Game needs Eternals back (and here's why) |Petition|

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Chris wrote:

So we introduced Eternal Orbs in, correct me if I'm wrong, 0.11, it was the one which introduced Anarchy and Onslaught halfway through the open beta in June. Anyway, the intention there was basically, naively, it was initially to help with people trying to get their sockets sorted out. We also noted it had some pretty cool benefits for Exalt crafting, but Exalts were quite rare. It was a relatively naive thing during development thinking it was mostly going to be for sockets and they were priced really really commonly on our internal server, until people were crafting insane items on our internal server. So we realized it had to be quite a bit rarer than an Exalted Orb and so we implemented it as such and put it into the realm and people were very happy because it let them craft new and exciting things. We didn't receive any negative feedback about this.

Time went on and we started to see what we call rare convergence, the rate at which people make really good rares, was really too high. There are a lot of things we could do to curb rare convergence. We didn't want to take the Eternal away; we liked how it was working and so on. Over time we made some of the mods harder to get, we added more mods to dilute the pool out slightly, and a bunch of stuff we were planning to do anyway to make it difficult to get the highest rares... but Eternals kept relentlessly making it straightforward.

We knew we were probably going to turn these off at some point, but what's the right time for it? We kept not turning them off in each set of challenge leagues, realizing the right time is probably when we introduce Maraketh weapons and the new Tier Zero mods, because that's the point where except for some leftover Eternal Orbs in Standard - and there really aren't all that many, because people would spend them when they got them - assis apart from those existing Eternal Orbs, you could slow down the rate at which people got perfect Maraketh weapons and perfect items with Tier Zero mods on them.

That's why we picked The Awakening as the time to turn off Eternal Orbs, and we're quite happy to return them in the future if they're needed; so far, it looks like they're not.

There were two other things as well.

1. Philosophically, Path of Exile should involve you going through multiple different rare items in order to find the best one. The concept of a single bow and crafting just that one item up to bring perfect isn't really orthogonal to how action RPGs work with their crafting. When you're trying to get the perfect sword in Diablo 2 you have to socket quite a lot of swords. Eternals were really meaning it's all done on one item.

2. While we did consider the interaction between master crafting and Eternal Orbs, it was still too easy. A lot of those master meta-mods reacted really brokenly - by broken I mean in an overpowered way - with Eternal Orbs, and that was putting more wealth in the hands of the players who had the Eternals.

Some people like myself are naive in hoping that PoE can be a game where if you put in 3-5k hours on one character it will be near perfect.

First let me point out the crucial part of this, the reason all us naive people can just stop hoping they will ever give a shit about our views. There is also a typo in the transcript that i corrected which makes it look even worse in my eyes.

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Over time we made some of the mods harder to get, we added more mods to dilute the pool out slightly, a bunch of stuff we were planning to do anyway to make it difficult to get the highest rares... but Eternals kept relentlessly making it straightforward.

As you can see, they were already planning to make it more difficult to get the highest rares.

Let that sink in.

They were already planning to make it harder to get the hardest rares.

Game over.


It doesn't matter that pretty much 0% of the population will ever access the top 10% of rare progression. They wanted it more rare. Look at the indexer after an ended league like this one, there are very very few items over 90% perfection potential. I checked some of the most demanded weapon types and didn't find a single one even coming close.

There is also that argument about not picking rares, his point nr. 1. Mirrors are a thousand times worse. In short leagues mirrors make little difference, but neither do eternals when it comes to rare picking because practically no one tries to craft perfect items in short leagues - so they aim to acquire well dropped rares and perfect them = rares are picked anyway. In perm leagues however there is almost no reason to pick many item slots for rares, except if you just like to do it, because of mirrors.

Anyways, they expect a player to put in around 10k hours to farm(not talking trading, i refuse to see this as a trading simulator it is a grinding gear game) the materials to acquire a 95% perfect item. Just one of them. That is what they wanted, and wait they wanted to make it even rarer.

