Path of Exile 1 Gameplay Help and Discussion - Statistical customisation invites tinkering, and the passive tree does not allow it - Forum

" BrotherLaz wrote: Allow me to differentiate between gameplay customisation and statistical customisation. Gameplay: enables different experiences and new tactics. You want to try it all. - Skill gems - The D2 skill tree - Different champions in a MOBA - Different guns in a shooter - Keystones Statistical: does not create multiple ways to play the game. Instead it just has good choices and bad choices and challenges you to find the good ones. - D2 stat points - Runes and masteries in LoL - Statistical gun upgrades in a shooter - Tuning sliders in a racing game - The passive tree in PoE Statistical customisation can be fun - you are tempted to tinker with it and squeeze out another 1% extra power. But tinkering by definition means trying various options and oscillating towards an optimal solution. If the game attempts to prevent you from freely tinkering with your stats, the result is 'whats-the-best-build syndrome': players have no opportunity to fiddle with the knobs and dials themselves, so they hope someone else did it for them and figured out the optimal solution. ...... This is a problem in League of Legends. While masteries are easy to change, runes cost a large amount of ingame points. The results are obvious: most players have their own personal mastery pages but everyone uses the same 'safe, good, viable' runepages as the top players. What idiot would spend 50 hours worth of points just to see whether gold bonus runes could be useful on a carry? It is also a problem in PoE. You cannot experiment with passives because regret orbs have a very low drop rate. Trying out various options would have been fun, but alas, unless you have oceans of free time you cannot. So you end up looking for the 'safe' build, and once build guides become available you will go straight for the commonly accepted best build. ...... The ability to tinker and respec is not as important as far as gameplay customisation is concerned. If the game is at least halfway balanced, you can just pick the build you like to play and won't feel the need to respec. But a set of minor statistical bonuses that clearly invites experimentation should actually allow experimentation and not punish you with a number of regret orbs whenever you decide to fiddle with it. I think you're misrepresenting the skill tree. Players will build towards a certain weapon type, for example, a caster, a wand user, a bow user, etc... For a given weapon type, there is almost always a large "core" of skills which nearly everyone takes, and a variety of "branches" which you can choose to take or not to, according to your preferences. With that scenario, it is in fact, easy to respec, because you will only ever be respeccing your "branch" points, and not your "core" points. For example, I've been planning out caster builds for Templar, Witch, and DEX/INT, and all three of them take almost all of the same passives, usually the Witch, Templar, and DEX/INT starting caster passives, along with the Power Charge passives. All of the rest of the passives are just a short branch away from that core of passives. I think you'll find that this system gives you enough points to take the great majority of useful passives for whatever your build is, and the rest of the points are spent on a few remaining offshoots which can be mixed and matched. It lends itself perfectly to "tinkering", and the current respec system. I can certainly attest to that since I've been using the respec system to try out various keystones. Personally I think the reason people are making such a fuss out of this is because they're low level and haven't realized how many passives you'll actually get, and that many of their "mistakes" could possibly just by rolled into their final build with no problem. If I recall, the devs said somewhere that they intend players to complete the initital campaign at max difficulty at around level 80. At this point, I would expect that they would have completed their weapon type's "core" of skills, and would have a fairly limited set of new branches left to possibly obtain. I expect that players who are complaining are upset because of non-issues, such as that they chose one branch of "core" skills over another, even though there's no reason not to just take both eventually. Last edited by Strill#1101 on Feb 24, 2012, 10:57:48 AM	Posted by Strill#1101 on Feb 24, 2012, 10:41:52 AM Quote this Post
" RodHull wrote: " ManiaCCC wrote: I would love to play PoE...I would love to play PoE with my friends. Sadly..All but me just stopped trying PoE because of anti-respec standpoint from the developers. And while I am not utilizing respec systems in the game.. I wont play this game at release(if proper respec wont be in the game) because..these games are meant to be played with friends. or at least for me... and I wont get them back with current system. Thats just pathetic, sorry but it is. You wont play a game you like cause despite being able to easily come by enough respec points to rebuild you whole character you are prevented from doing it whenever you want. You even said yourself you haven't utilised the system in place, why not? If you want to its easy to get around 30 or 40 respec points no hassle at all, even easier come release when a proper trade economy starts up. Hide