How do these same rules apply to a game like PoE? I can count with my fingers the number of viable builds that are proven to work in this game and are well known.
You mean the number of cookie-cutter builds? Saying that picking out a cookie cutter build is an expression of curiosity is like saying a mass-marketed designer shirt is an expression of one's unique personality.
The measure of a game's acceptance of curiosity/creativity is how it treats people who go rogue, reject the cookie-cutter, and design their own builds. Sometimes these builds work, sometimes they don't, but they're rarely well-known.
The main difference here isn't a difference in true diversity; it's that players now hold a higher standard for successful builds. For example, Necromancer builds from Diablo 2, circa 2003. You've got everything in there from melee necros to a Dim Vision-centric build... however, by modern standards, the only build on that entire page that's any good is the PvP Bonemancer, and perhaps not even that (you might argue there are no viable Necromancer builds). If this was 2003, a Marauder Leap Slam build would be considered totally playable.
In other words, that "stipulation on sameness" is not on the part of the system; it's on the part of the audience. Today we demand builds that turn an entire screen of monsters into shiny new loot in 2 seconds or less, and then we wonder where the build diversity has gone. Considering the standards we set, PoE actually has a fair number of options.
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ofclouds wrote:
Spoiler
I agree with that post: rules are not inherent obstacles to creativity—they can, in fact produce it—however, there can be implicit designs and consequences because of certain rules which can inhibit creativity or even punish the pursuit. Are you familiar with operant conditioning and positive/negative reinforcement? Learned helplessness? A game whose “rules” give the player a “shock” every time they wander outside of the safe boundary of, in this case, life nodes and broken builds does not help creativity.
Having a giant RNG wall to beat against is actually, in my opinion, more or less that “lawlessnes” that very man addresses. The only rule is chance. How is that a rule? How is PoE's economy structured in such a way that it exhibits conditions that are challenging and rewarding? RNG is not challenging, it's frustrating. RNG isn't a rule you can use wits and determination to triumph over. It's unstructured – there is no prompt to go off of, no recipe. You just keep pulling that lever and pray you don't run out of coins first.
If this were a paid-to-play game, the conditions of path of exile would be laughed into nonexistence; who would pay to be punished for learning how to play the game? Just because this game is f2p doesn't mean it shouldn't aim for the same quality standard of a paid. In fact, it should strive to be even better—to show the world that there are alternative ways of doing business (Take Riot Games for example).
This game doesn't really force anyone into being innovative. It forces you to be cautious, choose health, and pray for currency, pray for luck on drops, pray for luck in crafting. If this game would bother to give itself some rules to go by – say, 1 token per map boss kill (and these can be turned in for gear after x amount) – then the RNG wouldn't be as unforgiving, because no matter what, if I keep moving along, I will eventually get guaranteed improvements, even if it is just the slow-n-sure way. But they won't implement something like that. Why? Because farmers.
You know, there's an easy solution to market poisoning, too: make certain items “soulbound” or “account bound.” Not everything, but items that can be farmed and exploited, certain types of high-end orbs, etc.
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ScrotieMcB wrote:
This is a much better reply.
I actually agree with you about the life node thing being too strong of a rule. That's why I have that suggestion link in my signature. I don't feel there's a true lack of build diversity in Path of Exile, but I do feel there's a lack of different build cores -- pretty much you stack life or you stack ES and the other nodes on the tree get precious little attention.
RNG is indeed not a rule. However, where you decide to stop spinning Ye Old Roulette Wheel can be an expression of your build. I don't think RNG should be lessened -- if anything, they should make even more affixes for even more possibilities and even less of a chance of rolling perfect -- but I do think more care should go into balancing affixes. I think we're beyond things like trolling players with thorns.
However, PoE does force you to be innovative (or at least to copy others who are). If you think about it, the endgame, where you have your perfect gear and your 6L and everything's maxed out... you've done the maths in your spreadsheets, you figured out how to maximize DPS, here it is, mission accomplished... there's almost nothing creative about that. It was all calculation. The really creative part of the game is the journey from level 1 to ideal gear, where you're evaluating items on the spot, determining whether its good enough or needs to be rerolled, and deciding which gems to cut because you can't fit them all in your 4L. That is where the creativity of a PoE player, and his experience with the game's mechanics, actually shine through. It might technically still be a calculation, but it's so advanced with so many more variables that it's orders of magnitude more interesting. (I blame the increased restrictions.)
