Path of Exile, Gameplay Criticism
" Exactly. It comes down to the fundamentals of any game: the possibility to win or lose. When content is so easy that you never die, there's no aspect of "lose" anymore, and in a way it stops being a game. |
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There are games such as Myst where there is no time limit, no threat of dying, and no obvious enemies. The only thing really ever lost is time and effort (and possibly patience depending on how well one gets through the puzzles). But there is still a win condition in solving puzzles and playing through the game.
Myst was the best-selling PC game until The Sims surpassed it in 2002. Both regularly make appearances on Top 50+ games of all time lists. Based on those titles it seems pretty clear death or even some sort of character loss are not needed (even if that is included in the game in some form such as your Sims dying) to have a good enough game that it’ll sell millions of copies and end up critically acclaimed. So it seems unreasonable to say that a game must have death or even a loss condition to qualify as a good game or even just a game in general. |
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" How can you even lose a puzzle game? Not find all the pieces? :D |
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" Finding all the pieces is part of the puzzle in Myst's case. Many pieces aren't obviously pieces and even if you do figure out a piece is part of a puzzle you still have to figure out how it helps solve the puzzle. Have you ever played with a Rubik's cube before? Or other twisty puzzles? They can be an absolute bitch to solve if you go in without making notes of how the puzzle turns in certain ways or otherwise codify the scrambling and solving process. But the point is it not having a penalizing lose condition doesn't make it less of a game. Note that I say penalizing since the lose condition is pretty much not getting the win condition. |
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I'd argue that there are plenty of games without a winning or losing condition?
They're segmented into turns, matches or maps, and the end of the match or a death can be seen as losing. But in the end the game is lost when the player quits, because the frustration of not getting what he hoped to achieve in the game overweighs the joy of playing the game. Last edited by Scherge#6940 on Jan 21, 2019, 5:57:49 PM
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[Removed by Support]
" As MortalKombat3 pointed out, the proof is in the pudding. People who hit lvl 100 don't do it by doing the hardest content they are able; they do it by grinding easier and safer content, and sorry but I can't accept any premise that suggests that making the grind the challenge rather than the content is in any way good for the game. The solution seems obvious enough, too: More aggressively scale the exp rewards upward with more dangerous content, and more aggressively scale the exp penalty upward with less dangerous content. In other words, buff the hardest content and nerf the easiest content with regards to experience gained. Make the experience reward proportionate to the risk to your experience points. It currently is not. Wash your hands, Exile! Last edited by Scott_GGG#0000 on Jan 22, 2019, 5:21:11 AM
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" The only thing really ever lost is experience, which is time and effort (and possibly patience depending on how well one gets through the game). But there is still a win condition in acquiring good gear and playing through the game. " Puzzles don't have a goal of killing you, poe does. The cube is not going to make first move, dominus tho will touch you the first moment he gets. These are different games based around different concepts. Not losing (dying) is a form of winning too |
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" It's a challenge like many others. People are going to find the most efficient way to complete it. That will always be the case. Grinding without challenge is a huge part of this game, always has been, especially in hardcore.(I am sure you can think of many examples of this on your own). If you don't accept that, then you must have a ton of problems with this game. If they would decide to add a multiplier to experience above what difficulty already gives, I wouldn't be opposed to that (not that I matter) But I would be opposed to lowering the minimum. |
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" <snort> " You make a good point about optimizing for efficiency also being a challenge. And I don't feel strongly about the need to lower even further the experience penalty for doing low-level maps, if for no other reason than that the ability to run maps of all levels and get SOMETHING for it adds overall variety to the game, and that is a very, very good thing. My main message is that the current experience implementation actively disincentivizes experience chasers from running the most challenging content they can do, and for people who enjoy challenges that is a very, very bad thing. Wash your hands, Exile!
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" Core Poe is still miles ahead of anything else out there. It's ARPG elements are still fresh and fun, and playing the game is rewarding. The issues are Chris, the entry barriers to playing the game (this is the only game I've ever heard of that actively places barriers to entry, to progression, and to attaining information about the game) and dumb ass shit during leveling that hinders leveling - if Poe has an end-game, then getting there should a near automatic process, and maps should be what weeds people out, not not finding the gear whilst leveling but then also placing drop penalties for people w bad RNG. Makes no sense. Chris wants to show to Blizz he can make a better Diablo3 than Blizz can, and as long as that's all Chris cares about (being right, my ball me go home if no likely, etc), the game will have the issues it has now. I don't like how people who don't understand games/gamers (Chris, Woodful, Rory) are making dev and design and resource allocation decisions - this is bad for an enterprise if it assumes it's being run as a for-profit endeavour. MTX sales are seemingly all GGG cares about, as we get league league for years now of unplayable, designed out-of-house crap that wasn't QA'd nor playtested. Remove Chris from GGG, kick out Rory and Woodful, move the offices lock stock and barrel to Cedar Park, TX and you'd have most of the issues that are killing Poe disappear over night, very literally over night. Last edited by Orca_Orcinus#3543 on Jan 21, 2019, 10:59:51 PM
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