I guess that's it :( Bye.

"

beefnuggy wrote:

You either steamroll POE or POE will steamroll you. If you are overgeared, you live. If not, you insta-splat.

I've been enjoying the gameplay of Torchlight 2, which offers more opportunity for being strategic, while maintaining fast-enough paced gameplay. For instance, a boss fight might last 5 minutes, in which time you'll be using your defensive abilities, healing, spamming decoys, and putting down enough dps to take down the boss. This is very different from POE, where for instance, you run into Cremetorium map boss, hit ruby flask, and hope she doesn't crit in the 5-10 seconds it takes to kill her.

And that is just vanilla torchlight 2... synergies modded (with other custom mods and favorites) is a whole level of strategy potential above that and quite honestly MUCH better then unmodded ever was.

EX: Taking down a raid boss that splits into fragments of itself when it dies, that summons other bosses each of which have extremely potent attacks like that stone pillar prison, whose arena itself is as much a problem as the boss is, that summons giant elites that on death respawn 2 slighly smaller copies of itself, that spawns giant swarms of tiny monsters, to have 16 people on your team and at no ppint ever have a massive drop in fps because the game is ultra optimized is just what has been keeping me busy for the last few weeks. That kind of boss fight is like 10 minutes of tense (though never one shotty) strategy required combat across a raid of people that while extremely hard (on max difficulty esp) is also still extremely fair.


edit - so pretty much I've been retired from this game also (just spending some currency to make those fringe builds I've always wanted to try before I quit); retro gaming and stuff like torchlight 2 and borderlands 2 have kept me busy enough

My enjoyment of the game is already severely impacted by trying to get to 90 without buying maps. I can't fathom doing that to 99, so I have plenty of respect for your tenacity.

You're right, games are meant to be fun, and the distinctive impression that GGG seem to follow the belief that pissing of one's customers creates emotional attachment (which it does) often causes me to take breaks, too, and regret supporting the game financially. I feel tricked by the pre-release videos for FM ("not a multi-year grind"), and misled.

There are many things that make me feel walked over. People complain about fps issues for months. The response? They add rain to more areas. People complain about performance issues. GGG adds the fractured mod to Zana's dailies. Desync is a huge issue. GGG adds desync-rich content like Haku's quests and even faster mobs. To me, it feels that GGG is becoming (has become) an arrogant company that forgets its roots. The customer support is awesome, but the designers seem to have lost touch. Perhaps a side effect of hanging out at Reddit where brown nosing yields upvotes.

I love the game, but the fun/frustration ratio is getting increasingly imbalanced for me, too. And in your shoes, I don't think I would even have lasted as long. The moment I hit 90, I'll level something else and play the content that doesn't require RMTing.


(I'm also convinced that most of them are not really playing their own game. Certainly not solo, on an average machine, on a regular server, and on a higher level.)

"

Mivo wrote:

(I'm also convinced that most of them are not really playing their own game. Certainly not solo, on an average machine, on a regular server, and on a higher level.)

I have decided that this is the only possible explanation for some of the decisions made by GGG. Either that or GGG is run by circus monkeys.

"

TheAnuhart wrote:

At first I thought I'll bite off 2% per day (which takes about 6+ hours) then play some other characters. I had some fun on the other characters but I found the only thing really keeping me here is masters. I normally play the game and level masters passively as I encounter them, but any long term investment I foresee in characters (the way I play) has just gone, it has to, every 4 months and now 3 months, the meta is so brutally forced that there is no place in PoE for long term character players.

So here I am, playing a game I want to enjoy, my characters and builds are obliterated every 3 months (a tiny amount of time in my play style), I don't know whether they will be repairable or completely obsolete. Character progression itself has just gone, there seems no point and when I realised for the last few hours all I've done (and am likely to do from now on) is flip white maps for master spawns, I just had to pull the plug.

What happens when they reach 8? I got the biggest shock when I asked myself that, here I am, doing something I don't enjoy, in a game I want to enjoy, and once I've done I'll look back at the last few weeks of grinding and hate the game, completely, fully. And to top it off, I'll not even have that to do any more.

TL;DR.

My play style isn't welcomed in PoE.
I'm doing content I don't enjoy.
And that content is finite.

And, not that it needs mentioned, desync is worse than ever, 60% fleet mods were not what I was expecting as improvements. This little number alone tells a lot about how much GGG care about improvements as far as desync is concerned. We are going backwards every 'expac'.

Good on you for growing enough to realize you needed to change your relationship with POE. When someone spends 6+ hours a day on something, no matter what it is, it's hard to remain positive about it every day or continue to derive the same value from it as when you started. The only things most people spend that much time on are school or job, neither of which are voluntary. That you have the discipline to stick with one activity so long is impressive. I wonder what else you could have done had you directed that energy toward some other activity?