This is why the maps system is a pretty ingenious design, although I'll admit it falls far short of its potential. As consumables, you'll never max out on maps, yet these same evaluation techniques are used to determine what maps to run, when to reroll them, etc. If maps had a more robust, balanced affix system that was a challenge to min/max (as opposed to "has maze? ok time to regal"), there would be a lot less complaints about applying one's intellect to the endgame.
I agree with your phrasing: a lack of build cores.
I don't really believe you can ever decide to “stop spinning.” Not when you have to invest in the quality /type of map and also hope it will return the investment or more (which because of pure RNG + drop percentages, it seems to often not). While I do like the tier maps idea, it's like a lot like stacking a house of cards. There's not much of a fail safe to prevent you from going down a few tiers, or to run in the negatives because you can't afford the chisels/chaos orbs/whatever to upgrade your maps. You might be satisfied with your build, eventually, but even in that perfect world you'll be playing against RNG in maps with no guarantee of return of investments.
RNG is fine as an element of the game, but it shouldn't solely makeup the backbone of a game in so many different arenas. Nearly everything in POE is at the mercy of the drop. Quality gems, currency, linked items, uniques, etc. Crafting is as shifty as drops.
The economy is complicated and changes more rapidly than any game I've played. There is no standard value of items, so little dumb me has no clue if I'm under or over paying for an item that someone is advertising in trade chat. Even when you do look up the item on a forum, or use some frame of reference, the economy shifts so often it seems that people can just arbitrarily price gouge or crash. People claim they can find great gear for 1gcp... I whisper people about their gear that, IMO, isn't that good, and they reply with bloated prices of 1, 2 exalt. But what do I know? How does one even grasp the worth of things in such a constantly shifting economy? This paragraph is more of a personal complaint, less relevant to the issue, but it's frustrating that there's no control mechanism—and there is no alternative. You are at the mercy of a volatile trading system that will screw you at every turn.
As for leveling being the creative aspect of the game – I agree – however, the punishment for these evaluations doesn't become so evident until it's too costly to change them. So, by the end, when you've reached map-level, you find that what worked to get you to 60 isn't going to cut it at 70. For those who have leveled in old World of Warcraft, you would know that leveling was an entirely different beast than endgame PVE/PVP. You quickly found that your build was shit, your DPS was shit, your rotation was wrong, you needed resil, hit cap, haste, etc. and they also punished you for respecing—a fee of gold—but even that wasn't as painful as what POE sets out to do. And the developers of WoW eventually recognized some of these unnecessary punishments and amended them to be better. The developers realized that in the face of “calculation” suffered freedom and diversity; players were bullied into the highest dps spec to play their toons. Now, those developers strive to create player choices that are harder to quantify as “most effective” so player customization is less penalized.
Imagine that: a game that tries to let you play how you want—a game that tries to defend your customization against a quantified “best.”
I'm not saying be WoW, nor eliminate the fun people have in calculating “most effective,” but that it should be buffered against to allow true freedom, otherwise it becomes an illusion of choice with an undercurrent of “but really, you have to play this way to maximize. In the end it's just what you're gonna have to do. Sorry.”
Last edited by ofclouds#2934 on Apr 11, 2013, 8:11:14 PM
Imagine that: a game that tries to let you play how you want—a game that tries to defend your customization against a quantified “best.”
I'm not saying be WoW, nor eliminate the fun people have in calculating “most effective,” but that it should be buffered against to allow true freedom, otherwise it becomes an illusion of choice with an undercurrent of “but really, you have to play this way to maximize. In the end it's just what you're gonna have to do. Sorry.”
Sadly, that one is only possible if you implement global diminishing returns, and I mean true diminishing returns, not like current formula for armor that in the end still forces you to have a load of it to actually do something. You need easily accessible general levels of mastery and requiring much more effort to take it further than that, when we reach the point when the only characters who take determination aura are ones interested in tanking and not any armor user that wants to live, then we can say we got a freedom of choice.
