Why the "You need more health" paradigm is bad

I was thinking to an hypotetical introduction of a form of all-damage-types-reduction of defense like that present in Titan quest. It was called "damage absorption" and was calculated in flat % values.

In my opinion, would be an element of variety to not HAVE to go over certain amounts of life to prevent most deaths (many times i read expert players reply to newbies that have died with a "hey man, 3k life it's nothing, 4k is barely acceptable, try gaining MORE LIFE ON GEAR"), and PLUS to not HAVE to cap/overcap resistances (many guides celebrate their defences saying "capped/overcapped defences", because it's COMPULSORY to cap them, and compulsory AND MAYBE STILL NOT SUFFICIENT to add Saffel frame and purities to survive certain fights).

For what i know, block it's a random mechanic so not reliable, instead would be fantastic, IF A PLAYER SO DESIRES, to not have for one time to struggle on gaining the most life/es on gear and on tree (spending in this way the majority of his/her skill points)... but instead to go for a build that adds more and more flat % reduction of ALL damage types at once (even 1% by 1% per skill point and per piece of gear, to a cap of 90% so 90 points, and this would cripple the damage even of a lvl 100 exile).

It's only an idea, but the way we play now it's all a stack life/es. Still die? Stack more. Still die? Get a saffel. WOW, WHAT A VARIETY -.-

Flat reduction removes a choice because it creates the best option.

There are only certain fights in the whole game that make saffels appealing for people to use and typically those fights can be done with proper flask management or dodging of skills, which is much easier with lockstep changes in beta.


In what cases have you seen the need to run around with saffles?

Today, the best option it's stacking life or es. Same situation. So for the sake of God WHY there must be ONLY ONE >>>viable<<< option?
All other options are NOT viable, like going full eva with 2k life and being one shotted by the cheapest rock falling from the roof, or by a lightning with turned balls that luckily strikes you for its max damage (eva doesn't help against spells and spell dodge it's 46% max, and i don't know anyone with a full set of all-time-up vaal grace)... nor it's totally reliable go poor life and max block, because at a certain point you WILL be hitted, and at full force too. And because the monster damage has been "intellligently" put at a base of 537 billions before mitigation (expecially elemental one) it's not an argument to say "but you have 75% res", because a player still dies (let's think of megera, shock and horror, atziri, double vaal, magnus, igna, minara) even with elem flask sometimes.

So the unique way it's PATH OF LIFE NODES (if so many people called this way the game, there must be a reason...). And this is NOT variety. Variety would be to have AT LEAST another viable option (like damage absorption or whatever)

"

Wispo wrote:

Good point by itself, but it won't change the situation: a situation that compels you to have a large life pool to survive, because other defenses go from semi useless (75% elem def, now harder to overcap due to future delete of inner force) to useless (armor) to over nerfed (acrobatics). I still dream the day in wich we CAN lightheartedly decide to go 1k hp but with a defense that lets us survive 95% of the content in lvl 80 maps (with an investment on that defense, obviously). It's called DIVERSITY, but GGG it's too restrained by its LIMITED vision of the game to understand this word

Yeah, i agree about defences, armour and ES are very weak (i mean ES+life build). At least, with new Eldrich Battery. Evasion is better, but it still doesnt favour high defence investment.

Perhaps, some other defences, that reduce incoming damage, would be welcome. Also, a major rework for ES and armour should be done

"

Wispo wrote:

Today, the best option it's stacking life or es. Same situation. So for the sake of God WHY there must be ONLY ONE >>>viable<<< option?
All other options are NOT viable, like going full eva with 2k life and being one shotted by the cheapest rock falling from the roof, or by a lightning with turned balls that luckily strikes you for its max damage (eva doesn't help against spells and spell dodge it's 46% max, and i don't know anyone with a full set of all-time-up vaal grace)... nor it's totally reliable go poor life and max block, because at a certain point you WILL be hitted, and at full force too. And because the monster damage has been "intellligently" put at a base of 537 billions before mitigation (expecially elemental one) it's not an argument to say "but you have 75% res", because a player still dies (let's think of megera, shock and horror, atziri, double vaal, magnus, igna, minara) even with elem flask sometimes.

So the unique way it's PATH OF LIFE NODES (if so many people called this way the game, there must be a reason...). And this is NOT variety. Variety would be to have AT LEAST another viable option (like damage absorption or whatever)

You are looking at damage mitigation and "absorption" all wrong IMO. If you think life is the only form of protection you are sadly mistaken. We have life, ES, block, spell block, evasion, armor, mind over matter, lightning coil, ondars, max res, acro, and phase acro. Of course that doesn't count other things that can help you survive like RT, vaal pact, curses, ect.

