A disturbing trend (Games are supposed to be hard)

I am sorry they made the skill tree easier to navigate, half the joy for me was learning to navigate that thing, and that GGG has instigated a class oriented approach to early build with the new skill tree; i miss my bow templar :( , but thems the breaks. To me it seems this part of the game has been over simplified.

I have noticed that drop rates for useful items are lower and monster encounters are increased in difficulty somewhat, this makes the early game play tend to grind on abit especially if you are starting from scratch ( ie empty stash )but they have done this before in a previous patch and the then backed off the difficulty. Man i used to laugh at the moaning on chat about jailrape (Haildrake).

Personally i would prefer to play this as a more difficult game but i think it needs more momentum in places because it tends to bog down in the grind, and average joe doesnt want to have to grind at level 3...
I give the example of TL 2, early on the action/ gameplay feels very fluid and this is encouraging to a new player.

I really enjoyed the precision it took to play demon souls, and to a slightly lesser extent dark souls, but they both centred around a highly engaging combat system where player skill and timing meant everything, unlike the asymmetric point and click ARPG.
My point is, that with DS they could instantly introduce difficult encounters, where every mob had to be treated with respect, because of the level of player symbiosis with their avatar through the precise combat system, but PoE does not have the same level of player engagement in combat. Thus if a new player has to grind their way through lower levels of character progress i think most people will not enjoy this, and hence think twice about how much time they want to invest in this game.

The challenge for the devs is to find the balance of difficulty that allows a player to settle into a game like this, while preserving the feeling of a challenge, before you actually do ramp up the difficulty and give them a challenge.

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Axebane wrote:

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Dashtun wrote:

you cant make a game thats hard in terms of hardcore gamers because casuals wont play it,it has to be easy to some extent

Sure you can, and the market is already flooded with casual games. It's kind of ironic actually. The big companies think the only way to make enough profit is to make games that appeal to both hardcore players and casual players. The trend has gone so far toward the casual side that the market is now lopsided and there are many people who want to spend money on challenging games but don't have anything good to choose from.

GGG might not be able to appeal to most casual gamers with PoE, but they will also be tapping into the hardcore market that has been craving more choices for a while now. The $1.24 million dollars that players have already shelled out for a free-to-play game to help support the game before it has even entered Open Beta is a strong indication that there is definitely a market for hardcore games.

so if you are saying that poe does appeal to hardcore players already what is this thread about?

do you want poe to appeal to hardcore hardcore players?

I like Notch's thoughts in regards to difficulty (mostly in concern of his new gaming project, 0x10c).

Difficulty is great! But there is a point where difficulty becomes tedium instead. People rarely play games to be reminded of real life. When they do, they tend to play simulators. Path of Exile is definitely not a simulator. But that doesn't mean it must be easy, either.

The resistance change is a great step, IMO. But it definitely requires tweaking, which the devs have all ready been doing. Where it was at prior to tweaking (during the test) was definitely what I would call tedium Vs difficulty.

When I think of tedium, I think of ye olde FPS' like Star Wars: Dark Forces and the second game where you would end up having to retrace your steps for a WHOLE MAP, often going an hour in just to get that dreaded blue key so you could go back to the door you needed to open somewhere near the start. And then you find out you need a red key as well from some enemy lieutenant hidden in an obscure area 30 minutes of battle away. Just to go back to where the blue door was at.

I never played the Metroid Prime games, but have heard they're notorious for this as well. Difficult? Not really, just needlessly tedious. It's called Game Padding. Making the game seem longer because the player is wasting time running back and forth like a chicken with its head cut off.

Another (in this case hypothetical) example of needless tedium would be thus: What if Diablo did not have teleportation scrolls? You're only six levels down and have managed to load your inventory with glorious treasure, and now it's time to head back to Tristram. :O


But we also don't want the inverse of that, like ToG where you don't have TP scrolls and can simply TP from wherever with only a cost of a second or so to cast your TP. Or the complete and near total nerfing of a difficulty that was supposed to be... welll, DIFFICULT. XD


Personally, I think the people complaining about these resistance changes need patience. It should have been fairly obvious that GGG is tweaking the game to accomodate the change as nearly every (or every other) patch ends up having some fairly minor tweak. And it's all accumulating to a point where one could refer to the saying "death by a thousand cuts" due to the number of tweaks.

As well, I don't even think they've implemented the global enemy nerf to elemental damage yet that Chris alluded to a week or so ago.



Also. I wish PoE were more difficult. Mostly in the vein of enemy AI now that we finally have resistance penalties. But alas a lack, that is something that really doesn't require addressing quite yet, or not before pressing issues are addressed at least.

With that said, and the latest Kotaku article's pictures in mind: Can't wait to see what those statues have in store for us! Not to mention other Act III enemies. :D

Metroid prime was bad sort of

All these flashy new things that games have. it had some of those, and what that means is that too much was like scripted shit, less exploring

My opinion certainly doesn't agree with the OP.

