I am lucky, therefore game is fine

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Elendarulianreo wrote:

"

ScrotieMcB wrote:

"

Berylstone wrote:

The experience penalty on this game especially at higher levels is severe. To risk death in a difficult boss fight for the same kind of loot you could obtain from an easier encounter doesn't make any sense. So increasing the odds of obtaining valuable treasure from difficult encounters would help change this. Otherwise players (myself included) will be skipping past these fights.

Why risk losing hours and hours of work for what will likely be vendor trash?

Because risk is relative. The encounter you're scared of can be roflfacetank easy for someone else.

The entire concept of risk-reward simply doesn't fit ARPGs. The entire genre. This is a genre where characters are decidedly NOT uniform and the changes they face are quite often not uniform, either, so trying to tune individual encounter rewards (in a srs business manner) by difficulty is as foolish as chasing the wind. It might exist in other genres, but as far as ARPGs go we shouldn't even be trying for risk-reward balance.

Instead, it is more properly thought of as "gearcheck-reward" or "theorycraft-reward," substituting in two mechanics ARPG players use to mitigate risk to the point of triviality. Of these two, the former makes the player feel like a passive entity slogging through the computer's feedback loop, while the second encourages cleverness and is one of the things PoE should be about.

So in conclusion:
1. Risk-reward is a lie
2. The drops for bosses you consider too risky should not be evaluated according to their "risk" but by how much smarter than you the players who can safely farm those bosses are (rewarding cleverness)

What you're essentially saying is that balance doesn't and can't exist, which I don't think is true at all. Sure, everything can be trivialized, but most of that is a consequence of trade. Self-found players generally aren't facerolling the game, and are actually happy about that. And of course there's risk/reward--it's already present in PoE. Bosses are generally harder and drop better loot than rares, which are generally harder and drop better loot than blues, followed by trash mobs. But the problem is the lack of calibration between the bosses around which the endgame, particularly the map system, revolves. I get that there are map levels with bosses that are comparatively easy for some builds, harder for others, and then vice versa, but that doesn't mean things can't improve in the big picture. Is there any build that crushes Eater of Souls but struggles with Voll? Then why does Voll drop better loot when you account for accessibility and clearspeed?

ARPG outside of loot tables or hand crafted single player experience, does cannot support of ARPG because the concept of "farming" and "risks vs reward" do not go hand in hand. Even if "risk vs reward" was present, after I kill the boss the 1ST time around. Doesn't matter how hard he was he is less of a risk then before, and I got loot that made me more powerful, thus he is less of a risk. Each subsequent farming the boss is less risky and I keep the same amount of reward.

Do people farm voll because he's easy? No he's quite a challenge for non-optimized build or a decently geared character, but once you hit that threshold that you can "farm him." He essentially becomes not a risk. Nobody smashes their character into monsters that they can "barely beat within a inch of their life." If you can't do voll, you would farm piety or dom until you overpower him.

Which is the main point scrotie was trying to make, the optimal play and what people do normally anyway is to minimize risk for the max amount. I repeat outside of handcrafted games (for example dark souls where that boss is tough as balls for any build at that stage of the game that you fought him, and you give an appropriate large reward) ARPG with a "farming focus" will not properly support risk vs reward when I can always roll over previous content I already cleared until it allows me to roll over the next.

Can the eater of souls drop better loot because he harder then voll? Sure, but that's just buffing drop rates because he is harder thus should give better rewards. That doesn't make "risk vs reward."

Did 4x T1 drop rate fix the game or risk vs reward? No it did not, would you rather they also makes monsters 4x harder to? Are we going to do D3 scaling here now. Problem little bit more complicated then what most people think it is.

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MoonYu wrote:

I happen to like Jk's threads, but there are many I don't care for. So like Grant said, I don't click on them.

I also get his original point that so many here have ignored, but whatever.

thanks, Moon.
greatly appreciated.

@Pyrokar, I am doing well in my small business but I wouldn't mind 5% of Trump's wealth. daffy or not :)
head of state? meh. Tony Abbott is doing a good job in my opinion.
and politics is a messy business I'll never consider taking part of, not even for the laughs.

@RagnarokChu, you can stay and farm that boss - but the main guideline of risk/reward is there's always a scarier boss/zone that drops comparatively more loot (on average. because RNG still plays a role), to encourage you onward for the next challenge.
ultimately it's your choice if you do that or not, but the important bit is to encourage the player to progress through risk-taking and skill. carrot and stick, but one not made of RNG.
I've said it a thousand times and I'll say it once more: RNG is a means to an end. a tool of an ARPG aresnal. it is not the goal of the game itself, and neither is Economy which is "only" a feature among many.

buffing Eater Of Souls' loot vs. Voll's ? agree: that alone isn't risk/reward. just like a single hard encounter for one single build, isn't really "risk".
risk/reward is a system. a guideline. and if Eater Of Souls, Voll, Abaxoth and Daresso ("Legion Slayer"?) follow it - so should everything else including the occasional "allies cannot die" crazy rare that rolls on a monster type which makes that mod scary. a.k.a Leaper.

the problem is indeed complicated. very complicated. but doable.
and I want people to realize risk/reward does indeed have a place in ARPG because it always did, and I want people to agree a good implementation of risk/reward has a place in Path Of Exile. will it happen? that's another story...

"

johnKeys wrote:

the problem is indeed complicated. very complicated. but doable.
and I want people to realize risk/reward does indeed have a place in ARPG because it always did, and I want people to agree a good implementation of risk/reward has a place in Path Of Exile. will it happen? that's another story...

I'll just say that if GGG barely can handle some semblance of balance, risk/reward will suffer the same fate.

