PoE2’s Deadlock Isn’t Economy Control — It’s Mixed “Time Ledgers”

I want to offer a structural lens (product/system design + live-service operations) for why PoE2 drama this season keeps collapsing into the same player feelings: “macro-managed,” “the ladder got pulled up,” “the rich get richer.”

My claim isn’t “GGG shouldn’t control the economy” (they obviously must). The issue is: in a structure like PoE2, if you don’t explicitly govern different goals with different “time ledgers,” the team will naturally treat them as one knob. And the most convenient, most controllable levers then become: nerf builds, nerf efficiency, nerf high-yield routes.

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1) The structural triad: why PoE2 is “destined” to require regulation
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PoE2 has a structural triad that practically guarantees ongoing regulation — otherwise a season gets flattened by a minority of extreme producers:

1) Free trade (or a progression path that heavily depends on trade for “finishing”)
2) Exponential productivity in a loot ARPG:
stronger build → better gear → higher farming efficiency → faster snowball (a productivity race)
3) Seasonal live service:
you need a season lifecycle/retention curve, not a one-and-done playthrough experience

Stack these together and you get faster price discovery, faster inflation, faster wealth stratification, and seasons that get “solved” (and compressed) earlier.
So regulation itself isn’t surprising. The question is: which tools are used, and who pays the cost?

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2) The real problem (in my view): the three time ledgers aren’t governed separately
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On top of the triad, there’s a more organizational/governance variable: three different “time ledgers.”

Without a strong product/creative owner to “write the constitution” (i.e., define which goals belong to which ledger, which tools solve which problems, and which red lines you don’t cross), teams tend to treat all three as the same knob:

1) Progression Time
The reasonable time/experience for a player to go from early game → “playable” → “finished” (how the climb feels; whether the ramp is fair).

2) Economy Time
The market lifecycle from price discovery → inflation → wealth stratification → eventual flattening (whether players get left behind by inflation, whether stratification pushes them out of the season).

3) Business Time
The time a player needs to stay engaged long enough to be likely to convert (convenience purchases, cosmetics, passes, etc.).

In PoE2 these three naturally pull on each other:
- Business Time tends to “borrow” from Progression Time (extend the “I’m almost there” phase).
- Economy Time demands “don’t let a small number of producers flatten the season.”
- Without clear tool-to-goal mapping, you end up mixing ledgers in implementation:

Using “build nerfs / efficiency nerfs / high-yield route nerfs” to solve economy health, season longevity, retention pressure, and monetization pressure all at once.

And then the player experience becomes: this isn’t balance, this is macro-management.

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3) Vaal Temple / Temple hotfix: a classic case of “brakes applied off-target” (and a “two-brake” pattern)
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I’m not trying to debate whether Temple “should” be nerfed. I’m using it as an example of how, when ledgers get mixed, brakes are easy to apply in the wrong place.

1) First brake (pre-season / early season): pulling overall output back into a controllable range (interpretation)
Temple-like new systems need strong incentives. But “time-to-finish / productivity” is highly sensitive to build iteration and productivity races: players will amplify any reward structure into a farming meta.
So one plausible governance logic is: tighten overall output/efficiency early (via build/low-cost high-efficiency access and/or crafting constraints) to keep the season from being instantly flattened — then you can afford to put meaningful rewards into new mechanics without everything exploding.
(This is not claiming intent; it’s describing a common live-ops control pattern: reduce the uncontrolled variance first, then tune incentives.)

2) Second brake (mid-season): curbing top-end output is reasonable (more Economy Time)
In Hotfix 13, GGG added “diminishing returns” to Temple room stacking: it only kicks in once you hit a certain threshold (4+ of the same type), and the messaging is essentially “small impact on average, mainly hits top-end Temples.” They also mentioned severe server performance/crash issues tied to extreme top-end Temples.
As a tool, this is largely “Economy Time” regulation: limit a top-end multiplier chain so productivity doesn’t compress the whole season.

3) Where it “slipped”: mixing in a Progression gate creates the “ladder pulled up” feeling (Progression Time gets hit)
In that same Hotfix 13 there was another key change:
- Juatalotli’s Medallion was restricted to Tier III rooms (later rolled back in Hotfix 15, returning to “can be used on almost any room”).

This is more of a “progression gate” tool: it changes accessibility and catch-up pathways for players who are still building their Temple/route.
So it’s very easy for the community to form a narrative like “rich get richer / ladder pulled up / legacy setups cash in,” even if that wasn’t the intent — because the already-established players keep compounding while climbers suddenly lose an important construction lever.

That’s the signature of ledger-mixing:
- Economy Time needs a brake (reasonable),
- but the brake implementation includes a Progression gate (affects catch-up),
- so the cost lands on Progression Time,
- and players read it as “macro-management,” trust takes a hit.

