So serious discussion Chris wants Hard Mode his player base want Casual mode

"

wjameschan wrote:

Except that last bit. That isnt true at all.

Sure it is.

I read your review (or apparently most of it), but I missed the part where you wrote what kind of external sources of information/apps/whatever you need to enjoy the experience. I hate this semi-political beating around the bush. Just write two-three things you think a player need to enjoy the experience. Just back up your "Except that last bit. That isnt true at all" claim. I'm as doubtful as I am curious here.

The fractured item in act 4 and Heist. Both needed me to go out of game to understand at all. The fact that I said my dagger was way too weak and I likely had to trade to replace it. The poor respec options forcing pre building. Etc.

Im not beating around the bush. Im on my phone and felt that longer write up covered it. If not well I tried and failed and you win...whatever it is that might be at stake here. I do not enjoy conflicting with you anywhere near as much as I enjoy the banter so Im pretty close to tapping out.

Literally, since I am as mentioned on my phone. :)

Customaization all acroos the nation
Tft capitalization
Programerization
Layeaered defwces
Eyes closed
Meta folowization
Deafaueltataksirius

Well, what you need is related to the goal you set in PoE. If a player starts completely fresh, unaware of the depth of the endgame, I could imagine beating the story and messing around in yellow maps could be a valid goal. In that case, there's no need for external resources (given that the player has enough stamina to push on after having run in some 'stuff').

If a newer player starts with any different reference that is influenced by others and sets a higher goal than they would had they been completely fresh - the need to use external resources grows.

This can even come from ingame experience. Let's say a player joins a guild and a bored guildie decides to help them with some maps. Instead of the 20 second boss fight the new player is used to, to boss dies in .5 seconds. Now what they would consider good they consider disappointing, having that new reference of where DPS should be at.

This would also shift the new player's idea of what is viable.

I think to properly cross that distance, external resources are essential. PoB, CraftOfExile, guides, the trade site and whatnot. I think it is a common goal to get a build that is viable to do t14-16, reasonably juiced at a good speed. To farm currency at least. For that, I'd consider some external resources are already a need.

It doesn't really help that there are builds that function great just out of the box, in this perspective. Necro DD/Elementalist EA/Saboteur phys trapper come to mind. As soon as a newer player compares their own custom build with any of these, as a starter, chances are they'll feel their starter is crap. Next thing you know that player might feel the need to look at starter guides.

And once used to external resources, a player might feel they cannot do without anymore.

"

RuneLuthien wrote:

Single player is able to attain these items at the same speed

See, I used to think this as well. Until I saw an optimized duo where one player went full aurastacking and the other full conversion Penance Brand. Now sure how viable it would be now, but at the time the brander did about 30 times the damage. They used it to rush to simulacrums and spammed these for currency.

I saw a group going through story mode (I think it was a custom group vs group race event a while ago). They can split up to reach objectives, which is impossible for single players.

To clear the atlas, they can split up, combine a map pool and boss-hop for completion. It is faster.

I've seen groups pool their currency to get one of their team a headhunter asap and build around that to spam 5-ways. From that currency the others then geared up further.

I bet that some of those players would feel a need to be in their group to meet their own reference of what they consider viable.


Just saying in PoE it kind of depends on the mindset of players and what they're used to, goal-wise. And of course we'll look at each other to see how we're doing ourselves. That's essentially a pattern of humankind.


Cheerio

ps t'was a rant again, no soul of wit, etc.

Every damn game is now built for casuals though.
Soon there won't be any games left that require a brain to play.
Why on earth would you want this game to sink to that level also?
I for one relish the complexity, have for a long time, and always will.

Personally, I wouldn't mind the current difficulty, or even the complexity of the game, if it had better rare loot and I didn't feel being forced to play the same 5-10 skills if I wanted to farm end game bosses, sim 20-30, and god forbid, kill uber bosses under 50 ex.

Skill or build scaling being all over the place and the shitty rng of dropped item modifiers are the biggest reasons why a lot of players end up hitting a wall at some point, imo.

Aaaand maybe a little bit less farming required to do end game bosses.