Let's talk about endgame. GGG, this concerns you too.
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I'm going to be honest, I didn't read the entire first post so I'll just answer the questions instead.
As I'm a hardcore player, I approach endgame by first grinding low maps until the experience penalty starts to kick in too hard, then gradually move up the tiers. I think this makes more sense than just running the highest maps I can - after all, I'll have an abundance of low maps so I might as well use them when they're worth something and save my higher maps for later. I like the varied areas, bosses and mods that make it not feel as pointless to grind in as other games in the genre. However, my biggest complaints about it are the RNG gating making moving through the tiers extremely annoying, the obscene boss HP and excessively weighted item mods. -If I could play content my level, I would. Most of the time my character is far too powerful for the maps I'm running to be any challenge, but the experience penalty rewards me playing low maps even when I'm 8 levels above the area because there's no guarantee that I'll have level-relevant maps later on. I might progress faster if I ran T7s at 71, but then I'd just hit the exp barrier quicker and not have a pool of T6s to fall back on when it inevitably doesn't drop another one. -boss HP is far too high for the lack of rewards they give, it really is a better choice to just skip them. -Item mods are weighted so hard that rares are irrelevant once your equipment is "good enough". There's no hunt for perfect items because they never drop - Tyrannical is less than 1/1000 and it will almost always come with shit mods like 1-2 cold damage when it does. Yeah there's powerful rare items - people are willing to dump 30,000 alterations into making them - but that's 30,000 rolls of items that you'd have to pick up and identify if you were simply looting. Most people will just buy a 400pdps unique and call it a day. Armours are more reasonable, but the only stats that matter on them are +life and +resists so once you get +80 +30% +30% you're never going to bother with higher ones. The exception to this is energy shield, but >energy shield in 2018 As a hardcore player, endgame is not something I'm guaranteed to reach, and I like it that way. If I get there, I can see how long my character will survive and set a new high score (currently 91). If I don't, that's the end of that character's story. Now, for the death penalty. I hate it, it's the sole reason I play hardcore, which seems to not make sense until I explain. When you die in hardcore, you lose your entire character. It's like reaching the end of a book, the story is what happened up until you died and then you're done and can read something else. Sometimes you feel like it's over before it begun, sometimes you feel like it was a satisfying run and sometimes you feel like it was a glorious ending. You take what you got and move on, starting a new story. No two runs are exactly alike, even if it's the same build. When you die in softcore, you get set back several hours. You have the same character, the same items, the same maps, the only thing that's happened is you have to repeat something you've already done for a couple hours before you get back to exactly where you were before. If you die again, you get sent further back. This is worse to me than death. I've already played those hours - there's no ground being broken, no build to come together, if my character has hit a wall due to a lack of life, or damage, there's nothing I can do because builds are pretty much set in stone. It drives into me that it's a pure grind, and emphasises playing it safe instead of taking risks - the opposite of what you'd expect. My favourite way to change the death penalty that someone's suggested in the past is that instead of losing experience, you gain an experience debuff so that your next 10% of experience or whatever is gained at reduced speed, up to the level bar. It still penalises dying without causing your progress to go backwards, and removes the abuse of dying unlimited amounts of times because you're already 0% experience. If this was implemented I might look at softcore again. Hopefully my rambling has been insightful. " I can assure you that they don't. |
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Spoiler
" It's always interesting to hear from a hardcore exclusive player! I wouldn't go so far as to say insightful as most people are aware of why the HC mode is available and what people get out of it. And I take my hat off to HC players because the severely restrictive mode of gameplay it forces you to play requires a huge effort to maintain. But that's your choice. And you're inserting sentiments of a HC player into the conversation when we're talking about a mechanic specific to softcore here. I've said before that my reason for playing SC is to develop builds to their logical conclusion. The goal of HC is the same thing, except there is zero room for error. The two game modes exist for a reason and no decisions made regarding death penalties in SC should ever be influenced by exclusive HC players with a dislike of any system other than one of permanent death (and vice versa). --------------- THE MOOCH --------------
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" In all fairness, Hemmingfish did say s/he would play SC if not for the experience penalty. I think HC-exclusive players do have something to add to this conversation, and not despite their decision not to play SC but because of it. I think it is insightful to suggest that HC may be less punishing than SC for some players, and to describe why. " Regarding this particular question, however, you know nothing. Wash your hands, Exile!
