SET FREE THE ASCENDANCY POINTS (or rework the lab) [New ascension methods/lab rework ideas]

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gibbousmoon wrote:

My irony meter just exploded.

Good for you.

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Fruz wrote:

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You are taking a little bit out of context what I said.



If buying runs of wrv content is for you or GGG "playing the game", then you are right. That's the half that goes into the "non playing the game" category. At least in my opinion. Because you are getting someone else to walk you through the games content. If we are gonna tell new players get good or pay some dude to go it for you, then, yeah, we have different opinions on this one.



Now about the economy, the economy is part of the game. I love games that have large economy development. That's the part that goes into the "the client is not even remotely close to an acceptable level to be taken seriously".

Trading in PoE is bad in every possible way.

Games with auction houses and automated offline trading, bring more player interaction than this thing that GGG calls trade system. Even in an automated auction house, you can see who posted what and at what price. Then you can contact those players and offer real trades and even long term "business agreements". That's some real player interaction for you.

I've been there, I've done that. If I needed x item, and I saw some player selling that, and I see myself in need of more of that item in the future, I can contact the dude, and offer a better price, in exchange for the future x amount of that item he would've otherwise posted for a lower profit and probably even a fee.

In a game, the more safe and open the trade system is, chances are you are gonna end up having longer chats, and even making friends. The dude you make a deal today, can be a player you do a map with another.

On the other hand, this poe.trade is weird to use, it has no penalty for posting items you don't wanna sell, and you are lucky if the dude is online, and really wants to trade, and so on and on, by the time you get to make a trade, you don't want to live anymore. Check trade related post, even successful trades end up in the minimum interaction to get the deal done and go on with your life.



As far as the items go, you are right, you have to buy uniques, or some specific rares. That's part of the game. I'm fine with that, the problem is that the trade system is bad, not that I have to trade.

BUT I think you are wrong or we are using some terms in a different way. While items are items, and skill gems are skills gems, and cards are cards, almost everything else from scrolls to orbs can be considered "currency".

Tho in PoE there's no "real currency" in the sense we use the world in other games (or in real life) that have gold or money or wrv. In PoE every exchange is to an extent a trade between "items". Chaos orbs are items, you can use them, if you have rare items but you need chaos orbs for wrv reason, you can't really say that you sold a rare item for x amount of chaos orbs in the same sense that you sell an item for gold or something in real life for money.

Yes, you can use the vendors, they are like a limit, but depending the situation of the economy and the meta, a type of orb can be given a higher value by the players than the vendors rates. Or totally ignored just for convenience, i. e., even at strict vendor rate most people won't accept a shit load of portal scrolls instead of 1 or 2 orb of higher value. Even if the scrolls in that amount can be traded for the exact number of those orbs.



So, when you say "Not everything in this game is about making currency, I have to partially disagree. This game is pretty much in a broad sense everything about economy.

When you level up, you are investing time for experience, and there are different methods to go about it, but at the end of the day, the more efficient one, would be the one that lets you get to a higher level in a shorter amount of time, a.k.a., the best exp per hour method.

On top of that, at some point you may need to craft or "trade for" an item in order to survive or advance faster, then again, the crafting / trading (which both require "currency" or "trading") has an affect in your exp per hour, and for that reason will help you level up faster or not.

When you say "just playing and salvaging loots, using some recipes to get some orbs and selling on the market or using the few good drops is already enough to have a nice gaming experience." That has everything to do with "currency" and it is restricted for most of the player base by the obscure trading system. Salvaging loot is making "currency", the same goes for the "recipes", if those are the best methods, or the more efficient way, that is another problem.

The fact that in general some orbs are used as a "main exchange medium", does not mean that those orbs are just plain "currency", that's way I have to put the quotes every time I use the word "currency" and why it's kind of confusing the whole situation.

Now, when I talk about "ez currency" or "scamming", may as it be probably inevitable, in an open automated auction house kind of system, you can't just spam items at low prices to lure new players, because odds are, someone would see your items listed and will buy everything you put there at an absurd price, and you can't do shit, unless the system sucks.

But in poe.trade, when you are under no obligation, you can go and do wrv you want, risk free, not only "fishing for victims", but at the same time, distorting the prices all accross the board. You are ruining the system, that's weak by design, for everyone.



This has nothing to do with the fact that, you are right when you say some player may study the system, the crafting, the vendors, recipes, and so on, and then figure out a method to transform some kind of item into another for the purpose of usig that to craft certain items that given the odds can give him a huge profit.

