PoE Forums Are Broken – How to Fix Toxicity & Engagement

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Akedomo#3573 wrote:

And yes. PoE has never been a difficult game.

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Akedomo#3573 wrote:

I think it definitely at least impacts some of the decisions being made. I've seen many people with multiple badges that get to say some pretty egregious things and just walk away, but when you call them out, you get your comment removed.

And yes. PoE has never been a difficult game. People on these forums act like it is though. I play tons of difficult games. I was very high Elo in DotA 2 and League for many years. Till I realized what a pointless endeavor it was to constantly aim for competition, rather than enjoyment. POE is a game that I enjoy playing, but the community behind it has made it a very unpleasant game to play. And this includes GGG staff, who won't consider listening to casual players at all. There was so many people saying that XP loss on death is unfun, and that they just want to play the game and GGG went and said NOPE. I play PoE to zen out. I can mindlessly grind maps and watch a tv show while doing it. It's never been difficult. Don't know why people try to act like it is.

Like, not even sure what this company wants anymore. They clearly don't want millions of casual players playing the game. They seem to actively want people that like wasting their time. AT least, that's what it feels like when they ignore feedback like that.

I get wanting to make a game in your style, but at the same time. Just add in the option. Then people can play how they want.

The thing is. I've seen the exact pattern that this game has taken in the past, and looks like it's about to take again with PoE 2. With many games that focus solely on the part of the community that values competition. All it does is breed toxicity.

World of Warcraft is a great example of this. Rather than focusing on the fun of playing with friends and community. They made the game about grinding raids and doing mythics. Then all anyone ever values in the game is parses and doing well.

Compare it to Final Fantasy Online, where the entire community feels 100x more pleasant and welcoming to people. The game is actually harder, and people still get to parse, but all the casual players can log in and enjoy themselves because that's what the sole aim of the game was. Not the competition. They didn't forsake casual players in favor of the better ones. They gave everyone something to do.

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Gang5ter15#1071 wrote:

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Akedomo#3573 wrote:

I think it definitely at least impacts some of the decisions being made. I've seen many people with multiple badges that get to say some pretty egregious things and just walk away, but when you call them out, you get your comment removed.

And yes. PoE has never been a difficult game. People on these forums act like it is though. I play tons of difficult games. I was very high Elo in DotA 2 and League for many years. Till I realized what a pointless endeavor it was to constantly aim for competition, rather than enjoyment. POE is a game that I enjoy playing, but the community behind it has made it a very unpleasant game to play. And this includes GGG staff, who won't consider listening to casual players at all. There was so many people saying that XP loss on death is unfun, and that they just want to play the game and GGG went and said NOPE. I play PoE to zen out. I can mindlessly grind maps and watch a tv show while doing it. It's never been difficult. Don't know why people try to act like it is.

Like, not even sure what this company wants anymore. They clearly don't want millions of casual players playing the game. They seem to actively want people that like wasting their time. AT least, that's what it feels like when they ignore feedback like that.

I get wanting to make a game in your style, but at the same time. Just add in the option. Then people can play how they want.

The thing is. I've seen the exact pattern that this game has taken in the past, and looks like it's about to take again with PoE 2. With many games that focus solely on the part of the community that values competition. All it does is breed toxicity.

World of Warcraft is a great example of this. Rather than focusing on the fun of playing with friends and community. They made the game about grinding raids and doing mythics. Then all anyone ever values in the game is parses and doing well.

Compare it to Final Fantasy Online, where the entire community feels 100x more pleasant and welcoming to people. The game is actually harder, and people still get to parse, but all the casual players can log in and enjoy themselves because that's what the sole aim of the game was. Not the competition. They didn't forsake casual players in favor of the better ones. They gave everyone something to do.

I dont focus on everything you wrote.

Many games focus on making people who sinks thousands of hours into games happy. And i do think thats a valid decisions, cause those people make up your core playerbase. And those are the people who will stay in your game. Casual Players might change their game frequently and you cant hold them onto your game as well.
Thats just why i think games focus more on the Hardcore (not the mode) players instead of the casuals. But i dont think this affects the communities behaviour this much. Take Trackmania for example. Its an extremely competitive game, but the community is very nice. And it has lots of hardcore players. The game is just very different and attracts less toxic people.

A game where you slaughtering hordes of Monsters attracts a certain kind of people while a game like Final Fantasy 14 is calmer and slower. And the feel is just different. Thats also why shooters or PVP games are often very toxic.

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Akedomo#3573 wrote:

For games to last. They generally need to have a good game design with a broader appeal. Or like you said, a very specific type of gameplay, and a great example of it. PoE 1 was a great ARPG compared to the alternatives when it was made. Which is why it was popular.

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But if the people that made CoD innovated, and came out with something like Apex, or Fortnight instead. Well, look at how popular those became. They could have CoD AND another game, and appeal to two different demographics, instead of just condemning the old version of the game to the grave, because they just created a carbon copy, but slightly different.

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Gang5ter15#1071 wrote:

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Akedomo#3573 wrote:

For games to last. They generally need to have a good game design with a broader appeal. Or like you said, a very specific type of gameplay, and a great example of it. PoE 1 was a great ARPG compared to the alternatives when it was made. Which is why it was popular.

I dont think that is actually the case. POE 1 got more popular over time. It wasnt popular when it came out.
You can see that pretty well when we look at the all time Steam Charts.

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But if the people that made CoD innovated, and came out with something like Apex, or Fortnight instead. Well, look at how popular those became. They could have CoD AND another game, and appeal to two different demographics, instead of just condemning the old version of the game to the grave, because they just created a carbon copy, but slightly different.

They did its called Warzone.

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Akedomo#3573 wrote:

I'm not saying that PoE 1 wasn't popular. It very clearly was very popular with a specific type of player.

All I'm saying is, what is the point of creating two similar games for a hyper specific type of player?

All that happens, is that the old game gets abandoned for the newer version of the game.

When instead. They could shift direction, and have one game for the hyper specific type of player, and another for the people that wanted something different. Both could exist in harmony.

If you look at the achievements, you can very clearly see that the game had awful casual player retention, and you can see the small percentage of players that actually ended up getting past like, Act 5. Why wouldn't you act on this incredible amount of potential players, and instead.. Just re-create almost the same thing?

Also, Warzone clearly wasn't innovative, or worthwhile to play, given how bad the reviews are. Looks like it was just an attempt at copying other battle-royal games, hoping to recreate the same success with minimal effort.


You can see the impacts companies are starting to face, re-releasing slightly different versions of the same games these days. Many of these companies are starting to fail. I just don't want to see GGG end up going down the same path, when they could innovate, and take a risk, and potentially reach millions of new players.