Some thoughts on loot tension, and possible designs

I feel HC is in a good place. It gives moments of adrenaline rush which really enrich the overall play experience.

I don't feel SC is in as good of a place. I would like it if there was some mechanic which increased tension (here I just mean tension in general, not necessarily loot tension).

I don't feel it should be the case that "Standard" is strictly easier than HC. I think it should be a matter of choosing between stressors, a "pick your poison" type of thing.

That said, I can't stress enough that I wouldn't want players routinely losing items. It is more about creating riskier movement patterns.

I'd rather the game itself were exciting instead of arbitrary excitement added by forcing me to stop and play inventory tetris before items disappear. This breaks up the flow and pacing of the gameplay even more than it already is.

You know when I have the most fun in PoE? When I am not picking up any items and just playing the game.

Also, for there to be any kind of 'loot tension', the loot has to be good. As it is, 99.9% of it is total garbage, so what the hell do I care if some phantom snatches it away from me? Good, it saved me a trip to town for some alteration shards.

All of this talk just masks a much larger problem.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

I don't feel it should be the case that "Standard" is strictly easier than HC. I think it should be a matter of choosing between stressors, a "pick your poison" type of thing.

I don't think that makes sense as long as Hardcore characters drop back to Standard upon death. That "tiering" of the leagues, to me at least, makes it quite clear that HC is intended to be "Standard plus".

As a solo player, finding upgrades for my gear is enough of a grind already. The idea that I could finally have a good rare sceptre drop, only for the game to delete it on me, isn't my idea of better entertainment.

I don't really understand why "loot tension" needs to be a thing any more than "camera tension" or "shopping tension" or "town tension". Maybe vendors could kick you out if you spend too much time browsing without buying anything, or maybe whoever runs the towns should charge you rent for each fifteen minutes of safety they provide. Heaven forbid the game have some downtime.

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GusTheCrocodile wrote:

I don't think that makes sense as long as Hardcore characters drop back to Standard upon death. That "tiering" of the leagues, to me at least, makes it quite clear that HC is intended to be "Standard plus".

I disagree. I feel the "Standard dump" is basically just a soft landing, giving you a chance to say farewell to your HC character properly. Then you reroll. Although it is a good idea to keep mechanics somewhat the same (so you can retry the situation which killed your char, maybe getting it the second time, without it being too radically different), a loot system change in particular shouldn't have too much bearing.

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As a solo player, finding upgrades for my gear is enough of a grind already. The idea that I could finally have a good rare sceptre drop, only for the game to delete it on me, isn't my idea of better entertainment.

You could always try HC. :3

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

I disagree. I feel the "Standard dump" is basically just a soft landing, giving you a chance to say farewell to your HC character properly. Then you reroll. Although it is a good idea to keep mechanics somewhat the same (so you can retry the situation which killed your char, maybe getting it the second time, without it being too radically different), a loot system change in particular shouldn't have too much bearing.

Of course it's a soft landing. Point is, if the leagues are intended to be choices between feature sets, as opposed to HC being Standard with extra rules, then it makes no more sense to drop ex-HC characters into Standard than it does to drop them into Torment or Bloodlines or a race league or whatever. They're all arbitrary "different choices" of rules at that point.

All roads lead to Standard because that's the basic league. It's the one everything else is an extension of. If it has unique rules then it is no longer the basic league, it's just another league. It is no longer "standard".

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GusTheCrocodile wrote:

it makes no more sense to drop ex-HC characters into Standard than it does to drop them into Torment or Bloodlines or a race league or whatever. They're all arbitrary "different choices" of rules at that point.

For drops into Bloodlines and races, it isn't arbitrary. For obvious reasons.

Permanent HC into Standard? Also not arbitrary. Perm to perm.

But I consider Bloodlines dropping into Standard, as opposed to Torment, to be an arbitrary move. Personally, I think things would be slightly better going temp to temp. For example, the rationale regarding legacy items is that changing everything would take days of downtime... but temp leagues have days of downtime when they end, allowing OP temp-only uniques to get the nerf bat they deserve before entering parent leagues. Stuff like that.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

For drops into Bloodlines and races, it isn't arbitrary. For obvious reasons.

Alright, these ones have their reasons, yeah. Should have thought a little longer :)

But "perm to perm" seems precisely kind of arbitrary rule I'm talking about.

Doesn't really matter though; arguing this tangent doesn't add anything useful, I'll stop derailing the thread.

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CliveHowlitzer wrote:

I'd rather the game itself were exciting instead of arbitrary excitement added by forcing me to stop and play inventory tetris before items disappear. This breaks up the flow and pacing of the gameplay even more than it already is.

You know when I have the most fun in PoE? When I am not picking up any items and just playing the game.

Agree. Seems like Scrotie again starts to solve not existing problems. You should start your return from playing Scrotie, not from forum, to test first hand if there is some tension on not. On forum you don't find tension for sure.

Just to be clear, I'm not really solving a problem here. I think loot tension is great, and would make a better experience... but I don't think a lack of it means things are broken. (Not as originally advertised? Yeah. But same with a lot of things.)

When I say I don't like where SC is right now, I don't mean broken, I mean something more like "not spicy enough." So maybe add some spice to make it better.

But yeah, the ideas in this thread are not addressing anything I feel needs fixing. Much, much more optional than that. For the most part, just thoughts. This was a spin-off from another thread.

You'll know when I actually care.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

When I say I don't like where SC is right now, I don't mean broken, I mean something more like "not spicy enough." So maybe add some spice to make it better.

There is very easy solution, how to make even SC loot much more spicy. Just stop to trade. It works really well, I assure you.