Personal feedback with suggestions (0.9.5 serie)

I. Intro
II. Imbalances
III. Suggestions
IV. Questions
V. Closing Notes

I. Intro

I'm a lvl 58 AoF Gharbad the Marauder, with Resolute Techniques. This is my second play of Marauder class in total, don't count the full-respecs we had in past.

I've always support any system that is closer to a higher difficulty rather than casual level, and will continue doing this so. My most thoughts are based on higher difficulty on all counts as much as possible.

Before starting, i must admit in all honesty that Avatar of Fire should be nerfed; got overdone with the latest 'a must' passive that boosts 36% Fire Damage with Weapons.

What i'm impressed at most in 0.9.5 serie had been the flask change.

Here are some of things that have been occupying my mind for a long time, and some of them also includes un-answered questions still. Will go section by section.

II. Imbalances

● There are bunch of inefficient, and petty passives in skill tree that could be buffed in order to make them worthy enough getting in my opinion. I'd like to point out by one by the ones that are close to marauder's location;

Flask Recovery: 15% Inc. Life Recovery from Flasks.
If we have a flask that recovers 1k Life, this number would be 1150 now, +150 is like a joke. This should be at least 20% imo.

Enemy Critical Strike Damage Multiplier Reduction: 15% Reduced Critical Strike Damage Multiplier on you.
No words needed i think, as compared to our base Critical Strike Damage Multiplier being 150%, this number changes just nothing. Should be raised at least up to 40% or so.

Critical Strike Damage Multiplier: 15% Inc. Critical Strike Damage Multiplier.
Same as above, so low amount. Should be raised at least up to 30%

Stun Treshold Reduction: 5% Reduced Stun Treshold.
Same as above, insufficient number not worth getting. Should be at least 15%

Stun Duration: 10% Inc. Stun Duration on Enemies.
Neither an exception. Could be raised to 15%. Same goes for 'Two Handed Stun Duration' passive as well. 15% is so low, could be raised to an at least 25%

These were the highlighted ones that lacks efficiency especially.

● Burn Damage: Currently as far as i'm confirmed by konfeta, burn damage is not stackable over time, but resets the same damage output if damage occured, not additively. Thus, when a character starts to get higher APS, the mechanic itself doesn't work in a directly proportional, so this stuation just drowns in with its puke already. No benefit after all, for end game .
This should be done in a manner of each hit giving additively damage per second.

●

"

Chris wrote:

• Slightly reduced monster life on higher difficulties.
• The All Elemental Resistances passive has been improved.

I hate to say, but these 2 have been the backstabbers of 0.9.5 serie, unfortunately. Before these, the game was a bit more challenging, now i could hardly call the game "challenging" in all honesty. Been waiting buffs (defense, evasion, resistance, damage, Chance to hit) to monsters, but this still never happened. Don't know how much more should i imply this desperate stuation, to be taken more seriously, and stop listening all the time whinners, and attend to hardcore players of PoE community, which is one of the main inspiration off the game's existence.

Difficulties do not scale right up with the character. Cruel does not feel like 'Cruel', neither is 'Ruthless'. Have killed many many whites at worst in two-shot, and Brutus no more than 8-10 hit. You oughtta boost monsters a lot more, for us getting the most fun out of PoE.

● The armour penalty never felt with % move speed boosting boots, it should be felt a lot more to encourage players decide to take the 'Armour Master' or not. For now that never ever comes one's mind. It is just on the 'too luxury' side, and definitly not a worthy keystone to get, honestly. I also think characters' base movement speed is too fast that for every dangerous moment we easily could escape, and save our lives.

Remember what gets our tension and excitement to a top level is difficulty, and struggle, which is very much needed in Poe.


III. Suggestions

"

BrecMadak wrote:

Flask recovery rate should be linked with stun treshold mechanic. The higher damage you take, the lower the potential value of a flask would restore you. This would dramatically raise the quality of gameplay on many aspects, such as;

● Stun Treshold Reduction' would make more sense than before, encouraging us to take stun threshold passives, or use 'Stun' gem.
● Will aid us tactically and sensibly.
● A new mod for flasks is born(created?): 'x% less effected by hits while drinking' or you name it, which would affect you lesser by massive hits, and the ratio’s gonna absorb some damage threshold, but not the damage itself that normally you would get handicapped while drinking so.
● 'Stun' gem would make a lot more sense than it is.

Just would like to see flask concept even more diverse than it is already. But then again; would not make close quarters suffer as they are very reliant on non-stop swinging. If only we could overcome this severe stuation, there would be no problem at all.

● Fog of War;

http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk16/BrecMadak/fog.jpg

As you can see the greeny aura mobs are to be seen by me, even i was on the opposite side off of the cave wall. Stuations as this one is just numerous in indoors. I should not be able to see un-explored terrains, but currently the mechanic working as it is likely to be in outdoors, which is just illogical. For better explain, here is a great example of how it must be;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNxhyqEzLh4&feature=player_detailpage#t=19s

See how the fog develops as our character ventures deeply on its path ?

