Ways to Remove High-end Items from the Game (To Curb Item Inflation)

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Lichalfred wrote:

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This thread is pointless. 11 pages now and nothing done, it's just a back and forth of ideas between (basically 2 people). Several people have made post's outlining (rather convincingly) that this is a non-issue. Yet, post's keep coming.

What thread is a worthwhile one then? Its a discussion like the other treads are, and yes in terms of influence on devs it seems to be miserable (only 1 dev comment on page 2) - like the other threads do.

In respect to the statement that all games have working economy: well, the point of discussion is not to avoid complete economical collapse but how to keep it in a pre-designed state.

And more importantly, to prevent Stagflation!

Sorry for my earlier post, I was out of sorts at the time. No need to come off like a prick the way I did.

But, I do stand by the spirit of what I said originally.

I don't think the problem has anything to do with "economic" talk, and I feel like that is derailing the central issue, which is this.

"If to many high end items are easily available then the game won't be fun. How do we stop that from happening?"

My response is that.

1. The game will still be fun, you'll have to level in order to use all of those high end items.

-and-

2. Skill games will still have to be leveled up as well.

-SO-

it isn't the case that easy to obtain weapons will hinder the "fun" of the game. In my opinion.

2. An abundance of available items only creates more options for the player base on how they'd like to spec the particular build they are aiming for.

Also, it would allow a player to know (at level 1) that item X will be obtainable at level Y. That is also a benifit. If you read most ARPG forums about builds, the builds are centered around specific, almost always rare, items that most players will never obtain. The fact that such items are as rare as they are is what brings in the gold farmers, and the websites to buy items for real money. So, again, I can't see an issue with having to many items available for selection.

Would it affect trading? Yes, of course, but it would just make everything level. Item Y of quality X is the same as item Z of quality X.

But, I think I have exhuasted myself on this issue so this will be my last post on the topic.

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1. The game will still be fun, you'll have to level in order to use all of those high end items.

I remeber playing Titan Quest: IT - had almost all high-end items stacked after month of grinding and still enjoyed trying one build after another. But the problem was that every time I created new char I played it until hell Baal, ups sorry - legendary Hades was downed. And then I abandoned the char and started another build. After another month of playing everything was examined and I quit playing this wonderful game.

I guess we expect from PoE to be playable at least a year long. Thats why game needs to maintain a constant deficiency of high-end items (as a one of many mandatory conditions) to keep leveled chars being played.

On the other hand the easy accessible high-end items allow certain builds, which otherwise are a hell to play. Going back to TQ:IT you may remeber -100% recharge builds which are a great fun but ONLY after getting your hands on very powerful gear. Before you get a SET of this gear playing is quite tough compared to conventional gear-based builds.

The question is if there are a lot of such heavy gear-dependent builds in PoE? If a) yes - we need gear to be accessible but the effective gameplay time may be considerably reduced by that, if b) no - gear should be in short supply.

I just repeat some of the Wittgenstein points since they are important. He said that if we get a) case and gear is very rare then gold farmers and grinders kick in and a player fights a great temptation to just buy stuff for few bucks rather then spending hours. Even if they dont, then those few players who finally get that equipment for the build get overpowered with a considerable gap to the other builds and the whole community will react painfully at that crying of disbalance. No good.

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Wittgenstein wrote:

it isn't the case that easy to obtain weapons will hinder the "fun" of the game.

If the best quality items have no significant way of leaving the game world the average quality of items in the world continually rises.

Balance and difficulty depends on the quality of items players use. Fun depends on balance and difficulty. Item quality inflation as the game world matures will affect the fun of the game.

A solution would be to continually rebalance the mechanics or monsters to match the item quality inflation (don't know of any game that has done that) or admit you created a degenerate world and reboot it (killing off all the items and players) at intervals before it gets too bad.

Or as I suggested in my previous post use a reliable mechanism to remove the best quality items.

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Fluffy wrote:

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Wittgenstein wrote:

it isn't the case that easy to obtain weapons will hinder the "fun" of the game.

