Please do not change existing alternate gems in Standard

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exsea wrote:

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jsuslak313 wrote:

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exsea wrote:

the biggest one was when they announced POE2 being separate. i will never forget that.

I can see this being on par (or higher), thats true. But at least for my part...I NEVER thought PoE 2 was going to be the "same" game, no matter what GGG said was their intention. Even when they announced the changes to sockets I thought back then there was NO WAY this would function with all the legacy gear and things that currently exist. I think I even wrote a post back in 2019 saying that the only way GGG would pull off a "connected game" design would be if they fully WIPE standard; otherwise the work, balance, and outrage would be way too much for the game to survive.

So...the announcement that PoE 2 was separate wasn't even a negative or positive for me, it was just an affirmation of what I expected to happen.

yeah the technical difficulties would be astounding. how do you convert millions of gear automatically and how can you guarantee the conversion process will work properly?

as limited as i am in programming, i do have an idea on how they could make the old gear work with the new system.

first of all, all old gear and gems becomes POE1 legacy gear and gains a POE1 legacy tag.

POE1 legacy gear cannot be interacted with POE2 gear. so you can slot in legacy gems into newer items nor can you socket newer gems into the legacy equipment.

this means there are 2 concurrent systems running. however, players get the option to vendor their POE1 legacy gear. vendoring removes the POE1 legacy tag and updates the gear to an updated version.

this can be a hassle for players as they have to manually convert their gear. but this allows a more controlled environment, where upon if theres any problems the player can immediately lodge a report and request help from GGG.

i m pretty sure this method would allow old gear that allowed 7-8 links to retain their value, and outrage could be minimized and without needing to rebalance the gear. also, on the topic of gear that grants extra links etc, the vendor can display any "rebalance change" before the player accepts to vendor the item for a non legacy version.

GGG might have had other ideas.

i do not know.

but what i do know it is not the players responsibility to figure it out for them. they made the promise, they need to keep it.

to me the change to being separate hits in so many different ways.

it meant that GGG's words cant be fully trusted
it meant that POE is not fully built to be "played forever"
it also meant that people like me who threw money at GGG expecting my investment would hasten POE1 improvements all went to a project that i did not want to support. oh and i did try to get reimbursed which expectedly was not fulfilled.

Funny Story. I bought 75k Chromes, Jewelers and Vaal Orbs, as well as a quad of Tabula's in anticipation of the "Great Conversion" that was to happen with PoE II. My plan A was to put all of my character's corrupted 21/Vaal sets in tabula's, to see if that would white socket any conversion algo.

My backup plan was having enough jewelrs/chromes/vaal orbs to brute-force vendor my gear, and then sell whatever was left at what would surely be vastly inflated standard prices causes by literally EVERYONE re-socketing their skill gems.

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MoonPeace wrote:

i did read the whole thing

I disagree with almost every point, not because they are bad points per se but because you ignore years of historical balance that occurred BEFORE these massive changes.

Alt Q gems, at their introduction, were stupid powerful. Do you remember the multiple leagues' worth of "balance" changes that already went into alt gems to make them NOT be any more or less powerful than their normal counterparts? Do you remember some of the absolutely bonkers insane quality values that were released with this "new content" back in the day? Because I sure do. The selling point of alt quality gems, by GGG themselves no less, was that they were "balanced" to be not necessarily a direct power increase, but a build-enabling change in function. In some (very few) cases, this resulted in a much more powerful interaction; but for the most part these were very minor increases or changes in power that only REALLY affected the min/max of a build.

Now you say it was too hard to introduce the new system without having the alt quality gems break the game? That simply doesn't track nor does it actually make fundamental sense. If the alt gems in their current state do not break the game, then they really shouldn't break the game after the introduction of these new skills. AND even if there WERE unforeseen interactions that are trouble....they can just do what they have ALWAYS done and nerf it. Within the league or after the league.

And please...your post reads like you think this is a totally brand new set of people to the game, that have no idea what interactions exist and what people have done with skills. That isn't true: the same team that developed these brand new transfigured gems COULD have built them around the existing interactions. They know what those are, they are not working in a black hole on some game that has never existed before. Since the addition of alt quality gems, there have been 20(?) or more new active skills introduced into the game. They have the practice. They've ALREADY done what you say is now somehow impossible for them.

Last point: we now have seen the majority of the new transfigured gems....90% of them are absolutely nothing special. They just took the alt qualities...and made them separate gems. Or even worse: they took the BASE gem and just split up the different ways the skill worked into two separate skills. Removing alt qualities is just a smokescreen to cover up their actual inability to design NEW skills, rather than recycle skills that ALREADY existed. They want something that LOOKS flashy, but really doesn't add much of anything to the existing game. Except when you factor in the removal of the alt qualities: NOW they make a much bigger difference because they fill in the unnecessary gap caused by their removal.

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jsuslak313 wrote:

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MoonPeace wrote:

i did read the whole thing

same here

I hear you. I feel you. At least, I think I do. I don't necessarily disagree with your statements as voiced in this thread. Rather, I am attempting to look through the now-established trends which have amounted to the middle fingers you've mentioned, which have displeased so many people (and reasonably so... myself included) to comprehend causes/ motives.