Also, what does it matter if 0.01% of the population abuses trade hard and gets practically perfect items? why not let those people be able to reach it if they put in the time? What is the issue here? They will just move on to the next character if they finish one, that's how these games work just look at d2 and how many characters people almost perfected each season then repeated it the next.

Anyways, just let it sink in, they are almost pure korean style and require 10k farm hours per honestly grinded 95% perfect item.

Really a larger gripe I have is the double-dip they did on this (pretty standard GGG tactic)

They made mods harder to get

Then they added mods to the pool (light radius, reduced attribute, etc)

Then they removed eternals

The mod pool, however, was never reset to the pre-eternal state. Clearly if those strategies were implemented to slow the eternals down (failed) then when the eternals were removed those strategies should also have been removed. Instead they actually further diluted the mod pool when they removed eternals. It's now harder than ever to get the right mods for your top-end rares and you ALSO can't use eternals to speed up the process.

This same double-dipping happens with the passive tree when broken uniques are introduced then later nerf'd. It takes the tree several iterations to get back on par with its previous state when really it should be done concurrently with the unique nerfs.

Alternatively, these changes could be balance checked better (like everything in the game really) and subsequent sweeping nerfs/changes could be avoided.

What he actually said, at least in regards to eternals here, which is more clear after the corrected typo - is that they were intending to do those changes with or without eternals.

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Crackmonster wrote:

What he actually said, at least in regards to eternals here, which is more clear after the corrected typo - is that they were intending to do those changes with or without eternals.

Yeah I guess we're not getting eternals back after that highlight.

Most of us who have jobs tolerate the grind because we enjoy hitting the loot pinata, playing the economy, or theorycrafting. The more GGG makes this game about wasting our time, the less likely we are to continue playing it despite these "rewards."

The two changes that are most annoying to me in this regard are a) the nerf to 77+ map experience and b) removal of eternals. Both of those changes simply punish the players who have already "beaten" the game. Meaning a) is only relevant if you're 95+ and b) if you've figured out how to acquire currency through trade/farm. Shouldn't GGG let the people who have "beaten" their game get their rewards? How is it possible to interpret these changes as "respectful" to those players.

I really wish someone would push GGG to justify or revert these decisions, but most people don't care... Some say they just want red maps even if those maps wouldn't give any exp... others say they wouldn't ever use eternals so who cares... so perverse.

@Crackmonster

I feel this comes down to what I was saying in your other thread: the nature of "rare" affix-based items lends themselves to a never-perfect itemization philosophy, while the nature of "unique" fixed-stat items lends themselves to a rapid-perfection itemization philosophy.

This is why Chris identifies rare convergence as a negative, not a positive. There aren't supposed to be perfect rare items available, and the fact that there pretty much are such items available in Standard is indicative of a colossal fuck-up on GGG's part.

Now consider "unique convergence." It didn't even make sense; uniques, by their nature, have their best mods naturally. Unique convergence isn't a negative, it's essentially synonymous with "unique possession."

I feel whether one sees rare convergence as a "good" or an "evil" is the key philosophical difference between people within this thread.

If you believe rares should never be perfect and always be progressing:
1. The existence of Eternal-crafted BiS rares in Standard seems unhealthy, a symptom of disease within the economy
2. The existence of Mirrors is fine, because rare items should never be perfect anyway, so using a Mirror means getting a copy of the best item on the server, not a perfect one
3. Eternals were a disaster (and good riddance!), because they allow perfection to be reached within a feasible timeframe

On the other hand, if you think you deserve a perfect rare after putting in some arbitrarily large but nevertheless doable amount of time, then:
1. The existence of Eternal-crafted BiS rares in Standard is fine, because it shows people can reach perfection eventually
2. Mirrors are an abomination, because perfect items should exist, therefore Mirrors will only copy perfect items
3. Eternals are something you want back, because they help you get to perfection within a feasible timeframe

However, I disagree with the entitled-to-perfection mentality. Regardless of how much time you've put into the game. I hope at 20k hours players are still striving for perfection and not quite reaching it. Something something hardcore carrots. Where's Charan?

