I am going to be very honest; I despise this game's lack of respect for self-determination.

Just gotta point out how amusing it is to hear people who either don't want the game to get easier or don't have issues with the current league being called "nolifers" and "white knights". Some high level copium right there

This thread is a mess, theres so much in here that i fundamentally disagree with i couldnt even begin to address it all.




heres where the op is has a point and the devs need to take in on board and make some shifts:

the game is not doing enough to make sure basic straight forward skills built in a basic way straight forward way are communicated and work well in endgame. some of them do, some of them really dont and the player is given too many options of weird niche things.

someone needs to be given freeze pule early, they use it all the way through, get some life, es, mana, increased damage, cast speed, crit and thats it. life, resist and cold/spell damage on gear, bit of crit. they got an aura on. this needs to work and it needs to be satisfyingly good. enki abandoned his arc guide after all this time, my old guildleader foxtactics was holding down the beginners arc before him. he retired the guide cause it now sucks.

it has to be good. get arc, life, mana, increased damage, crit, cast speed, now you have a build and it works and its decent.


stuff needs buffed and options focused etc til these simple things start working again. and you know, if the guy who is making the 4 mirror int stack version of the skill is now doing unacceptable damage after the buffs then nerf attribute stacking. its needed nerfed for so long, not the skill gems they are using, the actual mechanics of the boosts you get from attribute stacking and other such hyper niche build paths that low knowledge players will never intuitively end up doing.

Make the game work when played in a simple way with simple skills and mechanics and if the result is the high end gets too high then address the high end on a vector that target nerfs only the high end.

the game has got way too lost in layers of unintuitive mechanics. yes thats the soul of the game, yes thats fun, of course these things need to exist but you need simple things to work to provide a path for players to get into the game and stick around. not enough has been done to look after this side of things.



i almost feel like the devs, i get that they want builds and metas to be emergent player behaviour without too much direction from them. absolutely, i get that whole argument.


but i think for the health of the game they need to work out some simple skills for each class and do more to limit what is immediately visible to players new to the game and make sure these skills always work with a very simple build using basic fundamental mechanics. they need to be able to farm the map system on essentially self found gear. freeze pulse, arc, firestorm, groundslam, cleave, split arrow etc.

some of these do work, im not saying every basic skill build basically sucks, i actually think a lot of them work just fine. but i think they need to pick a list of skills that are fundamental archetype "this is what the artwork tells me my character is" type skills and do more to stop players falling too far off that path.


way too many build guides now, virtually all of them, are so complicated and rely on so many insanely weird mechanics that new players are not even able to learn the basics of the game from following a guide, they can apply that knowledge going forward because the mechanics are so weird, niche, occult, convoluted.








im gonna use arc as the example here. back when foxtactics made his arc build it was all about mom as the defence. it was non crit, the way it worked was you get life, lightning damage, cast speed, mana and eldritch battery on the tree. then you use the cloak of defiance unique. that was it, that was the sum total of how it worked. you could use a moonsorrow as a starter wand, on gear you wanted life, resist, mana, energy shield.

done.


ziggy d made a variant on it and did a build guide video, and largely it was fine, he took aura nodes fox didnt, that was the only real difference.


that just worked, people could turn up league after league and do this simple thing and it was fine. if you just looked at the game and took some life, spell damage and mana you were 75% of the way there already, it was OBVIOUS.


if you dot that with arc now is sucks balls.



zigg has done an arc build in this league. i believe you use the amulet that makes your power charges equal to the frenzy charges (ok weve already blown our 'this is something a new player might work out by themselves' budget with the first line of the description) and then you use the shield that gives you +2 power charges by you lose all power and get shocked when reaching max power charges and you use the wand that gives you max powercharges but then you use the belt that makes your power charges absorption charges and gives you extra charges but then you use the boots that dont give you charges but make it count as if you have max charges and that means while u get absorption charges that give you elemental damage recouped as mana instead of power charges you still get the effects of all your power charges via the boots and then you get the trans version of arc that surges and you use the waterball and how the build works is that on a boss you put down the water ball and arc at that and for some reason completely unintuitively all 7 of the surges from the arc will all hit the boss off the ball but you can inly do that once per second so you build your damage delivery min/max around that quirk.


im sorry but that is not 'arc is fine'. that is an abomination of nonsense. im glad that it is in the game, its rly cool that this stuff exists. but this is now what ziggy d, the peoples casual everyman who does the beginner thing, this is where his beginner arc idea is in 2024. this is where the game is at.


its so ridiculously convoluted 5head 6D chess that even if you follow his guide and make it work you probably learn very little about how to build characters in general from that.




its gone too far and the game should not remove these things, but it needs to go back, make sure the game points you in a simple direction and that every single patch come rain or shine those simple things work. i think they have tried to do this but its not enough, it needs more focus and more balance.










that said, theres so much in this thread that is exaggerated or flat out wrong that its crazy. ill make another post i guess.

