THERE IS NO REASON WHY POE shouldn't have a CASUAL league

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Arrowneous wrote:

That isn't a real solution to the current problem of needing 100s or 1000s of fusings to 5L or 6L a piece of gear. It's rare enough to get a 6S item to begin with and then to need that many fusings is just adding insult to injury. Unfortunately for all of us, only the no-lifers have the time to burn/sink into playing PoE to the extreme that is needed to amass enough jewellers to get a 6S item and then amass enough fusings to try to 6L it. There has to be a better way to work to get this without it being too easy and the market flooded with 6L items. Maybe GGG has a Kobayashi Maru situation on its hands.

Except that 5L and 6L items are not required to finish the game. They are just highly desired. If your not a no lifer then it should take you a lot longer to get a 6L since its one of the rares most desirable items in the game.

PoE was not meant to be a casual game, that's for sure and it is great. The only issue that I take from this thread is that drop% is way too low, except for alt-shard-crap. Yes, there's way around this: max out mf-items and trade but that's little fun for those who prefer to find items. It is really difficult to stay motivated to play a game if everything you are looking for is kind of zod-rune rarity (for seasoned d2-s). And I am not thinking about 6L now, let it be super-elite, really. Just my casual 2 cents.

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iamstryker wrote:

Except that 5L and 6L items are not required to finish the game. They are just highly desired. If your not a no lifer then it should take you a lot longer to get a 6L since its one of the rares most desirable items in the game.

And I'll again point out I'm going broke and forced into farming for a 4L. I actually crafted a 6S although I was aiming for lower, and it currently just sits there since I know it will take more resources than I have to make it into a 6L I could use. It isn't even that high of a level one either so I know I would replace it eventually anyway. I have been tempted many times to reroll to see if I could get it to be a 4S instead. I get a 5L and a 6L are suppose to be high end stuff. Why am I going broke on a 4L when that is the standard?

I dont have a problem with a full out casual league as long as they balance differently between the leagues and those peoples requests dont ruin my gameplay experience.

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Without_Pause wrote:

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iamstryker wrote:

Except that 5L and 6L items are not required to finish the game. They are just highly desired. If your not a no lifer then it should take you a lot longer to get a 6L since its one of the rares most desirable items in the game.

And I'll again point out I'm going broke and forced into farming for a 4L. I actually crafted a 6S although I was aiming for lower, and it currently just sits there since I know it will take more resources than I have to make it into a 6L I could use. It isn't even that high of a level one either so I know I would replace it eventually anyway. I have been tempted many times to reroll to see if I could get it to be a 4S instead. I get a 5L and a 6L are suppose to be high end stuff. Why am I going broke on a 4L when that is the standard?

If your going broke trying to get a 4L then your doing something wrong. If your resources are that bad then don't waste fusings trying to get one. Buy a 4L from the traders or find one on the ground and then either use alch/chaos or alts to get some decent mods. You could also ask to buy a cheap one in trade chat. That way your not gambling.

Here's my current Anarchy stash as of 9-3-2013:

To get this I have:
level 69 witch
level 56 duelist
level 28 ranger
level 19 marauder

I've played 20 to 25 hours a week x 12 = 240 to 300 hours. Nominal for a casual player.
As you can see the CO, BW, and AS quantity benefits greatly from the vendor recipes where as the jewellers and fusings suffer greatly without a vendor recipe. I have 1 and only 1 Exalted Orb for my time played. A ratio of 250 to 1 is horrible for the exalt and should be closer to 100 to 1. Maybe if I had 300% MF I could do better but that's also another highly argued problem for other threads. This stash was amassed mostly solo with about 1/4 of the time in a trio group. I've used as many BW and AS to get my weapons and armors to 20% as I have with the jewellers and fusings (I'd have about 3 times this if I had never used any J or F). Except for wisdoms and portals, the only other currency used was to purchase about 2 dozen fusings. All the others are just what I've found playing without any trading. Just remembered, I used 2 alchs to upgrade 5S-4L white armor.

It is quite readily apparent that some of the features highly touted by GGG as why PoE is better than other arpgs are not usable by any casual player. My 1 exalt is currently "my precious" and will never be used for its original purpose (that orb is valued as a trade currency). This also goes to show GGG that a casual league is not a crazy idea.

So GGG has missed the mark completely on the whole crafting system since the currency drop rates are way too low for all but the hardcore 40+ hours a week farmer. I sure hope GGG has a fix for this in the 1.0.0 game release.

edit: Come to think about it D3 failed in the crafting department too. I guess the devs always way over estimate the grind time to currency ratio and what most of us want for time played.

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Snorkle_uk wrote:

dude it would be ridiculously op, I can only presume you know very little about items and crafting from what you are asking. You think you have a 1 in 4 chance of getting something you want from an alc? lol. If you alc something 100 times 80 of them would be sellable? No, not even close, thats so far off the reality, if you implemented your idea it wouldnt be worth farming gear at all, I had ever slot maxed out on every character I have by now from crafting.

