[Ruthless] Ruthless is the most important experiment that ever happened in ARPG history

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Edit: Going to re-write.

Ironically, the only question that hasn't been answered is: Is it right to force this game style down people's throats?

Not only it's not "The most important experiment", it's a step in the worst direction, pampering to the nostalgia of the smallest sub-section of the community and ignoring the rest.

But to summarize: Gambling isn't crafting, doesn't matter how much people distort that word. Loot IS ARPG, reduce it absurdly and you might as well play CoD. Players shouldn't be "behind" the power curve, it should be balanced which GGG was always horrid, reducing loot won't change that, cheap way to prolong the gameplay loop. Forced scarcity is, again, a cheap tactic to increase the gameplay loop.

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AdRonZh3Ro wrote:

Ironically, the only question that hasn't been answered is: Is it right to force this game style down people's throats?

Not only it's not "The most important experiment", it's a step in the worst direction, pampering to the nostalgia of the smallest sub-section of the community and ignoring the rest.

But to summarize: Gambling isn't crafting, doesn't matter how much people distort that word. Loot IS ARPG, reduce it absurdly and you might as well play CoD. Players shouldn't be "behind" the power curve, it should be balanced which GGG was always horrid, reducing loot won't change that, cheap way to prolong the gameplay loop. Forced scarcity is, again, a cheap tactic to increase the gameplay loop.

As for crafting, if it were 100% deterministic you'd get instantly bored of the item progression game. It'd also mean items wouldn't have any value because their rarity would be nil. Boredom and owning nothing of value would kill the game faster than having literal gambling inside the game (which already exists btw).

As for player power, it should happen that when you enter a new area or map in PoE, you should *always* be behind its power curve. Always.
Think FTL when you enter a new sector: that sector is infinitely more challenging and engaging when you arrive at it in a state of weakness. It forces you to make far more interesting decisions than if you had arrived with a ship setup that allows you to tackle every single encounter confidently. Risk-reward gameplay really takes first seat. There's a constant feeling of tension that your run could end at the next beacon you visit. Mistakes are deadly. When you get to a sector in a position of comfortable power, all those nuances are lost and, ironically, those runs are never memorable; it's the ones where you almost escaped or almost died the ones that really stick around in your mind.
At the same time, when being ahead of the power actually happens (which it should, albeit seldomly), it feels all the much sweeter since it's a rare occurrence, a "limited edition" feel, and not something you've just grown used to or even come to expect.

As for reducing loot, this does many more things than prolonging or extending the gameplay loop: it's the most effective tool of culling player power, and keeping encounters interesting.
I happen to have a very low tolerance for grinding in games, which some would say is ironic for a PoE player. But I've honestly never played an MMO in my life, and probably never will, because I detest the idea of turning my brain off as I grind something like 10x boar pelts to get my character a sword.
It's a terrible experience because first, you know beforehand what reward you're getting, second, the encounters themselves are a couple of lame boars that pose zero challenge whatsoever, third, boars drop lame boar pelts with literally zero chance of them dropping something like an Enlightened gem that will make me jump off my chair, and fourth--and worst offender of them all--that experience is the *same* for all characters, for all players, across the *entire* game.
PoE--in theory--doesn't work that way because you never know what loot you're going to get, what monsters you're going to fight, what scary modifier combinations will ruin your day, if this league you'll get to be that lucky sucker who gets 5x divines at the start who everyone loves to hate, and best of all: this experience is wildly different and unique for every single character in the game.
As of late, however, the regular game is indeed starting to feel like grinding an MMO, particularly in trade. This is because you can know for certain that after X amount of hours you'll be able to liquidate Y amount of currency, which you'll use to trade for item Z, all in a highly deterministic fashion. This problem is particularly exponenciated in a Softcore environment because there's literally zero danger in running high risk-reward content, so you're always getting the loot in the end.
If you take these concepts to an extreme, you end up with 17k Magebloods floating around SC Crucible as I mentioned in the post above to the point it's starting to become as ubiquitous as a Tabula on league start.

Enter Ruthless, and suddenly all of these problems are solved.
So, yeah, I think forcing Ruthless into the game is actually the best long-term solution they could make to save PoE from becoming a generic currency drop soundbank simulator.

hoho

Well this thread was interesting, and not because of the subject matter. It's likely that CW, and some Senior devs that cashed out, now find philosophy more important than palatability because they don't have to worry about the financials as much. PoE's already been successful.

Ruthless has its place I guess, but its a small one. It has questions it asks, but again, very few even care about those questions, let alone the answers it may, or may not, unearth.

Bottom line is this. Is Ruthless "fun"?. Pretty subjective, but the premise is already skewed towards a sadistic gamer, or one that's more of a glutton for punishment. Hell it's called Ruthless for a reason. There is nothing groundbreaking or pivotal happening with this game mode. If anything, it appeals to a small subset of players within an already niche arpg playerbase. Starving players in terms of loot & skills, and handicapping movement/ travel, doesn't revolutionize arpgs, nor does it even really change the core parts of PoE.