"

TechnicallBrains wrote:

Even though im a very.. very.. new player to this game, i just wanna give my thought to the OP and ye..., i feel ya.., like 100%, ive tried a couple differnet builds, even tried myself, and ive seen streamers do those endgame bosses that looked very cool.

yet.., ive never been able to get there myself, at all the highest i reached is tier 16, and thats purely cuz i had to follow a very very specific build from PoB...

and even that wasn't enough as i got help from others to make sure my experience wouldnt be completely negative for endgame as i just couldnt reach further i just couldnt, first tier 8 was the highest i could with my zombies build, got literally 1shotted at some point....

the game has potential, has a lot.... of stuff in it skill/gem wise gear wise as well etc.., but barely.... to non guide or explenation from the game itself...

we're forced to rely on very min/maxed specific builds, and if you don't go for the Meta build welp..... youll suffer in experience...

sadly enough the better meta builds are crazy expensive for a new player such as myself which i didnt know untill i got towards mapping.. its sad rlly...

i think you just dont know the game well enough yet. that is a problem with the game, but its also a game where it takes some time to learn.



I feel like i could pick almost any 'main damage' type skill in the game, start a fresh character solo self found from nothing with no build guide and easily go all the way to t16 maps and clear them competently.

im not an expert in this game at all, i just know the fundamentals well enough.





as i outlined above, the game could and should be doing a lot more. but the problem is a knowledge gap. its all there, you dont have to run a meta build, you dont need to trade for gear, the problem is you just dont have that knowledge and where the game is letting you down is that its not providing a good enough knowledge path through the forest that ends in enough basic success that you can then build on it.






regarding the op. obviously i made a big long post there on problems with the game. but the other side is that it is a game. i dont agree the game has a lack of respect for self determination at all, but it is a game where you can win or lose.

if you can just do anything and you always win regardless of what choice you make its not a game, its pointless. if you play football and every time you get the ball you either kick it off the side of the pitch or into your own goal then you are going to lose the game. at some point you have to respect that you have agency but the game also provides resistance, so you have to learn to play it.

what is actually being said here? if i want to be terrible at the game that is how i want to play so i need to be able to make every terrible choice possible and still win the game? surely we can all see that would be a ridiculous position.


the measure of this is being put down to being able to level to 90 and kill elder right? a standard endgame boss, non uber. yeah you can do that, you dont need a build guide or trade you can take pretty much any build direction you want and make that happen. you just have to learn to play, you can do the sort of character you want to do but at some point you have to make good choices for it.


there are some architypes that really suck right now, but i think poe allows you to play the game the way you want to more than any other arpg ever made. its just that its also a game and its possible to fail. the game maybe doesnt do enough to inform you how to make what you want to make work, but it totally respecs your right to make the kind of character you want to make.

theres some confused ideas in this thread where people are saying well, this niche strat used by 0.0001% of people was nerfed so ggg balances the whole game around the elite. oh the drop rates of the most rare chase uber pinnacle boss item is based around the economy and people mass farming it therefor the game is completely balanced around the top players only.


no, come on, stop. that doesnt mean the game is balanced around those people, that means the 0.0000001% of the game that those things represent is balanced around those people, as it should be because those things we added specifically for those people. yeah the 1 in a million item is balanced around the 1 in a million player. that has nothing to do with "can a person making their own build self found reach level 90 and kill normal elder".


its like were taking this really low bar of what were expecting a player to be able to do and then plucking these insane point of the pyramid strats/items and trying to use the balance of one to comment on the balance of the other.


i think you can pick any class and go reach lvl90 then kill elder solo self found with ease if you know how to play the game, if you want to do it with your own build then factor in 5-10 minutes planning before you start. if the game hasnt done enough to teach you how to play then that is an issue, but thats what the issue is, its a lack of player knowledge, not ggg making it impossible to make a range of non meta characters or them balancing the game around cute dog.

Snorkle_uk, you took time to write/repeat a lot of things, respect. I agree with most of it. And then you conclude that with

"

i think you can pick any class and go reach lvl90 then kill elder solo self found with ease if you know how to play the game, if you want to do it with your own build then factor in 5-10 minutes planning before you start.

While you yourself explained earlier why it isn't easy to "know how to play the game" even if you've figured out where to begin looking for knowledge. And even finding this beginning is counter-intuitive by arpg standards. Indeed, simple mechanics should work, and should also be the center of balance, not be a filler before weird gimmicks that actually work.

I can't believe the thread I made is still going. I guess there is many grievances with the way it has been designed, and I simply kicked the hornest's nest.

