Chris: You are Wrong about Red Maps.

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allbusiness wrote:

There's plenty of power creep in TQ and GD, I'm not sure what he's talking about at all. Dream mastery alone broke TQ. In GD you can one shot big time if you manage to farm all the way into endgame gear.

It's an issue in every ARPG, the problem is that people are mad about it for some reason. D2 was great because once you reached the pinnacle of your build, you could farm gear for other builds/characters and continue.

I think most people agree that characters should have the potential to become very powerful, it's just a question how much time and effort it takes to get there. Personally I feel that it's a bit to easy to reach "god mode" status thanks to ascendancies and crazy uniques like Reach/Voidheart/etc.

The thing is... being a god and one-shotting everything actually gets boring very quickly, from a gameplay perspective. It's only satisfying when you've had to work your ass off to get to that point.

Guys, guys.... As fun as power creep discussions are, they have nothing to do with this topic. I don't mind exp being nerfed in response to power creep. I'm not even sitting here complaining about the _extent_ to which exp was nerfed (which, to be clear, I think is too much; but regardless of this belief, that is not the point of this topic). I am sitting here minding and complaining about the _way_ in which EXP was nerfed.

This topic is intended for Chris to learn some math and about the concept of exp per hour, something which has an in-game display but that he apparently still doesn't understand at all. Chris needs to understand that Plateau is just flat-out more efficient (per hour, not per map) than Colosseum or whatever other t15 map currently exists. Thus, it is a plead to either fix the exp penalty to make it _different_ (not "gone", and not necessarily "less", just "different"), or to introduce perfect-layout t15 maps. Because the current system just DOESN'T MAKE ANY MATHEMATICAL SENSE, and Chris mistakenly thinks that it does, as indicated in his dev Q&A.

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HikaruYami wrote:

This topic is intended for Chris to learn some math and about the concept of exp per hour, something which has an in-game display but that he apparently still doesn't understand at all. Chris needs to understand that Plateau is just flat-out more efficient (per hour, not per map) than Colosseum or whatever other t15 map currently exists. Thus, it is a plead to either fix the exp penalty to make it _different_ (not "gone", and not necessarily "less", just "different"), or to introduce perfect-layout t15 maps. Because the current system just DOESN'T MAKE ANY MATHEMATICAL SENSE, and Chris mistakenly thinks that it does, as indicated in his dev Q&A.

GGG themselves made such change, when latest league (prophecy) started. Effects are also kinda obvious for any smart player.
So, Chris knows. He just keeps lie to players (and maybe to himself).

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allbusiness wrote:

There's plenty of power creep in TQ and GD, I'm not sure what he's talking about at all. Dream mastery alone broke TQ. In GD you can one shot big time if you manage to farm all the way into endgame gear.

It's an issue in every ARPG, the problem is that people are mad about it for some reason. D2 was great because once you reached the pinnacle of your build, you could farm gear for other builds/characters and continue.

What's true is, that power creep always exists in (a)RPGs, to a certain extent. The problem with PoE is, that it's flooded with it, game's inflated. That's why people are mad at it, for a reason. By your logic there's no problem with D3 either, where power creep reaches astronomical values.
"It's ok as long as players have fun" logic some people obey is a recipe for disaster in the long run.

TQ & GD more likely have some balance issues, rather than power creep. In TQ it comes with the combination of certain classes & OP items, same for GD to a lesser extent. In both the power creep is hard to exist at its finest, because the worst inflators - AS/MS/crit mult are strangled. It's hard to oneshoot white mobs, very hard to do it with a yellow mob, impossible with heroes and bosses no matter the character and equipment.

In comparison, in PoE you are able to wipe the screen and oneshoot bosses relying just on the skill tree alone, and eventually a build enabler(s). Gear isn't the defining factor with some of the most OP meta builds.
On top of it we add the ascendancy classes and shit happens.

If this state of the game isn't troublesome, I don't know what is.

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Dos_Fafner wrote:

It's not all he was wrong about but yet he was definitely wrong about this.

The XP "rework", and I'v said this before, is hands down the dumbest thing they've ever done.

Apart from the Lab. ;P

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torturo wrote:

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allbusiness wrote:

There's plenty of power creep in TQ and GD, I'm not sure what he's talking about at all. Dream mastery alone broke TQ. In GD you can one shot big time if you manage to farm all the way into endgame gear.

