Introducing Kirac's Vault Pass

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Lol, what?

Constantly communicating, like going silent for a whole league after saying they'll do better?

Listening to us, like constantly throwing nerfs nobody asked for in our faces and refusing to implement QoL unless they need a win?

Updating constantly I'll grant, but part of the reason they do that is just to keep the money flowing.

I wouldn't say they "don't care about the game", but they certainly don't care what players want.

They stopped being "One of the best" a long time ago.

You really just want to hate on the game at this point, for no apparent reason. If you are this bitter, just stop playing, it's not healthy for you. Whether you want to acknowledge it or not, the game is in it's best state now, with this new expansion.

About the nerfs. I don't know if you noticed or not, but they always release long development manifestos alongside with the changes they implement. Even if you dislike the changes, they are at least giving an explanation. Opposed to other devs, who just release the patch notes without giving any reasoning for why they did what they did.

And complaining about the lack of QoL changes is also weird. They always do something we ask for. Even if it's just one thing at a time. Game development is not as easy as throwing everything in with one patch. There's always a priority list, and lot of things end up on a waitlist, due to lack of resources and development time.

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Kelori a écrit :

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Lol, what?

Constantly communicating, like going silent for a whole league after saying they'll do better?

Listening to us, like constantly throwing nerfs nobody asked for in our faces and refusing to implement QoL unless they need a win?

Updating constantly I'll grant, but part of the reason they do that is just to keep the money flowing.

I wouldn't say they "don't care about the game", but they certainly don't care what players want.

They stopped being "One of the best" a long time ago.

You really just want to hate on the game at this point, for no apparent reason. If you are this bitter, just stop playing, it's not healthy for you. Whether you want to acknowledge it or not, the game is in it's best state now, with this new expansion.

About the nerfs. I don't know if you noticed or not, but they always release long development manifestos alongside with the changes they implement. Even if you dislike the changes, they are at least giving an explanation. Opposed to other devs, who just release the patch notes without giving any reasoning for why they did what they did.

And complaining about the lack of QoL changes is also weird. They always do something we ask for. Even if it's just one thing at a time. Game development is not as easy as throwing everything in with one patch. There's always a priority list, and lot of things end up on a waitlist, due to lack of resources and development time.

Certain aspects are better than they were in the past, yes. The Atlas is in the best state it's ever been in, for instance. Other parts - gear acquisition, ascendancy balance, etc. were better in the past.

Their manifestos more often than not come across as tone-deaf. Remember "Close your eyes and slam"?
Besides, that doesn't change the fact that their "Communication" has been terrible lately.

I was not complaining about their lack of QoL, but rather that they only seem to push QoL out when they're hurting - like the sudden influx of QoL after one of their most disastrous leagues.

For all you claim that I just want to hate the game for no apparent reason, I could as easily claim that you seem to want to defend it for no good reason.

I just want to encourage them, because there aren't many other games where I feel that the devs care as much about their game as GGG. Or maybe my standards are just too low, I was a long time WoW player before I picked up PoE.

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Kelori a écrit :

I just want to encourage them, because there aren't many other games where I feel that the devs care as much about their game as GGG. Or maybe my standards are just too low, I was a long time WoW player before I picked up PoE.

Then you should realize that these kind of predatory monetization methods end up being a slow but steady downfall of any game. That's exactly what happened to WOW.

Selling cosmetic items and selling in-game currency is two completely different layers of monetization.

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Kelori a écrit :

Selling cosmetic items and selling in-game currency is two completely different layers of monetization.

It always starts with purely cosmetic items. Then, the lines begin the blur, as we're seeing now.

It won't be long before there is a pet that can pick up currency from the ground. Pets are cosmetic, and making currency pick-up automated is a quality of life feature. Which we've had in the shop since the beginning with stash tabs.

Do I think that is going to destroy the game? No, but the slope is very slippery my friend. As soon as they see the money in other quality of life features, there is no turning back. For example, you cannot for a second convince me that stash tabs will ever be removed from the store or given to players for free.

Greedy moves like this always lead to the eventual destruction of games. I've seen it happen too many times. It will start with minor features, and people will defend them because they'll point to stash tabs and call the new features "quality of life". It doesn't take long before that transforms into fashion items with stat bonuses on them.

And then mystery boxes for in-game items, and so on..

Yes, it all started with cosmetics, almost a decade ago. And a decade later, we are still at the cosmetics only stage. I dont know whats shady about it. People act like this is different from supporter packs.

WoW is a different story, it was pay to play from the beginning, and the shop has no place in that game in any way, shape or form.
PoE however is F2P, so it was mandatory to put a shop in it, otherwise the game would make zero money. Makes sense.

I don't want to convince you that they will remove the premium stash tabs, why would they? It's the only somewhat "mandatory" purchase in this game. By the time I decided to buy them I had well over a hundred hours in the game. More than an avarage singleplayer gives you for the 60 USD price tag. I don't think it's greedy of them. Currently I have 1800 hours in PoE, so for the money I have spent on it for this amount of gameplay, it's still
a very cheap game in my case.

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Kelori a écrit :

Yes, it all started with cosmetics, almost a decade ago. And a decade later, we are still at the cosmetics only stage. I dont know whats shady about it. People act like this is different from supporter packs.

WoW is a different story, it was pay to play from the beginning, and the shop has no place in that game in any way, shape or form.
PoE however is F2P, so it was mandatory to put a shop in it, otherwise the game would make zero money. Makes sense.

I don't want to convince you that they will remove the premium stash tabs, why would they? It's the only somewhat "mandatory" purchase in this game. By the time I decided to buy them I had well over a hundred hours in the game. More than an avarage singleplayer gives you for the 60 USD price tag. I don't think it's greedy of them. Currently I have 1800 hours in PoE, so for the money I have spent on it for this amount of gameplay, it's still
a very cheap game in my case.

What's "shady" is the fact that, unlike with for example lootboxes, this is a major FOMO material. They did not even try to state that they plan on releasing them as standalone cosmetics.

The monetization in this game is getting increasingly more unfair. I'm not saying that it is completely unfair at this current moment, but the frequency of questionable decisions they are making is clearly spiraling out of control.

Since this is the case, I am losing faith that they will be able to pull it back in the right direction. If this continues, I guarantee we will end up with another WoW story.

I think you underestimate how quickly these things can happen. The game has been around for a decade, but it has changed. This game has not been successful for anywhere close to a decade. If the community is unwilling to make their voice heard by not supporting predatory marketing tactics, this game will eventually fail.

I am very disturbed by the fact that not a single staff member from GGG has taken the time to respond to our concerns. They've had the time to post multiple more MTX updates since this "battle pass" was made, but no time to write up a single post for the community?

I won't reiterate what my concerns are, since I've posted many times about them already. We can't support these kinds of practices and it will end badly if we do.

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What's "shady" is the fact that, unlike with for example lootboxes, this is a major FOMO material. They did not even try to state that they plan on releasing them as standalone cosmetics.

Supporter packs and the challange rewards are also time limited.