Power creep and long term playing

 Wow... has it been over 3 years since my first crash landing on the beaches of Wraeclast? It seems weird, like it's a distance past but also a vivid and recent memory with my wildly enthusiastic newbie energy desire to play PoE and learn this arpg. Playing PoE and posting in the forums is always fraught with emotions of a very bi-polar nature. My coming to PoE from playing D3 and the very worst of the original D3 flame wars of the summer of 2012 had really embittered me on playing any arpg. Yet with such a long history of playing arpgs, Diablo series, TL2, TL1, Baulders Gate Series, Titan's Quest and TQIT, Dungeon Seige series, Neverwinter Nights, etc. all the way back to Ultima series, and Akalabeth, Wizardry series, Bard's Tale, Might & Magic series, Hellfire Warrior (does anyone else remember or was even alive and playing back then?) on my old Apple II+. Oops.. my mind is wandering off topic... sorry.

 GGG just announced 5 new uniques for Ascendancy. Hurray and meh (another bi-polar moment) at the same time upon reading their stats. Damn it GGG, I want bigger and more bad ass weapons of mob destruction to 1, 2, or 3 shot everything to oblivion and beyond at warp speed. Gasp, I must put the brakes on my crazy mad (off the rails) desire for wiping all creatures off the face of Wraeclast in one fell swoop. That kind of insane madness to be able to do this would quickly lead to boredom followed by a very swift exit of playing PoE. Game over indeed!

 So GGG must always forge ahead with new versions, new temp leagues, and new gear, etc. Nothing new or unusual here. But how does GGG slowly ramp up the better gear drops for the long time players to keep our desires to want to play high but still keep the power creep to a minimum? The proverbial tight rope walk of the game dev. is never an easy path to be sure. To start with we need to define power creep:

Power Creep

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The gradual unbalancing of a game due to successive releases of new content.The phenomenon may be caused by a number of different factors and, in extreme cases, can be damaging to the longevity of the game in which it takes place. As new expansions or updates are released, new game mechanics, units, equipment and/or effects are introduced, usually stronger than previously existing content. Game developers use this primarily to push the new content, as it gives an incentive to buy it for competitions against other players or as new challenges for the single player experience. As new content with more power is introduced, the average power level within the game rises, making it increasingly difficult for older content to remain in balance without changes. This means older content becomes regressively outdated or relatively underpowered, effectively rendering it useless from a competitive or challenge-seeking viewpoint. In extreme cases whole parts of the game will be avoided by the players, as they are overshadowed by newer content.

 PoE fits this description pretty well as going from version 1.0 to todays 2.1 the power creep has pretty much made Normal and Cruel throw away race through levels to get to Merciless and mapping. The flip side is that GGG can't stop increasing the "carrot" (better gear) that all veteran players are chasing after or else this group will get bored and quit. And finally, there are the new players that GGG must court and capture to keep the mtx purchases going strong. If Normal and Cruel are allowed to increase in difficulty over time then the difficulty for new players is too steep and they quit early out of frustration and death rage. GGG is in quite the "rock and a hard place" position going forward.

 So when new uniques are added we veterans are wanting bigger and more bad ass weapons and gear while GGG is looking to create more build diversity without causing any more power creep than is absolutely necessary to keep the veterans chasing the carrot and buying more supporter packs and mtx. Somewhere in all this tightrope balancing/re-balancing act there has to be included the fun-to-play factor. So it's not a surprise that the 5 new uniques GGG is adding for Ascendancy are low level ho-hum in the stats department (maybe the Vaal blade is ok) and thus why I had a mostly "meh" reaction upon reading about them.

 GGG needs to add more pathing choices that don't involve the Normal and Cruel leveling up runs that veterans of PoE are bored to death on. Yes, we have learned to skip all side content that doesn't get us a passive point to minimize the time but it's still boring to need to keep doing that over and over for every temp league. It's also frustrating that power creep also ruins some of our old builds with older unique gear that worked a year or 2 ago but fail to get us through act 4 anymore because the older builds have older gear that just doesn't cut it anymore. Finally, if GGG halts power creep by not introducing better gear then us veterans are bored out of wanting to play.

