RNG is good.
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RNG in and of itself really isn't the problem. We all know and expect an arpg to have random elements to provide variety and uncertaincy. Knowing that everything is 100% fixed means a one and done for PoE. Taking RNG to the extreme that GGG has to over compensate for game features that haven't been implemented yet in the name of "hardcore" is a problem and hopefully GGG can code their way out of the hole they are in right now. Maybe the official trading public stash system will ease the difficulty and overly time consuming process of trading. Only when we have it to use will we know.
As far as your comment that build diversity is a problem in that everyone is seeking the best builds and that precludes build experimentation, I see that PoE of all arpgs that I've played provides the best build diversity of any arpg (certainly much better than D3). What you are observing about viable builds has more to do with longevity of PoE and the new acts and zones that are added. In a previous post I noted: " So your view that everyone is gravitating to only a few viable builds centered around a few high end gear while probably true fails to take my observations on content difficulty into account. The content difficulty is what drives the type of build we make and anything that fails to work is discarded (no surprise) so build diversity is always going down as zone difficulty goes up. GGG will need to buff up the gear and gems that lead to more diversity of builds as they spiral up the difficulty. "You've got to grind, grind, grind at that grindstone..."
Necessity may be the mother of invention, but poor QoP in PoE is the father of frustration. The perfect solution to fix Trade Chat: www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2247070 |
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I'm going to break my 'no-more-posting-on-the-forums" to just state that this post from you is unusually bad. What do you think happens with build diversity when GGG introduces new content that can successfully be tackled by only a handful of builds? Which patch after patch, GGG has been doing and reducing the number of builds you can get to end game.
Yes, RNG is good, when it is tuned in such a manner that the game feels rewarding, but still challenging. That players get something from investing their time in this game, but to still make them want to invest more time into it. Diversity is good, but the game needs to actually allow it. Hack'n'slash are all about unique items. Uber rares are great, but people are in it for uniques. Diversity in these kind of games is usually given through these uniques (mostly the ones with flavor). PoE drop rates are abysmal. There's ton and ton of feedback about the game being unrewarding and yet there is no mention of it in the latest dev manifesto. The players are not looking for 6L shavs and 6L voltaxics. People are looking for stuff like mjolrnirs which define the builds. People are looking to have fun. I've been playing DS2 extensively and from design point of view, challenging yet rewarding gameplay and just feeling I'm doing something FUN in my spare time, DS2 is here and POE is down over.........................................................here. Login out again. Should probably stop reading these forums. „I don't give a fuck if it was his tenth anniversary with his goddamn neckbeard...“ „If they think I'm going to let them sweep this pizza guy thing under the rug...“ No mod action. Business as usual. Last edited by Odoakar#1827 on May 11, 2014, 2:35:29 PM
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you really need to define "difficulty", Arrowneous.
see, the over-the-top RNG of RNG over RNG would actually be somewhat tolerable, without the gear-check design you and many others mistake for "difficulty". the unholy RNG-gear-check combo is the real "icing on the cake". and among it's other "good" traits, it's a super-effective catalyst for both trade and RMT. so what is the proper design? look no further than a boss like Vaal Oversoul, or a monster like the Soulless Watcher. theoretically, those can be beaten with virtually every build and every gear. "better" build and especially gear will obviously make the encounter much easier - because you can take more hits, and dish out more damage - but you can also do the whole fight without ever getting hit by any of the stronger attacks. a skill-based challenge. testing the player, rather than his/her virtual or physical wallet. the "strong" still have something to watch out for (ex: Vaal Smash), while the "weak" are not completely and utterly screwed just because the gear isn't godly and the build isn't min/maxed to the max. and then there's the rest of 'em: spam the whole damn screen. spam the same damn attack at ridiculous pace. hit insanely hard with the most basic attack (and often the only one). you WILL get hit, and when you do - and you don't have the gear - you're dead meat. worse: if you do have the gear, most of them will suddenly become just pitiful. I know, because I've experienced both ends of this BS design. but you want to get the gear because of that, and because well that's what you usually do in an aRPG - but you can't, because there's our old friend RNG with an evil grin on it's randomized face, saying no matter what you do as a player - he's the one calling the shots. your soul is his, and your gear too. his all-mighty dice determine if you pass the next gear check or not, and you really have no say about it. so you say "fuck this" and go trade or RMT for your stuff, so you can actually feel powerful and pass the gear-check upon gear-check upon progression luck-check, and/or get the gear you'll never get for your half-baked build. either that, or just ask your friends for gear you'll never get on your own - much less as a function of your own skill - like I shamefully admit I did. it's closer to the "pay 10$ for this sword, or you'll never defeat (or even get to fight) this monster, or access this content" P2W Korean MMOs, than to a proper aRPG I know and love. fuck, D3 is more aRPG than PoE in it's current state. and you know, after playing this game for well over a year, I say this design is just sickening. sickening, because it's so deliberate it's almost like GGG split profits with the RMT sites. dear god I hope that last sentence is false. yes hope, because for some unexplained (probably masochistic) reason, I still care for this game and respect GGG. otherwise, I'd just quit and say "fuck you!" like I did in greedy ActiBlizzard's case. I never saw such a mix of damn near brilliant good, and god-awful bad all packed into one single game. Alva: I'm sweating like a hog in heat Shadow: That was fun Last edited by johnKeys#6083 on May 11, 2014, 3:24:56 PM
