Why I think Leagues die so fast

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Bosscannon#3325 wrote:

Well maybe the problem is exactly the fact that the game is balanced around the market.

What if that wasn't the case.

What if instead reliable methods to target farm the bottlenecking resources were introduced?

Then retention or state of the market wouldn't matter to individual players. They could simply work towards their goals without having to rely on presence of other players. If you needed more divines to craft a piece of gear you could just farm them yourself. Trade then would be an additional tool for you to take advantage of if it was still "alive" at any point of the league but not the core necessity.

That, in my opinion, would be a much better game.

This is what SSF could be like if you also removed the migration option. Would turn it into an actual alternative game mode

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ArtCrusade#4438 wrote:

This is what SSF could be like if you also removed the migration option. Would turn it into an actual alternative game mode

Yeah, but I don't see why it couldn't be the main mode too. Main mode being an economy simulator above all else has been my pet peeve for a while now.

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Bosscannon#3325 wrote:

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ArtCrusade#4438 wrote:

This is what SSF could be like if you also removed the migration option. Would turn it into an actual alternative game mode

Yeah, but I don't see why it couldn't be the main mode too. Main mode being an economy simulator above all else has been my pet peeve for a while now.

For some reason, when they announced asynchronous trade I got a strange feeling that leagues would crumble faster. However, this is just the FIRST season with AT(asynchronous trade). POE being Market Simulator for this season means many know good or optimal methods to take advantage of AT. Obviously can't know until next season, but I can't help but think that the league will be on a time-limit the moment its released.

I still think OP makes good points. As there is always a variety of factors that produce an outcome, its clear there were multiple elements that lead to the decline. I've asked as many players as I can for their 3 top reasons for Keeper's decline. AT wasn't the number 1 for all of them, but it was in everyone's top 3.

Wild take here. The main three reasons for people to quit early this league in SC trade imo were:

- Raw currency drops. As stupid as it is but a lot of players at the lower end of skill/knowledge don't know how to progress without this. They never learned and likely never will learn and as a result feel stuck.

- Gear inflation from the tree. The power level of gear from the tree is so ridiculously high, it skipped the natural progression path for lots of people. We have 50-100d ES helmets going for below 5d for example. They were pushed into a progression stage where they simply don't know how to go further or the next step felt incredibly far away. Some players will see this as a lack of goals and quit.

- Lack of strats that were openly shared. Strats seemed very limited this league. Guaranteed reward tile strats seemed very popular but past that nothing really got shared. All the streamer and guide creator spreadsheets are barren towards the top-end. In fact, it feels like we have less and less people testing stuff publicly but there's still some really neat juicing stuff out there.

My personal favorite strats that don't seem to have proper guides on it are:
- Kulemak T0 hunting, I'm currently at 4 MBs.
- Rushing 16 reward tiles on 80-100% deli maps (for fossils, raw currency or 21/20gems).
- Refiner's Bargain + Niko to convert sulphite into ores into bars into tattoos.

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mostbrilliant2#3810 wrote:

I still think OP makes good points. As there is always a variety of factors that produce an outcome, its clear there were multiple elements that lead to the decline. I've asked as many players as I can for their 3 top reasons for Keeper's decline. AT wasn't the number 1 for all of them, but it was in everyone's top 3.

If we look at AT in a vacuum then perhaps.

But if we look at more nuance then it just highlights or exacerbates other issues with the game.

There is absolutely no reason game loop should be something as convoluted as "players must be first made to rely on trade then everything else must be balanced around trade existing and finally trade must be made tedious so people aren't done too fast". This convoluted way will always carry a problem that faster players or those who can spend their days gaming while others not game as much will always be done with leagues faster and leave while others are still progressing. This literally hinges longevity of the league on top players being present as they are the majority contributors to liveliness of the market and everyone relies on the market. This is stupid. A better game doesn't hinder progression for individuals because of what others are doing... or not doing in this case.