 So just what in the arpg world can or should GGG do about these problems going forward?

new players bring money

I think they get bored of the same map tile sets from t7-t11 maybe earlier for less played time accounts. Some people probly bored of t12+ also. Now if only they power creep on the map drops or change tile sets up a little. I can tell from the ladders the last 2 leagues people are getting to maps and lvl 90 as well faster. But still burning out faster and still not to many people hitting 93-95+ on the way to trying for 100. But more rerolls isn't bad with this power creep. Kept me playing a lot of different builds in past league.

The creep is unavoidable. The rate can be controlled and other factors like mob damage/health adjusted but players always need the illusion of progression. Meta-shifts from balance changes can mask it to some extent, but the average dps is always going to be increasing. Probably the only way to reset it is with a sequel.

I am all for integrating the three difficulties and so are GGG from what I hear.

Good post. Thought-provoking. Tricky subject. Although there's some very easy stuff GGG could do. For instance, find a way to make every type of map playable at every level (68-82+, like how Zana does this but better). It's pretty silly that GGG makes it so really fun maps like Strand and Mountain Ledge never get played by high level players because 69 and 73 just doesn't cut it.

One possible solution: Have map items only drop a tier, not a specific map. Then make the specific map part of the currency roll. So you find a Tier 9 map (level 76), and then you roll it with currency to randomly get a Pit or Strand or whatever.

This would add another level of RNG, which GGG loves, and it would even further increase risk/reward questions like do I reroll this hard affixes map even though its a fast map like Mountain Ledge?

That's just one idea. The point is GGG really do need to open their minds in regard to expanding content. Why not add an NPC or rework Zana so you can do a 5 map non-stop run, each with a chance at a League affix, akin to a Race?

Making it so very high-level players only replay the same 6 or 8 high-level maps is BORING and BAD.

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鬼殺し wrote:

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Arrowneous wrote:

we veterans are wanting bigger and more bad ass weapons and gear

Have you been taking a leaf out of another user's playbook with this whole 'we' business? Don't speak for all us veterans, okay? Okay.

Great post otherwise. So if that's my only nitpick, you're doing pretty well.

As for what they can do? Simple. Figure out a way to restrict drops to their appropriate level so the only uniques 'you veterans' see are the high end ones, but much more rarely -- then again isn't that what the loot filter was for? GGG at their laziest and oh my god did you people eat that shit up.

Leveling? Eh, I still think they should open maps once you find normal Dialla IF your account has a character on it that has killed Merciless Malachai. That'd be nice. No one, not even me, seriously enjoys playing the same story three times in a row if there are other avenues for leveling/gearing up.

 Sorry about that. I guess I should have known that the veteran masochist players are deliberately choosing to not use or seek better gear in their endgame builds. How could I have missed that? But seriously, you forgo using better weapons that can one-shot mobs just to make playing harder? I highly doubt that.

 It's more likely that veteran players are trying out some of the lesser used skills to increase their variety of builds, even though those skills are not the most powerful (not the FoTM) and thus the higher damage weapons are needed/desired to make it in the endgame maps.

 Having some way for GGG to differentiate the new players from the long time players (just time of oldest build isn't enough because many older builds get deleted as they become non-viable due to power creep) so that veterans can be given an alternate way to level up a new build and skip past the boring Normal and Cruel levels. I'm not sure how that could be implemented and I don't think GGG has a clue here either. Just opening up maps earlier doesn't work as I'm (I'll only speak for myself) already burned out on endless mapping in the endgame on the road to level 90 or 100 (I've gotten my RoA crit ranger to level 86 in casually playing Talisman league so 90 wouldn't be that hard if I wanted to be more dedicated to map grinding). Alternate forms of endgame playing are needed, from my thoughts on an Endless Dungeon, to maybe being allowed to combine lower level maps in the map generator to allow us to play a higher tier difficulty of one of the maps placed in the map generator (there are four spots and I only know of the 4 fragments to generate the Atziri map that utilizes all 4). Somewhere in the near future GGG has to offer us alternatives to endless mapping in the endgame to keep us playing for more years.

The question is, is this power creep or what the game was meant to be?

Since we are technically the game isn't finished storyline wise, they are going to have to keep scaling it past even act 4.

