Hey GGG its about time you let us start the game in hideout

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Rippster wrote:

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SilentSymphony wrote:

Maybe GGG could add social areas to the game and keep town more immersive for the storyline/etc.

Exactly. Over the years I've thought about a way to create social gathering places that people wanted to go to instead of feeling forced to do it. I think a great way to do that for PoE would be to create an area where you can go that gives you a temporary magic-find boost. Say, head to the local 'tavern' for 3-5 minutes and receive X% to magic-find for X amount of time. It's optional but I'd go. I also think people would actually meet others and group up, make friends.

There are so many logical solutions to things like this, I just wish developers spent a bit more time thinking about the players instead of the board room and bottom lines.

But what do I know, I'm just a customer.

Not that I'm against the idea inherently, but when u think about it a little bit further....

If u're supposed to AFK in that area for 3-5 minutes, then most people won't go there unless the MF bonus is very significant. Otherwise it's more efficient to do 1-2 maps in the same time span.
Also now u're actively excluding people with weaker hardware from the bonus.

If the Bonus is very significant, then people will complain that the gameplay loop now consists of going to the tavern and afk for several minutes before doing another map. Also the same people will complain that they have to enter an area where their Hardware is going crazy and it's "mandatory" to do so because of the bonus.

I'm split on the topic tbh. I understand the frustration of people with weaker PCs having horrible loading times when they enter hub areas.
At the same time it's vital for GGG as a business to keep those areas intact and "force" players at least once per login to go there.
Maybe they could include a GFX option to tone down the quality of MTX in the options menu, but even that would probably have an effect on MTX sales.

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Sadaukar wrote:

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Rippster wrote:

"

SilentSymphony wrote:

Maybe GGG could add social areas to the game and keep town more immersive for the storyline/etc.

Exactly. Over the years I've thought about a way to create social gathering places that people wanted to go to instead of feeling forced to do it. I think a great way to do that for PoE would be to create an area where you can go that gives you a temporary magic-find boost. Say, head to the local 'tavern' for 3-5 minutes and receive X% to magic-find for X amount of time. It's optional but I'd go. I also think people would actually meet others and group up, make friends.

There are so many logical solutions to things like this, I just wish developers spent a bit more time thinking about the players instead of the board room and bottom lines.

But what do I know, I'm just a customer.

Not that I'm against the idea inherently, but when u think about it a little bit further....

If u're supposed to AFK in that area for 3-5 minutes, then most people won't go there unless the MF bonus is very significant. Otherwise it's more efficient to do 1-2 maps in the same time span.
Also now u're actively excluding people with weaker hardware from the bonus.

If the Bonus is very significant, then people will complain that the gameplay loop now consists of going to the tavern and afk for several minutes before doing another map. Also the same people will complain that they have to enter an area where their Hardware is going crazy and it's "mandatory" to do so because of the bonus.

I'm split on the topic tbh. I understand the frustration of people with weaker PCs having horrible loading times when they enter hub areas.
At the same time it's vital for GGG as a business to keep those areas intact and "force" players at least once per login to go there.
Maybe they could include a GFX option to tone down the quality of MTX in the options menu, but even that would probably have an effect on MTX sales.

Just transform everyone into driftwood, I would want to use my MTX too admittedly it would be tough for the tavern idea to work unless they did some kind of transformations to tone it down or a public(transformation)friendly room and a (mtx enabled) room.

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SilentSymphony wrote:

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Rippster wrote:

"

SilentSymphony wrote:

Maybe GGG could add social areas to the game and keep town more immersive for the storyline/etc.

Exactly. Over the years I've thought about a way to create social gathering places that people wanted to go to instead of feeling forced to do it. I think a great way to do that for PoE would be to create an area where you can go that gives you a temporary magic-find boost. Say, head to the local 'tavern' for 3-5 minutes and receive X% to magic-find for X amount of time. It's optional but I'd go. I also think people would actually meet others and group up, make friends.

There are so many logical solutions to things like this, I just wish developers spent a bit more time thinking about the players instead of the board room and bottom lines.

But what do I know, I'm just a customer.

Lol a tavern, Why not.

They just need interactable chairs.

Yes! Too bad it's not Star Wars based, can you imagine a Tatooine-type tavern? They could do some really cool stuff for PoE. Chairs, maybe some kind of temporary drink bonuses, a cool band or music... it could be great!

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Sadaukar wrote:

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Rippster wrote:

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SilentSymphony wrote:

Maybe GGG could add social areas to the game and keep town more immersive for the storyline/etc.

Exactly. Over the years I've thought about a way to create social gathering places that people wanted to go to instead of feeling forced to do it. I think a great way to do that for PoE would be to create an area where you can go that gives you a temporary magic-find boost. Say, head to the local 'tavern' for 3-5 minutes and receive X% to magic-find for X amount of time. It's optional but I'd go. I also think people would actually meet others and group up, make friends.

