[Feedback] RNG should leave (29.04.2016 UPDATE)

question, Scrotie:
why must the other option to trade be randomness?
why can't it be trade AND crafting in this game?

I don't see a reason why not.

sure the top ladder guy and the Mirror-Crafter will use trade a lot more because it's quicker and more "bang for the buck" than something like an augment in Grim Dawn which gives you +5% resistance.
they like to min-max and that's perfectly fine.

but why not give "trade-hating" me and my "silly Self-Found" friends an option to increment the quality of the gear as well, based on stuff we find/earn, instead of throwing dice around and praying to RNGesus?

it's not black and white or Yin and Yang or whatever you may call it.
trade and crafting can - and do - coexist.
you are making up excuses to why PoE is this special snowflake of a game which just has to not follow a working formula other great games do. has to re-invent the wheel and make it 1/X chance of being round.

that's what annoys me the most.
GGG made the non-trade part random because fuck you go trade.
and yet you go out of your way to "prove" why it's such a brilliant and lovely approach.
it's not.

Well, i've not great issues with some lazy trading, but i just start to think the game is a tad too much trading centered.

It absolutely works, but in my experience i just got better rewards when i just don't risk at all.

Fun fact is that i've got 4 exa left in my tab at the moment, and got them just involuntarily flipping.
I just bought some mediocre six link chest to play around a CI build i wanted to try, and stashed it in my premium tab, without a price. After that i eventually resold three chests while leveling, and profited those 4 exa and 2 different ilvl 100 chests while basically leveling :P.

It's kinda strange to be rewarded like this when i'd probably burn a lot of currency or wasted hours farming if i just relied on pure rng. I even wonder how much more wealth i could hoard if i'd be more interested in market than try stuff :D

I trade a fuck ton.

And guess what: PoE has too much RNG. Too many layers, too long tails.

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Miská wrote:

Besides the group you mentioned, the 'selffounders' there is another group very vocally biased against trading. The group that wants to but can't. Because you need experience and knowledge to determine values. The hoard of quick satisfaction players that have arrived in PoE simply don't have that patience and would prefer selffound with finding tons of loot over learning how to play PoE.

How about the group that can trade, does trade, but fucking hates it?

It's the quick satisfaction players that trade. That's what trade is. It's a rapid path to progression/wealth.

SSF requires much more patience than trade to win. You have it all backwards. SSF actually requires playing an ARPG. XYZ to win is something else entirely. In many cases the top wealth "players" don't even fucking play, because killing monsters is inefficient wealth generation compared to trade. Most of those mirror service accounts still haven't even bothered getting an ascendancy class.

In a game all about efficiency and optimization, I loathe that trade is so much more efficient than playing. Being a little more efficient is one thing but in PoE it's orders of magnitude. I want to play an ARPG, not a tradesim. They're not the same.

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johnKeys wrote:

why can't it be trade AND crafting in this game?

I don't see a reason why not.

Crafting: the use of components to get gear upgrades by interacting with automated systems

Buying: the exchange of currency to get gear upgrades by interacting with a seller

Do you see it now? They do the same fucking thing. Same inputs, same outputs, only difference is who to interact with. And because sellers' other option is vendor, the trading option is always going to be the better deal, or the item won't sell.

Thank GGGod crafting in PoE is mostly random, or there'd be no reason whatsoever for players to prefer craft to trade; at least orbs can be a little like lottery tickets.

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Vhlad wrote:

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Miská wrote:

Besides the group you mentioned, the 'selffounders' there is another group very vocally biased against trading. The group that wants to but can't. Because you need experience and knowledge to determine values. The hoard of quick satisfaction players that have arrived in PoE simply don't have that patience and would prefer selffound with finding tons of loot over learning how to play PoE.

How about the group that can trade, does trade, but fucking hates it?

It's the quick satisfaction players that trade. That's what trade is. It's a rapid path to progression/wealth.

SSF requires much more patience than trade to win. You have it all backwards. SSF actually requires playing an ARPG. XYZ to win is something else entirely. In many cases the top wealth "players" don't even fucking play, because killing monsters is inefficient wealth generation compared to trade. Most of those mirror service accounts still haven't even bothered getting an ascendancy class.

