Finished my first league pass, my thoughts

All I am going to say is that a deathlog, auction house, and diablo/torchlight damage numbers don't exist because GGG doesn't want them too.

They ain't hard to do, these kinds of things do not jive with their design philosophy. They want people to not know their damage ( or even if they are dealing damage), not know what kills them, and trade to be miserable with the potential for scams.

I don't think these choices are in their best interest, but they are theirs to make.

Given how poorly the last few leagues were received is probably for the best they have a really cool one soon.

"

Orbaal wrote:

Yeah sounds a bit like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Focus on negative stuff and you´ll find a lot of negative stuff, reinforcing the initial negative perspective.

Im guilty of that too, just the other way around. I simply ignore the stuff I dislike and focus instead on the good stuff.


Each his own I guess ^^

If you have anything that actually got better since then I'd love to hear it.
It's not like i want to hate the game or that i like focussing on the bad stuff.

It's just that i have to make an intense search with a microscope at this point to find anything positive remaining and most of that is stuff i liked about the game from the beginning like the vast amount of content, the mob density and the fast paced game play but even those things got worse to some extent lately and none of that is something recently introduced.

On the con side we have trade which has been shit from the start so that's kinda fine, crafting is getting worse and worse as they continue to quintupple down on the harvest slaughter, loot is getting worse and worse as well most recent example being the complete annihilation of breach as relevant content, balance changes have almost exclusively been net nerfs slightly veiled by minor buffs and we got zero new toys since 3.17 as none of the leagues since then went core. What exactly is there to be hyped about?

"

Baharoth15 wrote:

If you have anything that actually got better since then I'd love to hear it.
It's not like i want to hate the game or that i like focussing on the bad stuff.

The basegame is in far better state than ever before.
Thats huge as far as Im concerned.

However, the past few leagues havent been great on average.
I consider them little more than filler material until PoE2 launches. Which is why Im not all that bothered.


I would also disagree that loot, crafting and trading are in a terrible state.
Its not great either, dont get me wrong but its not as bad as many would like to make it out to be.

All those features are in a good enough state to allow pretty much everyone with some game knowledge to proceed to red maps and get at least 2 Voidstones.
Anything past that will require some more effort but thats fine by me.
If you are dedicated and knowledgeable enough to push further, this shouldnt be a big issue.
Unless the goal was going for uber bosses, which are highly optional and therefore irrelevant for the overall state of the game.


Harvest was just terrible for the game and I never understood why it went core to begin with. Harvest was called an "experimental" league and in this context Harvest was perfectly fine. But allowing it to go core was one the biggest mistakes GGG ever made. They should have purged it right away and called it good.

"

Orbaal wrote:

All those features are in a good enough state to allow pretty much everyone with some game knowledge to proceed to red maps and get at least 2 Voidstones.
Anything past that will require some more effort but thats fine by me.
If you are dedicated and knowledgeable enough to push further, this shouldnt be a big issue.
Unless the goal was going for uber bosses, which are highly optional and therefore irrelevant for the overall state of the game.

That isn't my concern really. Yeah, making redmaps and doing pinnacles isn't hard by any means, even uber content isn't that tough, just requires a bit more investment.
What's putting me off is that i basically have to do more to get less with each passing league. More grinding and still less loot, more currency spent and still a worse build. That's putting me off. Sure it's still "good enough", hence why i am still playing but for me that's not a good goal post to settle on.

"

Baharoth15 wrote:

What's putting me off is that i basically have to do more to get less with each passing league. More grinding and still less loot, more currency spent and still a worse build. That's putting me off.

Yeah I get that.
Im simply "used" to a way worse/harder version of the game years and years ago, when reaching and sustaining red maps was an achievement in itself.

What Im trying to say is that all of us had to struggle so much more back then and todays "struggle", if you can even call it that, is marginal at best compared to what it used to be.

So I know first hand that it could be way worse and used to be way worse, which is why none of todays stuff bothers me all that much.

"

Baharoth15 wrote:

That isn't my concern really. Yeah, making redmaps and doing pinnacles isn't hard by any means, even uber content isn't that tough, just requires a bit more investment.

And this is precisely why GGG had to nerf the average playerpower and should continue doing so. Pinnacle bosses should be hard, uber bosses borderline impossible.

Thats how PoE used to be, back when Shaper and his Guardians got introduced.
Boy was it hard to kill those bastards but also satisfying.
This is what we lost because of the crazy powercreep and Id like at least some of that restored.
This sort of content shouldnt be doable on autopilot but this is unfortunately where we are at.

Maybe "power creep" is something that should be embraced instead of avoided, as the design philosophy.

Can't be THAT hard to add all the endgame bosses again on a "ultra hard" mode which is only doable by players having all 30% quality, 2 implicit, corrupted ultra items?

And hand out very, very unique rewards for that. Like an enchant "+100% to XP" for your next character or whatnot.

Or "+200% probability of getting Uber Hillock". Or "-1/12 negative multiplier to maximum spell charges" (math joke).

"

navigator4223 wrote:

Can't be THAT hard to add all the endgame bosses again on a "ultra hard" mode which is only doable by players having all 30% quality, 2 implicit, corrupted ultra items?

And hand out very, very unique rewards for that.