It's an issue in every ARPG, the problem is that people are mad about it for some reason. D2 was great because once you reached the pinnacle of your build, you could farm gear for other builds/characters and continue.

What's true is, that power creep always exists in (a)RPGs, to a certain extent. The problem with PoE is, that it's flooded with it, game's inflated. That's why people are mad at it, for a reason. By your logic there's no problem with D3 either, where power creep reaches astronomical values.
"It's ok as long as players have fun" logic some people obey is a recipe for disaster in the long run.

TQ & GD more likely have some balance issues, rather than power creep. In TQ it comes with the combination of certain classes & OP items, same for GD to a lesser extent. In both the power creep is hard to exist at its finest, because the worst inflators - AS/MS/crit mult are strangled. It's hard to oneshoot white mobs, very hard to do it with a yellow mob, impossible with heroes and bosses no matter the character and equipment.

In comparison, in PoE you are able to wipe the screen and oneshoot bosses relying just on the skill tree alone, and eventually a build enabler(s). Gear isn't the defining factor with some of the most OP meta builds.
On top of it we add the ascendancy classes and shit happens.

If this state of the game isn't troublesome, I don't know what is.

This is absolute nonsense. Every ARPG you can eventually one shot almost anything unless you have infinite scaling like in Diablo 3's Greater Rifts.

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allbusiness wrote:

This is absolute nonsense. Every ARPG you can eventually one shot almost anything unless you have infinite scaling like in Diablo 3's Greater Rifts.

false. absolutely false.

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allbusiness wrote:

This is absolute nonsense. Every ARPG you can eventually one shot almost anything unless you have infinite scaling like in Diablo 3's Greater Rifts.

"eventually"....
But in other ARPGs, it requires strongest builds equiped with strongest items (usually), while in PoE it's way too easy to oneshot everything.
Most (if not all) ARPGs dont allow "offscreen kills". PoE not just allows that, but encourages even.

And even though "all" ARPGs do a certain thing, it doesnt automatically means YOUR ARPG should do it too. I want to see PoE being BETTER than any other ARPG.

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allbusiness wrote:

This is absolute nonsense. Every ARPG you can eventually one shot almost anything unless you have infinite scaling like in Diablo 3's Greater Rifts.

D3's infinite scaling rifts is a good thing to compare to PoE's red maps to note some important differences.

The power of the rifts is that they scale very linearly. A rift a few levels higher will give the same challenge in form but with slightly stronger enemies. Players experience a level of comfort in this, as the challenge remains mostly predictable. Strong endgame players eventually develop a sense of what they can handle and what they cannot. They will take the next tier of challenge when they feel they are ready and even in the hardcore league, players tend to push the limits.

From a developer's perspective, this means that the challenge is always there, regardless. The difficulty is streamlined from a standard formula. To create a curve the D3 designers have capped progress on gear power and allowed growth through time investment (paragon levels). In this way, the curve of the mainstream is mostly tuned by tweaking/rebalancing gear and the players that invest large amounts of time are caught by a linear safety net, the power from paragon levels. This makes the rebalance of gear to have effect for everyone and that is how they cycle through seasons.

The downside of this approach, in my own opinion, is the loss of loot incentive at a certain point. Many players call an end to the season once they have tried the sets that they have farmed up to try out the new builds. However, the strategy to make a certain set slightly stronger than others and to rorate this through existing sets proves to be a viable one. The elite players will experience different builds through seasons even if they choose the same class. The following mainstream will experience incentive to try these sets and the mainstream altaholics get to experience a certain build that did not perform as well, to perform better (which is of good value for the standard league).
The powercreep is an additional problem because in the concept of fairness tougher challenges should be more rewarding. As loot power at some point is capped, the only thing that can be done is to drop more of the loot people need for their sets. If due to powercreep the time to get it all becomes too short, some new mechanic is needed. They came up with ancient legendaries, which are basically the same items with some higher stats and lower drop chance (again, very linear and very little development investment). This works more like a plaster to an inevitable problem that comes with linear scaling than it is creative, but it extends the reuse of the game content across a number of new seasons.


Now the red maps in PoE. Due to the nature of the type of mods and different map content, the scaling of the difficulty is spiky. While it is a much more creative approach, it is much harder to predict how tough the challenge will be. This in combination with the much, much stronger penalty in softcore when comparing with D3 will make people far more hesitant to take these challenges when they aim to gain experience. For hardcore, I can only assume, players will at least think thrice before entering a nasty red modded map. At least, much more so than taking the next tier rift in D3.

