[PoE2] I feel silly for even asking for this, but...

...any chance we could make encyclopedic knowledge less of a requirement to being effective?

90% of gitting gud at PoE1 is reading the wiki, looking up all the various item mods, watching youtube tutorials, etc etc.

All so you can find out what sextant mods to put on which map so you can get the best div cards to trade in for the fossil that will put just the right special hidden mod on the base item you're going to trade for by maxing the currency yield of your maps with just the right combination of scarabs, and so on and so forth.


I like theorycrafting and minmaxing as much as anyone else, but can we agree that the power of meta knowledge has gotten out of hand in PoE1? I mean, even the difference between "More" and "Increased" isn't explained to players, for crying out loud.

It would be really nice if you could meaningfully learn about the game by playing it, not just reading about it, is what I'm saying.

Gotta call BS on the idea that you can't learn the game simply by playing it. Plenty of people learned the game (and crafting) LONG before path of craft or any of those 3rd party tools (yes, even PoB) existed. The simple truth is...you don't want to learn the game. You want things told explicitly to you. You aren't even focused on what the game is trying to show or tell you.

I think encyclopedic knowledge will always play a role, as it does in literally every single game on earth. Think you know how to play chess? Read an actual book on it or take classes. Think you know how to play Pokemon? Watch some youtube tutorials and vids from the "pros". Think you actually know how to play monopoly? Read the strategy guides...Name a game and I bet there are hundreds of guides on things you never even dreamed of while playing them.

For ALL games of all types, there are levels and levels and levels of knowledge you simply don't just get without a hive mind, or a genius mind. This will never change. The game itself simply cannot and does not provide you with all the possible information to be as successful as you CAN be. If games did NOT have this, they would not be worth playing. Think "candyland", a game that does not require guides because...there is no "gameplay". It's all just roll the dice and see where you go.

BUT

I hope they give us far more accurate and important in-game information in PoE 2.


Basically, I want a game that rewards my experience. And I also want a game that requires enough knowledge to keep me learning things years after I start, not days.

Also, as far as "more" vs. "increased" and the game not explaining the difference.....it is literally right there in the LANGUAGE they chose. "more" has a totally different meaning than "increased" right off the bat. They don't need to tell you any more than that. Frankly, I don't think it would even help if they put that mathematical formula into the game either. And if you don't know that difference? It takes all of a minute to test it out in-game and realize which one is better for where you are at (of course there are exceptions).

I agree with the OP. Less of a requirement would be nice.

A decreased requirement would also be acceptable, even if it isn't multiplicative.

poe got more complicated cause the conditions changed. players aren't discussing builds and item interactions in forums and chat anymore.

since quite some time now, poe has professional players who know everything about poe and get ultra rich by exploiting that knowledge to their viewers and there are tools which let average joey know every detail of item interactions in seconds instead of trying the build idea ingame like it was before.

to top it off, this tool also allows players to spread new overpowered build setups to thousands of other players just by posting a link in a highly frequented forum.

--

it's like a race between tool and game developers to fight for their opposite interests, the first ones want to "solve the game", the latter want to keep it a challenge to be really good in poe.

I also neglected to say: you don't need an "encyclopedic knowledge" to play this game. You need that kind of knowledge to push the game to its absolute limits...but the core game, probably even up to mid-tier gaming level, is perfectly explained just through playing the game. It's not hard to understand tags, damage, defense, resists. What's hard is MAXIMIZING those values, crafting the best possible items, choosing the MOST optimal passive tree path.

No one needs a guide to sit down and play this game all the way through the campaign and potentially even up to the first major post-game boss fight. There is a help menu, and enough information on your character and just from actual playing to teach you.

Thinking more about this, a large part of the issue has to do with how league mechanics get integrated into the core game.

Most .eague mechanics come with a new set of currencies or collectibles. Sometimes it's just one or two things, like Silver Coins or Perandus Coins were, but usually it's a fairly large collection (Catalysts, Scarabs, Fossils, Essences).

When a league mechanic goes core, these items are unceremoniously dumped into an ever-expanding collection of Stuff you can get, but ultimately, they all serve one of two purposes:

- grant access to special crafting options
- grant acess to encounters with drop-restricted gear

But here's the thing. It's all tradeable anyway, so does it really matter which type of stuff you got if you can just freely exchange it for whatever else?

If you're trying to farm Catalysts for example, and you get some rare Essences, it's only a matter of tedious legwork to turn those Essences into Catalysts via trade. The only thing that matters is that you found something of a certain rarity.


So... why not streamline this system? All of these mechanics could be dropping the same two types of currency in varying amounts: one that you can spend at the crafting bench on any of the special crafting options (Essence, Delve, Horticrafting, etc), and one that you can spend at the map device to open portals to any of the special encounters.

It would be an infinitely easier system to comprehend, and you'd lose nothing of value as far as I can see.

Well, nothing of value to players, I guess. GGG would lose the ability to flog an ever-increasing collection of special stash tabs, I suppose.

i wish there was more info ingame,however poe is learnable by just playing it.

the problem is ppl want to learn everything at once,if you split it up like i.e. 1 week essence,next week delve etc its not that hard.
it will take some time (probably a full league to learn it though)

The keywords More and Increased isn't the best example. They are distinctly different terms. More or More Than is used to compare two numbers while Increase is used on a single number.

That's just math really. It doesn't take a wiki to know "Enemy takes +% increased damage" is used differently than "Character deals +% increased damage". I would have picked on keyword "Nearby".

I think most of the game's min/max could be turned into a simple database. There's a reason I use PoeDB over most sites. It's straight forward. It lists all affixes and where/what can roll them.

To be honest, I think this game telling players information is far worse than items and keywords. The game doesn't even tell you where to get voidstones and other basic progression knowledge. My friend came back after a break and was asking where the 4th voidstone was and I laughed because nothing tells you Uber Elder has it. There's a log entry for league mechanics though it doesn't tell you how to use things from the league mechanic ie how to get 5th map slot.

Outrageous!

What next you gonna want. May be log to know what killed you, or G-d forbid dps meter?

Our ancestors used stone axes and were perfectly fine.

How dare you question their ways.

Now go and read outdated not updated wiki.

"

suszterpatt wrote:

Thinking more about this, a large part of the issue has to do with how league mechanics get integrated into the core game.

Most .eague mechanics come with a new set of currencies or collectibles. Sometimes it's just one or two things, like Silver Coins or Perandus Coins were, but usually it's a fairly large collection (Catalysts, Scarabs, Fossils, Essences).

When a league mechanic goes core, these items are unceremoniously dumped into an ever-expanding collection of Stuff you can get, but ultimately, they all serve one of two purposes:

- grant access to special crafting options
- grant acess to encounters with drop-restricted gear

But here's the thing. It's all tradeable anyway, so does it really matter which type of stuff you got if you can just freely exchange it for whatever else?

If you're trying to farm Catalysts for example, and you get some rare Essences, it's only a matter of tedious legwork to turn those Essences into Catalysts via trade. The only thing that matters is that you found something of a certain rarity.


So... why not streamline this system? All of these mechanics could be dropping the same two types of currency in varying amounts: one that you can spend at the crafting bench on any of the special crafting options (Essence, Delve, Horticrafting, etc), and one that you can spend at the map device to open portals to any of the special encounters.

It would be an infinitely easier system to comprehend, and you'd lose nothing of value as far as I can see.

Well, nothing of value to players, I guess. GGG would lose the ability to flog an ever-increasing collection of special stash tabs, I suppose.

Figured I'd bump this after Jonathan's most recent interview where he talks about perceived complexity vs real complexity and unnecessary friction.