To everyone whos scared of power creep

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ARealLifeCaribbeanPirate wrote:

If anyone is interested in backing off of the flame war to get back on topic, OP raised the point that 'power creep' only matters to the players at the top.

That's kind of like saying that hitting the iceberg only mattered to the people at the front of the Titanic. It's a problem for everyone if the endgame becomes easier and easier to

This analogy just made my day <3

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grepman wrote:

Why do you think players cry foul about betrayal even though they've been castrated. Because players are used to kill everything that moves with one click. This is idiotic, and makes content uninteresting pile of goo that you just click without looking at.

Also this ^

Yeah, obviously power creep is not ajust about the 1%, it's very freaking far from it.
Some of the obvious power creepy elements that affect everyone, easily affect everyone :
- ascendancies ( those do bring more than pure power, but they are a tremendous power boost none the less, we could argue that the content has overal been made harder .... but the 'normal'/'vanilla' content hasn't really been raised up to the power level that ascendancies only created )
- abyss jewels (+stygian belts )
- fossils ( saying that you never get anything from those is ... either dishonest or pretty trolly, the resistance debuffs on helmet is already big enough on its own ... )


so yeah ..... only the 1% ? holy cow no, and what affects the 1% indirectly affects the rest of the game in one way or another anyway so ...

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I_NO wrote:

Why do you think players cry foul about betrayal even though they've been castrated. Because players are used to kill everything that moves with one click. This is idiotic, and makes content uninteresting pile of goo that you just click without looking at.

This isn't just about Synthesis, fractured items make gear acquisition easier, I have a 30% inc movespeed pair of boots and I could just throw couple of sets of pristine+prismatic fossils on it to get a really good pair of boots in SSF for example ... wait ... I'm stupid, I'd rather have movespeed+onslaught veiled mod on a pair of boots now, I don't even need that one anymore NVM (lol).

But yeah, fractured items make gear acquisition even easier on their own, before talking about synthesing items ( which has other problems on its own imho ).
Those helmets are freaking sick by the way.

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I_NO wrote:

Guess what the majority wants to be powerful and that's how it is until the end of time do you know why they keep growing power it's because people enjoy it.

As long as they are not bored, that is.

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Kulze wrote:

They are the most common item from the temple, I think 2 is guaranteed to drop from the omnitect each time, very easy to obtain.

There's a significant difference between crap rares and magic items and actual, playable items. Yeah, those things drop, but every one I've ever seen drop has been garbage. Not even kinda-almost playabe. Just garbage.

It's very easy to obtain dog shit from most lawns in my neighborhood, but it's not like people are going around stuffing it in their pockets.

I got several good ones in SSF back in incursion so ...


Yes, the life roll is quite low so it isn't god like, but it's already freaking strong, and much more easily usable than Atziri's steps.

And that is only an example, I got many other either good items, or very good crafting bases :

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Jennik wrote:

There's a significant difference between crap rares and magic items and actual, playable items. Yeah, those things drop, but every one I've ever seen drop has been garbage. Not even kinda-almost playabe. Just garbage.

In trade league those items cost few ex and are very easy to get.

Poe is not balanced around SSF so you got no argument there. It s not balanced around HC anymore either.
You argument only matters in SSF league and the game is balanced around trade league.

In this context those items are really awful for the health of this game.

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Head_Less wrote:

It s not balanced around HC anymore either.

That is not completely true either, there are some people in the dev team that do things taking HC leagues into consideration.

I personally refuse to talk about balance in a context where dying is no problem and just a normal thing of the game, the game should (imho) be balanced around the fact that by playing it intelligently (not picking meta choices, but building a character properly, with good offense/balance and using the vailable mechanics in a clever way), it is possible to go through it without dying.

Steelmage managed to kill Uber Elder SSF HC with cleave last month ( I think it was last month ), and that does show that the game is still balance around HC in my honest opinion.

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BloodPuddles420 wrote:

I wasn't gonna jump in to this one because it's mostly fighting, but that is literally the exact opposite. Power creep is when you hit the end and slowly keep becoming more and more powerful. It has nothing to do at all with the average player. The average player will never get that stupid powerful gear, or will sheep it up using the broken meta build that doesn't need it to begin with.

No.. no it isn't. The definition of power-creep is not what you've described in the least. It can be taken as a minor part of it, but the one you're describing isn't in the least an issue... for anyone.

