For all the options in this game, why do I feel so limited?

"

Draegnarrr wrote:

Because you are limited OP, the game has a line to ride with difficulty and the harder you make a game the more restrictive it becomes in how its played.

Its their choice where to put that line, Ritual was very very broad in what you could get to work and was also about the easiest we've had it, Expedition on the flip side was extremely restrictive in comparison and almost every build I'd used prior in HC no longer worked without 10x the expenditure.

I will say though that if you think this but play on SC you have no idea just how much can be made to work, you might have to play better but some truly nutty shit works in PoE if you are willing to use some of your 6 portals to enable it and play well enough.

Its all about how many criteria you stack up, everytime you ask for more the pipe get narrower that builds fit through until only a few gems remain.

right. as ever a reasoned out set of observations that gets a little deeper into actually looking at these ideas logically.



where are the goal posts? anyone can just set the goal posts where ever they want to suit an agenda.

where are the devs setting the goal posts? thats what really matters. if youre talking 100% delirious multisextant scarabed map clears in under 60 seconds and beating the maven then you are not setting a goal post for viability at the same place the devs are. if youre setting a goal post and saying this is whats viable, and 99.9% of players have never even played a build that meets that criterial for viability, then thats fine as your opinion of the builds you play. but its in your head, its not a truth about the game, its a truth about how you think and play.


the devs are not using pinnacle bosses, deep delve and aspirational uber content as a bench mark for a viable skill/build/playstyle. those things are added for people who want to min/max what is possible in the game down to the tiniest pinpoint of overperformance, and have been stated as such. given infinite scaling there will be a point at which there is only 1 option that can achieve it. thats not bad game development, thats just an inevitability.

its redundant to talk about the scope of build viability in the game while using that sort of content as a bench mark.

PoE includes material that is supposed to be inaccessible. If you're using that as a standard of success, you're going to be disappointed most of the time.

You can play all sorts of characters and builds... you just can't ask that they all be equally good. Your standards are too high. Thus you feel constrained to play only meta (most efficient tool available). Instead of simply having fun with the game you're trying to beat it. You can have both for a while, but eventually you'll tire of it. Try just having fun for a change.

"

herflik wrote:

It always been like that, either you go full on something or it is useless. POE is just a game of extremes.

Other examples is life stacking - you need to take almost every avaliable passive and jewel slots of even more life. Basicaly 90% of gear pieces need a life then too.

Same goes for resistances - 75% which is game difition of standard max value, but in reality it is the minimum to survive.

Thats why most builds use some mechanics combos like on hit effects, triggers and conversion since they are basicaly huge dmg multipliers - so free stats in comparing to other mechanics.
Same goes for x% hp dmg which is any explosion mechanic or detonate dead - they huge base dmg stats.

There are few defense mechanics like that too - transcendence, life/es on block, life/es on hit.

Imagine needing to build your character in RPG game to survive the content.

PoE is very complex game in character building area, but if you simplification - there are easier games, like D3, LE, etc.

Premade builds that are used in most mmo/overwatch games have the benefit of being balanced at the cost of limited configuration.
That's the price we pay in poe, we get to do anything we want, but only a handful are truely viable in beating the hardest content.

It's hard to redo the entire tree and all the gems to give a clear example,
but I think such balance could be achieved in poe too.

The main problem I think is this:

Monsters have no immunities. Or at least the resistance tags you see on them is trivial. You just specialise in 1 main source of dmg and crank it to 11 x umph.
All a build needs to achieve is as much dmg as possible, because poe monsters only have high life pools.

Imagine if you played vanilla wow with poe custom options.
You would just take a multishot crit ice shot, with fire, permafreezing/slowing mobs while they also burn for massive dmg. Add some minions for aggro.
Most op meta zoomer build. Everyone would play it. Class/skin/racial (ascendancy) choices would just be cosmetic and add some qol flavor.

Every class has their own pros and cons and a fixed playstyle, meaning dmg mitigation. Warlocks have dots/leech/regen, mages massive dmg/aoe/cc, hunters pet aggro/range/kiting, paladins armour/heals... everyone has "their thing", which is somewhat there in poe for each class theme. And usually this is only enforced further due to the long travel cost on the tree, which is the restricting agent in build creativity and viability.

You ever seen a melee witch? No, the weapon nodes are too far near marauder/duelist, and even if you go there your ascendancies uncompatible and you end up with no es/armour. Trust me I tried one, she was a funny heavy metal hipster girl in all plate armous but man did she suck performance wise and was slow. Same with shadow, seen any build that stacks armour? No, it's all across the tree on the marauder side.
The choice we are given is pretty much an illusion.

