I'm Unhappy I Put As Much Money As I Did In This Game
" the "balance" in this case is the blizzard-esque balancing where everything remotely strong gets nerfed to the ground, with that surprise buff to some skill to start a new meta for the next league. it always happen at the end of fourmonths. it just destroys build diversity |
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" I didn't say I didn't like 'balance' because it wasn't 'fun' - I said I didn't like the way they balanced *this* game because it *isn't* fun. The example I gave was an extreme from a very early build and obviously needed to be fixed - and I stated it was broken - but I continued, that it was fun. It was fun because it allowed the players imagination to run wild with the possibilities. At the onset of PoE, when you first see the web, you will have that same feeling of excitement (at the prospects) and dread (of the complexity), however you will quickly realize that there really isn't much in the way of prospects and that the complexity is really nonexistent. The classes in PoE aren't any more flexible than the builds in D3. It's just that the they (GGG) set a higher degree of effort to realize the builds in PoE, and by effort, I mean time investment. So I question the purpose of the web altogether, it doesn't seem to provide anything above or beyond what a more typical leveling system does. It does provide a kind of awe when you view it, it makes for awesome screen shots in websites and magazines to draw in new players, but it doesn't really give us anything different then D3/TL/GD/TQ any ARPG at all. As for balance and fun. My favorite MMO of all time was Anarchy Online, and the creators of that game allowed players to break the shit out of it if they wanted to. If you had the knowledge and the resources and, often times, the connections, you could truly make some beastly builds that simply outshined everything else. I didn't have any issues with it, the playerbase didn't seem to either, because their were multiple builds for every type that resulted in excellent experiences for different types of playstyles. I truly enjoyed the freedom and the willingness of the creators to give us their tool box and just let us run wild. Increasingly, in modern games, I see more and more this desire to make every build equal or as equal as possible, but that just makes them all the same (imo). if some guy in a game (that I was led to believe would be completely soloable) wants to utilize some build that allows him to slaughter the game with ease... why should I care? Because of the economy? I don't want a fucking economy. I want a game where I am the hero and I slaughter demons and put on shiny clothes. That is what I want. It's all well and good to have an economy for those who choose to participate in it, but I don't think its a great idea to balance drop rates in such a way that you're almost forced to participate. Just like it was a bad idea for D3 to balance drop rates around using the AH. *edit* I do still play the game. But I play it purely for curiosity, and at lower levels so that I do not have to participate in the trading game. It's just that I have realized that the game isn't really suited for me. Clearly a lot of folks are having a great time and love everything about it (besides the desync). "the premier Action RPG for hardcore gamers." -GGG Happy hunting/fishing Last edited by Wittgenstein#0994 on Mar 11, 2014, 11:13:31 PM
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Wittgenstein...I don't think I could have put it more proper. It's not that the game doesn't have its fun, it's how the fun is provided, and by placing too many random factors (RNG) it limits you instead of expands on a great idea with the freedom of exploration.
And Deankar, I think it was moreso an example of the freedom rather than the broken mechanic. It definitely needed to go away from a balance perspective. Guide - How To Get Started in Path of Exile - https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1297390
My Feedback Analysis Thread - https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1270724 |
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" Saddest part is that some of the new uniques have "future legacy item" written all over them. Honestly, I like PoE, but I like it for the potential it has and not for the game it is right now. 1.1.0 patch was just downright horrible and I'm tired of always being forced to adapt to bad changes. It's being going in the wrong direction for a while now. It's becoming less and less rewarding, less viable builds, while more RNG and more cheap one-shots. 177 Last edited by toyotatundra#0800 on Mar 12, 2014, 1:02:54 AM
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" PoE feels like it was started on some fabulous ideas. So, how did we get from an idea of great ARPG to this trade simulator? 177 Last edited by toyotatundra#0800 on Mar 12, 2014, 12:58:28 AM
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" Um...hey guys, here's a crazy idea. Why don't you address the HUGE backlog of broken stuff that seriously needs to be fixed before worrying about churning out more new content that nobody asked for or cares about or likes. |
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I do like the game, though not all content newly added is sadly balanced out better, such that coming back to the game is a better experience.
The fact is the game with its update schedule is an interesting game to come back to. In general though I feel like things that go wrong or have never really been addressed hampers the game. (Such as weak skills underused skills. I Love that searing bond is being used now, but I hardly see any spark etc. because both tree nerfs, lightning nerfs, spark nerfs and support nerfs made it weak (not talking about vaal spark)). ------ 1. Nerfing of passive tree or support gems, due to certain builds. This should 100% be focused down onto the active skills involved. Lightning dmg builds, weapon elemental builds and a few other things are so far less viable to alternatives (scale with phys etc.). Yeah we see spark balanced, but arc overall since the 1st days of complaints due to the passive tree changes is actually today worse, despite it sawing a buff around launch to the skill.
Spoiler
The nerfing of supports and passive tree only resulted in a million other build variations dying.
I think the current life passive nerf is pretty horrible, it certainly kills of variation. I see Berserking got nerfed and other notables are now better attack speed nodes (Haste, Acceleration, Harrier Finesse (latter two less ats, but overall net more). There are still too many useless clusters that with buffs could be interesting to go to, instead it seems we are at the point where we are making thing uninteresting again. Every buff to passive tree: Seen only positive feedback from it in the past. Yes despite the life wheel being the best option to take into some flavour builds, it innate strength also allowed for other not so niche builds to exist. Now 1 flavour build got balanced out and all the niche builds are have become non existent. So every nerf to passive tree: Tune 1 build, lose 10 others. In fact I dare to say that the progression slack off in cruel can be attributed to the overall elemental resists nerf in the passive tree (8% and 18% and the 15% notable nodes). Which has made gear drops even on normal that more important. With fights added such as piety and dominus and with invasion league now, this is something that needs to be reverted. ------ 2. State of evasion, accuracy and armour. Let's face it life, energy shield and block (esp. spell) come before evasion and armour. In fact armour is so uninteresting that armour based builds tend to skip armour nodes even when passed by, same goes for evasion.