What really surprises me most is the "shock" you got on thinking about L8, like you had never considered where all your investment was heading. Somehow it's a bad thing that the grind that you "don't enjoy" is going to end. How is that even a problem? I don't understand that. It makes no sense to bemoan the loss of something you don't like, so I guess there's something else that is the problem, and you may not have figured that out yet. Fortunately though, you don't have to because you've already identified the solution- to direct your energy elsewhere.

Anyway, I've long said the grind in POE is excessive. I'm amazed you managed to reach L99 at all, and that is a true accomplishment. But it is ultimately just an accomplishment in POE. How transferrable is that to anything else? I don't think a game should take so much time to continue onward. Once things stagnate and stop changing that's when it's just a grind. A grind lacks all the brainstorming of new builds, learning new enemies, awe of new items, discovery of new places. It's just the execution step. All the interesting thought processes and emotional connection are gone. That's why when I feel like I'm just grinding, and the grind has no destination except more grind, then I stop. What's the point of continuing from there?

"

TheAnuhart wrote:

It's been niggling me for a few days, I tried to pull through it, but, at the end of the day, I can't really deny it, I'm not having fun any more.

I was hyped for Forsaken Masters, pre and post the expansion release, it was the only GGG-hyped-thing that I was on board with.

I entered FM with a lvl 99 solo-self-found. Oh how I was going to enjoy 99-100. Well that was before I knew that 2H life builds, as underdog as they were, were going to bare the brunt of the new forced meta.

Life nerfs, resist nerfs and absolutely stupid spike damage increases in end game maps and my lvl 99 godly geared, legacy Kaom's, sword Ranger is relegated to chewing at 73's as the highest content I dare do.

At first I thought I'll bite off 2% per day (which takes about 6+ hours) then play some other characters. I had some fun on the other characters but I found the only thing really keeping me here is masters. I normally play the game and level masters passively as I encounter them, but any long term investment I foresee in characters (the way I play) has just gone, it has to, every 4 months and now 3 months, the meta is so brutally forced that there is no place in PoE for long term character players.

So here I am, playing a game I want to enjoy, my characters and builds are obliterated every 3 months (a tiny amount of time in my play style), I don't know whether they will be repairable or completely obsolete. Character progression itself has just gone, there seems no point and when I realised for the last few hours all I've done (and am likely to do from now on) is flip white maps for master spawns, I just had to pull the plug.

What happens when they reach 8? I got the biggest shock when I asked myself that, here I am, doing something I don't enjoy, in a game I want to enjoy, and once I've done I'll look back at the last few weeks of grinding and hate the game, completely, fully. And to top it off, I'll not even have that to do any more.

TL;DR.

My play style isn't welcomed in PoE.
I'm doing content I don't enjoy.
And that content is finite.

And, not that it needs mentioned, desync is worse than ever, 60% fleet mods were not what I was expecting as improvements. This little number alone tells a lot about how much GGG care about improvements as far as desync is concerned. We are going backwards every 'expac'.

Sad to see oldtimers go(or return after sometime for that matter)

BUT.

You are not doing the game any justice at all.One would think that all this hours you *wasted* holds no fun.Which i am sure it was quite the opposite.

The sour taste you take now,makes you forget why you even bothered to reach 99.Which is very sad and disheartening by itself.In that aspect,you dont get to critisize the game,before you critisise your self and why you played so far.

In hopes you get relaxed and cooldown.This feedback is just on what bads the game left you.Not even one good of what hold you till now.

And Poe's ladders and constant changes on tree,should have told you that build permanence is an illusion.Its all about rerolling and trying new things,thats the strongest aspect of this game.

As a solo self found,with instances of me needed from guild to run a map here and then(more like 95% solo and 5% party)I say bollocks on the part that your "playstyle isnt welcomed"

You didnt enjoyed the content?

Content is finite.But is expanding.Build ideas on the other hand are *infinite*.And you maybe are not into that.

But ill say again.Bollocks,that you havent even had a joyous moment on POE which this post is assuming.

here's a serious response, Anu. you sure deserve one.

I consider you an inspiration, though I could never bring myself to invest half as much time as you did into this game, or probably any other.

GGG balance and tweak their game around the people they consider "hardcore". those who take the "full package" of what PoE really is, which includes not just playing but also (and mainly) playing in groups, trading, taking/providing "services", maybe multiboxing/cheating, maybe scamming or ripping off because hey it's the wild, unforgiving continent of Wraeclast out there, and the ends justify the means.

it makes perfect financial sense, because a lot of those people stream, which in turn boosts PoE's popularity online and draws in new players, who are all potential supporters and MTX buyers.

you obviously are a Streamer too, but the people I mentioned - and not just them but anyone willing to take the "full package" and/or "expand it" with some RMT and the like - are the guys who are able to quickly get another character in any new temporary league, to just about any level and gear-set they want, whenever GGG brutally murders yet another set of builds while over-the-top buffing another.
they can play the "meta change game" without any problems. you obviously can't.

