GGG vs replay-ability vs confidence?

I must admit that the wall of text did indeed crit me and I didn't read it all =P

but I too find the biggest draw to the game to be making new builds and I also like getting them to end-game (maps) viable.

When I sat down to make my very first character I knew that I would want to make 30 more so I made a summoner figuring that would be a build that could solo easily so I could find gear for my other characters. I didn't read or research beforehand so thankfully I was spot on lol, they make great MF characters and I was able to easily gear alts with map-viable armor.

I think the extra time that it takes to get amazing gear is what keeps me playing those characters once I get them to ~65 and can start on maps with my mediocre gear. If anything I would say a slight tweak in the experience gain to let you get alts leveled up faster would make me want to play even more. Probably keeping the same very high requirements for 80+ but allowing you to reach 80 a little quicker.

After ~50 days of casual playing (I know I'm new) my summoner can run maps up to 74 pretty solidly and still stack pretty decent IIQ/IIR. But that said I still have lots of things I could upgrade that will take time, which is what keeps me wanting to play that character as well.

The biggest thing holding me back is everytime I find a great item I want to make a character to use it, so gearing up my main is going to take a very long time heh.

I know that it's moot to say "RNG is fine b/c my results with it were fine" but in my very casual short time playing I've found probably 20-30 exalts (domination) worth of gear, I just use it all myself rather than selling it, so I really don't think someone that has been playing way longer than me could possibly have not found anything worthwhile.

TL;DR - It doesn't take long at all to level/gear up a single character that can run maps. Use that character to farm gear for all the alts you want. Enjoy huge replayability b/c you aren't just trading your main's gear for equally strong gear on an alt and then losing interest in that character very quickly. I like drop rates where they are, but easier leveling pre 80 would be cool.

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So let me get this straight... You are suggesting something like the following...
1. Keep BiS items super rare and hard to obtain like they currently are...
2. Increase the drop rate of "good" rares and build enabling uniques by some unspecified amount.

I would consider build enabling unique's to also be somewhat rare, since they create incentive to make a new build in itself, so there drop rate should remain as it is. However "content enabling rares" or like i refer to them in this thread "viable gear" (as to exclude BiS) should not. Since they ensure a sense of fun when completing the content that could be considered lacking in its current form.

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I could see this being somewhat effective. However, I'd like to provide a warning that in ARPG's it is never the mediocre items that truly make me want to make a build, but the absolute top tier items. My facebreaker build is fun and effective, but the character I play is my soul-taker blender :-/

But you had "fun" playing that facebreaker build? Was this not incentive to create another build? As opposed to creating a build that was not "fun", or did not have a "fun experience" attached to it?

This is my main issue with the current design. Hardcore should by no means mean "anti-fun".
Else we just enter a masochistic state of design. Where only the select few enjoy enduring the endless "whip" on there back, while all the other players who don't enjoy self-punishment for the sake of punishment take there leave. While in reality there is no logical reason why one should not allow for both to exist simultaneously.

You could compare it with SFL, where the people enter the thread saying "you can already do SFL within the current game state", this is a true fact.
However people are also capable of being masochist's within the current game state without enforcing it on the entire community.

Edit : after rereading that i just had to make a note about the following, a build can still be consider "not-fun" but then it should be due to lack of game mechanics and bad skill selection, which force the player to get familiar with the game, this is an "acceptable" way of having a "non-fun" build since it can be alleviated with knowledge and experience.

(again this is only my opinion)

Edit 2 :

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I doubt the developers would have publicly released the game in October if they lacked confidence in their product.

Fair point, but things evolve over time. Being fine one year does not exclude the fact it can be wrong the next year. Just saying i don't believe in static truth's. I also don't believe in right/wrong, they are just to illustrate a point :).

***DANGER: HUGE WALL OF TEXT INCOMMING!!! SEEK SHELTER IMMEDIATELY!!!***

I got to my endgame build. Found out it didn't work. Tweaked it. Worked, but still not complete. Tweaked it more. Pretty solid, but still a ways to go. Planned more tweaks for the next several levels/gear (lvl 82 atm.) The character is worth around 90 ex so far, 152 if you count the Shavs I haven't equipped yet. I think "end game gear" is much further than people think.

For some reason, whenever this topic is discussed, people see only "loot never drops" or "you want BiS to rain from the sky", which gets nobody anywhere because there is actually a happy medium.

Personally, I'm getting tired of the "work." It's so much work to get gear to make a character, I really can't bring myself to make another and my current build is stagnating as the gear gets more and more [ridiculously] expensive. I hate to be a "doomsayer" but my interest in PoE is really only held because there is nothing else I currently want to play (waiting on that WildStar BETA key.) This is a sad, sad thing because I've planned out so many builds that will never see the light of day simply because of said "work" to achieve any success in them.