Dying 26 times to the first real boss you come across would be terrible design. I would feel no thrill at all in finally defeating him. At best I would feel relief, as in "Thank God that's over".

Any decent build in ANY class should be able to clear ALL the content, by any player with average skills. Anything less is design failure.

By default this means that for very skilled players, with a great build, they will find little challenge. And that's as it should be.

If the difficulty is balanced around perfect or near-perfect play and builds, then there is indeed few real build options. Everything must be optimal for success.

Less than optimal, creative, outside-the-box builds need to work as well. This allows for fun in character and alt creation. And if less than optimal builds can succeed, then it follows that optimal builds will have an easy time.

Games are NOT meant to be hard, they are meant to be fun. Both those terms are subjective, but that makes the statement no less true.

I think perhaps you must clarify ALL content.

IMO "all" content only is valid for normal difficulty. Then you have cleared it all. But once you go up in difficulty the rule no longer applies. This is where your build can and should bottom out if you fail at life.

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TheSwampDog wrote:

My opinion certainly doesn't agree with the OP.

Dying 26 times to the first real boss you come across would be terrible design. I would feel no thrill at all in finally defeating him. At best I would feel relief, as in "Thank God that's over".

Any decent build in ANY class should be able to clear ALL the content, by any player with average skills. Anything less is design failure.

By default this means that for very skilled players, with a great build, they will find little challenge. And that's as it should be.

If the difficulty is balanced around perfect or near-perfect play and builds, then there is indeed few real build options. Everything must be optimal for success.

Less than optimal, creative, outside-the-box builds need to work as well. This allows for fun in character and alt creation. And if less than optimal builds can succeed, then it follows that optimal builds will have an easy time.

Games are NOT meant to be hard, they are meant to be fun. Both those terms are subjective, but that makes the statement no less true.

Well this is the type of thing the OP is trying to point out, and I believe GGG is trying to avoid.

You are right, games are meant to be "fun". As stated before in this post- fun has different meaning to different people. "Ice cream is supposed to taste good, therefore the only good ice cream is chocolate" is basically what you're saying.

Some people enjoy extremely difficult games. You clearly do not. Nobody is right, nobody is wrong. You might find TL fun, I think its a steaming pile of crap that a 4 year old could beat. We will see what GGG does with this game, and if you don't like it, then go play something else. If I don't like it, I will do the same. Simple really...

To expand on my last post... where has all the entitlement come from these days? Do you go to boston pizza and have a slice, then proceed to complain to the chef that you don't like their pizza? BP is not going to change their recipe. Some people like it, some do not. If you don't like it don't go to BPs. Why do they have to change their pre-existing recipe to cater to your needs? Are you seriously that self-entitled?

This is what people are doing these days with games, telling the devs that they don't like their recipe and that they need to change it. Leave your feedback and leave it at that. Maybe the chef did put too much sauce on that pizza, and he takes your comment into consideration. Fine, feedback is always great, just don't become entitled to the point you tell them how to make the damn sauce.

If you thought the original mario was too hard, tough shit! You can't patch the game or alter it in any way, you either man up and beat it or put it on the shelf. I think this may be the culprit with todays games- patches. Patches are awesome, don't get me wrong, but people get this false sense of entitlement that the devs are their waiters and need to cater to their needs.

"Waiter! My steak is underdone, put it back on the grill for 45 seconds! And what is this? No no, I wanted 3 potatoes, not 4. 4 is too much. Oh and I want more spice on my steak too! This is ridiculous! I want a discount!"

Just eat your damn steak.

@BloodBlade22

While I somewhat agree with you, I hate the corrupt Publisher-coined term Entitlement (trust, you're using the BS that bad Publishers like EA, Activision, Capcom, etc came up with. The same Publishers who are ruining their industry and will eventually file bankruptcy BECAUSE of their bad business tactics. Think about that before you even bother to use "entitlement" again.).

Do you not understand how ridiculous your restaurant argument is?

I mean, a person would have to be legally stupid to go into a restaurant and pay for something they did not order.

You must be referring to cheap steaks. Because if I order a real steak, you better bet I'll be displeased if it's not made to my order. Your argument does not apply to video games. At. All.

Which is where the "agree" part comes in. Games are not made-to-order. No use in rehashing what you said. It's the dev's recipe. Don't like it? Don't bother eating it. At the same time though, this is a CLOSED BETA. People can complain about things they deem detrimental to the game BECAUSE THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO. If enough individuals agree and can come up with a good argument, then there should be a change. No such thing as "entitlement". Unless you mean someone is being entitled by saying "This piece of shrapnel protruding from my chest sure does hurt." Which is what your post came across as, to be quite honest (seriously sitting here shaking my head at your bad steak argument).

Have you guys ever played either Demon's Souls or Dark Souls? Yeah.