[Megathread] Path of Exile

[Edge-]

If I own 5 characters that are on different levels, I need way more space than I have available. *Way* more, unless I really, really want to have a horrible time.

Why? What gear are you hording for all of them, especially the lower level characters? Having some leveling gear is nice, but if you're saving a ton of low level rares that are "pretty good" for alts that's probably not a great use of space.

From Waystones to just uniques and general loot that might be good for my next build/character etc.

Waystones are a challenge that literally everyone is dealing with now, there's no waystone tab.

For uniques, don't collect them if you don't think they'll be useful - hording costs a bit of money. Inventory management has always been a part of ARPGs.

[KrayZ33]

Why? What gear are you hording for all of them, especially the lower level characters? Having some leveling gear is nice, but if you're saving a ton of low level rares that are "pretty good" for alts that's probably not a great use of space.



Waystones are a challenge that literally everyone is dealing with now, there's no waystone tab.

For uniques, don't collect them if you don't think they'll be useful - hording costs a bit of money. Inventory management has always been a part of ARPGs.

You are probably looking at this from a player with 10years of experience that can tell something is bad/great at a glance.
And how is not having a waystone tab and all players having to deal with it an argument here?
If you don't have extra space and tabs, it's even worse.
It's not just that they are randomly thrown in, unsorted, but also the fact that they take away space. Do you expect players to go to the crafting table every 5 minutes? That is certainly not fun. A lot of players want to play the game for a few minutes before they have to manage inventory again, the inventory being as small as D2 is already bad, but at least you can just throw that stuff into your stash first before you interrupt playing for 10+ minutes and start looking at what you have then.

As for Uniques, aside from the fact that they might change them, especially now, they might enable a build I'm not aware off.
Getting the same unique again requires a lot of farming. Why would I throw that away.

And in general, the stash tabs are great from going to town and dump stuff into them. I need that space to actually be able to enjoy the game for a second (as in... I want to keep killing enemies before I have to do the boring inventory shit again), so do many others that do the same thing.
You underestimate how much SHIT is in this game that is better to keep, because you are all (for obvious reasons) using premium tabs.
If it's a non issue, why does just about everyone buy them.... and the rest don't play the game for long - I'm sure of it.

Why wouldn't you, for example, save that +6 physical skills on your sorc in SSF when you might want to play a Totemscreamer.
etc. The only reason not to would be "because I'm starting fresh", which is a self inflicted penalty with no meaning because you are sharing currency anyway so it's not true either way.

[Fencers]

What are you even talking about?

This is the initial post I responded to and my commentary is in the context of these claims.

https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...1#post54637098

does not mean what you think it means. The "game start" button is not greyed out and something being fundamental doesn't mean that either.

User claims "so many fundamental things are locked behind being forced to pay real money..."

Emphasis mine.

And everything else you said is arguably false or just dishonest as heck.

This is not the case. You can open the game now and test verity of my claims and watch the videos with the developers making the statements I suggested.

Anything about how you "feel" is just subjective. I respect you may feel the tabs are inadequate for how you would like to play the game- but that is neither fundamental, forced, or required by the game design. I am only interested in and addressing the game design here, not your feelings on fun or what-have-you.

[Edge-]

You are probably looking at this from a player with 10years of experience that can tell something is bad/great at a glance.
And how is not having a waystone tab and all players having to deal with it an argument here?
If you don't have extra space and tabs, it's even worse.
It's not just that they are randomly thrown in, unsorted, but also the fact that they take away space. Do you expect players to go to the crafting table every 5 minutes? That is certainly not fun. A lot of players want to play the game for a few minutes before they have to manage inventory again, the inventory being as small as D2 is already bad, but at least you can just throw that stuff into your stash first before you interrupt playing for 10+ minutes and start looking at what you have then.

As for Uniques, aside from the fact that they might change them, especially now, they might enable a build I'm not aware off.
Getting the same unique again requires a lot of farming. Why would I throw that away.

And in general, the stash tabs are great from going to town and dump stuff into them. I need that space to actually be able to enjoy the game for a second, so do many others that do the same thing.
You underestimate how much SHIT is in this game that is better to keep, because you are all (for obvious reasons) using premium tabs.
If it's a non issue, why does about everyone buy them.... and the rest don't play the game for long - I'm sure of it.

