Who is dictating balance data (is it farming and bots)???????

This is the consistent pattern for every patch GGG puts out...

1) Make drops restrictive through needing to buy rarity and full-time hours of grind.

2) Meaning only a handful of people in the community, mostly Chinese grinders and bots it seems, form a monopoly on currency and play the game past a certain point

3) In order to play the game at a certain point, you either have to make PoE2 a full-time job or you pay the prices the monopoly sets (spoiler alert, it's not great) because everything is balanced around having what only a handful of people can afford.

4) People leave the game because dealing with a game where only a handful of people control the resources and balance is no fun

My question for GGG is this...have they actually experienced this? Do they actually playtest on a live server dealing with this stuff, or is it all in-house?

Because it really feels like this small minority of players is controlling everything. They dictate the price of resources and balance. If they instant clear a map so they can farm for divines, GGG sees that and says, well, we gotta nerf it.

Why? Seriously. Very few people are going to play at that level, so why do I care if they can instant clear your boss. Just let them do it. Why does it matter?

And if the answer is "then they skew the economy", then my response is "why did you set up the game to be that way?". Why did you create a game where it's only playable past a certain point unless you can afford these specific items that only a handful of people can afford?

And if the answer is "well, our dev team worked really hard on it", then my answer is, decide what kind of game you want. If you want to give the power fantasy, people are going to find ways to instant clear your bosses, but only a handful of people are going to play at that level, so why does it matter so much?

All of this could be solved by just doing what other games do, which is create difficulty tiers. The reality is that a small fraction of players will always find a way to exploit the game and get a majority of the currency, which is fine.

But you're never going to be able to balance this game for both camps, so stop trying. The people that want to play PoE2 as a full-time job, min max everything, and get a 1000 divines, just let them have their fun.

But then create a league that isn't gated behind currency and balance that only a handful of people are going to obtain (spoiler alert, that league already exists, you just have to do the actual balancing). Until you do that, it's going to be the same thing every time. We get excited for a new league, the minority base ruins the game for everyone else, we argue at each other, and then a bunch of us stop playing.

And all GGG has to do to prevent this is just create separate, difficulty-tiered leagues that are separate from each other. Whatever the 1000+ hour grinders and bots are doing shouldn't have any impact on currency or balance in SSF. Just let each group have what is fun for them.

emphatic NO to creating difficulty tiers. Do not bring greater rifts or pit tiers or other multi-increment-difficulty mechanics to this game, they choke build diversity and dull the feeling of meaningful progression.

All your problems are inherent to any open trade system. Play SSF and you won't have an issue with what chinese farmers are doing.

You don't "need" anything to play past a certain point. You can play maps forever with scuffed rares that you gambled for gold. No one's holding a gun to your head to chase the best items in the game. There is no locked door saying "you don't have enough item power to enter."

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Feather#5383 เขียน:

emphatic NO to creating difficulty tiers. Do not bring greater rifts or pit tiers or other multi-increment-difficulty mechanics to this game, they choke build diversity and dull the feeling of meaningful progression.

All your problems are inherent to any open trade system. Play SSF and you won't have an issue with what chinese farmers are doing.

You don't "need" anything to play past a certain point. You can play maps forever with scuffed rares that you gambled for gold. No one's holding a gun to your head to chase the best items in the game. There is no locked door saying "you don't have enough item power to enter."

Lol, blaming the players for a flawed system. Couldn't possibly a problem with the game, nope it's all in our heads

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SkyPrince30#4110 เขียน:

If they instant clear a map so they can farm for divines, GGG sees that and says, well, we gotta nerf it.

Why? Seriously. Very few people are going to play at that level, so why do I care if they can instant clear your boss. Just let them do it. Why does it matter?

good argument, we just have to make sure these power levels are VERY hard to get, which they usually are

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SkyPrince30#4110 เขียน:

"why did you set up the game to be that way?". Why did you create a game where it's only playable past a certain point unless you can afford these specific items that only a handful of people can afford?

This is simply not true, you even started to answer it later

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SkyPrince30#4110 เขียน:

But then create a league that isn't gated behind currency and balance that only a handful of people are going to obtain (spoiler alert, that league already exists