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"*sigh* If you insist... "By this definition, vast numbers of players are running around dominating end-game content despite somehow never having entered the end-game. It also raises the philosophical question: since a Kaom's Heart is not a 6L, does a Kaom's build with BiS items manage to never reach the endgame? Such a definition insanely stupid, and obviously so. End-game isn't about achieving some form of gear near-perfection, it's about achieving some form of viability over the enemies which constitute the content. The proper term for what you're describing is "completing a build," and the way you rationalize this to be equivalent to reaching the end-game indicates that you are steeped in gear envy. "This is like saying a city park is more explorable than a forest in the wilderness. The city park is simpler, more transparent, more accessible; this, without a doubt, makes it easier to know. However, knowing and exploring are different concepts. You say "this game is about farm 100-200+ hours of the same, non-endgame content, then try your luck at linking something or maybe buy some item. It's simply not particularly satisfying." How is it that you believe simpler would make it particularly satisfying? It wouldn't. In terms of the three concepts you've mentioned, I believe the best design is to tier them smoothly towards an eventual end of high complexity, low accessibility, low transparency. I can definitely agree that the game should begin with low complexity, high accessibility, and high transparency to pull new players in and give them an opportunity to familiarize themselves with the mechanics — this is something which GGG realizes is a problem and addresses in the manifesto. However, by the time they reach endgame, things should no longer be a walk in the park, but instead a challenging survival mission in the wilderness. It's all about incremental challenge. "It's not bogus, because that's how items drop, how maps roll, and how monsters get the affixes they get. I mean, I get it, you're trying to narrow the focus the thread down to RNG as it applies to orbs. Sorry, but the topic is RNG, not gamblecrafting, even if they are admittedly related topics. Thus, I addressed the component of your reply in regards to drops, monsters, and areas as well. "My contention is, regardless of whether they want to see a more regular distribution of results on a per-output basis (per 6L), a per-input basis (equal chance per Fusing) system is actually more enjoyable. This is based on the core conviction that, regardless of what people say about RNG, RNG is good. Those who desire a system where a particular Fusing has a better chance than another should be careful what they wish for. When Stephen Colbert was killed by HYDRA's Project Insight in 2014, the comedy world lost a hero. Since his life model decoy isn't up to the task, please do not mistake my performance as political discussion. I'm just doing what Steve would have wanted.
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" Relying and using RNG are two different aspects :). For magic in Dark Souls 2, there is no RNG damage variance roll in Dark Souls 2 last I tested it; i.e. using same spell with same stats vs same enemy yields the same damage. This message was delivered by GGG defence force. Last edited by mazul#2568 on May 11, 2014, 3:23:44 PM
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" LOL, back to the single-minded rallying cry. Nice street corner you got here. |
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" Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes
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"Pretty sure I've responded, either directly or indirectly, to every little relevant thing you've said; can't imagine what I could have possibly missed. Completely serious. When Stephen Colbert was killed by HYDRA's Project Insight in 2014, the comedy world lost a hero. Since his life model decoy isn't up to the task, please do not mistake my performance as political discussion. I'm just doing what Steve would have wanted. Last edited by ScrotieMcB#2697 on May 11, 2014, 4:14:23 PM
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" Making build and RNG isnt same. Those top players have crazy items, I dont think on rares, they have uniques. Shav, Soul T, Kaom's H ... So those items r expensive because they have purpose and its not science to make build with them. So making build isnt RNG. Most of top players r top from start of league. Playing 15+ h/d. I would like to see GGG make statistics for unique drops at end of season. Number of items and when they dropped. Then u will see most of them dropped at start of league and top 50 players, or more, got their godly drops in 1st month. I got 60% of my gear in 1st month. So that is RNG. RNG isnt bad in POE, but game mechanic is old and bad. That affects RNG so ppl say RNG is bad. U r talking about builds and builds r limited because of items and items r limited because game mechanic (low uniques in high maps for ppl lvl 90+ ... and a lot of other things). |
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" Quote from that other thread. " Or is "because i like RNG" your answer? I could live with that, however shallow it would be.
answer question before opening, thanks.
On a side note :
" this sentence constitutes your opinion, and correct me if i am wrong, but that's not an "absolute" truth. Just like my opinion was not. (unlike you sir, i will not ridicule it, rather say i disagree. And the reason i disagree is because terrible theory-crafts become viable when endowed with top-tier items. As in, suddenly they can beat content because of the raw buffs granted by items. And not because of a 6-link all of a sudden.) You have a tendency to enforce your own opinion, i dislike it greatly. You also seem to think RNG cannot live side-by-side with recipe's that enable fun for people who do not enjoy gambling, but prefer a steady growth of there character since they are more into the "theory-build" of the game instead of the ladder/races/endgame maps and as such enjoy working for there item and being rewarded with the sense they themselves "created" that item to benefit there character. (not simply buying somebody elses luck roll, if that makes sense, it is an emotional feeling that gives pleasure when you can create what you worked hard for over the alternative, having to buy somebody else's luck) And then of course i refer to a 6-link recipe and NOT top tier crafting. Since i do see a distinction between the two and how they effect the long term of this game. Because like i mentioned, raw top tier stats have a different effect on a character then a 6-link. One enhances the "fun" factor for a player in the form of experimentation enabling more "wow" factor. The other simply makes his character "X lvl viable" when combined with his passive tree.(and in some rare cases even a good passive tree is not needed because of the raw stats) This is yet another wrongly used term i suppose, "endgame". I am not english so this could certainly be the case. From my point of the view the endgame consist's in making a theory-craft viable. And a 6-link does not do that. Raw stats are the enabler of a theory-craft, since they synergize with the passive tree. Like you also repeatedly stated "a 6-link is not required to do endgame content". Is this not prove it is not an endgame enabler? But simply adds "fun" to the experience of running the high-end content? Is it not this same "fun" that dictates if a player will remain in PoE? And thus increase player-retention? Edit : added a piece of text. Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes Last edited by Boem#2861 on May 11, 2014, 7:49:25 PM
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