A bit, but that's part of what the inventory pressure is there for: To force you to learn about what's good/not good so you're not wasting a ton of stash space on garbage gear.

Crafting table? I assume you mean the recombinator thingy? If so, that's just very bad UX for a system that seems nice thematically but is miserable to deal with in-game.

You can easily play the game for a while without managing your inventory too much, don't pick up so much. Get a loot filter and start learning what's good gear and what's not. That saves you a lot of trips or time over time.

Again, the game is playable, but not optimal, without additional stash tabs. If you want the best experience with the QoL improvements and to play more seriously, there's a baseline expectation that you will likely spend some money for the QoL.

[KrayZ33]

This is the initial post I responded to and my commentary is in the context of these claims.

https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...1#post54637098



User claims "so many fundamental things are locked behind being forced to pay real money..."

Emphasis mine.

This still doesn't mean what you think it does. Perhaps you shouldn't stop reading mid sentence???
Fundamental things are locked behind the real money tabs.
You aren't arguing against that, you somehow think what he wrote was "You can't play this game in any way without premium tabs".

You can play this game without having access to fundamental features.
He said you need to pay money to access these features.. which is true.

As for the rest of your post, it's once more just nonsense that means absolutely nothing in this discussion, I'm used to that already.

Again, the game is playable, but not optimal, without additional stash tabs. If you want the best experience with the QoL improvements and to play more seriously, there's a baseline expectation that you will likely spend some money for the QoL.

Nothing else was said. It's arguing about how much "not optimal" it is, and I say on a fundamental level.



what are we... toddlers?

some other things that really bother me is that so many fundamental things are locked behind being forced to pay real money for stash tabs, when they have the absolute fucking gall to charge such ridiculous sums for armour cosmetics and the like, why are stash tabs still being treated as some kind of luxury item in game when they are fundamental to the overall play experience, you should be provided with a few regular stash tabs...

This is what he actually said, perhaps if you only read the bolded part it's easier to understand for you??
They are absolutely fundamental to the overall player/game experience, please don't kid yourself guys... or girls.

I know for a fact btw, that if it were a different game, like Diablo Immortal for example, you'd argue the game is made this way so people buy stash tabs. You know this to be true Edge.

[Edge-]

I know for a fact btw, that if it were a different game, like Diablo Immortal for example, you'd argue the game is made this way so people buy stash tabs. You know this to be true Edge.

That's literally how PoE is designed, so yes?

[KrayZ33]

That's literally how PoE is designed, so yes?

So what's the problem and why the questions?
I mean, you are giving me solutions to a problem created artificially by the game designers. I appreciate the help but it's not like I can undo my purchases now.

[rogoth]

Ohh, Trialmaster and Spider also look like they have good tech. These ascendencies are kinda dope.

- - - Updated - - -



This is completely, factually, untrue. An entire popular game mode disavows this claim. If the game "forced" players to buy tabs, then this mode could not exist. Yet it does.

I want you to explain to me how you interact with the trade site WITHOUT using a premium stash tab in-game, I want you to do so in a step-by-step as painstakingly possible explain like I'm 5 levels of description of how you sell items on the trade site without buying a premium stash tab.

if you can do that, then I'll happily concede to your asinine point, until such a time, I'll stick with my own view on the matter.

[Edge-]

I want you to explain to me how you interact with the trade site WITHOUT using a premium stash tab in-game, I want you to do so in a step-by-step as painstakingly possible explain like I'm 5 levels of description of how you sell items on the trade site without buying a premium stash tab.

if you can do that, then I'll happily concede to your asinine point, until such a time, I'll stick with my own view on the matter.

She's talking about SSF, a supported, official game mode where trading is not allowed at all. In that mode, premium stash tabs don't have much value outside of being able to set tab affinities, which they're a poor replacement for the dedicated storage tabs (fragments, oils, essences etc.) in that case.

