An open letter to casuals asking to dumb down the game or make rare items more common

Difficulty and rng rarity aren't the same thing and shouldn't be.

The game should be hard if you've played a lot and hard if you've played a little. The new players with empty stashes are playing an objectively much harder game than anyone that hands down leveling uniques and then respecs into their build at 70+, but they are not rewarded for it.

I echo the statements that the Fun Stuff (build-enabling items) need to not be rare. If the thing you want to do is an XYZ build*, you should be able to farm into that build using the beginnings of that build and mapping. It's shitty to tell people to make something else to farm for the thing that they want to make.

That being said, if it's not build-enabling, I don't give that much of a fuck. Have big number items, but make sure that you can unlock them while wearing small number variants.

The reliquary items are a great example of something that is and should be rare. They're trophies. The keys should be common enough that the average player gets to see one or two before the league ends, and since they're ~exalt rarity, that seems right.

Personally for someone who is married / works/ goes out ect. I don't think anything should change.

Here is my thinking:

You see someone like Ziz who plays 20+ hours a day for a few days straight. Awesome.. good for him he is able to dedicate that time. You see him get his 2nd.. or 3rd 6 link in that time period.

He has almost 3 full days of /played time.

Now for someone that cannot dedicate that amount of time per day will reach 3 days of /played time in say 2 weeks, maybe more. It is still the same 3 days played time, and most likely you will be in the same boat as he is with the same amount of time invested. Maybe further as prices tend to be cheaper as the leagues go on.

My feeling is that some people see streamers and you-tubers doing end game content and think "that looks cool... why can't I do that!" without taking in the actual amount of play time into account. It's not like they are playing 3 hours a day and just get all the luck in the world.

Maybe something can be done with the drops, but in doing so those same "Hardcore" players will just do the content faster than before.. and if you make the game more difficult but the items easier to get... they will still reach end game long before anyone else cause they put in the time sooner... but still the same play time to reach that same goal.

I'm a casual and I'm very comfortable with the games drops.

I think most of the casuals here advocating for better drops are relatively new (<1yr).

I've been playing for 4years. I remember when I was newer thinking the exact same thing... like fuck I'm never going to be able to get a 6L Lightning Coil or kill Atziri.

It was only last year (after 3 years) that i got my 6L Lightning Coil.

I still haven't killed Uber Atziri or Uber Lab... not even tried. Haven't even come close to Guardians or Shaper...

But i know I'll get there one day. And that's what makes it fucking awesome.

That this is not a game you can complete easy and complete it a billion times over like all other games.

It's a game that takes time... building your knowledge, building your wealth. It's so much more rewarding getting something you have been thinking about for months or years.

For casuals, i also recommend playing standard... so you have access to all of your gear and wealth over time. If you always play leagues, you will always be stuck with starter builds and wont have the time to develop advanced characters.

Ha, great post - same boat here. Played off and on since the start, mostly casual, sometimes intensely but not for extra-long stretches.

First Uber lab ever completed in Breach. Still no Uber Atziri, only had 2 x Tier 16 maps drop and got quickly body slammed by the Hydra in the one I ran.

And I LIKE it that way. Still aspiring, and if I fail this league, will try again. Get better at game and builds every league.

THAT is why POE and my desire in playstyle mesh. If drops were easier I would not still be here. And that is also why, as an ARPG player since D1, I burned out on D3 several seasons ago.

As a clarification for all the folks telling the nubs to git gud: that's not really what anybody reasonable is talking about.

Chase items are always going to be chase items, and the game having chase items is a good thing. Someone mentioned Headhunter and Skyforth - those are good examples. Stupidly rare, less than a percent of a percent of the playerbase will ever sven see the durned things, they're potentially stupid-huge upgrades to a perfected endgame build, but they're not required for anything. You can do low-life without Skyforth, and frankly Headhunter doesn't even have a build archetype - you just bolt it onto literally anything else for a giant clearspeed boost and also lulz. Those are fine, those are good.

Shavronne's Wrappings is less good, given that it is the item that makes low-life possible. That's an entire build archetype that is almost completely inaccessible without a ~5-10ex buy-in.

