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[Rufus]

When you enter the territory of making proftits in the dozen exalteds PER ITEM per hour, you enter a realm where NO ONE who plays the game has a chance to ever accumulate wealth even one hundred of a rate that this was profitable for them.

We can all argue about what this game's goal should be, but when the best item you find in the game is still relatively worthless when compared to these trading practice's profits, somthing is not right. There should be a middle ground.

The best thing this game has going for it are regular economy resets, not any magical 'balance' while a league is ongoing. Nobody (but the devs) had perfect knowledge of the possibilities so things were always uneven.

I think the main problem is that the evidence points to GGG in fact revealing the crafting info, but only to a select few.

Yeah, that's the only thing to get angry about here. If Qarl did indeed tip the scales intentionally, then that's an issue GGG has to deal with.
That said, (surprisingly) many people appear to have see his post before he deleted it.

 

[TheFatOne]

I dunno, the 20% gem recipe wasn't widely known for years and people made bank on that too, yet nobody really cared.


I really have no issue with what he's saying here.


You sound more thank a little ridiculous right now, to be perfectly honest.

20% gem quality and this aren't in the same stratosphere. This crafting mechanic is truly game changing. For a long while GGG hinted at undiscovered crafting recipes. People made bank on 20% gems, but it didn't completely destroy an economy. Not only that but 20% quality gems are always going to be a few exalts. This particular crafting technique will allow you to make mirror worthy items. To compare 20% quality to this is silly.

This clearly gives an advantage to the top 1% because only they could experiment with this. Right now the chaos:exalt ratio on warbands is like 70:1. That is not sustainable by anybody but the hardcore base. Especially with the low rng for everything. Not only that,but after Ventor came out and flat out lied GGG corrected him only to delete the post. GGG can't let flat out lies like that stand. When ventor who is an influential crafter comes out with false information GGG right then and there had to correct him. Many people on the forums used him and others like him as the authority figures on crafting because there is simply no way most people would have enough currency to burn to figure this out. This is a great post on reddit by Ghudda

The costs were too high to test and the grind to get level 8 masters was absurd. Each person had to do ~350 map level master missions with EACH master to get them to Rank 8, which I did. Much like someone dieting, it's nice until they never stop and die of starvation.
No one seemed to know or post any info on how the meta-mods worked or what the interactions were with currency. It was 2 ETERNALS at launch, no one in a new league is going to blow 2 eternals on something that might work unless you already have an impossible amount of currency lying around. The only thing I knew that worked with the "cannot be changed" mod were divine orbs.
Near the end of the league I went back to standard to get 3 eternals and test if the "cannot be changed rolls" kept prefix/suffix stats through eternaling the item. Get item with good prefixes, eternal it, chaos spam out some good suffixes, put suffixes cannot be changed, eternal back. Keep the chaosed suffixes as they were protected from the eternal, eternal in the original good prefixes. But that doesn't work as the eternal just overrides everything, and to find out it doesn't work just cost me ~300 chaos and 3 eternals (bought with 21 exalts.) I would have tried something else but that one really hit me hard.
If you guys just said how the mods interacted with all the currency types and defined what mods were an "attack" or "spell" mod in a manifesto post or something that would be enough. But you guys never did and the grind to get rank 8 masters is also something I never want to do again, ever, so those mods effectively don't exist for me.
Why can't our master's ranks just import from the standard/hardcore leagues like a month into the league like race rewards? Or give some sort of other reason to doing the masters, like each master drops an up to ilvl 59 item with their unique mod when you complete a quest with them so the availability of their unique mods aren't locked and limited into the daily cycle. The higher APS Vagan's daggers are at 20ish chaos because of their silly rarity with absolutely no way to override.
I have zero incentive to do Catarina missions. If I get Vorici, I don't even try, it's a free exile and I'll turn it in if I happen to succeed for some reason.

This change was always intended for the top 1%. It's not some hey anyone can get a level 20 gem and figure it out. This was hey only the top 1% can figure this out, and use tactics to get a stranglehold on the economy. It's laughable how Chris says that the economy is not broken. When chaos:exalt is 70:1 you have a problem.

Edit: What a strange coincidence as well that the group that figured this out had a dev in their guild. Awesome job by those guys figuring it out all on their own like ggg wanted.

The best thing this game has going for it are regular economy resets, not any magical 'balance' while a league is ongoing. Nobody (but the devs) had perfect knowledge of the possibilities so things were always uneven.


Yeah, that's the only thing to get angry about here. If Qarl did indeed tip the scales intentionally, then that's an issue GGG has to deal with.
That said, (surprisingly) many people appear to have see his post before he deleted it.

That's just not true. GGG lied by omission on a major game changing change to crafting in order to reward the top 1% of players while screwing over the ones who are less fortunate. Not only did they lie by omission, but they then helped cover up the lie by not correcting ventor. That is simply inexcusable.

 

[Cerity]

I don't mind the whole undiscovered recipe deal. What I do mind is devs passing on these recipes onto select players and using it to distort the economy - which from what I understand is the implication in this whole mess?

The link to RMT is also pretty damning, GGG need to get this sorted quick.

 

[Rufus]

This was hey only the top 1% can figure this out, and use tactics to get a stranglehold on the economy.

The top 1% ALWAYS get an edge in any (game) economy. Even without secret knowledge, there's going to be a 1% because they can invest more time than anyone else. That's somehow fair?
That's why the temp leagues are temp leagues. Inbalances are inevitable, so you flash it down the toilet every few months to keep it half-way sane.

