Conceptual flaws in Delve (or why Delve is a minimal effort instead of a proper endgame alternative)

right now, delve is worth doing for challenges (and to see whether anything else is further down), but after this league I can't see myself utilise it much since

delve as a concept is missing key components that make playing a video game exciting and addictive, namely a desire to incite a) exploration and b) completionism

a) Exploration is missing cause revealing the map doesn't really do anything because there is nothing out of the ordinary on it. all you find in the mines is more items and currency (sure you can only find the resonators and fossils there but in trade leagues which most people play you can just trade for those (I guess?) - which is the exact same thing EVERY league flavour so far gave the player. That's not exciting!!!

As an example, imagine if there were nodes hidden in the mines that gave the first 100 players to claim them 100$ each (in points or even real currency). Wouldn't that suddenly make delving infinitely more interesting? Or limited edition unique items, or any other bragging rights thingy. Just one example of how to make the concept of delving more interesting by adding a layer of depth to it (which is something ggg never ever does, of course. in PoE everything operates on the same layer of depth ever since masters was implemented, which introduced the concept of dailies). Exploring an infinite map should be the best thing ever, but in reality it's just going through the motions.

b) Completionism (as in the desire to complete something, which is of course a large drive for some poe players) is missing cause there is no reward or acknowledgement for completing delves OTHER THAN things you can (almost all) get somewhere else instead: currency, xp, items. Again, adding a layer of depth would make delving unbelievably more interesting. For example, completing a certain cluster of nodes could push forward a progress bar that then would give you benefits aiding you in further delves. (This is different from collecting Azurite cause that thing doesn't utilise a completionist drive but only makes you utilise as many Azurite nodes as possible and do as little of the other common nodes as possible in turn). The infinite mine map is a two-edged sword as there can obviously never be a full map completion, but clearing clusters should AT LEAST be visually rewarded by indicating the "terrain" you cleared and claimed. (this would be where pvp multiplayer could come right in when several players would share one delve map...)

c) A streak concept of some kind also could be utilised. e.g. doing delves in a certain order could multiplicate rewards and difficulty, until the player dies (or gives up the streak) and the streak is reset.

So you see delves are just the usual ggg minimal effort and the only thing their inclusion accomplished is that there is no further hope of there ever being a PROPER alternative endgame option to mapping in Path of Exile. And sulfite is really the littlest problem of the whole mess...

The problem is that the developers wanted to slow down the players somehow and instead of inventing some attractive concept, they decided to force them to boring and tedious gain more and more resources that do not really serve anything. All this combined with the "deadly darkness", which can not be "killed" or defeated in any other way, but only limited, using "asushit", which also has to be "gathered", which distracts the player from really interesting activities. Oh, and all this as part of accompanying some idiot trolley.

I really tried to like it but… just cant. Moreover, there are some other stupid mechanics related to fossils “crafting” (gambling in fact). Just yesterday I bought on market “hollow fossil”, as I really liked idea of rare items with some abyssal sockets. Spent 50c, used fossil on same nice base gloves, gain some shitty stats as usual, but hey, abyssal socket was there. So I tried to chaos spam and… abyssal socket disappeared.

Discouraging like hell. After something like this I am sure that not only will I not visit mine’s anymore, but I will completely ignore all this "fossils gambling". However it is really interesting, how they are going to implement this mess to core game, with all “sulshit” and “azushit” horrors.

a) One of the big base things of arpg is : looking for ways to improve your characters, often through loot. Chasing loot is the main thing in this game, it's basically everything after you ascended and the skillpoints ( an pantheon powers now ).
It's all about loot, it's always been like this, and honestly ... well don't expect it to change.

I guess they could add an achievement or two regarding reached depths, after it's integrated into the core game.



b) The subterranean chart is always visually showing what you've claimed.
And you say that Azurite mechanics don't use a "completionism drive" but you are not explaining your reasoning behing that .... of course it is a completionism drive, and apparently players barely care about Azurite anymore past some depths, as they are pretty much fully upgraded already.
Fully upgrade your crawler, flares and dynamite first, this does give a feeling of completion.

