Reasonable people talk about ascendancy classes

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Onirinaute wrote:
Standard players will get a refund so they can switch build pretty easily, besides that they can level a new char to have the class they want for their favourite build (if they haven't got one already, this is standard after all...)


Of course they will, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying maybe some people might not want to play there favourite build as a different class now, to say nothing about having to level a new character to maybe 100 which isn't a trivial time investment.
"Blue warrior shot the food"
Last edited by maxor on Nov 27, 2015, 12:12:45 PM
I get what you're saying but it seems like a minor inconvenient to me, though I may not represent the standard players as a whole.
I have several high level characters on standard, which I would like to respec as the same build if possible, but if it really is suboptimal I have no problem switching to something new.
Knowing in advance that the ascendancy classes are locked by class, I can also (and will probably) level a duelist or a templar to a reasonable level in the next months so that I can try their ascendancy when the expansion comes.
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Entropic_Fire wrote:
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SerahWint wrote:


... I thought this was an RPG. Isn't that the entire point? Creating your own identity in the game by using all the tools you have available?


People still call fallout 4 an RPG for the record, that term doesn't mean much these days. POE has always been more of an action game anyways, it's not like you could ever make choices that impact the direction of the story.


Well, there is the bandits. The game is already more cerebral than any other ARPG in history. If we asked for story choices it could be more like that.

...

People have said almost anything that it has to be said about this. If the point of the expansion is to add class identity, making it available for the rest is not going to happen. Freedom of choice is useless when it doesn't have any consequences (illusion of choice).
Add a Forsaken Masters questline
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2297942
For both laminajara and NeroNoah, there's a difference between general identity and functional identity. As I mention in my post, I've never seen a request for more functional identity. The closest thing to this would be "buff Duelist tree plz!" I have seen some feedback over the last two years about wanting to feel more like a certain identity, and ascendancies still give that feeling even if it's accessible to any base class. And the base class doesn't have any significant difference toward more or less general identity because of ascendancies, though it does give forced functional identity. Choices without consequences are still choices, and just because it doesn't have a functional consequence doesn't mean it doesn't have a general identity consequence. On a general philosophical note, I do think functional identity is more important for definitions of what someone is and does, but it's not clear this was what was requested by players, and already largely accomplished by build-defining skill gems.

For 1453R, I agree that there are only so many practical or party-accepted or worthwhile ways to currently build fireball. You mention ascendancies act like keystones, which is somewhat true, though I think the relation to support gems is more accurate in the fireball example. If they were like keystones I think the argument to have it on the tree is even stronger, but I don't think it's as accurate. A fireball multi-trapper, a LMP/GMP fireballer, a pierce fireballer, a Chain fireballer, or any other kind of fireballer is still possible currently (even if not worthwhile/practical etc), and is possible because of the support gems. Tweaking those gems could easily make any fireballer variation more viable, which is why I think the original skill gem and its supports are what define the build. The downside here is that a change to the chain or GMP gems may make some fireball build more viable but have unintended consequences elsewhere. That's why I do, in fact, really like the idea of ascendancies, because the big ones, by the looks of them so far, equate to a substituted or varied support gem. The downside of having ascendancies accessible is that you can't make any specific ascendancy too strong relative to the rest of the game. But then again, if ascendancies are locked and really strong, you're just as likely to have the original situation that you describe where there's lot of builds, but people only realistically do the Deadeye Fireballer because it's heads above the rest in terms of the way fireball works.

