There are no builds in PoE. Everything is just exploiting, abusing, and gimmicks

Because unfortunately current state of the game benefits people with that mindset the most, and promotes widespread "gitgud" attitude from many of them when someone tries to point out game design problems here. But yeah, mentioning that serves no purpose, because it is very delicate and hard to discuss topic, especially in high latency text chat. You are right about that

"

Echothesis wrote:

Because unfortunately current state of the game benefits people with that mindset the most, and promotes widespread "gitgud" attitude from many of them when someone tries to point out game design problems here.

This is where we disagree again, except for the "gitgud" part.

However, this isnt necessarily a design problem, you simply perceive it as such which is fine but that doesnt make it a fact. You could also describe as a steep learningcurve.

Thats not a bad thing in itself but will occasionally be frustrating. Thats the nature of steep learning curves.
Games used to be like that across the board back in the days and I happen to enjoy that.

However I do dislike games holding your hand way too much on the other hand, which unfortunately for me is the norm these days.
Thats doesnt make "handholding" a design issue, I simpy dont like it and because of this preference of mine I tend to avoid those game instead of advocating selfishly to change everything to cater to my needs and taking the "handholding" away from those who enjoy it.

Id just leave and play something else that already caters to my needs.
You are asking for way too much. You want to change the very core of the game for no other reason than you not liking it.

"

Orbaal wrote:

However I do dislike games holding your hand way too much on the other hand, which unfortunately for me is the norm these days.
Thats doesnt make "handholding" a design issue, I simpy dont like it and because of this preference of mine I tend to avoid those game instead of advocating selfishly to change everything to cater to my needs and taking the "handholding" away from those who enjoy it.

Id just leave and play something else that already caters to my needs.
You are asking for way too much. You want to change the very core of the game for no other reason than you not liking it.

Im gonna disagree here

I also find a bit infuriating this trend of games treating its audience like we have the minds of a 6y-old, but theres a middle ground between "hold your hand at all times" and "trow you into the warzone after the bare minimum of which end of the gun should be pointed at the bad guys". Poe is strongly on the second group, its nigh-impossible to get all the info you need to make a character that can just get to top red maps with just the info from the game. I cant name a single game that requires more usage of outside stuff, nor i ever played any game that forced me to look at something on a wiki so much - not even by far

If you need a microcosm: Item filters: Game is literally unplayable without one, but does the game helps you to get one? Well, the chat certainly will inform you where to get one if you ask how are you supposed to deal with the unbelliveable clutter, but the game itself? The help pannel fails to even freaking mention such a mechanic exists! Its on the options tab with no explanations watsoever. And want to try to make your own or make some personal tweaks on an existing one? Well good luck finding how to do it, its buried in the middle of the page of existing filters and nowhere else for some reason

This is a small microcosm of what happens in general: This is one game that have a deep and quite elegant set of mechanics, but it also a truly epic failure when it comes to explaining those mechanics. Its a testment to the community devotion the fact we even have the info to make a playable character because the game is abysmall at telling critical info

Really, they just love to put information in a single place that can only be accessed from one single link(that is on a page that can only be acessed on a specific link). Redundant sources for people coming from different angles is not a concept known by GGG, nor is known to them the idea that maybe it would be better to put info in-game so one dont to alt-tab the game so damn much

"

Echothesis wrote:

Specifically, make all minion skill gems only supportable by minion tag gems, so it won't be broken by adding flat damage to minions, which is then fed to "more" modifiers. Remove generic trap support, blastchain mine support, and spell totem support, instead design new totem spells that would only be found on totems. Increase cooldown of all CoC sources, right now they are basically a speedhack. Introduce aura limit similar to current curse limit, and ability to slightly raise this aura limit with passive nodes or uniques. There are other similar things to fix, you got the idea.

Not saying this will solve the balance at once, but this would be a start, instead of the current elitist mess.

What kind of elitist mess are you even referring to? Cause it's literally a non existing problem.

Sounds like you simply want a more simplified and "easier" game with the removal of several support gems which allow people to be somewhat more creative in some ways. Like seriously nobody cared a single bit about totems or mines and suddenly they are a problem cause you can run sanctum quite easily with them? amusingly enough totem builds aready have a hard time to keep up the damage with their corresponding self cast version lol.

CoC is a thing since multiple leagues and had a couple of nerfs. It was also always a more luxury build type compared to a self cast build.

Aura limits already exist because you can only reserve so much of your mana/life.
Or even sacrifice gear pieces/ passive points to add in one or two extra auras.
A literal limit would only cause even less build diversity and brick most builds.

"

Pashid wrote:

...
Sounds like you simply want a more simplified and "easier" game with the removal of several support gems which allow people to be somewhat more creative in some ways. Like seriously nobody cared a single bit about totems or mines and suddenly they are a problem cause you can run sanctum quite easily with them? amusingly enough totem builds aready have a hard time to keep up the damage with their corresponding self cast version lol.

CoC is a thing since multiple leagues and had a couple of nerfs. It was also always a more luxury build type compared to a self cast build.