If I was you, I would dedicate threads to the technical aspects of risk/reward rather than just saying it's the right thing to do. Risk/reward, like inmersive or diversity, are mere buzzwords. People hate buzzwords.

I don't expect the game to shift anytime soon, but it can always go in the right direction.

Anyway, this thread has gone places.

you are right about it being a buzzword, NeroNoah.
but when people go for arguments which honestly are huge BS like "risk/reward has no place in an ARPG" - I get upset. even a bit insulted. mostly confused how we even got to a situation where arguments like these can even be made half-seriously.

I do miss the discussions back in Open Beta, about concrete implementation of risk/reward.
how to measure risk. how to calculate reward without throwing RNG into the trash bin (because it still needs to be there).
heck, I miss Courageous. Moosifer. Undon3.
and I miss the old Scrotie. and Moderator-Account Charan.

heck, even trolling used to be of higher quality. ask HornedRat.

EDIT: oh man now I've been hit with nostalgia... will be back in a bit. need to go over some old January-May 2013 threads :)

You guys are talking about this game as if it is a nonrandom cRPG, like Planescape: Torment or something.

Here's how ARPGs work: The core nemesis is Chaos. This is what the game thross at you, soft pitches at first and fastballs of gigantic gobs of pure, undiluted RNG at the end. As a player, your tools are Order. Your win condition is when Order trumps Chaos by mitigating randomness out of the picture. Eliminating risk is your job as a player. You are rewarded specifically, exactly, and by design when there is no risk.

The closest thing to risk-reward you'll ever get is recklessness in trying to up one's clearspeed. That's it, and it rewards itself without intervention, so no design change is required.

"

ScrotieMcB wrote:

You guys are talking about this game as if it is a nonrandom cRPG, like Planescape: Torment or something.

And you talk about aRPG like there's no room for development, original touch or new ideas. OF COURSE there is room for risk-reward in a classical hack n' slash aRPG. It's pretty simple to implement. No matter how "chaos" the core is.

"

ScrotieMcB wrote:

You guys are talking about this game as if it is a nonrandom cRPG, like Planescape: Torment or something.

Here's how ARPGs work: The core nemesis is Chaos. This is what the game thross at you, soft pitches at first and fastballs of gigantic gobs of pure, undiluted RNG at the end.

I agree with this. LOL @ the "you don't like it don't look at it" responses. Sorry, i'm not the stick my head in the sand and pretend stuff doesn't exist type.

"

ScrotieMcB wrote:

"

Berylstone wrote:

The experience penalty on this game especially at higher levels is severe. To risk death in a difficult boss fight for the same kind of loot you could obtain from an easier encounter doesn't make any sense. So increasing the odds of obtaining valuable treasure from difficult encounters would help change this. Otherwise players (myself included) will be skipping past these fights.

Why risk losing hours and hours of work for what will likely be vendor trash?

Because risk is relative. The encounter you're scared of can be roflfacetank easy for someone else.

The entire concept of risk-reward simply doesn't fit ARPGs. The entire genre. This is a genre where characters are decidedly NOT uniform and the changes they face are quite often not uniform, either, so trying to tune individual encounter rewards (in a srs business manner) by difficulty is as foolish as chasing the wind. It might exist in other genres, but as far as ARPGs go we shouldn't even be trying for risk-reward balance.

Instead, it is more properly thought of as "gearcheck-reward" or "theorycraft-reward," substituting in two mechanics ARPG players use to mitigate risk to the point of triviality. Of these two, the former makes the player feel like a passive entity slogging through the computer's feedback loop, while the second encourages cleverness and is one of the things PoE should be about.

So in conclusion:
1. Risk-reward is a lie
2. The drops for bosses you consider too risky should not be evaluated according to their "risk" but by how much smarter than you the players who can safely farm those bosses are (rewarding cleverness)

I understand your point. It's inaccurate.

The same boss fights or map modifications I find difficult: so does the vast majority of other players I have read of, played with, or spoken too. This holds true even though we have extremely different builds and play styles. So the lack of uniformity among player builds has very little to do with the balance issues I encounter when playing this game.

So to sump it up:
1. Risk-reward is not a lie. It's a very real and identifiable problem with this game. That is why when I join a group it's not unusual for everyone to decide to skip the same bosses.
2. Player intelligence has nothing to do with this argument. But your passive attempts to either insult me or boast of your own cleverness is dully noted.

This game does have imbalances in difficulty. The content is not perfectly balanced as you imply. Some fights - especially certain bosses - are just genuinely more difficult than others and therefore not worth the risks for a lot of players.

Either the rewards need to be increased and scaled more appropriately to justify the increase in risk: or their difficulty needs to be lowered. Otherwise players will continue to skip past them because that is the smart thing to do.

I did not imply the game is perfectly balanced. I said trying to balance "risk-reward" is a fool's errand, and suggested other axes (notably theorycraft-reward) for balancing around. I am now explicitly saying the game is not perfectly balanced, and that no game ever has or will be.

"

ScrotieMcB wrote:

I did not imply the game is perfectly balanced. I said trying to balance "risk-reward" is a fool's errand, and suggested other axes (notably theorycraft-reward) for balancing around. I am now explicitly saying the game is not perfectly balanced, and that no game ever has or will be.

You implied it to me: though I'll concede you may not have meant to.

I took your argument to suggest any imbalances I encounter were due to variations among player builds and my own lack of intelligence rather than a genuine increase in difficulty as I believe to be the case.

You're right: no game will ever be perfectly balanced. But this game is not even remotely balanced. Certain encounters are just way more dangerous than others: yet they do not provide better loot to compensate.

That's a design problem from my perspective because it encourages players to just skip passed these fights. As a developer: you want players to engage the content you work hard on creating - not to just ignore it because it isn't worth doing.

I don't consider making content worth doing a fool's errand.