As far as I know, people don't currently bemoan the state of the FotM lack of build diversity as a result of the passive tree, but rather the gems themselves (incinerate opie opie). That's more evidence that they represent the core of build definitions. Ascendancies, locked or unlocked, provide more variations on those definitions, and I like them for that. Locked places the source at the class choice and unlocked places it within the skill tree. The first forces an arbitrary connection between class and ascendancy (the fact that the ascendancy is visually represented on the tree being totally removed from the starting position of the class or anything at all on the skill tree), which limits build flexibility but thereby empowers the original choice. The second does add a weaker connection between original choice and ascendancy, weaker because it's not totally necessary, but maintains the tree's flexibility. I don't think it's a choice between how many builds will exist, but whether we want the flexibility or the initial choice to be more important.
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Biznits wrote:
For both laminajara and NeroNoah, there's a difference between general identity and functional identity. As I mention in my post, I've never seen a request for more functional identity. The closest thing to this would be "buff Duelist tree plz!" I have seen some feedback over the last two years about wanting to feel more like a certain identity, and ascendancies still give that feeling even if it's accessible to any base class. And the base class doesn't have any significant difference toward more or less general identity because of ascendancies, though it does give forced functional identity. Choices without consequences are still choices, and just because it doesn't have a functional consequence doesn't mean it doesn't have a general identity consequence. On a general philosophical note, I do think functional identity is more important for definitions of what someone is and does, but it's not clear this was what was requested by players, and already largely accomplished by build-defining skill gems.

I don't usually crawl forums, so I have no idea what people were asking. But I take GGG at their word when they say that people were asking for this kind of change. And because I understand the reasoning behind this change, I attempt to discuss it with others who either miss the reason completely, or suggest something that goes against it.
I suppose that's the big one. Me, I like the idea of the initial choice having a real impact. I can see where longer-term PoE vets are dismayed by the notion, but my whole gaming history is one of intense altitis and seeking to find novel ways to craft/maximize T2 builds.

Heck, this Ascendancy system may wind up being the only way GGG convinces me to play a Marauder. I hate that class. He's big, he's stupid, he's so generic blah he makes my eyes roll up in their sockets to the point where they're glaring directly at my brain every time I hear his spiel in char creation, and he has less pants than the Templar. That and anything he can do is done better by either the Templar or the Duelist, both of whom have much better starts and either amusing Scottish accents or pants.

But maybe now I'll have a reason to run the Marauder. Having that reason to run the big dumb brute, even theoretically, is honestly exciting. Maybe I'll finally get a Shadow or a Duelist up over lvl30. Maybe I'll finally find a use for that crazy* spell staff I've wanted to stuff on a build ever since it dropped. Sure, I could do those things with whichever-one-you-like Ascendancies, too...but somehow it just tarnishes the appeal for me.

And it means I still wouldn't have any damn reason to play Loincloth Man.




*crazy for me, not for anybody else. 77% spell damage, 19% fire damage, ~20-50 fire damage added to spells. I am very seriously contemplating a Three Dragons Shockcinerate build with it, or maybe something with Flame Surge, but it's hard to start planning a new character with the Talisman Table Flip coming in two weeks. BLRRGH.
Last edited by 1453R on Nov 27, 2015, 2:57:58 PM
Two things:

1. No one has seen ascendancy's talent / skill tree. Right now you're assuming all the passives will stay as is, which is unlikely to be the case. You can assess the ascendancy "classes" and their advantages without looking at the all tree. (Still I grant you that some new talents look pretty strong)

2. Let's get real here boys regarding diversity. You don't currently roll a duelist to make a summoner and you don't roll a witch to make an RT reave, and for good reasons. This is to illustrate than the so-called diversity is already limited anyway. Not debating if the new system is a good idea but rather pin-pointing that we're already somewhat forced to choose between 2 classes at best for each specs / spells. Maybe 3 though. Let's hope that will continue to be the case as I agree with you and wouldn't like to have only 1 choice each time.

/cookies

Mischief
I haven't read this entire thread, and was originally going to make this post into its own thread. But I decided thread spam is bad, so I should just stick it here instead. I like this thread's title.

