To everyone whos scared of power creep

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MortalKombat3 wrote:

I agree, that level requirements should stay, to prevent players from using endgame items too early, but i see nothing wrong, that level 75 player is able to use any item in the game. Extra levels above that just add you character a bit of stats through passives, HP & mana, but arent neccessary, and it's fine for me.
You shoulnd try to rebuild something, that works fine. There are so many broken and flawed things in PoE, so better focus on them instead.

Sure there are, this would alleviate a lot of concerns for the future though. Correcting systems from the ground level upwards is always the way to go if you want it to become something 'solid' for the future.

At lvl 75 you definitely shouldn't even remotely be able to use each and every item in-game. The highest base isn't gated at lvl 80 without reason. And lvl 80 isn't the highest level commonly reached either.

At the moment we have a very small sample of mods gated behind ilvl 86 items, also ilvl 86 is fairly low for a game where you'll more then often reach lvl 90 before even getting to the last 'major' part in progression. This still is shaper at the moment for T16.

Bonus progression like uber-elder to unlock a single sextant can definitely be gates by harsher numbers even though, hence allowing equipment which makes it very viable to kill him only available at... let's say 95 - which is still easily achieved for people doing uber-elder - would give people a reason to level.

Right now everything after 86 are literally 'vanity levels', just there to add a bit of extra juice to your character, not needed in the least though. That's a shame to have 14% of possible character progression being literally useless besides min-max regards.

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MortalKombat3 wrote:

I've played other games, where certain items are sometimes gated behind too high level cap, and it's really frustrating, when you have to grind tons of exp just to be able to use certain item. In Sacred 2, for example, this was reduced to absurdity - i couldnt use ANY items i've found (set items, namely - and the majority of BiS items belong to sets there), and had to grind fucking tons of exp to become able to use them.

That's a balancing issue, much the same as introducing extremely powerful combinations of mods early on with shaper/elder bases.

A good game gives you both items which are for your level, slightly underneath your level as well as slightly above your level. To have something you can work towards as you progress.

PoE goes into this with only dropping items which are commonly at max the area of the level +2 (Par chests). With progressing 'normally' through the game - not rushing it - you'll always be at least 1-2 levels above the area you're doing. This gets even more obvious when you reach map-content as the RNG of map-drops gates you far too long to have a good character level respective to the content you're running.

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alhazred70 wrote:

Currently playing Life based Melee phys only gladiator.. feels like I'm going to hit THE USUAL brick wall when i get to red maps on it.......

In the name of everything that is good and holy why would you do something like this to yourself? "Life based melee phys only gladiator"? Why? Do you hate yourself? If I had to choose between playing a life based melee phys only gladiator or getting kicked in the groins by Beckham well no more kids for me....

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666lol666 wrote:

In the name of everything that is good and holy why would you do something like this to yourself? "Life based melee phys only gladiator"? Why? Do you hate yourself? If I had to choose between playing a life based melee phys only gladiator or getting kicked in the groins by Beckham well no more kids for me....

Show's perfectly why balance is important though.
Imagine any person coming from another RPG game, one which is balanced half-way decently.

'Oh cool, a nice ARPG, Hrmm... I love the brute-ish melee character, so I'll make a pure phys one!'

And then he finds out it's absolute garbage, literally unplayable right now.

'Oh well, then let's instead make one with bleed! I'm not so much a fan of DoT's, but maybe that's where the game excels in?'

Well, though shit though, it's as bad as the first choice.

'Ok... umh... then... how about... fire damage? Something pure melee?'

You're getting there, Molten Strike. Probably the most comfortable one around.

'Oh! Great! Well, then I'll play a tank!'

And here we're fucked up again, no 'tank' available in the game without massive investment, and even then it's shite compared to simply dealing more damage then any boss can survive for more then 2 seconds without switching to the next phase, including uber-elder.
An example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAWSAw4l8P0

It has top be fixed, completely! That's just... awful in total. All around.

Sorry if I have to burst your bubble it's no problem to play a pure phys melee build. And yes it's also possible to play it as a life based char. But adding gladiator on top of that is just too much. For example take a look at this build. I played it a lot and it's beginner friendly and can do all content with decent gear later:
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2087746

I played a similar character last league, feels shite, deleted the character and sold the equipment rather early in the league, wasn't worth bothering to upgrade him for league-mechanics.
Standard character mainly.

Try out a Scourge arrow, Winter Orb, Molten Strike, Blade Vortex or any other meta-build in comparison. You'll see what I'm talking about.

Also, every character can be 'viable' for uber-elder, the part is just: How does it feel?

The video for shaper alone felt painful to watch, mobs are a major issue, the damage itself for single-target isn't extremely good either in comparison. Overall it has no strength, only weaknesses.
Since you're forced to stand in point-blank range as well your survivability is actually less then any ranged build commonly.

Overall it only made the point clear. A beginner won't even know how to properly build along the way, so the already fairly uncomfortable play-style at shaper won't ever be something a new person coming to PoE would experience, being stuck at yellow maps latest with a very very high chance.