That's the knowledge that should be rewarded, and there's no even a scam in that situation, if a player, in a open market context by paying everyone, and even good players, what they, and in general the market, thinks is the right price for wrv item, and for some kind of method he's able to turn that into profit, then, by all means, he deserves the profit, and he deserves to get as rich as fuck, for as long as he can, until more players discover the strategy, or he himself makes a reddit trade about it.

Now, that's the digital swag that we should reward.



How does it work in real PoE life?

Most player don't even trade.

While players that know how to lvl up fast enough to get to some point when they can farm in order to either get items to "sell" or get better "currency", or faster, this kind of player from an absurd point in the league, like week 1 for sure, can get their economy going so much early than the rest, that for them, buying uniques is trivial, and getting huge amounts of maps, enchants, wrv, is no problem.



So what's the problem? Why the other smart market dude is a genius and the god leveling dude is a bad person. Well, in part he's not. In theory he deserves what he's got.

The problem is that between this "Tier 1" players, and the bottom of even non casual players, there's so many sub levels, that often get forgotten, that the huge majority of the player base can't keep up at an even pseudo decent pace.

And an top of that, this Tier 1 of players, the more they play the more they interact with each other, the more they can cooperate, the more the gap gets bigger, the easier the game seems from there up high in Tier 1 Heaven.

Which in turn, on the contrary of the market genius, pushes for the complain that the game is too ez, which if it not solved at the proper level, it only snowballs the situation, making it worse for the rest and not really that different for the one the change was meant to please.



At some point, when the more interesting thing the games has going for it is the skill tree, the endless combinations, and so on, you are lucky if you get a couple char to a relative decent level, you are very lucky if you get them in a proper build with nice gear, and you are shit out of luck if you belong in the huge portion of the player base, that would benefit from some trade improvements by having the information and the items closer, and from some breaks in the road to at least have a chance to taste a bit what the end game is about.



If you think about it, the huge, huge, majority of the players of PoE have never played a map. And now they keep adding late game content, which the huge, huge, majority of the players of PoE will never see. While putting more obstacles in the path to even the chars progression.

So it feels like they really think the superfans are ruling the party, while the rest, if they are not gonna go past act 1, if they pay something, good, if not, they really don't matter.

The f2p model is kinda supposed to get as many players as possible, while not a all cost, the more players the more chances people will stick around.

This whole year was a total disappointment from a non elite player, and the future has vague announces about the late game, yes, the LATE GAME.

Does not seem to be the way to grow the player base.

But what should I know.

In fact, at this point even if i like to write and discuss, this PoE situation is more of a puzzle trying to get what is GGG trying to pull off, rather than a worry about the game itself.

This year at one point got me hyped, now even with the news, I don't see at all, any kind of light at the end of the tunnel.

It's so sad, I went from SC to HC this year, and I took my rips with honor. Now I came back from HC to SC, only to delete my char after the first death. IDK if that's more sad or ironic.

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ShaUrley wrote:

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bummmb wrote:

I ask the 1%, or anyone that thinks the Lab is fine, and everything is fine, what do you have in stake in this debate when you can go from normal to maps in 1 day.

Somewhat ironically, Chris justified the normal Lab by the desire to give those players who (made it past Brutus but) stopped playing the game after normal difficulty a proper experience of the Lab. Not sure, myself, that GGG was doing them any favors.

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Fruz wrote:

By the way, what are scared of, using a fake account to post ?

If it is a fake account, possibly s/he doesn't want to be subjected to yet more ad hominem attacks from Lab supporters?

Yes, I read that, and then i read some SC players asking for checkpoints in the lab. Like they wanna play SC, and they get HC. I wanna play HC, so if the lab is meant to be some HC for SC, it's just more HC for HC?

Last i heard many players, even streamers, for various reasons, not only the lab, are going from HC to SC. And all this happens just when i decided to go from SC to HC. I swear, I played a bit a SC char after all that, and I had to deleted it after the first death. I could not press the continue and keep playing knowing my char had died. Sad, kind of funny, maybe a little nuts, but true.

Feelsbad.



And over the fake accounts, I create alts, to limit myself in the forums. Since I don't remember the mail, I can't log in after the server logs me off. So I save myself from staying in the forums more time than it deserves. If i use the forums from my main account, there's no signal that "you should stop going to the PoE forums until you really want to say something".

Plus, GGG can get to my main account if they want, so there's no fooling them, and I don't need some of the elements that lurk around these forums to have any more information about me than wrv I decide to give.

So worry not, I don't create alts to vote 2 times in a straw poll.

Pretty well written and solid posts mr.unknown even if (extensive) parts of them are somewhat offtopic (even deserving threads of their own) they are still a pretty good read.

