Being killed by something you cannot see is not challenging.

Would you feel better if i had said "vast majority" instead of picking a number? Or would you actually feel worse because you couldn't accuse me of pulling numbers out of my rear?
And honestly the things that have been shown here as prove for "visibility issues" were so obviously telegraphed that i would urge you to visit a doctor if you honestly can't see them.

"

gibbousmoon wrote:

Come on Fruz, you should know by now that 62.75% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

Damn, and me who though I knew from a very reliable internet source that 74.8% of internet statistics were false ....

"

Baharoth15 wrote:

Would you feel better if i had said "vast majority" instead of picking a number? Or would you actually feel worse because you couldn't accuse me of pulling numbers out of my rear?
And honestly the things that have been shown here as prove for "visibility issues" were so obviously telegraphed that i would urge you to visit a doctor if you honestly can't see them.

Since you've been talking out of thin air, it would not have changed much, don't worry.

What was actually being shown in this thread were simple answered by "it's not invisible, because you could expect it if you knew x, y and z, so git gud n00b!" ( which - as pointed out before - is a fallacy since it uses two uncorrelated statement, where causality simply cannot be used )
And you brought the strawman about difficulty, etc ....

"

What was actually being shown in this thread were simple answered by "it's not invisible, because you could expect it if you knew x, y and z, so git gud n00b!" ( which - as pointed out before - is a fallacy since it uses two uncorrelated statement, where causality simply cannot be used )
And you brought the strawman about difficulty, etc ....

Not by me, don't confuse me with Nomancs please.

And difficulty isn't a strawman here for several reasons. First, making stuff more obvious makes the game easier than it is today. If GGG decided to act based on the complaints in this topic it would have an effect on difficulty, doesn't even matter if difficulty is the reason for your complaints.
And second, to be frank, i would bet my ass that nobody would be in this topic complaining about visibility if weren't for them dying because of it. Call it a strawman if you want, but both of us know better.

"

Baharoth15 wrote:

And difficulty isn't a strawman here for several reasons. First, making stuff more obvious makes the game easier than it is today. If GGG decided to act based on the complaints in this topic it would have an effect on difficulty, doesn't even matter if difficulty is the reason for your complaints.

True, though not entirely relevant. When players consider deaths to be fair, they invariably find the game far more fun. (I really hope no one attacks that statement; it is practically a truism of game design.)

The distinction provided by any description of a meaningful challenge is also pertinent: I can put on thick winter gloves and play that way too, to make the game more challenging. Or instruct GGG to randomly make my client crash. That would make the game more challenging (in fact it DOES), and we should ignore all those scrubs who want GGG to remove that additional challenge. ;)

The same is true for fixing UI flaws, or QoL frustrations, or lag. These are all things that make the game more challenging in their own way, but they do not do so in any meaningful way.

So what DOES a meaningful challenge look like? Redthorne82 had a few interesting things to say on this topic:

"

Redthorne82 wrote:

The last time I played PoE, a couple weeks ago, I died in a T15 map (on a character that has pretty decent survivability) to a single Legion rare that used some yellow javelin attack. It came from OFF-SCREEN and killed me from full health (6.7k HP + 1.1k ES). That's in Standard with an 80% Loreweave and Fortify running.

Off-screen deaths happen. It's actually the same attack that got me a few times during Legion league. I dodge some by weaving back and forth as I approach the areas where I know Legion rares spawned, but sometimes I weave right back into the path of it.

If you want a game with really good reaction based difficulty, Wolcen is actually lots of fun. The Chapter (Act) 1 boss is BRUTALLY hard for melee, and you have to learn and manually dodge every attack, which is well telegraphed. The difference? It's STILL hard. It took me a dozen or so tries, because he hits hard, and has three distinct phases with a wide variety of attacks, but they're all easy enough to see with time to react to them.

Sure, one false step might mean death, but there wasn't a single wipe that I didn't know what killed me, or what I could do in the future to avoid it.