Mjolnir and Cospri's Malice, the 'spellblade' items that let you at least try to make a hybrid melee/spellcaster thing - again, not so good. Those are the only items of their given type, there's no less efficient, less impactful Baby's First version of those items to let someone grow their build organically.

Some folks want these types of builds to be rare and exclusive. They figure that certain build archetypes being restricted only to those who can scrape together 3ex a day on their off hours is good for PoE, gives people something to shoot for. It's not. It doesn't. There are a lot, a lot a lot a lot, of folks who're never going to get to 3ex/day status, and telling these folks that some of the coolest, most mechanically interesting potential builds out there are forever beyond their reach is going to turn off a lot more folks than it will egg on.

Build archetypes should be viable at most any decent level of investment. If you can get into mapping regularly, you should be able to at least make a stab at playing just about any broad type of build in the game.

Perfected build archetypes should be rare. A Shaper-viable build should take work, practice, and investment. 500k DPS marks or the like should take work and investment. But you shouldn't have to play something completely different, which you will probably hate, just to try and build currency for the thing you want to do that has a million-dollar buy-in. You shouldn't have to level to 85 with a bunch of spells you don't care for, then spend another million dollars on regrets to respec into the thing you actually wanted to play.

"Accessibility" is not the same as dumbing or watering down the game. Being able to finish a high-end build with optimized gear should be just as difficult and time-consuming as it is now. But starting builds should be easier. You shouldn't have to play Flameblast every flippin' league because it's one of maybe three things that can bootstrap itself into maps from a cold start for the norms. You shouldn't have to level literally everything as Firestorm for efficiency and then just kill a hundred regrets to be what you're actually trying to be.

The game is dense as hell as it is. Would a bit more smoothness and accessibility for players looking to do their own things, without impacting overmuch on the higher-end Finished Build folks, really be such a bad thing?

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Char1983 wrote:

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Perq wrote:

Please stop.

If you have less time to play, expect to get fewer items or be lower level.

Ps. Yes, that is my letter. Because quite frankly this is how simple this issue is. .-.

No, it is not. I've been advocating for a long time to make acquiring items easier, but the game itself harder (and not through untelegraphed one-shots). Make skill matter more than playtime.

But yeah, maybe that is too complex.

I would agree with you, but average people don't want challenge...they want items.

People play slot machines despite the process being binary and relatively boring. People want the prize and don't care much for the process (the average person i'm talking about).

Similarly if you made the game more challenging, but items easier to get you wouldn't have the "addiction" that is POE. The game would still be good, but it would have far less people playing it for longer duration.

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innervation wrote:

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Psomm wrote:

Complaining about people's opinions is moot.

How so? To whatever extent GGG listen to the opinion of the person saying 'make rare items more common' it seems reasonable that another voice chiming in saying 'that person is wrong, don't listen to them' sets the community opinion counter back to 0.

It's moot in the sense that reddit and streamers probably matter more than the accumulated posts here, but like I said, the concept of moot-ness depends on whether or not the forums matter at all.

Huge difference complaining about others opinions and telling them to "please stop" vs voicing your own.

On top of that:

1. You feel your opinion is mightier than others. True or not, you look like an ass.
2. When your game mode preference is "casual" (i.e. 1 hc char, no ssfhc) and you tell other casuals to have opinions less casual, you doubly look like an ass.
3. There is nothing more casual than any mode of SC, everything is easily accessible, xp loss is a minor irritation. GGG could have a unique drop every zone and SC would be exactly the same, just stuff would cost less.

As a casual (with kids, a full time job and other hobbies) - it takes me a week of calendar time to get anywhere near maps. Sometimes two weeks if I'm super busy.

I guess I must be in the minority that doesn't want any drop rates / challenges made lesser because of what amounts to MY CHOICES in life.

I *know* it's a tough, long grind for casuals and you know what - I embrace it. So much so that I'm doubly punishing myself with SSF.

Just so you know not all casuals are whining about the game being "hard" or whining that it's not a slot machine that pays out every time.

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The irony in this thread is the OP is a pure softcore non-ssf casual himself.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO