Path of Exile, Gameplay Criticism

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Khalixxa wrote:

So, I think what you're saying is, a penalty should be used to shape the distribution of player progress. For example, dialing up the penalty will lower the average player level and slow the average rate of progression.

I completely agree with you. But, I am concerned about how important penalties are in determining this distribution, and what costs they have in other areas of the game.

Do you think think we could create your desired effect, but through other means that don't rely quite as heavily on a penalty? (for example, increasing technical gameplay difficulty, encouraging team play, addressing power creep, etc.)

Yes, I see it as a hindrance to leveling, that is harsher the worse the build/playstyle, and eventually turns into a soft cap.

It's utopist (imho) to rely on game difficulty to do this if there would be no such penalty on death.
Think about it, if you made everything be much more beefy and hit harder ( difficulty through number ), people would end up .... dying more often, but that would be quite pointless without a penalty to go with the death as they would still be gaining xp.
Adressing power creep ( I hope that they will, but I don't think they will ) would pretty much have the same effect I think.

Difficulty through mechanical encounters would be essentially the same even though more interesting ( to a certain extent, this is an arpg after all ) and less 'bruteforcable' ( but GGG kind of wants the game to still be a distraction, in a way that you don't have to focus too much on it, aka "while watching TV" .... I don't agree with that but that's the way it is at the moment ).

Now, GGG wants people with the best gear/builds to be able to destroy the content at high level : if you make the highest content almost impossible to most players, you remove some of that ( and you make it completely out of the question for builds less good and less equipped, which would be most of the builds ).

Regarding team play, the game has gone way too far away from actual, good, rich teamplay I think, it's a lost cause to me at this point.


I honestly think that the penalty is serving its purpose well, and if you find another way to hinder builds that don't meet to requirements to keep progressing, people are going to complain anway imo.

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Johny_Snow wrote:

So many conspiracy theories about players quitting because of insignificant things like deaths and not the big ones like crappy trading and technical problems. For shame.

All aspects of the same problem. Game is pretty good, but with frustrating flaws that aren't dealt with.
I can't imagine a lot of people get to level 97 and hit Alt-F4 instantly and never play the character again, so that their xp is sitting at 0%. Unless its a meta thing where people just stop playing there because a guide says not to, or they just stop trying to level from there and die all the time while completing challenges.

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herflik wrote:

You know why I hate death penalty?

Because it punish you for playing the game.

The game is hella boring if it doesnt kill you. It also means its superbly easy if you can do it without deaths.

Imagine playing Dark Souls Prepare to Die without dying. It wouldnt be dark souls at all. The title itself wouldnt make sense.
Imagine playing any hardcore game or rogue game where you dont die. Those games are designed around whooping your arse. Thats the fun, checking your progress as a player and thus also creating really epic moments in gameplay.

It also feels much more rewarding for player, if he finnaly finish something that deleted him 10 or more times.

In order for a game to be good, it must be able to kill you, but fair and square. No matter how good you are, it should be always challanging. Remember games come out of sport, sport is based on challange and competition. Remove those two and it is no game anymore, its more like a TV show.

Thats why we shouldnt even see people here that can avoid death all the time.

You tell the player "git gut".
I tell the game to "git gut" if it cannot kill you.

Maybe not the best analogies, but this really highlights an issue with the game. Are you supposed to be avoiding lethal situations or not?

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robmafia wrote:

mentioning roguelikes is essentially an antonym for your stance.

You think roguelike means hardcore deaths? Ahahahaa…

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HousePet wrote:

You think roguelike means hardcore deaths? Ahahahaa…

in every roguelike i played, once a char was dead... it was dead.

you moved on to the next char/playthrough.

I feel the death penalty is fine. The more you wish to achieve, the more your mistakes cost you. It is balanced by the fact that, to achieve 100 does not raise your power level by enough to make a huge difference, yet the penalty is not so prohibitive at levels below say 93, that it stifles your ability to create a good build. I think it's balanced well, as lvl 100 is not a requirement to achieve success in game, but a goal for those who wish to challenge themselves.

