How to address the growing problem of power creep of items, and builds in PoE.

This isn't really a problem in the last few years, mainly because we maxed power creep a while ago, and what's preventing all game content is more the inherent randomness in being able to attempt the content and not that the content is hard to do.

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Kulze wrote:

Which still leaves out the main-topic: Solution.

Solution isnt hard at all.

First, reduce the number of multiplicative damage amplifiers. Make most of them additive. Linear scaling is far easier to balance.

Second, add hard content, gated behind difficulty, not RNG/grind. If players access and run it too easily, you would know something is VERY wrong with balance. So you fix it. Gating hard content behind RNG, you dont know, if players dont run it because of difficulty, or because they simply are fucked with RNG or bored with grind.

Third, make bosses great again. Game shouldnt be only about slaugtering dodoes on turkey shoot. I mean both challenge and reward. Sure, it shouldnt be about skipping trash mobs either...

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MortalKombat3 wrote:

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Kulze wrote:

Which still leaves out the main-topic: Solution.

Solution isnt hard at all.

First, reduce the number of multiplicative damage amplifiers. Make most of them additive. Linear scaling is far easier to balance.

Second, add hard content, gated behind difficulty, not RNG/grind. If players access and run it too easily, you would know something is VERY wrong with balance. So you fix it. Gating hard content behind RNG, you dont know, if players dont run it because of difficulty, or because they simply are fucked with RNG or bored with grind.

Third, make bosses great again. Game shouldnt be only about slaugtering dodoes on turkey shoot. I mean both challenge and reward. Sure, it shouldnt be about skipping trash mobs either...

Yes, those are all more-or-less sensible solutions or directions at least, definitely all for seeing GGG moving towards that. As I've stated before after all, major re-balancing needs to be done.

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j33bus wrote:

This isn't really a problem in the last few years, mainly because we maxed power creep a while ago, and what's preventing all game content is more the inherent randomness in being able to attempt the content and not that the content is hard to do.

Probably the second-biggest issue, the inability to choose which content someone wants to run. I understand GGG trying to keep mapping the 'main purpose' of the game. That's not feasable though. I actually tried to run everything presented for 3 days now, every single opportunity. How did it look like?

Ok, let's log in. Oh, we got Zana, Syndicate, Einhar, Niko and Alva to run for those first 5 maps.
Ok, done, which means I'm maxed out on memory fragments, so let's do those.
Ah, now I got half a quad-stash full of fractured items ilvl 83+ and bases which could possible be nice after synthezizing, let's sort those out.
Ok, finally, I can run 3 T16 maps with sextants. Well, 2 times Niko came, so let's delve again.
Back to Mapping.
Nexus is full.
Alva temple just completed
6 more maps.
Nexus is full.

And so on... that's ridiculous. Letting people run the content they want is fine, why the absolutely awful reason to gate everything behind RNG which needs more RNG and then some RNG?
Why can't someone simply run 24/7 delve if he wants, rewards adjusted accordingly.
Or an extended version of the Temple, having to choose several upgrades while fighting against the Architects, leading simply to a finished one after a few minutes (not much difference to now time-wise)
Or purely running in areas specifically for syndicate activities, to slowly farm up those.
We could also target-hunt Einhar stuff.

The new master system is the same awful mess as the old one. Sure, now it's not mandatory anymore to level them up... but they're instead forcing you to play everything without ever simply relaxing and focusing on 1 single part of the presented content. Feels awful, even if the amount of content provided is great!

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robmafia wrote:

1. the "solution" is largely self-explanatory.
2. many solutions (including the most freakin' obvious) were literally spelled out already.

do you have any REAL criticism?

the most hilarious aspect of this is that the problems are self-imposed and the primary solutions are to just stop making this same mistake over and over...

you act as if it's some monumental feat to NOT create power creep - which would simply be a passive/lateral state.

Yes, your missing ability to write those solutions you're thinking about out, even if you would repeat someone else by doing so. But you seem to lack that ability, I've asked for it several times from you now, and you're behaving like it's something impossible to manage.

Sure the problems are self-imposed, which happens during the development of a life-service such as PoE, developers seem to be a bit lost at the concept of making any endlessly scale-able system which isn't breaking after 2-3 years of added content. Even while there are several very good and working systems on the market which provide just that. Copy them, adjust them, add the own ideas on top of working ones, don't try to reinvent the wheel every single time as if what we have is something inherently bad.

Also, sure it's no hard feat to NOT create power-creep, you just don't do anything at all. Stagnation is the perfect way to kill a game in the shortest possible timeframe... well... besides actively pissing off customers with anti-consumer-ish behavior that gets repeated over and over. So even the concept of keeping things as they are isn't feasable.
Which would lead to the follow-up question of: What sort of content would you deliver otherwise? Example?

i literally mentioned disabling the merciless/dictator's/runic affixes.

i literally mentioned nerfing spells to be in line with melee

i literally mentioned removal of the insane ES nonsense affixes

i literally mentioned removal of ascendancies

etc and etc.

as usual, facts did not get in the way of your pure bs.

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robmafia wrote:

i literally mentioned disabling the merciless/dictator's/runic affixes.

i literally mentioned nerfing spells to be in line with melee

i literally mentioned removal of the insane ES nonsense affixes

i literally mentioned removal of ascendancies

etc and etc.

as usual, facts did not get in the way of your pure bs.

Yes, for the first still: Outright deleting them similar to the ES nerf, or going towards legacy? Also unlikely since GGG will loose face when they re-nerf ES once again rather then raising the bar of content to make up for it. The nerf didn't happen all that long ago after all.

