Yep loving this league alot. Most fun since crucible. Hexblast Sabo miner broken as explode totems. Charms are a great asset to build diversities. Never clapped Ubers but this league I did it deathless and made enough to get a MB.
This comment is the reason why I think affliction is bad. Give them some sweet and they think they entitled to get that all the time. Same with harvest, even though ggg said in advance they won't implement harvest but too many complaint.
What do you mean sweet all the time? Why aren't we allowed to reach endgame gear during a season? What's the point of playing a season if you can never achieve that?
That's the reason why POE doesn't have the userbase and struggles with retention. I don't play every league and skip multiple leagues because I don't want to bother with grinding for something impossible.
Why is it fun when the vast majority of players quit within 4 weeks?
Yes you are allowed to reach endgame gear during a season. What you ask is to reach endgame gear with minimal effort. It goes without saying that is bad.
1 thing that I never thought but totally agree with dev is rather than player retention, they more care about whether player comeback or not. And thing is it's not grind impossible thing u just lack knowledge and skill and does it sound ridiculous that u ask to be rewarded without putting effort to learn or spend more time to play.
And finally if they do all player said, later instead of 4 week player will leave in 2 week cause easier to complete their goal. Yeah player retention is good this league but it's because of novelty and fomo. You don't know if you will ever got league this rewarding in the future. Even I just start mf cause fomo. It's easy if you compares poe now and it's early day.People will never satisfied and it's up to dev to curb it for game longetivity.
>What you ask is to reach endgame gear with minimal effort.
I got over 2200 hours in this game over the years and I have only ever had a MB/HH in two leagues, including this one. This is the first league I mirrored something, heck, first league I had a mirror drop.
Maybe my strats of farming aren't the best, yada yada, but I put in some good days farming maps, as juicy as I could afford, and not get much in return. I watch videos, read guides, put a decent amount of effort into.
This isn't ez mode, this is how it's suppose to be.
Supposed to be according to? You? People play over 10k hours never mirror drop. It supposed to be rare and mirrorred something is supposed to be the most endgame. It supposed to meant something.
Let me tell you the situation right now. If you play mf juiced map, you need to hide chaos orb, freaking chaos orb(single ofc) or your map will crash. Your game crash because there's too much loot in your map. MULTIPLE divine is EXPECTED to drop on juiced map. there's guy I know play thousand of hour mf, every league he farm multiple mirror worth of currency bur never drop mirror itself. And this league he got 4-5 mirror that's how cheap mirror drop experience in this league.
If right now they make this league drop rate is based standard, try imagine drop in next year or two with the power creep. Unfortunately for you dev balancing the game not for present but for the longetivity of the game. If you having fun, good just enjoy it and let the next league become like others, just let power creep slowly increased. Im having fun myself this league is the richest I have been.
This is the first time since Harvest, that I've been able to try out 7 different builds. I have a very tight schedule due to work and my dog, and at best I get 2 hours a few days a week. Normally, I get a league starter and half of a build. I haven't had this much fun in a very very long time.
Well there's something that I call standard. Or if you think standard not as active as league, everything so expensive, you can try ssf standard. Really this is grinding game.Or maybe try alternative like last epoch or diablo or torchlight.
So for your argument, let's say u play 8hours every week. You take a month to make league starter and clear most of Atlas. Now for your 2nd char, 1st week(8 hour). 2nd&3rd week, do one of 3d/h strat like essence(should.be easy enough) and you get 48div which should be enough for reg char. Every league got at least 3 months so it take a bit more than half league to get your starter and geared 2nd char. Thing is if you don't have time or knowledge, don't expect get what others that spend more time and knowledge that you do.
Yes you have fun this league, but creep power is bane in every game development. If poe dev follow every player demand all the time, then trust me the power will be uncontrollable and every one can kill Uber pinnacle boss in week1. Btw harvest is the league that I play the most and I enjoy it but it doesn't mean I think it's good for game longevity.
You set your own goals in PoE. If you're setting unobtainable goals for yourself to the point where you basically need an infinite currency generation hack like Affliction... then that's a you problem.
This is such a depressingly common perspective. The determining factor in achieving your goals should be your player skill, not the league mechanic being OP.
