POE Heading to D3 Land...please reconsider

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Undon3 wrote:

PoE is hardcore as in the vision of its creators. What's so hard to understand? The fact that you, or I, consider that vision lame, or supercool, does not change this fact. The devs were hardcore D2 players, this is how they envisioned a "sequel" of sorts, mechanics-wise, and PoE is their creation.
Player opinion on the "hardcoreness" of the game is irrelevant.

The problem is though, that D2 was a far more rewarding and encouraging game than this one, in regards to item drops, and the RNG in that game. If they think the clusterfuck of RNG mechanics that all exacerbate one another, is somehow a tribute to the same sort of hardcore fun that was present in D2, they're delusional. That's why I take comments like "hardcore D2 fanatics, ninja looters" tongue-in-cheek to a certain degree; as it's fine to have that mindset of course, from a philosophical standpoint, but when you're actually making a game in the here and now, and trying to make a profit off of it, things can and will change. And in this case should.

They don't even need to radically re-design this games various systems, they really don't. Any one of the issues being hashed out in this thread can be fixed by value adjustments along a spectrum, and that doesn't mean the end of the world or making the game a loot pinata where everyone and their grandmother has 90 Exalts and a Kaom's. They can keep their vision all the want, they just need to tone it down some compared to how extreme it is now.

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Obsidus wrote:

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Undon3 wrote:

PoE is hardcore as in the vision of its creators. What's so hard to understand? The fact that you, or I, consider that vision lame, or supercool, does not change this fact. The devs were hardcore D2 players, this is how they envisioned a "sequel" of sorts, mechanics-wise, and PoE is their creation.
Player opinion on the "hardcoreness" of the game is irrelevant.

The problem is though, that D2 was a far more rewarding and encouraging game than this one, in regards to item drops, and the RNG in that game. If they think the clusterfuck of RNG mechanics that all exacerbate one another, is somehow a tribute to the same sort of hardcore fun that was present in D2, they're delusional. That's why I take comments like "hardcore D2 fanatics, ninja looters" tongue-in-cheek to a certain degree; as it's fine to have that mindset of course, from a philosophical standpoint, but when you're actually making a game in the here and now, and trying to make a profit off of it, things can and will change. And in this case should.

They don't even need to radically re-design this games various systems, they really don't. Any one of the issues being hashed out in this thread can be fixed by value adjustments along a spectrum, and that doesn't mean the end of the world or making the game a loot pinata where everyone and their grandmother has 90 Exalts and a Kaom's. They can keep their vision all the want, they just need to tone it down some compared to how extreme it is now.

Yes, well.. maybe they will tone it down, maybe they will not...

The thing is, make it more rewarding, and you will go through content faster. There is no other content for you to make you stay afterwards :) New Acts? Pff. Over in a day or two, and there's a big probability that there will never be gear obsoletion, so new Acts might not even bring you new gear to hunt for.

So what's left for GGG to make you stay? How much is enough reward? How much currency needs to drop to encourage crafting, and even more so, how much less RNG in the crafting? What to do with the surplus of good rares in the Default economy, which already is bloated, with no item sink?

And D2, you bought that game. I made this point before. I dunno how rewarding it is compared to PoE, but in PoE, you need to stay as long as possible, to maximise the micro-transactions. This coupled with so little content and no gear tiers and obsoletion (so GGG would have something to keep you playing...) means there's a lot of grind grind grind. And it's not really rewarding too, because you should not be able to grind to fast.

I think the maps are the best example of GGG's philosophy in this area. They are basically nothing but rehashed content, yet they sell them to you like some amazingly rare items, and above this, they make them a huge currency sink as well :)

If GGG won't give you a normal endgame, that your high-level char can play when you want and for how long you want, and make you grind (for currency) to be able to grind (maps...) and so on, my question is:

Do you really expect they will make the game more rewarding?

Think about it :)

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Undon3 wrote:

Yes, well.. maybe they will tone it down, maybe they will not...