One solution could be, off the top of my head to:

A) expand every class's ascendancy wheel much deeper.
B) every class starts at the scion in the middle of the tree.
C) make the game less lethal, and more rewarding the more/faster you can kill mobs/bosses.

That would be a huge game changer. You pick a class because of that theme and asc tree. The asc wheel gets a point every time your normal tree does. The expanded asc branches that go deeper have nodes that can take multiple points 5-10 each. Focusing on certain perks will make you perform better in that area be it melee/spell/minions any dmg, but without costing you survivability!

Then you could literally pick any class, make any build you feel is fun to play, and it would still let you clear end content at a moderate pace.

Like a necromancer witch could have "attacks have x% to summon a magical animated weapon on hit" in her asc backbranch tree, only available for her.
Then you go deeper into how many of these weapons can spawn, raise the limit, the duration, the dmg, special elemental or poison mods, etc.
Or a "melee hits grant you a magical es shield bubble for x% of dmg done",
"burning ground from your firetraps can spawn tiny fire elementals that run to enemies and explode", or for occultist "attack hits apply a random curse" and then you pick which one, increase the limit, the effect, side effects like blind, flee, taking dmg over time".

There's literally a million things to do with a deeper secondary asc tree, exclusive to each class, and making the game so any build can perform well.
I think that should be the main thing, letting players "do their thing", create their own 100% unique build and enjoy it without trashing it because "mandatory 10 mill dmg/10k ehp requirement not met".

I mean the short league cycle with streamer hype, copy every 0.1% meta fotm build seems to work in making GGG money but is that really the best version of what the game could offer players? Absolutely not.

"

Bosscannon wrote:

"

grimlock9999 wrote:

The result was evident on these forums. A Huge variety of builds would previously pop up in each class's build section - like dozens per week, and general discussion was often full of people engaged in the actual game itself, rather than people seeking motivation to grind away on once again achieving raw, unsubtle power.

I would never post a good build anywhere nowadays cause as soon as something strong is discovered and becomes popular its "get's looked at" by GGG and 99 times out of a 100 followed up by nerfs that render it a pale shadow of itself.

People literally change their builds in challenge leagues once they're done just to hide what they're playing LOL

"

OneTwoTimer wrote:

You ever seen a melee witch? No, the weapon nodes are too far near marauder/duelist, and even if you go there your ascendancies uncompatible and you end up with no es/armour. Trust me I tried one, she was a funny heavy metal hipster girl in all plate armous but man did she suck performance wise and was slow. Same with shadow, seen any build that stacks armour? No, it's all across the tree on the marauder side.
The choice we are given is pretty much an illusion.

C'mon, a melee witch would work 95% as well as a shadow or templar would, her ascendancies hit pretty broadly. And iron reflexes was hugely popular back when it double dipped, everyone that could reach the keystone was running armor.

We've seen it all over the years. What never happened in PoE history, however, is a few wasted points taking a build from awesome to crap. So just find an awesome melee shadow or templar, if it meshes with witch's ascendancies remake it as a witch and there you go.

But yeah, melee is hardly awesome these days, mostly played by those that love it. And you don't get that much overlap between those that love melee and those that love witches. If melee was strong, some of those that love witches would play it and we'd see more of them.

"

grimlock9999 wrote:

Well said, OP.

Some key reasons as to why I believe creativity died:

1) [Removed by Support] Eg. A few patches back, they doubled the life of all monsters without retuning anything else in the game.
2) Oneshot mechanics, something GGG aspires to keep, are not compatible with all the subtle aspects of the game. Hence, most players look right past subtle interactions like slowing enemies, chill, stun, etc. Players (correctly) reason that when it is kill or be killed in a microsecond, raw stats are all that matter.
3) GGG equate grinding with engagement. Players in POE are willing to grind it out for some reason. The devs look at, for example, a couple of players running the hundreds of beast maps to find a boss fight as a success, when really, they should be looking at the high percentage of players who refuse to grind to that extent as a colossal failure.
4) Jumpscare screen zoom + pack density + screen effects. The high level of zoom is intended to create tension, really all it does is negate any benefits from playing a strategic, ranged style of play after about yellow maps. The pack density forces AOE screen clear builds and the wizz bang screen effects cluttering everything up negate any chance of enjoying playing a targetted build, or one where a player makes decisions about what to target first, or which monster to, for example, curse. Instead, endgame just a stat check - can you blow up the screen fast enough. This playstyle is ubiquitous, regardless of which colour flash (which skill) you use.