Spoiler
I suggest perhaps adding an offensive attribute to evasion and armour. Perhaps a skill that deals your amount of armour in damage. Or perhaps new mechanics, where your armour break the enemy armour allowing you to do some more phys damage or get past the enemy resistance. Evasion for every consecutive dodge or evade the enemy becomes fatigued, allowing you to bonus dmg. Neither one too big, but interesting enough and we kind of all know that the system since it inception has never been that great.
------ 3. Stop the item design, stop the uniques, stop turning this into Diablo 3 launch. The biggest baddy of all are the unique items. Instead of becoming a variation element to builds, they have become best in slot items or pure build enablers. There is nothing wrong if a few of them open up new possibilities, but what is happening is that so many of them do and so many build revolve around them, while more normal rare gear based builds are disappearing. It makes it necessary to trade. The biggest thing about path of exile, the build variation is now 80% based on your capacity to trade for the item. 15% is left open and 5% is maybe the luck portion where you have these specific items drop yourself.
Spoiler
Every single change to the game, every single form of balance sees an ever increasing iteration of unique items that need to be taken into consideration for the balancing process. The HC and Default league are filling up with legacy items due to this process. It is becoming a waste of time and resources and it is all for items that are starting to do little good for the game.
In diablo 3 the only way to change my with-doctor build from other builds around me was to sit on the auction house and endlessly grind for other gear. Going through the PoE forums is the exact same thing. ------ 4. Add to the passive tree. Instead of item design create more keynodes, let people turn lackluster clusters into interesting clusters with notables and add more notable/ clusters to the passive tree.
Spoiler
Here is a keynode: The Rack
Turn 50% of block % into flat physical reduction. Can't block or spell block. Can't evade or dodge. Notable: Shadow strike If you miss deal hit the enemy with your shadow-strike. Shadow strike converts 50% of damage to chaos, can only deal chaos damage and cannot crit. (would create an interesting mechanic around accuracy) Notable: Elemental prowess 10% increased weapon elemental damage Adds +1-3 all elemental damage to your attack. (to do something about the 8% WED boring clusters) Notable: Pariah of the Elements. 30% increased weapon elemental damage -6% to all elemental resistances Notable: The Marketeer 5% reduced mana cost of skills 10% chance that an attack or cast costs no mana. (have it replace the 3x 3% reduced mana nodes) Notable: Huntsmen 5% chance to root the enemy on hit for 1 sec. Take the step to where both skills and passive tree are the center of our attention, the center of our builds again. You come across this unique that might add an interesting element to those builds, perhaps a few of them exist to open new builds. Just take away the focus where builds are planned based on the uniques you will get/ trade for, which has been the shift and is exactly the state of diablo 3. Those are just my feelings and perspective on what I think would improve the game a lot, but generally the 4 month updates are interesting to come back and try out. Last edited by Ozgwald#5068 on Mar 12, 2014, 4:31:34 AM
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" Basically, yes! They took what could have been a very interesting way to create characters (the skill tree) and through consecutive patches whittled it down to nothing. It seems with every patch instead of there being more viable paths to consider there are far fewer and more builds become non-viable options. By non-viable I mean that instead of being able to invest skill points (something everyone gets) you are now required to invest in trading for the select few, often overpriced, items that enable you to pursue your build. This takes character creation and moves it away from a being a creative endeavour letting only the wealthy (those who have endless amounts of free time) pursue anything approaching an interesting or unique build. Even where the average player may get lucky and get the drop they need/want the usefulness of items is often gated behind impossible RNG like socketing/linking etc. |
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I think it's hilarious how people are so perplexed by the skill tree that they think you need to trade in PoE to play at a reasonable level. In D2 it was obvious that you roll a sorceress to farm items because they don't need shit for gear to be strong. If you tried rolling a barbarian or a non-caster paladin without any gear then naturally you'd be fucked and useless unless you traded(not counting the obviously broken mechanics prevalent in D2). In PoE, it's apparently not so obvious that you roll a certain type of spell caster to farm gear. An ice spear shadow gets every gem he could possibly need from quests in a timely fashion, and getting the sockets and links necessary is a walk in the park after the link buffs, I can comfortably farm half of merciless with that build and only 1.2k hp and mediocre merciless resists(40-50%). I'm not talking about hardcore because if someone is complaining about trading in hardcore then they're lacking in the cognitive thing.
There are several other caster builds that get everything they need from quests with very low gear requirements. If you want to play a build that requires gear to be good, then don't be surprised that you might actually have to grind or trade for that build. If you don't want to trade, then play the many caster builds that don't require much gear to get going. If you don't want to play any low gear requirement builds, then you're simply looking for an excuse to bitch. |
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" Yea, Im sure people just want to "bitch". It couldnt be that the game just feels unrewarding to play, It is common knowledge that the game is path of trade. GGG said themselves the economy is the most important thing to them. Drops in d3 where complete garbage as well when there focus was forcing people into the AH. |