As PoE does not have a linear safety net like paragon levels, the defensive capabilities must eventually come from gear. This gear is not available in linear sense. Good yellow gear is available for the masses. With this gear defenses are strong enough to more or less guarantee safe runs in yellow maps. The best yellow gear is not twice or thrice as expensive, but costs tens or sometimes hundreds times more (a couple of chaos vs tens of exalts). This is, for the seemingly small advance in map tier, something only the elite will go for. For the majority of players, in the context of gaining experience, this is not viable. On top of this, one must farm alot to attain the best gear and the red maps are not significantly more rewarding than the yellow maps. On top of that, red maps are expensive in comparison. This all goes hand in hand to steer the player into yellow maps as the xp gain is a guarantee and the gain of resources is adequate.

Outside the context of experience gain, red maps are viable options. I feel many players attempt these when they feel they are done with their leveling. The option to negate the penalty by means of an empty experience bar feels like a natural moment incented by the system of PoE (or when the player simply gives up trying for the next level, accepting the loss to move on to an alt to farm for or some other purpose).

To compensate for this steep increase in resource needed for gear, to help the mainstream along in the struggle, one could decide to deliver powerful uniques. They have the advantage of being new to players and additionally create incentive to build a character that uses them optimally. This in contrast to tweaking the crafting system, which would help players cover the gap as well but it may seem less inspiring because there is no new cool stuff. And you need some of this to inspire across seasons.

However, this is the D3 approach and does not nearly fit as well on top of PoE's base. PoE has an economy, D3 has not. PoE has a crafting system and D3 does not really. The downside of powerful uniques is that in PoE they turn into a commodity if they drop to often. They turn into desirables if they are truly rare, which means they won't help players across the steep hill of the red maps. They will undermine the entire crafting system if a crafted equivalent is much harder to attain.


Suggestions:

Due to the spiky increase in the difficulty of red maps and their mods, consider easing the experience penalty by making it scale per number of deaths per map. The first death costs 2%, the second 4%, third 8% and the rest the current penalty. This will make 1 or 2 deaths not as much of a problem for experience gain and yet it will still be punishing to people that try content that is simply too hard to gain experience in.

For the hardcore league, this obviously does not change things. For this (and softcore as well) I suggest evaluating the various combinations that can cause damage spikes and to offer a broader range of options to deal with it. Things can still be very tense, but with more ways to build up defenses (and them being accessible without tens of exalts) to cope with this, red maps will become more and more not just an option but an incentive for players to try. Currently, one must stack all possible defenses through skill points, auras, endurence charges, skill gems and even playstyle which is too fixated for a free build philosopy. The tensions from a 1 in 1000ish scenario that may happen is too dominant on the play style and entire build enjoyed in the 999 other scenarios, because of the lack of predictability and spikes. Consider having those spikes only manifest in the highest tier, and only with nasty combinations of mods. Plenty of people will still rip in red maps, but moreso because of lack of preparation and incorrect assumptions they know they have themselves to blame for (which, as a sidenote, will spare GGG some of the forum drama).

For the most powerful uniques, consider dropping them from the tougher red maps where the mods and tier have a stronger effect on the drop chance. This would be an additional factor that scales on number and type of mods aside the standard IIQ/R and works with IIQ/R to further increase the drop. A 500 IIQ/R in an easy blue red map would have a less chance of drop than 50IIQ/R in the nastiest twin boss 8 mod rare red map. The mods really make the challenge spike and the reward should accordingly. Easier red maps would invite for experience, while the nastiest of them invite for loot. Good reuse of content.


Cheers!

PS. I think they are working on something nice in 2.4 that may cover this. Fingers crossed ^_^

Edit: sorry for the wall of text...

I'd offered a higher reward (loot quantity, experience bonus, etc.) for combination of highly-dangerous mods. In first place, for mods that are dangerous to any character (usually mods that increase mobs' DAMAGE, are the most dangerous).
The reason is simple - mod usually increase damage multiplicatively, while reward grows additively, and at much slower pace.
Rewardinf for separate mod is good, but i believe, extra rewards for difficult mod combinations will be the step into right direction.