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

I'd like to say that Hilbert isn't on alpha and has no idea what the people there are like, contrary to his comment that we are there to "see new content, and get advantages". Most of the alpha players... play on alpha. Most of the alpha players are not in the top tier of the game and that is because most alpha testers get their fun from theory crafting and from having debates over what a % increase to skill X would result in.

The panic people have about alpha getting info and then using it as an in game advantage is honestly laughable. Not because it couldn't happen I suppose, but mainly because the players who are really dedicated to alpha don't give a crap about the economy on the live servers. And, also, we rarely see patch notes before they hit live - maybe a day or so early - before that we are just testing broken/new builds with general guidance as to what exactly we should be looking for.

There have been exceptions, Kripp was (is?) an alpha member. I strongly disliked that, as I disliked having *any* streamers on alpha. However, since the game was going live and Kripp was an awesome source of free advertising to the types of HC players GGG wanted, I cannot fault them for giving him access.

omg Charan bombarding:)

I bought Dark Souls 2 today :)

"

CharanJaydemyr wrote:

Sorry, OP, this thread has gotten way off course as everyone decides to use it as their own feedback thread now that Chris has posted.

It happens.

Nevermind the fact that just because he posted a response doesn't mean he'll be back. There's virtually no chance of him having sufficient time to read and digest some of the rants that followed his post.

Your post was concise and clear and warranted all the excellent replies, including Chris'.

I cannot say the same for all the others that followed it.

Again, I'm sorry.

I'm out. Cheers for sharing your sentiments and prompting great discussion, but I fear that's run its course. :)

I appreciate the kind words Charan, and I'm quite surprised this thread has blown up like it has. There's some really good ideas sprinkled in here from people on random pages, and I think the community can really make this an amazing game. I'm just surprised and happy Chris decided to respond at all, in all eventuality I will send him a email on my concerns, I'm trying to get the best ideas here alongside my own to confront him while keeping it short.

It's hard.

Me and my wife were having a conversation yesterday about the amount of money I have put towards supporting this game. I know she doesn't get it but like others have mentioned, I am buying into the vision and people behind the game. There are things I love about this game and things I hate.

Outside of some of the invasion balance issues I personally love the new leagues. The majority of the things I am not a fan of align with a lot of what has been said and deal more with core design than a specific skill or the most recent patch.

This may sound trite to most but honestly the thing that bugs me the most is the amount of attention give to places like reddit from Chris and the dev team while the homepage and forums where a majority of major supporters go get less and sometimes no information.

I learned of the rain makers patch tuning yesterday through a link from reddit, not these official boards. I understand the dev team must utilize various modes of communication but there should be a focus on these forums and the people on them. People on reddit should be learning of changes by links to this board not the other way around. It just gives me a feeling of neglect to the community.

If I could change just one thing about this game it would be the requirement to trade. The biggest draw for me was the idea I could use currency to craft my dream gear as I played. I know people can argue that you can play without trading and you can craft your dream gear. The problem is I do have a life, I do have a job, I die in hardcore, and I want to sit atop Atziri's throne room. It's typical for me to grind up enough orbs to finally obtain a build enabling item and promptly rip it to softcore. (maybe I just need to lrn2ply??)

Without trade, four months is not enough time to accumulate the wealth or items needed to craft dream gear and experience all the league has to offer. I have never been lucky enough to get a uber drop in this game and grinding for alt's and chaos orbs is really the only option to build up my characters. I also think this was the allure of the decent races. You actually got to use orbs for their intended purpose. If there was only some way to capture this in the 4 month league..


To the main point of this thread I do not feel like my money has been wasted. I don't feel like GGG should have to cater to my opinion because I gave money. Overall the communication from the dev's is better than most games I have played. I still think they are lacking focus on the community of these boards. I hope they stick to their vision of keeping the challenge intact. I hope they dedicate more time to improving under-utilized skills and nodes and less time nerfing the things people enjoy.

"

Dreggon wrote:

"

Rangers wrote:

yes we enjoy the patch, but i wish these drops wouldn't suck so hard,

used 150 fuse on 1 item didn't even get a 5 link chest, it was a 6 socket chest.

So i stopped playing the new league.

Do you understand me?

Because those fuses are taking whole day to get, you play all game 15 hours a day, and you get hardly any good currency to craft. but 150 fuses wasted like in 2 mins.

so i understand why Op is so annoyed with the game.

I stop playing poe and start again and stop and start again lol

I think there's merit in this.

Consider most of the items and crafting in the game is about gambling. Use an orb on an item, hope to get a better item. But I feel as though there should be - for a higher price - a way to bypass RNG. If the odds of a 6 link are (for example) 1:500, let people pay (example) 650 fusings to force one.

