[Article] Hardcore Game Design and Subsystems

This game is totally kicking my ass.
That is totally why I love it.

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deepseaboat wrote:

Excellent post, restrictions are good.

The one thing that bugs me about POE and other game design in general is the RNG worship that goes on. I'm not so sure if it's best that game progression is dictated by purely random forces like map drop rates. It's kind of like trying to figure out how to turn on the lamp and the secret is that you were doing it right, you're just an unlucky POS. It's much less satisfying than there being an actual trick and seems like a cop-out to artificially create difficulty. Also leads to learned helplessness.

I'm not sure I agree. Yes drops are random- but ultimately if there's one thing to learn from any study of statistics & probability, it's that any random variable will just about always converge to the average with a large number of trials.


This means that if you put in a large amount of time, your experience should be pretty comparable to most players.

The existence of a few high value Outliers such as Kaoms or any 6L high item level item may mean certain players may get very luck and get to skip a huge step ahead in game progression, but everyone else over the long term should progress their wealth at pretty comparable speed provided they are equally skill and committed tot he game- well that should be true for their base income at the least for just playing/farming the game- heavy trading is another source of income entirely.

The people is, people vastly overestimate just how "luck-based" a large series of trials of a random variable is. They feel this way because it feels like mere luck when they have a dry spell or get multiple valuable drops in quick succession- but over the long term, their total value of drops will tend sharply towards the average.



Of course the reliability of wealth over the long term is not the same as getting the items you need directly- but honestly I think that's a good thing. It forces people to actually have to trade and interact with other players to really deck out their guy and progress faster- I'm not necessarily talking about spending more time trading then killing stuff- I merely refer to the necessity of selling off your drops and using that currency to grab what you really need.

The game being hardcore in my mind also means it shouldn't just be a consistent pace gear-escalator(we get too much of that in MMOs already). There should be periods of stagnation and quick advancement(the former ideally requiring people to try to formulate a work-around to their problem)- and most importantly the system should allow for players willing to go the extra mile, be it by spending a great deal of time trading, spending hours back farming, or finding a reliable group that works well togetrher, to advance substantially faster then those who just keep going about their business waiting for drops to coincide with their usual player patterns. The current system accomplishes this ideal in my opinion.

I don't follow MaRo, but I love MTG, and I really appreciate and respect him. I remember being very proud when my friend came to me saying MaRo had just posted a deck almost identical to a list I had made and showed that friend a couple weeks prior.

Necrobump. Because it is nice to reminisce sometimes.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Wake me up for POE2 beta.

looks like that's not nessessary.

lots of interesting opinions here... but I've found a way to shorten it ^^
IMHO

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Jojas wrote:

the fun went out of gaming when

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Jojas wrote:

the money is (became) everything

The speed at which people have been getting lvl 100 faster and faster every league indicates what this thread is about imo.

Sub-systems getting easier and easier and promoting the trivializing of actual challenging content as a result.

Indeed, still a relevant topic.

Peace,

-Boem-

I've nothing to contribute here but condolences from someone who also just pity-bumped his own thread that's been ignored since 2013
i feel you brotie, keep fighting the good fight
or fighting some fight
or fight
those TEDs you recommended are making me feel a little pseudo intellectual
"Feel not as though it is a sphere we live on; rather an infinite plane which has the illusion of leading yourself back to the point of origin." -Reginald Lucien Watts

Good post.

I wish the new leagues were longer than just 3 months, it seems way too short for anyone but the no-lifers to make it to lvl 100. And even if one makes it there, they had to of played that single character the entire time to make it. No time to enjoy the league from a new character perspective or you already cut yourself down in time. If the league is 3 months, it really means 2 because the last month is when everything is shit and half the server stops playin all together with like 2 weeks remaining.