[rogoth]

She's talking about SSF, a supported, official game mode where trading is not allowed at all. In that mode, premium stash tabs don't have much value outside of being able to set tab affinities, which they're a poor replacement for the dedicated storage tabs (fragments, oils, essences etc.) in that case.

yes, but that's a very specific gameplay mode, with known restrictions in place that you SIGN UP FOR knowingly being 'nerfed' in the sense that you have to find all of your gear as you play, that's not the 'default' or 'standard' gameplay experience that the vast majority of people will have, as such, there are key fundamental portions of the game locked behind an archaic and frankly ridiculous real world money paywall, that simply doesn't need to exist in modern day, but does exist because that's how it worked a decade or more ago when they first started making their franchise, it's very much a snake oil product in so much as it solves a 'man-made' problem that didn't need to be a problem, yet here we are.

[Edge-]

yes, but that's a very specific gameplay mode, with known restrictions in place that you SIGN UP FOR knowingly being 'nerfed' in the sense that you have to find all of your gear as you play, that's not the 'default' or 'standard' gameplay experience that the vast majority of people will have, as such, there are key fundamental portions of the game locked behind an archaic and frankly ridiculous real world money paywall, that simply doesn't need to exist in modern day, but does exist because that's how it worked a decade or more ago when they first started making their franchise, it's very much a snake oil product in so much as it solves a 'man-made' problem that didn't need to be a problem, yet here we are.

The only portion of the game realistically locked behind it is the convenience of trade via the website (trade chat is still functional and can be used, so can the trade via the forums, which was how trading was originally handled), and the QoL for inventory management, which you still have to manage even with dedicated and premium tabs.

There's nothing "fundament" held behind a paywall, and I can't think of any real online/multiplayer ARPG's that allow for functionally infinite space. Maybe LE which comes with an up-front box price?

They still make sense. QoL and cosmetics remain largely acceptable monetization tactics across genres and games (see: WoW selling the $90 dino mount with huge QoL on it despite a box price and subscription). That dino mount is no more "fundamental" to the WoW experience than stash tabs are to the PoE experience.

"F2P game includes 'pain points' to encourage people to spend money." is not some nefarious scheme. It's literally how the genre works. You get an immense amount of content in many of these games for free, but they still want to encourage player to spend money pay for development costs etc.

[Fencers]

This still doesn't mean what you think it does. Perhaps you shouldn't stop reading mid sentence???

Just because I quote a section of a post doesn't mean I stopped reading mid-sentence. That's tired bullshit for people that lack forum savvy. Quotes frame your talking point. I don't need to quote the whole damn post.

Fundamental things are locked behind the real money tabs.

And that is 100% false. Additional tabs are neither the central principle nor the core necessity to play. Perhaps you don't know what fundamental means?

That is simply false as a claim and idea. Also an altogether different position from saying, "Additional tabs are necessary for efficient trading." or "Additional tabs enhance the game." - both are true, by the way.

That is flat-out not what was claimed or asserted though. The person said forced to pay real money. "locked behind", and said these tabs were fundamental. That is false and inaccurate to the gameplay.

You aren't arguing against that, you somehow think what he wrote was "You can't play this game in any way without premium tabs".

I never made this claim or argued for such. That is your assumption.

If you are not talking about game design, I am not interested in a conversation.

- - - Updated - - -

I want you to explain to me how you interact with the trade site WITHOUT using a premium stash tab in-game, I want you to do so in a step-by-step as painstakingly possible explain like I'm 5 levels of description of how you sell items on the trade site without buying a premium stash tab.

I never made this claim.

Interacting with the trade site is not necessary. You choose to engage with such and that requires an indexing tab.

Trade can still occur without the trade site, or premium tabs; via Discord, chat channels, Reddit, X, and other 3rd party sites that use the APIs. These existed before the trade website and still do. Discord and trade channels are highly active 'high-end' trading hubs, FWIW.

If you construed the ease and utility of the trade website as either 'fundamental' or 'necessary'; that is an entirely personal decision of your own making. Otherwise what you are saying is false.

If this was true, SSF could not exist. SSF is highly popular and these 'fundamental' features are not allowable but we still see thousands of players every league go SSF and play to a high level/efficiency.