behind other reasons all you want, fact is you want full easy respecs to basically tweak and overpower your build based on circumstance, so if you want to PVP you will min/max a pvp build, then switch back to a PVE build. Sorry but many of us (and the developers) would prefer a system that asks you to choose and weigh up pros and cons rather than letting everyone do what they want without consequence. And as someone who played D2 from release for many years, it wasnt until the WOW crowd migrated in years later that respecs where even mentioned. The very concept of respecs was not even popular until games like WOW. So yeah D2 was popular for a long time before respecs where even mentioned by the wider player base. Yeah, you people always go overboard about respec. No one asked for a respec which allow to change completely our build on a whim and screw the PvP (though it would really be hardcore for once, like GW). We asked for something a little more useful, like in Titan Quest. I'm in the same boat as ManiaCCC like I already said, I won't play this game with the current system. Some friends of mine joined me in the beta, and the first advice I give them is "yeah... don't spend your passive points right now, we'll just play the game for now...". At the end of our session of 3 or 4 hours, I tell them to press P, and there starts the headache. I show them and online and offline passive skill tree planner to help them plan something and answer question for a few more days. And after putting a few points in it, they get more skills and they think they screw their builds... yeah... not good... PoE forums ignore list script: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/162657 0.4: added "ignore" button. ignore list is now saved locally.	Posted by kodr#0209 on Feb 24, 2012, 2:34:19 PM Quote this Post
" kodr wrote: " RodHull wrote: " ManiaCCC wrote: I would love to play PoE...I would love to play PoE with my friends. Sadly..All but me just stopped trying PoE because of anti-respec standpoint from the developers. And while I am not utilizing respec systems in the game.. I wont play this game at release(if proper respec wont be in the game) because..these games are meant to be played with friends. or at least for me... and I wont get them back with current system. Thats just pathetic, sorry but it is. You wont play a game you like cause despite being able to easily come by enough respec points to rebuild you whole character you are prevented from doing it whenever you want. You even said yourself you haven't utilised the system in place, why not? If you want to its easy to get around 30 or 40 respec points no hassle at all, even easier come release when a proper trade economy starts up. Hide behind other reasons all you want, fact is you want full easy respecs to basically tweak and overpower your build based on circumstance, so if you want to PVP you will min/max a pvp build, then switch back to a PVE build. Sorry but many of us (and the developers) would prefer a system that asks you to choose and weigh up pros and cons rather than letting everyone do what they want without consequence. And as someone who played D2 from release for many years, it wasnt until the WOW crowd migrated in years later that respecs where even mentioned. The very concept of respecs was not even popular until games like WOW. So yeah D2 was popular for a long time before respecs where even mentioned by the wider player base. Yeah, you people always go overboard about respec. No one asked for a respec which allow to change completely our build on a whim and screw the PvP (though it would really be hardcore for once, like GW). We asked for something a little more useful, like in Titan Quest. I'm in the same boat as ManiaCCC like I already said, I won't play this game with the current system. Some friends of mine joined me in the beta, and the first advice I give them is "yeah... don't spend your passive points right now, we'll just play the game for now...". At the end of our session of 3 or 4 hours, I tell them to press P, and there starts the headache. I show them and online and offline passive skill tree planner to help them plan something and answer question for a few more days. And after putting a few points in it, they get more skills and they think they screw their builds... yeah... not good... I'd also get a headache if a friend of mine introduced me to a game like this with that advice.	Posted by tokiih#2377 on Feb 24, 2012, 2:46:04 PM Quote this Post
What would you suggest? "hey here's is a key for the beta, install the game so we can play." "what? you want to spend 2 more hours to plan your build, huh ok..." Or I can just let him screw his build so he can cry in a little corner when I tell him he should reroll a new character, like you all tell us here... Awesome, thanks for the advices! PoE forums ignore list script: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/162657 0.4: added "ignore" button. ignore list is now saved locally.	Posted by kodr#0209 on Feb 24, 2012, 3:45:18 PM Quote this Post
