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

I just agree with the OP. Nothing more to say.

But at this time I actually doubt the devs are really open to critical feedback. They are more in a "defense mode" and somehow developing the game in an more and more isolated way. Isolated from the majority of (potential) players, that is.

Many people think this game is going in the wrong way since Open Beta release...

I'm sure the devs are working REALLY HARD. Thanks for this. But it's not about working hard at this point, it's about where you're going and how you spend your energy. The direction of travel, not the force you use for that.

Fixing these issues doesn't take any more energy or midnight shifts, it takes some calm moments, clear thoughts and openness to new input.

Or to put it differently: We don't need more quantity changes, we need more quality changes. Not the many small things, but the big picture:

- trading (really no one likes having to spend time spamming trade channels, it's just bad)
- less rng (orbs, drops, an action RPG is not Las Vegas! it's going too far)
- instead: more constantly rewarding gameplay (safe non-rng progress, maybe loot tables for some items -> working for a specific progress, without having to rely on rng and trade luck)
- game experience at fresh start (especially for new players, like lack of tutorial, ugly act 1 and slooooowww attack speed at first)
- a proper queue function for PvP (without having to wait in town and stare at screen)
- and of course desync...

Thanks again for all the great work!
I just hope you're still seeing the pic picture with all these strange little changes in the last time. :<

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Saltychipmunk wrote:

the flame blast buff was needed to justify how clunky the skill is.
not like you 400k dps flickers and discharge builds have to stay in one bloody spot to do damage eh?

this is all softcore bullshit, who cares

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jstq wrote:

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Saltychipmunk wrote:

the flame blast buff was needed to justify how clunky the skill is.
not like you 400k dps flickers and discharge builds have to stay in one bloody spot to do damage eh?

this is all softcore bullshit, who cares

more people technically care about softcore than hardcore . Just putting that out there mate

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Rhys wrote:

As for map bosses, yeah some of those are right bastards, but it's mostly intentional. Don't want everyone just steamrolling them all, aye. It's OK to have a few that are a real challenge, that players learn not to mess with unless they're properly prepared. It just changes the "value" of the map, depending on if you can handle the boss or not. We also definitely want to give some of the more boring bosses a makeover, too.

Glad I read that, I'll be able to use that quote for people complaining about Orchard's/Museum's bosses :P.

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Saltychipmunk wrote:

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jstq wrote:

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Saltychipmunk wrote:

the flame blast buff was needed to justify how clunky the skill is.
not like you 400k dps flickers and discharge builds have to stay in one bloody spot to do damage eh?

this is all softcore bullshit, who cares

more people technically care about softcore than hardcore . Just putting that out there mate

And builds being efficient is way more important in Hardcore than Softcore since it doesnt really matter that much when you manage to die once in a while. Right now you cant efficiently play any caster build in hardcore because you cant sustain yourself solo, let alone have to reroll anything that has elemental reflect on is because the probability for spike damage to occur is too high.

In softcore leagues youu only have these problem to a specific extend. The game should be balanced around Hardcore because if it works there, it sure as hell does so in Softcore.

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Rhys wrote:

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ephetat wrote:

GGG does somewhat suck at balancing and this is compounded by the glacial pace they move at and it hamstrings the game more often than not

Yeah, having such a small team plus the onus of continually adding more content can do that. Though sometimes we deliberately put off certain things until the end of the 4-month leagues, for example.

Ah well. Time for my irregularly scheduled programme of eldritch slumber.

You quoted the single point of criticism in my loving post and now I come across as a whiner T_T

Seriously, I know the team is small -- that's why I wish sometimes you guys would just slow down the content train for a little while and take a breath. See what game balance needs, tune dem skills, do a pass on diffuculty, whatnot... But I figure you guys will get there. :)

but what would that solve? I could come back and the same problems would probably present themselves to me.

Thanks Rhys.

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jaxxxson wrote:

I've put $120 and $220 into the supporter packs that hover around my name, and I feel like I've wasted my money. I've played many hours of this game, more than most games even, but it's continually getting worse with the latest updates.

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Rhys wrote:

Hey man, thanks for the well-written and detailed feedback. Glad to hear you've been having fun, though I'm sorry if you've been feeling bummed about some of the recent changes.

Well, I guess it's that time again, where I'm alone in the office after midnight, just getting some shit done (before half the dev team, myself included, trucks off to GDC for a week), and my tired brain is succumbing to temptation and making me spend precious moments of consciousness responding to random forum threads. Lemme address some of your concerns...

Heck, the fact you stopped by and left a forum post, makes me happy, I appreciate you doing that! Unfortunately I've been feeling this way from the last 2 big content patches, I'm hoping for more appealing ones in the future.

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jaxxxson wrote:

No good, varied or fun loot drops.

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Rhys wrote:

Getting blocked by bad drops is certainly a problem if it happens before endgame. Even though we've been continually increasing the amount of drops (via strongboxes, Invasion bosses, rogue exiles, shrines, Vaal secret areas, etc.) there are still a few kinks in the progression curve, notably around mid-Cruel (as you astutely pointed out). We also did increase the chances to get 4L on gear, which is important at that stage of the game.