I think I remember it being possible to get high-tier attack damage mods on blue items via a vendor recipe. You can sell sets of yellow gear for chaos orbs. Gambling should always be better over time, but if you don't want to play the RNG... there should be an out.

Preface this by saying Yes I'm a P.O.E addict but still like many other games of this genre also. In essence I agree with the feelings of frustration being expressed here in particular this post as I'm sure many of us players can relate with.

I post in the forums infrequently simply because of time an the necessity of not needing to as in most cases I either agree or disagree about the point being made an it will resolve it self irrespective of what I say or do. Simply by being here an playing I support the Game as yes again I reiterate the fact I think GGG are awesome but like myself are not perfect.

Trading, RNG, Desync could chat about for hours on end but won't do that to save you an myself the time so we can play more :-)

Ok back to the posters point that's being made, GGG please consider this concept.

Vendor Templates :-

Fusings 4,5,6 links

Sockets 5,6

Socket Colors Various color combinations on 4,5,6 sockets including white possibly.

Prices determined by GGG using the the required amount of Gems to get the template is then vendered with the item to give the result procured. This would give average committed players like myself an attainable goal an others with RNG if so desired.

Other Games past an gone we learn from an I have experienced many during my 30+ years of gaming. We all evolve in our gaming experience we are all still learning as are the Devs. Yes they may have a vision collectively and individually which we agree/disagree with an how this game is an will be in the future but one thing is sure it will be remembered as a "Classic" like game such as "Diablo" an for some like myself "Elite" was.

Chris has acknowledged that they wanted to introduce elements that would challenge the 'elite' players of the game an as someone whom wouldn't be considered this I support this action for various reasons. Equally it's important that the average player get's continued enjoyment through 'attainment' cause if they don't an dislike constant grinding we will eventually lose them to another Game once that comes along.

Of course this is easy to talk about but achieving a balance is more difficult when you pitch a single course meal to a smorgasbord of people. :-)

"

ephetat wrote:

"

Veta321 wrote:

To add to Hilbert's post, I would also like game fundamentals reevaluated and tested externally. Just because beta is over doesn't mean this stuff is 'perfect' or that inexpensive changes wouldn't benefit the play experience. Granted this is often a question of prioritization and in that regard I'll defer to Chris & co. beyond letting them know there's interest. As Hilbert suggests 1-2 week (void) races would be ideal for such experimentation, additionally it's worth noting such an approach would create an impression of greater involvement with the community (even if that isn't true beyond data collection).

Thirded. I'm actually somewhat surprised the idea hasn't been brought up before, seems obvious in retrospect.

It has.
It got ignored.
Ive been asking for race leagues to be used for balance testing since closed beta.
This gives you an idea of GGGs priorities in regards to actual balance versus just making sure that the game isn't impossible to play.

I agree 100% with the OP, and I'm going to stop playing entirely, as playing this game has become too much of a chore for me.

It sucks, because there are a lot of really interesting concepts in this game, but there is way too much grinding to be able to experience them. Like crafting. Am I really going to use an Exalted Orb on an item, when I have only found 3-4 of them ever? How many more Fusing Orbs am I going to waste on my 6 socket bow when finding them takes forever?

I hate to bring up D2 again, but when I played that game I always felt that there was another rune or unique right around the corner. I never get that feeling while playing POE. I just always end up feeling unrewarded.

"

Chris wrote:

With regards to the "most time to play" comment - Charan and I have talked about this personally and I wanted to mention it in this thread. We want to make sure there are content and items for people who play far more than the average player. Enemies like Atziri (and potentially other undocumented harder versions of her) require a whole lot of effort that will probably be out of for a portion of our playerbase. Those players can still find the content both enjoyable to watch on Twitch/YouTube and aspirational (inspiring them to build better and better characters to hopefully take it on themselves). We tried to make sure that there was lots of content in SotV that was available to all players, and based on the overwhelmingly positive feedback on the patch, I personally feel we succeeded.

Chris, I question your comment here. I think I understand what you are saying - people who have not experienced the content, can watch it and get pumped to try to reach it themselves.

My problem is that you seem to be the under the impression that the average player can take on, and beat, Atziri, just with the right build? Really? I'm very very surprised by this.

From Mathil's thread, he felt that it was his SKILL that allowed him to beat Atziri. His build was incidental, and he felt he could have done it with a number of other builds. He said 9/10 players would have failed using his exact build/gear. He also had to trade quite extensively and devote quite an amount of time to reach this point (levels, trading, etc.). Surely build alone is not going to allow the average player aspiring to take on Atziri, to do it.

And that, to me, was a major point of this thread. You even acknowledge it yourself, there are people who play far more than the average player. So how can a build equalize this difference in play time? Skill? Rng? Trading? How can the average player aspire to such content that requires hardcore skills/trading/play-time? Just on play-time alone, this content is out of reach of the average player.