The master grind is BS though, I agree with Ghudda there.

That's just not true. GGG lied by omission on a major game changing change to crafting in order to reward the top 1% of players while screwing over the ones who are less fortunate. Not only did they lie by omission, but they then helped cover up the lie by not correcting ventor. That is simply inexcusable.

No, as far as we know, Qarl simply fucked up by correcting Ventor. Because it's never been their intention to reveal such things themselves. So no, they didn't lie by omission either. We also know that quite a few people saw (and screenshotted) his post before he deleted it. That's what we actually know. The rest is exhasperated speculation.

 

[V_Arnold]

There is a difference between "having a 1%" and "having a 1% that doubles your chaos:exalt ratio as a side effect of their practices."

But anyway, ill keep on casualing!

 

[TheFatOne]

The top 1% ALWAYS get an edge in any (game) economy. Even without secret knowledge, there's going to be a 1% because they can invest more time than anyone else. That's somehow fair?
That's why the temp leagues are temp leagues. Inbalances are inevitable, so you flash it down the toilet every few months to keep it half-way sane.

Top 1% are always going to have an edge, but it becomes an enormous issue when the edge is so vast that chaos:exalt ratios effectively double because of this. These guys where the only ones who could ever figure this out. I could reasonable figured out the gem recipe. There is simply no way I could ever get the currency to figure out the crafting mechanic. GGG built in a way to make the 1% even more powerful/profitable, and then gave some bullshit excuses as to why they did that. Let me ask you who else but the 1% could have ever figured it out? No one is going to waste the currency in that way. With this decision GGG effectively made the chaos orb have less buying power for everyone else in order to benefit the top 1% of players. Not only that but misteriously only one guild knew about it, and that guild just so happens to have a GGG dev. There are other people with just as much currency or more in some cases as the people in the guild that figured this out. It looks incredibly suspicious.

No, as far as we know, Qarl simply fucked up by correcting Ventor. Because it's never been their intention to reveal such things themselves. So no, they didn't lie by omission either. We also know that quite a few people saw (and screenshotted) his post before he deleted it. That's what we actually know. The rest is exhasperated speculation

When Qarl deleted the post he effectively endorsed a lie. The lie of omission is not talking about the mechanic in depth. When the 20% wasn't known GGG kept hinting that there were other recipes that people knew nothing about. Where were the hints at at the game changing mechanic? Once Qarl decided to post, and the cat was out of the bag for the lucky few GGG should have right then and there come out and talked about the mechanic. Instead they deleted the post. Endorsed the lie, and the 1% ruined the Warbands economy.

 

[Rufus]

With this decision GGG effectively made the chaos orb have less buying power for everyone else in order to benefit the top 1% of players.

They don't buy as many Exalts any more, that's it. Anything worth less than an Exalt is entirely unaffected by this.

As for Exalts: Prices set in Exalts by sellers that were unaware of the current rate are now infalted, but will likely be adjusted when those items don't sell. Item prices set in Exalts that were already adjusted to the new ratio might not move either and will be adjusted accordingly. I really don't get the hoopla here.
Sellers can't arbitrarily dictate prices and expect to move their items. If the majority of players can't get their hands on as many Exalts as sellers are asking, then they will adjust their prices down.

Where the RMT sites are getting their items is a much bigger issue.

Not only that but misteriously only one guild knew about it, and that guild just so happens to have a GGG dev. There are other people with just as much currency or more in some cases as the people in the guild that figured this out. It looks incredibly suspicious.

You assume that only them knew about it. Other well-known crafters may as well have know it too, which is why they may be top crafters in the first place (and the reason why they would lie about the master mods).

Where were the hints at at the game changing mechanic?

There didn't need to be any, because the 'recipe' was staring everyone in the face. Everyone who tried it kept it close to their vest, only increasing their wealth further. As to the "lie", GGGs stated goals are and have been to let the community figure out things for themselves, something Qarl violated by correcting Ventor, which is why he deleted his post.

 

[Pyros_Eien]

The whole "but they had a GGG dev in the guild so it must be insider knowledge" is kind of a stretch. Any guild with a GGG dev in it is fairly likely to have crazy no life grinders that play poe all day for months, and as such is more likely to have people finding out about this kind of stuff than a casual guild. In fact I'd say most of the top end players are actually in guilds with GGG devs in them, so it's not really surprising at all.

Back when recipes were missing, you didn't have GGG devs going around correcting people on wether or not the recipes existed either, even when a few made a bunch of fake screens about turning a bunch of uniques into exalted orbs and shit like that. It makes sense Qarl deleted his comment that was actually confirming something that most people hadn't figured.

The RMT stuff is a bit more worrying than people exploiting an available feature of the game, not even a hidden one like the 20quality gem recipe one that was unknown for like over a year or whatever but clearly available to everyone were they willing to spend currency/time testing it.

 

[Haly]

I caught up with the drama today, though I haven't touched PoE in a while.

Seems like some good old fashioned market PVP.

 

[Kammie]

The whole game revolves around the idea of a pyramid economy. Without it you will not keep the noobs playing long enough. At least this is the idea GGG has always had regarding gear, currency, mapping... so I wouldn't be surprised if some of this was truly intentional.

The manifesto post is unapologetic and honestly a bit insulting. I'm sorry guys but Chris is doing PR on reddit, he may be nice and friendly but there are usually ulterior motives behind a lot of his posts and manifestos.

So long as the game has the "economy" as the main focus behind its design, it's gonna be fucked.

I'm not outraged or anything, but I play standard. Temp leaguers have a right to be mad.

