Prophecy Mechanics Need A Hotfix Before It's Too Late

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Albinosaurus wrote:

"Self Found" is so fkn pointless, lol. "Let's play an online multiplayer game by myself and refuse to interact with other players despite the game balance relying on me doing so." It's like going to an orgy to sit in the closet and jack it. Just. Why?

And yet when balance is brought up about shitty gems or overpowered gems can't be played in parties "no one forces you to play with other people"

Heh

It has the potential to be rather excellent, regrettably it remains short of the mark at present.

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kuukkeli wrote:

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grepman wrote:

I wish all the people who cry about 'time wasting' somehow get to go back to only the games of the 90s, try to play something on pc, cry and quit gaming in general. I really do. like, REALLY.

oh no you have to go to an area you already passed. OH NO. ADD must be a bitch.

I started playing in the 80's but it doesn't, in any way, negate the fact that Prophecy implementation is bad. Making players go to Act 1/2 over and over again to one shot some specific mobs in order to get nth copy of a crappy low level unique adds nothing of value to the game. Also, at least in my opinion, the fact that you can completely ignore the league mechanics is a terrible decision.

prophecy can use a scare factor, that I agree with.

otherwise, you are presented with resource management dilemma- you have the option, for 'non efficient' peeps- to seal the prophecy.

the problem is backtracking is viewed some kind of evil, whereas many games were based around a lot of backtracking. and even worse, people are addicted to efficiency so much any other alternative will be shunned unless its at least as efficient/'rewarding'

I mean, look at the uber lab. it has sick rewards, but for many its not worth it to run it. and uber lab is alternative endgame attempt- and a good one at that imo

can you imagine this in D2 days ?

blizz: heres a new endgame mode that is strictly less efficient than running baal or mephisto 120391230 times, but its like a map system and shit
efficiency addicts: fuck that, nothings more efficient than baal runs, fuck off

Prophecies need to be removable for 0-1 coin cost, none of that 5+ stuff. Just to remove it outright. Because let's face it: plenty of them are a complete waste of time and making an item of a worthless prophecy as the only way to get rid of it other than spending even more time doing it is unreasonable. Forcing people to pay multiple coins to turn a useless prophecy NO ONE wants into an item that will then just need to be vendored or dropped, just to free up the slot, is offensive. Just getting it already cost a coin, that's really enough of a loss already, deletion should be free, or 1 coin at the ABSOLUTE most.

Wasn't this mechanic supposed to be fun? Not a time-waster?

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TheLastZica wrote:

Prophecies need to be removable for 0-1 coin cost, none of that 5+ stuff. Just to remove it outright. Because let's face it: plenty of them are a complete waste of time and making an item of a worthless prophecy as the only way to get rid of it other than spending even more time doing it is unreasonable. Forcing people to pay multiple coins to turn a useless prophecy NO ONE wants into an item that will then just need to be vendored or dropped, just to free up the slot, is offensive. Just getting it already cost a coin, that's really enough of a loss already, deletion should be free, or 1 coin at the ABSOLUTE most.

Wasn't this mechanic supposed to be fun? Not a time-waster?

here we go again- something that isnt inefficient is a WASTE OF TIME. hilarious.

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grepman wrote:

here we go again- something that isnt inefficient is a WASTE OF TIME. hilarious.

Perhaps if you'd bother to use the right words and punctuation, people would take you more seriously. If you can't be bothered to do so, perhaps you should just leave the white knighting to people who are willing to put an effort into it.

But no, Prophecy is just completely lackluster due to imbalance, poor design and the lack of decent ways to even get around the problems than to just ignore Navali entirely. It needs more targetability and less "here's a worthless prophecy you don't want, now spend multiple coins or half an hour just getting rid of it so you MIGHT maybe get something useful next time, oh and by the way it's so bad no one else will want it either so enjoy having to toss it after you pay to seal it." That combined with the totally uninspired, random way of getting the coins in the first place... this is not a good league. There's virtually no excitement, little or nothing to get excited about. The way I see it the league's biggest problem is GGG grossly overestimating how much people would want some/a lot of the prophecies in the first place. Sealing into items implies something should have worth...

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TheLastZica wrote:

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grepman wrote:

here we go again- something that isnt inefficient is a WASTE OF TIME. hilarious.

Perhaps if you'd bother to use the right words and punctuation, people would take you more seriously. If you can't be bothered to do so, perhaps you should just leave the white knighting to people who are willing to put an effort into it.

lol at whiteknighting. its funny, because lately I've been criticizing GGG in many threads about how casual-friendly the game has become and I never heard anyone call me a white knight there. People are conveniently calling someone who disagrees with them a 'white knight'- that's so absolutely hilarious and short-sighted, its funny. I'm anti-efficiency uber all, anti-faceroll, anti-big dps, and anti-casual player. Any action of GGG that will promote things I'm against, I will criticize- and any action that does the opposite - I will approve. Thus, this is me standing up for my beliefs and not white knighting for anyone. So, stop with the labels.


Oh and please, leave the punctuation advise for someone who is your kin or friend- who you can actually talk to in that tone. I'm not your friend, pal.