It was not always this way. In the past, players used to be able to seek raw power, or try to complete the game using all the interesting mechanics. Players could also choose to spend hours grinding for a piece of gear, rather than this being essential. Spectres are a great example - now there are one or two out of hundreds which are viable. There used to be hundreds to choose from, and even if they weren't OP, your choice of a unique spectre didn't preclude you from participating in 90% of the game Eg. It used to be possible to beat shaper using only Spectral tacticians.

The result was evident on these forums. A Huge variety of builds would previously pop up in each class's build section - like dozens per week, and general discussion was often full of people engaged in the actual game itself, rather than people seeking motivation to grind away on once again achieving raw, unsubtle power.

well put +1

"

grimlock9999 wrote:

It was not always this way. In the past, players used to be able to seek raw power, or try to complete the game using all the interesting mechanics.

That's because of where the power comes from now. Once it was in knowing the specific combinations of readily available items, but knowledge is too easily obtained nowadays so that didn't fly. Now that final 100% more multiplier that your build gets is in obscure items crafted with great expense of patience and currency.

you can make a melee witch, ive seen tons of them over the 9 years of this game. witch was arguably the best melee class in the game back near the start because ghost reaver ci was the best defence, the highest possible melee damage in the game was crit dagger and all the juicy crit dagger nodes were between the shadow and witch. if you were witch you had twice as much hp as a marauder and twice as much damage. from the moment they added melee splash which gave daggers attacks aoe marauder melee was total garbage compared to a witch/shadow and stayed that way for ages.

before they added ascendancy a crit dagger shadow and a crit dagger witch were separated by their starting 5 nodes, the shadow had small damage nodes the witch had small es nodes. if u just wanted all the dps possible u went shadow, a more balanced build would take witch because u take small es nodes, small damage nodes u dont take unless you are pathing to a large damage notable.

you can absolutely make a melee witch right now, crit dagger/claw, the nodes are right there, or you can go dot poison on occultist with boom boom bloom claw or dagger. youd go ci, u can do straight ci or ci with evasion hybrid. thats totally on the table. the fact that its no longer the strongest melee option is actually a good thing, thats a positive change.



you can make an armour shadow too, crit melee again with dagger or claw, evasion gear, like raics is saying iron reflexes, you go down there and take it.

I thing the problem with PoE is summed up with the following;

"You Can.

Why would you want to."

I've played casually on and off, trying to play the game my way somewhat often or even just taking highly praised builds and slightly tweaking them to my preferences/current needs and well...

It's not fun? Because it's not effective, it's not fun.

Going off away from meta can easily lead, especially new or casual players, into paths or choices that just make bosses take waaaaaaay too long to kill or beating bosses out of sheer stubbornness thanks to no heal on death. Let alone actually getting to Maps. It's not fun to win boss fights by throwing your corpse at them 5+ times. And I've DONE that.

I've had several characters I've given up with because they started having problems at act 6-7 or even Act 5 because I'm realizing the build is all kinds of wrong or not effective. And the only way to largely go and fix this is... new character.

Snorkle put it actually pretty well above me but they left out the knowledge of just HOW to make a Melee Witch. I tried one on a whima long time ago, possible when it wasn't a good build, and she just didn't work. Why? Because I did nodes based of what I wanted or needed at the time, without a real sense of planning going into it. My experiment died because my mastery of the systems wasn't good enough. I've had like 10 dead rangers built into bad corners that I couldn't get out of before deleting them and even my most successful ranger only beat Kitava due to no full heal on death. If my experimentations can't get to Kitava without corpse flinging, what's the point of even trying maps?

PoE does give you a lot room and freedom to try new things and experiment but with the time investment needed(Look I take maybe a week or more JUST to get to Maps), why bother trying when you have JUST as much freedom to end up gimping your build in the wrong way and not realize that for a couple hours.

It really does feel that PoE expects a certain level of mechanic mastery before you're allowed to not be limited. The game is just easier to go through if you follow the steps someone else did rather than going off the beaten path and trying to find your own fun. It does not feel designed to allow that freedom to new or casual players.

I could waste the next 5 characters trying to make a bleed build work. Why would I want to when someone far smarter than me made a bleed build that DOES work. I might not like the skill choice or gameplay flow, but it works.

I can do it. Why would I want to?