In a game all about efficiency and optimization, I loathe that trade is so much more efficient than playing. Being a little more efficient is one thing but in PoE it's orders of magnitude. I want to play an ARPG, not a tradesim. They're not the same.

Again: buying is exchanging currency for better gear. Selling is exchanging excess good gear for currency.

In order for buying to be effective, a seller needs to have gear that 1. they don't want and 2. is better for you than what you have. In at least some way, they need to be ahead of you in progression.

Selling gets you currency. Unless you then use that currency to buy gear (in which case it's advantage is dependent on someone being somehow ahead of you), you can only use that currency to craft.

So basically, the entire advantage of trading is dependent on the trader not being the best at everything. If they are already best-in-server at something, trade cannot help them with that something, and the closer they are to best the less likely someone better will have an extra better available for purchase.

Long story short, you're looking at the game's catch-up mechanic and faulting it for letting players catch up with it.

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Vhlad wrote:

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Miská wrote:

Besides the group you mentioned, the 'selffounders' there is another group very vocally biased against trading. The group that wants to but can't. Because you need experience and knowledge to determine values. The hoard of quick satisfaction players that have arrived in PoE simply don't have that patience and would prefer selffound with finding tons of loot over learning how to play PoE.

How about the group that can trade, does trade, but fucking hates it?

It's the quick satisfaction players that trade. That's what trade is. It's a rapid path to progression/wealth.

SSF requires much more patience than trade to win. You have it all backwards. SSF actually requires playing an ARPG. XYZ to win is something else entirely. In many cases the top wealth "players" don't even fucking play, because killing monsters is inefficient wealth generation compared to trade. Most of those mirror service accounts still haven't even bothered getting an ascendancy class.

In a game all about efficiency and optimization, I loathe that trade is so much more efficient than playing. Being a little more efficient is one thing but in PoE it's orders of magnitude. I want to play an ARPG, not a tradesim. They're not the same.

There is a middle way for sure. It's not as black and white as you claim it to be. You are doing exactly what Scrotie mentioned earlier, wich is demonizing everything that has to do with trading without an actual reasoning or thought behind it. You are the one apparently unable to get away from playing the most efficient way possible. You can't have both ways because PoE is centered around trading wether you like it or not.

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So basically, the entire advantage of trading is dependent on the trader not being the best at everything. If they are already best-in-server at something, trade cannot help them with that something, and the closer they are to best the less likely someone better will have an extra better available for purchase.

You can benefit from trade even if you are the best at everything. You can do it purely for wealth generation, that you use to craft another mirror base, that you use to sell purely for wealth generation. Why? RMT probably. PoE is among the most RMT friendly tradesims out there.

You can also benefit from trade if you are efficient at a particular niche, like lab grinding. The currency you gain from selling bases does not necessarily depend on someone "ahead" of you to sell something you need for you to benefit. In many cases you can benefit just fine from chaos spamming an 84 ES base and finishing the rest with master crafting. Or alt/aug/regal + master crafting for weapons/rings. This is cheaper than trade for supply limited non-meta gear, like BIS pvp gear or +3 lightning staves with 140+ crit, crit mult, and BCR or BM. But doing that stuff without trade to fuel it would be excruciatingly painful, because there are too many RNG layers with too long tails.

The game forces trade too strongly. It's too efficient, partially because RNG has too many layers with too long tails. In many cases trade/craft/trade/craft/trade sustains itself and is much more rewarding than playing the game, because the investment to craft a good item is much less than the investment to craft a specific item. And buyers are looking for specific items.

Beyond trade/craft/trade there's next level efficiency with extreme automation in trade queries, trade spam, indexing, and flipping.

None of this explicitly requires anyone to be ahead of you, behind you, or beside you. It doesn't matter. And eventually, if you take 150ex out of your 900ex pile and buy a headhunter from someone who got lucky, does that really mean they're ahead of you? They're ahead of you in headhunter acquisition and trade enables you to catch up? I don't get the point of this argument.

I'm looking at RNG and saying it's too many layers with too long tails. And I'm looking at trade and saying it's too efficient, partially because RNG has too many layers with too long tails. Labeling trade as a catch up mechanic doesn't mitigate these issues.

