Gameplay Motivation.

"

Xantaria wrote:

I completely aggree with the OP and the only way to fix the mentioned problem is to nerf crit Extremely hard ... not talking about 10% overall ... this needs to be like a 60% overall nerf.

Not going to happen tho ...

---> There will never be a balance between crit / noncrit builds.

In PvM blind and accuracy really don't matter. Thus criticals by default will always > non crit builds...always. In PvP blind and accuracy become a ...small factor. Though on paper crit still > non crit on paper. Crit also requires the other player to play to you, not the other way around. They must do damn near everything in their arsenal to prevent getting 1 shot, blind, enfeeble, evasion, dodge, block, bear traps, decoys. While you just hit them buttons...dur dee dur dee dur.

If your focus is the PvM, there is 0 incentive to not go crit. If reflect is a concern, you need to slow down because really reflect is a laughable penalty and concern. Like a slap on the wrist for wrecking the game in absolute ez mode, trivializing all content.

If I'm really bored of PoE I quit playing for several weeks. After a while, I need my ARPG fix and I start with PoE again and have fun. I don't even really care about the meta.

You just have to quit for awhile is all. I don't think anyone has played nonstop since the start. Also if quitting just 1-2 months isnt resetting things for you maybe you need to quit longer.

For diablo 2 some of my quit periods were like 2 years and when I came back it was awesome again. PoE is great because GGG patches this game so often. Even a few months to half a year will have you coming back to tons of new stuff, upgraded tree, rebalanced builds etc.

As for general motivation, mine is just trying different builds till i get bored of em. Sometimes when you try a build that you really like it does sorta spoil everything else. For me the best example last ladder was DD EB build. With barely any gear and a 4l it could faceroll lvl 78 maps at lvl 70. It was not the fastest build around but I had to ask myself why spend hundreds hours farming gear just do do the same shit a bit faster on a different build? I did try different builds after that, but purely ones that were interesting, nothing about getting to the high maps etc.

And yes, crit is out of control atm. As far as im concerned its overall worse now than ever before. Sure they may have nerfed crit multi, but back then crit builds were fairly expensive. Nowadays (1.2) crit is much more accessible to every single player.

I have played pretty much everyday from the time I started actually, give or take a couple of days here and there.

I have found POE to be boring from time to time, but not overly so.

No matter what you do in life, at some point you are going to lose interest. Usually because it becomes repetitive.

POE is no exception, it has a finite amount of things to do period. Then if you remove the option you don't enjoy you make the pool of options even smaller.

Nobody likes putting in a massive amount of effort to go backwards. Generally we start new characters because we believe they will be better than the one we are playing, or different but at least close to similar strength/ability.

This is human nature.



Since we know these two things - everything is finite, (except possibly the universe itself)and we don't like going backwards - we can use them to our advantage.


Pretty much it just involves taking time. This is a game and there is no need to rush through it. If this were RL that would be a different story, then you had better get ahead when you can while you can.


This is why I cringe whenever I hear the advice to copy a build being given to a new guy. Its about the worst advice I can imagine. The people posting builds aren't doing anybody any favors.


Yeah, its faster, and its easier. Its also going to cut a huge chunk out of the entertainment time of this game. Especially as POE becomes pretty unrewarding after the mid 80's or so by itself.


The same can be said for trading and partying. Faster and easier to get ahead yes, also faster and easier to reach the point of boredom.


I'm very glad I figured this out before I started playing POE. I never copy builds. I always play solo. I think I've sold 2 or 3 items since I started playing in closed beta. I would be able to say I have only purchased 2 or 3 items in that time if it wasn't for maps. I'm not saying as a solo self-found you can't come up with enough maps and the currency needed for mods to progress, but I eventually gave in and am buying maps. Lots of maps.


I do browse the forums a little, but pretty much only the announcements and general. The only real 'studying' I have done here was the mechanics area when I first started. I do occasionally check something on the wiki (mostly what quality does for a gem) but probably shouldn't. I've never even looked at a skill tree planner. I've never done any math in POE except for the occasional dps calculation to see if a weapon is better than one I have in my stash for a char other than the one I'm playing.

I have picked up ideas from chat and/or the forums, hard to avoid that. But if I hear something I think might be advantageous to me I then go try it out myself and see if it works for me. Most don't but once in a great while I hear something that gives me a clue to an improvement in one of my builds.


My highest char is an 88, maybe 89 today. I don't have any of my masters at lvl8, I've never done any atziri, the highest map I've run is a 75 (though I do have a half dozen 76's) and I have no clue what my gear is 'worth'. (except for a couple of unique drops I looked up out of curiosity)

I'm sure a lot, if not most ppl, are saying to themselves "Man this guy sucks, he's been playing since closed beta and hasn't done atziri or gotten over lvl 90.".

