POE Heading to D3 Land...please reconsider

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JoannaDark wrote:

The poster above goin on about D2 drop rates and not finding any HR after 1000s of hours, well. Sucks to be you dude, cause thats a load o BS, at least, for most of us with 1000s of hours, it sure is.

Found HR all the time. Found ONE zod, in all those years, but surely, jah, vex, ber, cham, all fell often enough is you really played like you say you did. Or, maybe your kill ratio was 1 mob every 10 minutes, i dunno.

It is possible that me and my friends were just extremely unlucky. It's also possible that you were extremely lucky. Let's see, I'll use Urlik's data from Diablowiki.



This shows average rune distribution for every million runes that dropped, provided the monster was high enough level to drop it in the first place.



Here's another image that has calculated chance for ANY rune to spawn at "Players 8". The article concludes that for most specs, Cow Farm is the best place to farm for that Zod for example. Unless my math is wrong, you'd need to do around 26000 Cow Farm clears on average before finding Zod.

Now, let's put this into perspective. Suppose we have Javazon with awesome gear, which I believe is the fastest build to clear Cow Level on Players 8. Let's say this takes about 10 minutes on average (remember it's Players 8 solo). Again if my math holds, that's about 4300 hours of straight farming, which translates to a little over 179 days of 24/7 farming. Even for a bot that's a remarkable uptime. For a human however, that's really something. Although you could get Zod from the first cow you kill, you might go for a year of straight 24/7 farming (theoretically of course) without ever finding one, and that wouldn't even be the worst possible luck, just a little unlucky.

If you honest to God say you ever found Zod, I say go buy a lottery ticket next time, because winning that is far more likely than ever finding Zod.

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TheAnuhart wrote:

Wow, I did NOT expect this from you, Charan.
I didn't have you down as a non-trader.

It could have been me writing that, although I differ slightly in that not only would I never buy/trade for gear/gems for myself but I actually wouldn't take anything from anyone for free, even from friends. I'm a bit selfish like that -_- insist on giving but refuse to take (which can actually have a converse effect as far as kindness goes).

I feel exactly the same about the gear drops, too. I can clear a map with considerable quantity, chiseled to +20% Q/R, with Labyrinth, extra champs/rares etc, etc and not even see one rare drop, wtf?

But I kinda disagree with the gem drop.
I LOVE that some gems are drop only, I always find every one eventually and if it means putting off a build or running a slightly gimped one until I do, so be it.
As for the let down when your finished quest offers a few crap gems you already have, I understand this and have myself several quests with the reward still sat there.
This will change somewhat with the massive amount of skills incoming over the next year. At least for a new player that is, the point of 'quest-reward-not-worth-taking' will hit after a longer time. But, it will hit and really, with gems dropping in the world, it is bound to.
Perhaps an alternative reward to gems is in order, as an option?

Curious why you'd have me pegged as a trader. I'm not particularly canny in these matters. I'm a (multi) Diamond supporter, which indicates I'm probably a bit too generous for my own good sometimes, and I donate far more of my time to this forum than any sane man would. All of these add up to a certain lack of common sense as regards self-preservation and self-interest. I spoil the hell out of my (few) friends but if I ever need anything, I sort of hope they'll be there for me too. That is roughly how I operate in games as well. Hasn't been that way recently because most of my in game friends trade like mad and I have nothing for them, but if ever I do, it's theirs. Simple, really.

As for the world-drop gems, I've discussed this with a few devs. They don't 100% agree with me there but they do say that they'd ultimately like no more overlap between the classes as regards rewards. That's very much related to my proposition -- you have to level a Shadow to level XX to get reward Y, which you can only get doing so or by random world-drop.

I know the world-drop only gem thing is probably here to stay, and it works well for PoE, but I personally dislike it.

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Chris DID answer and you just kept on whinging, Kabraxis. There's an official thread for giving feedback/asking questions regarding the manifesto. Use that.

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I'd say 'let's keep this on topic' but to be honest, with as much as Chris has covered in the manifesto so far, it may soon be necessary to just close this thread and refer further feedback to the official manifesto feedback thread.

