The Illusion of Choice

all i can say is that op's post was so full of bullshit it hurt my eyes reading it.

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funshynebare wrote:

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Azidonis wrote:

Most importantly, where's your math?

Where's yours?

In the imaginary scenario you created?

In the imaginary scenario I created, the math was a 5% difference based on a 2,000 dps Fireball.

In your imaginary scenario, the math is... nonexistent. It's out there. Compile the information and put it into this thread. Prove that what you are saying is true, and not just qq.

If you assume:

- Youre in hardcore (since any build can technically suicide its way to the finish line over a long enough timeline in default)

- Youre soloing (as a character with no gems who never attacks or casts could still end up in maps via hiding behind 5 other decent players)

- You want to finish the game (this means killing merciless piety)

Then OP is 99% correct.

The main problem is that %life and %es dont spawn in build-enabling amounts on gear, while almost all forms of damage and offense are abundant on gear to the point where the node versions are rendered weak to pointless. So we end up with the situation where to be successful, a build needs to prioritize hard defensive stats and a few overpowered large nodes/clusters and keystones while ignoring most everything else, which is illusion of choice.

And regarding the tree changing: Older versions werent any better in this respect, because the same lack of %life/%es on gear still forced the same linear build choices.

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funshynebare wrote:

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VoxelSquid wrote:

The way this game works is that 90% of possible builds are not viable. However, there is enough variety that the 10% is still a very large number of builds. Your job as a player is to figure out which builds are in the viable 10%.

I think you are also giving yourself a lot of preconceived notions of what is possible and what is not. Instead of just limiting yourself, perhaps you could try testing the limits of what you think is possible.

I just told you what's possible and what's not. These are not preconceived notions. These are facts.

Your statements can only be true if they are used in reference to your playstyle.

As other people are able to do things you cannot due to differences in playstyle.

Please try not to generalize so much and assume you can do everything others can.

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Vakirauta wrote:

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Zalm wrote:

OP Troll is back.

You guys clearly don't know what a troll is. Sharing opinions with a kind language doesn't make you a troll. You are the troll, you talk much and read less, please leave this topic.

If you feel someone is a troll, then don't engage them. Replying to them only gives them the attention they crave (if they are a troll) and keeps them in the thread. If someone is just trolling to troll and be an ass the mods will handle it.

Never, in the history of the internet, has anyone managed to show someone else the error of their ways via a post on a forums and made them stop being a troll.

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KoTao wrote:

If you assume:

- Youre in hardcore (since any build can technically suicide its way to the finish line over a long enough timeline in default)

- Youre soloing (as a character with no gems who never attacks or casts could still end up in maps via hiding behind 5 other decent players)

- You want to finish the game (this means killing merciless piety)

Then OP is 99% correct.

The main problem is that %life and %es dont spawn in build-enabling amounts on gear, while almost all forms of damage and offense are abundant on gear to the point where the node versions are rendered weak to pointless. So we end up with the situation where to be successful, a build needs to prioritize hard defensive stats and a few overpowered large nodes/clusters and keystones while ignoring most everything else, which is illusion of choice.

And regarding the tree changing: Older versions werent any better in this respect, because the same lack of %life/%es on gear still forced the same linear build choices.

KoTao - Do you think that all gear would benefit from a baseline life roll?

What I am saying is this.

A Glorious Plate comes with 553 Armour. Now, what if it also came with 553 Armour and, I don't know, 100 life?

That way, any Armour mods you received still effected the Armour, but any Life mods would effect the 100 life already on the piece.

100 life is a small number, but it is enhanced by life % nodes, so it can get pretty big.

If you put 100 base life on chest armour, and 50 base life on the other pieces (head, gloves, boots), that's 250 life you will get base, regardless of your gear or spec. It's not much, but it might free up some life nodes.

The other thing that would free up some life nodes is making armour/evasion/ES more effective at taking larger hits, somehow.

So wrong in so many ways. I played POE for almost a year I made 100 of different builds that was all viable. Metagame change all the time.

This is either a troll thread or you got no logical or creative thinking in making builds

Why dont they ever respond to this type of post?

Its obvious to most people who didnt struggle and claw their way to a decent level with a mostly non viable build that the OP is correct.

HP stacking is basically in ever build as its the really the only viable defense


Please correct armor so instead of having 12 times as much armor as the spike damage you receive but lower it to something like 6

Please fix evasion

Please fix chaos inoculation or ES

The defenses need boosting.

Hands down before the OP.

I stopped to play this a few months ago because i found that every char i created is in need of HP items and hp nods and i can just watch the damage and other interesting nods from teh distance. So almost every my char looked the same way when pressed P - Hp nods, HP nods everywhere !

Now i came back since open beta launched and its still the same things, nothing has changed.

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VoodooB wrote:

Why dont they ever respond to this type of post?

Its obvious to most people who didnt struggle and claw their way to a decent level with a mostly non viable build that the OP is correct.

They do and have responded to posts like this.

Perhaps you should consider for at least a nanosecond that the forums have seen a whole lot of traffic about issues like this and the devs, being human, reach a point where they won't keep spouting the same line on the xth post to arrive from an ill-informed player claiming "x doesn't work right".

There's no "Illusion of Choice" here. It's hilarious that the small-minded thinking that produces this "conclusion" is so prevalent.

You have exactly the amount of choice you appear to have. What the OP and other whiners are saying is that they don't like the options given because they believe they should be able to survive any and all situations in the game right through to the conclusion of Merciless with whatever build they choose.

They could be right. Perhaps Path of Exile can't be considered a game if only x build can make it through to endgame and all the others can only make it up to Act 1 Merciless (or thereabouts). But even if that IS the case, the game is not complete yet and there are more skills to come. When it's complete and they've ironed things out build choice will be what it needs to be then.