The game becomes less and less hardcore with each patch.

Yes, because we need way more spikey one-shot-bullshit. Only if every white monster can oneshot me with 10k+ life the game feels hardcore enough!

The only two things that bother me on this front, is sallazang and torture chamber changes.

Both where perfectly designed to be out-played once you knew how they operated, making it a pure skill-play with terrible out-come if you made a mistake.(which i enjoy)

All of the other changes i feel are a correct way of "easing up" the game experience.

But the two i mentioned are map bosses, which are in place exactly to enable a contrast to the other content presented.

Then again, i never understood the devourers are horrible sentiments either, so i guess for those people sallazang will still be a bad-ass mofo?

I understand how you feel pyrokar but there is difference in how you present the difficulty. Overwhelming is a very punitive design strategy that prohibits build diversity extremely and as such is most likely not worth the potential harm in a game design like PoE.

Peace,

-Boem-

edit :

Didn't read page 1 fully, but this.

"

grepman wrote:

Im way more concerned with making bosses -who have clear, outlined mechanics - more carebear. this is a concerning thing to me and if it signals a new trend I'll be very unhappy. I can live with leapers being less froggy, even though I dont think it was a necessary change.

Glad for this change, and also glad for the Shock and Horror change as well. There is no fight (as far as I know) that requires you to use LoS in this game other than that one, and further, I don't think there's any boss prior to it that you need LoS to combat. I would agree if that was the case that the S&H nerfs might've been a little much, but given how this game is and that it doesn't give you the proper teaching tools for such mechanics or hints that would tip you off to prior fights for you to fall back on and go "AHA! I see what's happening here..." it is fine. Sure, there are pillars in the room, but then again, there are boss rooms and areas with pillars in them and none of them scream "USE US FOR LOS OR THE BOSS WILL KILL YOU!" so what indication is a player given that they need to use them to avoid that death beam?

Hell, first timers with the fight will be so panicked that their life/ES is dropping like a stone and the beam is following them that they run around and either die, or luckily run behind a pillar, the beam breaks, and then they're still dealing with all the other shit the boss is throwing at them. What knowledge can they glean from all of that when they're so panicked and desperately trying to figure out WTH is going on? ...Or they read a guide ahead of time, 'spoil' the fight for themselves, and gain the knowledge that way instead of...say...encountering a boss/mob earlier on that isn't as lethal and uses the same, or similar mechanic that needs LoS to be utilized. In that case, the player has some time to figure things out, make some mistakes for sure, and even if punished for those mistakes they have a more clear picture of what mechanics they encounter and can then file that way for later.

You know...kinda like the old Legend of Zelda games where you had cracks in walls, or areas that you knew just didn't look right at first glance. It got you curious and gave you something to recall from memory, and that's sadly what S&H doesn't do in this game, and hell, this game in general doesn't do that so well. People talk about how the game is becoming less 'hardcore', but it's not really that hardcore to begin with, unless you define that as having a dozen+ mobs jumping/flickering onto you without any prior warning, and smashing you with so much damage that even extremely 'tanky' builds get destroyed before the player can react. While not a 'one shot' in that case, it might as well be given you as the player cannot do anything to stop it, and no matter how carefully you play, there will be something similar that blows you apart and leaves you sitting there with a confused look on your face.

'Hardcore' 'carebear' and other terms like this get thrown around way too much and are used so incorrectly nowadays it's a bit sad, but that's another can of worms entirely. Regardless, I'm glad that GGG is slowly figuring out that damage spikes and things of this nature don't make a game 'hard'...they make it frustrating and less about actual skill.

"

Tanakeah wrote:

'Hardcore' 'carebear' and other terms like this get thrown around way too much and are used so incorrectly nowadays it's a bit sad, but that's another can of worms entirely. Regardless, I'm glad that GGG is slowly figuring out that damage spikes and things of this nature don't make a game 'hard'...they make it frustrating and less about actual skill.

"

grepman wrote:

Im way more concerned with making bosses -who have clear, outlined mechanics - more carebear. this is a concerning thing to me and if it signals a new trend I'll be very unhappy. I can live with leapers being less froggy, even though I dont think it was a necessary change.

There are a few other things:
- Devs said "we're making spells stronger as a risk-reward for playing a caster"
- Those 'provoke' passives in Champion tree

If we also keep in mind the changes to leech and defenses globally and put two, two and a few other twos together we could probably draw a conclusion that they intend to leave casters and ranged as squishy as they are or make them even squishier little by little. That, along with ascendancy concept, would create a more clearly defined set of archetypes so an average Joe would need to party up to play safely and efficiently.

Now, I assume the very top tier of builds will be as grossly omnipotent as they are now as a goal for diehard players, and, well, because it can't be fully eliminated. Strangely enough, it means that GGG would be doing the exact opposite of what they are often accused of - balancing the game for 1%.