This is not to say Atziri content should be within reach of the average player. That it should be nerfed, dumbed down, etc. This is a criticism of your approach to dealing with the average player. I question this hardcore strategy of gating content behind rng and a huge time commitment and expect the average player to become a hardcore player.

You have the numbers, you know how many play hard/softcore. Has Invasion made softcore average players "aspire" to play hardcore? I don't have the numbers, but my impression is no, it didn't. There are less twitch views now (less average players watching Atziri fights?)

My impression is that the game is truly rewarding at the highest levels of play. And that the game is made in such a way that only the most hardcore players can attain it. And you, Chris, and GGG's idea is that the average player will "aspire" to become a hardcore player. What this thread is about, as I understand it, is people asking for the game to be rewarding at all levels of play, not just the highest ones. Can't the game be rewarding for the average player as well as the hardcore player?

The biggest problem this game has is "Wannabe Hardcore" syndrome.
It wants to be the most hardcore of the hardestcore hardcore games that ever hardcored. In doing so, the game loses most of its true hardcore appeal.

I also just realized right now what might be causing a lot of problems, and its something i didn't think about before: They are balancing normal and cruel, as well as item progression, based on people who already know how to play the game.

An actual "average player" is somebody with average gaming skill and intent playing through the game the first time. When i see GGG refer to "average gamer", they are likely meaning "a person with average gaming skill that knows the game already", not "a person with average skill having an average playthrough".

The most important thing that is missing is a Recipe Book that can have recipes added to it as you discover them, and potentially ones unlocked by an NPC. This way players with no info actually know how to do a recipe after they've discovered it. This also adds another sense of progression, because you want to unlock all the other recipes to see if they are useufl. This will also encourage average players to mess around with the vendor.

For example, are you honestly proud of the fact that players have to come to the forums to get so much information? If we had a recipe book some things that only more seasoned players know to do would come naturally from the game without being told to do it.

Best possible example: Chromatic Recipe.
If somebody sees that they get a chromatic from a sale, they are not really THAT likely to individually take off every item and figure out what is giving them it, and if its a 4L or 5L they may not understand that it's the linked RGB causing it.

Add in the recipe book feature, and suddenly all these players are realizing that recipe and how useful it can be, and will start searching ground and vendors for chromatic items, which will also incidentally lead to some potential 6S and 5L items from the vendors which can generate a bit of extra currency as well as smoothing out progression.

It seems GGG doesn't actually know HOW to make players learn things without either telling them, or making it so secretive that they have to look it up.

Path of Exile is balanced and designed under the mindset that every single player is a metagamer.

"

Xendran wrote:

The biggest problem this game has is "Wannabe Hardcore" syndrome.
It wants to be the most hardcore of the hardestcore hardcore games that ever hardcored. In doing so, the game loses most of its true hardcore appeal.

I also just realized right now what might be causing a lot of problems, and its something i didn't think about before: They are balancing normal and cruel, as well as item progression, based on people who already know how to play the game.

An actual "average player" is somebody with average gaming skill and intent playing through the game the first time. When i see GGG refer to "average gamer", they are likely meaning "a person with average gaming skill that knows the game already", not "a person with average skill having an average playthrough".

The most important thing that is missing is a Recipe Book that can have recipes added to it as you discover them, and potentially ones unlocked by an NPC. This way players with no info actually know how to do a recipe after they've discovered it. This also adds another sense of progression, because you want to unlock all the other recipes to see if they are useufl. This will also encourage average players to mess around with the vendor.

For example, are you honestly proud of the fact that players have to come to the forums to get so much information? If we had a recipe book some things that only more seasoned players know to do would come naturally from the game without being told to do it.

Best possible example: Chromatic Recipe.
If somebody sees that they get a chromatic from a sale, they are not really THAT likely to individually take off every item and figure out what is giving them it, and if its a 4L or 5L they may not understand that it's the linked RGB causing it.

Add in the recipe book feature, and suddenly all these players are realizing that recipe and how useful it can be, and will start searching ground and vendors for chromatic items, which will also incidentally lead to some potential 6S and 5L items from the vendors which can generate a bit of extra currency as well as smoothing out progression.

It seems GGG doesn't actually know HOW to make players learn things without either telling them, or making it so secretive that they have to look it up.

Path of Exile is balanced and designed under the mindset that every single player is a metagamer.

Totally agree. It's funny when Chris said in his Athene interview they want to attract more (new) players.

edit: I included your revised post. Yes, it seems funny, that they seem to feel every player is a metagamer, or at least treats them like it, and yet acknowledges that there is a large discrepancy in play-time between players. I suspect that their own numbers/data shows not all players are metagamers (playing, crafting/trading habits, etc.).