POE Heading to D3 Land...please reconsider

Playing all available characters simultaneously is the way I play arpgs since the invention of shared stashs, therefore maximizing useful drops, which means that I proceed with one character to a certain point of the game, then start the next one.

Don´t really know why devs in the last years refer so much on trading systems, if it was to improve community life, well, then after all there is at least a positive thought behind it.

But if you look at any forum of any arpg you will always have a loot discussion when devs are focusing on "working economys" because this will in any case mean that the droprates fail the expectations of everybody who wants to progress in a selffound way but isn´t interested in trading.

That is just the way why my avatars in D3 are all stuck in nightmare, not because I hit a wall of monsters being too tough to handle, but because the game got boring in relation to finding useful stuff.

So, the fear is that PoE will go just the same way, useful drops lower and lower as you proceed in the game and don´t respond to the time spent nor to the experience penalties on death which you face quite often due to the massive desynch while playing melees.

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Singulon wrote:

Don´t really know why devs in the last years refer so much on trading systems, if it was to improve community life, well, then after all there is at least a positive thought behind it.

Well this is the thing.

Game developers focus on, to a large extent, what is good for community, this includes group play and trading. Group play is always incentivised and trading promoted, both because it's a lot better to have a bustling interactive community than it is to have servers full of people just doing their own thing in their own bubble, right?

Where I have issues here, is not that I'm against trading, community interaction or group play, it's that I see no reason to promote these artificially.

If I want to group, I'll group, I don't want to group because there is a purposely created incentive, I want to do it because I want to, and I want the people I group with to do it for the same reason. If I want to communicate with fellow players, I want to do it because I like communicating leisurely, for pleasure, not for business.

There's a saying 'uncomfortable silence', I always say, the only thing uncomfortable about a silence is the created discomfort in the thinking that one must be making a noise -_-. I prefer 'if you have nothing to say, stay quiet'.

Crafting and loot hunting will always be trumped by trading in a completely free trade economy.
It doesn't help that loot out of your ilvl reach, can roll top mods for its ilvl and be equipped at a lvl 80% of its ilvl as long as the 'white equip lvl' wasn't higher than your lvl.
This isn't helped with the fact that a lot of 'BiS' rare items (items with the most potential) are actually lower white equip items, dropped in high areas. So these will always be the BiS rare, Thicket Bows, Astral Plates, etc.

The irony here (is it irony? ahh wtf) is that one of the few times crafting can be seen as viable, is for say a lvl 62 player to craft with a white ilvl 77 Thicket Bow, get top mods and have the equip lvl be 80% of that. What's bad, is that the only way the lvl 62 player can get this is to buy it from another player. Crafting with a white Thicket that drops in the content the lvl 62 player can do, will never roll the high mods.

But I digress, what I was really wanting to address, is the side effects of what is seen as 'good for the community', free trade.. which inevitably results in either very poor and limited viability crafting, or RMT/botting issues, or a bit of both.

It may not be what the community and developers want to hear or to accept, but the downsides of free trade always outweigh the positives, for the community and the game on the whole.

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knac84 wrote:

You can complete the game and do endgame content with self-found & crafted gear. You couldn't do that in D3 in release. I have played both games, I could just dream to achieve the same in D3 of what I have achieved in PoE with the same amount of time played (I'm playing PoE way more casual than I played D3 for months).

I just don't see where you are coming from with "you can't get better in PoE", this is not true in my experience at all, but that depends on how you define "getting better". If you define getting better with "rain of excellent rares and uniques" sure you are right, but if you define it with "getting better to complete gradually higher content" is perfectly fine, needless to say this is demonstrated continuously by races. Now as for endgame, that's a total different thing (like access to endgame content, higher maps etc.); it's also arguable the dependence of rng in certain aspects (linking, colouring sockets or finding certain skill gems).

I'm not closed to changes and I also would like to have other leagues which are easier on some aspects (personally I dislike the IIQ/IIR mechanics but I see why it's done like it's done, in theory is a trade off), but changing fundamentally the current leagues would even screw more things, why bother finding stuff when you can just easily trade it for orbs and the gamne is flooded with items, this is a fundamental problem some people fails to address.

There is an ARPG which already has loot like what you are saying, is Torchlight 2, and the player retention and capture has not been higher or better (could be due to other issues though). And this game is not competing with console-like games neither is targeted for that player base.

That's false.

It should read *I couldn't do that in D3 in release*.Because I know personally people that did,including myself and on a Witchdoctor playing from Australia no less.

Crafting was actually pretty good early days and became useless with more patches.

But in any case,It felt pointless creating new characters and the game itself didn't entice me to ever log back in,rather I reinstalled D2 and Titan Quest.