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But no, Prophecy is just completely lackluster due to imbalance, poor design and the lack of decent ways to even get around the problems than to just ignore Navali entirely. It needs more targetability and less "here's a worthless prophecy you don't want, now spend multiple coins or half an hour just getting rid of it so you MIGHT maybe get something useful next time, oh and by the way it's so bad no one else will want it either so enjoy having to toss it after you pay to seal it." That combined with the totally uninspired, random way of getting the coins in the first place... this is not a good league. There's virtually no excitement, little or nothing to get excited about. The way I see it the league's biggest problem is GGG grossly overestimating how much people would want some/a lot of the prophecies in the first place. Sealing into items implies something should have worth...

more 'targetability', so you can *DO* prophecies while running gorges 24x7 all day while ALSO doing prophecies and not 'wasting time', amirite ? just like you get free atziri sac frags right now for just doing your regular mapping. come to think about it, so was cadiro. you just found him and he was there. you didnt have to do jack shit, the choice was always binary. no resource management, no lore information, no interesting uniques given in exchange for spending your time. beautiful, brain-dead headless chicken on crack gameplay. how grand.

again, this isnt about being a white knight. this is about me being against calling anything inefficient a 'waste of time.' it's incredibly insulting to any game content.

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grepman wrote:

prophecy can use a scare factor, that I agree with.

It's not only the scare factor it needs, but this alone is a strong argument against the massive backtracking phenomenon we have now. How can lvl 5x zone provide scare factor for 90+ characters without being automatically lethal for appropriately leveled characters?

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grepman wrote:

otherwise, you are presented with resource management dilemma- you have the option, for 'non efficient' peeps- to seal the prophecy.

With coins dropping less than one per zone (unless you full clear all zones) sealing is not an option for those who wish to do prophecies in the first place (aka for those who are interested in league specific rules instead of playing 3 month standard). It's not efficiency vs non-efficiency question as you put it but "doing the new content" vs "ignoring the new-content" question.

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grepman wrote:

the problem is backtracking is viewed some kind of evil, whereas many games were based around a lot of backtracking. and even worse, people are addicted to efficiency so much any other alternative will be shunned unless its at least as efficient/'rewarding'

In general games aren't based on backtracking just for the sake of backtracking. Cumbersome, boring and unrewarding chores do not make game play any better just like super low drop rates of high level maps don't make game any harder - they just make playing laborious. Actually map drop rates make game easier because majority of players are forced to play content they overlevel a lot.

In ARPGs I've played (and just to mention, I oddly haven't played Diablo 2 almost at all - I liked the first one back in the day but didn't fully grasp the ARPG genre until much later with Titan Quest and Hellgate: London) the only reason to backtrack was, surprise, for the rewards (i.e. a certain boss that drops certain uniques).

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grepman wrote:

I mean, look at the uber lab. it has sick rewards, but for many its not worth it to run it. and uber lab is alternative endgame attempt- and a good one at that imo

From what I've seen on streams über lab seems to have OK rewards (as a matter fact they've looked good enough for a lab hater like me to make a lab runner character). No personal experience yet though as I only have three trials done with lvl 87 character (how about upping the spawn rates a little, GGG).

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grepman wrote:

can you imagine this in D2 days ?

blizz: heres a new endgame mode that is strictly less efficient than running baal or mephisto 120391230 times, but its like a map system and shit
efficiency addicts: fuck that, nothings more efficient than baal runs, fuck off

Like I said, I haven't really played Diablo 2 but from what I've heard / read isn't that exactly what would have happened? My understanding is that lots of players were doing hundreds or thousands of Baal runs and it was THE end game. If that's wrong, please correct me.

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kuukkeli wrote:

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grepman wrote:

prophecy can use a scare factor, that I agree with.

It's not only the scare factor it needs, but this alone is a strong argument against the massive backtracking phenomenon we have now. How can lvl 5x zone provide scare factor for 90+ characters without being automatically lethal for appropriately leveled characters?

no, what I meant is lack of almost any scares aside from end of chains is kinda weak. GGG used to say we want to kill you, but now its all about appeasing players...I proposed something like until you finish say the brutus prophecy you have a random chance of encountering him in map (with no drops from him or xp) until you either seal or fulfill. the backtracking prophecies are mostly harmless anyway- theyre 'small reward' prophecies, people just dont appreciate it - picking up drops, iding drops, getting unique rewards no matter how common the unique is - these are all ARPG staples and can hardly be considered 'waste of time' if you arent too concerned about efficiency

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With coins dropping less than one per zone (unless you full clear all zones) sealing is not an option for those who wish to do prophecies in the first place (aka for those who are interested in league specific rules instead of playing 3 month standard). It's not efficiency vs non-efficiency question as you put it but "doing the new content" vs "ignoring the new-content" question.

it's certainly an option unless you play SSF. you can always buy coins. knowing the exact strategy makes it profitable enough.

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In general games aren't based on backtracking just for the sake of backtracking. Cumbersome, boring and unrewarding chores do not make game play any better just like super low drop rates of high level maps don't make game any harder - they just make playing laborious. Actually map drop rates make game easier because majority of players are forced to play content they overlevel a lot.

what prophecy is backtracking for sake of backtracking ? you get either currency, a fragment, or a unique.

zero prophecies require backtracking for sake of backtracking. the problem isnt the prophecies- the problem is increasing power the more you play in a new league. that unique is very helpful if you are empty-handed on a first toon. not so much on the 5th toon. it's called progression. you still get a reward in EACH of the said prophecies. the problem the more power you get the less 'useful' you consider it until finally calling it a 'waste of time' to pick it up. kinda like people stop picking up scrolls or rare chests or blue jewelry- its inefficient. yet I still do that and I see no problem with that (and I usually dont play SSF)

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Like I said, I haven't really played Diablo 2 but from what I've heard / read isn't that exactly what would have happened? My understanding is that lots of players were doing hundreds or thousands of Baal runs and it was THE end game. If that's wrong, please correct me.

yeah, but there was no real alternative. D2, to tell the truth, had no real endgame and baal runs was the most ubiquitous thing.

anyway, point is moot. as usual GGG caved in and is now removing a lot of backtracking. of course. never having balls and going away from the initial design *sigh*