What's wrong with deterministic crafting?

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End result, about 10 EX spent (not sure about TFT price for prefix reforges but i assume 2 EX at least given how rare they are) for 2 influence mod, one of em low tier, a mid tier life mod and a bench craft mod.

First of all, reforge was 1ex for the main part of the league.
Second, you literally prove my point: You spent 10ex for a decent chest - you have 2 influence mods, a life mod, and a crafted mod, meaning 4 out of 6 mods you can use properly. Do you honestly feel that with 10ex you are supposed so have more than that?
I know for some people that´s a lot of money (I honestly don´t get why), but from a top end perspective it´s just simply not. The newly atlas changes gave tons of options to reach something like 4ex/hour on a safe, regular basis without the need of having a 400ex char to begin with. You can literally reach endgame on a tabula and some of the farming strats im referring to do not even need to be done in red maps. That means to produce that chest you farm only a bit more than 2 hours. Is that really something you would consider impossible?

Yeah 4 EX an hour plus the 2 hours needed to trade all the stuff you found to actually get those 4 EX in form of currency. I mean sure for top end players 10 EX is worth a rats ass but out of 10% of players that actually make it past acts about 9% at least probably don't make 10 EX the whole league. So we are talking about maybe, and it's probably less, 1% of the total playerbase that can even hope to achieve something like this. I certainly couldn't if it wasn't for the fact that i have the accumulated "wealth" of 3 years playtime behind me. And then imagine a casual league player when they get such an awesome item after wasting all their hard earned money, try to do some actual endgame content with it like Maven, the Hidden or the Feared and get their ass wiped like there is no tomorrow and ask yourself how they feel. Talking about balancing around the top 1% of players. No wait, would be more like 0,01% of players, the 1% gets fucked.

You and Orbaal are so worried about what kind of content powercreep we would have gotten when harvest stayed but you don't even consider the powercreep we got despite harvest NOT staying. You can't even compare 3.12 endgame to 3.14 endgame in terms of difficulty. From Sirus 8 to the feared, it's laughable. And this isn't optional content like 100% delirium, it's mandatory for atlas progression. And to help us with doing that content we got skill and gear nerfs across the board to everything that's viable, the farming methods were all nerfed to the ground and basically nothing new that is even remotely useful for this level of content.

This games balance is an absolute disaster beyond compare, yeah harvest wasn't the perfect solution for it, but it was a solution, now we have no solution at all and the problems get worse with every league. Just wait for next endgame update when you need 10 mio + dps to even have the faintest hope of doing it.

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Vennto wrote:

Second, you literally prove my point: You spent 10ex for a decent chest - you have 2 influence mods, a life mod, and a crafted mod, meaning 4 out of 6 mods you can use properly. Do you honestly feel that with 10ex you are supposed so have more than that?

Personally, yes. I mean, 10 ex per piece is 100ex per character, and with that, you get a character that has equipment that allows it to get to what, 10% of its potential power? Maybe 15%? Bear in mind that you first need to fill out the basics (life, resists, other defenses) before you can scale your character, and that a lot of builds scale very well with better gear, because they clear faster and thus get killed less often, or because some mods (explody chests, unique item interactions...) are insanely strong, but you can only fit them into your build if you have more than 4 decent mods per piece of gear, because otherwise you won't be able to fill out the basics. Depends on the build, of course, but still.

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Vennto wrote:

I know for some people that´s a lot of money (I honestly don´t get why), but from a top end perspective it´s just simply not.

Because they play less than you.

Of course, the top end is fine, it has always been and will always be. It is the mid-tier players that are suffering the most. Harvest crafting made the game a lot more enjoyable for lots of them (including me), and now that it is taken away, the game feels pretty stale. Of course, it doesn't necessarily have to be Harvest crafting or deterministic crafting, but the amount of power that you can get with 20 hours per week of playing, compared to 5 hours per week of playing, is honestly quite absurd. And personally, I don't want to play this game for 10 hours per week, it just isn't important enough for me in my life. I'd still like to play it, though, cause it's a lot of fun. But it doesn't have a lot to offer if you play it for, say, 3-5 hours per week.

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And then imagine a casual league player when they get such an awesome item after wasting all their hard earned money, try to do some actual endgame content with it like Maven, the Hidden or the Feared and get their ass wiped like there is no tomorrow and ask yourself how they feel.

I don´t think they are supposed to clear that content, simple as that. The problem with this is that people always want to be able to clear the hardest content in the game no matter what. But there can´t be a goal for highly commited players while also enabling casuals to clear the same stuff. It´s just not possible.
I wonder why people can´t just be happy clearing Sirus, or Elder, or Shaper. Why does it has to be Uber Elder + Maven and the hidden invitations? I remember fondly my time in TERA, being in one of the top gier guilds that was able to clear Manayas Core. There were like 3 Teams on the whole server able to beat that instance consistently. I rarely ever heard people complain about it, they simply understood that in order to do that they need to train more. Maybe it was because it was less gear-dependant and more skill-based, who knows. That´s the critique I would understand - Sirus is skillbased, you can avoid all damage. For the invitations, it´s more of a gear-check.

