The Illusion of Choice

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Zalm wrote:

OP Troll is back. Yes, you can stack certain nodes easily, and if you wanna make your char that way, then by all means, go for it. Thats whats great about this game. You can do what you want, while we dont have to follow you like a blind idiot. You can either build with gear, get all really great gear and build like that for defense, or build with skills, and make your char passively insane. Both have advantages, but both also have disadvantages.

And no HP doesnt trump everything...there are TONS of players who have outsmarted the system and dont stack HP like you. Just because you dont see the air moving, doesnt mean it isnt moving. And yes...right now Ranged is a bit more op than melee, and GGG has said they are working on it...diligently.

And you like to consider our lovely Forest of Passive nodes nothing more than a road to your next defensive stat, then play like that. Some people dont play like that and still win just as easily as you. But just because you dont see it doesnt mean its not happening. There are a lot of players in this game, and your just one. And your actually in a vocal minority.

Interesting.

I already said that as long as you play ranged and have 4L gear, they could have no stats and you can faceroll end-game maps. It's not hard at all.

The uniqueness and draw to PoE wasn't the game play though. The gameplay in PoE is pretty...lackluster. Compared to Diablo 3, there is nothing like a Horde/Plague/Waller/Arcane Sentry or a Arcane Sentry/Vortex/Fast/Waller. Nothing that makes you go "oh shit" and be on your toes. The mob AI is very bland and straight forward.

The draw to PoE was the uniqueness of the game. Here you are with this massive passive skill tree. Tons of options. But once you start playing you realize how bad each option is besides the one I listed.


You seem to enjoy making poor choices. You'll waste 10 skill points just because it's "different". My question is why are you responding. If you don't care about the choices you make, how much you can squeeze, then what are you even doing in this thread?

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armor works in a way that only mitigates low amounts of dmg, the moment one gets hitted by a high dmg creature armor reduction becomes a joke

Kinda off topic, but ya, this forumla is fuckin dumb. Simply put.

DR should be DR period. It is in all other games, and it worked. WTF happened here? GGG got all ahead of themselves and thought they could reinvent the wheel, and well ... for what? This is exactly the problem. Great it reduces piddly little blows that you wouldnt worry about to begin with, but the moment one of those spikes comes, it does nothing.

Just my opinion, but i think it was a bad idea to try and get to elaborate with the formula.

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funshynebare wrote:

My question is why are you responding. If you don't care about the choices you make, how much you can squeeze, then what are you even doing in this thread?

My reason being here is to prove that there are options, which is more or less opposite of what you claim, and to let anyone reading this thread know the same thing I do, as well as a few other people who claim the same.

I have said it before and I will say it again. You dont have to make a perfect build to run through the game. You can work a moderately decent build to the same end game content as the perfect build does, and complete it. If you play this game for min maxing, then you dont have many options, but if you play this game for fun, then you have TONS of options.

Like I said earlier...if I wanted to play a game that was easy (by min/maxing) I would play Avatar The Burning Earth. That game, you can literally spam a single button, from start to end. And win without ever being hit. I dont like boring games, I prefer challenging games. If you dont like a challenge, then dont. Flow through the game and move on to the next game next month. But do us all a favor, stop posting.

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Zalm wrote:

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funshynebare wrote:

My question is why are you responding. If you don't care about the choices you make, how much you can squeeze, then what are you even doing in this thread?

My reason being here is to prove that there are options, which is more or less opposite of what you claim, and to let anyone reading this thread know the same thing I do, as well as a few other people who claim the same.

I have said it before and I will say it again. You dont have to make a perfect build to run through the game. You can work a moderately decent build to the same end game content as the perfect build does, and complete it. If you play this game for min maxing, then you dont have many options, but if you play this game for fun, then you have TONS of options.

Like I said earlier...if I wanted to play a game that was easy (by min/maxing) I would play Avatar The Burning Earth. That game, you can literally spam a single button, from start to end. And win without ever being hit. I dont like boring games, I prefer challenging games. If you dont like a challenge, then dont. Flow through the game and move on to the next game next month. But do us all a favor, stop posting.

^ this. FotM cookie cutter baddies need not apply here. If you think D3 with its absurd affixes is good, then go play it. No one is forcing you to play here.

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Vakirauta wrote:

I love how everyone disagreeing with OP is playing a Ranged build.. Thank you all for proving the OP right.

+on top of that they are all nitpicking on the "witch: summoner, templar: caster" while all their builds go to both witch and templar starting area. As if late game it matters whether you took shadow or templar or witch when you have a caster build.

Whatever, like that guy on the first page said: only 10% of the builds are viable. But those 10% is still a lot of possible builds, it's not a huge problem.

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JoannaDark wrote:

DR should be DR period. It is in all other games, and it worked. WTF happened here? GGG got all ahead of themselves and thought they could reinvent the wheel, and well ... for what? This is exactly the problem. Great it reduces piddly little blows that you wouldnt worry about to begin with, but the moment one of those spikes comes, it does nothing.

Just my opinion, but i think it was a bad idea to try and get to elaborate with the formula.

The problem they were trying to solve is the one where in, for example, Diablo 3, a character starting Inferno with basic white level 60 armor has something like 50% base damage reduction. Since everyone really has rares at that point, it's generally more on the order of 60-70% reduction.

This presents a terrible balancing problem because it means you have to make monsters do a huge amount of damage to be a threat (most Inferno monsters in Diablo 3 do something like 70,000 damage base) and it means players have a hard time figuring out why they're dying and whether or not a new item is really going to help them. Regardless of reality, when equipping +200 armor increases your damage reduction from 71% to 71.5% it feels like crap.