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4) Why “business model” becomes structural pressure (this is not a motive accusation)
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This is not “GGG is intentionally wasting your time.” It’s that incentive structures make it easy for organizations to treat “time spent” as a master objective — and then reach for the most controllable numeric levers.

GGG has long argued that if trade becomes too easy/close to “instant completion,” it accelerates progression and changes the meaning of drops and character growth — hence deliberate trade friction. At the same time, the trade ecosystem is tightly coupled to convenience tools (e.g., more efficient stash management/listing).

Put that inside a seasonal live service, and you get a real risk:
If Progression Time / Economy Time / Business Time aren’t governed separately, pressure to protect season longevity, prevent economic flattening, and maintain retention curves can collapse into the same kind of actions — efficiency nerfs.

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5) If the structure doesn’t change, the deadlock will recur; what can change is tool choice and red lines
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My core conclusion:
As long as “free trade + exponential productivity + seasonal longevity” stays, this kind of deadlock will recur. The only question is which knife gets used, and who gets cut.

I’d rather the community debate not just “was this nerf correct,” but the deeper question:
Can GGG separate the three time ledgers and commit to:
- Which tools should be used first for economy problems (strong sinks, top-end diminishing returns, ticketing/cost structures, reward shaping)
- Which red lines shouldn’t be crossed (e.g., don’t use progression gates as a substitute for economy brakes; don’t repeatedly remove catch-up ladders)
- How to address top-end productivity flattening a season without nerfing the “playable ladder”

“Controlling the economy / controlling the season curve” isn’t wrong.
What determines player experience is whether the cost is pushed onto top-end marginal gains — or onto mid/low-investment players’ progression feel.

Curious what others think: which ledger got hurt most this season — progression, economy, or season motivation/retention?

If I had to summarize the issue in a “studio governance” way:

PoE2 seems to be using a single “time/engagement” control loop to manage three different problems:
(1) Progression Time (how long it takes players to reach a fun, viable endgame),
(2) Economy Time (how quickly the market inflates/stratifies and gets flattened),
(3) Business Time (how long players stay before they’re likely to convert).

When those ledgers aren’t explicitly separated, the easiest lever becomes “nerf efficiency” —
which simultaneously slows the economy and stretches the season curve, but often pays for it
by harming progression ladders (especially for mid/low-investment players).

A practical fix isn’t “don’t regulate,” it’s: define red lines + tool ownership.
- Economy problems: solve with sinks, top-end diminishing returns, ticket/cost shaping, anti-speculation friction.
- Progression problems: solve with reliable ladders, catch-up paths, non-trade viable progression.
- Business goals: solve with motivation/content, not by making baseline progression slower.

If you don’t separate the ledgers, you’ll keep reaching for the same hammer every season.

I want to add one more angle that I think needs to be made explicit: even under the same monetization model, PoE2 still has to be clear about its primary identity — is it closer to a market-driven online game, or a loot-driven ARPG? The core “fun loop” people expect is different.

In a more economy/online-game framing, the fun loop is often:
measurable gains → asset conversion → market position → efficiency leadership (making money is the feedback).

In a loot ARPG framing, the fun loop is closer to:
drops → identification → small/big hits → immediate upgrades → the build “lights up”
(currency is a channel, not the goal).

To be clear: PoE has always had players who genuinely enjoy trading and economic play. My point isn’t “remove trade.” It’s that for a loot ARPG, the primary feedback loop shouldn’t be fully replaced by “farm currency → buy power.”

So I’d propose tracking a more genre-core experience metric:
Loot Time / Drop Excitement — the frequency and intensity of positive feedback per unit of playtime coming from drops/ID/meaningful small upgrades (e.g., how often per hour a player finds something they can equip immediately and feel a noticeable power spike, even without trading).

Because when Drop Excitement is low, players will naturally substitute it with Economy Time:
farm currency → trade → purchase upgrades.
And that’s how a loot ARPG gradually slides into a market-driven online game — which also amplifies the conflicts caused by mixing Progression Time, Economy Time, and Business Time.

I’m increasingly convinced the current PoE2 controversy isn’t about any single change, but about three forces reinforcing each other:

The live-service model needs a season curve → a trade-driven economy is a powerful self-sustaining retention engine → when drop/crafting excitement is too low, players naturally substitute it with “economy time” (farm currency → trade → buy upgrades) → the team then uses the same efficiency levers to manage progression, the economy, and season longevity (mixing the three time ledgers) → which pushes the game even further toward a market-driven, MMO-like experience.

That’s why a lot of players gravitate toward “self-sufficient” progression requests (SSF-like paths): they’re trying to restore the core loot-ARPG feedback loop, not necessarily reject trade itself.

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