I do think that GGG chose, or was "ordered by upper management", to invest reduced resources into balancing this extremely complex game, and I can see why internal consensus might lean in that direction. Collective time and applied intellect necessary to achieve that balance is a finite resource, and one which can alternatively be utilized in accordance with revised company philosophy and direction. I also think that shift, to some extent, was a foregone conclusion, whether or not PoE & PoE 2 diverged. Among other things, the company has new ownership (= decision-makers with different motives/ priorities) and I would go so far as to propose that the driving force himself might have "evolved" (different) motives and values now.

Loss of the steadily-growing complexity (which I love...not happy to see it diminishing) along with its components (our gear in the form of AQ gems and many of the other things you've mentioned -- symbols of our time spent in accordance with a long-established status quo reflected in PoE) have proven to be collateral damage. I wouldn't be surprised to see more cuts in future, especially after PoE 2 rolls out. That doesn't mean I am looking forward to them...quite the opposite. I lost steam, along with trust, when The Announcement was made. I keenly hope that I will be surprised and watch PoE sail forth into the future, undiminished, with myself (and you) on board.

On the other hand, I wasn't surprised, either (about the abandonment of plans for PoE -> Poe 2). I've been dubious, all along, as to how they intended to bring so much extant PoE content into the fold of the significantly-different mechanics of PoE 2. I've certainly been rooting for a unified game, and hoping they would pull it off, while at the same time wondering how it could be possible without straight-up deletion of a lot of legacy gear (which, by the way, I would have preferred to the current plans for divided resource allocation).

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Sabranic_SilverDeth wrote:

Funny Story. I bought 75k Chromes, Jewelers and Vaal Orbs, as well as a quad of Tabula's in anticipation of the "Great Conversion" that was to happen with PoE II. My plan A was to put all of my character's corrupted 21/Vaal sets in tabula's, to see if that would white socket any conversion algo.

My backup plan was having enough jewelrs/chromes/vaal orbs to brute-force vendor my gear, and then sell whatever was left at what would surely be vastly inflated standard prices causes by literally EVERYONE re-socketing their skill gems.

i bought many abyss gear as well as a perfect crest of desire. they would have been bonkers in poe 2.

now they're just unused and act as a reminder of the potential that i lost.

but at the rate we're going. we should be glad that GGG doesnt just decide to nerf our standard gear out of the blue.

I expect nothing of anyone. This thread is pointless. We'll just have to deal with it. The game could be and was amazing.

When I compare the new summon skeleton gems with the old alternate ones I really don't get why the old ones had to be deleted...

Most of those new gems could have simply been added to the game....

I appreciate new stuff but I can't help thinking this was silly

(Not that I care much about anything anymore...just saying it's odd)

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Antigegner wrote:

When I compare the new summon skeleton gems with the old alternate ones I really don't get why the old ones had to be deleted...

Most of those new gems could have simply been added to the game....

I appreciate new stuff but I can't help thinking this was silly

(Not that care much about anything anymore...just saying it's odd)

Where did you see the new summon skeleton gems? I have not seen them yet.

I found them, nevermind.. But I don't see one where they are protected for X seconds after being summoned, so that still bricks every skeleton based loop build. In most cases it only takes losing 1 skeleton to dot or getting sniped before the duration of it ends to break the loop, and in most cases that means death... which means mostly all loop builds are bricked in almost all circumstances. But there's still one gem left to unveil.

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_sovereign wrote:

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Antigegner wrote:

When I compare the new summon skeleton gems with the old alternate ones I really don't get why the old ones had to be deleted...

Most of those new gems could have simply been added to the game....

I appreciate new stuff but I can't help thinking this was silly

(Not that care much about anything anymore...just saying it's odd)

Where did you see the new summon skeleton gems? I have not seen them yet.

I found them, nevermind.. But I don't see one where they are protected for X seconds after being summoned, so that still bricks every skeleton based loop build. In most cases it only takes losing 1 skeleton to dot or getting sniped before the duration of it ends to break the loop, and in most cases that means death... which means mostly all loop builds are bricked in almost all circumstances.

Yeah that's why I meant that I don't understand why they are removing the old alternate gems. Many of them are actually quite interesting - and in this particular case I'd argue that the old ones actually are more interesting than the new ones.

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_sovereign wrote:

I expect nothing of anyone. This thread is pointless. We'll just have to deal with it. The game could be and was amazing.

you do you.

people who get fed up enough will just quit playing.

I think the goals were twofold:

1: The goal was to combine alt quality + lab enchantments into one unified system.

2: This was an opportunity to nerf things that the devs felt were too powerful and have it fly a bit under the radar with the surrounding excitement.

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It does suck that the "permanent" leagues beat the brunt of this however. I wish they'd have created a vendor recipe that allowed you to change the alt-quality gems into the news ones using exalted or blessed orbs.

The second I saw the "alt quality" gems I figured they'd get nerfed in some way, so I let them be. I am always leery of new things in the game.

That's sorta a sad statement actually.