There are so many logical solutions to things like this, I just wish developers spent a bit more time thinking about the players instead of the board room and bottom lines.

But what do I know, I'm just a customer.

Not that I'm against the idea inherently, but when u think about it a little bit further....

If u're supposed to AFK in that area for 3-5 minutes, then most people won't go there unless the MF bonus is very significant. Otherwise it's more efficient to do 1-2 maps in the same time span.
Also now u're actively excluding people with weaker hardware from the bonus.

If the Bonus is very significant, then people will complain that the gameplay loop now consists of going to the tavern and afk for several minutes before doing another map. Also the same people will complain that they have to enter an area where their Hardware is going crazy and it's "mandatory" to do so because of the bonus.

I'm split on the topic tbh. I understand the frustration of people with weaker PCs having horrible loading times when they enter hub areas.
At the same time it's vital for GGG as a business to keep those areas intact and "force" players at least once per login to go there.
Maybe they could include a GFX option to tone down the quality of MTX in the options menu, but even that would probably have an effect on MTX sales.

Those are good points. For me, I'd be one of the ones who just AFK doing something else while waiting, and I'd be sure to turn off the local chat. However, there are plenty of socialites who will do the opposite. Some would meet lifelong friends in there. Some would make great trades. People do what they do.

As far as how big the bonus would need to be, that's up for discussion. You could argue a host of issues with the idea but I personally think it would be a welcome addition. It would sure beat logging into the least populated waypoint (I'm sure I'm not alone on that) to avoid all the mess.

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SilentSymphony wrote:

I would want to use my MTX too admittedly it would be tough for the tavern idea to work unless they did some kind of transformations to tone it down or a public(transformation)friendly room and a (mtx enabled) room.

Another good point but it could be similar to the Heist hideout, it doesn't have to overload the place. An option to switch instances would be nice, for trading, meetings and such.

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Sadaukar wrote:

At the same time it's vital for GGG as a business to keep those areas intact and "force" players at least once per login to go there.

i would argue that ggg doesnt actually NEED this as part of their marketing strategy.

can it help? sure it does. but in one of my prev posts i pointed out that when the game was new, they were indeed selling cosmetics and forced shared areas made sense as the whole idea on how to make money is via making players buy point packs.

the trend has changed a lot now. poe has a "cultlike" following. whenever theres a new league announcement gazillions of exiles will DEFINITELY check it out. this is where they make the most sales as they tie in supporter pack reveals at the end of the announcement.

if you buy a supporter pack. you have points. if you have points, you would definitely want to check everything in the store to make the most value for your points.

its a new flow where ggg themselves havent been posting any fashion highlights/competitions in a long time as they really dont need to. if they did then i would agree and say forced shared areas is good for poe financially. but as it is, i really dont see them caring about this as they used to.

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SilentSymphony wrote:

Lol a tavern, Why not.

They just need interactable chairs.

i think having a tavern would be a good idea as a middle ground for players to socialize.

i would go further and make it semi instanced where a limited amount of players can exist in a tavern.

heck i ll go a step further where the tavern is part of gladiatorial pits. players could challenge each other for shit and giggles while others could watch. players could buy temporary buffs or even debuffs via drinks. all costing a small amount of gold (assuming gold makes it to core).

also players could have a new avenue to spend gold. maybe einhar has started a side hustle where he charges players gold to kill some random beasts he found.

this also would require gold to be rebalanced in a way that players (the regular dude) actually have excess gold. currently the difference of running a plain normal t16 vs a full out atlas unlocked, fully scarabed t16 is absolutely disgusting where one fully juiced map can give more gold than running 50 t16s unjuiced.

also to digress a little.

since we're talking social. we're now delving into a very divisive subject. some players hate d4's social aspect and prefer playing solo. but if it was considered part of marketing, then it makes total sense to add more social activities into the game.

my guess is that the very people who would insist things remain the way things are and justifying that it's good for the game, would be the same people who would go against adding more social aspects since it changes the game and takes away resource from "improving the game where it really matters" and that poe "isnt that type of game".

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exsea wrote:

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Sadaukar wrote:

At the same time it's vital for GGG as a business to keep those areas intact and "force" players at least once per login to go there.

i would argue that ggg doesnt actually NEED this as part of their marketing strategy.

can it help? sure it does. but in one of my prev posts i pointed out that when the game was new, they were indeed selling cosmetics and forced shared areas made sense as the whole idea on how to make money is via making players buy point packs.

the trend has changed a lot now. poe has a "cultlike" following. whenever theres a new league announcement gazillions of exiles will DEFINITELY check it out. this is where they make the most sales as they tie in supporter pack reveals at the end of the announcement.

if you buy a supporter pack. you have points. if you have points, you would definitely want to check everything in the store to make the most value for your points.

its a new flow where ggg themselves havent been posting any fashion highlights/competitions in a long time as they really dont need to. if they did then i would agree and say forced shared areas is good for poe financially. but as it is, i really dont see them caring about this as they used to.

