risk/reward isn't coming. ever. [I give up]

"

Peterlerock wrote:

The exalt recipes are not mandatory to beat this game.
They are "icing on the cake".

maybe so. not going to argue about that.
but you know what? I want to have the whole damned cake. just once. not bits and pieces but never the icing, or just *boom* "here's some icing". "what did I do?". "nothing. the dice just rolled right".
you can keep on trading and feasting on cakes with a whole lot of icing, day in and day out.
I want one full cake. one. with icing. and I want to FUCKING EARN IT!

"

This is how ARPGs work, how they have always worked and will always work.

bullshit.
this is how Path Of Exile works. and Path Of Exile can change. because Path Of Exile is made by humans who do code, and isn't some ancient gift by the gods.

"

RogueMage wrote:

"

Perfect_Black wrote:

... in general, a lot of INT does signify a preference for INT-related gear. Of course, this is a rule of thumb, not an absolute.

Since you have mentioned socket colours, I would like to mention how absurd it is to base armor choices on the colour of sockets you need.

Remarkable how someone who thinks he can predict what type of gear you need has no fucking clue on what you may need to do to optimize your build.

Because optimizing your build is primarily about disregarding
base defenses of items and only caring about socket colours.

Also, it is pretty clear that the game cannot predict precisely
what gear everybody wants. It would be ludacris to expect the
game to achieve such a thing.

"

johnKeys wrote:

"

This is how ARPGs work, how they have always worked and will always work.

bullshit.
this is how Path Of Exile works. and Path Of Exile can change. because Path Of Exile is made by humans who do code, and isn't some ancient gift by the gods.

Well, it's the way that Diablo 2 worked. Actually I can't think of any ARPGs with multiplayer presence that don't work this way.

"

johnKeys wrote:

"

This is how ARPGs work, how they have always worked and will always work.

bullshit.
this is how Path Of Exile works. and Path Of Exile can change. because Path Of Exile is made by humans who do code, and isn't some ancient gift by the gods.

I played Diablo2, Sacred, Sacred 2, Torchlight, Titan Quest.
Other similar games were much more RPG than ARPG, so I don't count them here.

In every single one of these games, it was all about grinding, grinding, grinding.

I killed Hades a 1000 times in Titan Quest until he finally decided to drop this insane "100% to all resists" unique shield (Aionios). I actually counted the runs.
I killed about 2 million Troglodytes in mods that spawned hundreds of them at once, until their "unique" Maul spawned with a "Veteran's" prefix and a "% damage" suffix.
Did I earn these items?
No, I brutal forced them. With mindless grinding, until "dumb luck" set in.

Torchlight: Spam your items with horribly expensive random crafts with the risk of completly trashing them. Until you luck out. To pay for this: grind, grind, grind

Diablo: same story.
Sacred: same story.
PoE: same story.

If you really want "the best" or "close to the best", this whole genre says... "Good Luck, you better plan no-lifing for a couple months."

I'd go as far and say it's the whole point of such games to grind until your fingers hurt, all in hope for some unrealistic uber item that can drop for anyone, but not for everyone.

"

Peterlerock wrote:

I played Diablo2, Sacred, Sacred 2, Torchlight, Titan Quest.
Other similar games were much more RPG than ARPG, so I don't count them here.

funny you mentioning these games, because every single one of them, gave you tools to handle the current content you played, every step of the way.
PoE does not. not as a rule that's not direct function of luck.
and every single one of them, encouraged you to take on risks for your loot.

high-end loot? yes, a thousand Hades runs in Immortal Throne is grindy as heck, but he's the hardest boss in the game. you didn't get that Aionios running Spartan Highlands, and Hades wasn't dropping simple Act 1 stuff to troll you, now was he?

and the same examples can be found in all other games you mentioned - which I played as well - but I'm sick and tired to writing walls of text tbh, when you clearly aren't paying attention.

so to sum up, grind in ARPG? yes. absolutely. no-life and all that.
full-random loot everywhere and an RNG that runs wild and unchecked, all in attempt to get you to trade, out of sheer desperation if you are unlucky? no. just no.

GGG crossed a line with their interpretation of the loot system.
they crossed it deliberately and they had a reason for doing it (stated in OP) - but once you cross that line, you aren't really talking about loot-based ARPG any more. at least not one where loot comes from playing the actual game, as a function of player skill.
it comes from trade, with a side of dice rolling where "anything goes".

For all the years I'm playing this game (self-found, mostly solo) I've wanted to write a long and detailed wall of text explaining my feelings, etc, as the original poster have done multiple times. Sadly, each time I'm sitting down to do that I sit there for a minute and give up. Want to know why? :)

The reason is sad and simple: GGG has very little choice there. The logic goes like this: they decided (and have to stick to that now) to make a F2P game. That means they need to sell a lot of microtransactions to stay afloat. Here's where the sad part comes: statistics says that people spend money way better if they have a reason for that, and that reason is social.

That is, some of us will still buy stuff even if we play self-found and solo (I did, for example). Some just like the shiny stuff, some to say thanks to developers. Still, that would not be enough for the company to prosper. As soon as GGG _forces_ (that's important, folks) people to communicate as much as possible, they start buying stuff to impress their peers. And that, sadly, works and pays the bills.

Most of the problems that are described in the original post come from that too. Those uber-rich flippers, botters, etc are very viable sources of income: they want to be _and_appear_ rich to everyone they meet in the game, so they do buy a lot of shiny stuff.

