Hardcore RIP videos on youtube are a joke.

"

3) 2% of skills are viable you say? People have killed all end game bosses with all skills. Name even a single skill that isn't viable. Yes some are stronger than others, but all are viable. Same goes for ascendencies.

bro what about conversion trap, when will this skill get some love

Conversion trap is probably the skill most in need of a rework, agreed. So perhaps I was wrong in saying 100% of skills are viable; maybe only 99.5% are. I was off by .5%, while the 2% claim was off by 97.5%.

Certain aurastackers with multiple Voices are still facerolling everything except Uber Atziri and the deepest depths in Delve. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xW9EOCRi2ss&list=UU0Gx64EmyVDd9gxemldd8Gw

I would say cluster jewels are great for build diversity, but Voices needs to be legacy. Even with 1/3 the amount of cluster jewels stacked, it would still be a very tanky build, but at least the build would also lose 1/3 its DPS. That would make it fair to those who still wish to proceed with such builds or go with Pledge of Hands + Archmage that should by right be the king of DPS as far as lightning spells go.

With this out of the way, I think it would become easier for GGG to balance spike damage around HC, without making it too easy for SC trade league at the same time.

"

Bloodhatred wrote:

"

KZA wrote:

I love hardcore, but what PoE has evolved into is... not hardcore.

Take a moment and look up a RIP montage on Youtube. 95+% of deaths are streamers murdering everything instantly without their health dipping even slightly, and then, all of a sudden, they're dead and don't even know what killed them. The vast majority press their GGG-approved instant logout macro (which GGG has said they balance the game around) the moment the death screen pops up, but it's too late.

So two major problems that have destroyed the core of the game (especially hardcore)

1) GGG allows logout macros and balances around that. The reason why damage is so spikey, is because if it wasn't, people would never die.

2) Monsters die way too quick. This is a combination of multi-target abilities hitting way too many monsters at once, and monster life being way too low. End game consists of scoot, explode the screen, scoot, explode the screen, repeat X infinity. Players don't even see what monsters they are fighting before they are dead, only engaging with their on-death mechanics. Because monsters die so fast, they have their damage pumped up to compensate for their minuscule lifespan. Furthermore, due to regen/leech bringing you from 1hp to full life in a couple seconds or less, monster damage has to be REALLY spikey to pose any real threat.

The fix would require a total rebalance of the game, which likely isn't possible until PoE 2. Instant logout and mid-fight town portals need to be removed. Monster life needs to be raised so we interact with monster mechanics before they die, multi-target skills need to hit fewer monsters at a time to promote more meaningful and tactical gameplay, monster damage needs to be toned down, and regen/leech needs to be dramatically nerfed.

The end result would be challenging gameplay that can be conquered with clever strategy/tactics. Survival would be a constant struggle, but threats would be readable and counterable. One-shot deaths out of nowhere would be gone, but with the instant logout removed, when you're in a deadly situation, you will watch your life drop and drop, your adrenaline pumping, until that final killing blow takes you out - a glorious death.

#makehardcoregreatagain

100% agree with that. The funny thing is, when the meta is to one shot the whole screen, it kinda take out the combat aspect of the game, which is the A in Arpg. Other games in the same genre nail the feeling of great combat while PoE used to. PoE is basically about logout macro, trading, one shot mechanics since there's 0 challenges outside of that, and the skills's mtxs evolving around new league's start.

Sadly, i don't think Poe 4.0 gonna change any of that. It's always gonna be a game about going fast, killing screens in one click, having racing events with money on the line ( since it seems you need $$$ prize to have people play the game ) and a vicious circle of buff/nerf constantly ( forever in beta ). All that and the fact you do not really own anything you even buy. It's surely an interesting situation!