THAT is what Path of Exile is missing. Sure, early on, everything kills you and that's just part of learning. However, once you've played for months or years, and thousands of hours...there are STILL some things you just can't avoid without completely avoiding content. There's a learning cap, but it's not the same as the difficulty cap.

People will always try to defend the worst aspects of their favorite game. That's fine, but if 99% of the people die semi-regularly to things they can't see, that's still bad design.

These aren't the only examples of challenges which feel meaningful to players and challenges which do not, but I want to make it clear that such a distinction does exist, and it is an important component of game design in almost any video game.

I should also acknowledge that I do agree with people who say that building your character is part of the challenge, and that if you play red maps with 2k EHP, you probably deserve to die. But even there I argue that the cause of death needs to be visible. If it is not, that (probably shitty) player is going to blame the game instead of their own bad decision making, and (THIS IS KEY:) that player has a legitimate grievance, despite their own bad decision making.

For the record, it was clear in my very first hour of playing Wolcen that Redthorne82 is correct: The game does not feel easier than PoE, but it does feel far more fair, and as such the mechanics of piloting and attacking with your character make for a much richer and, in my opinion, fun experience. (But this thread's message doesn't stem from my playing that game; the problem is much older.)

"

And second, to be frank, i would bet my ass that nobody would be in this topic complaining about visibility if weren't for them dying because of it. Call it a strawman if you want, but both of us know better.

Also true, and for obvious reasons. Do you complain about hidden sources of damage which barely tickle your character? Why would you bother?

And yes, the statement does violate both logic and good-faith discussion, because it is entirely irrelevant, for reasons which should be clear by now.

A bit of a sidetrack...

I think we are in the current situation mostly due to the "combat speed game" that PoE have evolved into. But also the dark gritty setting that PoE goes for.

* In many fights there simply isn't time to see or react to mob attacks. There are just too many things happening at the same time for players beeing able to react. Normal mob attacks isn't telegrafed or if they are, they are so quick that isn't possible from player to react upon. So yes there might be a visible attack but there isn't time to react to it.

* Connected to this is the fact that the only way to kill players is for mobs to have severe burst damage since mobs at most get of one attack before killed.

* Also, the sheer number of attacks per seconds from players and mobs have gotten to the level that those obscure almost everything going on.

* On top of that have the gfx effects evolved to be larger and more flashy thus obscuring even more of whats happening.

* And isn't helped by the whole setting of PoE beeing dark and gritty with low contrast colours. (this isn't going to change)


All those together makes combat in todays PoE problematic to say the least!


From what I can see from Wolcen are that they have choosen to go a slower route for combat. Also more zoomed out. (BUT I haven't tried myself nor looked at endgame so I might be very wrong.)

And thats from what I can understand is the only real way of resolving this problem.


Make combat slower and shift from a burst to a sustain mindset.

"

Baharoth15 wrote:

Not by me, don't confuse me with Nomancs please.

My mistake then, it's a bit hard to keep track of everything that has been said sometimes.

"

gibbousmoon wrote:

And difficulty isn't a strawman here for several reasons. First, making stuff more obvious makes the game easier than it is today. If GGG decided to act based on the complaints in this topic it would have an effect on difficulty, doesn't even matter if difficulty is the reason for your complaints.
And second, to be frank, i would bet my ass that nobody would be in this topic complaining about visibility if weren't for them dying because of it. Call it a strawman if you want, but both of us know better.

So, not wanting "cheap" and difficult mechanics <=> not wanting challenging (by that I mean difficult, but fair, well designed) mechanics ?
No, the point is not to have those problematic abilities simply nerfed in number, it's to make them visible, yet still dangerous, to leave room for counterplay, to make playing around it more intuitive, actually interesting.

For example, I suggested in another thread to have Baranite thaumaturges turned to rare monsters, make bigger, and have the damage equivalent with one or two damage mod on them. It would have make more sense imo.

