ProjectPT: "we're not rewarded for challenges...

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innervation wrote:

we're actually rewarded for avoiding challenges as efficiently as possible."

By challenges, he's talking about challenging content and map mods, not league challenges.

This was probably the most poignant line I've heard from the "Lioneye's Watch Podcast" (which I'm still listening to and making a big post about). It's a sentiment I've heard, and even expressed myself, but never so succinctly and in a way that cuts right to the point that this problem, insofar as you see it as a problem, is one of GGG's creation, and one that they alone can remedy.

Why would they remedy it? It's working as intended, pure GGG design to a T.

Because GGG design first and foremost, always, as an economy stimulant. It shouldn't come as a surprise that something is designed to be circumvented. Everything in the game from RNG to difficulty to rarity to gating is designed to be circumvented by paying a cost in orbs, either to someone or as a sink via you from others.

Look back at the MTX for first 50 Atziri kills.

Do you think they expected 50 people to kill Atziri? Or do you think they expected 1 or 2 to kill her and 48 or 49 to swat flies, RMT, flip, scam and scumbag to pay for a kill and an MTX?

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TheAnuhart wrote:

Look back at the MTX for first 50 Atziri kills.

Do you think they expected 50 people to kill Atziri? Or do you think they expected 1 or 2 to kill her and 48 or 49 to swat flies, RMT, flip, scam and scumbag to pay for a kill and an MTX?

Savage.

Peace,

-Boem-

edit :

For content to be balanced around risk/reward, the distribution of risk would have to be evened out across the board.

Think for a second what this means given all the factors

-build diversity
-playtime
-item/wealth rng

Balancing risk/reward while a few chosen builds circumvent the former pushes the entire community in those builds. Which is currently already the case but the "reward" is just efficient xp/hour.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Random generators always 1. add content, extending replayability but 2. never have the polish of a handcrafted experience. (Itemization is a form of content.) What this means is: the first measurement of a random generator is "how much playable content does this generator add?" Not risk/reward, not currency sink, but meaningful variety of player experience; those other things are secondary. Maps exist to give players an endgame, first and foremost.

So when you're making some mods good and others bad, or failing to encourage players to run as many simultaneous affixes as possible, or basing map mods off of economic considerations... you're likely cutting the endgame short. You're decreasing the pool of map content in exchange for some other "good."

If so, it'd better be damn good.

I love it when Scrotie explains the bee that's buzzing around my bonnet, mostly because he does it better than I can, but also because I no longer feel alone.


Worth noting, though, I honestly do NOT think that GGG measure this way. Currency sink / economy stimulant is way ahead of player experience. I'm not even sure if they acknowledge that the two are different but see the latter as only the result of the former. That the latter may suffer because of the former I don't think even makes sense at GGG HQ.

fk it w/e

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TheAnuhart wrote:

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Random generators always 1. add content, extending replayability but 2. never have the polish of a handcrafted experience. (Itemization is a form of content.) What this means is: the first measurement of a random generator is "how much playable content does this generator add?" Not risk/reward, not currency sink, but meaningful variety of player experience; those other things are secondary. Maps exist to give players an endgame, first and foremost.

So when you're making some mods good and others bad, or failing to encourage players to run as many simultaneous affixes as possible, or basing map mods off of economic considerations... you're likely cutting the endgame short. You're decreasing the pool of map content in exchange for some other "good."

If so, it'd better be damn good.

I love it when Scrotie explains the bee that's buzzing around my bonnet, mostly because he does it better than I can, but also because I no longer feel alone.

Worth noting, though, I honestly do NOT think that GGG measure this way. Currency sink / economy stimulant is way ahead of player experience. I'm not even sure if they acknowledge that the two are different but see the latter as only the result of the former. That the latter may suffer because of the former I don't think even makes sense at GGG HQ.

Here's the two things tradeable objects need for a healthy economy:
1. Balance between other equally scarce tradeables (demand).
2. Sinks (supply).

If GGG believes the economy is the most important aspect of the game, it seems they forgot that gear and maps are tradeable. Gear balance (an extension of character archetype balance) and map-base balance are dubious at best, and the lack of gear sinks makes Standard's economy a joke (which the reader may or may not find troubling).

I don't know if balance is the sum total of player experience - actually, I know it isn't - but balance and economy go hand in hand (just add sinks). Balanced game, great economy; horrendously balanced game, horrendous economy. It's not too crazy to sit in GGG's position and believe balance and the economy are essentially as one.

However, if you haven't noticed by now, GGG doesn't do balance; they shift goalposts. The players don't get a better economy each new league, they get a different economy. They don't refine, they spit out new content. New economic content, in this case.

I wonder if that's what they really mean is most important to them.

In any case, the emphasis on new content over polish is the main reason I don't play anymore. I hope Atlas might show some form of polish on mapping, and I am holding my breath, but I feel like a fool for doing so and I'm developing a mild self-loathing.

Well the rare devourers prophecy does give maybe .. 10 extra rare mobs ?
It's way better than a "20% more rare monsters. Rare monster all have nemesis"
It does not give them the inner treasure nemesis mod as much as the map mod does tho.

Due to RnG, it's not that obvious that it is more rewarding ( especially since rare mobs cannot drop t+2 anymore ), but it's there.

Do we have a source that those rare and unique monster's qty/rarity modifiers are only additives ?
It sure feels like it though.
I do support the "make monster's qty/rarity multiplicative with the map modes" idea ( maybe not with gear's IIR/IIQ, not sure about that ).
There would need to be some Qty/Rarity rebalance then, for those cases.

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innervation wrote:

Yeah he went on to give an example, and I'll put some words in his mouth as well here, the 'your map will have devourers' Prophecy. You just skip it. Avoid it. Why? Because there's no reward tied to it. If the prophecy instead read "your map will be inhabited by devourers and the mega boss devourer will drop 10 orbs of fusing" how many people seal it then? Some, to be sure, but fewer.

To be fair, that mod doesn't have much in the way of risk either for a good build. It's just annoying.

WE are with fated uniques but since you can buy them, why even trying to make those prophecies.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

In any case, the emphasis on new content over polish is the main reason I don't play anymore. I hope Atlas might show some form of polish on mapping, and I am holding my breath, but I feel like a fool for doing so and I'm developing a mild self-loathing.

If you stopped playing because of polish why the hell did you ever start? =o

Polish is overrated anyway. I watched League of Legends flush themselves down the toilet by getting 75% of the way through new projects and features and then scrapping the entire thing because 'we don't release 9/10 content, only 10/10 fully polished content'. No asshats, the people want content. 9/10 3 times a year is better than what you think is 10/10 (but still won't please everyone) once every 3 years.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

GGG doesn't do balance; they shift goalposts.

Interesting thought, and applies to many diffrerent facets of PoE as well.

Yeah, that's some serious entropy vs law **** if you think about it. They have their reasons, and the reasons are to keep the game truly alive. If everything is perfectly balanced, is it fun for the player? I'm not sure anymore. There is a concept in physics, not sure how to translate it. "universal thermal death". It's a principle that says eventually everything will balance out. And tbh, it's not a fun thought. It's hinted in the "death" part. Fun is in the differences and rythm.
I remember I heard some other dev from a different company saying that you need to give the player a bad choice as well as a good one, otherwise it doesn't matter what he picks and the whole experience feels bland.

I'm for balancing, obviously, everyone is for balancing and stability, everywhere. Everyone thinks it would be the best and it's just plain and obvious. But there is definitely more to it than that.