Aura limits already exist because you can only reserve so much of your mana/life.
Or even sacrifice gear pieces/ passive points to add in one or two extra auras.
A literal limit would only cause even less build diversity and brick most builds.

Not quite. What I was suggesting is to break the vicious circle of players bumping their dps to insane numbers through unintended multiplication of "add flat damage" supports, be it from gems or items, then GGG sets endgame enemies health around those values, which promts players to seek more "gimmicks".

Obviously removing gem combinations would break builds currently using them, but it will also enable much more builds from currently underperforming skills, which gives a net more variety compared to now. And elite/boss health/damage stacking can actually be tuned down and be less spiky, without widespread aurastack to build defenses and proxy builds concentrating that much single target damage.

Proxy builds will still remain of course, just with payloads designed specifically for them, not with selfcast spells rigged to proxies.

"

feike wrote:

"

Orbaal wrote:

However I do dislike games holding your hand way too much on the other hand, which unfortunately for me is the norm these days.
Thats doesnt make "handholding" a design issue, I simpy dont like it and because of this preference of mine I tend to avoid those game instead of advocating selfishly to change everything to cater to my needs and taking the "handholding" away from those who enjoy it.

Id just leave and play something else that already caters to my needs.
You are asking for way too much. You want to change the very core of the game for no other reason than you not liking it.

Im gonna disagree here

I also find a bit infuriating this trend of games treating its audience like we have the minds of a 6y-old, but theres a middle ground between "hold your hand at all times" and "trow you into the warzone after the bare minimum of which end of the gun should be pointed at the bad guys". Poe is strongly on the second group, its nigh-impossible to get all the info you need to make a character that can just get to top red maps with just the info from the game. I cant name a single game that requires more usage of outside stuff, nor i ever played any game that forced me to look at something on a wiki so much - not even by far

If you need a microcosm: Item filters: Game is literally unplayable without one, but does the game helps you to get one? Well, the chat certainly will inform you where to get one if you ask how are you supposed to deal with the unbelliveable clutter, but the game itself? The help pannel fails to even freaking mention such a mechanic exists! Its on the options tab with no explanations watsoever. And want to try to make your own or make some personal tweaks on an existing one? Well good luck finding how to do it, its buried in the middle of the page of existing filters and nowhere else for some reason

This is a small microcosm of what happens in general: This is one game that have a deep and quite elegant set of mechanics, but it also a truly epic failure when it comes to explaining those mechanics. Its a testment to the community devotion the fact we even have the info to make a playable character because the game is abysmall at telling critical info

Really, they just love to put information in a single place that can only be accessed from one single link(that is on a page that can only be acessed on a specific link). Redundant sources for people coming from different angles is not a concept known by GGG, nor is known to them the idea that maybe it would be better to put info in-game so one dont to alt-tab the game so damn much

i kind of agree. im gonna put words in their mouth a little, maybe im right maybe not, but i think theres an unsaid philosophy here with ggg regarding game information like this, and i also think its problematic.

my impression is that they are f2p, they were a really small team who could never get everything done, uniques dont all have ingame art for example, nothing ever had the polish they would have wanted for it. the game has grown so large and become so well made in many ways its easy to forget the desyncing ugly mess this game was in 2013.

so they could never do everything they wanted, most league launches feel like they could have done with an extra 2 weeks to polish the content for example. so i think they look at their time and think we could spend 80% of our time on development and 20% building and maintaining qol resources for the community in terms of guides, tools etc... or we could spend 100% on dev time knowing the community will create these guides and tools, probably do a better job of some of them too. people will want to share knowledge, to be that guy, theres even career opportunities here for extremely motivated super fans of the game to make a niche for themselves.

i have no problem with that, i dont mind the idea of community created resources i think its great. but i think while the philosophy is good on paper ggg have fundamentally changed what it means to be an arpg. this isnt a small static game like diablo 2, this is a sprawling gargantuan that is 100x more complex, vast, and worse still it shifts constantly. anyone who makes a guide or a resource, great, well done, now in 3 months it will be worthless as balance changes, trees, everything gets changed around.

its so much harder to learn such a vast game, and then thats multiplied by what you have learned constantly being invalidated, and then the guides you used no longer work so to relearn you must find a new source of up to date info. we also then have the problem of no one really wants to be the guy that shows you the 1 million dps arc witch for beginners, everyone wants to be the spell vomit ward loop cast on shits screen slatter guy with 100 million dps hype. the sort of guides people who really need guides need are the sort that will often get buried in a community made build environment.

and theres so many guides, the community is so large.


i think the way poe handles leaving everything to the community makes sense on paper and would have worked fine for arpgs of old, but poe became too big, too complex, too successful and its ushered in an era of meta shifting live service updates that have left it a mess that cannot be fully smoothed out by community content alone. they need to do more to streamline a new players experience and make sure they are supporting a set of basic builds that allow people to get a handle on the games mechanics.









i know the mechanics, its all obvious to me but when i learned this game in 2013 there was a fraction of the current content, hardcore was seen as the prestige way to play so a lot of the community information was defence centric, balanced builds, people with 3k life and all the dps in the world were sort of laughed at. serious builds were balanced and could survive content deathless into the 90s if played properly. learning the game from scratch now is so much harder.