TL2 and POE share similarities but are not the same type of game.One is an ARPG and one is a hybrid (I'll let you guess which is which =P).And yes TL2 suffered from some pretty major bugs and still does to my knowledge (like Embermage level 1 bug)plus IMHO also suffers horribly from how multiplayer and difficulty changing works.

Funny that you mention consoles.... D3 is coming out on console and I intend to buy it and give it a total thrashing on my PS3 after reading the changes to the game for consoles.

On another tangent,I enjoyed D1 on PS1 more than the PC,the whole game was a better experience for the port. Just my opnion,your mileage may vary. =)

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I don't understand why they did this. The consensus on this forum seems to be that the game was more fun and builds were more diverse back in CB, when the mobs didn't hit as hard.

The mobs hit as hard as in CB but in mobs had only around 1/3 of the effective HP(resists etc) and packsizes were smaller, meaning they won't drop dead before they hit you.
You didn't take more damage from chaos also rings and amulets had max 99 Life instead of 79.
So basically new mods shifted the same character builds to higher levels.

X Penetration started at midlevel points where it ends now.

Traps and Incinerate just scale differently so getting hit hurts more.

CB also had their killers. Before 9.12 reflection was 25% before that 100% which killed everybody.
Their were rare/magic suicider mobs.

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In what way are prices for decent items huge?

Because of this fucking Botterboard items going for 3 exalteds(you had currency rewards in CB) now go for 30.
And GGG doesn't really care about those botterboard trash. How likely is it somebody uses the same really uncommon account name and the botterboard account is far older....
I want my own league with basemechanic table/skill tree edits and issues like the botterboard will be dealt with the league name and an external memory scanner.

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GGG is NOWHERE near as bad, you're not seeing (or at least i haven't seen) the "aren't you thankful" level of crappy decisions, and self assured rubbish?

I'm all for pushing a dev team to look at their mistakes and irrational crap, but GGG don't actually currently deserve it. IMHO. They're not idiots, their drops COULD do with work in terms of rates, but it's HARDLY on the level of garbage other mmo's are on currently :/

Well Blizzard problem was they did false advertisement claimed their game is a masterpiece and patched their game to get profit from the RMAH.
But the RMAH destroyed the game simply because it worked like that:
One player sells an item for a high price, then buys a cheaper item for himself and the next player repeats.
The droprates were poor too so D3 got reduced to a market simulation. I caught myself using the AH far more than playing.


GGG damaged a good game like in CB due many changes on OB making it a Grindfest and not caring enough for major problems.
Maybe taking the last 2 1 week races in CB too much of a basis but the Top30 players there had double or more playtime of earlier CB 1 week Races Top 30 players.

The idea of an almost inaccessible endgame was the worst decision by far.
I already wrote my feedback on mapdrops 5 days after OB launch.
Found some maps? Good stay on maps.
No maps-->Fuck yourself and visit 62-64 areas for weeks.

Vendorreceipe nerfs trashed the crafting factor or the game so crafting got far too expensive.

Affix changes and stealth nerfs on items moving the same content to a higher level were also a poor decision.

Heavily defensive mobs and high hp mobs with worse expprogression slowed down the gameplay

Then there were several changes which affected drops indirectly like large chests, fillering(meaning players get shit drops instead of normal drops),removing WPs so you have to walks more.

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Another balancing thing that would need to accompany it is increase the HP of most mobs from mid to high level, it's way too easy to kill them even without investing on damage(with some builds) and it would get worse if the quality of items increase for most of the population.

No it means those skills need to be fixed.
Beartrap and EK are skills which can be pushed to 10k damage without much effort, via Hatred and AddedFire Damage.
FP comes with 2 support gems already as skill property(Pierce and Point Blank)

Another thing that needs to be fixed it Weapon Elemental Damage.
Either Physical needs to be 3 times more effective or WED must be scaled down to 1/3 of its power.

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Game developers focus on, to a large extent, what is good for community, this includes group play and trading. Group play is always incentivised and trading promoted, both because it's a lot better to have a bustling interactive community than it is to have servers full of people just doing their own thing in their own bubble, right?

This is MMO talking.
Balance is the main thing they got their focus on.
Especially in dev supported RTS games you got balance patches every week.

Sure you got alpha here but where is the point if some alphas only want advantages in races give their feedback to keep that advantage and others are far too inactive.

If you got poor balance you end up in D2 where several teams did the balance and a PSN Nova nec with perfect EQ was still weaker than a hammerdin wearing nothing.
The main D2 issue weren't drops but high runes it was the balance after LoD release.

PoE got issues on both areas. Game requires far too much time investment to find EQ and there are heavy balance problems for example LA is still cheap on 6 links, while other good skills already have triple costs as 4 link and other skills totally suck.
Physical being too ineffective and other skills having too unbalanced damage scaling/too many advantages.