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

@Crackmonster

I feel this comes down to what I was saying in your other thread: the nature of "rare" affix-based items lends themselves to a never-perfect itemization philosophy, while the nature of "unique" fixed-stat items lends themselves to a rapid-perfection itemization philosophy.

This is why Chris identifies rare convergence as a negative, not a positive. There aren't supposed to be perfect rare items available, and the fact that there pretty much are such items available in Standard is indicative of a colossal fuck-up on GGG's part.

Now consider "unique convergence." It didn't even make sense; uniques, by their nature, have their best mods naturally. Unique convergence isn't a negative, it's essentially synonymous with "unique possession."

I feel whether one sees rare convergence as a "good" or an "evil" is the key philosophical difference between people within this thread.

If you believe rares should never be perfect and always be progressing:
1. The existence of Eternal-crafted BiS rares in Standard seems unhealthy, a symptom of disease within the economy
2. The existence of Mirrors is fine, because rare items should never be perfect anyway, so using a Mirror means getting a copy of the best item on the server, not a perfect one
3. Eternals were a disaster (and good riddance!), because they allow perfection to be reached within a feasible timeframe

On the other hand, if you think you deserve a perfect rare after putting in some arbitrarily large but nevertheless doable amount of time, then:
1. The existence of Eternal-crafted BiS rares in Standard is fine, because it shows people can reach perfection eventually
2. Mirrors are an abomination, because perfect items should exist, therefore Mirrors will only copy perfect items
3. Eternals are something you want back, because they help you get to perfection within a feasible timeframe

However, I disagree with the entitled-to-perfection mentality. Regardless of how much time you've put into the game. I hope at 20k hours players are still striving for perfection and not quite reaching it. Something something hardcore carrots. Where's Charan?

The issue here is you are only thinking in lines with a standard league player, the thing is that isn't the only way to play the game hell we don't even know if its still the most popular way to play, either by number of players or by hours played. Still there is a very large amount of players that play in temp leagues that are negatively affected by what has already been done in standard (almost perfect items)

Why should temp league players be punished for something that isn't themetically possible in the temp leagues, the only few cases of "perfect" items coming from temp leagues had to do with glitches or in on particular case (maybe 2) GGG introducing something that created a venue in which players could get extremely rich. For example having the first 20 or whatever atziri kills mtxs or the hideout rollback glitch.

I firmly believe they removed eternals because of fuckups rather then the fact the orb itself is a fuckup. People have suggested many of ways of making eternals "less broken" but still very much have a purpose, especially in temp leagues.

As far as eternals being gone now, what does it really matter for standard? It means no one can ever challenge the top items that are already around, the only case that seems to be the difference is someone crafted a bow and used who knows how many of the non droppable eternals in the process.

I understand your point it just really doesn't apply to temp leagues where the game should be balanced for. I've yet to hear why GGG shouldn't balance the game for the temp leagues and why we can't just let standard be the spot where previous fuckups (in terms of item balance) can remain. I mean the items are already there, except what some new bases with some minor mod improvements?


I don't think entitlement to perfection should necessarily be a thing, but I think being allowed to progressively craft an item over time, without getting "screwed" in the process AND without depending on masters for everything would be ideal. Masters shouldn't be the endgame crafting in PoE, while I like some of the specific mods, like weapon range, bloodmagic and what have you some of the other ones are just a "shitty fix" to a problem that exists post eternals.

Even if you get your fancy 5T1 from the masters now, it doesn't solve many issues especially in the temp leagues. It cost exalts, almost all the larger things in the game cost exalts, the number 1 orb, aside from the smaller brother chaos is traded in exalts. There isn't anything else to horde but exalts, there isn't any incentive to preserve progress, its just exalt. You see a pattern here?

Your 'solution' the divine orb isn't actually a great solution, its probably one of the worst ones because divines can be systematically farmed via vendoring a tabula. Who cares if Chris said they are rarer when there is a very tangable and fairly easy was of farming them. Its essentially the same as if they made an exalt orb divination card that dropped in a place, with a similar drop rate to tabula card, except that largely affects trade as well. Plus in neither case do they entice people to ever trade up exalts to allow for the exalts to flow back into the community.

