can we please stop the power creep, already? (or better - reverse it)

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Kulze wrote:

If he would at least understand that power-creep inherently isn't bad, just how power-creep is implemented into a game.

what a worthless 'point' to type. it's so inherently moot. but you kept going and actually clicked the button to post it.

'but power creep isn't bad! poe's power creep, though? terrible!'

Once again an example:

Imagine a game, any game. It has let's say 5 levels, and in each level you're presented with 10 different new items to have a bit of diversity. That's the base.

Now let's compare the development of 2 identical games moving forward:

Game 1 (PoE Style):

We keep those 5 levels but raise the items to 11 starting with the 3rd, also we add side-areas there. That leads to the 4rd and 5th being easier then it was before. A few combinations are stronger then it was possible before the change.
Hence --> bad power-creep, don't do.

Game 2 (Literally most other games):
We keep those 5 levels, but after beating level 5 we now have access to more side-content, those offer new items, the 11th. So, to reach the stronger and new items you'll first need to do the already established content, only able to get the nice new stuff after, not affecting level 1 to 5.
Hence --> good power-creep, nice going.

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I_NO wrote:

Nobody cares about power creep cept like 5 of you probably and that's the best part about this you guys keep whining and it's not going to do anything because you're the minority.

god dam right.

Since the fact that melee is fucked compared to everything else, and that it is a product of powercreep ....
You could say that all people who like playing melee are more or less getting screwed by power creep BIG TIME.

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Kulze wrote:

Game 2 (Literally most other games):
We keep those 5 levels, but after beating level 5 we now have access to more side-content, those offer new items, the 11th. So, to reach the stronger and new items you'll first need to do the already established content, only able to get the nice new stuff after, not affecting level 1 to 5.
Hence --> good power-creep, nice going.

"Most other games" ???
no, to begin with, it's not "most other games" at all.

And in your example, all 'hard' encounters that don't scale with levels get invalidated, people just get pushed to level up more ( very lazy design if anything ), and eventually you end up with a game with 50 levels, when everything was designed around 5 levels at the start.
Eventually, experience gain gets buffed to compensate the increase in levels and the old content gets completely invalidated.


So ... no, I'm sorry but that's just a simplistic way of thinking that does not make power creep "good" at all.
The only actual, useful game design terms here are vertical scaling and horizontal scaling,
And PoE has been going to much vertically, and vertical scaling .... eventually ruins games, like it is ruining PoE.
Power creep is pure vertical scaling, and vertical scaling is detrimental to a game's lifespan.

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Kulze wrote:

Once again an example:

Imagine a game, any game. It has let's say 5 levels, and in each level you're presented with 10 different new items to have a bit of diversity. That's the base.

Now let's compare the development of 2 identical games moving forward:

Game 1 (PoE Style):

We keep those 5 levels but raise the items to 11 starting with the 3rd, also we add side-areas there. That leads to the 4rd and 5th being easier then it was before. A few combinations are stronger then it was possible before the change.
Hence --> bad power-creep, don't do.

Game 2 (Literally most other games):
We keep those 5 levels, but after beating level 5 we now have access to more side-content, those offer new items, the 11th. So, to reach the stronger and new items you'll first need to do the already established content, only able to get the nice new stuff after, not affecting level 1 to 5.
Hence --> good power-creep, nice going.

omg. after posting a moot 'point' and having it quoted...

you RUN WITH the moot point and make a longer post. about the same moot point. that's moot.

we're not talking about some hypothetical game (that seems to be fictional since power creep tends to be the "bad" way in virtually every game, if not literally every game).

Umh... what I described with game 2 was horizontal scaling. You add new content which can be run AFTER the end-game, hence it's also called a proper 'expansion' of a game.
Edit: Allthough not all to well described by me I have to agree.

Similar to what for instance... Guild Wars 2 does with their expansions.

You have a finished game with all levels present, so you add new ways to gain power, only available after the story-part is finished. Guild Wars 2 adds completely new systems on top of the others (what we have in PoE) but only allows to get those upgrades after the main story has progressed, adding new story parts to it, gating those overpowered things to a degree so the 'old content' isn't completely invalidated with it. That's good game design... even if their drops are shite still.

It's what could've been done with Cavas very well, the mechanic literally just screams to make it the main progression after Uber-elder. He progresses the story to a degree. Sadly instead of implementing proper drops, mini-bosses along the way and a nice steady progression they planted everything into pure RNG which starts immediately in Act 1 and breaks the whole progression once again.

If they'd properly attached it after... let's say shaper, opening up a new arc in the storyline with it then those mods would've made sense. 'Oh cool, a new way to build for new content which is now the new meta'.
What GGG did though is attaching it as a broken side-mechanic, a convoluted system which isn't explained in the least (no, it's not mysterious, it's lazy) and no places to use those new items in a sensible manner.

Also instead of simply getting Es,life,res,max res, damage scaling and so on they could've easily implemented new unique mods which offer special effects not seen anywhere else and specifically used in that content.
They want decay? Well, then have people stabilise memories as they progress through a void, forging their own path and revealing mobs, loot and so on along the way. And after Cavas finds out who he is the player has learned the mechanic and now has to progress towards him to stop him.