Look at SSFHC. If even 1 person has achieved 100, then it is not insurmountable. If it is a goal that they can reach, but you cannot, then where does the fault lie? The highest I have ever achieved is 92. Whos fault is that.

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鬼殺し wrote:

I always loved gibbousmoon's post in that thread. It's fucking great.

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gibbousmoon wrote:

Instant-logout is a popular target for demonizing, but it is not the end of the line if you are trying to distill the argument down to exactly where and why Chris disagrees with so many of the game's fans on this question.

Mmmmmhmm.

Then you'll be amused to hear that I did indeed cross-post it on reddit per sofocle10000's request, and its sentiments were quickly trashed, and the thread downvoted into oblivion.

Ah, the beauty of taking criticism from an echo chamber: You rarely have to hear things you don't want to hear.

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gibbousmoon wrote:

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鬼殺し wrote:

I always loved gibbousmoon's post in that thread. It's fucking great.

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gibbousmoon wrote:

Instant-logout is a popular target for demonizing, but it is not the end of the line if you are trying to distill the argument down to exactly where and why Chris disagrees with so many of the game's fans on this question.

Mmmmmhmm.

Then you'll be amused to hear that I did indeed cross-post it on reddit per sofocle10000's request, and its sentiments were quickly trashed, and the thread downvoted into oblivion.

Ah, the beauty of taking criticism from an echo chamber: You rarely have to hear things you don't want to hear.

Spoiler

It's also the reason I make a point to post all my criticisms--both positive and negative--here on these forums. They may not get any official response, but I see shitloads of unofficial responses: In the patch notes. That tells me that those posts actually get read. Or that I am brilliant at predicting changes to the game. (And that's the pessimistic conclusion.)

Fuck the PoE subreddit. Chris might have started it but it's infamous for its toxicity now. And that's in relation to every other subreddit out there. Bex is clever to meme her way into their hearts but you don't see people there like myself, sofocle, you, I_NO when she's not fucking around, or indeed many of the Valued Posters (several of whom I've seen shot down there too). The collective there is impossible to read from a logic, consistent standpoint, and I swear if their noses were any further up certain streamers' arses (one of whom apparently hates arse-kissers, so go figure) they'd be smelling gamer nerd breath. And probably paying for the privilege.

It was a good post, period.

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The_Scourge wrote:

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gibbousmoon wrote:

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鬼殺し wrote:

I always loved gibbousmoon's post in that thread. It's fucking great.

Mmmmmhmm.

Then you'll be amused to hear that I did indeed cross-post it on reddit per sofocle10000's request, and its sentiments were quickly trashed, and the thread downvoted into oblivion.

Ah, the beauty of taking criticism from an echo chamber: You rarely have to hear things you don't want to hear.

Spoiler

It's also the reason I make a point to post all my criticisms--both positive and negative--here on these forums. They may not get any official response, but I see shitloads of unofficial responses: In the patch notes. That tells me that those posts actually get read. Or that I am brilliant at predicting changes to the game. (And that's the pessimistic conclusion.)

Fuck the PoE subreddit. Chris might have started it but it's infamous for its toxicity now. And that's in relation to every other subreddit out there. Bex is clever to meme her way into their hearts but you don't see people there like myself, sofocle, you, I_NO when she's not fucking around, or indeed many of the Valued Posters (several of whom I've seen shot down there too). The collective there is impossible to read from a logic, consistent standpoint, and I swear if their noses were any further up certain streamers' arses (one of whom apparently hates arse-kissers, so go figure) they'd be smelling gamer nerd breath. And probably paying for the privilege.

It was a good post, period.

If any of names you ve mentioned joined reddit I would never wanna talk to them anymore. and I am dead serious about this. F*ck reddit. That place is toxic waste of the internet.

Reddit's biggest mistake was the upvote/downvote system. It fosters mob mentality and squanders different thinking.