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Because they play less than you.

I highly doubt it´s the playtime. I end my seasons with a few mirrors 4-5 weeks in. Thats roughly 1/3 of the whole league with way more currency you would ever need. And I only go hard on like the first 5-6 days. I know in fact a lot of people who are done studying and just take 2-3 vacation days on league-start. Those can actually set themselves up for the same thing, and even if it´s 50% less playtime they would have plenty to do all what I do, it would just take a bit longer. But seasons run for 3 months, not 4 weeks. The simple truth: Many players are not efficient in what they do (or don´t enjoy it to be efficient, which is fine, but then don´t be mad about bad results).

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I don't want to play this game for 10 hours per week, it just isn't important enough for me in my life. I'd still like to play it, though, cause it's a lot of fun. But it doesn't have a lot to offer if you play it for, say, 3-5 hours per week.

I mean, I get that. And that´s totally fine having different priorities in life. Then again, what you are asking here is rather to balance from the top to cater to people who can´t or wont commit as much. I feel what people miss to understand is that stuff gets easier, the top-end also gets easier and you just simply have another group that is concerned. Why is it so important for you to be able to clear maven if you just want to enjoy the game and play 3 hours a week? why do you need to be able to produce OP items? Before harvest people did not ask for those things, now they do - just because u got a taste of something and they took it away?

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But there can´t be a goal for highly commited players while also enabling casuals to clear the same stuff. It´s just not possible.

And what goal is there for highly committed players? That tiny little subgroup of the playerbase calculates their DPS in The feared per second. It literally takes them longer to open the portal and activate the encounter than to kill all 5. I mean lets face it, 99,9% of the playerbase can't do this content at all and most of the remaining playerbase flat out instadelete it. The number of people who are actually somewhere in the middle is minuscule. Besides, if you want to make top end content for a select few, then make it optional. Like tier 19 100% deli. That you can make as hard as you want i don't care, it has no consequence if players can't do it. That argument of yours might have some actual merit if this stuff was some kind of challenge for the top players, but it utterly fails to be even that.

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Besides, if you want to make top end content for a select few, then make it optional. Like tier 19 100% deli. That you can make as hard as you want i don't care, it has no consequence if players can't do it.

It has no consequences. You miss out on uncharted realm passives if you cannot clear them yourself. None of those passives are mandatory for anything. All you can do with them is further improve other things. And if you feel u need it, get a carry for the invitations once. This league I played a very strong mapper and bought carry-services too for those instances, just to improve my farming-efficiency.

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Vennto wrote:

In my eyes there's a fundamental problem with the attitude of many players: Instead of enjoying a game where you can actually improve from a knowledge- and effectiveness-perspective they completely ignore individual shortcomings and ask the game to cater to them rather than overcoming their own inabilities.

I was always very good in understanding complex stuff, but I had the classic "i need to pick up everything with value" illness, meaning my levelingtime through the campaign was abysmal. Did I ask the game to drop less, making the campaign shorter, giving me instant access to maps sind I have played the campaign in the past? No. I sat my butt down, studied tie23, tytykiller, Ventrua, Quantrik, Imexile and many others out of the racing-community and for the better half of 2 leagues now I trained. Now I have my former 14hours to maps down to 4.30h with unoptimized builds and am constantly in the top 50 of blitz-races with like 1.05h to dominus. I worked on my gaming rather than blaming others and that's whar people need to learn to do.

You do seem to look at everything through the glass of efficiency. But I'm sure that's not what drives most players to play a GAME. There are those that really enjoy racing and want to be the first at everything; and there are those that just want to chill and kill stuff while listening to music - and everything in between. But NONE, I'm sure, wants to feel frustrated while doing it.

For the sake of efficiency, you would see and hear many players submit themselves to experience a horrible time -> "I hate harvest because it felt mandatory and made me run Hamlet 24/7!". Well, it's not and does not.

I, for sure, don't play like that. I value my time INVESTED in entertainment and avoid doing things that are unfun as much as possible. And that's where my gripe with this crafting system lies: This crafting system induces frustration and the sense of time wasted. And every effort made to reduce that experience, is a welcome addition in my eyes. Doesn't have to be harvest. But if it is, so be it.

TL;DR: It's not about effectiveness or efficiency: It's about making the whole crafting process a less frustrating experience.

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QuiquePoE wrote:

TL;DR: It's not about effectiveness or efficiency: It's about making the whole crafting process a less frustrating experience.

Sadly - and objectively - it will always be about effectiveness and efficiency in a game centered around an open, free economy. The most efficient players will set the "bar". They will set the supply.

People always go on and on about how "PoE isn't balanced around trade", but it very much is. The market is an important element in how easy it is to acquire gear - and as most people should know, acquisition of gear and the balance between drops, trading and crafting is close to impossible when there are no hard limits to trade.

