Why did everyone hate Synthesis?
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Limited memories and the inability to rotate them is what turned me off. I did like how smooth the transition was from map to memory. But, GGG clearly nerfed map returns that patch and it's why I stopped playing.
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" I'd argue that Blight is more a case of performance issues (apparently) than the core implementation being bad. The UI is occasionally frustrating, but I've honestly found the lane/tower defense implementation to be interesting. Yeah, you can bypass it by just doing a metric butt-ton of DPS, but the towers offer builds that don't/can't do that some reprieve, and figuring out good tower nets has been a fun little mini-tactical exercise. People on crapass connections with twenty year old boxes have been seeing performance issues, yeah. That's hardly Grinding Gear's fault (entirely), and frankly this isn't the sort of game somebody with a crapass connection and a twenty year old box should be expecting a great deal of leniency from. Legion was awful, and so far as I'm concerned it's proof that the Breach Model has more or less reached its limit. They need a new idea to make half a dozen copy leagues patterned on, and they won't find that idea if they keep trying to come up with ever more forced and unfun tortured variations on Breach. She/Her
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Synthesis could have been incredible, and could have been a worthy alternative endgame to delve with some tweaking.
A simple fix that would've removed a big pain point would be the ability to use chaos orbs to "reroll" a piece in your inventory to change it's orientation. Maybe not lore-fitting, but without the ability to change the orientation of pieces having 10 pieces in your inventory was not enough. Oh good, a boss fight 10 nodes away. I have 10 pieces and another 20 on the board available to move to make my way there...oops I can't because all of my 3 way pieces face the wrong way. It felt bad. The second big problem for me was that nodes without +levels on them were absolutely, 100% worthless. You NEEDED ilvl86 items for most of the good implicits, which made most of the normal fractured items that dropped 100% worthless. It felt like poop to run through a bunch of worthless nodes. So the entire league turned into 5 people on the server setting up alerts for every valuable fractured items and insta-buying them. Maybe if a million people played this game there would've been enough to go around, but there aren't. The most obnoxious problem with Synthesis was pieces on their last charge dissolving in ways that made progressing to the next piece literally impossible. If you had a three or four way piece the node dissolved in a way that funneled you towards one exit, which could put you in no man's land and not let you move to the next node. If you started off running in the "wrong" direction towards your desired destination you would often be left in a situation where you couldn't even backtrack and go another way. It was awful. Zero development resources were put into improving Synthesis after the first month so nothing got fixed or improved. They just abandoned the league. The only dev resources spent were spent on changing node spawning mechanics because devs got trolled by a Reddit post into thinking that certain node positioning tactics were exploitable. It was truly sad to see. |
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Tetris
Spreadsheets Rng Collapse |
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Not everyone hated Synthesis. I didn't. But those that spoke up for the same were usually shouted down. That said, it had some serious implementation issues - primarily with the Synthesizer, that was just terrible design practically tailor made to make you feel bad. That said, they seem to be learning somewhat as the Blight anointing system (albeit far more limited in functionality) is definitely an improvement from how the Synthesizer worked. I'm still confident they can make the Synthesizer work, so long as they decide to prioritize quality over quantity (seriously, we don't need that many recipes - also, show the possible results beforehand, like you are in Blight). And I vehemently disagree with the crowd that argue PoE should be a brainless game and so the puzzle map of Synthesis has no place in it - there's plenty of other brainless things for you lot to do, so it's not like it hurts you. I would have liked to see the Memory cap raised though, or somehow get a similar treatment as what they've now done with Master missions.