 

[Zynx]

@TheFatOne, I sent you a PM.

@Kammie, the more I see the choices GGG makes, the more I agree with you.

@Pyros_Eien, it's true that there is no public evidence of the GGG employee in their guild as the source of the crafting methods, but when you consider that this is a game where this kind of secret information can be extremely profitable, then there has to a framework in place to ensure that leaks don't occur to the benefit of those close to GGG employees.

But when you refer to "crazy no life grinders", it's very interesting that no other groups of players, which presumably include other "crazy no life grinders" apparently have taken advantage of this information to the same extent as those who happen to be in that guild.

Heck, I really think there's vendor recipes that still haven't been publicly disseminated.

By the way, as a side node, the OP of that reddit thread linkes a twitch portion of some streamer talking to a very knowledgable fellow who said some things that reminded me of something...

... All this talk about Poe.trade, procurement, acquity or whatever is this called, and some player having access to an ever faster item-querying solution: (the example used: would you wake up at 2am when your bot found someone posting a mirror sale who is obviously a newbie - no character >lv55 in his acc, to get an INSANELY good deal on it, because they do not know the value),...all this made me realize:

ALL THIS TIME, POE players in general chat shitting on Diablo 3's auction system were affected by a similar thing in this game as well. Talk about kettle and pot, lol. And GGG refuses to implement a proper Ah where people have equal footing and offline trade options. No, that would dumb down the game, right? Right?

You know, I think you have a point. Anyone who gets notification first of available items has a huge advantage. The people who are running shop indexers (including private ones for their own use) have a large advantage over everyone else. In some ways, the current system is even worse than an AH, since not every player has the same window of opportunity to "bid" for an available item.

 

[Rufus]

The whole game revolves around the idea of a pyramid economy. Without it you will not keep the noobs playing long enough At least this is the idea GGG has always had regarding gear, currency, mapping....

You mean that you grind for gear?

I'm sorry guys but Chris is doing PR on reddit, he may be nice and friendly but there are usually ulterior motives behind a lot of his posts and manifestos.

Phrasing it as if it were sinister of a dev to adress drama is strange. That's the spooky "ulterior motive" right there. Game dev reaches out to community to nurture positive image with commnuity so that they keep playing the game, but what does he really plan? /shiftyeyes

I don't mean to mock, but come on...

But when you refer to "crazy no life grinders", it's very interesting that no other groups of players, which presumably include other "crazy no life grinders" apparently have taken advantage of this information to the same extent as those who happen to be in that guild.

How do you know this?

Heck, I really think there's vendor recipes that still haven't been publicly disseminated.

Chris has confirmed this in the past.

You know, I think you have a point. Anyone who gets notification first of available items has a huge advantage.

I'd just like to remind everyone that anyone actually having this capability is speculation at this point.

 

[Rufus]

dp

 

[Haly]

The reason PoE's economy is based on commodity currency is specifically to produce this kind of dynamic market. If they wanted a market where every item had a predictable and consistent (over a long time) value, they would've just used fiat currency like most other online games.

 

[inthrall]

Seems like some good old fashioned market PVP.

This sums it up for me, these changes do nothing for me because I play self found. Other than make it easier to craft some items I suppose, now that more recipes are known

 

[Pyros_Eien]

@TheFatOne, I sent you a PM.

@Kammie, the more I see the choices GGG makes, the more I agree with you.

@Pyros_Eien, it's true that there is no public evidence of the GGG employee in their guild as the source of the crafting methods, but when you consider that this is a game where this kind of secret information can be extremely profitable, then there has to a framework in place to ensure that leaks don't occur to the benefit of those close to GGG employees.

But when you refer to "crazy no life grinders", it's very interesting that no other groups of players, which presumably include other "crazy no life grinders" apparently have taken advantage of this information to the same extent as those who happen to be in that guild.

Heck, I really think there's vendor recipes that still haven't been publicly disseminated.


You know, I think you have a point. Anyone who gets notification first of available items has a huge advantage. The people who are running shop indexers (including private ones for their own use) have a large advantage over everyone else. In some ways, the current system is even worse than an AH, since not every player has the same window of opportunity to "bid" for an available item.

There isn't any sort of proof that says only that specific group profited from that method of crafting. We know they did, because of the mirror pictures and them coming out with one of the method then getting outted with the other stuff and what not, but I don't think any of the other big crafter has been seen complaining about it because they didn't know and stuff. To be honest, it's fair to assume most of the big crafters knew about it, and used it to get richer. Because of the prevalence of guides to builds and some items being in high demand all the time(+3 staves are a good example), it isn't crazy to think there were many people making them and selling them, without stepping on each other toes or revealing it.

It doesn't mean every no lifer gamer was in on it or had an equal chance of finding the way to do it, because you can play all day and still not care about making large amounts of currency, not every player with a bunch of lvl 100s and winning races actually bothered doing high end crafting at all. A lot of them in fact used a ton of currency on rolling maps and stuff instead of trying to gather more wealth and would often just buy gear directly rather than try to craft.


The indexer thing is a bit worse, but to be honest, it's not like legit players would have a way to compete against AH bots anyway in most cases. Back when D3 had an AH, bots were rampant and would grab items literally seconds after they were listed, because they're a lot more efficient at parsing information and can tell "at a glance" wether or not an item is worth buying, assuming it's configured with sufficient parameters. Adding an AH to PoE wouldn't really change that.