I guess if Niko can be invited with the masters ( or even become one in a way ), we could have some hideout decoration gained from reaching certain depths, or just found in some nodes, or that just cost azurite ( and needto be unlocked by going deeper ).



c) I don't see the point for that, it feels very unnecessary to me.

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Fruz wrote:

a) One of the big base things of arpg is : looking for ways to improve your characters, often through loot. Chasing loot is the main thing in this game, it's basically everything after you ascended and the skillpoints ( an pantheon powers now ).
It's all about loot, it's always been like this, and honestly ... well don't expect it to change.

I guess they could add an achievement or two regarding reached depths, after it's integrated into the core game.



b) The subterranean chart is always visually showing what you've claimed.
And you say that Azurite mechanics don't use a "completionism drive" but you are not explaining your reasoning behing that .... of course it is a completionism drive, and apparently players barely care about Azurite anymore past some depths, as they are pretty much fully upgraded already.
Fully upgrade your crawler, flares and dynamite first, this does give a feeling of completion.

but why not?! poe could be so much more than a game you play for a few weeks and uninstall and install again when you hope the new league flavour might be somewhat interesting. (and based on the steam player numbers, that is exactly what the large majority of people does). and that would also make ggg more money. the single problem with poe is that ggg focuses their development on temporary shit like temp leagues, many assets of which are then all but dropped again. the fact standard still hasn't received a set of challenges speaks for itself. delve done just a little bit different would've had the potential to keep players logging in each and every day. the game's success is bottlenecked by (people like chris wilson) believing that in designing a hack and slash you have to follow certain unspoken rules! when building up from diablo 2 and torchlight, ggg still came up with numerous new concepts like the non-linear skill tree, skill gems which can be combined, the craft-everything attitude, nonstandard currency system even (I don't know one other game that has that!) so which of those innovations followed the rules! but after laying the very foundation, all that creativity has been drained from the staff...

introducing master dailies was the last really good thing that happened in this game. a daily has the purpose to make the player log in every day. great things could've been built up from the foundation of the master dailies, but nothing came of it. but now with delve, the long awaited alternative endgame, you can't just toss in something that barely qualifies as "new" and doesn't add any layer of complexity to the game. delve the way it is can only be stage 1 of a much larger project, or it's a near total failure - and not because of the shoddy implementation, but because of the very concept itself.

whether ggg gets away with it is another matter of course. I don't doubt that fanboys will buy mtx and supporter packs til the game goes down. and oh how sad that is...

what I meant at b) is that the nodes you captured should be the outlines of a coloured polygon (as in the 2d thing). with multiple players on one delve map, you can then invade the other guy's territory (i.e. when you cross the outline of the other guy's territory). each node could give you a daily income of some new resource you can use to strengthen your defenses and such. Kingdoms. that is what delve should've been instead. in fact that wouldn't even need the player character to run around and fight like usual (bypassing the shitty pvp this game has) but could utilise a completely new tactical combat mode with units you buy for resources. I just came up with that. If I can think of shit like that randomly, why can't Wilson?!

PS:
upgrading your flares and such to the max level or delving to e.g. depth 500 (no clue whether that is possible for more than 1% of players) might appeal to achievement hunters (like me for example), but the majority of players doesn't care about that. hell, even I don't care about it cause it is too far out of my reach! what is reaching flare level 17.14480 compared to capturing a node that increases your territory by 30% and allows you to make a comeback and stick it to your human opponent in a few turns!

I feel that you haven't actually brought up anything in that last message (honestly).

You seem to think that just adding more carrots is going to make people stay for a long time but ..... it's very far from being that simple, really.
The more you add carrots and different kind of carrots, the more you split player's focus, make balancing the whole carrot pack more difficult, etc ....
Most people play because they enjoy building up a character and make it better, upgrading it, it's what drives people.
If you add other things to chase that are completely unrelated to that process, you are going to spend less time focusing on what is making people play the game in the first place.

I personally don't need new carrots to play Delve, I just want to delve, explore and get deeper, until I eventually get bored or don't have enough time.
Of course if there is no loot and nothing interesting to get, I would not be delving but .. I really don't need a whole lot of brand new kind of things.
Fossil crafting is pretty cool and I'm looking forward to get new uniques alright, but that's it, it's still about what PoE is : loot, ways to improve my character.