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Crafting: the use of components to get gear upgrades by interacting with automated systems

Buying: the exchange of currency to get gear upgrades by interacting with a seller

Do you see it now? They do the same fucking thing. Same inputs, same outputs, only difference is who to interact with. And because sellers' other option is vendor, the trading option is always going to be the better deal, or the item won't sell.

There's a whole range of emotions, psychological factors, and gameplay experiences here that are distinct. The outcomes may be similar but the process matters, especially at the micro level. GGG keeps balancing things based on macro averages but the individual player experience matters and that's where the extreme RNG fails.

It's clear that all of this RNG is deliberate, because GGG wants an economy focused game. But they went overboard and lost sight of some important fun factors.

RNG layers and ranges should be reduced. It's causing other problems as-is, such as poor game balance/difficulty tailoring.

"

Vhlad wrote:

You can also benefit from trade if you are efficient at a particular niche, like lab grinding. The currency you gain from selling bases does not necessarily depend on someone "ahead" of you to sell something you need for you to benefit. In many cases you can benefit just fine from chaos spamming an 84 ES base and finishing the rest with master crafting. Or alt/aug/regal + master crafting for weapons/rings.

So what ? When i joined the league i paid 2.5ex for a Rats Nest with the enchant i needed. It is absolutely normal to be expensive and it is absolutely normal for a guy like me who hates the lab to pay a guy who farms the lab for the right enchant. Why should i complain about it and try to make it easier ? On one hand, you tell us about how great SSF is ( and it is ) but on the other hand, you want to make the game easier. But SSF is great for this single reason - that there is enough RNG inside the game. If you can 6Link within 100 fuses every time or craft the items for pennies, or get the right enchant guaranteed in 5-10 runs, then SSF is crap, it will be just a little harder than trading.

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madfellan wrote:

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Vhlad wrote:

You can also benefit from trade if you are efficient at a particular niche, like lab grinding. The currency you gain from selling bases does not necessarily depend on someone "ahead" of you to sell something you need for you to benefit. In many cases you can benefit just fine from chaos spamming an 84 ES base and finishing the rest with master crafting. Or alt/aug/regal + master crafting for weapons/rings.

So what ? When i joined the league i paid 2.5ex for a Rats Nest with the enchant i needed. It is absolutely normal to be expensive and it is absolutely normal for a guy like me who hates the lab to pay a guy who farms the lab for the right enchant. Why should i complain about it and try to make it easier ? On one hand, you tell us about how great SSF is ( and it is ) but on the other hand, you want to make the game easier. But SSF is great for this single reason - that there is enough RNG inside the game. If you can 6Link within 100 fuses every time or craft the items for pennies, or get the right enchant guaranteed in 5-10 runs, then SSF is crap, it will be just a little harder than trading.

I'm actually not asking for the game to be easier. I'm asking for it to be harder.

The game is currently not balanced to challenge players in top end gear. If RNG was reduced GGG would have a narrower balance target. As is, they cannot keep the game playable for people in average gear while challenging players in all T1s. The difference between top gear and average gear is too vast, especially for ES gear and weapons.

Similarly, the difference between winning big and losing big is too vast. It effects customer retention. Asking for reduced RNG does not mean I'm asking to 6L in 100 fuses. It can still take 1200 fuses on average. Reduced RNG in this scenario could mean that instead of investing 9000 fuses and failing to get anything, it would force a 6L after 2400 fuses. i.e. the number of standard deviations from the mean would be limited. 2400 is still a big loss, but it's not catastrophic. It's not going to make someone quit. That's a good thing, isn't it? That's why Blizzard does similar limits.

Yes you can also reduce RNG by reducing the mean investment of something. GGG should do that for crafting a specific item. It's currently too expensive to craft something specific and too inexpensive to craft something good. This biases toward trade too heavily. So I'd either make it easier to craft something specific (and more expensive to craft something good) or find a way to increase the opportunity cost for trading. One way to do that is to make playing the game more rewarding, so there's more of a penalty for spending all of your time trading. That doesn't necessarily mean making it easier though. It can be more challenging and more rewarding.