In the end, this is the typical online economy thing. It's just that for some reason it seems people are just becoming aware about how filthy rich a few people are in PoE compared to an average casual gamer, but this is true in basically any game. If you look at say MMOs with auction houses, people who spend their day flipping stuff on the AH have completely ridiculous amounts of money compared to people who just play the game normally. Like they literally hit gold caps that aren't meant to be hit because of it, while casual, and even hardcore gamers rarely even get close to 1% of the gold caps.

 

[Hellshingu]

Not that it matters but AXN, who is one of the top crafters, said himself he didn't even know about it. It seems this knowledge was only in the one guild with the supposed GGG dev in it. Although as others have noted the RMT allegations are something that needs to be looked into more. I know I will be watching that site as new leagues start to see their inventory compared to what is for sale. I am also interested in seeing more research and evidence about this supposed program that scans every players inventory to allow people to essentially get a jump on any items and scam unsuspecting players out of mirrors and other items.

I am still salty about exalts being 70+ chaos in warbands by the way. Makes me want to go play standard instead

 

[Rufus]

Not that it matters but AXN, who is one of the top crafters, said himself he didn't even know about it. It seems this knowledge was only in the one guild with the supposed GGG dev in it.

Ventor claims the same, so do a couple others. (2:28:10 on Ghudda's stream, about how Ventor reacted. He probably knew.)
But again, this doesn't actually tell you how many people knew. And may I remind again, that a lot of different screenshots of Qarl's post came out. Those people screenshotted it just because? And then did nothing with that information? Ventor himself probably saw it and you trust a top crafter to disseminate this out to everyone?

As far as anyone being able to look at people's stash when they're set to private:
https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexil...sible_to_get_players_stash_items_data/cuai6pi

There is no evidence of anyone being able to do that, besides VOC claiming so. Unless he produces proof, there is no reason to believe that this is true.

 

[Hellshingu]

Ventor claims the same, so do a couple others. (2:28:10 on Ghudda's stream, about how Ventor reacted. He probably knew.)
But again, this doesn't actually tell you how many people knew. And may I remind again, that a lot of different screenshots of Qarl's post came out. Those people screenshotted it just because? And then did nothing with that information? Ventor himself probably saw it and you trust a top crafter to disseminate this out to everyone?

As far as anyone being able to look at people's stash when they're set to private:
https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexil...sible_to_get_players_stash_items_data/cuai6pi

There is no evidence of anyone being able to do that, besides VOC claiming so. Unless he produces proof, there is no reason to believe that this is true.

Yeah I am just waking up and reading all this new information. Woods is scummy just like most of the community thought already. This whole situation would be less severe if qarl did not respond to ventors correcting the information then deleting it only for a select few to see. Overall the fact that these top players would go to these lengths to essentially cause such an uproar in the community is rather shitty. I am sure in the eyes of quite a few people their credibility is now destroyed. Sucks that things turned out the way they did.

I am now more interested to see if there is any evidence and truth to those RMT allegations as they are pretty damning in my eyes.

 

[Artanisix]

Lol... The insane economy is part of the reason this game is so much more interesting than Diablo 3 to me. I'm loving all the underhanded tactics. Ventor lied to you? Big whoop, manipulation is part of the game. Some of you guys wouldn't survive a day in EVE.

 

[TheFatOne]

Lol... The insane economy is part of the reason this game is so much more interesting than Diablo 3 to me. I'm loving all the underhanded tactics. Ventor lied to you? Big whoop, manipulation is part of the game. Some of you guys wouldn't survive a day in EVE.

Way to miss the entire point.

 

[V_Arnold]

Lol... The insane economy is part of the reason this game is so much more interesting than Diablo 3 to me. I'm loving all the underhanded tactics. Ventor lied to you? Big whoop, manipulation is part of the game. Some of you guys wouldn't survive a day in EVE.

Oh, yes, some not-even-veiled-elitism is so helpful to all the players struggling to get by entry level maps because all their build-enabling uniques are fixed to exalted prices, which doubled in a month DDD

They just need to MAN UP because they surely are unable to:
- progress properly without using a cookie-cutter build (Flame totem, mostly, or some armor-based cyclone, dunno)
- trade anything, because the market is ovesaturated with cheap stuff in the lowend rare market, and the highend markets are almost monopolized at this point
- sustain a highend/medium map pool because they cant run harder mods and/Or lack the maps themselves.

Pulling yourself up from the bootstraps? Is this what the saying is? Well, I am not a republican, so I will gravitate away from this game, if that manifesto is anything but representative of what GGG considers a healthy economy.

 

[Rufus]

Oh, yes, some not-even-veiled-elitism is so helpful to all the players struggling to get by entry level maps because all their build-enabling uniques are fixed to exalted prices, which doubled in a month DDD

This is an issue with sellers not accounting for the new value of Exalts, rather than an issue with the economy. Those sellers will sit on their overpriced items until they correct their prices or stop playing.

 

[TheFatOne]

Oh, yes, some not-even-veiled-elitism is so helpful to all the players struggling to get by entry level maps because all their build-enabling uniques are fixed to exalted prices, which doubled in a month DDD

They just need to MAN UP because they surely are unable to:
- progress properly without using a cookie-cutter build (Flame totem, mostly, or some armor-based cyclone, dunno)
- trade anything, because the market is ovesaturated with cheap stuff in the lowend rare market, and the highend markets are almost monopolized at this point
- sustain a highend/medium map pool because they cant run harder mods and/Or lack the maps themselves.

Pulling yourself up from the bootstraps? Is this what the saying is? Well, I am not a republican, so I will gravitate away from this game, if that manifesto is anything but representative of what GGG considers a healthy economy.

