The main source of frustation, especially for new players

"

johnKeys wrote:

...

take a good look at the guy i quoted. "200hr for 2 gg item". how is that not "instant gratification"?

Did i talk about risk and reward sir? oh wait.

read my post again, Tom.
especially the bullet list in it.

you'll then know I'm talking about concept here, while you and they guy you responded to, are both talking about implementation.
"X hours to get Y" is implementation.
"kill this nasty motherfucka as a means to prepare for the even-nasiter motherfucka up next" - is concept.
greatly oversimplified, but I think you got the idea.

yes, I've talked about "X hours to get Y" too, in my previous post in this thread.
out of pure frustration, built up for so long by so much dumb-random RNG I feel like vomiting coins and dice.

now I'm not.
now I'm talking about how the coins should - as a global guideline - not be fair.

noticeably not. as in *not* 0.0001% vs. 0.000109%. as in *not* equal chance for your 1st attempt and your 9001st.

noticeably enough for the player to seriously consider taking on that thing which can kill him, to try and drop that next sweet piece of gear, over mindlessly grinding that thing which no longer can - or rocks, barrels and white mobs around it - then buying the gear with the accumulated Wraeclast Dollars.

noticeably enough, to encourage crafting something of your own you can be proud of, from the skulls of your mighty enemies - instead of trying to, getting fucked by a coin toss too many times, then saying "fuck this" and just buying it with Wraeclast Dollars from someone who didn't get fucked by that same coin toss, or paying said Dollars to Vorici and friends, to do it for you.

Vorici isn't risk/reward. he's a band-aid you reach for, when your ass is bleeding from that Prostate Exam RNG just gave you.
just like trade is. and you use both band-aids the exact same way.

he could have been more than that, if for example that chest you just had to lure an angry Rogue Exile halfway across the map, then Quicksilver-sprint back and open - contained something *not Wraeclast Dollar* you could bring back to him, and get something/odds-of-something in return, other than just a "thanks! only 999 more times like this and you level me up. come visit my shop back at the hideout so I can sell you some carpets and rip you off Dollars-for-gear *a bit* less compared to Hargan".

a Metaphor about all current Master Missions and "crafting", in case you didn't get it.

okay i get it.

ofc nobody should "over mindlessly grinding that thing which no longer can - or rocks, barrels and white mobs around it - then buying the gear with the accumulated Wraeclast Dollars." Sadly, its the most effective way to get what you want.

But it seems there are no ways to achieve your concept. Way that doesn't mess up with current poe.

Are you sgguesting something like this?
Dom has a chance to drop "Dom's dick". And i can use that dick to add prefixes/suffixes, such as " increased melee range + 30%armor", to an item.

"

Tom1989 wrote:

But it seems there are no ways to achieve your concept. Way that doesn't mess up with current poe.

If by "current PoE" you mean the trade core design, that makes the ARPG game easy, boring, brainless grind of mostly low zones because you need to think about what's a "profitable" activity, then yes, its not possible.

But if GGG wants to work more on the progression difficulty-gated ARPG side of this ARPG, then:

* Give the players a reason to roll difficult maps (other than "it has slightly more RNG dices in it"). Currently rolling nasty 140% maps is pointless, as considerably easier ~80% maps will give you the same progression, faster clear speed & less deaths.

* Don't gate endgame content (Atziri) behind a trading pyramid scam, that forces you into trading or going back to absolutely pointless faceroll zones, to boringly grind keys for content appropriate for your level.

* Ban garbage low base items, low tier affixes & levelling uniques from the highest maps, as they are just screen clutter and turns looting into "scavenging a junk yard" boring experience.

* Stop designing pay to play, expenditure-gated content, where you have to spend considerably more orbs to access hard content, than you can loot in the said content. This prompts people to avoid "expensive" content and prefer faceroll free content (which is relatively more rewarding anyway). This turns the whole game into glorified Baal runs. I mean Dom runs. 1999 vintage gameplay.

* generally give people more reasons to play hard stuff. (most of the GG items I looted in Rampage, I got in -30 levels faceroll areas. Meanwhile Palace Dom constantly drops araku tikis and unique vine circlets)

* More tactical combat, where you don't just blindly spam attacks 95% of the time. More content where you need to adapt (eg: Atziri & her bosses)

* less wild RNG, more targeted looting, less trivialized pretend hardcore, more actual gameplay difficulty. Atziri is again a good example of difficulty/reward. Too bad it's just a tiny bit of content and gated behind a trading pyramid scam.