"

Echothesis wrote:

Not quite. What I was suggesting is to break the vicious circle of players bumping their dps to insane numbers through unintended multiplication of "add flat damage" supports, be it from gems or items, then GGG sets endgame enemies health around those values, which promts players to seek more "gimmicks".

its not unintended, they added those sources of flat damage, they know they exist, they intend for them to be used. every skill has an effectiveness of added damage multiplier to adjust the quantity of flat added damage available to be appropriate for the skill.




posts gonna go on way too long, ill leave it there but ill talk later about them nerfing support gems, flasks etc across the board. that was the right move, to get scaling under control what they need to do is just nerf all sources of multiplicative damage, way more than they did last time, cut them all in half from where they are now.

the fix is there, i know how to fix the games damage scaling, so do they, do any time they attempt even a 1/10 of what needs done the community shits the bed and cries nerf.

"

feike wrote:

Im gonna disagree here

I also find a bit infuriating this trend of games treating its audience like we have the minds of a 6y-old, but theres a middle ground between "hold your hand at all times" and "trow you into the warzone after the bare minimum of which end of the gun should be pointed at the bad guys". Poe is strongly on the second group, its nigh-impossible to get all the info you need to make a character that can just get to top red maps with just the info from the game. I cant name a single game that requires more usage of outside stuff, nor i ever played any game that forced me to look at something on a wiki so much - not even by far

For the most part I do agree.

Still, being able to get to T16s by using the ingame tooltips and stuff like that also means you are able handle some 90-95% of the entire game at that point.
There is not much content left beyond that point.
I think this is good enough and if you want to progress further, you will have to put in the effort and thats fine by me.


Regarding 3rd party tools Im honestly a bit torn.
Id like to see some of the stuff ingame for sure and more QoL while we are at it. Who doesnt like QoL?
While that would be great, it does take time out of GGG´s already insane schedule and its not just for the development of those tools but also the maintenance. Im not so sure Id like the result, if all it does is streamlining a process thats mildly annoying at worst in its current state.
Its not that big of a deal at the end of the day.

Having said that: GGG did send a very clear signal, when they hired the guy who developed PoB a few years ago and didnt integrate that tool in some form into the game.
They could have if they wanted to but they chose not to.


In my mind its clear as day that they simply dont want all the information easily available and if I had to guess, Id assume they are trying to protect the "mystery" of how exactly stuff works and at the same time reward the players willing to go the extra mile and figure it out.
Thats just a guess and feel free to disagree.
If thats what they are doing and intending, Im mostly on board and willing to support this approach despite all the downsides.

"

Snorkle_uk wrote:

...
its not unintended, they added those sources of flat damage, they know they exist, they intend for them to be used. every skill has an effectiveness of added damage multiplier to adjust the quantity of flat added damage available to be appropriate for the skill.
...

I am aware of the damage effectiveness, and it can be outweighed without much problem. If you see a support gem saying "add X-Y damage and then multiply it by 10", would be obvious choice over many other gems, right? And this is how proxies are multiplying multipliers, their quantity in addition to their standard "more damage" supports applied to "originally selfcast" spell cannot be matched by casting that spell one at a time, at the same level of investment.

Nerfing flasks and most support gems affected everything across the board without shifting build disparity, which imho is more serious problem, assuming you want to prevent majority of players from frustration of hitting walls at endgame content. (GGG may not care about such frustration, and have intentionally left wild scaling as it is, so specific category of players could have their fun with it).

For the record, I am intentionally posting as short as possible, without walls of text to reiterate each aspect of unfortunately complex mechanism being discussed. It does not mean unawareness of basic mechanics like added damage effectiveness. And this is also why I don't bring other current sources of OP dps here, would be too bloated.

"

Echothesis wrote:

I am aware of the damage effectiveness, and it can be outweighed without much problem. If you see a support gem saying "add X-Y damage and then multiply it by 10", would be obvious choice over many other gems, right? And this is how proxies are multiplying multipliers, their quantity in addition to their standard "more damage" supports applied to "originally selfcast" spell cannot be matched by casting that spell one at a time, at the same level of investment.

Flat damage is the same as all other stacking multipliers, therefore it isn't inherently problematic. For instance, damage effectiveness numbers are set so a level 20 added lightning damage support would give around 30% more damage to a level 20 spell, assuming no other flat damage. Then let's say we add the same amount of flat spell damage from some other source, maybe weapons, and it won't be 30% more damage anymore, it will be 23% more.

Same as increased damage, increased damage taken on enemies, or DoT multiplier, stacking multipliers aren't a problem because they have diminishing returns and the more common they are the sooner you hit them, as is the case with increased damage. Standalone multipliers from different sources are where the problem is, because five such multipliers at 20% more isn't 100% more, it's 150% more.

LMAO if you think skill/item synergies are gimmicks, this game is not for you.

Try some mobile hack/slash rpg or something like that, they have no complexity and you wouldn't have to worry about builds because that concept doesn't exist.