One of the best things about Synthesis, acknowledged even during the league, was that it actually encouraged high-level play, since you needed high item levels for the best implicit mods. I'd definitely like to see it return for that reason alone, if nothing else. Also, it was easily the BEST league ever released for lore nerds - so much story! And so much potential for adding even more story. Also positive about Synthesis were the Fractured items - not as food for the Synthesizier, but for crafting on directly. Fractured items were probably the biggest addition to the game for making crafting less intimidating for new/poor players since Fossils. Sadly, they weren't recognized much as such because of all the hate the Synthesizer aroused. I definitely want them back, even without the Synthesizer. Lastly, on a more general note, GGG really need to figure out pathfinding - both Synthesis and Blight have had pathfinding issues. Synthesis with the memory goo, Blight with the fungus and pumps. It seems to be a recurring problem. Last edited by Exile009#1139 on Oct 21, 2019, 3:40:42 PM
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" Whoa talk about some major projection here. "I liked Synthesis, so it must have been good" Chris even made an apology post about Synthesis. How it was to large an idea to implement in a holiday shortened development cycle, and was plagued by bugs that took half the league to fully fix. And then some notion about how it was some high level thought provoking deep league compared to Legion (which was apparently braindead in an arpg, which is essentially kill monsters. Get loot.) I mean you are entitled to your opinion, but just realize for a moment that Synthesis was widely considered poor, both from a numbers perspective & retention perspective. On top of a GGG admitted, poorly developed perspective. "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt." - Abraham Lincoln Last edited by DarthSki44#6905 on Oct 21, 2019, 3:48:40 PM
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" Talk about poor reading comprehension here, since your 'quotation' is neither to be found in my post, nor does it represent what I said. Nice try attempting to twist my words, but not falling for it. Besides which it's impossible for me or anyone else to say any league was objectively good or bad as that is a subjective assessment - so all I really said was 'I liked Synthesis'. And before you start tossing player numbers at me, note that I spoke of likes and dislikes, not success or failure. There's a difference. One which apparently you're too afraid to give space for fear they might deviate from your preferred development approach again. Sorry hun, but people different from you exist, complete with different visions, and aren't going away. And Chris made an apology about Synthesis' implementation owing to said shortened development cycle. Apparently you also failed to notice that even I acknowledged it was poorly implemented. I was writing about the concept behind Synthesis, which can be iterated over time to improve on said implementation, not how they actually executed it. Post the first month the majority of the issues people kept complaining about stemmed from the Synthesizer, which I too specifically criticized myself above. That still needs a lot of work, as very little was done to it, but there's potential. But even that potential scares you. Cos you don't want PoE to try out ideas like that anymore. Not only do you and some others think Synthesis was bad, you don't want it to be good. Cos your visions for the game are centered on it hewing ridiculously close to the 'core ARPG formula' (as you lot often call it). Well sorry, but I disliked Legion. I do like Blight. And I did like the idea, if not the execution, of Synthesis. And I do want them to keep experimenting. Some might succeed, some might fail, but at least it shows the devs haven't put their proverbial feet up. And I'm not going anywhere. Last edited by Exile009#1139 on Oct 21, 2019, 4:22:25 PM
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" Tbh I dont even know what the fuck you are trying to say. Nobody wants any league to fail. Most people who are here to enjoy arpgs, want to in fact, play an arpg. Not catch em all Bestiary, or table top. Or tower defense. You mentioned brainless leagues, not me, and how PoE shouldn't be that. If you believe I put words in your mouth, then please tell us what league wasnt "brainless", that neeeded deep understanding, and really enchnaced the league. I'll wait. So I suppose in short, like wherever version of PoE you want. As long as you realize that a significant portion of the base doesn't want bizarre, non-arpg, elements added to the game. The numbers show it over and over and over. You make think its brainless, or braindead, or whatever the fuck else, but the fact is most want to play what makes PoE great, not what made Pokemon or D&D "great" "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."
- Abraham Lincoln |
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I didn't hate Synth, but in many ways it was just a tiresome league. The first 3-4 weeks were a disaster, and the remaining 2 months of the league had its moments but were still far from smooth. The mechanics were just too janky, overcomplicated, and at times downright unreliable. Many problems in the mechanics were improved, but few of them were completely fixed.
And the worst part was that it was at its most rewarding overall during those first 3-4 weeks when almost nothing worked right. As they improved on the mechanics, the rewards were also getting nerfed. It was just...kind of a mess. There were some interesting concepts to it, but they were clearly slapped together in a short timeframe. I wouldn't even want to imagine what the player numbers would have looked like if the DB of synthesized item combinations hadn't been datamined from the getgo. GGG expressed their disappointment over that, but the league would have been a substantially bigger failure than it already was if it hadn't happened. I have a pretty good sense of humor. I'm not German.
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" And yet the rest of your response is attacking a bunch of leagues. So you wanted them to succeed, so long as they were something other than what they were? So leagues called Blight, Synthesis, Bestiary, etc., but actually designed to mimic Legion or Breach? Yeah, I can really tell your concern for the leagues from that. Have you also ever told a girl you loved her for a personality that doesn't match hers at all? If so, how'd it go? Also, someone seems upset. Thought so. It was obvious you don't like this perspective, as it represents a direct counter to your own ideas on how the game should be. But hey, in the other thread you were looking forward to the D2 remaster, and D4. But I'm not. So maybe we can both be satisfied. Your choice. ;) Last edited by Exile009#1139 on Oct 21, 2019, 5:02:43 PM
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