+1



its true, its kind of sad to see. pretty much everything zzang said was on the money as well.

it seems like you play hardcore now is just like softcore but you log out a lot. one health pot, maybe no health pot even, cause ur just gonna run head first into combat slamming 4 damage flasks and if it turns out you bit off more than you could 1 shot screen wipe you log out. so that just removes playing the actual game, you click a button to destroy the screen and the 1 in 10,000 times that doesnt work you click your log out and essentially it rolls the dice, 2-6 you live, if you roll a 1 you die and its gggs netcode fault or its your internet fault or if youre feeling like actually taking responsibility for yourself today you state that you should have logged out sooner...

its kind of pathetic right? were all here cause we love the game so take that in the right context, this was an amazing game and theres still so many aspects of this game that are a monolith of greatness in the genre, that will maybe never be beaten. but when you take a step back and look how endgame ends up playing out right now can people really be proud of what poe has become? beneath all the systems, the items, the graphics, lore, voiceovers, so much great stuff, under it all its a game and how does the game actually play? is this really what developers of a game to be played wanted the gameplay to look like? do you take this and show it to other devs from other genres and say this is what our game looks like when serious players play it and feel proud of it?

i wouldnt. its not alone in that, warframe is kind of stupid, another game where theres a lot of good you can say about it but the result product at the end is kind of silly.




does poe4 fix it? maybe, i think they can and i think they should. i think the "oh noes but my softcore clearspeed!!!!" crowd are not as important to pander too or as populous as ggg maybe thinks they are, and a lot of that behaviour is adopted bad habbits from a bad parent of a game letting them get away with it, its like youve given them the cheat codes and encouraged their use while really you should have known better that they just ruin the game.

heres the thing, its not a mistake that diablo 4 is likely to make, while its systems will certainly be very limited compared to poe d4 will almost certainly have a different league of gameplay than poe currently offers. and guess what? itll probably have more players for a time, and they will lose those players not because shitty gameplay is more popular but simply because poe will continue to have new content and blizz will let d4 fester and rot from neglect. any idea that you cant have gameplay and a popular game is an absurd myth i think fp2 devs let themselves get dragged into.

people here will say oh this games so much better d4 is a joke im sure, while they plot 110 passives on 5 different characters to make 5 completely different reave builds that scale poison or fire or impale with a trickster and an assassin and a pathfinder and a gladiator and they will all play exactly the same as not only each other but all their caster and bow builds that all just press a button, the entire screen dies. meanwhile d4 will no doubt have 1/100th of the choices but they will actually result in multiple forms of actually gameplay of sorts.



im just at a point in time where the spectacle of 15 million passive nodes and 843 different ways to turn a white item yellow doesnt impress me at all and im asking wheres the gameplay in this game im playing? i got to be honest, that makes me ask when d4 is landing, not when poe4 is landing, and i dont feel at all casual or shallow about that one bit.

just telling it how it i, and lets be clear about this too cause its important, the only reason i even bother coming here and saying this is because i know this game can and should be 10x better than d4, poe4 can and should be a game that literally eclipses d4, we shouldnt even be able to see that it exists in the shadows behind the colossus of poe4. people here are ehighlighting some fundamental changes that need to happen to make that work and i care deeply as a fan of poe and the genre that the devs are on the same page.

how is this problem new?

this same exact OP was true in 2017 and maybe even as early as in 2016

nothing changes, in fact this problem grows BIGGER and BIGGER each league.

core, root cause is POWER CREEP. GGG marketing and design philosophy relies on power creep, sadly it relies ONLY on power creep for some time (pretty much all teasers promote POWER. very rarely the game growth is horizontal (expanding content) instead it is all vertical (upgrading content)

so each league we get stronger and stronger and the feeling of omgtwtfimbadass comes earlies. GGG seems to believe only this is going to keep players with the game, so the power creep is the only constant of this game

you cannot power creep indefinitely. you just cannot. if anyone believes POE2 is going to solve it.. oh the naivety. POE2 wont drop power creep, youll get insanely strong new ascendancies, new items, new skills. the things GGG believes keeps player interest

there wont be any changes, GGG seems to have lost faith in its own product and no longer believes it can promote it without giving power to players, for free. playerbase - conditioned over the years that free power is for granted - wont let them do otherwise. when they release a skill that is not strictly better than existing alternatives it is instantly called 'hot garbage' and not even touched. power creep will continue. several 'free' 6 links for support skills are not there to stop power creep after all.