Power-creep is hurting the viability of older game-mechanics via the introduction of newer ones, hence making the old ones not viable anymore. This isn't always a bad thing, at least not if there's some sort of progression-line a player can follow, allowing this system to be used sensibly.

What GGG made is throwing the whole progression - which they wanted to be slow, see the Trade Manifesto for instance! - overboard, making it quicker and quicker. Now they're trying to steer against that direction via nerfing map-drops instead of adjusting the - far harder to do - progression based on ilvl and mods rolled on specific ones. It makes the game deliberately frustrating, they're actually making the game objectively 'less fun' for the majority.

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I_NO wrote:

hahaha more power is everything to people like nobody cares about the minority aka some of you like 5 of you who try to make things weaker and weaker.

Guess what the majority wants to be powerful and that's how it is until the end of time do you know why they keep growing power it's because people enjoy it.

Once more your voice isn't going to be heard and god dam that's a good thing.

That's the entire goal of an ARPG is to feel like a god dam super hero and that will never ever change regardless of outcome simply because you're the minority.

First of all, people don't necessarily try to make things necessarily weaker. There's different options the to outright remove mods, or dumb them down to levels nobody cares anymore afterwards.

Also, you're absolutely right, it feels awesome to have the ability to rush through maps and clear it out in literal seconds. That's a given.

BUT! And that's a big one you're completely leaving out! What about 'pace'? It's the same for every entertainment medium. Imagine a action movie, starting off to explain the background 5 minutes before... only explosions and fighting happens for the next 1 1/2 hours, no change in pace, no further back-story at all. Then it ends as the hero simply takes out the villain like some 08/15 bad guy he'd killed earlier. Feels nice to watch? Probably not. Sure, one time to 'switch off' after work, and then you'll never pick it up again and forget it. Same going for a book, the main protagonist starts off, then without issues just waltzes over every single problem before the book later on ends. Also not fun.

It's the same with any sizable game. Arcade-style playing is fun, definitely, but if your game reaches a specific size it needs to have more then simply that. A reason for different behaving people to come back, not speaking only to a minority of the player-base.
Provide a proper pacing like a good movie or a good book, just via game-mechanics, allowing you to clear content steadily along the way while always feeling like a bit of a challenge, with the type of challenge steadily changing ever so slightly to keep the feeling 'fresh'. And here, you got a good game, a marvelous game even, able to keep people playing as they can progress towards the situation where they're exploding packs of mobs left and right. That's the end-goal of clear-speed, not the starting pace it's supposed to have.
Same with bossing, starting out to kill them in maps shouldn't feel like a random yellow mob, the boss of a map is supposed to be the hardest content available there, the goal to reach, the part which keeps progression being progression in some manner.

There are several adjustments needed to allow such a feeling:
-Reworking the whole system of crafting based on ilvl, 86 is reached too early, the mods presented before that are too powerful respective to offered content.

-Adjusting the mechanics available inside maps, the strongest enemies there have to feel weaker compared to the boss of the area, no matter the content added in.

- Reworking the whole mechanic of how maps are run, dropping random ones while trying to hinder progression as GGG does with nerfing the amount dropping is detrimental to the game, hence you need to do it otherwise. Sure, lower the amount of dropped maps, though... make maps of every tier generic. The player able to choose which one he runs with that blank slate. Problem fixed and it feels rewarding again if adjusted to the new system.

- Adjust bosses, the mechanics need to feel special compared to the 'run of the mill' mob. Meaning, it should feel hard, need a few seconds to complete - instead of killing it by mistake in a single shot - and feel like a challenge compared to everything else at the same tier presented.

- Side-content needs to be reworked. Either via dumbing their power-level down in maps, or via unraveling the mess finally and giving all of that content their own personal space. Wanna run delve INSTEAD of mapping? Sure, go ahead. Wanna run Temples INSTEAD of mapping? Why not? Rewards and ways to build up those need to be reworked respectively then, though it calms the pissed-off people regarding that topic and the game wouldn't feel like a pieced-together mess.

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robmafia wrote:

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I_NO wrote:

Yeah not a single person in this thread can even remotely make or afford these

...lolwut?

please. i know you like trolling and patting yourself on the back in barely literate posts, but are you seriously pretending that i don't know how to farm/service/flip/craft?

He was sarcastic... it's not to be taken literal.
Followed up by trivializing the issue with a not fully thought-trough example as to why it's ok.