That's true enough I suppose, but I'm not playing this game for their enjoyment I'm playing it for mine and I still have all those things to look forward to that many others are bored with.

(Sidenote: I realize there are other reasons to play the game, some people like the social aspect of parties, others enjoy the trading, winning races, or being first on a ladder. Nothing wrong with those and in fact they are a good thing as they bring more people to POE, but the same things apply - the faster you hit the top, the faster you will be bored and you aren't going to like going backwards. The social aspect might be an exception to some degree, but Poe isn't really a very socially oriented game)



Way TLDR: If you try to eat all those cookies right away, you are going to get sick of them and not like them anymore.

"

Xantaria wrote:

I completely aggree with the OP and the only way to fix the mentioned problem is to nerf crit Extremely hard ... not talking about 10% overall ... this needs to be like a 60% overall nerf.

Not going to happen tho ...

---> There will never be a balance between crit / noncrit builds.

Yes. It is why I quitted the game.

There is not only no viable choice next to pure crit building but also nothing that comes close to daggers/claws when using melee weapons, which results in shadow/witch/ranger/scion being the only viable choices for melee tanks (not as you might think marauders, duelists or templars). Last but not least there is shavs that is by nature double as good as any 6x tier1 life or es chest.

The game therefore weighs individual against logic choices. There is only one right thing to do. All of the 3 above mentioned thing together create charackters that are 300-500% stronger than the other, which is huge. I feel stupid doing either: 1. playing a 300-500% too strong crit + dagger + shavs char, and 2. the other thing that is way too low.

PoE forces people to leave. It is easily the worst balanced game that I can remember to have played. GGG instead of evening out imbalances, do further buff crits and the shadow side of the tree. Life/es builds without shavs, due to the life/es nerf that hits the high life/es builds the most got relatively weaker to shavs even. The devs wanna buff crit and dagger builds even more obviously.

There is barely any chance that the devs fix this 300-500% imbalance (the numbers are real) at all, and that they intend to do it. Even if they intended to do this, there is barely a chance that they ever gonna manage to do it.

After a bunch of full resets since beta, I concluded that builds are grouped in a few gameplay types; and regardless of how different builds may look on paper, if they are in same gameplay group they feel %100 same in the end of the day. These groups for me are;

Summoner, long range-AoE, Melee, close range-AoE

My WoE-BoR-IR char felt exactly same way compared to my frenzy-acrobat-shield-claw build in the end of the day. Same goes for my split-arrow archer vs ST-GMP-CoC-EB-MoM build. Sure different animations weapons passives etc etc, but almost same gameplay.

Maybe it is just me, but I had more diversity in terms of gameplay in very limited D3. Here all builds feel same probably due to no resource management need and no cap on speed making "kill fast and be able to tank enough till you kill". That being coupled with effectiveness being one way only (clearspeed), it burns pretty fast.

My solution against burnout is avoiding AoE builds that doesnt need targeting at all; then rotating among different gameplay builds. Hope this helps you.

I want to emphasize this again:

Devs even buffed daggers and shavs further in relation to builds that do not use these items.

It doesn't go in my head how they come to the point to decide to buff the whole shadow side on the tree while the problems of balanced where already all aware and well discussed in forums.

They even had the numbers of almost everyone playing shadow/witch/scion only. Arguments that I heared that they have not had enough time are hard to understand. If I were a developer with limited time then I would focus on buffing the side of the tree that is underpowered and not the exact opposite.

The domination of crit and shavs is nothing new. The status is for about 12-16 months like this. As Xantaria mentioned, this is not about 10% nerfs needed, the differences are huge. The more I wonder how it is not possible for devs to recognize and act accordingly to these issues. Balancing a game that is 5% off is hard. Balancing a game that is 300-500% off is way easier.

Easy and reasonable solutions where mentioned by many ppl. I suggested to alter and adjust the crit multiplier multiplier that is 1.5 for every weapon right now - as a first step. I suggested to introduce crit penalties (accuracy/chance/multiplier) to key support gems like lmp, gmp, chain, multistrike, and so on. Alot is possible to adress the crit and aoe vs single target issues.

Probably 3-5 afternoons of time would be enough to elaborate a first concept of how to approach things, what steps are necessary and which things need to be considered when going for it. The now state is that bad that almost everything that you could do would improve the situation by far.

"

Vincendra wrote:

Since I am playing POE (beginning OB) I allways had on- and offphases. Sometimes you hit a wall, or your build didn't pan out as planned or you tried everything you wanted that league.
Nothing wrong with that.

But I am now approaching a stage of complete boredom in POE. FYI I never had a 6l beside Tabula, and I stopped at 1k fuses this league because my 5l critreave allready cleared 78 fast enough to the extend I had to ask myself "why even bother".