Let me add another point on mapping. On the point on sustaining map pools GGG at first kept repeating "our numbers show mapping is a O.K., everything is working as intended, roll your maps correctly", and now "hey guys we seem to have a problem with 74-79 maps. So we're going to increase the drop rate. Please get excited". They kept telling everyone over and over that mapping was "working as intended" another one of their favorite bullshit excuses to trot out. If only there was such a way that GGG could figure out the issues with mapping. Maybe even release the game in an unfinished state to test certain parts of the game. Ohh wait they had a long beta for 2.0 in which everyone was screaming from the mountain tops that mapping was fucked. A full month after the league launches basically only allowing the top players/no lifers to sustain high level map pools they decide to "increase" drop rate of maps. Every time they do something in this game it's for the top 5-10% of players. Every time and it's getting annoying. All the increases in rarity to LC and all the other uniques only helps the top players while hurting everyone else. GGG has no clue what they are doing when it comes to balance especially in maps. What Chris and the team are now desperately praying for is that instead of pricing great uniques, end game rares, etc at exalts that the market prices them at chaos orbs.

That seems highly highly unlikely for end game uniques like LC or good weapons, and 6-links. If I get an LC I'm only going to take exalts especially in Tempest. Now they are just saying hey market is going to correct itself. What happens when the market decides that chaos to exalt should be 100:1 or 100+:1? Right now the market is fucked in warbands because the ratio is 70:1. There isn't a chaos orb sink. So chaos orbs are always going to go down in value. In tempest I'm only going to really use chaos orbs for a few things. Spamming rares weapons/armor/etc, crafting a single prefix/suffix, or changing high level rare map properties to more favorable ones. That's it. Exalts are so much more useful because of crafting that they will always be more valuable, and their rarity doesn't hurt either. Now that exalts become even more useful I'm going to want exalts over chaos. Just for the chance that I could craft my own personal gg item for my build. Not only that, but why would I want chaos orbs when every week their purchasing power goes down? The crafting change makes exalts more valuable while devaluing chaos orbs. So the purchasing power and earning power for the average player just took a massive hit. I don't want to play Path of Trading. I have no interest in playing Path of Economy. I don't have any interest in using scummy underhanded tactics just to get items/currency in a game. I like playing PoE because it's fun. I don't want to play a fucking trading simulator. Seriously what is my incentive for taking anything less than exalts for great stuff when I know chaos orbs lose value, and exalts gain value? I'll sell my lighting coil now for 10-12 pure exalts. If I price anything in my store in exalts I'm only going to take pure exalts in a trade. There is no incentive for me to take chaos orbs unless someone offers me a massive over payment. Like two or three time the amount of chaos orbs for single exalt items, and so on. There is zero incentive for me to take anything other than exalts, and I'll just sit on the item until I get exalt payments.

See fundamentally for me the issue is am I O.K with a developer hiding a major game mechanic so that they can get their jollies when they see when someone figures it out. That shit is fun for only the small few who figure it out, and then they will fuck over everyone else because that is human nature. I have zero problem with Ventor or that guild lying to people. That's what people do to protect secrets like this. My problem is with GGG game design philosophy. Vendor recipes like 20% quality are fine because they will not impact the game as much as major game mechanics. Not only that but once Qarl responded to that post and deleted it he endorsed Ventors lie. Which is not O.K. Not only did he endorse his lie, but he then revealed the secret to a small number of people. How is that being "clever" as GGG puts it? They got information that would impact the entire economy by Qarl. At that point the cat was out of the bad, and GGG should have clarified crafting. Since they didn't and continue to give bullshit excuses I'm no longer going to play the game. I'm not going to support developers who think and act like this. Now that I know GGG would hide major game mechanics from me as a regular player why should I continue to play? I really can't wait to see the shit storm that happens when someone figures out that there is an exalt recipe.

This is an issue with sellers not accounting for the new value of Exalts, rather than an issue with the economy. Those sellers will sit on their overpriced items until they correct their prices or stop playing.

There is zero incentive for me to take chaos orbs over exalts for end game items. Zero. Every week chaos orbs are less valuable. Why would I want any chaos orbs when i'm trading six links? I'm still going to demand 6-7 exalts for a good six link because that's the only currency that is guaranteed to still have any real value over the long run. Playing the economics game goes both ways. I'll sit on a LC until I get all the exalts I want. There is no incentive for me to take chaos orbs unless it's a massive over payment.

Edit: Apologies for the spelling/grammar mistakes in my post. Was doing multiple things at the same time while writing this.

 

[Rufus]

There is zero incentive for me to take chaos orbs over exalts for end game items. Zero. Every week chaos orbs are less valuable. Why would I want any chaos orbs when i'm trading six links? I'm still going to demand 6-7 exalts for a good six link because that's the only currency that is guaranteed to still have any real value over the long run. Playing the economics game goes both ways. I'll sit on a LC until I get all the exalts I want. There is no incentive for me to take chaos orbs unless it's a massive over payment.

How about fewer Exalts? That's what I'm playing at. Exalts aren't worth the same any more, your incentive to lower your price is to get anything over nothing.

 

[glaringradio]

Way to miss the entire point.

Do you have some vested interest in blowing up this issue? You seem extremely desperate to make this seem like it's the end of the world, when the reality is that it won't do jack shit to the large percentage of people who play the game. The way you're trumpeting this as if it is some massive injustice done to the community by GGG (which, after reading the manifesto, and in general playing the game for several years and actually knowing that they have a very hands-off approach in terms of community discovery, it really isn't) just makes you sound like you're jealous that you didn't get in on it early.