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Arrowneous wrote:

 Wow... has it been over 3 years since my first crash landing on the beaches of Wraeclast? It seems weird, like it's a distance past but also a vivid and recent memory with my wildly enthusiastic newbie energy desire to play PoE and learn this arpg. Playing PoE and posting in the forums is always fraught with emotions of a very bi-polar nature. My coming to PoE from playing D3 and the very worst of the original D3 flame wars of the summer of 2012 had really embittered me on playing any arpg. Yet with such a long history of playing arpgs, Diablo series, TL2, TL1, Baulders Gate Series, Titan's Quest and TQIT, Dungeon Seige series, Neverwinter Nights, etc. all the way back to Ultima series, and Akalabeth, Wizardry series, Bard's Tale, Might & Magic series, Hellfire Warrior (does anyone else remember or was even alive and playing back then?) on my old Apple II+. Oops.. my mind is wandering off topic... sorry.

I don't consider most of those games to be ARPGs because they really lack any action. Your reaction needs to be a significant factor for these games to be ARPGs. Diablo and Torchlight are of course, as are some others.

I think there has been a wave of interesting ARPGs since Diablo, Torchlight of course, PoE, Grim Dawn, Van Helsing and Victor Vran are interesting additions to the genre. I think it is in a better place than it once was.

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GGG just announced 5 new uniques for Ascendancy. Hurray and meh (another bi-polar moment) at the same time upon reading their stats. Damn it GGG, I want bigger and more bad ass weapons of mob destruction to 1, 2, or 3 shot everything to oblivion and beyond at warp speed. Gasp, I must put the brakes on my crazy mad (off the rails) desire for wiping all creatures off the face of Wraeclast in one fell swoop. That kind of insane madness to be able to do this would quickly lead to boredom followed by a very swift exit of playing PoE. Game over indeed!

So GGG must always forge ahead with new versions, new temp leagues, and new gear, etc. Nothing new or unusual here. But how does GGG slowly ramp up the better gear drops for the long time players to keep our desires to want to play high but still keep the power creep to a minimum? The proverbial tight rope walk of the game dev. is never an easy path to be sure. To start with we need to define power creep:

I don't think the new uniques are better, the point of uniques is to be build enabling, they don't just add more and more damage to uniques, and I think any unique is inferior in terms of raw damage to the potential of the highest tier rare.

New content allows them to bring in new gems which allows for more diversity and that allows them to create more support gems and more uniques to create more build options. They don't always get it right and they sometimes go over the top with some new stuff and they have to tone it down later on.

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So when new uniques are added we veterans are wanting bigger and more bad ass weapons and gear while GGG is looking to create more build diversity without causing any more power creep than is absolutely necessary to keep the veterans chasing the carrot and buying more supporter packs and mtx. Somewhere in all this tightrope balancing/re-balancing act there has to be included the fun-to-play factor. So it's not a surprise that the 5 new uniques GGG is adding for Ascendancy are low level ho-hum in the stats department (maybe the Vaal blade is ok) and thus why I had a mostly "meh" reaction upon reading about them.

Malachai's Loop is not something I would consider low level or ho-hum.

Varunastra is level 64, It isn't just a flat damage increase with a traditional build but could be interesting if people can utilise it's ability to count as all one-handed melee weapon types.

Daresso's Passion looks kind of meh as a level 43 one handed sword, however, it could be an interesting non-traditional weapon choice for certain builds, especially for a non-frenzy build in which the user doesn't get credit for killing blows, such as a totem build for example, but would still get the benefit of the flat damage increase and global crit multiplier.

Glitterdisc is ho hum, but at level 27 it has a decent amount of ES and life which would be an option for low level hybrid builds, it is not something you would be chasing, the extra rarity is nice but the 25% chance to avoid fire damage is a bit meh.

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GGG needs to add more pathing choices that don't involve the Normal and Cruel leveling up runs that veterans of PoE are bored to death on. Yes, we have learned to skip all side content that doesn't get us a passive point to minimize the time but it's still boring to need to keep doing that over and over for every temp league.