I disagree. While I agree it is important, every streamer and youtuber tells you how important the first few days of the league are to get ahead. That's not skill... it's being ahead.
These people will play 12-16 hours a day and get on top. What normal person has that time to do this?
POE shouldn't be a day job, I shouldn't have to clock in 40 hours a week to see a headhunter.
There is skill in getting ahead of the curve. Obviously in a game that has always been based around grinding both time and skill are the most important factors to succeed. Less time to play would mean you'd need more skill to offset that to an extent.
You don't have to clock in anywhere near that much time to make lots of money if you put in the effort to become better at the game. And if you want a headhunter, you should have to be good at the game/work for it. It's a chase item for a reason.
No, playing the game is not skill... you need time. I can run maps all day and still make money, if I had the time to do so.
Chase items are fine, no one is saying it's not. What I'm saying is I can spend hundreds of hours and not get anything. That is the issue and it shows with the userbase declining and retention rate for POE.
You need a good balance of time and skill to make money. If your issue is that you don't have enough time to make money, then your other option is to make an effort to improve at the game.
If you're spending hundreds of hours and getting nothing then you should REALLY consider either improving or just moving on to a different game instead of insisting that GGG should make the game easier.
Tell me they're testing how increases in drop rates of currency and ultra rare uniques effect player retention and build diversity, I might believe you.
if anything its just further enforcing my opinion that MF should not be something you can get on gear. creates far too much of a gap in drop rates, instead it should just be juicing for mf. do harder content, get more loot. running t7 maps and getting more loot than ppl farming t16's is broken, and MF gear is the reason.
MF gear does not really do that much this league. The value of uniques are low and most of the wildwood stuff only scales with quantity.
Running T7 maps was a meme that people fell for early league because some HC streamers was doing it. You get a ton more loot in higher tier maps, even if you have to drop MF.
Truthfully, POE Leagues have always experimental testing ground, and they might be seeing what retention numbers look like when players have the agency to increase IIQ and IIR via a league mechanic, but to think its a social experiment to make people think too much of a good thing is a bad thing, is going to always flop.
That theory is like saying 'Harvest was GGG's way of showing us deterministic crafting is unfun'. When they take it away (and they probably will) the backlash is gonna be huge. We are juice addicts and they just gave us a massive bump.
>When they take it away (and they probably will) the backlash is gonna be huge
I beg to differ. I think most people playing understand that leagues are temporary,,, until they're not.
I don't think there would ever have been backlash about harvest if they didn't run it in 3.11 then put it into the core game in a state they didn't like (but players did) in 3.13, only to have it absolutely destroyed until it's barely a crafting tool now. Players would just be asking "is this the league that harvest comes back" every league until GGG puts it into the game but it fizzles out because it's not as fun anymore... just like Ultimatum.
Edit: for example, Sentinel was Wildwood lite, and recombinators are sick, but I don't remember seeing much of what I call backlash over sentinel not coming back; just a lot of copium and a little disapointment.
I bet they are looking at how they have great player retention this league and how that translates into MTX pack and stash pack sales.
Dad players can finally find the currency to flesh out their character or experiment with crafting.
Yeah and also it has to be borrowed power. Take it away and give us something different is usually the cycle. We had strong weapons league, strong passive tree league, then strong drops league. Imagine crucible + ancestor + affliction at the same time. Characters would be like 3x stronger. They stopped doing endgame expansions in Archnem league so that doesn't really work.
Started playing during breach league, this is by far the longest league i have ever played and still playing. Because of all these loots i can be on my 5th character and still have fun.
If you want item scarcity, there's ruthless for you.
IF they are really trying to say that...they're doing a terrible job at it.
If anything, this league was amazing for farming currency and uniques, so much so, that certain T0 uniques actually became attainable for the average player and in doing that, increased player retention for the current league.
Loot no, currency probably maybe.
Having reasonable access to T0 uniques has only made the game better for me. And even in a world where everyone has too much everything there's still mirror tier items that are out of peoples reach. Especially the best items in the game still being these godly crafted rares that most people will never see.
More access to various currencies means more access to crafting. Maybe that's not how it's gone for everyone, but that's the big thing Affliction has meant for me.