" kodr wrote: What would you suggest? "hey here's is a key for the beta, install the game so we can play." "what? you want to spend 2 more hours to plan your build, huh ok..." Or I can just let him screw his build so he can cry in a little corner when I tell him he should reroll a new character, like you all tell us here... Awesome, thanks for the advices! I would quickly introduce him to what weapons and skills currently exist in the game and then give some basic suggestions on what kind of nodes he probably want to look out for. The way you put it he will get a negative view of the game before he's even started playing. I don't think that's fair to neither the game or the person wanting to try it out. Last edited by tokiih#2377 on Feb 24, 2012, 6:54:27 PM	Posted by tokiih#2377 on Feb 24, 2012, 3:54:43 PM Quote this Post
Didn't need to introduce weapons, he wanted to play a witch. I gave him some advices for which skills he should take, but my knowledge was also limited because I only played a witch up to level 25. He wanted to try minion + cold (I also told him that he may not raise corpse if his cold spells shatter the enemies, but it's not a problem since I was playing with him). After investing a few points and playing a little bit further into the game, he thought the minions really suck, they die too quickly and have some AI problem. Well... too bad, his skill tree was already screwed. About the end game stuff and which keystones would be useful, I couldn't answer that aswell... If you need to have a master degree in PoE to play this game and hold their hand while they play, it's ridiculous. Yep, you told us multiple time "this game doesn't hold hand" and you have to screw your first character. PoE forums ignore list script: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/162657 0.4: added "ignore" button. ignore list is now saved locally.	Posted by kodr#0209 on Feb 24, 2012, 4:07:55 PM Quote this Post
" kodr wrote: After investing a few points and playing a little bit further into the game, he thought the minions really suck, they die too quickly and have some AI problem. Oh yeah, there was a (annoying) bug with minions in this non-bug-free (self-stating!) beta stadium, thats neither a problem with the skills (only with their temporarily usability) nor a problem with the passive tree or respecs. invited by timer @ 10.12.2011 -- deutsche Community: www.exiled.eu & ts.exiled.eu	Posted by Mr_Cee#0334 on Feb 24, 2012, 4:15:00 PM Quote this Post
I guess if he feels the same way with the final game, he'll just have to reroll, right?! :D PoE forums ignore list script: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/162657 0.4: added "ignore" button. ignore list is now saved locally.	Posted by kodr#0209 on Feb 24, 2012, 4:22:20 PM Quote this Post
" Kabraxis wrote: Yes - D2 players do not reroll because they love going agaim 54 times through very boring (for hardcore player or player that know the game already) normal and nightmare to get to the "fun stuff". They reroll only because they dont have another option They redo anyways for climbing up every new ladder (ok, with all that speed of rushing lately it lost on comman interest), equal how good they know that boring way through, they levelled in endless Baal/Chaos runs, equal how boring... The fun in a new ladder beside the own position in it, is also to find your first unique (and make a build of it if its useful in an uncommon way), to do your first fights against Big D himself (qithout being perfectly equipped!), to find your need-to-have items for your most loved builds, the next better rune (or the last one missing for a runeword...) " Kabraxis wrote: Other thing that honesly dont cross my mind before is that (like i mention above) if game has not easy respec it encourages illegal character buying/selling. In my country we have whole companies that sells leveling services or "ready" chars to Diablo 2. Why? Because they have demand. Its a slightly different thing; but there is also a "demand" for drugs or criminal things in the world, but thats NO reason to legalize such. As long as you have no ability to move chars between accounts, and as long they prohibit to deal with complete accounts (at least, if done for money) it should be equal how much demand exists. " Kabraxis wrote: "thinking" is the same in games with and in games without respec Thinking was meant as "planning your build, your decisions" " Kabraxis wrote: But the respec system ingame should not be punishing, should not force player do activities that he dont like A lot of people there stat that they dont like to play the content of the game (before endgame), and they try to make the impression they were a majority in the players base... so, shouldnt GGG actually stop developing content (like act 3) or even shut down the game completetly - just to satisfy them? ^^ invited by timer @ 10.12.2011 -- deutsche Community: www.exiled.eu & ts.exiled.eu	Posted by Mr_Cee#0334 on Feb 24, 2012, 4:32:32 PM Quote this Post
" kodr wrote: I guess if he feels the same way with the final game, he'll just have to reroll, right?! :D Summoner is not a such good example, cause this build lacks some special abilities beside supporting your own attacks. So, if there's nothing added for this in the future (but, maybe happen) he truly made a bad decision if he sticks playing (self-passive) "conductor" style. If he's also pleased with a more active char (like a D2 bonemage) he could get nice supports (blockers with kill ability) by them for his own (probably) ranged attacks. Summons are not useless, but with some different behaviour than in other popular games. invited by timer @ 10.12.2011 -- deutsche Community: www.exiled.eu & ts.exiled.eu	Posted by Mr_Cee#0334 on Feb 24, 2012, 4:38:19 PM Quote this Post