I'm Unhappy I Put As Much Money As I Did In This Game

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

I ignored this thread for a long time due to its title. Saw it mentioned in the chat for my guild, and... let's just say I shouldn't judge a book by its cover. The OP is very well-written.

Each time new leagues pop up, I have a tendency to reroll characters from scratch (rather than taking on any passive tree resets — you might give them to me, I probably won't use them), and from time to time I race, although not much recently. As such, I play the early game a lot, and I have a lot of experience with content up through low maps, but I honestly don't have a lot of high-map experience (but I do have some).

Still, there is one thing which OP seems to point towards, and which I notice more and more as I play this game...

...white monsters drop entirely too much stuff, and rares/uniques not nearly enough.

I guess, then, that it should be no surprise that the primary (non-trading) progression methods do not involve tackling the hardest content, but instead truly farming — that is, harvesting vast numbers of idiotic, easily-defeated white monsters who put up about as much resistance as grain puts up against the scythe. The occasional rare may get in the way, but god forbid they actually drop good loot, because that might actually lead to a deviation from the usual autopilot farming tedium. And bosses? Just avoid them; they're not worth it.

I really feel that whites dropping so much stuff is very key in the whole mix. The truth is that it's a relative thing, and although lootsplosions can be really cool on occasion (and are one of the nicest things about those occasional rogue exile battles), you don't need to rely on full-blown lootsplosions if the loot dropped by rares is significantly better in comparison to swaths of easy whites. This is why the amount of items dropped by white monsters is such a problem — it's something which the blue and magic monsters need to compete with.

So here's a question I'd really like answered:
Why do white monsters drop loot at all?

Imagine if they didn't. You would be under absolutely zero item-progression onus to kill them; the only motivation to do so would be to make the process of killing blue and rare monsters easier (damn white monsters, always getting in the way). Naturally, in order to keep each zone farmable, there would have to be enough of these blue and rare monsters to make the zone worthwhile, so the rates of these would have to increase.

And uniques? Rogue exile style lootsplosions. They're hard (or should be — at the very least, time-consuming), so you deserve it.

In that kind of situation, instead of skipping the bosses to get the ability to farm more whites, I can see players skipping the whites to get to the ability to farm more bosses.

Which is as it fucking should be.

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jaxxxson wrote:

There ARE fun bosses, Vaal Oversoul comes to mind, but there's no reason to kill him beyond progressing through the game with the current farming methods, and no reward to do so. Most people skip the bosses to progress, as they don't provide anything special for taking up extra time.

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jaxxxson wrote:

I'm upset I put money towards a game that seemingly goes in the wrong direction. It can be a fun game, there's potential in a lot of areas, but I'm sadly having no fun with the game and haven't for awhile. These issues either aren't considered relevant by the company, they don't know how to fix them or don't care to.

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CharanJaydemyr wrote:

I'd actually like to see ... *Only* white items and uniques drop, but when a rare would drop, an orb of alchemy drops in stead. When a magical item would drop, an orb of transmutation. Reduce the number of white items overall, but basically get rid of what I consider even more disappointing than white items: irrelevant or crappy rares and magical items. Those you have to stash away to work on recipes (which is where people can call stash tabs 'pay to win') or just ignore altogether. No one ignores an orb of alchemy.

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CharanJaydemyr wrote:

As may be obvious by this point, I think a game that has 'trash mobs' is doing something wrong, just as a game where players just rush through to reach end-game en masse is probably doing something wrong as well. Removing loot from white mobs would absolutely confirm that they are 'trash', nothing but exp givers. I for one relish the idea that the next white mob may drop me an exalted orb or a mirror of kalandra. It's ultimately why we're here and why we keep clicking. We are gamblers, and that's the gamble.

And I am willing to bet GGG would agree with me on this, because they keep making improvements to the core game -- and there's no reason why content that takes them dozens if not hundreds of work-hours to create (including said 'trash mobs') should be that easily dismissed.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Also:

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CharanJaydemyr wrote:

As may be obvious by this point, I think a game that has 'trash mobs' is doing something wrong, just as a game where players just rush through to reach end-game en masse is probably doing something wrong as well. Removing loot from white mobs would absolutely confirm that they are 'trash', nothing but exp givers. I for one relish the idea that the next white mob may drop me an exalted orb or a mirror of kalandra. It's ultimately why we're here and why we keep clicking. We are gamblers, and that's the gamble.

And I am willing to bet GGG would agree with me on this, because they keep making improvements to the core game -- and there's no reason why content that takes them dozens if not hundreds of work-hours to create (including said 'trash mobs') should be that easily dismissed.

You speak as if of a situation which is not fully implemented. Trash mobs are the de facto source of Exalted Orbs and Mirrors of Kalandra and wealth in general in this game.

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raics wrote:

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Also:

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CharanJaydemyr wrote:

As may be obvious by this point, I think a game that has 'trash mobs' is doing something wrong, just as a game where players just rush through to reach end-game en masse is probably doing something wrong as well. Removing loot from white mobs would absolutely confirm that they are 'trash', nothing but exp givers. I for one relish the idea that the next white mob may drop me an exalted orb or a mirror of kalandra. It's ultimately why we're here and why we keep clicking. We are gamblers, and that's the gamble.

And I am willing to bet GGG would agree with me on this, because they keep making improvements to the core game -- and there's no reason why content that takes them dozens if not hundreds of work-hours to create (including said 'trash mobs') should be that easily dismissed.

You speak as if of a situation which is not fully implemented. Trash mobs are the de facto source of Exalted Orbs and Mirrors of Kalandra and wealth in general in this game.

Beg your pardon, but 'barrelchested krait' is the number one source of orbs in this game, and the poor thing doesn't even fight back.

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Baloosh wrote:

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Chris wrote:

We base our development decisions on what we feel would be best for the game, and occasionally on data of player behaviour.

No you don't. You base development on what will pay the bills. I guess you are defining "player behavior" as those loudmouths on the forum who purchase the most MTXs. You certainly aren't doing what's "best for the game" because if you were, you'd make the game more widely accessible to the other 99.999999999% of players who don't find the BIS drops.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Ah, yes. But the barrels don't give XP...

...which is another thing in Charan's post I failed to note. The fact that white monsters are also the primary source for XP is another problem, essentially the same thing as the loot problem but applied to leveling. The XP you get from Piety alone in a Piety run should be a double-digit percentage of the total, assuming the fight with her is a double-digit percentage of the time elapsed for said run.