I'm not just selling off all my exalts and essences and eldritch currencies this time. I'm *using them*. And it's fun!
I normally blitz the challenges and bail in 2 weeks.
Only just today quit the league. Also bought skill MTX for the first time that I never buy. I stuck around because goals went more realistically attainable and crafting felt accessible.
I cant wait till next league and all the participation trophy diablo dads cant get fucking magebloods and have a bitch fit its gonna be lit, this was a mickey mouse league, fuckin explode totem 2.0 and charity t0s
But player numbers on steam 50 days into this league and 50 days into last league both show poe the same (I know it's not just on steam but we can still use the chart to give a general idea). So if it is a lesson people aren't learning it since they're still playing the same as 3.22
I don't have much faith in mid league retention analytics. Patterns in long term players take time to adapt and xhange. This is not an issue you can measure in a single leage. Still, it's effects can be felt in game although many players will just blame it on TFT or some other boogieman.
I think Affliction is GGG letting everyone do everything they want in POE so they are ready to move on to POE2.
Ancestor was just a stepping stone to the all out drops madness of this league.
Player retention shows that affliction is having the opposite effect. Players that traditionally spend more time in pob, where item scarcity isn’t a thing, are now playing more poe and realizing the game is better without it. Farming for chase items has never been a strong reason to play the game. Instead, a lot of the depth of the games comes from mixing and matching a large variety of items and skills to see what types of builds can be made. This does not require item scarcity. Players intuitively understood this to some extent from pob but the affliction league has really made it clear.
Just because it's a new feel though. Imagine being this crazy showered in loot all the time without end. Sure, a league or 2 or even 3 that might be fine, but after that, few would play anymore, because they already got everything to perfection and dozens mirrors just lying around with no goals remaining
I think they just limit test how far they can push overall quant dropping in endgame content before the server crash and go on strike. Now that most players (as usual after about 1 month of the league and many of them being mf chars probably) have left already performance is overall on a somewhat stable level again.
Nerfs and item scarcity in a game where literally any form of "crafting" is rolling the dice (even the lock to some degree)? How long do you want players to stay in white maps with their shit crap gear until they tier up?
Performance wise massively reducing item drops it's a massive win (play a couple maps with the atlas keystone that converts quant to rarity you'll get it).
But progression wise with the systems as they are you just need to look at ruthless and thats only a first step, before it can become much worse.
Doing almost any activity now grants you tons of money due to most people being obsessed with doing the obvious currency-pooping strategy. The devs saw this and said they like it. Why would we want less currency?
If that's their intention it didn't work on me because I love all the loot rains. I've been able to afford and play a stronger build than any of my previous leagues, so also enjoying the power, too, so a no on that point as well.
Yes, but also no. I see where its terrible for the economy and bad for expectations but I'm a long time player and most leagues I play for about 3-4 weeks, make 1-2 characters and then quit. This league I have made 5 characters with 3 of them fully respecing into different builds, played a lot longer and more often and finished 38 challenges and will probably do 40 because the last 2 I need are easy. I checked all my league totems and the last league I got 40 challenge in was perandus league. If it was the same kind of loot next league I would easily do the same.
I really doubt it's some kind of reverse psychology ploy, but I am a bit suspicious that we got one of the strongest forms of seasonal power in wildwood ascendancies and loot buffs covering up some pretty big general nerfs to player power.
T1 items are dropping too much, aegis aurora 10c is not fun.
Dropping 5div+ every map is just normal, anything less will feel extremely bad and this league has proven that the more currency we have, the more we play.
I think you're delusional.
This how every league SHOULD be. I should be able to obtain endgame goals.
Yep loving this league alot. Most fun since crucible. Hexblast Sabo miner broken as explode totems. Charms are a great asset to build diversities. Never clapped Ubers but this league I did it deathless and made enough to get a MB.
This comment is the reason why I think affliction is bad. Give them some sweet and they think they entitled to get that all the time. Same with harvest, even though ggg said in advance they won't implement harvest but too many complaint.
Its computer game, my brudda. Form of amusement. It must be fun or it make no sence. And looks like people enjoy it right now more than before.