Of course, it may be that my spidey-sense is completely off here and I'm just imagining things, but IF I'm right and there's a rat pan-fried on a little butter smelling here it would have a lot to do with this thread.

The game is 100% more hardcore than a few years ago.

I don't know what the hell the OP is smoking, but send me some please, it must be good stuff.

I recall 2 years ago, I could use Mom + EB, grab like 160% life, and run 77s all day on autopilot. Goodluck doing anything like that now. Hell, most of my builds used to stop at like 4k life with maybe 5-10k armor or evade. These days, if you're not pushing 5500-6000 with 20k armor, you're in for trouble

Game is extremely punishing now, requiring multifaceted mitigation, and leaving CI/ES practically unplayable right now.

This is all from a Hardcore persepctive - you can't really complain about difficulty or carebears if you play Standard.

Are you sure you didn't log into D3 or Grim Dawn or something?

"

Boem wrote:

The only two things that bother me on this front, is sallazang and torture chamber changes.

Both where perfectly designed to be out-played once you knew how they operated, making it a pure skill-play with terrible out-come if you made a mistake.(which i enjoy)

Agree. They just made Torture chamber easier and turned sallazang into punch bag, that will not deal damage and will just have tons of HP.

"

Game is extremely punishing now, requiring multifaceted mitigation, and leaving CI/ES practically unplayable right now.

Kinda yeah>_> With 7 endurance charges , 14k armor , taste of hate,soul of steel and fortify some _BLUE_ trash can crit u up to 4.5k per hit on shitty 79 map <_</

"

Tanakeah wrote:

Glad for this change, and also glad for the Shock and Horror change as well. There is no fight (as far as I know) that requires you to use LoS in this game other than that one, and further, I don't think there's any boss prior to it that you need LoS to combat. I would agree if that was the case that the S&H nerfs might've been a little much, but given how this game is and that it doesn't give you the proper teaching tools for such mechanics or hints that would tip you off to prior fights for you to fall back on and go "AHA! I see what's happening here..." it is fine. Sure, there are pillars in the room, but then again, there are boss rooms and areas with pillars in them and none of them scream "USE US FOR LOS OR THE BOSS WILL KILL YOU!" so what indication is a player given that they need to use them to avoid that death beam?

this is exactly what Im talking about - carebear stuff

trial and error was, is and will be the best way to learn in a game. tons of games have bosses with mechanics you need to understand and learn, and you can die many times until you figure out what you have to do. this is fine for a game that doesn't expect a player to be an imbecile. this is NORMAL, and what I personally expect of a game that is punishing, unlike with most games of nowadays that are idiot-proof.

but no, you want the game to hold a players hand and explain every encounter in details.

"

that way instead of...say...encountering a boss/mob earlier on that isn't as lethal and uses the same, or similar mechanic that needs LoS to be utilized. In that case, the player has some time to figure things out, make some mistakes for sure, and even if punished for those mistakes they have a more clear picture of what mechanics they encounter and can then file that way for later.

so again, instead of having an electric shock enter your body when you put two fingers in the outlet, you want to have an electricity awareness training and experiment with an electroscope.

why do you want trial and error being very consequence-less ? what is trial and error when you are not punished for an error ? it's meaningless.

"

'Hardcore' 'carebear' and other terms like this get thrown around way too much and are used so incorrectly nowadays it's a bit sad, but that's another can of worms entirely. Regardless, I'm glad that GGG is slowly figuring out that damage spikes and things of this nature don't make a game 'hard'...they make it frustrating and less about actual skill.

arpgs arent really about 'skill' in the first place. the least they can do is make the players do trial and error like many grand old games.

"

raics wrote:

"

grepman wrote:

Im way more concerned with making bosses -who have clear, outlined mechanics - more carebear. this is a concerning thing to me and if it signals a new trend I'll be very unhappy. I can live with leapers being less froggy, even though I dont think it was a necessary change.

There are a few other things:
- Devs said "we're making spells stronger as a risk-reward for playing a caster"
- Those 'provoke' passives in Champion tree

If we also keep in mind the changes to leech and defenses globally and put two, two and a few other twos together we could probably draw a conclusion that they intend to leave casters and ranged as squishy as they are or make them even squishier little by little. That, along with ascendancy concept, would create a more clearly defined set of archetypes so an average Joe would need to party up to play safely and efficiently.

Now, I assume the very top tier of builds will be as grossly omnipotent as they are now as a goal for diehard players, and, well, because it can't be fully eliminated. Strangely enough, it means that GGG would be doing the exact opposite of what they are often accused of - balancing the game for 1%.

Of course, it may be that my spidey-sense is completely off here and I'm just imagining things, but IF I'm right and there's a rat pan-fried on a little butter smelling here it would have a lot to do with this thread.

well, leaving casters squishy is another topic. they for once never said that casters should not be squishy. they did say before they want all bosses to be hard eventually, using I believe shock&horror as an example. and now comes a wave of boo hoo its 'not fair to player', which I'm sad even exists in their vocabulary.