0.9.12w Patch Notes

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tpapp157 wrote:

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zeto wrote:

In other words, players often choose not to group, for various reasons, yet in a multiplayer gaming environment, playing multiplayer style should probably not just be supported, but actively sought out by a large portion of the population. Since this is apparently not occurring, there should be some analysis as per what could motivate a healthy multiplayer community/environment.

I don't see this as being the case. By that I mean PoE is not a game that's designed solely around the concept of multiplayer. A game like WoW or CoD simply isn't intended as a sigleplayer experience. While you could play those games in such a way, it's made apparent to the player that singleplayer is not the intended mode of play. PoE on the other hand simply offers an easy and convenient multiplayer option for playing through the game content. In the same way, PoE will offer PvP but it isn't a PvP game.

I just think that POE is significantly biased towards single player, and most free to play games, particularly that rely on a cosmetic microtx system, suffer greatly from an unhealthy multiplayer community.

This type of phenomenon is most widely experienced in first person shooters (where other players are the only content,) and is not nearly as severe in the context of an online multiplayer ARPG (which can entirely be played solo.)

So this is not to say that POE won't be fine as is. It's a great game and will thrive on default/cutthroat/pvp alone, however I'm extremely sure that it could do better in coop non-cutthroat play via random grouping... and there are clear aspects that could perhaps be worked on that would make it so, and that I feel the community could brainstorm for GGG.

Optimizing social interactions is a big concept though, and someone high up there should have it on their whiteboard ;)

Don't remove FFA loot, just give us more options. Please?

No one can say for sure how many more public games you might start getting under a non competitive system but I think its worth a shot to find out since its sited a lot as a reason people don't want to group. A lot of players aren't that interested in pvp and would therefore not be as interested in competeing for loot, so I think it makes sense that a lot of players avoid public games MOSTLY because of the loot system. They might throw out other reasons, but that one would probably be the most important reason. I know it is for me.