The thing is, make it more rewarding, and you will go through content faster. There is no other content for you to make you stay afterwards :) New Acts? Pff. Over in a day or two, and there's a big probability that there will never be gear obsoletion, so new Acts might not even bring you new gear to hunt for.

So what's left for GGG to make you stay?

How about good, well-balanced content and a variety of potential endgame builds? In fact, the lack of reward is actually making players QUIT the game. I've introduced a variety of players into the game. Many of them get one character to endgame maps, get tired of the endless grind for no (or more often, negative) reward, and then stop playing. They have other characters they would LIKE to build, or other things they would like to try, but they can't because they can't afford to and the game doesn't give them enough reason to keep trying.

If GGG wants to retain their players, make their game balanced, their gameplay nuanced and varied (less of this hold right-click to win), and rewards obtainable so people WANT to try making new character ideas and pick new classes. Instead, they seemingly only reward the people who grind endlessly with one character that's decked out with all endgame gear acquired via trade-whoring and lucky drops.

Those are hardcore masochists that would probably stick around regardless of what you do with the game because they have nothing better to do.

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UnderOmerta wrote:

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thepmrc wrote:

Well, here is the dictionary definition of Hardcore used as an adjective since you seem to want to go there.

1. Intensely loyal; die-hard: a hard-core secessionist; a hard-core golfer.
2. Stubbornly resistant to improvement or change: hard-core poverty.
3. Extremely graphic or explicit: hard-core pornography.


1. unswervingly committed; uncompromising: a hard-core conservative.
2. pruriently explicit; graphically depicted: hard-core pornography.
3. being so without apparent change or remedy; chronic: hard-core unemployment.

By these definitions I would say that someone who plays slots all day is most certainly hardcore.... I don't think this definition implies any sort of skill based competitiveness. I would also say that based on the definition of hardcore, poe did not mislabel their game. Me thinks you don't know what hardcore really means.

Yes, someone who plays slots all day would be a 'hardcore slots player.' It does not mean that slots is a 'hardcore game.'

See the difference?

Well, in what way is it not a 'hardcore' game by this definition of hardcore? In what way is PoE not hardcore? In what way is any of this relevant? (hint: its not relevant at all)

A 'hardcore' game can be anything really... as long as it isn't catering to the masses (changing core elements to appease all players), that is, if you base the definition of 'hardcore' off this dictionary definition.. again, its irrelevant.

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UnderOmerta wrote:

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Undon3 wrote:

Yes, well.. maybe they will tone it down, maybe they will not...

The thing is, make it more rewarding, and you will go through content faster. There is no other content for you to make you stay afterwards :) New Acts? Pff. Over in a day or two, and there's a big probability that there will never be gear obsoletion, so new Acts might not even bring you new gear to hunt for.

So what's left for GGG to make you stay?

How about good, well-balanced content and a variety of potential endgame builds? In fact, the lack of reward is actually making players QUIT the game. I've introduced a variety of players into the game. Many of them get one character to endgame maps, get tired of the endless grind for no (or more often, negative) reward, and then stop playing. They have other characters they would LIKE to build, or other things they would like to try, but they can't because they can't afford to and the game doesn't give them enough reason to keep trying.

If GGG wants to retain their players, make their game balanced, their gameplay nuanced and varied (less of this hold right-click to win), and rewards obtainable so people WANT to try making new character ideas and pick new classes. Instead, they seemingly only reward the people who grind endlessly with one character that's decked out with all endgame gear acquired via trade-whoring and lucky drops.

Those are hardcore masochists that would probably stick around regardless of what you do with the game because they have nothing better to do.

- balance is not a priority for the devs. This was one of the most striking and annoying things I have heard from a moderator here (it's obviously not his fault, lol, actually I thank him for posting it)
- yes, lack of rewards is making people quit; I agree. GGG needs to walk a fine line with rewards and grinding. I don't think we're there yet, but a few people enjoy themselves nonetheless
- there is a variety of viable end-game builds. What annoys you is probably the fact that all of them are very defensive :)
- I brought friends too in PoE, and all of them quit
- concentrating on a single skill is pretty common in RPGs that do not force players to take situational skills. PoE forces you only on defence :) so expect a lot of one-button mashing... or holding
- of course GGG wants to retain players; but I doubt modifying the game would do anything but make the guys that are pleased now come and QQ

Really don't understand where all this 'single skill' talk is coming from.