When people say you need to invest in life, you really do need life or ES no matter what build you go, but you have the option based on playstyle and character on which to go. From there you can decide what defenses you can\want to invest into, life\es is only effective if you have other forms of defenses with it, just like those forms of defenses are nothing without life\es.

Every single one of your fights that you mentioned being "elemental hard hitters" are mostly predictable and easy to counter\plan for. If you are doing a creama boss and don't have PoF\Saffels\rise\fire res flask then you are asking to die, you very well know that boss does fire damage and you need to plan for it, same can be applied to every other instance of spiky boss damage. Only exiles provide that random challenge, but its that random challenge that test players reactions and plans.

Variety is having more then 1 option, which there is its either life or ES, paired with any of the other forms of defenses, but it still remains essential that you have either the life or the ES pool for when you eventually get hit.

Could GGG look into a defensive option based on dex, similar to how life has strength and int has ES, probably? But a shield type of defense that you are presenting seems extremely overpowered compared to life\ES so it would have to be toned accordingly.


I take it you weren't a D2 player, but in that game you stacked life much more severely then you ever did in PoE, keep that in mind when you want to call path of life nodes.

EDIT:

"

Also, a major rework for ES and armour should be done

Armor formula is changed in beta and ES has a faster recharge rate then on live as well as a lower % reserved cost.

Not having phoenix shield is asking to die. Is this variety? No, because OR "you" put togheter shield + flask + purity OR you die. The real variety would be to survive even without those equip/skills, and even with 20% res (just a number for saying), because you have invested in some other aspect as much reliable as life + defences.

And it's not a valid point to list one by one the defences present in this game, because all of them are shit, cause yuo need more that one of them at the same thime to have a viable protection (phoenix + purity... coil + hate.... eva + block). This means that we don't have a SINGLE and at the same time VALID defence, and this is the reason (stated by you now) because one player MUST take a good life or ES pool as a base of his/her defenceS

In a game in wich, in a white crematorium map, a lvl 81 exile with over 11k es + 1.3k+ regen/sec (ZO) + 75% res risk to die if stay 2 secs under a crit firestorm... well the defences are simply DISGUSTING

"

MortalKombat3 wrote:

"

Wispo wrote:

Good point by itself, but it won't change the situation: a situation that compels you to have a large life pool to survive, because other defenses go from semi useless (75% elem def, now harder to overcap due to future delete of inner force) to useless (armor) to over nerfed (acrobatics). I still dream the day in wich we CAN lightheartedly decide to go 1k hp but with a defense that lets us survive 95% of the content in lvl 80 maps (with an investment on that defense, obviously). It's called DIVERSITY, but GGG it's too restrained by its LIMITED vision of the game to understand this word

Yeah, i agree about defences, armour and ES are very weak (i mean ES+life build). At least, with new Eldrich Battery. Evasion is better, but it still doesnt favour high defence investment.

Perhaps, some other defences, that reduce incoming damage, would be welcome. Also, a major rework for ES and armour should be done

There are 2 (opposite) ways of resolving the problem

1) reduce that damn monster damage, way too stupidly high (let's think to magnus that one shots 5k life exiles with 4 charges out of 10 of flameblast, or expecially white mobs phisically hitting for over 2k damage like evangelists and retches with their claws and chimerals) and let defences stay the way they are now

2) let the monstewr damage stay high the way it is now, but punp up defences (elemental cap upped to at least 85% without saffel or purities, and physical damage reduction putted in percentual values on gear, abandoning the dininishing result armour formula)

"

Wispo wrote:

Not having phoenix shield is asking to die. Is this variety? No, because OR "you" put togheter shield + flask + purity OR you die. The real variety would be to survive even without those equip/skills, and even with 20% res (just a number for saying), because you have invested in some other aspect as much reliable as life + defences.

And it's not a valid point to list one by one the defences present in this game, because all of them are shit, cause yuo need more that one of them at the same thime to have a viable protection (phoenix + purity... coil + hate.... eva + block). This means that we don't have a SINGLE and at the same time VALID defence, and this is the reason (stated by you now) because one player MUST take a good life or ES pool as a base of his/her defenceS

In a game in wich, in a white crematorium map, a lvl 81 exile with over 11k es + 1.3k+ regen/sec (ZO) + 75% res risk to die if stay 2 secs under a crit firestorm... well the defences are simply DISGUSTING

You don't need pof+rof+flask in order to not die to firestrom in a 76 map. You need one of them in order to play "safe" if you can't adjust for specific boss encounters then you might as well avoid them completely they are mechanics you must learn to play with or around.