 

[V_Arnold]

Do you have some vested interest in blowing up this issue? You seem extremely desperate to make this seem like it's the end of the world, when the reality is that it won't do jack shit to the large percentage of people who play the game. The way you're trumpeting this as if it is some massive injustice done to the community by GGG (which, after reading the manifesto, it really isn't) just makes you sound like you're jealous that you didn't get in on it early.

Not to sound desperate about "wanting this to blow up" too, but this ALREADY affected the people playing temp leagues. Just look at Chaos: exalted ratio, for god's sake. This is just a revelation, not a change.

Edit: Also, the manifesto is just a doubling down on this. "A few people managed to wreak havoc of an entire economy, coinciding with our big expansion that is supposed to bring in new players but also is the hardest content system ever, and we are fine with it".

 

[glaringradio]

Not to sound desperate about "wanting this to blow up" too, but this ALREADY affected the people playing temp leagues. Just look at Chaos: exalted ratio, for god's sake. This is just a revelation, not a change.

No, it really isn't. It is a change. Nothing more, nothing less. Similar to how in 6 months time GGG could introduce an undocumented crafting technique to the game, whoever finds out about it first will either make the decision to game the system and use it to their advantage, or be an idiot and tell everyone about it.

 

[V_Arnold]

No, it really isn't. It is a change. Nothing more, nothing less. Similar to how in 6 months time GGG could introduce an undocumented crafting technique to the game, whoever finds out about it first will either make the decision to game the system and use it to their advantage, or be an idiot and tell everyone about it.

OH I see. We have nothing to discuss, mate. Keep on believing that YOU could be the next one to profit from all this. It can happen to anyone! Even you. Yes, we can!

(Seriously...)

 

[Rufus]

Just look at Chaos: exalted ratio, for god's sake.

The only thing the ratio has changed is that Exalts aren't as available for crafting any more, both because Eternals were removed and because locking affixes via masters now costs Exalts instead of Eternals. That's what actually changed. That's it.
Besides that, certain top items like +3 bows and staffs just changed in value too, but that only affects a tiny minority of people.

As a seller, you can't expect to demand the same amount of Exalts for item XY than you did last league. If they do sell at the old rate, it's because they got lucky and found someone who doesn't care (because they're rich) or doesn't know the new rate (because they're new or oblivious). Neither of which you can count on to move your items.

 

[Haly]

I think the economy is tied more to chaos than exalts, because chaos is at a good spot between availability, functionality and rarity whereas exalts were always more of a luxury good. Now that this stuff is public knowledge, everyone will hoard their exalts more carefully so your 6L didn't really double in value in one month.

The economy is more or less the same as it always was because chaos:fuse/alch is still 1:2. Chaos:vaal is still 8:1, etc. Only exalts have been inflated by this drama.

Basically, the perceived utility of exalts doubled in the last month but your 6Ls didn't. I don't see why you'd think people would pay twice as much for it. Only gear that is very closely tied to metamod crafting like 6L bows and 6L staffs will benefit from this exalt inflation.

 

[glaringradio]

OH I see. We have nothing to discuss, mate. Keep on believing that YOU could be the next one to profit from all this. It can happen to anyone! Even you. Yes, we can!

(Seriously...)

Thought as much. Game about being an exile and surviving by yourself... Wants equality in the community because the economy constantly screws over those who don't game it.

 

[TheFatOne]

How about fewer Exalts? That's what I'm playing at. Exalts aren't worth the same any more, your incentive to lower your price is to get anything over nothing.

I just don't see that happening. One of the big problems is the rarity tiers for uniques, and the rng on really awesome items. Good uniques now are rarer than they have ever been. Again zero incentive for me to take any amount of chaos orbs for them, and now since they are so rare no incentive for me to drop them down in price in exalts. They are just too damn rare. Great gg items aren't going to go down in exalts. You could always get good items for end game in chaos, but getting the stuff you need for higher level maps is always going to be in exalts. It's just multiple bad mistakes that lead to the situation we are in now. It's not just the crafting that has done the economy, but several other small but significant changes added on top of this screwed the economy.

Do you have some vested interest in blowing up this issue? You seem extremely desperate to make this seem like it's the end of the world, when the reality is that it won't do jack shit to the large percentage of people who play the game. The way you're trumpeting this as if it is some massive injustice done to the community by GGG (which, after reading the manifesto, and in general playing the game for several years and actually knowing that they have a very hands-off approach in terms of community discovery, it really isn't) just makes you sound like you're jealous that you didn't get in on it early.

I'm not going to do anything. I'm just complaining about this on one thread in gaf. Was super pissed yesterday, and thought about making a thread but there's no point. This is a niche game and no one really gives a shit. How do you get that any of my posts are about jealously? That's some projection on your part. None of this is about jealously of the top players in PoE. It's about GGG making changes to the game that kills my enjoyment of the game. So I'm going to steal this post from the PoE forums because the poster puts it better than I can

I have to say that I'm really disappointed with GGG now.

The expansion was great. The new content is good and the new build options were refreshing. I even think that the new meta-crafting options are great.

But the attitude of this reply by Chris makes me want to quit this game.

Quarls attempt to counter missinformation was commendable. It was a stand against scamming players with false info. A fair thing to do. But removing the post was disastrous. Not only did it leave the false info in place, it also gave a potentially huge advantage to a random sect of players that happened to see the comment. It gave a massive benefit based purely on luck. It is not really all that different from an advantage gained though the use of RMT.