Acquiring gear isn't supposed to be "easy", especially during the end game. When efficient players get too efficient tools to play with, the market gets flooded - and gear acquisition becomes "too easy" in GGG's eyes.

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Vennto wrote:

I don´t think they are supposed to clear that content, simple as that. The problem with this is that people always want to be able to clear the hardest content in the game no matter what. But there can´t be a goal for highly commited players while also enabling casuals to clear the same stuff. It´s just not possible.
I wonder why people can´t just be happy clearing Sirus, or Elder, or Shaper. Why does it has to be Uber Elder + Maven and the hidden invitations? I remember fondly my time in TERA, being in one of the top gier guilds that was able to clear Manayas Core. There were like 3 Teams on the whole server able to beat that instance consistently. I rarely ever heard people complain about it, they simply understood that in order to do that they need to train more. Maybe it was because it was less gear-dependant and more skill-based, who knows. That´s the critique I would understand - Sirus is skillbased, you can avoid all damage. For the invitations, it´s more of a gear-check.

It sure is possible: Blizzard did it with WoW when they realized they were developing very complex raids that only a very small number of players could ever see. And now there's even scalable dungeons that are the same content-wise, but can be made increasingly more difficult.

P.S.: Just want to ackowledge you, Vennto, and from my perspective, for making such well reasoned and elocuent posts. It could be seen as players jumping at what you say, but I genuinly find them constructive and edifying, even when we don't agree. Cheers!

Edit: BTW, isn't that the purpose of rolling maps? To make them scale and more difficult? Yet, for certain content in the game, not even running it "white" is enough for the majority of players to succeed. You don't find that a bad thing?

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Baharoth15 wrote:

You and Orbaal are so worried about what kind of content powercreep we would have gotten when harvest stayed but you don't even consider the powercreep we got despite harvest NOT staying. You can't even compare 3.12 endgame to 3.14 endgame in terms of difficulty. From Sirus 8 to the feared, it's laughable. And this isn't optional content like 100% delirium, it's mandatory for atlas progression. And to help us with doing that content we got skill and gear nerfs across the board to everything that's viable, the farming methods were all nerfed to the ground and basically nothing new that is even remotely useful for this level of content.

This games balance is an absolute disaster beyond compare, yeah harvest wasn't the perfect solution for it, but it was a solution, now we have no solution at all and the problems get worse with every league. Just wait for next endgame update when you need 10 mio + dps to even have the faintest hope of doing it.

I guess this is where our points of view are very very different.

For instance I like the idea of having very hard encounters in the game that cant be completed easily and will be a real test for leagues to come. And I think this is what GGG is aiming for because otherwise they would have to introduce new bosses for very few players capable of beating those new bosses too frequently.
Thats pretty much what the Uncharted Realm is supposed to be in my mind.
Its not meant to be completed, its meant to be a goal to work towards while the introduction of new powercreep will without doubt continue and eventually render The Uncharted Realm invitations a walk in the park.
Well maybe thats a little over the top, but you get my point.

I also heavily disagree that the Uncharted Realm perks are mandatory in any way, shape or form. We have been interacting with the Atlas endgame for years, didnt have Maven or Atlas passives and worked just fine.
The perks provided by the Uncharted Realm are good but its not like you cant play the game if you dont have them unlocked.
Its the cherry on top of the ice cream. If the cherry is missing, you still can fully enjoy the ice cream and wont make much of difference.

With that being said I will repeat what I said in many other comparable instances: GGG should stop promoting those very hard endgame encounters like a normal questline. They did this pretty much ever since Shaper was introduced and most players couldnt beat his Guardians back then, let alone beat Shaper himself.
This is creating the (in my mind) false notion these encounters are meant to be doable right away. In doing so GGG shoots themselves in the foot and this is frustrating players needlessly.
Id rather prefer if GGG were to promote those encounter as what they are: Very hard and probably not doable for many players for quite a while. Essentially the equivalent of a chase item, just as an encounter.

I think this would not only prevent the frustration of not being able to complete those encounters as well as the consequently following deduction the balancing overall was bad, because those enounters are too hard.
To me this isnt about bad balancing. Its about poor communication on the devs side, promoting a nigh impossible to complete encounter (by their own design) as a normal questline, which it evidently just isnt and also is not meant to be.


Ofc I might be wrong and totally misreading this whole situation.
But then again: These encounters are designed to be extremely hard to complete and yet they are marketed/promoted like an ordinary questline.
Quit doing this GGG :)
You can do better and market/promote/advertise those encounter for what they are. I understand why its neccessary to let players know this content does exist, just dont invoke the notion those encounters were regular quests.

So yeah I understand why you would be frustrated and I dont blame you.
Its reasonable from your point of view. I dont think you should be frustrated and I hope I did a somewhat "ok job" in explaining why you shouldnt be frustrated - but I get it and I do sympathize while disagreeing at the same time ;)