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

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Essem wrote:

People want harder and harder content. And with that comes a thinning of viable things you can do.

My favorite skill in the game is Cleave believe it or not. But i havent played it in years, because its just not feasible. Its a shame.

ye many good gems just unplayable atm... hope for better

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KillerKrug wrote:

you play a league becasue you want the challenge, so why complain about that you are limited?

Contrary to the way they're named, a 'challenge league' is supposed to be the default way of playing the game instead of 'standard', go figure.

Even when not playing on Challenge League, I'd say the options of the game are far less than you'd think and far easier to mess up if you're not planning things out right. More so when the devs come in to nerf some builds/skills.

I don't know, I like the game but I don't like having to sit there with wiki, build page, and PoB open to make sure I'm doing things right.

I fully agree with OP, but the reason for this whole situation lies outside the game, it all boils down to money.

2 groups of players with opposite needs:

1) "Casual" players, or players who can only play 3-4 hours per week, or players who value exploration over top score chase.

2) Hardcore no-life players, or streamers, playing almost each day to achieve perfect stats, and capable of bending the whole item trade economy to their will with sheer amounts of loot they generate.

For some reason, GGG has decided (only my opinion), that group 2 is what brings them the most revenue, so they cater for these people with the exact measures the OP describes, to keep hardcore players in game as long as possible, constantly shifting balance meta just for the sake of change itself, so these people would have to start the grind cycle all over.

Even when GGG said "bring more of this power to the rest of the playerbase" in 3.16 patch notes, there is almost always a catch, and you would still hit a wall if you attempt to "just" pick some skill, some damage and some health and try to do end-game content with it.

Which makes group 1 to be viewed as freeloaders, not worthy of attention, even though they vastly outnumber group 2. So, nothing is going to change as long as this "business model" is deemed successful.

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Echothesis wrote:

For some reason, GGG has decided (only my opinion), that group 2 is what brings them the most revenue, so they cater for these people with the exact measures the OP describes, to keep hardcore players in game as long as possible, constantly shifting balance meta just for the sake of change itself, so these people would have to start the grind cycle all over.

It's hardly 'for some reason', either their analytics say they bring them more revenue, or they don't. I'm no data analyst and don't have the full set numbers to work with even if I was (no, steam charts and whatever chris says on podcasts isn't a full set of numbers), so I can't really dispute that.

The other way this could have played out is that the analysts say that the numbers are comparable or acceptably lower for group 2, but their views on the game align more with what the group 2 wants from it. Which is also a legit course, it's their game so we can't really tell them what should be their first priority.

A big factor we might overlook are longterm goals, if they expect the market for casual arpgs to become crowded in future, and it might, they could decide they have a better chance of survival as a hardcore offering than just another pew-pew clicker.

Yeah, it's a complicated topic and we don't really have much to work with.

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KillerKrug wrote:

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Xyel wrote:

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KillerKrug wrote:

damm i msut play a different game than...

my mapper doenst have
- any spell suppression
- block
- determination / dreed banner or grace


and still clearing easily high tier content xD


my bosser only have limited block because of rumis but still doing fine aswell



learn to play / build and stick to a build for more than 3h and you get to an better understanding

If you mean the deadeye, then it also runs on a ton of legacy items and an end-of-the-league budget.

That's not exactly comparable to playing a league, which is what people making builds now are overwhelmingly looking for...

you play a league becasue you want the challenge, so why complain about that you are limited?

legacy items arent everything, but are helpful for sure... but why should i limited myself about my own char which i made over 6leagues or more

also its a pathfinder <3, qol >>>> any other acc class

i just cant play anymore without flaskfinder

Because the game wasn't nearly as limited until 3.15.

The general complaint is "this wasn't an issue from 1.0 to 3.14, so maybe we could go back to that."

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OneTwoTimer wrote:

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.

Somebody already said it but I think it illustrates the point how damage works in classic WoW compared to PoE. You do have some multipliers in WoW, but they are pretty conservative. In PoE, it is mandatory to have all the multipliers throuh the roof, or else your build is not gonna cut it.

If the difference was about between 80 and 120 dps you could say both were viable, but the actual scale is anywhere between 100 000 to 100 000 000 dps. Thi

You can't work your way around it at this point, they've got it so deep in the game design.

It's also not viable to use multiple skills in PoE, not really. It's because how those skill slots are reserved for multipliers. And who cares about cc:s if oneshot or being oneshotted is how the game plays out. In fact, GGG must be very wary of offering too much cc to players because some would just use multipliers to cheese all the game with stuns etc. That's why you have these ridiculous 'stun targets for 0.1 second' clauses.