[rogoth]

Just because I quote a section of a post doesn't mean I stopped reading mid-sentence. That's tired bullshit for people that lack forum savvy. Quotes frame your talking point. I don't need to quote the whole damn post.


And that is 100% false. Additional tabs are neither the central principle nor the core necessity to play. Perhaps you don't know what fundamental means?

That is simply false as a claim and idea. Also an altogether different position from saying, "Additional tabs are necessary for efficient trading." or "Additional tabs enhance the game." - both are true, by the way.

That is flat-out not what was claimed or asserted though. The person said forced to pay real money. "locked behind", and said these tabs were fundamental. That is false and inaccurate to the gameplay.

I never made this claim or argued for such. That is your assumption.

If you are not talking about game design, I am not interested in a conversation.

- - - Updated - - -

I never made this claim.

Interacting with the trade site is not necessary. You choose to engage with such and that requires an indexing tab.

Trade can still occur without the trade site, or premium tabs; via Discord, chat channels, Reddit, X, and other 3rd party sites that use the APIs. These existed before the trade website and still do. Discord and trade channels are highly active 'high-end' trading hubs, FWIW.

If you construed the ease and utility of the trade website as either 'fundamental' or 'necessary'; that is an entirely personal decision of your own making. Otherwise what you are saying is false.

If this was true, SSF could not exist. SSF is highly popular and these 'fundamental' features are not allowable but we still see thousands of players every league go SSF and play to a high level/efficiency.

I asked: 'why are stash tabs still being treated as some kind of luxury item in game when they are fundamental to the overall play experience'

you stated with chest puffed out all proud of your dismissive answer: 'This is completely, factually, untrue.'

now, your response is completely, factually, untrue, as my initial question come claim actually is, completely and factually true, and there is no way for you to answer the rather bait question I posed to you without admitting you were completely and factually wrong with your assertion, there's a huge chunk of the gameplay experience, which is the DEFAULT gameplay experience for the vast majority of players locked behind a real money transaction that should not be a thing in current day, yet here we are.

would you care to amend your statements and factually wrong responses to better encompass what the reality of the situation is?

[Edge-]

I asked: 'why are stash tabs still being treated as some kind of luxury item in game when they are fundamental to the overall play experience'

you stated with chest puffed out all proud of your dismissive answer: 'This is completely, factually, untrue.'

now, your response is completely, factually, untrue, as my initial question come claim actually is, completely and factually true, and there is no way for you to answer the rather bait question I posed to you without admitting you were completely and factually wrong with your assertion, there's a huge chunk of the gameplay experience, which is the DEFAULT gameplay experience for the vast majority of players locked behind a real money transaction that should not be a thing in current day, yet here we are.

They are not. They are very big quality of life improvements that enable deeper play.

Trade as it exists now was never a part of the "default experience", which was to use the trade forums on the website, and later chat - all of which are still freely available. The trade API and third party sites etc. came much later, if memory serves. Again, you can still trade without premium tabs, just less optimally.

I get that you don't like that, and that's a perfectly acceptable opinion - I'd like for them to at least give folks one premium tab to access trade more easily (or use it as an affinity tab). But I very much disagree that trading via premium tabs is fundamental to the overall experience - as Fencers said there's an entire solo-self found mode which has no trading at all (I play this mode, actually, I much prefer it to trade) - or that premium/special tabs are necessary for the "overall" play experience.

They just, like many F2P games that sell additional bag space, are very nice QoL improvements that can improve the overall experience.

[rogoth]

They are not. They are very big quality of life improvements that enable deeper play.

Trade as it exists now was never a part of the "default experience", which was to use the trade forums on the website, and later chat - all of which are still freely available. The trade API and third party sites etc. came much later, if memory serves. Again, you can still trade without premium tabs, just less optimally.

I get that you don't like that, and that's a perfectly acceptable opinion - I'd like for them to at least give folks one premium tab to access trade more easily (or use it as an affinity tab). But I very much disagree that trading via premium tabs is fundamental to the overall experience - as Fencers said there's an entire solo-self found mode which has no trading at all (I play this mode, actually, I much prefer it to trade) - or that premium/special tabs are necessary for the "overall" play experience.