Delve is anything but a failure, but if you listen to the forum, PoE is always going to die the next week and it would have failed as soon as it was launched seriously.
Many people stop playing somewhat early each league because many people spend an absolutely ridiculous amount of time playing this game to begin with, and since it's not a PvP game, you can't just keep them forever by giving them the possibility to just get better at it.



An hell no, don't turn delve into some weird browser-like game that will just favour the ones that spend the most time playing the game.
This is not PoE.

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LMTR14 wrote:

upgrading your flares and such to the max level or delving to e.g. depth 500 (no clue whether that is possible for more than 1% of players) might appeal to achievement hunters (like me for example), but the majority of players doesn't care about that

What do you know about that, seriously ?
Delvers need those extra upgrade anyway (maybe not dynamite area/damage, that just seems like a waste of Azurite), and are g etting 75% darkness resistance eventually with 150% crawler light, large flare radius and 10+ flares.

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LMTR14 wrote:

what is reaching flare level 17.14480 compared to capturing a node that increases your territory by 30% and allows you to make a comeback and stick it to your human opponent in a few turns!

what is even the point of this line of argument? You're comparing radically different modes of games or even genres. PvP, even when it exists in ARPGs, has totally different balance and in most cases is tacked-on, and when it's not, you more or less have a MOBA and not an ARPG.

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LMTR14 wrote:

As an example, imagine if there were nodes hidden in the mines that gave the first 100 players to claim them 100$ each (in points or even real currency). Wouldn't that suddenly make delving infinitely more interesting? Or limited edition unique items, or any other bragging rights thingy.

I stopped reading right here.

There are so many terrible things about this suggestion I won't even start.

Also, as a concept of "alternative levelling", Delve may have some merits but I expect GGG to avoid implementing it in this form.

I agree, in principle, that some additional incentive to Delve deeper FOR EVERYONE would benefit the mechanic.

I'm not happy with delve either. I really hate chasing a bot like im on an escort mission. Also, the entire darkness and not being able to kill mobs is completely against an ARPG. I want to SMASH things and destroy them. You violated the first principle of an ARPG by not being able to kill mobs.

My totem build can't keep up with the bot and placement speed. The time between my totem is placed and the time it fires, the bot is already off the screen and i lag behind the entire time. This opens up the fact that im in the darkness and my totems cant kill anything now. By the time I reach the end I didn't feel like I did anything other than an escort mission over and over again. I am forced into a specific build to keep up with the bot and to survive enemies I can't kill in the dark.

I seem to avoid every node except currency or something "special". I'm not excited or enjoying myself when clicking on item, armor or other types of common nodes. This leads me to just going deeper into the delve so it feels like im progressing.

I do like how there is a balance between maps and delve. I feel like I'm bouncing back and forth for new content. This is cool.

The hidden nodes are really annoying. I spend hours running around in the dark just trying to find the entrance to a hidden node and once I finally find it the reward is just like a regular node. Boring.

Hope a lot of this gets sorted out.

Suggestions:

I'm really, really surprised that the older mechanics in the game do not blend with delve.

Example, I wish the nodes were modifiable like a map. I tried to craft a node in the delve and nothing happens. I think that would be SWEET. For example, the nodes can all be blank and it requires currency to craft on it, something like this. That would make it exciting for me.

The whole darkness/flare/dynamite thing just doesn't work. Maybe something you can add to the delve map like a sextant to make things light up?

Your Arc totem can't keep up?

I am worried it will plateau at some point, but I am still using a tabula at level 85, and I see you are wearing one at 91!

Certainly at Delve 120 those totems are eating up the mobs, but I know a standard, mediocre Arc Totem build tends to plateau at around T10 or mob level 78.

Edit: NM it is Ball Lightning. I can see how that spell may be problematic in Delve with the relatively slower projectiles.

I've put about 1900 fusings into a Soul mantle. Still trying. Stuck with tab.

Also I find it hilarious that delve is this mechanic where you want to go as deep as possible, which basically makes the nodes that dont lead deeper just annoying to go through. Delve has lots of problems. I was watching that team 1500+ delve stream and its almost to the point they just get insta gibbed and are just finding ways to become immortal. Really hilarious.