You know, storytelling with reason, implementation of mechanics which work mainly with the side-content but also offer a few reasons to go in there anyway. Via this method people could've found mainly fractured items with specific mods locked which are only useful in there, and they got to snythezize those to actually roll decent gear out of it rather then simply overpowering the bases which we already have.

omg.

STILL rambling about a moot point. you clearly know it's irrelevant. so... WHY?

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Kulze wrote:

Umh... what I described with game 2 was horizontal scaling. You add new content which can be run AFTER the end-game, hence it's also called a proper 'expansion' of a game.
Edit: Allthough not all to well described by me I have to agree.

As soon as you add game elements that are stronger than what there was in the game previously, it's vertical scaling.
"AFTER the end-game" -> you realize that there is nothing after an 'end-game', right ?
You just push the end-game farther, to higher levels, and it invalidates part of the content that was already there.


And doing such things in PoE would obviously be utterly stupid, as GGG is not going focus on content that 0.1% of the population only will ever experience, plus it's already one of the most time consuming game that one can find.

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Kulze wrote:

so you add new ways to gain power

=> vertical scaling.

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Kulze wrote:

Also instead of simply getting Es,life,res,max res, damage scaling and so on they could've easily implemented new unique mods which offer special effects not seen anywhere else and specifically used in that content.
They want decay? Well, then have people stabilise memories as they progress through a void, forging their own path and revealing mobs, loot and so on along the way. And after Cavas finds out who he is the player has learned the mechanic and now has to progress towards him to stop him.

That would be horizontal scaling, the only thing in your message that has something to do with horizontal scaling in fact.


What GGG needs to do is to balance their game FFS, there is no other way, it's gone to far already and if the train does not slow down, it's just going to run out of fuel, and not in a too far future imho.

Well, I messed up in a major way in my last post there.

But true, the game takes fairly long, though that's also something GGG wants to a degree, having said that over and over again.
The issue is, with each new league we get new mechanics, new ways to overpower our characters. Newer players are lost and newer see end-content as you've said rightly so. Veterans on the other hand are bored a month in as everything is 'done'.

That's why I find the league-mechanic fairly nonsensical anyway. It had a very good place before the master-rework, though by now Standard is well... becoming the Standard slowly but surely. What does league offer that Standard doesn't? A single side-mechanic? We got so many of those we can't even properly run them anymore anyways.

If GGG would as you've said balance the main-game then vertical (hah, now it's right) scaling is possible. Nothing against a darn long game where you'll steadily progress, just not feasable in a 3 month league though.

I think they are a bit unsure as to how to progress by now, on one side we have the people wanting to play league steadily, on the other hand in Standard there are more and more people playing steadily. If they would actually say that each league is a testing-phase for new mechanics to move it then to standard, giving people a new leaderboard and early access to it as a testing measure... well, I don't think so many would complain about the lack of quality at the start... as long as it doesn't affect the other leagues like it did with Betrayal. This way I guess GGG could turn it around to finally making the game gold instead of garbage.

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Kulze wrote:

That's why I find the league-mechanic fairly nonsensical anyway. It had a very good place before the master-rework, though by now Standard is well... becoming the Standard slowly but surely. What does league offer that Standard doesn't? A single side-mechanic? We got so many of those we can't even properly run them anymore anyways.

I agree, the game gets bloated more and more, league after league, I guess that could be a downside to horizontal scaling ?
I mean, there is a bit of horizontal scaling in what GGG is often doing, adding new unique items ( not necessarily broken OP ones ), adding some new mechanics ( very limited so far in PoE because of its onherent complexity I guess, but for example the "cast socketed spells on using a skill; CD 5 sec" mod, arguably ), but it comes with a lot of power creep usually.


Too much emphasis on the carrot, not enough attention given on the stick, imho.

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Kulze wrote:

I think they are a bit unsure as to how to progress by now, on one side we have the people wanting to play league steadily, on the other hand in Standard there are more and more people playing steadily

Going bananas with power creep is a sign that they don't know how to handle the game's growth anymore imho, I agree.

And they keep screwing standard ( although they did some 'progress' with the unique maps, it was very late but hey ... better late than never ) every league, and all maps might just keep gettin partly invalidated at each new league and .... that's not a sign that they want to focus on standard league at all to me.

My thought is that they've just not thought about it, at all. Before every few leagues the Atlas was changed, so when it happened, people just one time switched over to the new maps and it was done. By now though... well.. it's more then a hassle, it takes hours to change all to the new format and clear out the old ones, by then it's already next league again and it begins anew.

If GGG would decide to focus primarily on Standard the game could actually grow... in a healthy manner, one where league actually doesn't have an end in those 3 months, being a proper 'race' again with the duration of well.. 3 months after all. Would also be fairly healthy for that.

And in Standard you got all the awesome gear, your character which has seen literally everything and tons and tons of options present then.

For that they need to learn to properly integrate mechanics, not frustrate players steadily and how not to devalue the content they already have... rather then ruining it completely each new league. I guess it's really simply time to 'build up' on what we have rather then try to balance out the game newly each 3 months while new stuff comes to ruin that the day it's done.
Simply... letting us have fun what we got and THEN build up ON TOP of it, with the mechanic in the league from the start present with very weak versions of the mechanics, and later on implemented only at the specific part it should come into play.