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BearCares wrote:

Just want to say that I would prefer crafting over trading. If somehow the balance of the economy could shift where crafting was more viable I'd appreciate that. Right now I have to beg people to pretty please let me buy a Soul Mantle for less that 20 pure exalt. i'd rather just find a way of crafting my own.

Never happen.

Crafting materials is the currency and currency doesn't grow on trees.

I think we're expected to hoard and hoard and hoard in this game (the environment is good for selling stash tabs heehe) and then when/if we find/buy that item we really want,you may just have enough currency/craftables left to actually make it usefull.Maybe

Well, just did a little experiment with my L44 witch, brought her back from cruel Forest encampement and did normal difficultie from the terraces on till killing Merveil.

Outcome so far 1 chaos 2 low level uniques(quiver and amu) lots of blues and yellows, had to open 2 TP´s after Merveils death to bring out all the stuff, some other alt aug orbs, without the ones I got from vendoring magics and rares.

Point is I´ve seen more stuff like in a week´s play from mid act3 with all my other characters and that is really a shame.

I mean one run through act 1 normal gives you more stuff than making the same run in cruel with no risk, my minions kill those underleveled Mobs so fast that you even don´t have desynch, and if there was desynch it would have no influence because those mobs can´t deal significant damage.

Is this the way this game is meant to be played, getting more currency by slaughtering underleveled helpless mobs, instead of progressing further in the game?

This is the best feedback thread I've ever read on these boards.

This game turned into a total grindfest since OB started. Terrible drops, crafting is way too expensive and I'm tired of having to dedicate 30% of my nodes to HP. I'd love to want to play it again, and I'll keep checking the boards to see if there's been improvement, but I gotta say I don't see a lot of point playing until the mechanics get fixed.

But at any rate, I put as much time in it as I do many commercial games, so I guess I got some money's worth out of my donations. Too bad, I had really high hopes for this game.

Solo self-found player here. Agree 100% with OP. Read about 20 pages of this thread.

Would like:
* Better drops
* Progressive, non-destructive crafting (not the gambling system we currently have)
* More interesting stuff to find.

Absolutely loved PoE in the early days (hence the generous donation) when I didn't understand the implications of some of the game systems. I really hope GGG can turn things around.

Haven't lost the will to play completely yet but I do feel that "wall" looming.

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obadonke wrote:

* Progressive, non-destructive crafting (not the gambling system we currently have)

Right here. I been saying this forever. The crafting in this game is bad atm. Its totally turned me off since OB began, in fact i cant remember the last time i logged into POE now. Its been several weeks.

I mentioned this to many before, but the crafting that alot of people praise so higly in this game, is imo, ultimately, one of its biggest failures.

Theres obviously people out there that like it, they enjoy the pain it seems. But alot of us dont like the casino crap shoot rules that it follows. Diablo 3 had this very same problem, and the public recognized the issue right away, so Blizzard responded by adding recipes with controlled properties. This doesnt mean that rng cant still be used, it just lets players feel satisfied somewhat, by producing an expected minimal, whereas the reverse is what happens here in Wraeclast.

Posted this countless times before in these threads, but once again, i reiterate.

Look to diablo 2 crafting. It was controlled, with a splash of RNG included as well. This is a far more rewarding system, and makes the pla0yers feel at least somewhat fullfilled, as they got at least, a minimal base of what they were after.

Cast / Safety / Blood. Arreat Summit.

Anyways , i dont think theres a whole lot more can be added, alot of things have been discussed. Hopefully GGG finds some middle ground where everyone can be happy, but we all know its impossible to please everyone. Guess we just see what side of the fence we land on.

Amazing post. I didn't think it was possible to see such good feedback on these forums, because I thought it would quickly turn into a flame war based around the "go back to D3 then, you entitled scrubs" sentiment that can seem prolific on these boards sometimes. It's nice to see the best members of this community continuing to contribute their thoughts towards constructive ends (Moosifer, Courageous, Scrotie, etc).

I got into closed beta, but didn't play too much because I didn't want to get invested in any characters that I would lose, but have been playing a lot since the start of OB; therefore I cannot comment on any perceived difference between CB and OB drop rates. I can however agree completely with the fact that overall the loot in this game is not rewarding in the slightest. Most of this has to do with the fact that this game seems more ingrained with RNG on top of RNG than any game I have ever played before; the biggest culprit being the gambling system that is orbs.

Not only are good drops from monsters rare despite the rather decent volume of rare drops in this game (because of the huge range of possible stats and stat spreads, it's too easy for a decent item to be ruined by one or two garbage stats like +2 thorns), the orb system ranges from godly to item ruining in terms of what it can add to an item, and those orbs themselves drop way too infrequently, even with a ton of IIQ. I went from playing three characters to the high 50's with no IIQ at all, to leveling two characters to the same extent with over 100% IIQ, killing everything on every map + some farming, and the only difference I noticed was SLIGHTLY more Alteration/Transmutation/Augmentation drops.