One unfortunate thing about this whole "build diversity and ascendancy classes" topic is that the term "build diversity" is a little too broad, covering various concepts in such a way that the phrase can mean different things to different people. As the discussion evolves I see people bringing in new terms, such as ZiggyD's video mentioning "flexibility" which people then repeat in posts which allows some of the terminological confusion to dissipate. Still, it's a very confusing topic, because of the confusion regarding the language involved, which I feel is the reason why it's become such a hot topic on these forums lately.

So I plan on going over three concepts in this post, which I'll define as:
1. (Build) Diversity: The number of individually distinct builds which compete for the highest tiers of min-maxed play
2. Flexibility: The ability to make alterations to a build with minimal impact on its performance
3. Divergence: Differences in valuation of gear, gems, or passives between various builds

Diversity
I really see no evidence whatsoever that Ascendancy classes will significantly impact the degree of build diversity in the game.

Don't misread me here, I am not saying Ascendancy classes will hurt diversity either. I think they're going to be essentially a big fat zero in the diversity department. You know the diversity we have now? Expect more of the same.

The reason is this: Imagine you have this build which uses an AoE skill, and thus desires both the Templar and Witch AoE clusters. Currently, you can build this as either a Witch or a Templar fairly easily (or maybe even as a Shadow, Marauder, or Scion), but in practice almost all of the competitive players pick one class for the task, because either the first five nodes of the Witch are better than the first five nodes of the Templar, or because some other distant option (*cough* Scion) is better overall. To the min-max mindset, even these tiny details are important, so the one min-max option is the overwhelmingly popular choice.

Ascendancy classes neither harm nor help this. There might be a new answer, but at the end of the day the min-maxers are going to evaluate the various Ascendancy tree options, figure out which is the winner, and that's going to be the popular choice. You go from one version of the build being the popular winner, to one version of the build being the popular winner.

The only way this wouldn't happen is if at least two of the Ascendancy classes, combined with the first five nodes of the class, are overall so well-balanced between two of the options that even the community hivemind remains befuddled as to which one trumps which. I consider that roughly as likely as GGG suddenly refining the balance on skill gems to the point that it's impossible for us to tell whether Incinerate is better than Fireball. By which I mean it isn't going to happen.

So yeah, bad news people who were hoping for a more diverse metagame with a broader choice of Flavor-of-the-Months to pick from. Things will most likely remain business as usual.

Of course, this is only for the really competitive, top-of-ladder types. And those copying them. The popularity of builds has little to do with the absolute viability of said builds; instead, it has to do with how builds perform relative to other potential options.

Flexibility
What about players who aren't trying to be so competitive? To continue the bad news train, ZiggyD was right about one thing: flexibility gets hit hard by Ascendancy classes.

To take our Templar vs Witch AoE build from the previous section: before, the cost of picking the suboptimal choice, just to get their character model and voiceover for personal preference, was relatively minimal. You're trading five starting nodes from one class, for five starting nodes from another. Of course some min-maxer might come along and point out that you're doing it wrong, but the cost of your wrong could easily be a price you wouldn't mind paying.

Ascendancy changes that forever. The cost is now potentially much higher; in almost all cases, much much higher. Picking a favored class over the optimal class now carries a much stiffer price, one which a player is much more likely to end up caring about.

Expect the occasional QQ thread about voice acting or character models which players feel stuck with, when previously they'd just pick another class instead.

Divergence
Finally, I get to the good news. The exciting thing about Ascendancy classes for me is that they are an excellent tool for increasing divergence within the game.

Let's take an example item: Terminus Est. Right now, trying to make Terminus Est work for you is pretty darn difficult. However, after Ascendancy, there is a tool to make it much, much more likely to work: the Assassin class and its Deadly Infusion passive. Get its base critical strike chance up to 8% or more and it's no longer unreasonable to imagine endless Flicker Strike chains being possible with Terminus Est.

That said, does this make Terminus Est top-tier? I highly doubt it. It's almost definitely not going to be the best build on the block, "not viable" according to the competitive types. I doubt it would be massively popular.

But it would have a niche.