It's definitely an on-going thing, though. The balance guys keep making tweaks and such; can't really give much details on it since I don't work on that stuff myself really. I know they're keen to hear about specific problem areas, like what level you're at, what quest you're up to, what gear you have and what gear you're trying to get, etc.

Endgame is a bit different, of course.

At least speaking from what I tried in this season, I spent at least 16 or so hours before I got a passable chest drop, and I'm still wearing white boots on my Templar. The currency drops, I feel need to be saved for the most part for bargaining power from other people, as when you alch an item or chaos it, it has a lot more chance for it to be subpar to bad then a good or great item. I do think this problem could be helped by having vendor recipes, relying on common drops that takes a watchful eye, rather than complete RNG. Keep in mind my luck in general seems to be very poor globally (games, life, etc.), but again, when a bad luck streak is preventing progress, it's crucial to rely on others for trading, which is a bit of a mess. Moreso, the system of trying to remove gold from the game is ineffective, people spend chaos on items instead of gold. If these currency items had another use like, using an alch, a chaos and a coral ring with a chest piece in the vendor, it would give you life and a resist (This is a really poor example), it would give the currency item a use rather than currency.

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jaxxxson wrote:

Best progressing method is to farm low level boss for alts or easy boss for chaos recipe.

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Rhys wrote:

Hmm. Is this just a symptom of that first point? I don't think this is mandatory, though. Dunno about "best".

From my perspective, you're going to need a lot of currency items to either buy gear or roll gear. In either case, the top farming spots are Merveil and Piety for the simple reason they are the fastest and easiest way to make fast rares to salvage into currency items. The only thing that can even compete with this is if you get a very rare unique drop from a map or even possibly Piety herself. This makes it seem like it's an obligation to kill these two, if Oversoul Vaal had a chance to drop a Bringer of Rain for instance, people would want to farm him for the chance to get that, while still selling the rare items that drops from him. It would give people a goal to do other content other than Piety or Merveil, just because they are loot pinatas.

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jaxxxson wrote:

Balance is not good and shows no signs of improving.

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Rhys wrote:

Despite this rather broad statement, it sounded like you were mostly talking about boss difficulty, specifically Vaal secret areas, Invasion bosses, and map bosses, yeah?

With SotV, we added like 62 new bosses to the game. We actually hired a new balance/design guy to do a lot of this and kinda chucked him in the deep end. It's not his fault, though. We couldn't have done it without him and we're super thankful to have him around. Despite our best efforts to completely overwhelm him, there's only like 6 or so bosses that are a bunch tougher than they should be, which isn't bad going, really. Hopefully those'll be fixed in 1.1.1. or thereabouts. But there's also several who aren't doing enough! Like, they were given cool skills but aren't using them for whatever reason. Those are also being fixed up (and they won't be OP... I hope...).

As for map bosses, yeah some of those are right bastards, but it's mostly intentional. Don't want everyone just steamrolling them all, aye. It's OK to have a few that are a real challenge, that players learn not to mess with unless they're properly prepared. It just changes the "value" of the map, depending on if you can handle the boss or not. We also definitely want to give some of the more boring bosses a makeover, too.

Well, for what it's worth, a lot of the new bosses have good mechanics in place for them. Areas you have to dodge, moving around and not getting hit by avoidable attacks are great, it's a fun mechanic. The place where they fall apart is where some of the attacks do such massive damage, that you won't live through a hit of it. I think it was a Vaal Fallen boss that ended up leap slamming and killing me in one hit on my level 25 duelist with around 1k health, which was rather high for that level. Gear was far from perfect, but that's because nothing great ever dropped. There should be challenge in ARPGs, I definitely agree, but it should be based on character skill rather than solely based on character gear.

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jaxxxson wrote:

No workaround trading, for a lot of people, trading isn't fun.

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Rhys wrote:

I'm not entirely clear on your exact point, but I'm guessing something like you feel pressured to trade, which you don't like? Well, you certainly can play and enjoy the game without trading, or with minimal trading, if you so choose. You'll need to temper your expectations accordingly, of course.

Sorry if I'm missing your point on that one. Could be just tired lol.

Anyways, thanks again for the awesome feedback, jaxxxson.


Ah well. Time for my irregularly scheduled programme of eldritch slumber.

While I understand your idea of not trading, it doesn't feasibly work, unless I'm going searing bond at the moment. Beyond many gems being downright un-useful, gear drops being poor because nothing good has dropped and the new and old bosses that simply one shot you, it can't be expected to play the game without trading, but moreso, you can't be expected as a single person to progress pass a certain point.

I could go on and on, but I tried not to be too excessive with my points, but I really appreciate you coming in to comment, it's an honor, truly. I hope you have a nice night, and if you'd wish to discuss ideas and feedback further, I'd be happy to oblige.