● Altering Quests;

Altering Quests were a part of the Diablo I, it was randomly generated just like as the maps were. This was bringing us a distinctive gameplay eventually. The quests that will appear in a single game are chosen at random. But there is some structure in the way they are chosen. There were some obligatory quests that are always present in every game. The other quests are all organized into groups. From each group a specific number of quests are chosen for every game.

How about implementing this mechanic with a tweak to PoE ? In each difficulty, quests (side quests of corpse) are choosen different than the previous difficulty level, all goes in this style, at the end, one would not cry over that he/she couldnt do x quest before he beated Ruthless f.e. He/She should already had done all the available quests in game within completing Ruthless. This would be splendid for variety, and will dramatically increase the replaybility.

● Cursed Items;

In case most people probably missed this thread: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/10248/highlight/
In my opinion this mechanic would bring us a totally new gameplay experience, please consider this. And, an orb could be created getting us rid of (cursed) stuation.


IV. Questions

● Closest accuracy passives of Marauder splits up as one handed, and two handed accuracy nodes. One Handed gives 12%, while two handed giving you only 6% accuracy. Why ?

● Will arrows have a distance factor by any means ? Do you have any future plans similiar to this ?

● Is it intended that Leap Skill can not be used for jumping over most obstacles, such as hay bundles in indoors, and fences in outdoors ? I think we should able to leap over them no matter how big they are.

●

"

BrecMadak wrote:

After we passed to 0.9.5, when i got to Upper Prison for the first time, the blood pool was not there. So i'm asking this why a bloody awesome thing like this is removed for the sake of ??

I got really dissapointed with this i must say.

Still haven't get any reply to this question, i am actually eagerly waiting about the upcoming answer...

V. Closing Notes

Firstly, thanks for reading till the end. I gave some Diablo I inspired examples for further improving the game , and personally would like to see PoE to become more in the vein of Diablo I, rather than Diablo II. The real deal was the debut if you ask me. Albe it is a bit too long, some of these have been waiting for too long, and they needed to be said after all.

This thread is made by me to improve gameplay further, hence the massive amount of disagreements on most counts.

And, please do not avoid writing whatever your thoughts would ever be.

Cheers !

nice work :)
(exekuted)

Not any single positive/negative reply ? Weird...

*AAArrgh* , the weak one, what do you do down here in hell ?
:)

Alternating Quests
Well, you know these kind of quests got outdated.
Would you enjoy restarting some zones several times ?
Especially if your minions command your way and you have to clear the whole map.

Ok, provided that these quests would also rely on semi-fixed locations within the map, like the Cave. It actually could be fun.

The other bad thing would be super-rare-quests that only had a 1%chance to appear. They make this system intressting, but also very bad when you want to finish an act and you dont get them.

And they are a little bit contra-productive, a programmer will always try to help you find the way into the cow-lvl. They dont want to programm code or quests that never get used.

Like these über-diablos ive never seen. I think the future belongs to Qests with choice, you could choose not to bring back the golden hand, and give this to someone else.


Cursed Items
I can imagine how funny it is when there is no text on them, saying that they are cursed.
Love the nethack-way.
Feel sorry that i missed this topic.

I don't agree with more HP and more move speed penalty requests. More HP only means even more weaker spells, and more movespeed penalty to force players to take a useless keystone that is only on one side of a huge passive tree?! Not a smart thing to do.

I don't like cursed stuff as well, it would needlessly irritate players. Cursed stuff is great for roleplaying games and PoE is an action game.

You mentioned the game being too easy, and alternatively play a melee class with AoF, which atm melee are certainly on the quite strong side.

I believe the real culprit however lies in avatar of fire. Put simply, this skill is virtually out of control in terms of what it gives and the passives up near it really spin this thing wild. Tack on modifiers on gear and it makes the game beyond easy.

I would love to see skills introduced similiarly into the spell style classes that grant such power boosts if they intend to keep this item in as is. Almost all the keystones for a casters currently are useless.

I'm also glad you pointed out the burn damage issue. I had been noticing this recently as my APS was increasing, which really dilutes this secondary effect. Although I'm not sure its something that can be fixed easily.

The flask suggestion while interesting is something I dont think we need. With the current iteration of flasks, many people seem to be having issues with the new system. Making it even more complicated may infact turn some away further. I'm all for difficulty increases but I think this is the wrong way to approach it. People are clamoring now that the flask system is detracting away from the actual gameplay, this would I feel only worsen the issue, especially in group situations where flask issues are worse.

Sadly, I can't say anything about Intro and Imbalances sections because I don't have a clue about them. Since 0.9.4 I haven't been playing the game and before that I wasn't really familiar with the end-game because I resisted to test the balance of end-game until we have Act 3 and the other classes.