Last post on that matter, and apologies for the derail: I think reddit's great for lots of topics, but it's mostly a look-don't-touch situation even in the more amicable of subs. There are some incredibly friendly, helpful subs on there but few are related to gaming, and those that are are legendary for it: the GW2 subreddit, the No Man's Sky subreddit (and its even more chill sibling, NoMansHigh), Warframe's, etc. Games bring out the worst in people at the best of times, so as a collective with an anonymous up/downvote system, a gaming subreddit just invites all sorts of unhelpful behaviour. It's more than enough that Bex has learned to be liked by the PoE sub as a whole; neither she nor Chris could ever actually reform that community into something resembling civility.

As a look-but-don't-touch, the PoE sub is just fine most of the time. Now and then I get tagged when it's to do with my sword, and sometimes I'll reply out of courtesy but if I do so there's a 100% chance I'll have to ignore the inevitable chime-ins taking pot shots at my decisions re said sword (some of which I've apologised for time and again, but oh well). The most recent was just some dude posting his drop of the sword and somehow that garnered 400+ upvotes; posts I've made giving actual information about the sword regularly get downvoted into obscurity. Colour me baffled. :)

But you are dead right, Gibbous: the implicit responses in the patch notes are enough to make clear that posting feedback here is far from wasted. And it's much easier to maintain visibility here than on a platform designed to cycle out posts in a matter of days if not hours if the herd doesn't collectively love on them.

And that's all I have to say about that.

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Khalixxa, I know you take pride in your video, but if you could create a bullet point post or even better, time stamps for the vid, that'd go even further in maybe getting the right people to look at it. Just a thought.

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robmafia wrote:

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herflik wrote:

You know why I hate death penalty?

Because it punish you for playing the game.

The game is hella boring if it doesnt kill you. It also means its superbly easy if you can do it without deaths.

Imagine playing Dark Souls Prepare to Die without dying. It wouldnt be dark souls at all. The title itself wouldnt make sense.
Imagine playing any hardcore game or rogue game where you dont die. Those games are designed around whooping your arse. Thats the fun, checking your progress as a player and thus also creating really epic moments in gameplay.

It also feels much more rewarding for player, if he finnaly finish something that deleted him 10 or more times.

In order for a game to be good, it must be able to kill you, but fair and square. No matter how good you are, it should be always challanging. Remember games come out of sport, sport is based on challange and competition. Remove those two and it is no game anymore, its more like a TV show.

Thats why we shouldnt even see people here that can avoid death all the time.

You tell the player "git gut".
I tell the game to "git gut" if it cannot kill you.

assuming you mean rogue-like... well, terrible example.

poe hc is basically that. upon death, the char is dead. but you can make a new one and have access to all the resources the previous one(s) had (ie: stash).

softcore... is far less punishing than that.

mentioning roguelikes is essentially an antonym for your stance.

I disagree. Roguelikes are designed around frequent deaths with a quick turnaround. This is what allows them to take "you WILL die" as a design mantra in the first place.

PoE HC is not designed around dying often with quick turnarounds. Nor is it designed around each death teaching you something useful you can apply to your knowledge and skills so that in the next playthrough you don't die in the same way.

(Not to put too fine a point on it, but many players have requested a death log so that they can even KNOW what killed them. GGG has yet to implement this, but at least one of its competitors somehow figured out how to implement it in their pre-alpha. Go figure.)

For these two reasons, I say that PoE HC has very little in common with roguelikes. (Nor does any real-time ARPG, and I find it baffling that people somehow consider them successors to roguelikes. Other than quasi-randomization, they have almost nothing in common with them.)



Thus the original statement you are poo-pooing is legitimate: Roguelikes (and other games) are designed around making deaths "teachable moments." A death is its own reward, because it helps you understand what you did wrong and what you can do better next time.

GGG's death penalty just tells you to fuck off and go play the meta instead.

How valuable is that?

Yay meta.