Ironically, to see this problem in its full glory, just look at Path of Exile's elemental resistances. That they had to hack in a global -20%/-60% by difficulty level should tell you all you need to know.

That said, basing armor penetration on damage done was not a wise decision. They should have tried something else. And despite how many people like to say "beta" I'm still waiting for them to actually try something else.

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I prefer challenging games. If you dont like a challenge, then dont. Flow through the game and move on to the next game next month. But do us all a favor, stop posting.

I think the part you are having trouble understanding is that if making the "right" build choices beforehand makes the game easy, then the supposed "challenge" is invalidated. Many people don't like the idea of having to handicap themselves to make the game challenging, nor do they like finding out an entire supposedly supported playstyle inherently makes the game much more difficult relative to people who chose differently simply out of personal preference and not superior planning or skill.

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Zalm wrote:

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funshynebare wrote:

My question is why are you responding. If you don't care about the choices you make, how much you can squeeze, then what are you even doing in this thread?

My reason being here is to prove that there are options, which is more or less opposite of what you claim, and to let anyone reading this thread know the same thing I do, as well as a few other people who claim the same.

I have said it before and I will say it again. You dont have to make a perfect build to run through the game. You can work a moderately decent build to the same end game content as the perfect build does, and complete it. If you play this game for min maxing, then you dont have many options, but if you play this game for fun, then you have TONS of options.

Like I said earlier...if I wanted to play a game that was easy (by min/maxing) I would play Avatar The Burning Earth. That game, you can literally spam a single button, from start to end. And win without ever being hit. I dont like boring games, I prefer challenging games. If you dont like a challenge, then dont. Flow through the game and move on to the next game next month. But do us all a favor, stop posting.

"If you play this game for fun"

I hate that saying. No. Actually I despise it. Because it implies that min/maxing isn't fun.

Instead, say if you don't care about min/maxing, then there are a ton of options. And I agree. There are. But for the people who enjoy min/maxing then the passive tree is very underwhelming as the choices to be made in this game are clear cut.

Which is my entire point. The game has really lost its uniqueness once you take a step back and look at the bigger picture.

As for spamming a single button and winning, well. That's pretty much every end-game POE build. Curse/Spam.


Also see

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Mysterial wrote:

I think the part you are having trouble understanding is that if making the "right" build choices beforehand makes the game easy, then the supposed "challenge" is invalidated. Many people don't like the idea of having to handicap themselves to make the game challenging, nor do they like finding out an entire supposedly supported playstyle inherently makes the game much more difficult relative to people who chose differently simply out of personal preference and not superior planning or skill.

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funshynebare wrote:

Instead, say if you don't care about min/maxing, then there are a ton of options. And I agree. There are. But for the people who enjoy min/maxing then the passive tree is very underwhelming as the choices to be made in this game are clear cut.

Which is my entire point. The game has really lost its uniqueness once you take a step back and look at the bigger picture.

Thats for the people who enjoy min/maxing their char. Yes, I'll agree that if you min max your char, there isnt much diversity for you. But welcome to ARPGs then. I cant think of a single game in this genre that doesnt have this problem. You want the perfect char, prepare to only have 2-3 choices. You want a char that isnt perfect but is still viable and fun, and well built, then you have alot more. Let me try to explain the overall build structure to you when it comes to ARPGs. And this applies to all of them.

Perfect Builds= 2-3
Near Perfect Builds= 4-5
Viable Alternate Builds= 20-25
Difficult but Viable Builds= 40-50
Nearly Impossible Builds= 100+

Its like a pyramid. You want a damn good build, prepare to only have a few to chose from. You want something that might not work, and get you killed a bunch? Theres plenty to chose from.

I don't even know where to start on this. Yes, there are some amazing builds out there, that have quickly become "cookie-cutter". That does not mean that all other builds are worthless, though.

One of the lessons I learned on my first character is that the larger Keystones do matter. Taking Blood Magic, or CI, for example, can completely change your build, your approach to the game, and your playstyle.

I just finished leveling a Ground Slam Marauder. I didn't do it because it was "cookie-cutter". I did it simply because I saw some dude spamming Ground Slam with ridiculous speed, and though "ME SMASH".

So I played with some builds, and eventually decided to try Rhox's build. Not because it's cookie-cutter, but because it's "proven" to work. Okay, fine. But Rhox says to wait on taking Blood Magic. Screw that! After I got Resolute Techinique I went straight for it, and haven't looked back.

Then, at level 66 and beginning maps, I got tired of watching my Molten Shell timer. I don't have a ton of sockets to use for MS yet, but Rhox uses "Iron Will, Concentrated Effect, Faster Casting". Well, that's great. But you know what I can't stand is watching the Molten Shell timer. So... Increased Duration! It only adds a little time, but that's more time spent smashing, and less time spent watching buff bars.

Rhox also uses Enduring Cry. Cool. I use it too. But guess what I hate? The 10 second timer! So, I ended up throwing Warlord's Mark on, and using it to help with Endurance Charges every once in a while, and maybe catch a nice proc if I'm feeling lazy.

So, even though I used "Rhox's build", I have used it as a skeleton. I didn't follow the build to a T, and I've added my own skill and support gems where I've seen fit, in order to adapt the build to my playstyle.

What I have now then, is a Marauder build based on Rhox's build, but with my own modifications, effectively making it "my build, thanks for the help, Rhox".

And I am positive that other players have done similar things. So if 100 Marauders use "Rhox's build", and tweak it to their liking, and are effective in end game content, that's actually 101 viable builds.

Posting in a thread about people angry at having to min-max to be a min-max character.