Sauce Boss wrote:MikeIsGood wrote:I got distracted playing D3 this week because I needed an ARPG fix. Haven't been playing one recently (which is like, I dunno, just a month or two for me) and the new POE league was announced this week. I'm really cold on the changes, honestly, and think they're losing me a bit. Which is sad. But anyway, it was enough to get me wanting to play something. D3 lasted me...about a week. I was reminded of how polished it was, which feels great, but also reminded how shallow it is. I just can't get excited for paragon and rift grind. It's just the same exact thing over and over again.
Back to Fell Seal this week, I think.
I was reading some interesting article a week ago or so that PoE is bleeding players right now. There’s always a big drop off a few weeks after a new league drops, but it’s been real drastic with the last one or two. I think they usually hover around at least 10,000 concurrent users on Steam and it’s plunged way below that to like the ~5,000 range. Not a consistent, long time player, but it seems like maybe it needs a little shake up and QoL changes.
I didn't know it was quite that bad, but I'm not surprised if so. There are a number of problems right now. I think much of it centers around how it more and more feels like a F2P game - which it of course is - but it truly didn't feel much like one until recently. But the way they have handled leagues and not fixed or addressed almost innumerable QOL issues at this point leads to it feeling more and more bloated, tedious, and like they just want you to have to hang around in hopes that you buy something. It's still not P2W - though stash tabs are maybe a gray area - but I think their model and thought process is "if they stick around they'll buy more points."
I know I personally am more likely to stick around and support the game with cash when playing doesn't feel like a chore. How novel, right? But maybe they don't see it that way in the cash flow, unfortunately. I've probably spent north of $300 over the years in supporter packs (armor sets, points for more MTX from the store), and I was happy to do so because I wanted to support the devs. For how much I've played it's really a modest amount of money, honestly. But I don't think I've bought anything in over a year now and I have no plans to until they really fix things. I'm just not sure that'll ever happen.
Everything changed when Tencent bought the studio. It took time, but I think it's pretty clearly shown their influence. I'm eager for competitors, both to hopefully push them and also to have something else to play. Last Epoch is super promising and already good, and can't wait for D2R.