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grepman wrote:

You want an example of horizontal (non power creep) design vs vertical (power creep) design?

Since many right now, myself included, are playing grim dawn xpansion, GD has a good example

GD autoscales mobs to your level so in ultimate content from act 2 is still relevant and can be scary (cronlwy nemesis killed a fe of my hc toons back in the day)

In poe, tons of content when it was scary as new content, got obsolete to the point of boredom unless you artificially impose crazy damage mods like in PTs league. What's the last time you got scared of evangelists? Caliga? Leaping frogs? Fucking dominus, for Christ's sake? Exactly.

Poeple always say leveling is a bore in poe. Yeah it is now, because literally nothing aside couple of bosses pose any threat to you.

Same with the lab
Uber izaro was actually scary when introduced first
Is he actually scary nowadays? Nope. A ton of builds one shot him without even trying

Agsin, im talking about average content (not top end) that becomes a boring checkmark instead of being relevant or interesting content

All because player is given a ton of more power with each iteration of the game, and old content isn't given anything to offset thst

Thanks, that exactly describes the issue, to the point. Hence why my suggestions stand to adjust the CORE gameplay. Not try to fix it with some simple patchwork-solutions that'll hold for... 3 months? Half a year? A year at max if it goes very well?

One time properly investing into the game and it's fixed all around, or using resources over and over again for the same issue, taking up ever more time later on as content becomes more and more to adjust. A sure-fire way to kill development quality or speed over time.

We're seen that GGG doesn't want to slow down... we're seeing the quality of development right now though. Should say enough to have basic crafting systems which make up a large part of the league-content not available until 1 month into the league.
Major rework of league-content after 3 weeks.
Inability to use the system even half-way properly before that as it breaks left and right.
Oversights like activated reward-nodes directly adjacent to the beginning-node of the area, allowing to teleport into an unstarted node.

Thise are all things which should've been seen by quality control BEFOREHAND. Not by players having to bother with it for such a long time. Sure... 1-2 will slip through, that's common, bugs are weird. But those are blatant quality issues, not simply oversights.

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Jennik wrote:

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Kulze wrote:

They are the most common item from the temple, I think 2 is guaranteed to drop from the omnitect each time, very easy to obtain.

There's a significant difference between crap rares and magic items and actual, playable items. Yeah, those things drop, but every one I've ever seen drop has been garbage. Not even kinda-almost playabe. Just garbage.

That's were crafting comes in. Splitting the base via beast-craft into a magic one, imprinting it, working up from there piece by piece afterwards, right until the item is more powerful then any other.

Making good items in PoE isn't finding them - unlike uniques - without tons of luck. It's always a progress, taking their while and needing knowledge. Many crafts can be done as early as mid-white maps, adding ever more along the way to make your character easily advance in content while even trivializing SSF to a degree nowadays.

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Jennik wrote:

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Kulze wrote:

They are the most common item from the temple, I think 2 is guaranteed to drop from the omnitect each time, very easy to obtain.

There's a significant difference between crap rares and magic items and actual, playable items. Yeah, those things drop, but every one I've ever seen drop has been garbage. Not even kinda-almost playabe. Just garbage.

It's very easy to obtain dog shit from most lawns in my neighborhood, but it's not like people are going around stuffing it in their pockets.

WAT

they can be guaranteed(ish, sometimes a unique will drop instead) drops.

a recipe exists to imprint.

you're basically guaranteed the incursion affix and a t1 (or highest available tier by ilvl) and a random affix via regal. it's realllllllly not rocket surgery to turn this into a useful item.

I've never heard power creep used in this way, because it's not possible to keep old content relevant while progressing an ARPG. The whole point is collecting loot and powering up your character. Like that Grim Dawn reference, that only goes so far. Once you max out and keep getting better gear afterwards all of that previous content is gonna be easy. I also massively prefer it that way, static things in games are way better. It seems dumb killing a boss no problem, then 20 levels later you're way more powerful and get one shotted by them. But yeah, anyways, I've always heard power creep used as you've pretty much completed your character, and are doing an extremely lengthy grind to squeeze any more power out of them.

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BloodPuddles420 wrote:

I've never heard power creep used in this way, because it's not possible to keep old content relevant while progressing an ARPG.

*sigh*

There is a big part of players that will just play acts and not even progress to maps

You need to make sure to buff these guys in early game
because to be honest using the same leveling gear over and over will get dull quickly