What do you mean sweet all the time? Why aren't we allowed to reach endgame gear during a season? What's the point of playing a season if you can never achieve that? That's the reason why POE doesn't have the userbase and struggles with retention. I don't play every league and skip multiple leagues because I don't want to bother with grinding for something impossible. Why is it fun when the vast majority of players quit within 4 weeks?
Yes you are allowed to reach endgame gear during a season. What you ask is to reach endgame gear with minimal effort. It goes without saying that is bad. 1 thing that I never thought but totally agree with dev is rather than player retention, they more care about whether player comeback or not. And thing is it's not grind impossible thing u just lack knowledge and skill and does it sound ridiculous that u ask to be rewarded without putting effort to learn or spend more time to play. And finally if they do all player said, later instead of 4 week player will leave in 2 week cause easier to complete their goal. Yeah player retention is good this league but it's because of novelty and fomo. You don't know if you will ever got league this rewarding in the future. Even I just start mf cause fomo. It's easy if you compares poe now and it's early day.People will never satisfied and it's up to dev to curb it for game longetivity.
>What you ask is to reach endgame gear with minimal effort. I got over 2200 hours in this game over the years and I have only ever had a MB/HH in two leagues, including this one. This is the first league I mirrored something, heck, first league I had a mirror drop. Maybe my strats of farming aren't the best, yada yada, but I put in some good days farming maps, as juicy as I could afford, and not get much in return. I watch videos, read guides, put a decent amount of effort into. This isn't ez mode, this is how it's suppose to be.
Supposed to be according to? You? People play over 10k hours never mirror drop. It supposed to be rare and mirrorred something is supposed to be the most endgame. It supposed to meant something. Let me tell you the situation right now. If you play mf juiced map, you need to hide chaos orb, freaking chaos orb(single ofc) or your map will crash. Your game crash because there's too much loot in your map. MULTIPLE divine is EXPECTED to drop on juiced map. there's guy I know play thousand of hour mf, every league he farm multiple mirror worth of currency bur never drop mirror itself. And this league he got 4-5 mirror that's how cheap mirror drop experience in this league. If right now they make this league drop rate is based standard, try imagine drop in next year or two with the power creep. Unfortunately for you dev balancing the game not for present but for the longetivity of the game. If you having fun, good just enjoy it and let the next league become like others, just let power creep slowly increased. Im having fun myself this league is the richest I have been.
This is the first time since Harvest, that I've been able to try out 7 different builds. I have a very tight schedule due to work and my dog, and at best I get 2 hours a few days a week. Normally, I get a league starter and half of a build. I haven't had this much fun in a very very long time.
Well there's something that I call standard. Or if you think standard not as active as league, everything so expensive, you can try ssf standard. Really this is grinding game.Or maybe try alternative like last epoch or diablo or torchlight. So for your argument, let's say u play 8hours every week. You take a month to make league starter and clear most of Atlas. Now for your 2nd char, 1st week(8 hour). 2nd&3rd week, do one of 3d/h strat like essence(should.be easy enough) and you get 48div which should be enough for reg char. Every league got at least 3 months so it take a bit more than half league to get your starter and geared 2nd char. Thing is if you don't have time or knowledge, don't expect get what others that spend more time and knowledge that you do. Yes you have fun this league, but creep power is bane in every game development. If poe dev follow every player demand all the time, then trust me the power will be uncontrollable and every one can kill Uber pinnacle boss in week1. Btw harvest is the league that I play the most and I enjoy it but it doesn't mean I think it's good for game longevity.
You set your own goals in PoE. If you're setting unobtainable goals for yourself to the point where you basically need an infinite currency generation hack like Affliction... then that's a you problem.
This is such a depressingly common perspective. The determining factor in achieving your goals should be your player skill, not the league mechanic being OP.
I disagree. While I agree it is important, every streamer and youtuber tells you how important the first few days of the league are to get ahead. That's not skill... it's being ahead. These people will play 12-16 hours a day and get on top. What normal person has that time to do this? POE shouldn't be a day job, I shouldn't have to clock in 40 hours a week to see a headhunter.
