Unfair advantage

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

I'm not sure I'd have supported GGG had I known how happy they would later be to let players handle some of the most crucial aspects of the game. Had I known just how much of a popularity contest it was going to become, and the power the winners of said contests would wield.

I don't think they are particularly happy about letting players handle all of this, they just can't commit. Chris and the senior development team have a vision that is, in many aspects, at odds with the way the game was in its most popular iterations. In my opinion, most of the things "player handle" are things that GGG didn't want in the game in the first place (at least in its current form), but they don't have the guts to fully axe it, yet have too much hubris to embrace it.

And look what happens when they try to enforce their vision. They make a huge mess, because they sincerely believe that they can just undo many years of their game going in a direction different to their vision in one or two patches. You need an extreme ego to think that you could pull something like this off, when the game is so complex that the developers can't predict even half of the potential implications and interactions of major, sweeping balance changes (and there were numerous examples of that in the past). But I guess that in the back of their minds they realise that if they do things like this with trade and screw up in a big way (which is likely), their play numbers will tank like never before and will probably not recover, SSF players cant sustain this game.

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MECHanokl wrote:

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

I'm not sure I'd have supported GGG had I known how happy they would later be to let players handle some of the most crucial aspects of the game. Had I known just how much of a popularity contest it was going to become, and the power the winners of said contests would wield.

I don't think they are particularly happy about letting players handle all of this, they just can't commit. Chris and the senior development team have a vision that is, in many aspects, at odds with the way the game was in its most popular iterations. In my opinion, most of the things "player handle" are things that GGG didn't want in the game in the first place (at least in its current form), but they don't have the guts to fully axe it, yet have too much hubris to embrace it.

100% agree with that. And they've said as much with the way the trading websites have evolved over the years.

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MECHanokl wrote:

And look what happens when they try to enforce their vision. They make a huge mess, because they sincerely believe that they can just undo many years of their game going in a direction different to their vision in one or two patches. You need an extreme ego to think that you could pull something like this off, when the game is so complex that the developers can't predict even half of the potential implications and interactions of major, sweeping balance changes (and there were numerous examples of that in the past). But I guess that in the back of their minds they realise that if they do things like this with trade and screw up in a big way (which is likely), their play numbers will tank like never before and will probably not recover, SSF players cant sustain this game.

100% disagree with this. The game is built around knowing only one thing about the next patch - there will be power creep. They didn't manage it well and at some point realized that, unlike WoW, they can't just 'do a stat squish' and carry on as normal.

There is way too much content to squish, and way too many mechanics that are unique and obtuse. You could make a case for cutting things that don't squish well, but how many of those are either user created items or core parts of the game that, if you call 3.15 a huge mess, you would call an apocalypse if you saw the alternative way out. They needed to do more nerfs honestly. And the other half of the coin is less power creep. Not none - the game needs some to get many players to come back. But things like 1.0 Shaper stat sticks, ascendancies, conqueror mods, cluster jewels were too much for one patch.

Or at least they are when everything goes core at 100% power. They finally started to change this with cluster jewels going core but with nerfs. Remember when they nerfed abyss jewels long after abyss league? Those nerfs should have been immediately after. (released 3.1, nerfed 3.7 btw).

Everything they add should be enough power creep to get the people juiced up to play again, SHOULD RETAIN ITS STRENGTH AS LEGACY ITEMS THAT GO TO STANDARD, and then be rolled into the core game at something like a 4% power creep instead of a 40% power creep. I think they get that now.

^

That's bullshit.

GGG spent many leagues driving the zoom-zoom, and putting power creep on an express elevator.

You cant introduce leagues with timer mechanics, or complain in Blight that monster were "living to long and causing performance issues", and say the game is moving too fast.

You cant introduce influence mods and elevated mods, combined with delve, betrayal, and essence crafting and then cry about power creep.

This is a development shitshow, and the massive hubris shown in this past league lead to a significant player exodus.

GGG has no one to blame but themselves, both for their development strategy and their incredible ego on what they think players should enjoy in the game.

All in All a brutal fall from grace.

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MECHanokl wrote:

Chris and the senior development team have a vision that is, in many aspects, at odds with the way the game was in its most popular iterations. In my opinion, most of the things "player handle" are things that GGG didn't want in the game in the first place (at least in its current form), but they don't have the guts to fully axe it, yet have too much hubris to embrace it.

And look what happens when they try to enforce their vision. They make a huge mess, because they sincerely believe that they can just undo many years of their game going in a direction different to their vision in one or two patches.

By 2012, having a vision of a game that ignores the impact of the internet to generate web apps to coordinate player cooperation, is like building a roller coaster that ignores the impact of gravity. If their vision of a 2010s ARPG didn't include poe.trade, their vision was objectively wrong, as in there was no reality wherein this wasn't going to happen, and nothing could ever force the opposite, not with one or two patches and not with one or two thousand patches.