In the SC temp league people that level masters essentially convert exalts to +3 bows and staves, then sell and repeat the process, the exalts go into making more bows (aka they go to masters) rather then back into the economy or they sit on the player and save up to buy the rather large items, like skyforths or uber gloves, in those cases because there is a method to achieve lots and lots of exalts but nothing else to invest into.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

@Crackmonster

I feel this comes down to what I was saying in your other thread: the nature of "rare" affix-based items lends themselves to a never-perfect itemization philosophy, while the nature of "unique" fixed-stat items lends themselves to a rapid-perfection itemization philosophy.

This is why Chris identifies rare convergence as a negative, not a positive. There aren't supposed to be perfect rare items available, and the fact that there pretty much are such items available in Standard is indicative of a colossal fuck-up on GGG's part.

Now consider "unique convergence." It didn't even make sense; uniques, by their nature, have their best mods naturally. Unique convergence isn't a negative, it's essentially synonymous with "unique possession."

I feel whether one sees rare convergence as a "good" or an "evil" is the key philosophical difference between people within this thread.

If you believe rares should never be perfect and always be progressing:
1. The existence of Eternal-crafted BiS rares in Standard seems unhealthy, a symptom of disease within the economy
2. The existence of Mirrors is fine, because rare items should never be perfect anyway, so using a Mirror means getting a copy of the best item on the server, not a perfect one
3. Eternals were a disaster (and good riddance!), because they allow perfection to be reached within a feasible timeframe

On the other hand, if you think you deserve a perfect rare after putting in some arbitrarily large but nevertheless doable amount of time, then:
1. The existence of Eternal-crafted BiS rares in Standard is fine, because it shows people can reach perfection eventually
2. Mirrors are an abomination, because perfect items should exist, therefore Mirrors will only copy perfect items
3. Eternals are something you want back, because they help you get to perfection within a feasible timeframe

However, I disagree with the entitled-to-perfection mentality. Regardless of how much time you've put into the game. I hope at 20k hours players are still striving for perfection and not quite reaching it. Something something hardcore carrots. Where's Charan?

You know Scrotie, as little as i want to believe GGG thinks like that, i must admit it very much looks like you are right.

From what i gather you also think in similar ways, whereas i am more the type that welcome unique items, but would like to see a blend of maybe 2/3 unique items on a character and 1/3 rare items. Most of my most powerful poe characters also look something like that because despite this game supposedly being one where the rare items are BiS, that isn't the case because most people love powerful and cool unique items. I like a bit of both but i believe unique items are simply cooler, is it cooler itemization overall, than random stat x items.

So i have never really understood the perspective that GGG seems to have. Ah well..

As a funny sidenote i can say this. A unique item system to me isn't about having perfect items in all slots, and when i am part of such systems i can much easier let go of having all affixes rolled extremely well, for example when i refer to D2 i didn't actually have near perfectly rolled unique items and i didn't even want to(ofc i wouldn't mind). A rare item system on the other hand brings out the perfectionist in me, since that is all that is cool about rare items really, that is just what i want, more perfection. Well, i don't think i explained that very well, but in rare systems i care more for relative perfection than i do in a unique item system, funnily enough.

EDIT:

It may sound as though i feel entitled to reach perfection, but that isn't true. In fact i have never said i wanted perfect items, only that i would like after 3-5k hours that i could reach maybe 85-95% perfection on most items. On one character. That's like a year out of my life, do i ask too much? Players like me, when there is so much potential growth left, we keep working on it, and working on it, our minds and desires bent on growing, but we never get there and not even close. We want to get there, because then we are satisfied and feel we have accomplished that character, and then we create a new character. We don't stop playing the game. But when the game already becomes.. mindless and practically impossible at such a low degree of perfection, that leaves us disgruntled. We are stuck because we do not feel we reached where we wanted, yet we also only can think of that character because we are not done with it we feel.

Do i feel entitled? That's a negative phrase, but i do have expectations. I expect the game to have content that is possible to access in its fullest extend, maybe outside some niche things but certainly general itemization, especially an ARPG which is supposed to be for single players fun and practicality.