When my current build is complete, I will unlikely roll a new character. The time it has taken me to make my current one feel "powerful" (not even BiS) is simply too discouraging.

The counter-argument I always get is "the game is what you make it." No. No it's not. Not for the type of gamer I am. "Experiencing content" is fine for the first playthrough. However, after that comes a level of mastery. This usually comes in the form of min/maxing. There is no aiming for "mediocre." My type doesn't play games to be mediocre.
Now, if I was being challenged somewhere along the way, then the interest might be held, but currently, it's the same old Piety/Dom Runs for loot. Essentially, there is no challenge holding me back, just loot drop chance, which is completely out of my power to change directly (can be changed indirectly with MF/Speed, but that is also factored into drop rates.)
Once the character is geared, there is PvP. PvP is the ultimate goal for competitive gamers. You are fighting the ultimate enemies; other poeple. They learn. They adapt. They challenge. I can tell you right now, through all my experience as a competitive and former semi-pro gamer, PvP will absolutely not be taken seriously unless people can get on even remotely similar gear levels fairly easily, especially if the only thing holding many back is some poor drop chance code.

Will I leave when my character is fully geared? Who knows. If the PvP is good, the game sticks for a while. If there are alot of "options" or "play styles" to experience, I'll try them until I run out of fun ones. However, I will say ultimately: It is not the job of the player to make fun out of a developer's game. If the player is having to search for fun, then the developer has failed. Furthermore, if the only way for the developers to extend the life of the game is to make unnecessarily unforgiving "progression checks" (such as drop chances), it is an artificial way to extend the life of a game, and they have failed to make content deep enough in the first place.

If you didn't want to read the rest; TLDR:
There is no reason for gear acquisition to be so difficult in a game that:
- Adds new build enabling items and gems every 2 weeks.
- Survives on MTX, which requires multiple characters for more sales.
- Plans to have a competitive and enjoyable PvP experience.
- Expects player numbers to drop off and return during each new season.

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Boem wrote:

Where only the select few enjoy enduring the endless "whip" on there back, while all the other players who don't enjoy self-punishment for the sake of punishment take there leave. While in reality there is no logical reason why one should not allow for both to exist simultaneously.

This is so correct. For the majority I've seen, any who were against drop rate increases would actually be affected very little by said change. They are the type to keep playing as long as there is content to experience. In fact, I predict that if drops rates had started off higher, they wouldn't have felt any negativity or experienced any fewer "carrots" to "masochistically" chase after compared to now.

Yes. But in other games, no.

A lot of people don't recognize that a huge part of PoE's design and development involves the existence of a character making meta-game for races and ladders. They can't just trivialize the early-mid game for people unwilling to "work", i.e. invest time, for new builds and goals.

Now, that isn't to say that their isn't room for improvement to the character building experience such that more casual or time poor players wouldn't be so dissuaded from making new characters. I think the biggest flaw in the game right now is cases of single iteration build enabling end-game uniques.

For example, shav's is required for PA based builds that don't want to get 1 shot by chaos damage. There is no other unique that allows for the viable use of that keystone. Rise of the Phoenix is another example. It is the mandatory shield for life based RoF builds because there is no other item or build to fully counter the burning degen.

In other words there needs to be lower level less powerful alternatives to these end-game uniques. This way more complex builds can start becoming functional and enjoyable at earlier levels without showering the player with more drops to hasten the progression.

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Hackusations wrote:

A lot of people don't recognize that a huge part of PoE's design and development involves the existence of a character making meta-game for races and ladders. They can't just trivialize the early-mid game for people unwilling to "work", i.e. invest time, for new builds and goals.

Why not? All it would do is shifting the balance for everybody. Points would propably have to be adjusted but that's all.

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Now, that isn't to say that their isn't room for improvement to the character building experience such that more casual or time poor players wouldn't be so dissuaded from making new characters. I think the biggest flaw in the game right now is cases of single iteration build enabling end-game uniques.

For example, shav's is required for PA based builds that don't want to get 1 shot by chaos damage. There is no other unique that allows for the viable use of that keystone. Rise of the Phoenix is another example. It is the mandatory shield for life based RoF builds because there is no other item or build to fully counter the burning degen.

In other words there needs to be lower level less powerful alternatives to these end-game uniques. This way more complex builds can start becoming functional and enjoyable at earlier levels without showering the player with more drops to hasten the progression.

I totally agree. That is what we in Germany call an "Unding", an unthing, something that should not be. I only hope that with time and 100-200 more uniques this will be a thing of the past.

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A lot of people don't recognize that a huge part of PoE's design and development involves the existence of a character making meta-game for races and ladders. They can't just trivialize the early-mid game for people unwilling to "work", i.e. invest time, for new builds and goals.