As a more practical example, let's go back to that Templar/Witch AoE tree, used as an example in the first section. Although the min-maxers would probably look at one of the two options and declare it superior, this doesn't mean that the ability to make the "suboptimal" choice would go away. Because the Templar and Witch Ascendancy passives would provide different benefits and have different weaknesses, what would probably happen is that the passive trees for the two builds would now diverge. Maybe the Inquisitor version tries to make heavy use of Inevitable Judgment and takes a lot more crit nodes as a result, while the Witch version picks up more defensive nodes because it doesn't deem crit worth pursuing for whatever reason. It's hard to predict exactly how things like this will turn out, but the point is that you'll have noticeably different answers to choices starting at one class as opposed to starting at another, which really means that the entire concept of two classes with the exact same tree is going to be replaced with a more situational perspective.

The economic impact of this increase in divergence is going to be beautiful. Where before you had near-zero demand for Terminus Est or "Juggernaut chests" (all Armour, no Life), now you'll have some interested buyers. Priorities will be shifting all over the place. And the common core of current "good items," which before you could incorporate into pretty much any build to make it better, will be less effective at working for multiple builds. Specialization will go up and the demand for items will broaden.

You'll even have a few builds, fringe stuff which isn't quite in the top tier, benefiting heavily, not because it's a good target to become popular, but precisely because the build isn't popular; it can then itemize on the cheap due to a combination of low demand for its gear and passable efficiency, allowing some metagamers to progress extremely quickly with some market-targeted theorycrafting.

Going back to the diversity thing: No, you won't have more builds considered top-tier... but between those builds, they'll use more different passives, more different gems, more different gear, and play more differently than they do now.

And that's the real benefit of Ascendancy classes, and why I consider them an excellent addition to the game. Thank you for reading.
When Stephen Colbert was killed by HYDRA's Project Insight in 2014, the comedy world lost a hero. Since his life model decoy isn't up to the task, please do not mistake my performance as political discussion. I'm just doing what Steve would have wanted.
Last edited by ScrotieMcB on Nov 28, 2015, 1:52:59 AM
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ScrotieMcB wrote:
Thank you for reading.


Well written. Agreed with all points except maybe the last one. I'd default to cautious optimism until we see this in action.
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Biznits wrote:
For both laminajara and NeroNoah, there's a difference between general identity and functional identity. As I mention in my post, I've never seen a request for more functional identity. The closest thing to this would be "buff Duelist tree plz!"




its true those things are rarely asked for, but its been a logical implication in a lot of things we have been discussing on the forums. Not the want for it but the need for it, what the game lacks as a result of not having it and what other issues having it would solve, issues that we do discuss like why we chose a given class and what shapes the reality of current build options.


Just talking in theory, if you have a system where you have a choice of 2 classes but theres virtually no difference in them at all then its not a very interesting choice. Why bother having the choice at all? This is a bad situation, you have a choice but its essentially meaningless.

If you have a choice of 2 classes and the difference is really big then theres the chance 1 of the 2 options is simply better and you always pick that one. Again that would be a bad situation, thats a fake choice, also meaningless.

right now we sort of have both of those bad things at the same time, we pick classes on the start nodes, and yet the start nodes dont make a big difference at all. If you couldnt see any numbers on your display you couldnt tell which start nodes you had by playing, the difference in life or damage or defense, whatever it is it would be too small to perceive from playing the game. Yet we build by numbers, we will chose build variant A over variant B because it has 3% more life and 2% more increased damage, despite that difference being entirely invisible in practice against mobs and we will chose it every single time. So there is 0 real difference in starting as a shadow or a ranger in X build, your given a class choice thats meaningless, and yet you ALWAYS pick ranger, so there isnt even diversity for you within that meaningless choice.

People havent been asking for this solution, but the problems have been an inescapable elephant that many discussions have danced around. Maybe it wasnt directly referenced but there was an elephant shaped gap somewhere in the middle of it all that I think many people were noticing.

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