To say 80 out of 100 alcs will get you something you can sell is the same as saying 80 out of 100 items that drop can be sold. I think its closer to about 1 in 400 items is even usable.

This comment proves my point exactly about your expectations of items. You're looking from a very limited view of endgame player that wants to faceroll the entire game. From that perspective yes, once in 400 rares you might get a good item. For people who are <70 though, which is probably the vast majority of the game's population, many of the blues that drop replace old rares. And this is where your perspective screws up your math on what is useable.
To say that using 1 alch will only after 400 attempts give you an item you can sell for 1 alch is insanity. What's really happening is you're looking for items you can ONLY use at high-endgame and as such are pissing your currency away trying to get a perfect roll on your items. There are plenty of people out there leveling alts who would pay an alch for a good leveling item.

The reality is that most of the time when you alch something, you will either get:
1. an item you can sell for an alch
2. an item you can't sell at all and you vendor it for alt shards
3. an item that is good enough to sell for more than an alch, and make back the currency you lost when you did all those #2's.

If you're trying to act like it takes 400 alchs to get 1 alch back, well apparently you haven't seen the vendor recipes for alt-alch. Reality is that even if you vendored every single item you rolled you would get an alch back LONG before reaching 400 rolls.

The more I think about it the more I understand that I'm totally against "casual" league.

Main point

This game is about finding good items. If you can gain everything you want too easily it will become boring.

Finding a rare good item is fun because this item is rare. If the item stops being rare - the fun is spoiled. A new league with increased drops will decrease rarity of items. I'm talking here about perceived rarity, not actual. Actual rarity will remain the same for other leagues, but it is perceived rarity that makes finding items fun.

Why the same argument does not apply to "softcore vs hardcore"
Well, they simply are too different. And it is not like item hunting on softcore is much easier.

Why the same argument does not apply to single player games with difficulty settings
It applies actually. But these games are about finishing the storyline. And finishing the storyline on higher difficulty is a separate accomplishment. So the effect is much weaker.

There can never be "casual" league
No matter how much you increase drop rates, craft chances, experience gain there will always be people demanding a "casual" league with higher drop rates, craft chances and experience gain. Until it becomes so easy and boring that everyone stop playing this game.

Just look at D3 example. Chronology:
1. Guaranteed rare drops from first boss kill on first difficulty.
2. Guaranteed rare drops from first boss kill on each difficulty.
3. Guaranteed rare drops from each elite kill on each difficulty (with 5 nefalem stacks). At this point people stop picking blues for vendoring.
4. Increased power and drop chances for legendary items. At this point some people stop picking even rares.
And in the addon there will be:
5. Guaranteed legendary drops form first boss kill on each difficult.

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Arrowneous wrote:

All the others are just what I've found playing without any trading.

So you chose to not trade and then complain that you have little currency for your time played...

By this logic you should have as close as possible to the IIQ cap to negate your choice to not trade, anything less than that is just asking for a handout because you can't accept the downsides of your personal choice.

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Legatus1982 wrote:

This comment proves my point exactly about your expectations of items. You're looking from a very limited view of endgame player that wants to faceroll the entire game. From that perspective yes, once in 400 rares you might get a good item. For people who are <70 though, which is probably the vast majority of the game's population, many of the blues that drop replace old rares. And this is where your perspective screws up your math on what is useable.
To say that using 1 alch will only after 400 attempts give you an item you can sell for 1 alch is insanity. What's really happening is you're looking for items you can ONLY use at high-endgame and as such are pissing your currency away trying to get a perfect roll on your items. There are plenty of people out there leveling alts who would pay an alch for a good leveling item.

The reality is that most of the time when you alch something, you will either get:
1. an item you can sell for an alch
2. an item you can't sell at all and you vendor it for alt shards
3. an item that is good enough to sell for more than an alch, and make back the currency you lost when you did all those #2's.

If you're trying to act like it takes 400 alchs to get 1 alch back, well apparently you haven't seen the vendor recipes for alt-alch. Reality is that even if you vendored every single item you rolled you would get an alch back LONG before reaching 400 rolls.

this point doesnt prove my expectations, this point comes from the hard facts of sales figures from actively trading and running shops in this game for 8 months, I know what sells and how much for. Vendor recipes for getting your alcs back have nothing to do with 10 orbs giving you a 1 in 100,000 item, you are losing track of the point you are trying to make and arguing something else now which is off topic. I didnt say it took 400 alcs to get 1 alc back, I said it took 400 drops to get something usable that is going to sell for a decent price, and what you are asking for is for 10 orbs to get you something that is going to have literally a 1 in 100,000 mods and sell for gigantic amounts, and by adding 10 divines into the mix you are now going to have an item better than any item currently up for mirroring, a mirror costs 75 exalts + a 2 or 3 exalt fee just to mirror such an item, they are 1 in a billion items and you want them for a price anyone can farm in a week. That is the point, its got nothing to do with an alc vendor recipe.