They just, like many F2P games that sell additional bag space, are very nice QoL improvements that can improve the overall experience.

let me just stop you right there, I have stated on a couple of occasions in this thread, that I have never played the first game, my only experience with PoE is this early access release of PoE2, furthermore, PoE2 was built from the ground up with trading as a CORE FUNDAMENTAL part of the gameplay experience, I couldn't give a flying fuck how PoE1 was designed without trading and how the thrid party websites and trading platform sites came later, that's got quite literally fuck all to do with the state of PoE2, so can you stop talking about something like it's fact when it's your own narrative that's being made up as you go along.

the standard and most common gameplay experience of anybody who picks up this game will be as a 'standard league' player, with everything that, that entails, meaning that TRADING is a FUNDAMENTAL and CORE feature of the game as it is designed with the largest number of players in mind making it the DEFAULT gameplay experience, I defy you to tell me that of the hundreds of thousands of people who have played, that the vast majority aren't playing a character that's got the ability to trade.

i am also not talking about people like you, who have a vast amount of experience from the first game, and who play the game in an ABNORMAL way relative to the default gameplay experience of the vast majority of players, and in order to have a FULL and COMPLETE experience in that environment, then paywalled content is part of that and it shouldn't be, end of the discussion, what you THINK is acceptable, and what should be the norm for the vast majority of players if you polled them would show some very skewed results showing your viewpoint to be an extreme minority and in no way representative of the majority of the people playing right now.

and you keep doing this, you conflate what happened during PoE1, and what is currently happening in PoE2, you need to start looking at things as they are happening now, and put your biases to the side.

[Edge-]

To that again - trade chat still exists and is available for free, and used. I stayed in it while I was playing and saw it get plenty of use.

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-forum/2215

There's also a dedicated PoE2 trading forum that also, in fact, gets a decent amount of use between selling items and services.

Also, the currency exchange, now a core part of the game, requires no premium tab to use.

Trade remains available without premiums tabs. It's just less accessible. Premium tabs are a quality of life improvement. A quite significant quality of life improvement, but just a quality of life improvement all the same.

[Mevaya]

Plenty people have proven time and time again that you can enjoy 100% of PoE (1 AND 2) without owning any additional stash tabs.
Also SSF exists and is very popular among players and streamers.

Are stash tabs a major convenience? Absolutely.
By the time more stash tabs become convenient you already enjoyed a major part of the game for free. Go buy the 20$ pack and buy stash tabs on the stash tab sale.
What are we even arguing here.

If you dont think this game is worth 20$ after you already enjoyed most of its content for free, why are you even playing it?
At that point any argument about what is f2p, p2win or "fundamental" is absolutely meaningless to me.

[kranur]

Plenty people have proven time and time again that you can enjoy 100% of PoE (1 AND 2) without owning any additional stash tabs.
Also SSF exists and is very popular among players and streamers.

Are stash tabs a major convenience? Absolutely.
By the time more stash tabs become convenient you already enjoyed a major part of the game for free. Go buy the 20$ pack and buy stash tabs on the stash tab sale.
What are we even arguing here.

If you dont think this game is worth 20$ after you already enjoyed most of its content for free, why are you even playing it?
At that point any argument about what is f2p, p2win or "fundamental" is absolutely meaningless to me.

True, like if you played the game long enough to need the premium/extra tabs, maybe it's time to support the developers.

[KrayZ33]

They are not. They are very big quality of life improvements that enable deeper play.

That's so fucking biased, it's unbelievable

The gameplay experience is flawed without the tabs This is what has initially been said, it's a fact, and no amount of cheersquadding will change that fact. You admitted it yourself by agreeing that this is PoE2 model to earn money. That is direclty related to that.

It's not just a minor (or major) QOL convenience - as it's not an oversight but calculated "damage". You save a lot of time with the unfun part of this game, which is inventory management.
I'm sure you (edit: actually, not "you", but people who think it's fine to have stash tab sales) will now try to gaslight and say that "InvEnToRy ManAgeMenT CaN Be FuN" when all normal human beings on this planet know that this is not the reason to play this freaking game.