I tried every active skillgem now. For some I made a build, some I just plugged into other builds where they fit so I experience the way they play. Some made it to maps, some just cleared merciless and did some Piety runs.

I was allways a fan of fast clearing builds with 1 AOE skill and 1 singletarget skill. FOR ME, the success of a build IS and WAS allways tied to speed or fun.

The problem is, once you have had a really fast clearer, you can't go back. Even if you have a character decked out to be 85% as effective, I feel slow. And thats where I lose interest in a build, because it doesn't feel as strong as something I had before, even though it is fast and strong enough per se.

I also strongly feel that Critdmg, even if consecutivly nerfed on the tree over the course of 2 years, is absolutely destroying the gamebalance. Reflect does most of the time hold critbuilds back, but only as long as they dont itemise or skill against it.



There would be so many possibilities out there, but the fact that not going crit resulting in (at least for me) stale gameplay becasue of slowlyness just made this game boring to me.

Just this time it's not "Yeah I come back later to try XYZ Build", it rather is "Why even bother when I need to go crit to enjoy my builds".



Where are the possibilities for noncrit builds?
Where are the possibilities for on-hit builds?



Am I the only one feeling that way? I'd really like to keep playing, but atm this game is at a point of no return for me. I love POE, I just can't love it anymore in the state that it is now.

I understand and can empathize with the desire for fast clearing builds.

That said, I don't know if you would enjoy the following, but you might give them a try:

1) Thematic character. Imagine the character's style, strengths and weaknesses, and then try to implement that character within the constraints of the game. Yes, your character will be weaker than normal, but your goal is to make the character as powerful as possible while still staying in character.

2)Find a bizarre build that doesn't seem like it could work at all, and then push to see how far you can get that character.

If you need some inspiration read Gary Gygax's Gord the Rogue series.












find some enjoyment in a couple other playing styles

"

Vincendra wrote:

And as I said, my fun and gameplay experience comes from the effectivenes of a build. Being and FEELING effective does not mean for me to have a fast farmer. It of course is a positive sideeffect that you farm faster if you clear faster.

But that is not what gives me enjoyment. It's the feeling of knowing you can crush through your oponents, that nothing can stop you and whatever you do, you feel powerful.

A RT build does not feel powerful to me. NOT AFTER playing my claw critreaver.

So true. Crit is way overtuned. I made a crit Reave build, using a crappy self found 220 dps dagger, and was pulling 75k dps (one shotted all of the act bosses except Vaal while leveling through Merciless). I then made a Lightning Strike, Resolute Technique based templar utilizing MoM/AA/Clarity, and while he's not terrible, he does less than half of the dps with more than quintuple the value in gear (Doryani's, 5L Cloak, etc etc).

"

DalaiLama wrote:

I understand and can empathize with the desire for fast clearing builds.

That said, I don't know if you would enjoy the following, but you might give them a try:

1) Thematic character. Imagine the character's style, strengths and weaknesses, and then try to implement that character within the constraints of the game. Yes, your character will be weaker than normal, but your goal is to make the character as powerful as possible while still staying in character.

2)Find a bizarre build that doesn't seem like it could work at all, and then push to see how far you can get that character.

If you need some inspiration read Gary Gygax's Gord the Rogue series.












find some enjoyment in a couple other playing styles

I did try so amny of them.

Dual barrage gatling gun totems.
Max AOE dual Prismatic vaaled Eclipse cylone.
Shield charger
Viper striker (before 1.2)
Full tank Molten Sheller (Vaal+ normal shell)
Shadow Clone Build (Vaal double strike + full duration nodes)
Shrapnel trapper (EK+chain+multitraps+traps+red dur + Sunblast)

... and many more.



Problem is:

"

After a bunch of full resets since beta, I concluded that builds are grouped in a few gameplay types; and regardless of how different builds may look on paper, if they are in same gameplay group they feel %100 same in the end of the day. These groups for me are;

Summoner, long range-AoE, Melee, close range-AoE

is 100% true.

While in d2 every build felt completly different, the problem in POE is that
the "feel" of how a character plays is limited to support gems.

It doesnt matter which skill you use, the way it plays out is determined by either:

1.)use melee splash
2.) has innate AOE

We have around 20 differnent melee skills and yet only 2 ways to play them.

Same goes for spells:

1.) Chain
2.) G/LMP

A projectile always stays a projectile.

Why cant they implement more support gems?

1.) transforms a vertical projectil into a horizontal pprojectile raining down and dealing greater impact dmg.
2.) uses projectile to circle around you and shield you.
3.) "charging up" a spell like flameblast does now for every spell
...


many more. So much potential and yet we only have such few options.