"

For example, I suggested in another thread to have Baranite thaumaturges turned to rare monsters, make bigger, and have the damage equivalent with one or two damage mod on them. It would have make more sense imo.

They can already spawn as rare though, and they're actually pretty telegraphed when you see a bunch of Baran playing cards and laser beams flying at you.

visibility..

after fantastic weekend with 'the other game' i came back to finish my Smite character (avoid, this skill is crap) and shelve this title for a while

few differences hit me like a truck:

- amount of junk that drops in POE is bordering insanity even with strict filter
- I CANNOT FUU>>> SEE WHAT IS GOING ON!
- making everything spastic-fast is used liberally to cover up mechanic clunkiness

'the other game' does the clarity of what is going on PERFECTLY. all these telegraphs, small BUT CLEAR 'danger zone markers', PRECISE element-signaling, using colors, sizes and SOUNDS to convey danger level (the most damaging non-boss thing in POE is small, dead blue-on-blue spider creating small blue whirl - this makes no f.. sense and reeks of poor design and lazy balancing)


anyone spreading lies the like of 'if you cannot see, see your doctor' should play Smite with multistrike and 2+ extra strikes. good luck. screen gets so bright you can LITERALLY miss out on Abaxoth spawning. fighting dual bosses (that actually makes your damage output higher - Smite is poorly designed) is so bright and covers so much screen that you cannot see (not an exageration) any boss that is smaller than Malachai

and Smite is not an exception but a sad standard - gfx vomit we take for granted is really not necessary and while it might look 'ok' on screenshots (sirusly?) there is a reason why POE's promo materials AVOID any busy skills/mtx combos: because it looks ridiculous..

"

VolcanoElixir wrote:

"

For example, I suggested in another thread to have Baranite thaumaturges turned to rare monsters, make bigger, and have the damage equivalent with one or two damage mod on them. It would have make more sense imo.

They can already spawn as rare though, and they're actually pretty telegraphed when you see a bunch of Baran playing cards and laser beams flying at you.

They can ?


And no, having another mob spawn does not mean that their abilities are telegraphed, this is utterly irrelevant.

It has been said and said and said again in this thread, having the knowledge that something might or will likely happen does not mean that this thing is visible, at all.

And in the graphical clutter/vomit of the game and especially new influence mobs, cards and laser beams is partly what makes it not visible.

"

sidtherat wrote:

visibility..

after fantastic weekend with 'the other game' ...
few differences hit me like a truck:

- amount of junk that drops in POE is bordering insanity even with strict filter
- I CANNOT FUU>>> SEE WHAT IS GOING ON!
- making everything spastic-fast is used liberally to cover up mechanic clunkiness

'the other game' does the clarity of what is going on PERFECTLY. all these telegraphs, small BUT CLEAR 'danger zone markers', PRECISE element-signaling, using colors, sizes and SOUNDS to convey danger level (the most damaging non-boss thing in POE is small, dead blue-on-blue spider creating small blue whirl - this makes no f.. sense and reeks of poor design and lazy balancing)


... gfx vomit we take for granted is really not necessary and while it might look 'ok' on screenshots (sirusly?) there is a reason why POE's promo materials AVOID any busy skills/mtx combos: because it looks ridiculous..

Wolcen has a lots of screen clutter, or gfx vomit as you call it (and I tend to agree), as well. You can easily lose sight and control of your character when you fight 3 huge monsters constantly spawning smaller adds and creating overlapping telegraph notification. The fact the game does not allow you to bind move-only button is horrible oversight.

Wolcen is new and flashy, it attracts attention but it has no longevity nor any semblance of balance among its skills and skill tree options. I enjoy Wolcen for what it is and I gradually shift more of my time from PoE to it at this time in a league. However, every time I fire up PoE and get on my character, I appreciate how much more polished PoE is compared to Wolcen.

However, I absolutely agree with you on the visual clarity problem that PoE has. Whether it is mind-boggling decision to make metamorhps dark with dark sludge spawning everywhere to visual clutter caused by skill effect or MTX.