I feel compelled to use the same IIQ item set that I purchased on every character I play (or else I feel like I'm screwing myself), yet the rewards for doing so are hardly apparent. I restrict myself to MF stats just to try to get some return, yet I don't. This is a huge issue.

So what we have is a game where:

- Good loot from a base standpoint is rare despite the acceptable volume of drops

- The orb system for attempted upgrades is constrained by really low drop rates on orbs

- Above system is further constrained by the insane spread of godly to garbage stats and values it can add to an item, which seemingly has no correlation to orb rarity (an insanely rare exalted can still very easily screw you with +1 thorns or +4% fire resist)

- Sockets, links and socket colors are essential to this games extremely good gem system, yet this system too is a huge RNG based grind/orb sink; where just like with stats, you'll often degrade an item far more frequently than upgrade it (spend 100 fusings to get a 4 link on a 6 socket going for a 5 or 6 link, the next 100 fusings bounce you around between 2 and 3 links, thus degrading the item and wasting your orbs utterly, still without attaining a 5 or 6 link)

- High level map drop rates, even the end game is dictated by RNG, which I have never seen in any game EVER

- Upgrading maps is essential and yet is ANOTHER huge orb sink, further compounding the heavily flawed orb system

Any one of these things by themselves might be fine in principle, but not all of them; particularly because they feed into one another and create a cluster-fuck of RNG that makes so much of playing this game feel like nothing but rolling dice that are loaded against you over and over. It's not fun, it doesn't feel progressive at all, it makes people feel like simpletons with little power other than to pull the arm of the slot machine again, and it will burn most out fast.

Overall it is easy to see why many people don't even bother to use orbs unless it's the lower level ones, or they're 70+ and have to on maps, or have 1-2 pieces of good gear worth burning orbs on; the risk vs. reward is way too lopsided. So orbs get hoarded and used as currency in the bartering system, except now the economy is drifting towards no one wanting anything except obscene amounts of GCP/Chaos and Exalts, even for mediocre items, which combined with the stone age trading system of this game is another issue (the economy + trade system) that I won't get into, and am frankly not equipped to.

Furthermore, little bonuses like "Wealth" mobs and "Large Chests" are also flawed; the former being even rarer than exalted orb drops, and the latter basically nine times out of ten being a box of whites and scrolls. Overall it makes a game where despite the fact that playing it is VERY fun in terms of combat and skills, the gear drops and gear modification system, combined with the bartering system, is all a huge, gigantic can of RNG stacked on top of RNG, stacked on top of very low drop chances, stacked on top of more RNG, with a side of frustration and time sink.

This is extremely demoralizing and off-putting to anyone except the sorts of people that are somehow able to robotically grind 8+ hours a day with little return without any complaint (every game will have these people, and they should never be the subset of players that games are balanced around), or the people that by the grace of the gods got two exalted orbs and a Dream Fragments on their first run through Normal, and so the system is "fine" to them.


Then come the combat issues; which can be summed up as "things hit WAY too hard, spike too often, and life trumps all". I won't get into this however as this issue seems to be more recognized by the devs, and is a much simpler fix (nerf mob crit chance and crit modifiers, make charge type attacks avoidable, fix desync, fix melee survivability somehow).

This game is amazing, and it really makes me happy to see that the world of video games is being saved by indie developers. I'm 29 and have been playing games heavily since the original NES, and I'm one of those people that is of the opinion that the industry has become way too corporate, way too focused on the end goal of making a profit and less on the art and quality of creating a great product that genuinely deserves to make a profit. I play far less games than I used to in the 90's and earlier in this century, partially because I'm an adult now, but also because games just aren't the same; one example being what I see as the fall of Squaresoft as a company that made GREAT games like Xenogears, Final Fantasy Tactics, Vagrant Story, etc, into a mindless FF cloning machine for the sake of maximizing profit and nothing else.

The death of companies like Black Isle, Troika, and the degradation of Blizzard, the nickle and dime philosophy of DLC, the list goes on. I'm cynical, but companies like GGG give me hope that I can keep being a huge gamer for a long time to come, and so I say the above not because I want this game to be some easymode D3 clone, and because I'm some entitled "scrub", but because I think they need to balance vision with practicality, and I know gamer psychology, and as things are this game will NOT flourish at all, and will eventually become extremely niche and for the compulsive and fringe hardcore if some things aren't changed. I've already spent over $60.00 on this game, and plan to spend more, as I love the game and I want it to succeed, so I really hope GGG can take serious note of this thread and not just pay lip service to it like Blizzard would (I spent 6 years playing WoW and haunting their forums, I'm very familiar with how they operate in this regard).