Individual's Gameplay Experience vs Trade Pyramid Focus

PoE population is divided into a trade pyramid by design. You can clearly see this in crafting/high end maps/atziri maps.

If you check out the average amount of drops for any single character (even some extremely lucky ones) it will be quite clear that what they loot on their own will never be enough to attempt to craft anything, run high end maps in a continuous manner or run Atziri.

Bottom will feed rare stuff towards top so that top can run maps/craft, meanwhile top will throw bones to bottom.

When you zoom out and look at the system as whole (which is what I believe GGG does, along with keeping and eye on the top of pyramid) it looks all good. But when you zoom in and look at the experience of a single person (who only cares for his own personal experience, and does not care for the whole of system even in the slightest) you would see that they keep going with the hopes of achieving more, but whether they keep going or not depends on the feel of progress they experience.

In PoE this feel of progress is quite low. And as bottom gives up and leaves, people who used to be in middle of pyramid are now the new bottom. These people used to keep going in the hopes of reaching higher, but they found themselves at bottom with having to be satisfied with bones. Hence discontent from old players who does not invest as much time/trade as much/party as much etc.

In the long run top of pyramid will never suffer, as any number of bottom player loss will be covered and even overcome by bots pumping stuff into the economy. Old middle will become new bottom and will be disappointment with this new situation after all the time they put in the game.

In my opinion, anyone who plays ARPG plays it only for their own personal experience. Noone would willingly sacrifice their own gameplay experience for the good of whole community of total strangers. I believe Blizzard noticed this fact and is attempting to salvage D3 by changing the focus from overall system, to individual experience only. Grim Dawn is already designed for individual experience only.

I really doubt PoE can maintain a healthy population in the long run with a pyramid focus.
Giving the option of (league or not) individual experience focus would fix that.

My solution for that would be: Binding Orb
Drop rate as high as alch, with also a recipe where you can turn a fuse into a binding orb.
Effect is rerolling affix/suffixes values to be more on par with itemlevel (no low lvl mod tiers). Other effect is of course binding it on account (cant be traded, and dropping on ground destroys the item).

This way economy would still stay there, community wouldn't be splintered (meh), SFL demands would be satisfied, more importantly bottom could rely on their own effort rather than relying on the bones thrown to them.

1. What you speak of is not suffering in absolute; it's suffering in comparison — and I'm using the term loosely. It's firmly rooted on comparing yourself to what other possess. I couldn't care less about such "suffering."

2. Even if we bought into your ideas of extreme egalitarianism, your solution still wouldn't solve the problem. If you're trying to effect a change which buffs one thing/group and nerfs another, a good test is "is this something which will benefit that which we want it to more than that which we don't?" Your proposed orb fails this test; those at the top of the pyramid could use it better than those at the bottom. Very poor quality control on your part.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

If you're trying to effect a change which buffs one thing/group and nerfs another, a good test is "is this something which will benefit that which we want it to more than that which we don't?" Your proposed orb fails this test; those at the top of the pyramid could use it better than those at the bottom. Very poor quality control on your part.

it wont *nerf* another, you are attempting a strawman arguement here by claiming that:

1. Any improvement in the state of top end players is a direct nerf to rest.
2. Your suggestion will improve top end players better than others.

Then you draw conclusions from there. I strongly disagree with both of your made up points, and of course with your conclusion.

Players whose gameplay experience would be imrpoved by such a change are the people who like to play at their own pace, without getting involved with the heavy trading economy, but most importantly they dont want to find their gameplay experience take the hit in a game what is constantly rebalanced around the top end players' performance and the health of the trade economy.

Those players do exist, or existed at one stage. Introduction of such a simple orb would go a very long way in keeping them here, or gaining back the loss.

About your point in top end players abusing this orb? Top end players already have mirror worthy items, and in my opinion losing the trade value of an item or the mirror service is a good trade off already.

Also about your point in here

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Spoiler

1. What you speak of is not suffering in absolute; it's suffering in comparison — and I'm using the term loosely. It's firmly rooted on comparing yourself to what other possess. I couldn't care less about such "suffering."

I dont care even a little bit about what you care as well, but it is ok. It is not important if you care or not; it is not about you, it is about people who feel that way.