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MortalKombat3 wrote:

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grepman wrote:

even games like poker, are gated by bankroll. most pro players started at lower stakes and grinded their way to the top. once they enter a bad streak, they go down a rank or two, not because theyre unskilled, but because they dont have the bankroll.

I can tolerate content, hidden behind RNG, if that RNG in average doesnt push you backall the time. In poker, as you exemplified, you might get fucked by RNG sometimes and go down, but in the LONG RUN, you get where your skill belongs to. Imagine, if in poker you would have to beat 1000 noobs for every game VS master...

on average, poe content doesnt push you back all the time either. eventually you get all the endgame maps and swim in them.

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his is precisely the problem to be fixed, then. Fix it, insdted of gating access behind grinds.

its a PART of the problem.

a game about grind cannot inherently be accessible right away. higher up content will require you to relinquish resources. something like darkest dungeon isnt any different really

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It doesnt. Mere fact, that you can equip any existing item at level 75 (or so) does NOT mean, that you will. Powerful items are very hard to obtain in PoE, and even 100-lvl player might not be able to obtain some of them.

way to miss my point. ok, let me repeat so you will get it. given unlimited currency, the itemization stops

if the most powerful items in the game were hard limited by the level, you would delay the breakpoint in power. lets say most rare uniques and rares with life+3xres would only be equippable at level 90

boom. you just made a step towards limiting power creep. artificially ? yes. and ?

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Since even shittiest builds can do most content, and good build can do it using shitty gear, there is no incentive to get more expensive and powerful items, often.

yes

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Furthermore, since any relatively hard content in gated behind grinding easy one, players like me get bored of too easy gameplay.

so then make your 'easy' content hard enough, and then tip of iceberg even harder.

instead, ggg goes the other way- they go and make easy content super easy to be widely accessible by a casual player.

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grepman wrote:

on average, poe content doesnt push you back all the time either. eventually you get all the endgame maps and swim in them.

You're just lying through your teeth. That's impossible without dumping huge amounts of currency into it (that you're unable to farm on your own), or huge amounts of time into farming lower-level maps.
It's akin to throwing 6-sided dice, 1d6, where "6" gives you +1 point, and all other rolls take 1 point from you. Playing this game, eventually you'll lose all your points. Sure, there is a possibility, that you'll keep your points for a while, or even gain some, but that's only due to extreme luck. In the long time, you'll get bankrupt.

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grepman wrote:

if the most powerful items in the game were hard limited by the level, you would delay the breakpoint in power. lets say most rare uniques and rares with life+3xres would only be equippable at level 90

boom. you just made a step towards limiting power creep. artificially ? yes. and ?

Mere fact, that those items are very infrequent (and therefore, valuable), already limits power creep enough. There is no need to limit it behind level requirements as well.

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grepman wrote:

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Furthermore, since any relatively hard content in gated behind grinding easy one, players like me get bored of too easy gameplay.

so then make your 'easy' content hard enough, and then tip of iceberg even harder.

Yes, why not?

Though it seems you didnt read what i wrote here.

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MortalKombat3 wrote:

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grepman wrote:

on average, poe content doesnt push you back all the time either. eventually you get all the endgame maps and swim in them.

You're just lying through your teeth. That's impossible without dumping huge amounts of currency into it (that you're unable to farm on your own), or huge amounts of time into farming lower-level maps.
It's akin to throwing 6-sided dice, 1d6, where "6" gives you +1 point, and all other rolls take 1 point from you. Playing this game, eventually you'll lose all your points. Sure, there is a possibility, that you'll keep your points for a while, or even gain some, but that's only due to extreme luck. In the long time, you'll get bankrupt.

I have plenty of red maps in Delve, and in Betrayal ( and before those too ), SSF ...

I have barely started red maps in Synthesis, but I would not be surprised if it's the same, even without the Nexus ( apparently ).

You can sustain tier 13-14 with a simple vaal orb. You wont be able to run tier 16s non stop but they come up often enough to keep me happy. Been doing this in every league without a problem so it cant be luck. Maybe its the root of my account or something, I got good numbers on it?

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MortalKombat3 wrote:

Mere fact, that those items are very infrequent (and therefore, valuable), already limits power creep enough. There is no need to limit it behind level requirements as well.

It's a very good way to make sure players aren't overpowered for the respective content simply 'with luck'. That's what most games provide. The ability to rush through the whole content and trivializing it with a single lucky drop is a bad decision, those drops should only be available after the fact you've beaten the game to a certain degree.

Also since crafting in such a large part in PoE and provides easy options to do it - fossils for instance - you'll easily achieve very strong items early on with low currency-input. That's an issue. Fault of the fossils? Or rather fault of the availability for the mods at a specific level-range?
I would say it's the second defintiely... unless we want GGG to adjust all crafts overall.

Another issue is pure RNG present, if someone has a lucky streak they can trivialize content in a major way. For Winter Orb this is a single '10% elemental as extra chaos' roll. Boom, T11 reached. Another one... Boom T16 reached, you're done.
At T15 you can then upgrade to 20% simply, you just need the base, nothing else after all, and some alts. It's not hard to get them, the hardest part is the base.