PoE needs a difficulty factor setting

I'm confused. Why do you equate skill based with easy zones?

Also, the atziri fight is quite skill based. There's a video somewhere of a guy downing I believe it was uber atziri with less than 75% resists. Just used a ton of MS.

Those who do well in this game, and I'm talking about those who do exceedingly well consistently, do so because they know the tricks of the trade. It's no surprise that some players can stomp content with junk for gear.

At the end of it all though, yes, there are gear checks. There has to be. I wouldn't play this game if I could beat a lvl 79 map naked.

I play this game dawn near completely self found. There's no cheats in alpha. It's an incredibly small population. We do what we can with what we find. It's quite interesting honestly. I exalted an item yesterday. 2x actually, because I have to work with what I have.

I know you do the same, just gotta work with what you have, and keep improving.

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SL4Y3R wrote:

I'm confused. Why do you equate skill based with easy zones?

I didn't. and you don't have to pretend to be reading backwards, when you understood every word.

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Also, the atziri fight is quite skill based. There's a video somewhere of a guy downing I believe it was uber atziri with less than 75% resists. Just used a ton of MS.

how about getting to that fight in the first place?

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Those who do well in this game, and I'm talking about those who do exceedingly well consistently, do so because they know the tricks of the trade. It's no surprise that some players can stomp content with junk for gear.

don't get me started about players "who constantly do well in the game", and the practices most of them use for that purpose.
also, this isn't about "players who do well". this is a selfish post about me, and my ability to enter Toraja whenever the hell I feel like it, without asking RNG1 for permission, then RNG2 for passage, then RNG3 for actually surviving.

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At the end of it all though, yes, there are gear checks. There has to be. I wouldn't play this game if I could beat a lvl 79 map naked.

agree, given the circumstances.
an AI-based game doesn't have to have such "too stronk" gear checks to challenge you, but PoE will never be AI-based - so instead of using the TL2 model, we use the MXL one: gear checks, but aimed at progression. heck, completely deliberate gear-checks: Toraja? you won't do anything there without a certain amulet from the Judgement Day quest.
see what Brother Laz did? you get one piece of gear with skill, then you pass the initial gear check and have to get another one with skill, and another, and so on and so forth.

in the MXL model, you always move forward towards the next insane challenge. always have something to strive for.
in PoE, you quite literally grind to a standstill.

so without doing any of the stuff GGG will never do - like giving monsters actual AI and interesting attacks, or adding brand-new permanent Uber Zones rather than RNG ones - how about if you could run those Docks again but with monsters being a much higher level and hitting crazy-hard? scaling to your level? saying to the player "yes you beat Docks, but did you beat 'Docks 2'?". switching to 'Catacombs 3' or 'Barracks 5' when you get tired of Docks? allowing to roll those areas like you do with maps, but without the RNG-gating part? having 'Catacombs 5' have a boss that always drops a "doom amulet", firing a special projectile that's the only thing capable of damaging the 'Gardens 4' boss?
and by "boss", I mean just a regular monster with a unique name, that hits extra hard. GGG are already good at that.
sounds good to me, again - given the circumstances.

or how about actually having a map vendor, selling white maps of any level for "cheap" orbs you can actually get (Alterations)? you feel you're ready for that Palace? try it!
economy-breaking? yeah well, FUCK THE ECONOMY! RMT broke it already, anyway.

@john: What do you figure the actual percentage chances are of convincing GGG to do away with the economy completely?

That was rhetorical. There's no chance whatsoever.

Therefore, the most productive thing for you to do, instead of saying "fuck the economy," instead of pretending GGG might forget the economy exists when making balance decisions... is instead come up with some solid ideas about
1. how economies work: what's inevitable?
2. within the confines of the possible, what kind of economy would you like to see?

It might require some actual thought, since your previous position has been to fuck it.

@Scrotie,
I'd rather have no economy for me, thank you very much.
economy isn't aRPG.
you can trade-tycoon all you want, I don't care. to each his own.

some gaming companies give me the freedom to do pretty much whatever the fuck I want to, within the existing game framework.
GGG try to enforce their will on me, and I fucking hate that.

it's like the difference in the FPS genre, between playing Unreal or playing CoD and having the game tell you "you can't step through this wide-open door right now, because we have special effects scripted for it later".
but hell, at least CoD actually delivers those special effects as promised, rather than have a random "chance" to do so.
grinding rocks for an RNGGGsused chance to get the scripted special effects, for fucking fuck's sake.

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Xavderion wrote:

>Diablo clones
>challenging gameplay

Pick one. That's why I don't buy the call for a challenge. I think most people just want to efficiently faceroll monsters and get the most loot per time unit. The path to facerolling is the challenge (theory crafting, overcoming gear issues in races/fresh leagues etc), but the actual gameplay itself? No way.

You don't buy, I don't care. Yes, most people want the most efficient way, but there is a choice for those who prefer the other, and that just can't get to you.

Yet another opinion presented as a fact, when does it end?
The path to facerolling might be the challenge to you, but it may not be to me, it's simple, and the fact that you cannot understand it says a lot.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

No, it wouldn't. In fact, one core attribute of this system is that group play would never be as efficient as solo play in terms of XP gain. Ever. Read the first point again, and actually do the math.

What am I missing there? 4 players get 25% experience per map, they all have 1 map which equals 4 total maps, 4x25 = 100%.

What about your unique monster changes?

@john I've gotten to atziri by myself 3 times, and I haven't even been extensively trying to do so. Usually towards the end of a play session I may decide to go farm for fragments for maybe 30 minutes. The fragments aren't that rare anymore.

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tinko92 wrote:

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

No, it wouldn't. In fact, one core attribute of this system is that group play would never be as efficient as solo play in terms of XP gain. Ever. Read the first point again, and actually do the math.

What am I missing there? 4 players get 25% experience per map, they all have 1 map which equals 4 total maps, 4x25 = 100%.

What you seem to be missing is that map drop rate isn't increased as the number of players increases.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

What you seem to be missing is that map drop rate isn't increased as the number of players increases.

How is that relevant here?

For 1 map of yours you get to run 4 maps, yielding 100% experience of the 1 map which you would run alone, plus you get the safety in numbers and the IIR bonus.

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tinko92 wrote:

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

What you seem to be missing is that map drop rate isn't increased as the number of players increases.

How is that relevant here?

Because if you split map drops between map runners (you'd have to do this manually since maps automatically go to maker), the map drop rate for a full party is 1/6 of solo.

The main thing which group bonuses should fix is "safety in numbers." That's something which I believe the group bonuses I suggested do a good job of mitigating.

This kind of cheap difficulty scaling was what killed IWD2.

Any difficulty scaling with a reward has to be done in a proper balance. And (no offense to GGG, they are still not experienced enough in game balance) I dont see that coming from GGG.

So we would be better without it, otherwise build diversity would receive yet another blow, and a pretty strong one at it.