TLDR: Ruthless is an experiment amongst folks already invested in the experiment. It has zero broad appeal, and isn't marketable. Imo it's a gimmick at best. If they push Ruthless in PoE2 as a more core aspect, the results could be catastrophic. I'd personally even go as far as saying that a Ruthless focus in PoE would start a death spiral, not unlike what we saw with Marvel Heroes.

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1eyedking wrote:

There is no point trying to convince anyone. There is a silent majority that likes the idea behind these game modes (SSF, hardcore, Ruthless) and want some of that aura to spread into softcore. How exactly? doesn't matter.

You will never find broad support because this is indirectly linked to RMT. Status quo is clearly beneficial, but already annoying for them. So they are not going to agree with you in making it harder.

They will also not agree on you with improving trade because the current way of doing things has shifted all the powerful tools in the hands of the mirror mafia. These tools = power. Power over the population and the economy.

Rest assured your analysis in one form or another was already discussed internally by GGG employees and clearly they all felt it was needed and required for the longevity of the game. Because RMT is literally a cancer on aRPG so they are and will take further measures against the mirror mafia.

So their little dance:


Will soon turn into tears.

:)

Craft: Considering how there's plenty of games in the same genre with pre-set "top content" gear and millions still play those games, i'd regard your statement of boredom as false.

Power: If anything, you're advocating that trade should be balanced, because all of that alredy happens naturally within PoE. The best gear is always crafted.

Loot: Again, even current SSF playthroughs are fine in that aspect, trade is what fucks it up.

As Darth said, Ruthless is niche, and not that many wants the answers it is giving.

I for once am having a lot more fun with Grim Dawn modding the game using mixed modded classes to tailor my own experience. And the funny part is, the classes are a bit overpowered, so i'm also tweaking the monsters to be harder. You know... Trying to do what you're saying, but in a less obnoxious manner.

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MaturinGuardianOfTheBeam wrote:

You will never find broad support because this is indirectly linked to RMT. Status quo is clearly beneficial, but already annoying for them. So they are not going to agree with you in making it harder.

Lol. RMT is everywhere, making it harder is the most naive solution imaginable. If anything, that would be a clear push to make everything SSF.

Man ruthless is the wrong way to go in my opinion. For me it proves that loot based rpgs need consistent loot.

What makes me stop playing poe is when grinding has no reward. What I mean is when the 'proper' way to progress a character is flipping items, I'm out. So about the 30-50 chaos range for trade items, or if I like the league 1-2 divines. Basically anything over like 800 chaos in trade value doesn't exist for me, unless the game is really good. Ruthless just doesn't hit my pleasure centers.

It just isn't more difficult in the long run. If you want the ruthless experience in trade just knock off 2 supports, remove any good item, don't use the crafting bench, don't level up skills too much. Boom, welcome to the average ruthless character. It really is just the same game to me, but worse in every single way. It isn't like poe gives people usable loot anyway. Most wealth is made via trade.

The right change for me is more determinism in crafting. Hell even making it so items to appropriate mods for their ilvl without be nice. Item progression is to spiky for me, a another linear progression would be nice. Players could go months without getting an upgrade, or just do 3 perfect item in a map, not that they would ever id them. Ironically ruthless was supposed to make items more valuable, but it does the opposite.

Items in ruthless are almost the exact same items in regular poe. They have up to 6 mods etc etc. But because the crafting system has built in failure states, and materials are so rare, items are worth even less in ruthless. I can't pick up a fracture and be like, I will fix this with this method. Or essence spam it. So it just makes crafting worse 10000% percent(hyperbole).

But knowing ggg they would make it suck, most new things from ggg have been terrible. I guess I'm not there target audience.

Lol, no.

But I do admire people who challenge themselves on that level, especially the SSFHC people stuck in that hell.

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ladish wrote:

I find the Ruthless fetishism a bit weird because the mode is touted as "true old school challenge" while stubbornly retaining trade. If you're equating challenge and item scarcity then trade is the biggest short circuit to game challenge you can get.

You can play ruthless with SSF flag if you want that ultimate sweaty experience.

Ruthless with trade definitely adds a unique experience while not being quite as thirsty and masochistic. Its actually quite nice because trade is restricted very much by the smaller pop and the availability of things that trvialize the game faster is much MUCH lower.

Also POE's very very balanced around trade which often makes SSF feel like someone's jacked up mod that just put decimals and zeros in front of every whole number. Basically SSF is trade with a minus 1000 multiplier due to not being able to buy other peoples lucky finds for 1c but RUTHLESS SSF has additional x.0001 negative multipliers that turns this into a fucking exponential negative curve (so to speak).

My 2nd from last character has something like 8-9 /days played and gear in my stash looks like day one/two normal POE gear LOL. I have a couple okayish items tbh by Ruthless standards I have a few banger items but still its a fuckin' mess. The mode is so thirsty for time and repetition its kinda hilarious. But here's me being a glutton for punishment.

Basically Ruthless trade softens that curve... It might be the best mode in the game if you want "D2 with occasional forum/chat trades" vibes".