That was bad, but we all make mistakes. The really disapointing thing happened after that initial mistakes.

GGG knew people were using the metamods. They knew why the exalt price was high. They knew that some players were using these metamods to craft high-end gear and making a killing. They knew that at least some of these players were keeping this a secret through spreading false info. And they propably understood that this meant that other players got less out of their drops and had to work harder to upgrade their gear due to inflated exalt prices.

They knew and did nothing. And now they say there is no problem and everything worked as intended. That there is an incentive to scam other players so you should expect to get scammed. Everything was working as intended.

The market was not broken because the market is about change anyways. The market works if there are people on the market and that is all.

But what is the point with such a market? A simulation? Something to study? Wasn't the point of having a market that it did something for the game, not the other way around? Wasn't the point that the market would enable players to make mutually beneficial deals to enhance their gameplay? To get more out of their gametime?

Now the market was used to scam people and the view is that it worked as intended. Promoting scamming is an intended feature.

That these people participating in these scams are "clever" and should be rewarded. I find this unbeliveable.

Then there is fuzzy part about the semantics of "change" and "remove". GGG must know that people interpret these words differently and you can't really expect people to know how you use them if you have not specified their use. You can't just downplay the relevance of Quarls leak. Also, due to the extreme cost of metamods, people were in a highly uneven position to test them out to begin with.

As developers you define the parameters of the market. It is not a easy thing to predict what comes out of those parameters, but you can't act as if you could not affect it. This time you chose to sanction behaviour that was bad for a big chunk of the playerbase. You should own up to this.

Clever scams based on privilidged info working as intended. Please reconsider your attitude.

 

[Subpar Spatula]

Top 1% are always going to have an edge, but it becomes an enormous issue when the edge is so vast that chaos:exalt ratios effectively double because of this. These guys where the only ones who could ever figure this out. I could reasonable figured out the gem recipe. There is simply no way I could ever get the currency to figure out the crafting mechanic. GGG built in a way to make the 1% even more powerful/profitable, and then gave some bullshit excuses as to why they did that. Let me ask you who else but the 1% could have ever figured it out? No one is going to waste the currency in that way. With this decision GGG effectively made the chaos orb have less buying power for everyone else in order to benefit the top 1% of players. Not only that but misteriously only one guild knew about it, and that guild just so happens to have a GGG dev. There are other people with just as much currency or more in some cases as the people in the guild that figured this out. It looks incredibly suspicious.


When Qarl deleted the post he effectively endorsed a lie. The lie of omission is not talking about the mechanic in depth. When the 20% wasn't known GGG kept hinting that there were other recipes that people knew nothing about. Where were the hints at at the game changing mechanic? Once Qarl decided to post, and the cat was out of the bag for the lucky few GGG should have right then and there come out and talked about the mechanic. Instead they deleted the post. Endorsed the lie, and the 1% ruined the Warbands economy.

GGG didn't ruin the economy. The economy is fine.

There's nothing wrong with GGG wanting to keep it a secret. You have issues with it because you feel you're entitled to this.

Of course the people with the most currency are going to experiment more; these players probably are more devoted to the game than 99% of the people in the game.

You could have figured out the recipe but you didn't. You could play the game more and become better at the market but you didn't. They did. The game doesn't work how you want it to work. It works how GGG wants to. It's like going into EVE and being upset you were lied to. In free open markets like this, this is allowed (but PoE is less lenient on scamming). This isn't a scam either, just capitalizing on an opportunity. It would be like saying the people who bought Bon Jovi tickets for the Stanley Park show are ruining the concert because they're selling them for $2k+, naw, they're just reaping the rewards of the system, a system which won't be broke by their actions, it will make those who sold their tickets before the rebooking a bit angry, though.

Anyone know when the next league 1 month+ league starts?

 

[Pyros_Eien]

Also gonna point out that there was never 72 mirrors apparently. There were 8 mirrors, and one photoshopped screenshot. 8 mirrors is... really not that much? I mean it's a lot of money sure, but it's not like a crazy amount either, and even without exploiting any metamod crafting thing could have been acquired, especially since it's the result of a small group of people and not even a single individual.

Exalt value is definitely fucked, and stuff tied to it directly is, but for the most part the rest hasn't changed, other than some people clinging to the same amount of exalts for items that have the same value as before, which should settle over time. Exalt value was probably going to get messy at some point regardless because of the removal of eternals and the rarity not going down.

The worst part about the massive inflation is you only need exalts for specific builds, some of which have decent alternatives anyway. There's always that weird thinking that you need the best possible item to even progress at all, when really the best items in general just let you progress slightly faster, but aren't actually necessary for anything. Sure a +3 6L bow is pretty great for PA, but a +2bow will still clear stuff fine, and is like 1/50th of the price I assume nowadays. It's a big drop down in power, but it's not a relevant one in a lot of the content. And that's still only relevant for people going for lvl 100, which is already a very small subset of the player base.

 

[KKRT00]

I really dont understand the problem with economy.
The whole point of player driven economy is to have completely free market
On free market, like in real world, there are anomalies, sometimes to extreme degree.
Thats plus, not minus. Controlling it, would actually make things worse in the end.
EVE Online is the best example of economic freedom in online games and something like what just happened is frequent there.

 

[V_Arnold]

40 Chaos orb: 1 exalted orb recipe.

MUCH CONTROL. WOW!

 

[V_Arnold]

And by the way - sorry for double post -, this is NOT like Eve Online. In eve, the players play with each other, hunt each other, betray each other - fine. Fine if you like that.