I actually got lucky in this round. I happened to have an existing Puncture Ranger - armed to the teeth with that sweet Lioneye's Glare you once gave me - when GGG made it one of the current flavours of the month, which now allows me to solo content I previously didn't dare even look at.
I also completely-fucking-randomly, RNGingly dropped my first ever 6-link, which allows my Arc Witch to be pretty much what the videos say she should be.

you may have gotten lucky a couple of times yourself, which in turn helped ease you into the literally thousands of hours /played, and gave you a good taste of the kind of "endgame" usually reserved for the people I mentioned.
one you earned, with sheer relentlessness.

it's completely understandable to get into a rage-quit mood, once the game - or more accurately GGG's decisions - threw you from the mountain top and back into the mud where GGG think Self-Found Solo players belong.
hell, I know I'd rage-quit in a heart-beat if that happened to me - but luckily for me I was never at the mountain top to begin with, and probably never will.

I'll try address the desync and optimization issues you mentioned briefly, because this is a wall-of-text already:

the GGG of Beta times, were a bunch of guys who usually knew their limits and played their strengths. Beta PoE was the one that hooked me, while released and expanded PoE basically has me running on fumes.
the GGG of post-release, are people trying to squeeze as many elephants into a tiny car, as they possibly can - because that looks great in trailers and just plain sells.

screwing-over people who don't have an SSD and a mighty monster of a GPU, plus a direct optical cable running to the strongest PoE server in the next room? they don't seem to care any more.
well maybe they still do, but you know... fixing major bugs and re-factoring code just doesn't sound as "sexy" in the release notes, as "added new boss with new shiny particle effects and ton of minions", now does it?
and not only does it not sound "sexy" - it's also likely to be a heck of a lot more work, and would make them unable to release new shiny MTXes at the rate they are, which is unwise from a financial standpoint.

you probably noticed I used derivatives of "finance" and "sell" a lot here.
that's because this is small-systems-security-company CEO John Keys talking. the heartless bastard who knows nothing is personal and everything is strictly business.
in-game and forum JK really wants GGG to fix desync and get rid of the lag spikes, and give non-"hardcore" players a fighting chance, using true risk/reward.
real-life JK, sadly knows that's very unlikely to ever happen.

"

beefnuggy wrote:

You either steamroll POE or POE will steamroll you. If you are overgeared, you live. If not, you insta-splat.

I've been enjoying the gameplay of Torchlight 2, which offers more opportunity for being strategic, while maintaining fast-enough paced gameplay. For instance, a boss fight might last 5 minutes, in which time you'll be using your defensive abilities, healing, spamming decoys, and putting down enough dps to take down the boss. This is very different from POE, where for instance, you run into Cremetorium map boss, hit ruby flask, and hope she doesn't crit in the 5-10 seconds it takes to kill her.

it is very refreshing, for first 10/20/50 times...and then you realize that nearly all bosses are killed in the same fashion, at least for range kiting character. and it becomes as boring as poe because after 50th time youre just going through the motions after figuring out the most optimal kite loop to take around the boss and repeat it 10x times. at least that was my experience with vanilla TL2

and on elite ng+ with a glassy toon, a boss could and would one-shot you even with most defensive buffs on.

in fact for me, most difficult battle in vanilla TL2 for my mage was and is the arena of waves of enemies. it was too small you couldnt really kite around and those purple spinners put by mages hit like trucks

nearly every boss is trivial, including ng+ map bosses. put defensive+offensive buffs on, kite in circle + damage+ kill adds, rinse and repeat once buffs wear off. pot/cast self heal if you are hit and not one shot.

Ive played TL2 again during this summer as I had no internet access for a bit. after poe I was like 'man, back to the fast-paced, movement/real skills'...and then I was bored after a week or so.

10/10, would read again.

PM'd you Anuheart.

Please move onto PoE][ Chris.

P.

Anuhart says he's quitting. Same day Wasteland 2 is out.

k.

The only advice I'd have is to shelve the ST Ranger, until GGG balance-movingtarget team will shift the meta to 2Handers (we all know it will happen sometime down the road..).

I'd also say that its very normal for someone who set the goals very high, in a game that is hostile to his play-style, to get burned out eventually. I have ragequit for far far less... (but I don't have your monumental patience :)) So my more important advice is to take the brake, because you need it.

Since you play longterm in Standard, it means you can skip a few months and not miss anything. All the temp. leagues buzz would go past you anyway. The game is moving at a snail pace too, and there wont be any real new content (acts, maps) for a long time. Just repackaged stuff served in form of more grind.

I've kinda hit the tipping point too (300hrs of map grind in Rampage, and only hit masters lvl 7 recently). Its getting boring and annoying and the goal (crafting that 6L Harbinger) is still a fuckign desert and ocean away... (unless I cave in and go service shopping).


Anyway, I'll be keeping these dry in my hide, until the time comes to ding the 100 ;)