I won't go over the drops of bosses or maps, I am not at that point but johnKeys does speak about one thing that he is absolutly right:

"as challenges are beaten, players *can* be rewarded the only way they can be rewarded in a game that's about loot and things to do with loot: gear and character progression."

Can is the right word and that is the problem. As far as being rewarded with gear, yeah, the can is always a question mark. You may get lucky or you may not. maybe after a few tries you get somethin that is an improvement.

The possibillity of getting rewarded or not with character progression however is wrong. The character should be progressing all the time. Now let's make one distinction here. There is character progression and there is gear progression.

Character progression relates to anything a character does, from his passives to the abillities he use and the supports.

Gear progression is how good a gear is, how much bonus they give to the character.

While both interact with eachother they are not the same thing!

Thus character progression should be constant and unhindered. The loss of XP on death, yes that's ok, it's an incentive to play better and not die if you want to keep leveling up. However the links in equipment are part of the character progression. This is not instant gratification that is being asked for. Players (well most of them anyway) are not asking for Atziri's disfavors to drop like cookies out of jar. Just that the character progression goes unhindered.

The gear progression can be as hard as it is and yes, as morbo said it, I'm sure it could be better, certainly at high levels, items that are absolute trash should not drop. I am not even saying for them to be better, just don't clutter the screen with so much trash. Leave trash alone and drop only (in the same amounts as always) the items that are at least worth something. It is also bad (never seen it but I do belive his word) that you spend more money on maps than you can make out of them. It would stand to reason that given the nature of it, you'd at least always stand more to gain, monetarly speaking, than it's cost.

Still my main point is. Gear has a good reason to be RNG, character progression has not and only hurts the game.

You are right with your statements about sepperated gear and character Progression.
In PoE though they are tightly "linked" (see what i ded there) together via the gem and socketing/linking system. It is deliberatly designed to achieve a more complex gearing progression. The questions you asked earlier in this thread like: "Do I use this crappy 6 link without defenses or do I try the build to work on an awesome 4 link?" Are exactly the choices the devs want to incentivize you to. These choices are a big part of why PoE is so much different from other ARPGs.

And as has been stated: 4links are trivial to get even self found, 5 link is trivial to get when trading and well rolled 5 links and 6links in general are things to strive for to get your character closer to "perfect". This is the way the game tries to motivate you and also to create a challange for the player.

If you want to make some of these progresses better, not just different, you should jsut somewhat try to understand what this game is about. Then you can make suggestions that fit within the theme of the game.

AN example I gave earlier was to make rolling special colors once per character granted for example.

regards

While I don't like tabula rasa, allow me to play devil's advocate here for a second.

If they want us to make a choice between that perfect 4L or that crapy 6L, then it's no choice at all. Everyone takes the tabula rasa. Tabula rasa is the go to item for a cheap 6L and everyone values more a 6L and thus the liberty of making whatever build they want, over a perfect 4L chest piece.

Does this already tells you it's no choice at all? That build progression is what everyone wants first and foremost? Why would GGG keep on blocking build liberty and by definition, character progression is beyond my scoop of imagination. Even you said it yourself, you use tabula rasa, it's a great leveling up item and you get your 6L until you can get a proper 6L for your own build. That says a lot when this is the aspiration of the vast majority of the players.

EDIT: And I do use the term cheap loosely in this case cause 1 exalt is not cheap in any way, shape or form, it's merely cheaper than the alternatives!

Im not using Tabula. I sold the one I found.

Let me tell you a little story:
Last year I managed to 6link a nearly perfect Belly of the Beast.
I then started to somewhat build this item into every build I made.
I thought every build was better on a 6link.
My builds where crap and I had not much fun with it.
When the Patch hit, which changed the baselife of chars and bellys where in high demand I sold mine for like 38Ex or something because I was sick of myself allways trying to incorproate that item just because it had 6links.
All builds I did afterwards and where much more restricted in their links but at the same time where much better thought out and I had great fun.
On the Shadow I posted earlier in this thread I decided against using any of my 5 linked items and isntead run a 4linked LIghtning Coil to be able to incorporate an Abyssus into the build. This game has so much room for descisions and build diversity and seriously 5links are no hindrence there. They are freaking common items.

regards

Only ever found one and as a weapon, not as a chest piece., I'd call it anything but common.

You can get them through:
finding
vendors
linking
master linking
trade

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You need to play content that allows for items to be 5linked of course. Maybe you only found 1 in 400 hours of play because you only bring your chars up to lvl50 and dont farm so much.
If you run piety or dominus or maps efficiently enough they will get common enough for you.