Endgame vs. levelling

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kamil1210 wrote:

I see some misunderstaing in your post.

1. d2 had no problem with endgame because it had none lol.

2. If player don't like doing the same thing again and he leave afte beating normal, he will think that the completed game and be happy, if he would stay to maps he would leave be then becase maps are even more repetative than normal-cruel-merciless.

GGG need players who like repetative content because they stay and play game and buy MTX points.

3. If someone don't like leveling and want endgame maps he can get to them in 12 hours if he know game well.

You search for problems when there is none.

1. End game is basically, mannered PvP and not-rmt-pve

2. GGG don't need retarded people, they need to create a great game, so people enjoy it, and buy MTX.

3. how one person can level into endgame maps, and level on it, whithou leveling? lol

hmm i dont fully agree on whats written in that article. like saying UO has no endgame but well, thats not what were talking about here.

poe imo is a special candidate in the "endgame-category". in poe there is not just "endgame" in term of "reaching max level and own pvp or farm to get rich", in poe endgame is a very elastic term and each player has its own definition.

for some endgame is mapping/farming, for others endgame are races and leagues, then we have a bunch of pvp'ers and the rarest i guess are just the people that enjoy playing a game with friends. in poe endgame is not only defined by reaching a specific point with your character, it can also be reaching a point where you have the knowledge and skill to compete/participate in other modes of the game (i.e. races).

for those that see the endgame in farming as much loot and currency as possible i guess it doesnt make much difference what they are farming, if thats maps, zones or whatever. also they have no interest in a storyline or whatsoever.

to get more diversity in means of endgame the actual game doesnt have to get changed/reworked at all, because poe already has a feature that allows infinite addition without changing the basegame, forcing players to play unwanted content; its the mapping device.

it offers so many possibilities. we already had a short chat in another thread recently about puzzles in poe. many disliked it but also many would like to have it. thats where the mapping devices comes in handy, it gives every player the option to choose what content they would like to play.

this can get expanded infinitely with whatever gamemode we/the devs can think of, allowing the creation of a game with the widest variety of endgame(s).

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rushjo wrote:

in poe there is not just "endgame" in term of "reaching max level and own pvp or farm to get rich", in poe endgame is a very elastic term and each player has its own definition.

for some endgame is mapping/farming, for others endgame are races and leagues, then we have a bunch of pvp'ers and the rarest i guess are just the people that enjoy playing a game with friends.

As I said: its all about what each one is aiming for - and (also again): why...
"Your" view about a game is majorly about what you expect to reach.

For me, racing (as a whole) doesnt mean endgame, mainly because its not really a longterm goal.
On the other hand - if the goal is reaching max level, and the game itself is fun and enjoyment to me... shouldnt it be more fun as longer it takes? ^^

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Mr_Cee wrote:

mainly because its not really a longterm goal.

oh racing has a big longterm goal, just not the race itself but your performance. practicing to getting better in races takes a long time for the most players and the ultimate longterm goal could be wining a race by overall rank. maybe thats no longterm goal from your personal view but it exists.

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Mr_Cee wrote:

shouldnt it be more fun as longer it takes? ^^

depends. im not sure how much this question fits to an arpg like poe. its not like youve got tons of quests to do which give you diversity (nearly all the quests we have in the game are mandatory) and with the procedural content creation poe is using, they kinda already maxxed out the possibilities of getting variation in the leveldesign without going totally random.
poe will always be a big grind, no matter what.

the only way i see to make the leveling process not as repetitive as it is now is when they have all 10 acts done and get rid of the difficulties. so you finish the game in one "playtrough" from act1-10 (like act1-4 are normal, 5-7 cruel 8-10 merci).

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Mr_Cee wrote:

As for streamers, I'd say he 'competes' for publicity (in absolutely no negative way) And even without this, different mindsets across the whole board between casualists like Charan and this top-end also include people that dont aim for any 'real' competition at all.

Who cares about streaming? It can apply to Ghudda, but not to a lot of other players that like to make builds (like Boem).

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Mr_Cee wrote:

Maps are less limited, given the fact that they stand outside of a story 'corsage' - but I dont see what influence this makes on experience? (you also have a free choice of all regular areas once you have their wp's) And maps are still 'limited' by their binding to a preset layout... (opposite to the previous beta-endgame (maelström), where each sequel are was completely random)
Finally: I prefer to have 'more control', so I also prefer less randomness here. I'm not a 'fan' of massive guest monster appearances nor of a widely free choosen monster variety in maps.

A choice that no one would use is not a choice (well, maybe people doing MF, but come on...). Again everything has limits, maps has less, and most people seem to love maps, and take the first part of the game as a filler. All regular areas could be made more enticing.

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Mr_Cee wrote:

Its not that far away from each other, at least for the late versions of D2 with its synergies... You there have/had 98 levelups, and many builds with lots of this synergies struggled on the 'upper end'. Here in POE instead, it doesnt matter at all if the 'important keystone' is taken as 50th or 75th or 111th point, but of course you have to route to it/them first and obviously have to stay in the limit.

I'll take your word on that, but I still think that those last points could be put elsewhere. It's a build based game after all. Let people complete their builds, and the rest of the time should be refining their items.

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Mr_Cee wrote:

Any opinion is welcome (even if it sometimes doesnt sound so), but claims and demands are hardly valid if they base on the 'insight' thast the game should change in a way it never wanted to be. You can turn a chessboard in to a backgammon one, but you should not longer call it chess then. The game designed by GGG followes an idea, and even as its growth with updates seems to dilute that idea partially, that pristine idea is IMHO still there.

Well, here is the idea of the game. And here is the idea of endgame. It has a non map endgame section to see their vision.