Unfortunately ive already been that road (the TL:DR and the messages of the first post are basically things i already written a while ago !), but it seems that reasoning has no power whatsoever in this "debate". Appreciate your effort though, maybe hearing it twice (and much more well written) and from another person it might make more sense to all.

I have one question though, what "wrv" stands for? Im sure i missed it if it was explained or its a common abbreviation.

@turtledove i added your suggestion as a note* on number II.

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Prebornfetus wrote:

This thread is never going away ever. 187 pages of hope

I had an unaturally big and long smile on my face after reading this, but the truth is GGG's silence/ignore policy doesnt allow for a lot of optimism. 40days more i guess.

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bummmb wrote:

If by trade you meant getting rushed, I agree it's not really playing the game, I dislike those ways of doing, but people do whatever they want, it's not really my problem.

About the pseudo Auction House that we already have, it's very tedious without premium tabs and we need an IG interface to look for items I think, but basically you can always check what items is there and the sorting by price is automatic.
Basically, the differences that you are mentioning are that it does not assist you, and it's kinda consistent with what Wraeclast is.
I think that the whole point ( originally ) is that the game's context is a tough world, and so is the economy since it's supposed to be a fight for survival. It does create the cases that you mentioned.
I would not be against some place where some guy is vending items on the market for you and some of the penalties that you are talking about would be usable, that would work, and would fit there.

This game is a lot about the economy, I agree, but what I meant is that you don't need to heavily trade to play, you can spend a minimum of time trading / playing the market.
But of course you will be accumulating wealth, even at a slower pace.

I'm not familiar with that selling strategy that you mentioned to lure new players to be honest, do you mean that you put a very cheap item to get a player to contact you, and then try to scam him with something else ?


The advantage of the 1 week set up economy is important for ladder matters I think, and I don't think that it's going anywhere, I do find it kinda interesting tbh.


You are right about the gap between t1 players and the rest getting bigger as the league goes on ... however ... they are so many cheap uniques and items on the market, that it becomes ridiculously easy to get something good for peanuts during leveling, that anybody can get.
Gearing had never been as easy as in Perandus I think, and now it's a little bit less, but we're still in a pinata league.


The content offers so much for new players, like there is so much information to process ( and I find the lore and story great personally, its an immersive universe to me, I really spend some extra time in there the first times through ), it is so rich that I'm wondering if adding more would not make it more difficult or more confusing for them.
The endgame needs some work though, and people are getting tired of the 3 difficulties I guess.





The question about the fake account wasn't about polls at all, I was just curious, you have a log to say, that brings a lot to the thread so I was wondering why. It makes sense now, never thought about that.

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I have one question though, what "wrv" stands for? Im sure i missed it if it was explained or its a common abbreviation.

He means "whatever" or "whenever" and similar words. The usually abbreviation is "w/e," though.

@Regulator, I copied this from another thread

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mark1030 wrote:

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All it would take is to make the labyrinth a side area like D3's pony-land. Find an alternative to that frogger BS to access the ascendancy classes and everyone is happy! (Except the bully brigade of course, as they derive happiness from others' sadness)

Yes, they should make an alternate way to get ascendency points. Have the Sarn Arena doors lock when 20 people have entered and battle it out. Last one standing gets Ascendency points. Players who already have them aren't allowed into the Arena to grief other players by knocking them out of the battle.

Seems fair enough. No more boring frogger or Izaro one shots. Plus it makes PvP relevant again.

Actually, I don't like PVP play but like this unique suggestion! It would be far superior to the current labyrinth. (Of course, almost anything would be better than that boring tedious monstrosity.) I'm going to copy this to Regulator's thread in the hopes that he adds it to the list.

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Turtledove wrote:

@Regulator, I copied this from another thread

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mark1030 wrote:

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All it would take is to make the labyrinth a side area like D3's pony-land. Find an alternative to that frogger BS to access the ascendancy classes and everyone is happy! (Except the bully brigade of course, as they derive happiness from others' sadness)

Yes, they should make an alternate way to get ascendency points. Have the Sarn Arena doors lock when 20 people have entered and battle it out. Last one standing gets Ascendency points. Players who already have them aren't allowed into the Arena to grief other players by knocking them out of the battle.

Seems fair enough. No more boring frogger or Izaro one shots. Plus it makes PvP relevant again.

Actually, I don't like PVP play but like this unique suggestion! It would be far superior to the current labyrinth. (Of course, almost anything would be better than that boring tedious monstrosity.) I'm going to copy this to Regulator's thread in the hopes that he adds it to the list.

I don't PvP either but this would considerably more entertaining than the current regime.