Tha game has more important problems than balance right now imo and the things won't get really better with one animator, one sound designer, one or two writers and a contracter composer. But we have 4 balance/qa type guys.

@Suggestions

Fog of War or Line of Sight will be implemented into the game hopefully but it's a low-priority atm. Don't expect it until the release at least.

There are currently no plans for pseudo-randomized quests and I don't expect there will be although they are easier to implement.

We will get something close to cursed items before the release.

@Questions

One-handed and two-handed accuracy passives are probably related to damage factor of them. One-handed should hit more often but deal less damage...

The distance doesn't have any effect on arrows as long as the target is in the range. Only future plan I know of arrows is they will be avoidable by changing your position so that the arrow speed passives will mean something.

You can't jump over them with leap because they are simply there as dead-ends for all classes. It's the decision of level designers. I guess they don't want to give advantage to people with Leap Slam in that situation.

You can rest assured that there will be more changes to almost all areas in the game.

"

Torin wrote:

I don't agree with more HP and more move speed penalty requests. More HP only means even more weaker spells, and more movespeed penalty to force players to take a useless keystone that is only on one side of a huge passive tree?! Not a smart thing to do.

About HP request, i have my reasons, see;


Flasks as these are just too overpowered, both their mod boosts along with life recovery rates should be lowered. Lowering flasks would make Flask passives to be a lot more worthful, which is now quite unworthy, and redundant, obviously. It would be better if this would be done in this way, otherwise it is already guarenteed that nobody never ever will get/need those Flask passives in their game lives.

About move speed request;

There won't be any must have stuation regarding to take Armour Master keystone. There are other options already, such as 'Phase Run' skill, and mods that gives you further movement speed up to +30%. What one else would ask for more ?

It is very absolute that 'Armour Master' is not a worthy keystone since its out, and something must be done to make it to be more worthy !

Fog of War would make for an interesting experience, but it feels like it should be a core system around which other aspects of the gameplay are based on rather than something tacked on later in a patch.

In other words, I wouldn't want to see it implemented just for sake of not seeing enemies behind walls, that would be more annoying than challenging. And since we are so late into development, it would be difficult to tie it into actual gameplay mechanics - if there is FoW as a result of line of sight, I would want an accompanying sound based mechanic as well to complete the feel; as well as AI scripting to account for this sort of stuff.

If implemented now, I think it would make for a great boss mechanic or some event/arena style location - not as part of regular gameplay, but for example a boss fight where the boss makes use of cover to hide from you or reposition. Also, great for interesting PvP arena designs if such are to come.

Or, imagine, a random dungeon where there are doorways that open up and close based on random events or specific objectives. Or if there is a dungeon with some overwhelmingly powerful monster hunting you that you explicitly cannot overpower no matter how OP your build is - the objective would be to evade it while you accomplish some other objective.

Those are the kind of localized areas where Fog of War could be made a great element of gameplay without redesigning aspects of the game as a whole for its sake. Currently, because you can always run back from where you came in from, Fog of War wouldn't add any real sense of risk or danger to the game.



Alternating quests would obviously be great, especially if they came with random events in the field - look at the Diablo 3 gauntlet events where you trigger a trap and have to fight off hordes of enemies; great concept. Their implementation is question of "when" rather than "if" IMO.



Cursed items... well, I like them and hate them. I think that cursed items would be a fantastic dynamic for ladder race events, where every item drop is potentially a game changing event, but in regular gameplay, it would become another annoyance. Especially once the players start stacking up on the currency, so you go "oh, another cursed item, time to burn money to remove it."

If implemented as part of regular gameplay, I would like to see them not as something that you pick up and it sucks for you, but as a trade-off element. Extra power for the negative of being cursed, so to speak. So, for example, a weapon mod that adds extreme damage but drains your health or lowers your defenses.

Or perhaps, in terms of affixes, if you get a cursed "affix," it "opens up" an extra positive affix slot. So, if a regular rare item has a 6 affix cap, and you get a cursed affix, it will now have a positive affix cap. Could make for some extreme items that way.

Also an idea for a new currency item line - curse the item but boost it.



Balance stuff, no real opinion, waiting for the next major content patch before immersing myself in the current gameplay details again.

The difficulty in this game is wrong. Fighting monsters is trivially easy. But figuring out which builds are the best is very complicated.

This may be how Diablo 2 veterans want the game to be, but it should be exactly the other way round. The game should require much more mouse dexterity and split second decisions, while allowing players to get passives based on their own combat style instead of the mathematically highest dps build.

If you're rambo, the stun threshold passives should be better, if you like to divide and conquer you should need the damage passives to make your pokes kill faster. Right now monsters require so little thought to defeat that you just go for the best damage passives.




Disagreed on your other points though: cursed items are a luxury, random quests results in content that will never be seen by a lot of players, and fog of war is unnecessary. It would be nice to have all that but it is by no means critical and GGG has other priorities.