The Amulet Problem (Ashes + Omniscience)

ya the suffix pressure being offset by the resist... when i first saw it i was like yeah, that makes sense i guess because its encouraging dual core stat suffixes everywhere. but then when u eventually do the math on it and see how powerful the pen is that becomes a very questionable stat.

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Snorkle_uk wrote:

omni needs a bit of a nerf regardless of anything else, but they should both have chase item drop rates too. i think thats the only sane take on these 2 amulets tbh.

Finally someone with some common sense, thank you.

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Senju_Hyoketsu wrote:

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Snorkle_uk wrote:

omni needs a bit of a nerf regardless of anything else, but they should both have chase item drop rates too. i think thats the only sane take on these 2 amulets tbh.

Finally someone with some common sense, thank you.

No, common sense says that if good items are only availible to the few rather then the majority that don't fit your playstyle will stop playing. The more elitist the game has got the worse the player retention has become and that is a danger to the game as a whole.

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Anthron wrote:

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Senju_Hyoketsu wrote:

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Snorkle_uk wrote:

omni needs a bit of a nerf regardless of anything else, but they should both have chase item drop rates too. i think thats the only sane take on these 2 amulets tbh.

Finally someone with some common sense, thank you.

No, common sense says that if good items are only availible to the few rather then the majority that don't fit your playstyle will stop playing. The more elitist the game has got the worse the player retention has become and that is a danger to the game as a whole.

Following that logic just give everything to everyone.
Just make the unique tab have ALL uniques available right after character creation... dafuk
I cannot comprehend, for the life of me, how and why you would think that. Lost cause

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Senju_Hyoketsu wrote:

Following that logic just give everything to everyone.
Just make the unique tab have ALL uniques available right after character creation... dafuk
I cannot comprehend, for the life of me, how and why you would think that. Lost cause

I don't think that, you distorted my point of view to a ridiculous extreme. You should try to understand both sides of an argument from a logical perspective rather than building a straw man to fight against.

The game must be made to be enjoyable for the widest audience without being too detrimental to any particular play style. If all the good uniques and items are only available as chase uniques for a small percentage of the game population then they go from aspirational content to unobtainable content, when they become that they are no longer a draw to play more and nearly as importantly pay more. GGG is still a business and must make money to continue.

Ashes of the Stars could be considered as a chase unique for more casual players, ones who may never see a Mageblood but like everyone else wants to have good, useful items. It is a very good general item that is exciting for just about any build yet isn’t absolutely BiS for everything.

I am less convinced on Crystalized Omniscience since it seems abusable at high end play and detrimental to a player that doesn’t understand its mechanics or can craft or trade for supporting items. It is a good candidate for a chase unique.

If you ask me, I think the top end gear has been made way too easy for the upper percentile of players to get due to trade exploiting practices like TFT and the like and gear progression has been broken to compensate. The best way to progress in the game should be to play the game, not play discord. This has led to fast completion of content by more top end players who then are quitting of the league very early. The drop in population then wrecks the trade market, kills the chat and social aspects, and due to slow progression, the rest of the player base leaves as well.

The big problem I see with this is it leads to a very unsatisfactory end of a league, which may effect future leagues, Just looking at the player data that is availible right now at this point in time we should be seeing an uptick in players, people getting ready and testing builds but it is very slight. We should see an uptick in forum posts, questions and collaborations but it is still really quiet. I may be reading to much into these things and the reveal has yet to happen but really it has me worried.

As it is right now, and with the new passive tree, it's never been easier to make currency. EVERYONE can buy a Headhunter with a little bit of farm.

The content casuals were aspiring to, and the items they were aspiring to, is gone.

Carrot and the stick, remove the carrot and the players leave. Easy

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Senju_Hyoketsu wrote:

As it is right now, and with the new passive tree, it's never been easier to make currency. EVERYONE can buy a Headhunter with a little bit of farm.

Or people can farm the item directly? Some players, myself included, don't participate in trading. We would like to actually have a chance to drop good items from pinnacle bosses, especially given that it takes 28 maps to *attempt* to get the item. For a 90% chance to get a 1-in-4 item, you need to run 224 maps (7 boss attempts). For a 90% chance to get a 1-in-10 item, you need to run 616 maps. And that's just to get the item. Ashes of the Stars probably requires a few divine orbs to get decent mods.

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The content casuals were aspiring to, and the items they were aspiring to, is gone.

I know I was swimming in OP items before level 95 (that was sarcastic). I think that Atziri's Step was the only item that my character had equipped before then. Armor was primarily from drops, though I crafted the rings myself and got the shield from Rog. I got Alpha's Howl a few days ago from divination card farming, and that took *forever*. There are still items I'd like to get that I'll probably miss this league. Such is life, but I'm hardly done with aspirational content just because I got Ashes.

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Carrot and the stick, remove the carrot and the players leave. Easy

Exactly. Remove the carrot - 25% chance per pinnacle boss to get something good - and players will leave. If a given item is too strong so as to be game breaking, that's an issue that needs to be addressed. But just restricting OP items to a select few doesn't address that the game will still be broken by people who find the item while the rest wonder why they're still playing. I guarantee that if the drop rate of Searing Exarch/Eater of Worlds items was lower, I'd have stopped playing two weeks ago.

And another thing: I see this attitude that because an item can be bought, or a boss fought on behalf of another player, that these automatically validate a design philosophy that punishes people who just want to play the game. If these services are must-haves for solid players to progress, then I think that the game needs a massive overhaul. In the meantime, though, I'd be satisfied with things not having to become rarer and more difficult because a few players at the very top of the game are doing well.

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Senju_Hyoketsu wrote:

As it is right now, and with the new passive tree, it's never been easier to make currency. EVERYONE can buy a Headhunter with a little bit of farm.

The content casuals were aspiring to, and the items they were aspiring to, is gone.

Carrot and the stick, remove the carrot and the players leave. Easy

That is the most rediculous untrue statement in this thread. Out of the 13000+ builds on POEninja just over 3000 have Headhunters and even if you were to increase that by 10 times to 30000 that is still going to be less then 10% of players judging by the peak concurrent of this league.

I don't think you comprehend just how much of the player base is casual players who see less then 20Ex a league.

So what, game shouldn't cater to and around casuals !

All I'm saying is that there needs to be content people (everyone) aspire to. If everything is too easily attainable, ALL types of players will lose interest.

It's not hard to understand, it's as easy as 1+1 equals 2 actually.

aspirational content is one thing
you have a 1/200 chance on a boss you take 28 maps to get to is another

dont confuse these.

both amulets in question are stupid and made every other unique amulet look like crap in comparison. the only rares that can MAYBE outclass them are close to a mirror (and even that wont outclass Omni in majority of relevant builds)

no tongue-twisting will change that. these two items are mistakes. changing rarity will make them harder-to-obtain mistakes. it is degenerative design, closing design space and all the rest of game design mistakes.

assuming GGG doesnt care, they will make them rarer. if they miss the mark they risk of the situation repeating itself, or it being so f.. rare that people leave in disgust. bait and switch rarely works twice