If the best quality items have no significant way of leaving the game world the average quality of items in the world continually rises.

Balance and difficulty depends on the quality of items players use. Fun depends on balance and difficulty. Item quality inflation as the game world matures will affect the fun of the game.

A solution would be to continually rebalance the mechanics or monsters to match the item quality inflation (don't know of any game that has done that) or admit you created a degenerate world and reboot it (killing off all the items and players) at intervals before it gets too bad.

Or as I suggested in my previous post use a reliable mechanism to remove the best quality items.

I don't agree. Fun doesn't depend on anything other than the players personal prefrence. Some people love easy games, some people don't.

An abundance of items will not affect the balance of the game at all. The game is balanced with those items in mind, so having 1 player with X is no different then having 10 players with X or 10000 or the entire player base.

Hell, make it easy. Take cars for example. I have a Porsche and you have the same Porsche and we race. One of us will lose and the other wins, even with the same conditions and vehicle. Why? our skill as drivers determines the outcome. No difference in a game. You have the GOD HAMMER OF DEATH and so do I and so does Joe down the street. Doesn't mean anything.

When everyone has the best equipment it means there's nothing left to grind for. The large majority of players play PvE. After you beat the campaign and complete the story there's no real reason to continue playing beyond continuing to grind and level up and find the best gear.

Also an abundance of good items does make the game easier. Games like these are balanced with the assumption that the player has pretty good gear for his level on average. That means he has a few crap pieces of gear, a few great pieces of gear, and mostly just decent gear forhis level. This is what you would normally expect a player to have from grinding and some trading. If a player has all the best gear he can wear then that makes the game significantly easier. Especially because in PoE your skills are directly tied to how good your gear is. Better gear will make you significantly more powerful because you can wear more gems.

An abundance of good items only makes the game easier if the player has access to them.

Aside from attribute requirements, there's also the fact that you can't trade for better gear if you don't actually have anything to trade with - which means that the developers can attempt to balance drop rates with an eye to the average amount of wealth they expect one player to accumulate from going through the storyline and trading along the way.

If they have more wealth than that? Either they're grinding a bit on the side because they enjoy it (the killing or the loot, whichever), or they've started a new character, taking advantage of hand-me-downs (because if they weren't taking advantage of them, the "more wealth" situation wouldn't apply).

And again, if the game becomes too easy for a player through trading, there are the temporary leagues, and there's the option of, y'know, not trading. (which, incidentally, removes all your high-end items from the economy, doesn't it?)

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Skivverus wrote:

fact that you can't trade for better gear if you don't actually have anything to trade

In D2 people would trade high end uniques for chipped gems because when you and plenty of others have the best unique 'x' the second best unique 'x' becomes worthless junk. A chipped gem dropped by an L1 quill rat which gave 1/3rd of a microscopic chance at re-rolling a socketed sword better than the best unique sword was worth more than the second best unique sword which can only drop in hell difficulty.

When the world is awash with high quality items noobies will be able to trade for them or just plain be given them.

I highly doubt that there will be "top level items" with the socket arrangement, randomness and skill gems. I think that if one item is considered the best than it will soon be dethroned by another previously undiscovered item. So this top tier loot will not really exist there is always going to be something to look for.

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Zidjian wrote:

I highly doubt that there will be "top level items" with the socket arrangement, randomness and skill gems. I think that if one item is considered the best than it will soon be dethroned by another previously undiscovered item. So this top tier loot will not really exist there is always going to be something to look for.

There will not be one specific item that is the 'best' so to speak because everything is random. There will be a general range of items that are all 'best'. When you get your sword of awesome, the fact that it deals 1 less fire damage than maximum isn't going to make a significant difference in gameplay when it already deals 200 additional fire damage. In theory your sword may not be the 'best' but in practice it may as well be the 'best'.

So yes, you're right. There will always be something better. But are people really going to lose sleep over the fact that their sword of awesome could be doing 201 fire damage instead of 200?