cynic's reaction to the announcement

"

Snorkle_uk wrote:

This stuff about not wanting to switch between different skills at different stages of leveling is your agenda, its obviously not something they see as an issue, its not something they are trying to 'fix'. I dont see playing as 1 skill for this bit and then switching to another skill here as a waste of time, I dont see any sign that they see it that way either.

I do agree with a lot of stuff you're saying, Sid, especially about the Roadhog balancing method that GGG uses, however I'm with Snorkle on this. I don't think it is wrong that some builds are enabled at high level, it's pretty much the same as getting your main skill gem at level 31 and using something else up to that point. In such cases I play the next closest thing and switch over at first possible moment, I also avoid levelling with flameblast or tabula, the way I see it, that way you can only blame yourself for getting bored.

"

鬼殺し wrote:

Clearly GGG need to implement Smart Loot to keep us butterfly-chasers on course. Clearly.

:P

I agree with you guys on this one. The fluidity of skills/support gems and their interactions with the passive tree is one of the most unique features in POE!

The fact that you can take a bunch of fire passives as you level and then switch things up later, even so far as changing from spell casting to weapon swinging... It is one of my favorite things about the game.

I like having options.

Personally I dont rly get in on the whole "I want to play this build or that build" thing in general tbh. Once you have a certain level of chops you can set out to do pretty much anything and achieve it in a trade environment of course, but I see that as a level of luxury one might advance to. I dont see that as the game, I dont see that as the basic premise that you choose a build and then have a right to grind endgame with that build as a given.

the way I see the game is that first and formost you play what you can, not what you want to. When options open up to you then you have the luxury of making choices. You choose a class and then you start with 1 weapon and 1 skill gem and thats it essentially, thats what you get. From there on the game offers you options through random items you find and guaranteed quest reward items, and its up to you to use the combination of things you are presented with to try and overcome the challenge of progressing through the game.

I dont see the player as an entitled tourist, I see them as a puzzle solver, a survivor, a creature of necessity not desire. Thats the basics of the game for me, the bit where you become an opulent chooser free to fulfill your whims is not implicit, thats earned, thats something to aspire to.


thats why I never buy into the build enabling uniques arguments either, I dont think people are entitled to them, theyre in the game, if you want them its up to you to figure out if and how you can get them and do what it takes to make that happen. Some are common, some are rare, understanding what you are capable of achieving is part of the skill set. To fail to get from A to B because you didnt have a certain item is a failure of the player to have planned around needing something they couldnt acquire and then failing to find another solution.

"

Snorkle_uk wrote:

Personally I dont rly get in on the whole "I want to play this build or that build" thing in general tbh.

You can thank Blizzard for that, really. In a world of min/maxing, people load up a game for the first time and go "ok, what is the BEST build, and what are BIS items for every slot and how do I get them? oh and pls boost me thx!!"

It's a sad state of affairs, really.

The rest of your post is beautiful. You're describing the journey of a self-found role-player, it feels to me. I emphatically agree with you and I'm happy to see such a quality post. :)

This really wasn't cynicism. It was entitlement more than anything else...

Besides, how the heck would you solve the problem? Instant level 60?

The single playtrough solves a variety of issues (boredom due to doing the same thing multiple times, act I being a joke after act IV on the previous difficulty, to name a couple).

I agree that some people are overhyping this, but it's an improvement beyond what we expected.


The only thing I wish they'd do to improve the leveling process is add all the gems to the vendors. I don't see a reason not to, since they already have stat requirements...



As to other parts of your post: Nobody is forcing you to be a powergamer.

It's ok to leave the choice between being 100% efficient and playing a variety of content to the player.

And you're the same as the people hyping, just on the other end of the spectrum. Wait and see how other things are handled before jumping to conclusions.

My mind was blown, but I do hope they can at release or through continued refinement make each act not feel like filler.

It's natural to think/feel that reusing "about 50%" (J. Rodgers on one of the video interviews) of the existing acts to give the game twice as many acts is going to lead to some same-i-ness. I mean this happens with Maps that are clearly just retiled act areas (arid lake = dried lake without the bridge abutments etc.) but the truth is it makes sense given that they had set the expectation of 10 acts, to do this in one iteration instead of rebalancing from the current to get rid of cruel, and have 2 play throughs, and then in a year doing it all over again to get rid of merc and have 1.

They are saving a lot of wasted duplicated development by biting the bullet and getting it done now.

As ARPG players we are already implicitly okay with repeating content (usually with the caveat that it be randomized enough that we can't "meta game" it to triviality (and if you think we currently can I beg to differ, go play an MMO with completely static non randomized quests and raids and come back and talk about the subject). We repeat stuff in maps as an end game, and because this game does a fabulous job of randomizing things enough to feel fresh, but not so much that levels get broken (can't reach places) or feel overly arbitrary and nonsensical (as most Rogue-likes can feel unless their developer does an amazing job with the random layout parameters as GGG has).