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" Of course every contribution to the conversation is appreciated! But I don't see how extolling the virtues of Hardcore mode really helps here. Softcore is an entirely different beast to HC. And the OP also says "After some feedback, I see that this is mostly a non-HC issue, since it largely concerns impact of the death penalty" " Less punishing? I think you're being creative with your interpretation of Hemmingfish's comment xD I stand by my words as I understood theirs to mean that the satisfaction and character/story experience they get from SC is less rewarding to death permanency and all that it entails in HC. I doubt even introducing the other suggested system of an XP debuff on death would be enough to bring them back from the dark side (HC) lol. They made a pretty compelling analogy to HC being comparable to "a book" when all SC really offers is the equivalent of non-stop episodes of South Park where everyone's Kenny. --------------- THE MOOCH -------------- Last edited by Damoochie#1947 on Mar 4, 2018, 9:11:05 AM
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In fact I partially agree with the interpretation. Perhaps that is why I was quicker to recognize and sympathize with it. I too play HC, you see. Although less and less these days, for reasons you can easily imagine.
The SC death penalty "wastes" a few hours of your time (depends on your level, naturally). The HC death penalty ends your journey. If your perspective on HC is that each individual character, up to death, is a discrete journey, then you never feel like your time is wasted. And isn't that the crux of the issue? Demoralization based on a feeling that your time was wasted? HC characters who just want to farm will also feel like their time is wasted (to a much greater degree, even), but that is not how most HC players play or feel. (Because, not to put too fine a point on it, players who DO feel that way give up on HC right away.) These perspectives are therefore worth reading because they demonstrate the different ways and reasons players might feel their time has been wasted (and thus feel demoralized and less likely to continue playing and/or buy more MTXs/Tabs/Supporter Packs). Such perspectives are valuable from a game design perspective because they reveal the benefits (and, more importantly, pitfalls) of particular revisions to the death penalty. Wash your hands, Exile!
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Gibbousmoon is spot on with his interpretation of my post. Just dropping in to say that.
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Look, I understand perfectly well what both of you are getting at regarding HC/SC players sharing the concept of 'wasting time' due to death... but it's simply not the same and not interchangeable between game modes. And of course all constructive commentary is useful to some extent in the grand scheme of things. I just don't agree with how applicable HC player commentary is regarding SC given that the player can willingly choose their own fate upon death at the very outset of the game. Fates that are glaringly different.
HemmingFish explained (convincingly) why they enjoy hardcore compared to SC but then also seemed to desire changes to SC just to even consider playing it again. For whatever reason, this is a serious, existing aversion to SC which I find difficult to identify with (not difficult to understand though) and makes me think we're on different pages. The two game modes exist for the very purpose of providing players with a distinct choice of gameplay; a choice entirely based on what happens upon death and how the permanency of it compliments their immersion in the game world. SC should never impede on what HC has to offer by replicating that feeling (and vice versa). So, for this reason, I believe the factors that influence decisions regarding death in SC should have very little to do with the needs of predominantly HC players. I'm pretty sure HC players would feel the same way about SC commentary were the conversation reversed. Once you go HC, you rarely go back to SC. --------------- THE MOOCH --------------
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" As I already pointed out, HC players who have chosen it over SC because they have played SC and found it less to their taste are perfectly capable of giving relevant commentary regarding SC play, because they have played SC. It is odd that you should dismiss their commentary based on the fact that they dislike SC. If anything, that commentary is especially valuable. Wash your hands, Exile!
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