For example some of the numbers i have mentioned, like eternals with quadrupled rates, that would bring me nowhere near perfection, i don't think i feel entitled to perfection.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

However, I disagree with the entitled-to-perfection mentality. Regardless of how much time you've put into the game. I hope at 20k hours players are still striving for perfection and not quite reaching it. Something something hardcore carrots. Where's Charan?

To the contrary I don't see a problem with reaching ones goals. Games should not present unreachable or unrealistic goals. Crackmonster above said it well.
Progression isn't a binary Instant-Gratification vs Infinite Grind (IMHO Darkshrine was an abomination because it was far too gratifying) - it's a scale.

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Ashen_Shugar_IV wrote:

The time scales for progression get pretty extreme. There are probably no more than 200 (out of millions) legitimate accounts with the wealth+skill to get ahead of that progression curve and "complete" their builds. Are GGG worried about what happens when a player "completes" a build? The rest of the game should (and does imho) stand on its own merits after that point. There are so many cool and fun things to try, each new build starts a new progression curve and a new wealth-sink.
Let's pretend like I was a top 200 account and could "complete" a given build more or less on a whim. Sure it would be fun to play every now and then on the merits of the gameplay/playstyle, plus the change of pace getting to feel powerful, but having "completed" one build I would simply move onto another. Can any of you say you wouldn't do the same? The Build Diversity in PoE is strong enough that you will run out of resources before you run out of cool and fun things to try. If you don't you will probably quit and marginalize your influence on the economy anyway. No big deal, you've likely spent thousands of hours and bought numerous mtx, that's mission accomplished for GGG.
The relationship between long-term progression and customer-retention is also worthy of note but I do not wish digress here.

^That's for Standard League. You can probably reduce that number by an order of magnitude (probably two actually) for Temporary Leagues.

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goetzjam wrote:

Your 'solution' the divine orb isn't actually a great solution, its probably one of the worst ones because divines can be systematically farmed via vendoring a tabula. Who cares if Chris said they are rarer when there is a very tangable and fairly easy was of farming them. Its essentially the same as if they made an exalt orb divination card that dropped in a place, with a similar drop rate to tabula card, except that largely affects trade as well. Plus in neither case do they entice people to ever trade up exalts to allow for the exalts to flow back into the community.

After reading this, I laughed. This was a major problem, because I was in the process of swallowing a large bite of teriyaki chicken. I began to choke. For quite a while. I actually thought to myself something along the lines of "holy fuck goetz killed me."

I'm okay now.

Btw I'm all on Divines as the currency for this, but not particularly the number 2. Could be 3 if Tabula farming is somehow a problem. (I very much doubt it.)

Oh, and goetz, enough with the jokes already.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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goetzjam wrote:

Your 'solution' the divine orb isn't actually a great solution, its probably one of the worst ones because divines can be systematically farmed via vendoring a tabula. Who cares if Chris said they are rarer when there is a very tangable and fairly easy was of farming them. Its essentially the same as if they made an exalt orb divination card that dropped in a place, with a similar drop rate to tabula card, except that largely affects trade as well. Plus in neither case do they entice people to ever trade up exalts to allow for the exalts to flow back into the community.

After reading this, I laughed. This was a major problem, because I was in the process of swallowing a large bite of teriyaki chicken. I began to choke. For quite a while. I actually thought to myself something along the lines of "holy fuck goetz killed me."

I'm okay now.

Btw I'm all on Divines as the currency for this, but not particularly the number 2. Could be 3 if Tabula farming is somehow a problem. (I very much doubt it.)

Oh, and goetz, enough with the jokes already.

You insult me by not coming up with a response rather then you just chocked.

And like always you ignore one of the more important aspects of the topic at hand, like why the hell should temp league players be punished for something they are not likely to be able to achieve?

Increasing the number of divines isn't the solution at all, why on earth should master crafting cost divines for almost everything, it was much better when it was a variety of cost, divines for some, exalts for some and eternals for others.

Your starting to behave like the others and just ignore the points and make smartass remarks, stop that shit.