See how it includes farming high level areas, bosses and rerolling (even PVP, :P). I don't know what of the things I've questioned or suggested goes against the idea of the game. Even the "let people get all their passives more easily" idea doesn't go against that, and that was more of a random suggestion, rather than the core of the thread.

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rushjo wrote:

to get more diversity in means of endgame the actual game doesnt have to get changed/reworked at all, because poe already has a feature that allows infinite addition without changing the basegame, forcing players to play unwanted content; its the mapping device.

I want to say that almost all of your post was spot on (specially about how there are always endgames, that it doesn't compare directly to PoE, etc.), but I want to write about this bit.

First, the actual game must be changed from time to time to add new acts, league material, side areas, randomized quests, etc. Maps can't change that fact.

Here is where my main points come:

-Changing the base game could be done in a way that saves more effort, letting go of the difficulty structure.

-Endgame comes relatively late.

-The base game could be made more of a choice with some changes. It gets old more easily than maps.

-Merciless areas should be relatively flat in alvl and difficulty to avoid wasting content.

I wrote many possible solutions (be mapping or making the acts somewhat of a sandbox to level the extra levels and then farm in parallel to maps), but they are not the only ones.

Extra: Vasman in Torchlight 1 gives mysterious map scrolls. Those are puzzles in ARPGs done well. Also, TL1 has a lot of traps and secret areas that could be imitated. Relevant video.

Bump for the hell of it (I'm bored)

Really good points. At least faster access to end-game would be really awesome. Maybe remove one difficulty when next access comes? Didnt GGG say they are going to remove all difficulties when 10 acts released? So I guess it would make sense if they remove one difficulty when 5 is released?

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Therier wrote:

Really good points. At least faster access to end-game would be really awesome. Maybe remove one difficulty when next access comes? Didnt GGG say they are going to remove all difficulties when 10 acts released? So I guess it would make sense if they remove one difficulty when 5 is released?

Yes, it would made sense, but I argued in my post that creating ways to scale the world could be more of a long term solution, rather than trimming or expanding areas and difficulties each time a new act comes. It's a lot of development effort each time that is not needed, frankly.

okay, let me try to put this into as mild language as possible

I really don't like that suggestion. endgame is called 'endgame' for a reason.
it comes at the end after a considerable amount of 'early game' and 'mid game'

its true for chess, monopoly, many other games and most success stories in life that don't involve instant gratification things like lottery tickets. you work hard, then you play hard. you work 5+ days as week and play maybe a couple. that's normal- that's life- [casual]that's how it was and that's how it is[/casual]

there is absolutely nothing wrong with you not enjoying the early game and mid game as much as the endgame. that's natural. there also isnt anything wrong with a game changing up a few things at the end. it's natural as well. rules on high end are often very different than on low end.

extending the endgame devalues the concept of endgame in general.

if someone needs a 'hook' to repeat the content on cruel/merciless, then sorry, the game is not for them. bye felicia. if one cant grind out the difficulties, the endgame - which consists almost solely of grinding limited tilesets - will VERY likely not be for them as well.

a 'faster access' to endgame is also stupid imo. lets put a 12 year old kid in college, that sounds like a good idea. and why does there need a faster access to the endgame when dedicated players can get to level 80 in a day ?

[unless we're talking about casuals, but then we shouldnt be talking about it at all. poe is a game about grind. theres grind in many places both in endgame and 'earlier' game. why try to make it out to be something its not ? plenty of games out there already get down on their knees and deflate your junk from the opening scene. please dont try to make poe that game. I dont CARE about players retention. players who played the game for 2+ years will not recommend poe to their casual friends. I know I won't]

Do you know what's the difference between chess endgame (or Diablo 2's one, by the way) and poe's?

The former one is just an emergent property of the game, while the second one is different by design. In chess, early, mid and endgame are all important and engaging, while PoE is unfocused because it has to do two different things at the same time. GGG can't be that centered on the endgame because at the end, only a small fraction of the player base (even those who pay the bills) gets to maps. See how many expansions actually centered around it to see the ROI for that.

There is something wrong with not enjoying the earlier parts of the game. There is nothing natural about it, it's just a consequence of the design of the game. This happens in a high number of MMOs. It always end the same, wasting resources (see article that linked in my post if you didn't read it yet, and research). It's not the only alternative, there are other games out there that have made different stuff and mitigate or even eliminate the whole "endgame thing".

Rather than "extending" the endgame, I'm arguing that the transition to it should be more smooth and engaging. It's all about player psychology. No one should think too much about the difference. It should be as pleasant as possible.

Diablo 2 is an example of that, having an endgame in its last difficulty that people didn't think too much about (hell, some people have said that there is no endgame in that game, see this thread). Also, you had things like Grush if you didn't cared about levelling.

It's not even just about casuals at the end of the day. Read the thread. What kind of people comes here and agrees about this. There is nothing hardcore about enduring some unengaging portion of the game before the "best" part comes. If you came here just to criticize something because it caters to the casuals, well, you are just being irrational about it. It's not just about them (even if it benefits them).

If maps are just the same, why people care a lot more about them than the rest of the game? What's there that people prefer to center on that rather than the rest? You are not addressing that and you are just saying "no, it's just more repetition". We know it's not the same, and why. It's a mere deflection to justify the status quo, ignoring the fact that GGG can't serve to different crowds (and no, they don't have any choice on this) expecting different things without compromising, and impacting both at the same time.

In the same way HC and SC leagues will be mostly same from now on to make them better, Levelling and Endgame should be less different to save resources and make a better game overall, rather than an inferior, fragmented game.

Disagree if you wish with my suggestions (they are not even the core of the post), the 2/3 that are feedback are the important stuff. Current situation is wasteful.