POE for casual gamers

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Charanjaydemyr wrote:

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AttackDingo wrote:

Seems like most of the people on this thread are missing the main point of the original post. This has degenerated into an assault on economically depressed hard core gamers and as you can see from the lack of shiny supporter accolades next to this post, I am obviously one of them. :D

Here is the point for all the people that missed it, and thought this thread was about which gamer sub-group contributes the most money to this game:

The faster you progress players from a state of "wow this game is complicated and difficult" to "wow I am just steamrolling content" the shorter the longevity of the community.

Increasing drop rates contributes to this obviously.

Many recent enemy nerfs also contribute to this. Specifically, devourer nerf, reflect nerf,enemy shotgunning nerf, etc.

The broader issue here though is an issue every online gaming community I have ever been a part of faces sooner or later. Will the game remain true to roots or will it become bland in flavor as it seeks to encompass a wider and wider audience.

Sort of hard to 'miss the point' when it's built on a premise of this one change making the game 'as casual as D3'. When the person making that call admits they don't play D3, it sort of fucking destroys any credibility they might have in completely undermining such an argument.

That and it was a stupidly unacceptable level of hyperbole to begin with. Don't kid yourself: the OP asked for precisely what they got when they tried to call out 'casual gamers' as 'non-supporters'.

That was just as much 'the main point' as anything else in the OP. Nothing 'degenerated' because it already started that far down. If anything, I elevated it, going by the agreeing responses.

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AttackDingo wrote:

Shavs is not build enabling. In the case of low life builds it helps a great deal, however, you could have just capped your chaos res and bought a high es chest for a fraction of the cost of purchasing a shavs. Having a tougher build with potentially about double the es and chaos res capped seems better to me :D

Uhm, yeah, Shavronne's Wrappings are completely build-enabling in that they possess what was for a long time a completely unique mod. That enabled a sort of low life build that was so much more effective than previous low life builds that it became THE low life build. Of course Shav's is build-enabling. Yes, you can do it another way, but that other way is so much more of a hassle you're just making things difficult for yourself. Your argument is similar to Neon/Mark2's when I pulled him up on the design of Soul Taker and its ridiculous mana management trick. He replied, 'but you can roll rares that are WAY better than Soul Taker'...sure, absolutely, but in a game so ruled by its market, a guaranteed product in one package is going to trump a randomly rolled item relying on far too many lucky rolls of the dice. Every Soul Taker had that mana management trick; every Shav's has the low life enabling chaos defence. There comes a point where an item 'good for the build' is just too integral and becomes a staple. At this point, we can call that item 'build-enabling'.

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AttackDingo wrote:

Mjollnir is not build enabling - it's the opposite in fact. It's build requiring. It requires you have a massive amount of stats that you need to accommodate in gear or on tree in places where you could have other useful things. Not to say it's not awesome to have and allows you to avoid having to use cast on crit or cast on melee kill or some other trigger gem to achieve the desired effect, but its not needed.

You're just being a bit silly here. That's like saying my second sword, The Goddess Scorned, isn't build-enabling, it's build-requiring because it demands you have a lot of damage/fire/crit nodes. This is not a chicken and egg dilemma. The item is build-enabling because, again, it does something no other item does. Whatever is required to equip that item is part of the build. Provided the requirements aren't too high for the outcome, people will do it.

And again you're falling back on the idea that since there are other ways of doing it, it's not build-enabling. Convenience, reliability and consistency make pretty much every t1 item a build enabler. That's part of why they're T1 -- get your hands on one and you're suddenly that much closer to a playstyle that is considered unusually powerful for its level. This applies to both my swords -- it's just that no one cares about unusual power in a single item at level 7 or 28 because it's DEFINITELY easier to get a combination of more common uniques and rares to achieve a similar level of efficacy. Why is Goddess Scorned build-enabling? Higher base crit than any other sword at its level, complete fire conversion and that crucial 'shit burns faster' mod that no other item has. Can you achieve a similar effect with a combination of other gear? Sure. But with just one item? Fuck no.

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AttackDingo wrote:

Don't kid yourself - if you are not advancing in this game it's not because of your drops, it's because of your build and your ability.

You should probably avoid blanket statements like this when we have a *bunch* of people running around in high end gear they've traded for dominating maps who probably wouldn't be able to do half the things I do in lesser gear because I do rely on original builds and ability. There are FAR too many builds and playstyles that require certain gear just to get out of town and not die to leave your statement here much weight. I'd amend it to this:

'Don't kid yourself -- if you are not advancing in this game it's not because of your drops, it's because you're not willing to do what it takes to advance.'

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AttackDingo wrote:

Better yet - how about you describe just one build that you want to try that you cannot try because of the tier 1 uniques and/or "end game crafting" you speak of. Then we can explain how to achieve it with efficient low budget solutions.

I avoid theorycrafting gear I'll probably never own, but back when Arc needed a kick in the pants and I was testing it extensively, I REALLY wanted to try it with two Void Battery wands.

You really seem hung up on this idea that a build isn't its own thing if a similar result can be achieved with cheaper gear. I think you seriously underestimate the value of the way things are done, as opposed to the outcome. Of course once you look only at 'solutions' you're boiling things down to pretty basic terms. Why not go all the way and just say 'there's only one build in the whole game, and that's the one that kills things, because the outcome is dead things no matter what?'

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AttackDingo wrote:

It's [being hardcore] not an amount of time - it's a state of mind. You can be hc gamer and play 2 hours a week. If you complain about the game's difficulty and think you deserve a prize just because you tried - you are a casual. If you like the idea of conquering seemingly insurmountable odds and are determined to succeed despite any challenges the game can throw at you - and welcome harder challenges - you are hc.

You've created a false dichotomy here. There's no way your two descriptors encapsulate even half of the people playing this game. What's worse: most people fit BOTH definitions at one point or another.

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Rjakh wrote:

At first I was laughing to "4x0=0". But math is not simple like that in this situation.
4x drop rate means low prices up to 1/4 of old ones. Getting high-end items easier just kills the purpose of game. Where's the fun when random casual player can have the same build without too much effort?
You can see the effect of your "4x0" already. Everyone tries to sells something because it's probably gonna lose it's value but no one buys them. And because of no one buys them, prices are already destroyed. Even a poor man like me can buy a mjölner and shav's...

Who plays this game because of graphics or soundtracks or combat or story?
Where all the fun is, the complex economy/loot/craft system which gives players a purpose.

I am quite new on PoE. But this game gave me "the ambition" to be a high-end player. A feeling I didn't have for years, even on real life. Now it's all gone.


Also the casuals who say "we have a life!!!11". If you have a social life, partner and children what are you even doing here? Why would you care about a damn orange texted virtual hammer? You say you don't have time for farming but you can write wall-of-texts which no1 cares about?
The thing you are lacking is not the "time", it is "patience". Most of you just keep checking your emails and forums while sitting in office. Doesn't sound like hardworking or social life to me. Stop lying to yourself. You will be a lot happier that way, I guarantee it.

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ghamadvar wrote:

Yeah, it is even better if you read it out loud with a kevin spacey voice.

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petewulf wrote:

@HighTime

If you think that grinding is what makes a good game and the drop rate was fine (which was definitely not the case) then i'll give you a clue:

The first 3 Shavronnes you will find...leave them where they dropped and just ignore them...the 4th you can keep.

So farewell, good luck and have fun grinding the next 99years :)