I think it's kind of embarresing that GGG relies on third-party apps/sites to handle several vital aspects of the game when it comes to trading, planning, calculations and seeking information. It's even more embarresing that they are using those community-created "tools" as a factor in their balance.

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sbowen223 wrote:

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

What I find most interesting, and I bet GGG are quite fascinated by this too, is a game that so mercilessly promotes selfish play and trade interactions has resulted in a thriving social scene...one built almost entirely on the notion of mutual benefit sans any real sense of allegiance or moral imperative. It's a staggering achievement but one that leaves me ultimately depressed in how easily it seems to bring out the worst in people.

Yeah, it’s called capitalism. I don’t know what you think trade is supposed to be? But that’s exactly what it is to me. Two consenting individuals agreeing on transaction on a per basis. No moral or loyal component whatsoever. Can’t call it the worst in people when there is nothing to judge.

See I was going to use the C word but I don't dare risk it these days. It's technically a political term whose usage invokes another C word, one much closer to GGG's beating red heart. And I don't want to be the sort of C word who does that.

But sure. Lets just pretend I didnt spend several paragraphs very obviously not saying it or, obliquely, condemning it in this particular context.

____

Mecha: agree. Not much to add. I know, its a fucking miracle!

Phrazz: and yet other games do exactly that and not only get away with it, but actively work with the community. Think Elite Dangerous here. Utterly impossible to do even basic trading or ship build craft without several extremely good player made web resources. So what is the difference? My gut says its something to do with the in game systems being much more robust to begin with.

I think my bottom line is I just hate trade in arpgs. I think it was fine when it was sort of a player driven thing that the developers largely ignored (most of d2s heyday) but as SMB said you can't ignore the changes from then to now. And GGG really did. They wanted to recapture the D2 trading experience but failed to properly 'remake' it. So you get this solo experience deeply reliant on interacting with others outside of actual 'party' play. I find that...repulsive.

And thats why I play 'inferior' single player offline arpgs

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Tainted_Fate wrote:

i suggest playing ssf and not giving a [censored] about anyone.
trade league is a huge cesspool where nothing matters. abusers, botters, rmts, tft services, anything could be bought, everyone could be boosted.

Spoiler

https://www.twitch.tv/empyriangaming/clip/TentativeBigMetalKlappa-RBkYGxw7hO08Mms3
https://youtu.be/u_w8v3WIZg0

Ehhh
SSF aint really an option for new players. This is only something for folks who have been playing for a long time. I do hear what yer saying tho

I have NEVER EVER done TFT, didn't even know there was a server for it.

Fuck the power trippers anyway, they are the ones who bitch the most when their shit gets nerfed and they can't take advantage of some loop whole anymore anyway...

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

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sbowen223 wrote:

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

What I find most interesting, and I bet GGG are quite fascinated by this too, is a game that so mercilessly promotes selfish play and trade interactions has resulted in a thriving social scene...one built almost entirely on the notion of mutual benefit sans any real sense of allegiance or moral imperative. It's a staggering achievement but one that leaves me ultimately depressed in how easily it seems to bring out the worst in people.

Yeah, it’s called capitalism. I don’t know what you think trade is supposed to be? But that’s exactly what it is to me. Two consenting individuals agreeing on transaction on a per basis. No moral or loyal component whatsoever. Can’t call it the worst in people when there is nothing to judge.

See I was going to use the C word but I don't dare risk it these days. It's technically a political term whose usage invokes another C word, one much closer to GGG's beating red heart. And I don't want to be the sort of C word who does that.

But sure. Lets just pretend I didnt spend several paragraphs very obviously not saying it or, obliquely, condemning it in this particular context.

____

I think my bottom line is I just hate trade in arpgs. I think it was fine when it was sort of a player driven thing that the developers largely ignored (most of d2s heyday) but as SMB said you can't ignore the changes from then to now. And GGG really did. They wanted to recapture the D2 trading experience but failed to properly 'remake' it. So you get this solo experience deeply reliant on interacting with others outside of actual 'party' play. I find that...repulsive.

I think video gaming is the appropriate playground for the opposites of real life. In video games we take on dragons with pointy sticks; in real life we're hesitant to fight a large dog. In games the best way to open a door can be a complicated puzzle; in real life, the simpler it is to open a door, the better. To a large part I play video games to indulge in an aspect of myself that is either partly or wholly inappropriate in real life.