Thats exactly what the uber bosses are.
More difficult versions of already existing bosses.
Couple of leagues down the road and more powercreep on top of the already existing powercreep and those arent hard anymore.

So you have to introduce uber giga bosses and then uber giga chad bosses or keep the powercreep at a reasonable level.
Thats basically the two options they have.


And the rewards are a problem too. Because now everyone wants those items but those are prohibitively expensive as well as superhard to farm.
So everyone is going to complain about that. We´ve had precisely this discussion when those uber bosses were introduced.


Its a deadend, a bandaid at best but not a solution.

"

navigator4223 wrote:

Maybe "power creep" is something that should be embraced instead of avoided, as the design philosophy.

I'm gonna have to disagree on this.

I play Warframe, and that game is powercreep through and through. If you don't play a nuke frame or use AoE weapons, you have to be content with treating a horde shooter as a walking simulator, because you have a teammate instantly killing everything without thinking about it.

And the last thing I want is to see PoE go down that route.

However, that doesn't mean the game should be extremely difficult for poor players who don't have hundreds of divines they made in a week, or continue clinging to weird reasoning for keeping the game behind modern competitors. "Crafting" is still shit that only the uber wealthy can participate in it (RIP Harvest), melee is still shit, trading is intentionally shit because "but muh trade manifesto". This doesn't even cover what Chris said back in a 3.15 Baeclast episode that most players quit after beating ACT TEN KITAVA. That should tell anyone a LOT as to how unnecessarily difficult this game is that it pushes away people before the real fun actually starts. And every time they do something like buff mob HP and damage, the players who ultimately hurt the most are those running sub-par builds, because they can't afford anything stronger.

"

Orbaal wrote:

And this is precisely why GGG had to nerf the average playerpower and should continue doing so. Pinnacle bosses should be hard, uber bosses borderline impossible.

I am pretty sure the "average" player considers pinnacles hard and ubers impossible to the point of not even attempting them. Leaving powercreep aside you shouldn't forget for how many years you've been playing this game. The amount of knowledge you have isn't something everyone has.
I mean you do post in the gameplay forum and it's also evident from other parts of this forum how few people can actually go beyond red maps, most of them struggle even getting there without a guide.
Neither of us is "average" at this point and no matter how much GGG nerfs playerpower, those days where you thought shaper is tough won't come back.

I'd be fine with the average player getting nerfed if they didn't use streamers and no lifers as the benchmark to set drop rates. If you put absurdly difficult bosses into your game then beating them should be an accomplishment that yields corresponding rewards. Ubers drop literally dogshit 99 times out of 100. They balance around the powerceiling while constantly nerfing the floor it just doesn't make sense...

"

Baharoth15 wrote:

I am pretty sure the "average" player considers pinnacles hard and ubers impossible to the point of not even attempting them. Leaving powercreep aside you shouldn't forget for how many years you've been playing this game. The amount of knowledge you have isn't something everyone has.

They sure do but that has little to do with them being average players or lack of knowledge.
It has everything to do with having above average gear and thats why Harvest was so dangerous. It removed the need to acquire this knowledge or even grind for gear to begin with.

Its not their fault. Its the toptier players and even moreso guilds churning out almost toptier gear, which they discarded and sold it to the average player for peanuts. Thats great for the average player because with almost toptier gear in their possession they are average no more.
But now nothing is challenging anymore for anyone either, noone learns, improves or acquires knowledge because why would you if you dont have to - and thats bad.

"

Baharoth15 wrote:

I'd be fine with the average player getting nerfed if they didn't use streamers and no lifers as the benchmark to set drop rates.

Again its not about the average player but the average powerlevel.
Those are very different things and not to be confused.
I know some players will brand this as elitism but thats not what this is. Im not trying to shit on average players and tell them they arent allowed to have fun, which is why Im trying to help them over in gameplay & help whenever I can.

I just want them to get there the right way. Teaching them the ways rather than drowning them in OP gear and then let them rofl-stomp the game.

"

Baharoth15 wrote:

Ubers drop literally dogshit 99 times out of 100. They balance around the powerceiling while constantly nerfing the floor it just doesn't make sense...

It doesnt and it does. Weird statement - I know.

Its not the streamers or no-lifers. They barely make any impact on the game.
Its the guilds of highly organized and highly skilled and highly motivated players that GGG is trying to take care off here. Imagine streamers and no-lifers cranked up to 100 and you get the picture.
And yeah it sucks for everybody else. I get it.

But then its also possible to drop the big ticket item 1st try and thats really cool, which is the other side of the coin.
There is a cruel beauty to RNG heavy systems. Most of the time you end up with the shitty end of the stick, there is no denying that.
But then you also have the stories of filthy noobs dropping a Mirror of Kalandra from their first ever Hillock kill.

This is why the system is what it is. Its bittersweet. Mostly bitter tho and I get why payers complain about this stuff. Its not hard to understand.

Then there is also the economy argument.
Payer capable of farming this sort of content expect great rewards but if that reward would drop all the time and even worse, if everybody could do it, then guess what: Nothing you drop would be worth a damn and that sucks too.

Id rather not drop anything most of the time, if that means I can drop something really big as long as I get lucky. Because if thats not a thing, then why even do it in the first place?