At least you know Chris will read that! :)

I can clearly understand why the OP stats that PoE is going to D3 Land by my own experience of the game.
The further I progress in this game -- The less rewarding it gets -- and that´s just D3.
I mean the enemies get harder - you get the resistance loss in cruel - you get the experience penalty on death, but the loot you get is not responding to that.
When I played with all my 6 characters through normal it was fun till I entered act 3 from there on i got quite some deaths due to desynch and damage spikes dealing unique mobs and okay, i mean killing Andariel the first time wasn´t quite easy for certain characters as well, to draw the line to D2 for example.
So, what´s the point?
The point is that you were rewarded for your efforts in D2 cause you could be sure that at least something interesting would be dropped.
Compared to that PoE goes a quite similar way as D3 trying to make gamers rush through difficulties to get to a more rewarding endgame.
Since i entered mid act 3 in PoE normal i couldn´t find any more uniques and the currencie drops lessened and lessened.
So, I decided to go to cruel and see if it would get better and it didn´t.
I mean going with a 39 duelist into fetid pool dieing three times and after killing the Necro being left with some white trash no orbs no gems---no thanks! I mean 22.5% experience loss and nothing in your hands but the rare from Tarkleigh.
That´s quite like killing Leoric in Nightmare and getting two to three blues thrown at your feet.
Sometimes I think the devs have to pay the gooddies from their own salary. I sure will stay in this game for a while but if it´s not getting more rewarding it won´t be worth my time.
Everybody knows this game is open Beta and it doesn´t cost you a single buck right now, but I´m not a 24/7 China Farmer and there are lot more rewarding games out there. Funny thing most of them are quite much older.

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Charan wrote:

Another issue regarding reward is world-drop-only gems. They're cool in concept but they really do lock away certain builds (and thus certain power) to those who trade aggressively or get really lucky. I'm neither. I love the idea of gems dropping but also feel that six classes should be enough to distribute them such that none are world-drop-only, all are assigned to a class. This way, if I want that multistrike or chain, I can either aggressively trade for it, get lucky OR level the appropriate class to the required quest reward and mule it. Skill-certainty certainty should be guaranteed for builds, if indeed it is not for all other items.

I accept that grinding for a 6L is a massive undertaking, especially one with great stats. I accept that 'crafting' in this game is the big grind and I don't mind that.

But when I finish a quest and none of the gems are even vaguely interesting to me, I feel cheated. Conversely, some classes get 3-4 great gems per quest and I'm left stuck choosing one.

I think allocating those wicked world-only drop to higher level quest rewards, one or two per class, would go a long way in returning some semblance of reward for play, not to mention class choice.

I agree that the way skill gems are currently awarded in the quest rewards is quite stifling.

I always thought that having the gem quest rewards dependent on class was a little odd in a game where all other items are basically classless. I understand that some skill gems are more tailored to the typical play style of a particular class, but so are armor choices, yet armor rewards are generally not this way.

I think that a better solution would be to allow the choice of any gem as a reward for quests that give gems. With a section in the reward dialog that suggests "recommended gems" for your class. This allows for both advanced customization by experienced players while retaining a tutorial of sorts for newcomers.

Having to run up a class that I don't intend to play only to get the gem I need is frustrating.

Perhaps the intent was to preserve trading of gems, but that can easily be retained because these are all basic gems. The quality gems would still preserve any trading potential.

I do like the idea of world drop only skill gems or support gems, but I think that that idea would be better served by introducing new or classifying some existing specialized gems as "unique".

But not basic skill gems that I may want to try out a new build but are unavailable unless I trade or run up an unwanted character.

I honestly see little harm in placing a gem vendor if you don't want gems to be available for every reward

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Charan wrote:

As for the world-drop gems, I've discussed this with a few devs. They don't 100% agree with me there but they do say that they'd ultimately like no more overlap between the classes as regards rewards.

Then why overlap regarding the passive tree? Wouldn't that line of reasoning suggest that certain areas of the tree be locked out unless you have leveled a particular class to a certain level?

Unless I misunderstand what you mean.