That said, I've never really understood why someone would be disgusted by gameplay that is the opposite of what makes sense to them IRL. In real life we are NOT so hypercapitalist to have haggling occur even after the seller sets their price, which is part of the reason I enjoy it in PoE trading. For any ideology X, the correct combination of aesthetics and hyper-X gameplay can serve as a parody of X. So I'd halfway expect an activist against X IRL to be Kickstarting games where gameplay is hyper-X.

I wrote a bit more here, but it got kinda political so I'm just going to end this here.

Ah, now this is deep. Now we are carving away at the very marrow of Why We Game.

I do not play to escape or to do what I cannot do in real life. I outgrew that long ago -- pretty much when I realised just how often my real life fails to make me sad. So for lack of the escapism, why? Simple: I like experiencing other people's ideas of escapism. Gaming is not visceral to me; it is vicarious. So if something turns me off in real life, it will likely not attract me in a game. This is obviously less a factor in terms of the fantasy: I would be horrified by dragons and zombies and gunplay and dismemberment etc, but naturally these aren't real in game. Contrary to this, human interactions are still real even when they are run through various online filters. Just as I find people largely intrusive and distracting when doing stuff solo irl, i feel the same when it applies in game. Thus I can and do enjoy multiplayer games but do not enjoy solo games with forced multiplayer aspects. I encountered a similar issue in XIV. It desperately wants to be a proper single player FF experience but then it forces multiplayer for the actual action. Rather than find this unifying, I dreaded it. At no point did my Cloud have to deal with ten other people's Clouds; my Class Zero was entirely mine. This sounds selfish or even solipsistic but I do believe FF games are best experienced alone. Not to say I don't enjoy the MMO aspect of XIV. I very much do...when it is not used as a roadblock for story progression.

With PoE, I am faced with even bigger dilemmas. I am not a trader by inclination. Give me a buy now button and I will grind for weeks to afford something I want. I hate haggling. I despise the notion of trying to 'beat' someone when it comes to mercantile engagements. And although PoE promised a setting in which I could pretend otherwise, that didnt happen. As usual, things became far too complicated and personal. Instead of haggling we see accusations of scams and low balling. Ugh. Just fucking ugh.

Maybe it's fine if you are the sort to get a rush out of screwing others over but I am not. Obviously I am a giver, not a taker. Even when trading a buy now in PoE I would slightly overpay just because I figured I could. No harm done. Maybe some good.

And yeah this is all a result of privilege. I get that. I don't have to haggle or bargain or scrimp irl so im probably less likely to be ruthless in a game. I just lack that instinct.

So for a perfectly fine ARPG to then demand it of me is an absolute deal breaker. I can be ruthless IF it is part of the game and everyone playing gets that. But with PoE its not part of the actual game and I don't know when or if I might ruin someone's day ripping them off in a deal. All I know is that they might feel as unhappily forced to trade just to play as I would be.

And that is the great tragedy of PoE for me. Even when I played it recently on ps5 just for a test, I knew the whole time that the ARPG aspect of it was just a facade for a different sort of game, one I could play elsewhere and with far less grief and acrimony.

Such a shame, because PoE will always be the best ARPG ever made. A pity GGG never had the confidence or perhaps the humility to leave it at that, and now it's impossible to see the art without being forced to reckon with the artifice.

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

Maybe it's fine if you are the sort to get a rush out of screwing others over but I am not. Obviously I am a giver, not a taker. Even when trading a buy now in PoE I would slightly overpay just because I figured I could. No harm done. Maybe some good.

And yeah this is all a result of privilege. I get that. I don't have to haggle or bargain or scrimp irl so im probably less likely to be ruthless in a game. I just lack that instinct.

And yeah this is all a result of privilege. I get that. I don't have to haggle or bargain or scrimp irl so im probably less likely to be ruthless in a game. I just lack that instinct.

So for a perfectly fine ARPG to then demand it of me is an absolute deal breaker. I can be ruthless IF it is part of the game and everyone playing gets that. But with PoE its not part of the actual game and I don't know when or if I might ruin someone's day ripping them off in a deal. All I know is that they might feel as unhappily forced to trade just to play as I would be.

And that is the great tragedy of PoE for me. Even when I played it recently on ps5 just for a test, I knew the whole time that the ARPG aspect of it was just a facade for a different sort of game, one I could play elsewhere and with far less grief and acrimony.

Such a shame, because PoE will always be the best ARPG ever made. A pity GGG never had the confidence or perhaps the humility to leave it at that, and now it's impossible to see the art without being forced to reckon with the artifice.

You do understand. Some people see video games as escapism from life, work, homework, deadlines, stress and responsibilities, etc. Some people take their real life into video games, workaholic to a tee, ruthlessness to perfection.

The zoom-zoom gamestyle is really incompatible Dark Souls. Here is GGG Asking stupid question like "Why doesn't everyone want the same thing in life?" Oh They don't. Different video games exist for a reason, you know.