the logout macro issue is just stupid at this point. game is perfectly playable without it (mathil's case is proof enough) and preeeeetty dumb with it ('oh im in danger, lets press a button and pretend im smart').

after playing Noita for several weeks now.. you can make hardcore game where time-to-die is longer than .1sec (literally) while keeping the 'omg im so powerful!' feeling (and the gfx is AMAZING, its visual clarity that POE never had, never will)

don t worry they ll proceed to raise monster health one league then raise power creep the next one to nullify their own changes.

They do that with the POE engine too: Make many improvement on lags and memory to just shit on it two patch later.

"

jeerinho wrote:

Certain aurastackers with multiple Voices are still facerolling everything except Uber Atziri and the deepest depths in Delve. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xW9EOCRi2ss&list=UU0Gx64EmyVDd9gxemldd8Gw

Oh no 1-15 mirror build is capable of facerolling content.

"

sidtherat wrote:

how is this problem new?

How is this a problem at all?

People do enjoy power creep. Game is much better and more enjoyable now. It was boring and small prior to Ascendancy patch (there is a reason that I actually knew about the game when Beta started... but I didn't even tried to download and play it after watching preview videos; I tried it again in 2.0 and dropped in white maps, because it was super boring). Ascendancy made this game great by greatly increasing the players' power.

The game is still growing its playerbase and leagues like Delirium with power creep and more monsters to kill are extremely popular. It's just Heist declining because of broken economy and unejoyable mechanic.

an opinion:

game that is so binary (you die or you are 100% healthy) while pretending to be deep and complex is not really a game but a rng fiesta. you do your preps, you equip your gear and then dices roll and you die or you live.

there are games where you prepare your hero and then the combat is automatic - POE is not advertised as game like that. yet in fact it is one, more than people realise.



and objective fact:

game is hardly growing at all. steamcharts are there to check, game has plateaued around 100-120k peak launch day since 2018. bots make a SIGNIFICANT part of these numbers btw (unascendent witch being 6th(?) most popular 'ascendancy pick' 3 leagues ago?).

you liking a league (like delirium or whatnot) does not make it 'more popular' - it is just YOU liking it.



maybe it is time for a change if POE wants to actually grow. games that grow dont need to tell anyone that they grow. you can see it from space.

current model of feeding people free power and automated gameplay proved to be a short-term solution. not to mention that it scared away people looking for more 'player matters' 'less insta-rng bs' experience. business wise POEs market shrank when they embraced power-creep as their only scaling vector

"

sidtherat wrote:

bots make a SIGNIFICANT part of these numbers btw (unascendent witch being 6th(?) most popular 'ascendancy pick' 3 leagues ago?).

Why bots would even use Steam instead of standalone and be part of steam charts?
This feels like conspiracy.

If bots were ever part of Steam charts, the amount of Steam players who completed Part 1 (see achievements) would be significally higher. Since they are constantly being banned and have to create new accounts, and complete the story on each of the accounts.

"

maybe it is time for a change if POE wants to actually grow. games that grow dont need to tell anyone that they grow. you can see it from space.

Or game would just die after such "changes" because most people would just leave. This is much more likely tbh.

"

business wise POEs market shrank when they embraced power-creep as their only scaling vector

This is just your opinion though.
I hope GGG are not that stupid to think like that and kill their own game with any changes to clear speed/power creep. It works great as it is and is enjoyable for years since Ascendancy patch. Pre-Ascendancy PoE is dead for good and should never be back.