Yes all defensive options are shit, that is why the following has been nerfed the past year:

block
spell block
acro
mom (thru cloak)
lightning coil
max res

Sure I am missing more.

You are completely oblivious to the mechanics of this game, your highest level character is 82 and you aren't even using life, how in the world can you base your arguments here on life based character defenses when you aren't using it yourself?

The max res should not be increased and armor is reworked in beta. The only adjustment that needs to be made to damage is it be less spiky in areas where you don't expect it (aka outside of boss encounters)

If you learn and plan for the boss encounters in the game (piety, dominus, atziri, ect) then you shouldn't die.

"

Wispo wrote:

Today, the best option it's stacking life or es. Same situation. So for the sake of God WHY there must be ONLY ONE >>>viable<<< option?
All other options are NOT viable, like going full eva with 2k life and being one shotted by the cheapest rock falling from the roof, or by a lightning with turned balls that luckily strikes you for its max damage (eva doesn't help against spells and spell dodge it's 46% max, and i don't know anyone with a full set of all-time-up vaal grace)... nor it's totally reliable go poor life and max block, because at a certain point you WILL be hitted, and at full force too. And because the monster damage has been "intellligently" put at a base of 537 billions before mitigation (expecially elemental one) it's not an argument to say "but you have 75% res", because a player still dies (let's think of megera, shock and horror, atziri, double vaal, magnus, igna, minara) even with elem flask sometimes.

So the unique way it's PATH OF LIFE NODES (if so many people called this way the game, there must be a reason...). And this is NOT variety. Variety would be to have AT LEAST another viable option (like damage absorption or whatever)

^ This. Thank you for also understanding how the game currently is and is feared to be in the next patch.

There are different skill gems that flash different lights and colours, sure. But at the end of the day you are still spamming 1 skill and stacking up life nodes. Sure, you can stack ES but its harder to do all game, gets no damage mitigation, have to wait for it to recharge, and you are more likely to be stunned/flinched/frozen due to NOT being an HP build. The HP builds have their inherent resist stun/flinch which makes them instantly superior to almost all other builds. Dodge builds have to go out of their way in the skill tree to get stun resist and such.

What the game needs is more viability for all builds WITHOUT perfect gear. The gear should be something you take to maximize your efficiency and change up your play style. The great thing about this game compared to Diablo 3 is that most end game gear are "side-grades" not pure "upgrades".

The maxing of resistances is a left-over remnant of Diablo 2. Its bearable as there are many ways to get resistances, but a lot of new players don't know how. You have to know the recipes for vedors and what items to save for later to transmute. PoE is really not that "noob friendly" which can bring a lot of frustration when you find out your build is trash once you finally get to merciless.

One of the goals of the next patch/expansion is to make players feel a smoother progression and have an easier time with the game and their builds. We'll see but right now there's a lot of worry about "same old, same old HP stacking". :|

"

BrainHP wrote:

Feedback from newer players is invaluable. Older players tend to see bad game design as "features" and are more likely to just defend the status quo mindlessly. There have been numerous studies on this behaviour in other areas of life. If a new perspective sees clunkiness or poor design where you do not, perhaps you have just habituated yourself to it?


Additionally, for a game like this to survive it needs new players. Any activity comes with natural attrition, if the standard line is "playmore scrub" I think you'll find your preferred activity dying the slow death.

^ Also this.

Where do you all think GGG's money comes from? Old players have paid their buck, they might by 1 or 2 cool things every few months, but they got their stash tabs and skins...now what?

Devs and people on the forums gotta look at the broader picture. How much satisfaction has this game brought players? Especially as they near merciless mode and end game.

I had to take a big break from the game because I was tired of the lack of hybrid builds. Sure you CAN make a hybrid build, but it sucks compared to full life or full ES and both of those require near perfect gear to be 'viable'.

To be able to do any of the cool content which is late game maps, unique maps, atziri, etc. You have to have very specific builds with certain pieces of gear. Which rules out almost all of the "player choice" in the matter.

For instance one of the worst things you can do at the start of any season is make a melee character. Your item rarity will be poop and you will have a hard time once you hit merciless for the first time. So most older players go caster, farm up a tonne of items and then make their GG end-game meta builds.

The new players have it right, this game is a little elitist with not many options available (we'll see what changes in the next expansion).