The thing is tho, both of our arguments have no data behind it(unless u know more than me). Only GGG knows how important it really is and how people get influenced to check out MTX because they saw someone in town with a fancy outfit or pet.

GGG retroactively changed Rogue Harbour from being a single player instance into a player hub. I don't think they would have done that if they felt the impact wouldn't be significant. Also alot of people still experience performance issues there, which would be easy to fix if they just reverted the change... but they didn't so far.

That leads me to believe that GGG has enough data that suggest player hubs add a significant enough drive to MTX sales. I'm not sure about PoE2, but I believe we have the same hub system there aswell.

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Sadaukar wrote:

The thing is tho, both of our arguments have no data behind it(unless u know more than me). Only GGG knows how important it really is and how people get influenced to check out MTX because they saw someone in town with a fancy outfit or pet.

GGG retroactively changed Rogue Harbour from being a single player instance into a player hub. I don't think they would have done that if they felt the impact wouldn't be significant. Also alot of people still experience performance issues there, which would be easy to fix if they just reverted the change... but they didn't so far.

That leads me to believe that GGG has enough data that suggest player hubs add a significant enough drive to MTX sales. I'm not sure about PoE2, but I believe we have the same hub system there aswell.

If that's the real reason they changed the rogue harbor without a word to the playerbase that's just sad. Actively making the performance of their own game worse and chasing away players from an entire league mechanic, just because of "oh maybe it will increase mtx sales". Well because of this players like me who get 60 fps in most content(except party play,5-way legion rotas,blighted maps cooking my GPU up to 70C) lag in rogue harbor, the textures start disappearing and flickering and it's just unplayable. I am literally unable to enjoy this content anymore. I would do heist if I could, but right now that town is in an unacceptable state.

I don't think some vague potential increase in mtx sales is more important than actual engagement with content in the game and playtime. Because I definitely would have quite a bit more hours if I could do heist, I'd be running blueprints with a trinket and fully rolled gear on my guys just because I like the rewards from this mechanic. But oh well, all I can do is keep re-bumping my post about the rogue harbor and hope they decide to make this town playable again.

The whole rogue harbor issue is just a side-effect from the amount of mtx in the game now, its killing the game's performance. Not everyone has a 10k pc to play in a town full of 50 people with flashing mtx. Not to mention taking a full 2 minutes to load into someone's flashy hideout because all the shaders for the stuff in it are loading for the first time lol, this happened to me while buying an item yesterday.

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Sadaukar wrote:

The thing is tho, both of our arguments have no data behind it(unless u know more than me). Only GGG knows how important it really is and how people get influenced to check out MTX because they saw someone in town with a fancy outfit or pet.

GGG retroactively changed Rogue Harbour from being a single player instance into a player hub. I don't think they would have done that if they felt the impact wouldn't be significant. Also alot of people still experience performance issues there, which would be easy to fix if they just reverted the change... but they didn't so far.

That leads me to believe that GGG has enough data that suggest player hubs add a significant enough drive to MTX sales. I'm not sure about PoE2, but I believe we have the same hub system there aswell.

youre absolutely right! i have ZERO data, but only educated guesses based on what i've analyzed. for all i know i could be horribly wrong in my entire analysis.

as for whether or not player hubs add enough revenue is actually hard to determine because its very hard to track whether or not that is exactly the cause of players buying mtx.

this is due to how players are heavily incentivized to buy supporter packs now. some players might have point balance and might decide to just keep the points for a value purchase but could also be a impulse buy.

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Toforto wrote:

If that's the real reason they changed the rogue harbor without a word to the playerbase that's just sad. Actively making the performance of their own game worse and chasing away players from an entire league mechanic, just because of "oh maybe it will increase mtx sales".

one of my driving points is why would ggg need to stoop so low as to keep this player punishing "feature" in the game.

thats why i keep emphasizing. its 2024. things have changed a great deal. does POE want to be lumped in together with other mobile F2p titles or stand out as a beacon of how players support companies that respect their playerbase?

as i said to the other guy. i get that its part of advertising and that its part of the cogs that keep the lights on. but is it even necesssary now? GGG has the data. and ultimately its GGG's decision to keep such a outdated feature in the game where they can do so much better.

+1 to OP. i dont really get lag in town but constantly hearing that goblin troupe pet is so annoying.