Have people not played D2?

Lets see -->
Sorc --> Frozen orb, maybe a sideline but you pretty much just frozen orb
Barb --> WW, maybe a sideline or a weird frenzy, but its pretty much just WW for dps
Din --> Blessed Hammer, no other lategame mob farmer could beat a hammerdin in D2Classic

Its kinda a basis of the genre now that you should have your one dps aoe skill, that you use. You might occasionally have a single target, but alot of the time youjust mash the aoe for the single target enemy aswell

It's kinda funny, people claim they don't want endless button mashing then whine about lightning thorns that requires you to pay some attention to what you're doing, maybe even (god forbid) swap your skills around. Might be more such encounters in this game's future and then again, maybe the devs will just give up and let everyone just spam their skill of choice to numbness.

And yes, my friendlist is kinda empty at the moment too. The last new guy on it quit a few days ago when his flicker duelist got stuck in act3 cruel, it probably surprised him a bit as the game was 'super easy' until then. He tried a couple of other premade builds before that and they all bogged down at some point or another without good drops. And he was very happy with that duelist, until the difference in progression between gear and enemies hit him. Didn't have much orbs to buy stuff either, I gave him some things but didn't have a terribly good selection myself.

So yeah, you could say the game is 'hardcore' as 'hard to get into', I can only imagine what it feels like to people who don't use premade builds and have nobody handy to help them a bit. When most of us here started to play the game had less content and a gentler curve, after all.

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mushioov wrote:

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Undon3 wrote:

- to alter PoE to work as a reward4skill&dedication based system like WoW would take big cha

And all you who are saying "increase drop rates" etc. How can you not understand simple friggin' economics? IF they increased drop rates, that 6th Orb of Alchemy that just dropped from the rare monster you killed wouldn't mean shit to you anymore at that point, it would be same as finding Orb of Augmentation now! Even all low level upgrades would cost 10-20 Alcs then. IT DOESN'T FIX ANYTHING. So many idiots here who can't understand that basic fact - it just baffles the mind. My point of D3 noobs rampaging here and trying be game designers - failing utterly at everything they are trying to "fix" - still stands.

Wow, way to totally miss the point of the thread. The point is that we don't care about trade value because we don't want to get gear by buying it. We want to have FUN by finding it. And using the orbs we find to craft. POE completely fails at this currrently.

I wanted to point out that I believe there are more paths to "rewarding" than just making the highest powered items easier to find. In my opinion this was one of the secrets of D2. Even at hell difficulty you would find interesting normal and nightmare levelunique and set items that might be for an existing alternate character or with attributes that make you want to try a new build or new approach to the game by using it. When you couple that with the great number of different items you could find and generally how easy it was to farm, you always found cool stuff. Your "mules" were full of cool stuff and none of them required a single piece of currency or a "balanced" economy. It was addictive and fun.

To me, farming a currency and then "buying" a unique is almost the definition of boring. Seriously, you buy something someone else found and that's fun? I don't see that. The game genre has two hooks: character builds and dropped loot. And those hooks should be prioritized over all other game elements. Even if it destroyed the economy, because then all that would happen is that people would have to play the game and find their own stuff. I think the community would be stronger and the game would last longer in that model than the current one.

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thepmrc wrote:

A 'hardcore' game can be anything really... as long as it isn't catering to the masses (changing core elements to appease all players), that is, if you base the definition of 'hardcore' off this dictionary definition.. again, its irrelevant.

Uh, hardcore games can cater to the masses, like Dark Souls did in Japan

The biggest problem with proponents of hardcore in PoE is they have no idea what hardcore actually means