Just a quick note on this subject. I am assuming that with meta-game you mean maps? Correct me if i make a wrong assumption.

Normal and cruel i consider both challenge-less. There is no harm on these difficulty's to a "gamer", i am currently doing a challenge where i play famine/self-found/no hp rolls on items/manmode melee only. And i am farming ledge merciless at this point in time.(on nemesis)

Other then being time consuming to find the gear with resis rolls on them and lacking hp rolls, there is barely any challenge presented.

For me personally, i do this to challenge myself, since i find the game lacking in challenge until you reach the endgame.(and even then, the challenge is presented in an endurance battle)

note that this thread is not for me, it is about the greater picture, to help PoE on the long run.

If you take a look at the racing formats then you see "dedicated gamers" reach the "meta-game" at day 1/2 of the race. Already proving that the challenge is negligible in the early difficulty's presented by the game itself.

This in itself is proof that this has very little consequence to them. They already
"fast-forward" to the more challenging part of the game aka meta-game(maps). The people that don't are the people not interested in the "contest" and are playing to have a "fun game time". It is for them that GGG can alter the experience.

Like i pointed out earlier, it is perfectly possible to both cater to "hardcore" players and "casual" gamers, within the current design.
The hardcore players will still top the casual players, the only difference would be that the casual player can now also have a fun time while not competing with anybody. And the guys playing for the top-ladder positions will also still be able to have there endurance battle for spot 1#.



Edit : typo's

Replayability and end-game for me are two different things, so when I would get my build "finished" on D2 or other certain games, it pretty much would only mean the start of game (end-game). PvP and gear farming would come next. In the end, PvP would stay.

Things like races and ladders gives you another branch in replayability, but only to a certain extent. I look to a ladder like to a wipe. I start from new and my tasks are all the same yet again, level a character, gear the character, PvP with it.

Races can be competitive, but it's like "speed-chess", so in the end, they're just there, but not my main concern (or majorities).

Build variation is nice, but no matter what game, if there is build/class/char variation, I'll just look for most optimal farming build/class/char and most optimal PvP build/class/char. I know that there are people who enjoy testing out different builds and enjoy trying out new things and even enjoy having special unique characters, but those kind of people, from my experience at least, do not affect my end game (PvP) at all.

Problem with PoE, is that it has a lot of replayability value, it just doesn't have any goal worth playing for in the long run. It's a nice game, I enjoy it to an extent and I play it when I'm bored/free, but as long as it doesn't have good PvP, all seems to be for nothing.

It's not that I only care for PvP, or that PvP is the only possible end-game that is "long-lasting", it's that the difficulty in this game is approach through sheer numbers and/or huge difficulty spikes, that again relay on sheer numbers. That's very bad for PvM difficulty. A map can be hard because it lowers your max resists or places a curse on you, both of which lowers your defensive or offensive stats for that matter. It's like having worse gear and that's it. Monsters do not get smarter, they don't give you any challenge, they're just there and as long as you pass gear check and don't get shitty RNG on "difficulty spikes", like a double hasted herald or something similar - you're fine.

If the above is the case in PvM area of the game, then PvP is truly the only viable end-game, sadly...We have no good PvP yet.

I agree with your sentiment Gravis. It is pretty accurate at describing the current state the game is in.

At least from my perspective.

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Boem wrote:

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A lot of people don't recognize that a huge part of PoE's design and development involves the existence of a character making meta-game for races and ladders. They can't just trivialize the early-mid game for people unwilling to "work", i.e. invest time, for new builds and goals.

Just a quick note on this subject. I am assuming that with meta-game you mean maps? Correct me if i make a wrong assumption.

No, by meta-game I mean the game of efficiently building new characters in the game. It changes the dynamic from simply defeating the content to how quickly and effectively can that content be beaten. It allows for competition and secondary goals against others and oneself.

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Boem wrote:

If you take a look at the racing formats then you see "dedicated gamers" reach the "meta-game" at day 1/2 of the race. Already proving that the challenge is negligible in the early difficulty's presented by the game itself.

This in itself is proof that this has very little consequence to them. They already
"fast-forward" to the more challenging part of the game aka meta-game(maps). The people that don't are the people not interested in the "contest" and are playing to have a "fun game time". It is for them that GGG can alter the experience.

Dedicated/Hardcore gamers do rapidly reach end-game, but if you actually look at the one week race statistics GGG posted you'd see that the majority of deaths occurred in early-mid game. You said it yourself that normal and cruel present no challenge and yet in a week race cruel is the most dangerous content in the game. That is because normally with precautions you could trivialize the content by farming till you have the gear, but when there is a character making meta-game it changes the dynamic and creates new challenges. Cruel just happens to be where the content really starts to get its teeth and taking big risks or playing carelessly gets a person bit.