The second: GGG buffs melee rather then nerving spells, that's already a given thing for 3.7

Sure, what do you want to put into the game to make up for the lost content? While minimal it means several mods being not available anymore, dumbing down crafting.

Again, sure, what would you want to put into the game to make up for it? They are quite important by now after all.

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Kulze wrote:

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robmafia wrote:

i literally mentioned disabling the merciless/dictator's/runic affixes.

i literally mentioned nerfing spells to be in line with melee

i literally mentioned removal of the insane ES nonsense affixes

i literally mentioned removal of ascendancies

etc and etc.

as usual, facts did not get in the way of your pure bs.

Yes, for the first still: Outright deleting them similar to the ES nerf, or going towards legacy? Also unlikely since GGG will loose face when they re-nerf ES once again rather then raising the bar of content to make up for it. The nerf didn't happen all that long ago after all.

The second: GGG buffs melee rather then nerving spells, that's already a given thing for 3.7

Sure, what do you want to put into the game to make up for the lost content? While minimal it means several mods being not available anymore, dumbing down crafting.

Again, sure, what would you want to put into the game to make up for it? They are quite important by now after all.

*whooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooosh*

AGAIN, i LITERALLY already addressed these. about 2 weeks ago. in my power creep thread.

why do you make so many walls of text when you don't even read the threads you're walling in? why do you make walls of questions to things you ALREADY asked and already received answers to?

I'm all for rebalancing content, nerfing OP builds/mechanics/affixes, buffing some bosses/mobs (not all of them actually need it if player dps is brought back in line), even removing some of the dumb affixes that shouldn't exist IMO (I'm talking mostly shaper, elder, and league-related stuff here, not just T0s or whatever).

Let's say GGG does all that, and the game slows down pretty significantly as a result. I just want to point out the rewards would also need a revisit, too - if bosses take forever to kill and are actually deadly, players will want some real sense that it's worth it.

The trash drops that dominate the game, even if we were to return to some pre-shaper/elder version of rare items, caused and continue to cause their own set of problems that are directly related to why some players wanted powercreep/speed in the first place.

Basically, I totally support many of the "solutions" listed here and elsewhere, although they need to be implemented very carefully. But when players hear we're not gonna be oneshotting all mobs anymore and dropping bosses in seconds (assuming builds are balanced better so it's not just a minority of options that can do that), they're gonna want some reassurance that there's still some reason to play and some goals to achieve.

If drops/exp are kept the same while everything is simply slowed down and a bunch of stuff is nerfed, the game will feel like it's regressing for many players not because they want it to be easy, but because they want to feel rewarded for surviving harder content. Without that reward, I guarantee there will be a LOT of outrage and even perhaps an exodus - again, not because the game needs to be easy to be successful, but because we can't be left feeling like everything we do is purposeless.

Just something to keep in mind as we suggest solutions to powercreep. It's important to be realistic about how the playerbase would react.

Also, this may be an unpopular opinion in this thread, but LEVELING speed is not something I think needs to be slowed at all. I always disagreed with the incredibly slow leveling process past 90 as a design decision from the beginning. And the passive tree, while it's had some buffs here and there, isn't really the big powercreep problem IMO (with the exception of ES leech recently). Slow leveling is just boring and has little to do with trying to rein in out-of-control mechanics like a bajillion more damage multipliers.

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demon9675 wrote:

Let's say GGG does all that, and the game slows down pretty significantly as a result. I just want to point out the rewards would also need a revisit, too - if bosses take forever to kill and are actually deadly, players will want some real sense that it's worth it.

Exactly! Ramp it up to cause the boss to make a literally loot-explosion. That's what a boss is supposed to do after all, feel rewarding! You just managed to kill the strong entity guarding the whole area, not another rare-mob.

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demon9675 wrote:

The trash drops that dominate the game, even if we were to return to some pre-shaper/elder version of rare items, caused and continue to cause their own set of problems that are directly related to why some players wanted powercreep/speed in the first place.

Which is a balance-problem produced via core game-mechanics and has to be solved via core game-mechanics. Otherwise we get the issues which we have now. Hence re-working offensive and defensive measures in a major way, both for melee and casters is needed.

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demon9675 wrote:

If drops/exp are kept the same while everything is simply slowed down and a bunch of stuff is nerfed, the game will feel like it's regressing for many players not because they want it to be easy, but because they want to feel rewarded for surviving harder content. Without that reward, I guarantee there will be a LOT of outrage and even perhaps an exodus - again, not because the game needs to be easy to be successful, but because we can't be left feeling like everything we do is purposeless.

Also true, very much so. Balancing this would only be feasable via the implementation of 4.0.0, simply because new content will be coming there. That's still a way off, and not breaking the game further so we comfortably reach that... would be fairly nice to say the least.

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demon9675 wrote:

Also, this may be an unpopular opinion in this thread, but LEVELING speed is not something I think needs to be slowed at all. I always disagreed with the incredibly slow leveling process past 90 as a design decision from the beginning. And the passive tree, while it's had some buffs here and there, isn't really the big powercreep problem IMO (with the exception of ES leech recently). Slow leveling is just boring and has little to do with trying to rein in out-of-control mechanics like a bajillion more damage multipliers.

Also, exactly! Though lvl 90 is the common goal for a casual player, that much has to be said as well. Reaching 90 is a good goal, and doing all content comfortably at that level is definitely possible, it#s just about gear at that stage anyway. But... doing all content at lvl 75 shouldn't even be feasable, that's an oversight, bad game-design along the way.