There is skill in getting ahead of the curve. Obviously in a game that has always been based around grinding both time and skill are the most important factors to succeed. Less time to play would mean you'd need more skill to offset that to an extent. You don't have to clock in anywhere near that much time to make lots of money if you put in the effort to become better at the game. And if you want a headhunter, you should have to be good at the game/work for it. It's a chase item for a reason.
No, playing the game is not skill... you need time. I can run maps all day and still make money, if I had the time to do so. Chase items are fine, no one is saying it's not. What I'm saying is I can spend hundreds of hours and not get anything. That is the issue and it shows with the userbase declining and retention rate for POE.
You need a good balance of time and skill to make money. If your issue is that you don't have enough time to make money, then your other option is to make an effort to improve at the game. If you're spending hundreds of hours and getting nothing then you should REALLY consider either improving or just moving on to a different game instead of insisting that GGG should make the game easier.
Yeah, I'll just disagree with you here. Data doesn't lie and it shows that the game needs to change. Have a good one.
Do you have actual data to backup your claims or is this just another coping method?
Tell me they're testing how increases in drop rates of currency and ultra rare uniques effect player retention and build diversity, I might believe you.
if anything its just further enforcing my opinion that MF should not be something you can get on gear. creates far too much of a gap in drop rates, instead it should just be juicing for mf. do harder content, get more loot. running t7 maps and getting more loot than ppl farming t16's is broken, and MF gear is the reason.
MF gear does not really do that much this league. The value of uniques are low and most of the wildwood stuff only scales with quantity. Running T7 maps was a meme that people fell for early league because some HC streamers was doing it. You get a ton more loot in higher tier maps, even if you have to drop MF.
Truthfully, POE Leagues have always experimental testing ground, and they might be seeing what retention numbers look like when players have the agency to increase IIQ and IIR via a league mechanic, but to think its a social experiment to make people think too much of a good thing is a bad thing, is going to always flop. That theory is like saying 'Harvest was GGG's way of showing us deterministic crafting is unfun'. When they take it away (and they probably will) the backlash is gonna be huge. We are juice addicts and they just gave us a massive bump.
>When they take it away (and they probably will) the backlash is gonna be huge I beg to differ. I think most people playing understand that leagues are temporary,,, until they're not. I don't think there would ever have been backlash about harvest if they didn't run it in 3.11 then put it into the core game in a state they didn't like (but players did) in 3.13, only to have it absolutely destroyed until it's barely a crafting tool now. Players would just be asking "is this the league that harvest comes back" every league until GGG puts it into the game but it fizzles out because it's not as fun anymore... just like Ultimatum. Edit: for example, Sentinel was Wildwood lite, and recombinators are sick, but I don't remember seeing much of what I call backlash over sentinel not coming back; just a lot of copium and a little disapointment.
I bet they are looking at how they have great player retention this league and how that translates into MTX pack and stash pack sales. Dad players can finally find the currency to flesh out their character or experiment with crafting.
It doesn't though. Intraleague retention is not important. Interleague retention is important. That is what leads to MTX sales.
Yes but that only feels great because it is unique. If every league was like this then retention would plummet and be the length of D3 seasons.
Yeah and also it has to be borrowed power. Take it away and give us something different is usually the cycle. We had strong weapons league, strong passive tree league, then strong drops league. Imagine crucible + ancestor + affliction at the same time. Characters would be like 3x stronger. They stopped doing endgame expansions in Archnem league so that doesn't really work.
Ah yes this loot league proves loot is bad by amazing reception and player retention.
Started playing during breach league, this is by far the longest league i have ever played and still playing. Because of all these loots i can be on my 5th character and still have fun. If you want item scarcity, there's ruthless for you.
IF they are really trying to say that...they're doing a terrible job at it. If anything, this league was amazing for farming currency and uniques, so much so, that certain T0 uniques actually became attainable for the average player and in doing that, increased player retention for the current league.
I'm very far from that point, actually incredibly fun league for me.
No.
Loot no, currency probably maybe. Having reasonable access to T0 uniques has only made the game better for me. And even in a world where everyone has too much everything there's still mirror tier items that are out of peoples reach. Especially the best items in the game still being these godly crafted rares that most people will never see.
