The Illusion of Complexity

In any RPG, ARPG.. any game with 'builds' there will be the 'best builds' and once those are discovered, every other build is dismissed as sub par. This is just the nature of the beast. I suppose one could argue then that the best players should succeed without relying on ideal builds.

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anubite wrote:

Totally agreed.

Remove choice. Just give players the best option from the start. That's the best way to design a game. Choice is just an illusion and we all know everybody just wants to be the best anyway.

I mean, occasionally someone discovers something new in PoE which shifts the fotm so that it's the best skill now-- but this is so rare and-- really, giving players no choice is so much better than false choice.

If builds were numbers...


Diablo 3; Pick a number out of 1-6
PoE; Pick a number out of 1-9999. All the numbers above 5 are trash non-optimal builds.
Diablo 2; Pick a number out of 1-200. Numbers above 25 are crappy non optimal builds

sadly this is more or less true

while skill tree is a massive error opportunity for new players the skills.. are just skills with 'runes', just like in d

people enjoy telling themselves how much freedom they have but when you think 'freeze pulse' and '5 link' for almost all players it means the same gems, for fireball - you have two runes: AOE with LMP/GMP or 'ignite' without. both use ConcEffect. etc etc.

the illusion is in the support gems. take a skill, select a number of supports and i guess anyone here will list the same 2-3 options.

same goes for auras. fast phys build: anger/wrath, IR selected: (grace+determination), slow 2h: hatred, if possible: clarity, CI: discipline etc etc

endless possibilities is like Portal' cake - a lie :)

same goes with weapon selection: always aim for the fastest base as not only it rolls highest phys (in all but one cases) but also benefits the most from auras and buffs. another illusion of choice..

The choice of diversity is.... to MAKE it work, no matter how complicated ^^ (Issues like cuasing desync are not your friend in this, of course)

One of the more "interesting" builds I've played, is Searing Bond/Warp totems.
It tries to break away from the standard sort of passive allocation, 'oddball' passives such as totem range are really quite effective. I not only need to be concerned about my own defenses, but that of my totems as well (to a certain extent).
I use searing bond linked with increased burning damage, trap, remote mine (and reduced duration lvl 1 to work along side Sunblast belt). My warp totems are just to deliver the searing bond damage and trigger EE, so passive-wise, they are negligible.
This leaves me with a whole mess of possible damage nodes on the passive tree, elemental damage, fire damage, burning damage, totem damage, trap damage, mine damage and even damage over time.
Wow, complexity!
No, because they all effect dps in the same manner, it's a simple matter of picking the higher numbers, and taking shortest paths (dem +10 stat nodes). Burning damage nodes (15%) are a higher % than fire (weak, at 6%) or elemental damage (moderate, at 8%), so I take the burning damage ones. Totem damage nodes are also comparatively weak (again moderate, at 8%), so I only get the one that leads through to totemic mastery. Trap and mine damage nodes, wtf? A 9%+9% leading into an 18%+18% notable. 54% increased damage for 2 passives. I need to spend 1 passive on a dex node to get there, after passing through a ring of evasion nodes, which is fine seeing as I run IR/grace anyway for mitigation. Oh hey, my most oddball of builds, and it still runs IR. That's new and innovative, no one uses IR+grace for damage mitigation, because there are so many other options that are just as effective for the same level of investment. Lol.

What's the point to all this? That there are clearly different tiers of passives, and all those junk ones do not add complexity, diversity or options, they are merely a distraction for newer players that don't think to scroll around the passive tree a little more.
I've tried to give the most extreme example of my PoE build experience, everything else is pretty cut and dry by comparison (from the builds I have played).
When that whole cyclone-CoC-EK thing took off, I built one. I didn't follow the guide, just looked at DonaldF's 6L gem setup and built my own from there. Surprise, surprise, I ended up with an almost identical passive tree. Such options and diversity, but only one "correct" path.

So even my wackiest of builds, Warping Bond, goes life-life-life-mitigation-a few keystones/notables that make the build-and only the most efficient of damage passives. That template is true for the majority of builds around.

If anyone cares (unlikely), here's the passive tree for context and so that you can laugh at what a scrub I am.
Planned passive tree (I'm only lvl 65 on that character atm)


P.S. Agree with everything sidtherat pointed out.

[edit] and of course half my gear is predetermined (searing touch, soul mantle, sunblast, etc), with the rest being standard fare (resists + life, etc), so there isn't really much in the way of choice in itemisation either.

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Robert_Paulson wrote:

Burning damage nodes (15%) are a higher % than fire (weak, at 6%)

%Fire Damage works also for burning , while %Burning Damage adds nothing to fire outside of burn... (may be not relevant for some builds)

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even my wackiest of builds goes life-life-life-mitigation-

Of course, there's always a "best" way, and the easiest way to stay alive will always be to max your effective HP...

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of course half my gear is predetermined (searing touch, soul mantle, sunblast, etc),

of course its nice to have an Enigma, but maybe we can go and stay without? ^^ Excessive Min-Max building is NOT the only way to play 'such' games. Some may have fun with 'crazy numbers', some with feeling OP, some with beating a game in 5 minutes, some with struggling to make things work in an unintended way... and some even may just simplay have fun ^^

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Robert_Paulson wrote:

[...]

So, basically, you didn't succeed in making unusual builds work, so everything else that what most people play sucks ( because let's face it, a huge portion of the players follow guides because they are too afraid of facing failure and try their own things ) ?
Great way of thinking.

The only thing I agree with is that people need to have many life/ES nodes from the tree, and I wish that it would not be the case ( with other possible defense mechanism for example ).

Yes, they are skill that are more efficient than other ( relatively to a situation ), and nodes that are better than other ( relatively to a context/situation too ), because balancing such a game is not an easy task, at all.

> Robert_Paulson

Yes, and?

Alright, I'll be that guy: Complexity is not illusory, it's just complexity. Depth is what can be illusory, or more specifically, the choices that result in depth.

The way in which depth and complexity are linked is that its impossible to add depth without adding complexity, but adding complexity rarely adds depth. Complexity tends to just hide the best options a little bit, depth is when those best options become situational. Whew, grammar nazi work done!

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PolarisOrbit wrote:

Alright, I'll be that guy: Complexity is not illusory, it's just complexity. Depth is what can be illusory, or more specifically, the choices that result in depth.

The way in which depth and complexity are linked is that its impossible to add depth without adding complexity, but adding complexity rarely adds depth. Complexity tends to just hide the best options a little bit, depth is when those best options become situational. Whew, grammar nazi work done!

Agree.

Nevertheless, the illusion is still here.