post "yay, I completed the campaign!".

And now you obfuscate your original points because deep down YOU know they were bad and you backed yourself into a corner

https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/1bmksex/campaign_under_10h_as_a_newish_player/
15-20 hour campaign new player, PLAYS THE TEMP LEAGUE

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3197697
Discussion where the MAX time to do campaign is 25 hours, generally FAR less even for new players

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3503841
inexperienced player, 40-45m per act, less than 10 hours campaign, PLAYS THE TEMP LEAGUE

https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/1bwgy50/ok_genuinely_how_long_does_it_take_you_to_finish/
all nighter, presumably less than 10 hours, more than half the campaign (including the second HARDEST act (6) for new players). Commenters talk about even with afk time, sub 12 hour times. Maximum 2 days, likely NOT anywhere near 12 hours per day since the average player isn't no-lifing to that extreme.

https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/wrn122/whats_a_good_time_to_be_done_with_campaign/
most sub-12 hours. can't verify level of experience.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkxNy4HXB30
30 total hours of play in first review, which included into red mapping and mid-tier gaming. Considering mapping progression takes generally exponentially longer
than the campaign, we can extrapolate at least a sub-15 hour campaign, if not shorter than that. Brand new player. PLAYING THE LEAGUE.


I can go on and on and on......it's not hard. A 24-hour campaign is the weakest of the weak kind of player, not the average. Anything MORE than that, and you are dealing with someone who is either not honest, or isn't even actually playing the game. They likely let it run while sitting in town for hours, and then at the end of the campaign checked their "total hours played" rather than an accurate "active time played".

How can you not see, after everything that Caribbean said, that your comments and examples are utterly insane nonsense? The areas are FINITE spaces with a FINITE number of monsters. Even playing every area 2-3x, every single one, on a 4L of pretty much any skill wouldn't net the number of hours you claim and your "data" claims.

To add insult to injury, many of your "examples" are likely from players who restarted again and again, testing new characters and skills, before EVENTUALLY completing the campaign. Like your "ten year no campaign" exmaple. That data is completely IRRELEVANT to the argument: it doesn't prove the campaign takes 24-96 hours, it doesn't prove new players start in standard, and it doesn't prove that leagues are too short for new players. All three of your points.