I tend to agree with this, i think the way the exp mechanic works you level faster the more you skip content, it means you tend to develop an efficient levelling progression and typically take the efficient abilities which scale really well, if you are racing focused efficiency is a great thing to improve on. If you are not then it gets a bit boring, especially when the go-to abilities are far more effective. I liked that Talisman introduced some more viable abilities, I had a lot of fun with a lightning strike character, it was normally a horrific ability to level with because you needed to add so many support gems to make it barely viable compared to unlinked spells/abilities.

I've never understood why ARPGs tend to be as linear as they tend to be when it comes to their content layout and design. I guess for racing it helps.

I think PoE in general ignores the exploration part of adventure, it only recently changed up the types of mobs that you can find in a particular zone. I think MMOs typically had more interesting exploration mechanics, I spent years exploring every nook and cranny in WoW finding all these obscure named mobs with specific drops (mostly garbage but still) only available to them. You would think an ARGP had far greater scope to create maps that were harder to fully explore where exploration was more rewarding. However, I think they wanted to streamline the game for racing. I like how Grim Dawn and some other ARPGs have hidden areas with loot caches and the like which reward exploration.

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It's also frustrating that power creep also ruins some of our old builds with older unique gear that worked a year or 2 ago but fail to get us through act 4 anymore because the older builds have older gear that just doesn't cut it anymore. Finally, if GGG halts power creep by not introducing better gear then us veterans are bored out of wanting to play.

I don't see power creep being a thing, because the content isn't being made obsolete. I think the only reason new stuff tends to be OP is because they haven't been tested for as long and it takes more time to gather the data and evaluate how it performs.

I think looking at just the numbers can be misleading, a lot of abilities stand on a knife's edge between OP and Unplayable due to the nature of their mechanics. For example, Incinerate. They stopped spell echo working with it at the same time they halved the multiplier, the damage looks reasonable now at maximum stage but you have to stand still and channel to maintain that level of damage, motionless is typically a life-threatening position for a caster. Incinerate had to deal significant damage at higher stages to compensate for the lack of maneuverability, because that still comprises your #1 survival ability, the ability to get out of the way of attacks.

The post-nerfed damage wasn't sufficient to justify the lack of maneuverability, if you didn't have to worry about getting hit then damage-wise it isn't too bad, is probably limited to spell totem now in it's current form, which didn't give a shit about spell echo anyway.

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So just what in the arpg world can or should GGG do about these problems going forward?

I think there is a lot they can do, the problem is the nature of PoE is very twitchy, defensive oriented builds do not typically function well and GGG have religiously gone out of their way to make it harder to make effective defensive builds.

With the focus on the game largely revolving around one core damaging ability which can be linked with 5 support gems which multiply damage to make it to the meta, then the only real balancing mechanic they could introduce to level the playing field is to introduce diminishing return on damage modifiers and multipliers, or GGG could scatter the nodes to the arse end of the tree, like they did with block nodes to make it undesirable to attempt to hit the cap.

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Zvim wrote:

I think there is a lot they can do, the problem is the nature of PoE is very twitchy, defensive oriented builds do not typically function well and GGG have religiously gone out of their way to make it harder to make effective defensive builds.

Tactics can not exist in a game state where mobs do so much physical damage and bosses do so much elemental damage. GGG absolutely abhors players being able to face tank but has no qualms about players being able to face roll because the latter is still vulnerable to death once in a while. ultimately their goal is to the extend the playtime of all players by making the game more rippy whilst still feeding player ego by allowing builds to seemingly creep in power but in actuality not.

This of course gimps melee hard in most situations but it was aegis tank build that set GGG on this zealous path in the first place.

As long as death ratio can be maintained it does not matter how high GGG allows players to scale aoe or damage, their still winning where it counts. When people say the game has become easy, they mean its easier than ever to face roll content but what they miss is that its harder than ever to stay alive.

Assassin is epitomizes GGG's ideology on giving the player unlimited offensive power with reflect and mob damage the being the equalizer.

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Arrowneous wrote:

 So when new uniques are added we veterans are wanting bigger and more bad ass weapons and geare

Speak for yourself! I want more alternatives to the current top tier uniques, and not the vendor trash they keep releasing. When will we have 2-3 end-game uniques from each one of the weapon types... Or chests... or shields? Like... are there any unique shields left that are worth using at all? Besides legaacy Aegis and Saffel's...