As for balance not getting worked on because of "10 acts", frankly this is the same old internet not knowing what it doesn't know BS you see on a thousand different game forums. The guys who are doing nuts and bolts skill/passive tree/mechanical balance are NOT the same guys who are cranking out tilesets, musical scores, sound effects, 3d models of new monsters, textures for same, animations. NOR are they likely to be the same people who are coding new area specfific mechanics, scripts, NPC dialog etc.

The internet would be less annoying if people who have 0% expertise stopped telling the experts how to do their jobs. That's not to say we can't have opinions about balance or whats a good skill or a fun act boss etc. It is to say: almost none of you understand workflow, the development cycle (most of this work has been underway for months already) nor the game studio's inner workings.

"

alhazred70 wrote:

As for balance not getting worked on because of "10 acts", frankly this is the same old internet not knowing what it doesn't know BS you see on a thousand different game forums. The guys who are doing nuts and bolts skill/passive tree/mechanical balance are NOT the same guys who are cranking out tilesets, musical scores, sound effects, 3d models of new monsters, textures for same, animations. NOR are they likely to be the same people who are coding new area specfific mechanics, scripts, NPC dialog etc.

Well, if it isn't 'balance guys are busy doing something else' it must be 'there are no balance guys', ya know, if everyone in the cafeteria uses forks it stands to reason they're either eating solids or there is no spoon. Basic logic :)

Now seriously, the game balance has been ass for quite a while, but I'll be cutting them some slack now that I know what they've been busy with. It's possible and even likely that they have only been fixing the most glaring of issues and bandaiding some of the others because they would have to do it all over again for the 3.0 release. However, that's a lot more tricky than doing things incrementally, you toss a bunch of fruits in the air, pull out your katana and hope it comes down as a salad so I'm only mildly optimistic they'll get it right off the bat but the important thing is they intend to work seriously on it now. I hope.

I still don't understand why one would only want to level as RF and could not stand, say, Searing Totems. Degen, you need to stand somewhat close, fire.

Shitton of complex builds only work with expensive uniques and/or high levels. Some work from level 1 (quite literally).

Diversity. Right?

Because honestly, if I were to see every skill to be usable from level 1, and then have a route of uniques which are the same, but upgrade with level... there is no creativity in it.
It is all the same, but with different sticker on it. I prefer it far more the way it is now - some builds have better leveling uniques and options, some have worse. Or simply not discovered yet.

Will we sit and check if every single possible build have enough leveling uniques so that it is fair?

few clarifications because things went flying all over the place

1) i LIKE what they did to the campaign mode. i like it. it is a good direction and might even get a good execution (im somewhat worried about their typical clayhanded handling of progression curve. they failed to do proper ac3->4 progression. now there are 6 new acts..)

2) once again: i like the idea how to approach pre-end-game content. is that clear?

3) my predictions that 'god powers' will be hidden behind unbelieveable grind + trading were confirmed today (watch ziggys recent video)

4) leveling.. guys. you can level RF with searing bond or whatever. i know. done that. my point is: if you cannot (when you want) to level as the build untill endgame - why bother with anything but the cheeziest leveling setup available and skip the leveling progression as quickly as possible.

and if you do it few times youll start to puke each time you consider creating new character.

there are two way to fix it: create low and mid level pats for some currently end-game-only builds OR remove cheezing leveling setups.

first one is difficult. second is unacxeptable for many many players. also ggg is ok with some skills being so powerful early game that you can get to merciless with pretty much no investmwnt.

it is again balancing issue. letting there be 'too strong' options destroys a lot of the games integrity and diversity.

as for the balance. ive heard the 'but balance guys dont do the content lool' pseudoargument too many times. hint: they are paid with the same money. how many of you actually built teams and led large projects? this is basic staffing stuff.

"

sidtherat wrote:

4) leveling.. guys. you can level RF with searing bond or whatever. i know. done that. my point is: if you cannot (when you want) to level as the build untill endgame - why bother with anything but the cheeziest leveling setup available and skip the leveling progression as quickly as possible.

That's the way it works. A power gamer will go, dunno, ground slam - selfcast non-crit flameblast - coc discharge because those are the setups that perform optimally at their respective stages of the game, they can't really force a power gamer into not thinking optimally.

Or at least they can't with this character development model. And, I can't really call it a terribly good model in that regard because it does two important things wrong.
1. Sockets hinder natural gear progression, during levelling you will try to get items you can use for a long time and socket them properly, even if you do find something better at some point you will not switch because it costs orbs you want to save or not have at all. So, we could say it has a very nasty low upgrade threshold.
2. Reconfiguring your character into something entirely different (as long as your tree allows it, and you make sure it does) is mostly trivial, you just get another set of gear and gems. So, the point is your character isn't settled into its role firmly enough, so the upper respec threshold is a joke.

Maybe that's the feeling we get about PoE not being RP enough. Dunno, maybe the solution would be some sort of 'skill affinity' system that would lock your character more firmly into using a certain skill type but I'm not sure they would even acknowledge all this as a problem, and likely wouldn't be of the kind they want to bother solving even if it was the case.