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veet wrote:

I agree that the way skill gems are currently awarded in the quest rewards is quite stifling.

I always thought that having the gem quest rewards dependent on class was a little odd in a game where all other items are basically classless. I understand that some skill gems are more tailored to the typical play style of a particular class, but so are armor choices, yet armor rewards are generally not this way.

I think that a better solution would be to allow the choice of any gem as a reward for quests that give gems. With a section in the reward dialog that suggests "recommended gems" for your class. This allows for both advanced customization by experienced players while retaining a tutorial of sorts for newcomers.

But not basic skill gems that I may want to try out a new build but are unavailable unless I trade or run up an unwanted character.

This

You get to swim in all kinds of gems eventually, but to get there you're kinda stuck with less gem-intensive builds or trading. And I don't really see the difference between buying a gem from vendor or from other player, except maybe that you tend to overpay it if the gem is currently in high demand, just recall the ridiculous prices for non-quality chain, and reduced mana is still too expensive considering it's a quest reward.

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Alhoon wrote:

Again, my personal opinion is that Diablo 2 was so broken balance-wise that ultimately your gear did not matter. Sure it's nice to have Enigma for your Hammerdin but that's only for Teleport. Sorc could solo the whole game without a single peace of gear and do that relatively fast too. On the other hand, some specs like melee Assassins or non-WW melee Barbarians for example were outright terrible and no Breath of the Dying could save them.

This is besides the point he was making though. D2 was definitely broken "balance" wise, but it didn't really matter. The point being made was that it was possible to complete (and by complete you can even include Baal/Cow runs) with self found gear.

Obviously there were broken classes like Sorcs, and other classes who were less gear dependant than others, but the point being made is you could complete the game with self found gear unless you were being ridiculously retarded in your build

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deteego wrote:

Obviously there were broken classes like Sorcs, and other classes who were less gear dependant than others, but the point being made is you could complete the game with self found gear unless you were being ridiculously retarded in your build

If by "completing the game" you mean kill Piety on Merciless this also applies to PoE, which I know by having personally done so at the start of open beta. Granted I had closed beta experience and planning, and I wasn't particularly lucky with drops either.

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veet wrote:

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Charan wrote:

As for the world-drop gems, I've discussed this with a few devs. They don't 100% agree with me there but they do say that they'd ultimately like no more overlap between the classes as regards rewards.

Then why overlap regarding the passive tree? Wouldn't that line of reasoning suggest that certain areas of the tree be locked out unless you have leveled a particular class to a certain level?

Unless I misunderstand what you mean.

The passive nodes affect a variety of skills, so some overlap is more than fine. This allows for theoretical (if not always practical) build diversity within any given class.

But the skill overlap to me has the opposite effect on build diversity between (not within) classes. If the quest reward offerings between any two classes are, say, 40% the same, that's hardly promoting diversity between the classes.

This comes back to something I said long ago that while there is a great deal of diversity between characters, there really isn't that much between classes. Take the Meleemancer from D2, for example. In order to be melee-viable, he tapped Bone Armour and certain curses that no other class could touch. His method of melee was totally different to, say, an Amazon's or a Barbarian's. This is not me asking for skills to be completely locked away -- just offered as preferences. For example, I felt Whirling Blades should be a signature Shadow skill, and campaigned to have it offered to Shadows first, and at lower level. If Whirling Blades were never offered to another class as a quest reward, they COULD get it via muling/trading/random drop, but wouldn't naturally be offered it. The option is still there, but the encouragement by the game is not.

This is what I mean by 100% different skill gem rewards. That is, as I see it, the quickest and clearest path to stronger class definition without locking off any options.

The biggest hurdle is, of course, short term races. If these unique skills aren't properly balanced, everyone will just pick the class/es that give the most useful skills.

But as GGG continues to add skill gems, there is more and more potential for separating the rewards and approaching true class diversity through them.

So far, this isn't what we're seeing -- every new gem added is being offered to just about every class. I don't know if this GGG's way of getting everyone to test the skill -- likely so -- or if it's permanent. Well, with no more wipes, might as well be permanent, I suppose.