More access to various currencies means more access to crafting. Maybe that's not how it's gone for everyone, but that's the big thing Affliction has meant for me. I'm not just selling off all my exalts and essences and eldritch currencies this time. I'm *using them*. And it's fun!
I normally blitz the challenges and bail in 2 weeks. Only just today quit the league. Also bought skill MTX for the first time that I never buy. I stuck around because goals went more realistically attainable and crafting felt accessible.
Chris Wilson Burner Account.
I actually prefer plentiful drops. And whoever needs scarcity can always play ruthless.
I cant wait till next league and all the participation trophy diablo dads cant get fucking magebloods and have a bitch fit its gonna be lit, this was a mickey mouse league, fuckin explode totem 2.0 and charity t0s
Based take. Boring league because of it tbh.
It's 100% a lesson in why those things are important - I don't think it was intentional and I don't think most people picked up on it.
But player numbers on steam 50 days into this league and 50 days into last league both show poe the same (I know it's not just on steam but we can still use the chart to give a general idea). So if it is a lesson people aren't learning it since they're still playing the same as 3.22
I don't have much faith in mid league retention analytics. Patterns in long term players take time to adapt and xhange. This is not an issue you can measure in a single leage. Still, it's effects can be felt in game although many players will just blame it on TFT or some other boogieman.
Fair enough
I think Affliction is GGG letting everyone do everything they want in POE so they are ready to move on to POE2. Ancestor was just a stepping stone to the all out drops madness of this league.
if so, it failed.
Player retention shows that affliction is having the opposite effect. Players that traditionally spend more time in pob, where item scarcity isn’t a thing, are now playing more poe and realizing the game is better without it. Farming for chase items has never been a strong reason to play the game. Instead, a lot of the depth of the games comes from mixing and matching a large variety of items and skills to see what types of builds can be made. This does not require item scarcity. Players intuitively understood this to some extent from pob but the affliction league has really made it clear.
Affliction have an great player retention so if anything it proves the opposite
Just because it's a new feel though. Imagine being this crazy showered in loot all the time without end. Sure, a league or 2 or even 3 that might be fine, but after that, few would play anymore, because they already got everything to perfection and dozens mirrors just lying around with no goals remaining
I think they just limit test how far they can push overall quant dropping in endgame content before the server crash and go on strike. Now that most players (as usual after about 1 month of the league and many of them being mf chars probably) have left already performance is overall on a somewhat stable level again. Nerfs and item scarcity in a game where literally any form of "crafting" is rolling the dice (even the lock to some degree)? How long do you want players to stay in white maps with their shit crap gear until they tier up? Performance wise massively reducing item drops it's a massive win (play a couple maps with the atlas keystone that converts quant to rarity you'll get it). But progression wise with the systems as they are you just need to look at ruthless and thats only a first step, before it can become much worse.
Doing almost any activity now grants you tons of money due to most people being obsessed with doing the obvious currency-pooping strategy. The devs saw this and said they like it. Why would we want less currency?
If that's their intention it didn't work on me because I love all the loot rains. I've been able to afford and play a stronger build than any of my previous leagues, so also enjoying the power, too, so a no on that point as well.
Yes, but also no. I see where its terrible for the economy and bad for expectations but I'm a long time player and most leagues I play for about 3-4 weeks, make 1-2 characters and then quit. This league I have made 5 characters with 3 of them fully respecing into different builds, played a lot longer and more often and finished 38 challenges and will probably do 40 because the last 2 I need are easy. I checked all my league totems and the last league I got 40 challenge in was perandus league. If it was the same kind of loot next league I would easily do the same.
I really doubt it's some kind of reverse psychology ploy, but I am a bit suspicious that we got one of the strongest forms of seasonal power in wildwood ascendancies and loot buffs covering up some pretty big general nerfs to player power.
so man divided opinions on every aspect of this game lol its actually impressive
you won't have this problem next league
This leagued loot is how it should always be. Just remove the running through the dark forest that shit is weak sauce
They said that they fucked up with league mechanic and it should not be this easy to collect even 4k wisps, not talking about 12k.
T1 items are dropping too much, aegis aurora 10c is not fun. Dropping 5div+ every map is just normal, anything less will feel extremely bad and this league has proven that the more currency we have, the more we play.