Anything that makes solo and/or self-found styles attractive or even bearable does that at a price: if you can play alone, if you can avoid trading, if you get appropriate rewards for the risks you take, you become a bit less social, and so, feel a bit less pressure to buy the another microtransaction. And that is not a good thing for the company budget.

I don't think there is any reasonable way out of this predicament, really. If PoE is to survive, it will almost certainly stay the way it is - with group-based and trade-based gameplay vastly superior to solo self-found. Solo self-found is still needed, but only as a bait to attract ARPG lovers and then try to convert them.

"

johnKeys wrote:

"

Peterlerock wrote:

I played Diablo2, Sacred, Sacred 2, Torchlight, Titan Quest.
Other similar games were much more RPG than ARPG, so I don't count them here.

funny you mentioning these games, because every single one of them, gave you tools to handle the current content you played, every step of the way.

You have some weird memories of these games.

"

high-end loot? yes, a thousand Hades runs in Immortal Throne is grindy as heck, but he's the hardest boss in the game. you didn't get that Aionios running Spartan Highlands, and Hades wasn't dropping simple Act 1 stuff to troll you, now was he?

Actually 99% of uniques in TQIT were troll items/noob traps that couldn't compete with any half decent rare.

And legendary Hades dropped plenty of them, including a ton of uniques that could be found in normal/epic difficulty.

And Hades was a pushover like the Vaal Boss. 100% safe to farm him, with no risk of dying if you knew his mechanics.
He was hard when multiplied to 3-12 Hades using mods.

And I know a lot of players who found that Aionios on some random Anura or Machae Warriors.
It was "bound to Act 4 legendary", same as some uniques are "bound to highlevel maps".

Once you had semi-decent gear (capped resists and ok damage to kill monsters), serious improvements were as hard to get as in PoE.

It was literally the same as in PoE.
Same. Same. Same.
In all these games.

It was grindy as hell, really good loot was super-rare (comparable to dropping mirror tier rares in PoE), and to compete in "endgame" (which was not Hades, but those "Screen filled with hundreds of rare monsters" mods), you needed absurd items that you farmed for months/years (or cheated for, as TQ was an offline game).

TQ was even more absurd than PoE, as you could literally be immortal (dodge 100% projectiles, 2000+ defense rating).

that's... that actually makes a lot more sense than the reason I stated in OP.
thank you, EpicFail42 :)

but... does that mean there can be no middle ground where both GGG/PoE survive and (S)SF players can feel their efforts and skill are worth something, even if they aren't engaging in all-around trade and MTX-showcasing?
I think there can.
I hope there can.

"

johnKeys wrote:

that's... that actually makes a lot more sense than the reason I stated in OP.
thank you, EpicFail42 :)

but... does that mean there can be no middle ground where both GGG/PoE survive and (S)SF players can feel their efforts and skill are worth something, even if they aren't engaging in all-around trade and MTX-showcasing?
I think there can.
I hope there can.

Legit out of all of the posting "It's because of the MTX system it's like that."

Like for real, as oppose to designing an actual money sucking game that sells shavs to people for 100$ apiece (trust me a ton of people would buy it) and tons of other system popular in asian grinding games such as a weapon upgrade system that goes to like +9 (or an higher number) that requires scrolls (or something like that) to even get there or extreme luck (99% of the time your weapon breaks and disappears before hitting +9).

And system such as spending more money gets you more shit that doesn't matter or a "lottery" system using actual cash and random "Exclusive rewards."

You literally will grab into any actual excuse to support your OP. If they really wanted to make money hell they would sell the game for $60 apiece, drop MTX and then barley support the game and go on to make PoE 2 and thus on.

Want to know what the _real_ sad part is? :)

There are multiple ways to find the middle ground - and they all bury the company and the game with it.

The obvious ones:

* Do an "offline PoE"/self-found league/whatever was proposed a lot of time. A lot of people go there - "wow, you can actually drop a Soultaker there in a few months!" - and the money-making part dies off.

* Make a "boxed version" for solo players: one-time payment comparable to standard boxed games, and off you go. A significant portion of the current online population that has the money buys this version, plays it, beats Uber-Atziri, then leaves forever - selling DLC is a very different and difficult kind of beast, and the sense of "having beaten the game" is a very strong turn-off. The remaining online players either have no money or have no other people to show off their MTX to (online population drops quite dramatically at that point), so that part dies too.

* Do standard "non-ethical" MTXs. Probably a viable way a few years back, but I can't see GGG doing it - too much investment into their current image. Any step back now - and the company goes under. BTW, it's probably more difficult to design a viable money-sucking MTX system than the current one: in this one you get a lot of free word-of-mouth publicity, you actually get some money from non-whales who spend 10 dollars for a few tabs and never do anything else, you don't get the problem of whales leaving after "beating the game" with their bought uber-gear... In short, the current system is very smart, and probably at least on par with money-sucking ones, if not better.

* My personal favorite - some kind of badges/stars/whatever that you can show off to other people to signify that you ARE self-found/solo/whatever. In Beyond I have a level 90 self-found character still alive (I've played with friends, though, so they may have carried me, yeah) - and I would have really liked to have some kind of sparkly effect to prove it :) Sadly, even this probably won't work as well as I hope. Yes, it sorta-kinda turns the whole anti-social thing back into social. But no, it does that without buying any MTX, so, once again, it does not bring the money to GGG. Maybe a general MTX that only shines/sparkles if used by a self-found and/or solo character? Ah, well, no one will do that anyway: too much coding, support nightmare, etc...