In attacking we might have it, as you don't really need that much points in offense to be able to kill stuff, however, the main obstacle to rolling hybrids is the need to put 80% of your points into defense and utility passives so you can't spare even that little handful of points needed to make a decent hybrid.
Wish the armchair developers would go back to developing armchairs.
Imagine that: a game that tries to let you play how you want—a game that tries to defend your customization against a quantified “best.”
I'm not saying be WoW, nor eliminate the fun people have in calculating “most effective,” but that it should be buffered against to allow true freedom, otherwise it becomes an illusion of choice with an undercurrent of “but really, you have to play this way to maximize. In the end it's just what you're gonna have to do. Sorry.”
Sadly, that one is only possible if you implement global diminishing returns, and I mean true diminishing returns, not like current formula for armor that in the end still forces you to have a load of it to actually do something. You need easily accessible general levels of mastery and requiring much more effort to take it further than that, when we reach the point when the only characters who take determination aura are ones interested in tanking and not any armor user that wants to live, then we can say we got a freedom of choice.
In attacking we might have it, as you don't really need that much points in offense to be able to kill stuff, however, the main obstacle to rolling hybrids is the need to put 80% of your points into defense and utility passives so you can't spare even that little handful of points needed to make a decent hybrid.
In any case, I think its going to take way too long to do such a thing
And yes, it is helping my point. Let's take CI and FP as an example. There are some who wear neither DF or eye of chayula. Some wear one, others wear both. That's 3 builds using FP. Not including supports, if they value crit, low life, or anything of that nature.
There are a LOT more builds than you seem to believe.
I'm sorry what? If you're going to call the absence or inclusion of a single piece of gear a different build, than this game has over 10,000 builds and diablo 3 has over 40,000. Next you'll tell me that a single skill point being distributed differently on the skilldrasil is an entirely different build too: as if +10 int instead of +10 strength makes an extreme difference in how the build plays.
A scion may be born of the rich, and as such hold more opportunity...
but a scion will never be able to appreciate the finer beauty of those less fortunate.
@Epicly_Curious: You do act like your name implies. The last reply in this thread before you is one year and 2 months old tomorrow. You had a good dig around, it seems?
"Tact is the ability to tell someone to go to hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip" - Winston Churchill
@Epicly_Curious: You do act like your name implies. The last reply in this thread before you is one year and 2 months old tomorrow. You had a good dig around, it seems?
Actually I'd googled my name because I was looking for my profile to figure out my login name :P (I play through steam and havn't poked the forums in a long time)
I should have looked at the date first, and I do apologize for that... sometime bait (or stupidty: sometimes hard to know if the person is serious or not) is too good for me to not bite I guess.
A scion may be born of the rich, and as such hold more opportunity...
but a scion will never be able to appreciate the finer beauty of those less fortunate.
PoE indeed punishes curiosity severely. But most of OP reason for it are pretty meh....
The real problem is that most endgame builds are viable only for high-level character and high-level gear. "leveling builds" are actually all about abusing ST/Searing Bond. I cant enjoy a build really if i am forced to play another build instead, just to "build" (level up, get gear) for mine.
The real problem is that most endgame builds are viable only for high-level character and high-level gear. "leveling builds" are actually all about abusing ST/Searing Bond. I cant enjoy a build really if i am forced to play another build instead, just to "build" (level up, get gear) for mine.
When I want to play a dual sword character (just a random example), I play a dual sword character from level 2 to level 90+.
It may be slightly more "efficient" (in terms of time spent) to use Snoring Bond or Spectral Throw, but I am also taking away half the fun: Instead of seeing my dedicated build grow slowly in strength while I follow my skilltree, I shall play some uninteresting boring levelling crap through three campaigns and early maps, only because it saves some hours or 2-3 chaos of levelling gear?
Never understood this.
Noone is forcing you to do anything while levelling. You can play whatever you want.
The problem is: you want it to be super-efficient, and everybody is telling you that SB/ST is the way to go... But you can actually level up pretty nicely with whatever skill you choose.
It is this greed for efficiency, both in levelling and endgame builds, why people come up with threads like this.
The game itself offers a shitton of skills, a vast open passive skilltree, thousands of items, and most of them are good enough to beat the game.