Just because I quote a section of a post doesn't mean I stopped reading mid-sentence. That's tired bullshit for people that lack forum savvy. Quotes frame your talking point. I don't need to quote the whole damn post.

Then you just can't read. It has nothing to with being forum savvy btw.. when you quote something in a sentence and make some part bold, you should at least quote enough so it doesn't change the whole meaning of the sentence from the original poster.
Just get real.
Since you keep misunderstanding what he said, I guess you should take a look into the mirror first.

That is flat-out not what was claimed or asserted though. The person said forced to pay real money. "locked behind", and said these tabs were fundamental. That is false and inaccurate to the gameplay.

The tabs are fundamental - TO THE GAMEPLAY EXPERIENCE - which is what he said.
And they so fucking are.

This is what you answered:

No. The game does not force you to buy tabs to play. You can play entirely without additional tabs.

regarding his statement:

things that really bother me is that so many fundamental things are locked behind being forced to pay real money for stash tabs...
why are stash tabs still being treated as some kind of luxury item in game when they are fundamental to the overall play experience...

No one, ever, said anything about "it forces me to buy tabs to play", or anything even close to that. But that's already the discussion we had on the last page, but it seems like you can't admit that you are totally missing the point. You can play this game while missing fundamental features. As someone who keeps brabbling about how she doesn't care for emotions, you are clearly loaded with them and can't even read a sentence properly anymore due to that.

Perhaps you don't know what fundamental means?

Judging by what you have written, it seems to me you think "fundamental things" means that if it's not there, the game can't exist or something.
Do you look up a word in a dictonary and take the first definition and disregard all the others?
Fundamental can mean, and in this context it does mean exactly that: "of central importance" or " an essential part"
The game isn't just build on a single pillar, loot - for certain - is one but not the only one, and stash tabs are changing the loot aspect of this game immensely


And btw, anyone who suggest trading without the trading site is nuts.
Hopefully, I don't have to explain how "This is how we did it 10 years ago" is not a great argument now.

[Fencers]

I asked: 'why are stash tabs still being treated as some kind of luxury item in game when they are fundamental to the overall play experience'

And they are not fundamental to the overall play experience. You just happen to like them and/or they are very convenient.

Fundamental means necessary, core principle, main importance. These are expressly not true in Path of Exile 1 or 2; SSF could not exist if it were so and 3rd party, user-based trading could not exist if it were a 'core principle' to the play experience. It is simply a lie to claim this about additional tabs in POE1/2 - it is factually untrue.

Your personal pocket definition of what is fundamental is all well and good. However, it is erroneous to say that the additional tabs are fundamental to POE1/2.

The additional tabs ARE a luxury because they are not strictly necessary.

would you care to amend your statements and factually wrong responses to better encompass what the reality of the situation is?

No. I did answer your question. Trading is possible without the additional tabs. You are still 100% in the wrong.

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T
Then you just can't read. It has nothing to with being forum savvy btw..

I would suggest you don't know how to read or use a forum, frankly.

The tabs are fundamental - TO THE GAMEPLAY EXPERIENCE - which is what he said.
And they so fucking are.

And he is wrong.

Judging by what you have written, it seems to me you think "fundamental things" means that if it's not there, the game can't exist or something.

This is not a thing I claimed. I suggested SSF mode can not exist if it was fundamental to the experience. SSF does exist.

Fundamental means core principle, central or necessary. POE1/2 does not have any enforcement of this at all. It doesn't even push you in that direction- you have to look up a lot of that information out of the game.

Saying things are more convenient or luxurious to have those additional tabs is different from saying these tabs are core or 'of central importance' to the gameplay experience. Especially when the gameplay doesn't express this 'essential part' in any way. Neither game even directs players on how to use the GGG trade site.

These tabs are a luxury as the original user stated their dismay over.

And btw, anyone who suggest trading without the trading site is nuts.
Hopefully, I don't have to explain how "This is how we did it 10 years ago" is not a great argument now.

Yet the highest-end trading still occurs off the trade site to this day? We just had several controversies in the community over trade outlets and the power of those markets.

"I like or prefer this thing." is different from "This thing is a central part of the game."