However: as far as I know ,there are no hidden mechanics there that allow unfair advantages to those who knew. The games plays with open cards regarding mechanics. It is like as if in World of Warcraft, some guild had access to the info that if you disenchant an epic in the right spot, you get 3 fully functioning, not account bound duplicates of the item, and did not tell anyone. And also, someone in the guild is a Blizz-employee. But it is okay, markets do not collapse, just change

 

[KKRT00]

And by the way - sorry for double post -, this is NOT like Eve Online. In eve, the players play with each other, hunt each other, betray each other - fine. Fine if you like that.

However: as far as I know ,there are no hidden mechanics there that allow unfair advantages to those who knew. The games plays with open cards regarding mechanics. It is like as if in World of Warcraft, some guild had access to the info that if you disenchant an epic in the right spot, you get 3 fully functioning, not account bound duplicates of the item, and did not tell anyone. And also, someone in the guild is a Blizz-employee. But it is okay, markets do not collapse, just change

Using bugs to get rich, speculation, having control over one resource etc is pretty much the same as here. In terms of effect on economy.
It will stabilize soon, it always does and in the end the economy will be stronger due to this event.

To give You example, my corporation in EVE knew about the plex, which is like raid instance, that was self-replicating the last stage (with a boss) everyday in the same spot, which normally doesnt happen and You need to search it for hours in multiple systems and go through 3-4 phased via different systems.
People got quite rich due to it, because it lasted for like 2 months.
We were actually were farming it with carriers in hostile system, so it was very risky, but still.

 

[Taz]

The hole citation is a mountain out of a mole Hill, I mean The time the effort and the cost to even use the recipe means very few people have access to it. Yea they should have documented it but it doesn't effect much anyways, plus there mass wealth from it was a photo shopped picture.

 

[joetachi]

Its kinda funny that this game was touted as the real arpg turned into a maket simulator

 

[Rufus]

Its kinda funny that this game was touted as the real arpg turned into a maket simulator

It always was. It was designed to have a player driven economy from the get-go.

 

[Subpar Spatula]

And by the way - sorry for double post -, this is NOT like Eve Online. In eve, the players play with each other, hunt each other, betray each other - fine. Fine if you like that.

However: as far as I know ,there are no hidden mechanics there that allow unfair advantages to those who knew. The games plays with open cards regarding mechanics. It is like as if in World of Warcraft, some guild had access to the info that if you disenchant an epic in the right spot, you get 3 fully functioning, not account bound duplicates of the item, and did not tell anyone. And also, someone in the guild is a Blizz-employee. But it is okay, markets do not collapse, just change

They learned it first. Compare it to D2 runewords in that you were destroyed by someone in PK who had a one you didn't know. They did nothing wrong, they just came across it. What about secret tunnels in mario kart racing? Nintendo doesn't make these things common knowledge and the player base spreads the information. Should we fault someone for not telling others where it is? Unfortunately some people will be more dedicated or more lucky than you. Shrug it off and continue playing.

 

[V_Arnold]

It always was. It was designed to have a player driven economy from the get-go.

Yeah, bit it always have a sense of entitlement that this is the REAL game, as opposed to the pay-to-win D3 with Auction House - and yet, in THAT game, you can eventually reach all builds with all classes. Here, good luck praying for a shavronne if your build relies it Or a Mjolner in a temp league, lol...

 

[Haly]

It wouldn't be a REAL game if people weren't being blocked from doing things because of game design which promotes inaccessibility!

 

[Rufus]

Yeah, bit it always have a sense of entitlement that this is the REAL game, as opposed to the pay-to-win D3 with Auction House - and yet, in THAT game, you can eventually reach all builds with all classes. Here, good luck praying for a shavronne if your build relies it Or a Mjolner in a temp league, lol...

Those are top-ticket uniques and you know it. This is no different to when D3 still had an economy. If you insist on playing a build that relies on the rarest items in the game, you know what you're in for. There are plenty of other builds.

The problem with D3s AH, especially early on, was that it existed when drops were shit and the content was hard, so people felt like they had to snipe items against AH bots, pay real money or farm goblins with an MF itemswap macro and towards the end, outpace gold inflation.
In PoE, self-found builds can reach endgame and grind to 100 if they so desire.

Everyone being able to get any item they desire was never what gave this game an edge over D3, but fair enough if you want to act like it was. ;D

 

[Gaming Truth]

Has anyone done the Hall of Grandmasters since the rebalance? It says Level 71 and my Flame Totem girl has been on a roll lately

 

[V_Arnold]

Has anyone done the Hall of Grandmasters since the rebalance? It says Level 71 and my Flame Totem girl has been on a roll lately

Went in with my 88 SRS summoner, died pretty quickly. That was like two weeks ago, do not know if the map changed since.

 

[Gaming Truth]

Went in with my 88 SRS summoner, died pretty quickly. That was like two weeks ago, do not know if the map changed since.

Got most of the way down the left hall, but that Chuck of the Nightcrow ..., whatever his Cycloner build was, I couldn't touch him HP-wise. Also, the surprise +3 Poison Arrow girl was always hiding behind some statue and pop out to say hi each time I relaxed after downing another boss

Edit: I did not bad. I think I killed 30+ masters in all, in four hallways. I definitely have an idea of how to approach most of them now and other than that unkillable guy, I think I can make significant progress in six tries (and a whole level 81)

2nd Edit: It's BS that you can't summon from their corpses. I don't want Spectres, but I do need zombies

 

[V_Arnold]

Use that desecrate!