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Scarletsword#4354 wrote:

- Raw currency drops. As stupid as it is but a lot of players at the lower end of skill/knowledge don't know how to progress without this. They never learned and likely never will learn and as a result feel stuck.

True. But its on this game for being absolutely ass tier when it comes to teaching its players to play itself.
People naturally get better the more they play Dota. But in Poe at some point you must play poedb, wiki, pob more than you play the actual game if you want to figure out the obfuscated secrets of endgame scaling. And its balanced to be fairly challenging for those that spent untold hours researching, understanding and incorporating "the code" and everyone else is just left in the dark confused and annoyed.

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Bosscannon#3325 wrote:

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ArtCrusade#4438 wrote:

This is what SSF could be like if you also removed the migration option. Would turn it into an actual alternative game mode

Yeah, but I don't see why it couldn't be the main mode too. Main mode being an economy simulator above all else has been my pet peeve for a while now.

I also get an odd sense that with each league, POE is losing something. Chris is already MIA. POE2 was made a completely separate game. Even though I may be alone in this, I found this essentially - a betrayal by the devs.

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Bosscannon#3325 wrote:

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mostbrilliant2#3810 wrote:

I still think OP makes good points. As there is always a variety of factors that produce an outcome, its clear there were multiple elements that lead to the decline. I've asked as many players as I can for their 3 top reasons for Keeper's decline. AT wasn't the number 1 for all of them, but it was in everyone's top 3.

If we look at AT in a vacuum then perhaps.

But if we look at more nuance then it just highlights or exacerbates other issues with the game.

There is absolutely no reason game loop should be something as convoluted as "players must be first made to rely on trade then everything else must be balanced around trade existing and finally trade must be made tedious so people aren't done too fast". This convoluted way will always carry a problem that faster players or those who can spend their days gaming while others not game as much will always be done with leagues faster and leave while others are still progressing. This literally hinges longevity of the league on top players being present as they are the majority contributors to liveliness of the market and everyone relies on the market. This is stupid. A better game doesn't hinder progression for individuals because of what others are doing... or not doing in this case.

Honestly, I couldn't agree, with your point on trade reliance, more. In fact, the notion that one would need to play SSF for 100s of hours to progress the same degree a player in SC does in 4/5 days has bothered me since Prophecy.

In my case the game needs target farm with guaranteed outcome per x time. For example each map at least one harbinger drops a fractured orb shard and after 20 maps you know you will have one. I would be much more inclined to experiment and learn with this orb if I know the next one is coming soon and I won't be on a pseudo timer to do it all before the market fizzles out.

The way it currently goes is:
crafting is gambling with currency that is essentially your time

but league is supposed to be x months but its actually something arbitrary and out of my control cause the market is gonna die once the big fish decide they are done with the league

so this puts me on a timer to assemble whatever I set out to assemble

afraid of risk to just walk away with nothing from the "crafting" attempt I gravitate to just purchasing upgrades from market

naturally I learn nothing about "crafting" and endgame progression stalls the moment market stalls and league is over to me too

To further wrap this up: you put in the work but if you get paid out for it or not is random, then you get over that and put together some currency and when you go to spend it its again maybe you get something for it or maybe not and all of it is on a fucking timer :))) The more I think on this the more im pissed.

I forget if Chris said it directly but somebody said something along the lines of item drops having to be nerfed by 10-20x if asynchronous trade was put in the game to make items still feel meaningful. The friction keeps trade from getting overloaded with items. Unlike some people I don't think adding a gold cost to post items is a solution. Unless the cost is trivial it will make people feel bad to post cheap things and not have them sell.

PoE 1 is unfortunately in a death spiral now due to PoE 2 stans. They could add 10 years worth of content in 1 league and the PoE 2 players will crap all over it and say it's bad and that PoE 2 is better etc. Streamers have their futures to think about so they have to crap all over PoE 1 as well to secure their future income stream. There's no way GGG can fully maintain both games and they will be forced to outsource or maintenance mode PoE 1 within a few years. Hope I'm wrong.