To quote this gentlemen,

"

Johny_Snow wrote:

Just gotta point out how amusing it is to hear people who either don't want the game to get easier or don't have issues with the current league being called "nolifers" and "white knights". Some high level copium right there

, there is nothing wrong with the game becoming "easier". You may find it actually enjoyable and less stressful for a change. However, easier does not necessarily mean "dumbed down." The two are not mutually inclusive expressions, and I can't understand why people think that, although I have many examples of other forms of entertainment I can easily draw upon if I had to, I find there is a sweet spot one can easily reach with the right programming and development.

But I am not a programmer so my "this is how you do it"'s won't matter.

The fact of the matter, is that it isn't hard to play PoE, at all infact. Cyclone whoosh try not to die go zoom zoom, isn't a giant mindstretch that requires insane amount of planning. What is the problem, is how only certain things work and certain things do not, because the game has been designed unfortunately for many who dispute this, for very specific circumstances of playstyle and attitude.

Why? Because the gameplay itself reflects this. Here, let's have an example: Why can't you make ANY build, not just X build work? What is the drawback? Well for starters, end-game has high-statistical demands. There is no compromise to this, and nothing you do or say will disprove that. You can try to reach a middle ground by utilizing flasks, etc, but even that to supplement for your shortcomings only reaches so far. There has to be more to varietize the gameplay and make it sustainable for any and all builds. That doesn't mean all builds necessarily need to be the best, but a higher variety of builds means more gameplay content, and therefore more investment from people to play as they want to.

Therefore, genuine player's agency. I don't exactly know or understand what this fearful paranoia of "IF YOU MAKE EVERYTHING VIABLE IT BECOMES 2 EASIE !_!@_#@!)#@!#14324" gibberish is, but I think you're painfully mistaken.

Being given more options for personal playstyle and allowing people to be more flexible with their choices, is not dumbing down. It's actually intelligent innovation.

"

Redthorne82 wrote:

"

DeathorGlory wrote:

...but you never hear anyone complain that Diablo's mechanics are so utterly broken that it forces you to play in one way, or not at all.

I'm sorry, what? 35000% modifiers on sets in D3 never got criticized? Literally if you didn't have a full set on, you were gimping your power by 95-99%.

This is why some people are having trouble taking your post seriously. "I played Diablo blindly and succeeded. I played PoE blindly and didn't succeed. PoE is wrong." These statements say nothing of the games, and you definitely showed your complete ignorance as to the problems with Diablo and how the community feels about them...so why should your thoughts on a game you have LESS experience with be raised above all others?

[Removed by Support]

Frankly, I won't address even most of this. I did follow guides, and other media content to a minimum in regards to Diablo 3. And I did do all of the endgame content on it. However, there is a difference between Diablo 3 and Path of Exile that is irrefutable.

Diablo 3 required you to play the game and figure things out on your own. You could learn and manage your own system you designed, based on what made logical sense. If you put in the time, progress and effort, you could advance through the game and work towards your own personal goals. Sure, there was some things that were broken, but that didn't matter because everything was scaled to be on par with each other. It came down to pure preference, and even then there was min-maxing. But, IT DID NOT DENY YOU THE RIGHT TO DECIDE WHAT YOU WERE GOING TO PLAY.

Path of Exile requires you to watch someone else do something and expects you to tow the line and hope to whatever gods you worship that you have nearly the same outcome as the other person, and to give up on any whinge of a chance that you can build something you want as you want, because some unforseen variable comes into play, and forces you to give up or tow the line.

Why? Because it's designed that way. It's a faulty design, and anyone who plays this game will see it very quickly, very early on. Go ahead, deny it and scream "git gud."

[Removed by Support]

"

DeathorGlory wrote:

[Removed by Support]

Frankly, I won't address even most of this. I did follow guides, and other media content to a minimum in regards to Diablo 3. And I did do all of the endgame content on it. However, there is a difference between Diablo 3 and Path of Exile that is irrefutable.

Diablo 3 required you to play the game and figure things out on your own. You could learn and manage your own system you designed, based on what made logical sense. If you put in the time, progress and effort, you could advance through the game and work towards your own personal goals. Sure, there was some things that were broken, but that didn't matter because everything was scaled to be on par with each other. It came down to pure preference, and even then there was min-maxing. But, IT DID NOT DENY YOU THE RIGHT TO DECIDE WHAT YOU WERE GOING TO PLAY.

Path of Exile requires you to watch someone else do something and expects you to tow the line and hope to whatever gods you worship that you have nearly the same outcome as the other person, and to give up on any whinge of a chance that you can build something you want as you want, because some unforseen variable comes into play, and forces you to give up or tow the line.

Why? Because it's designed that way. It's a faulty design, and anyone who plays this game will see it very quickly, very early on. Go ahead, deny it and scream "git gud."

[Removed by Support]

Sorry, but no. This is not at all true (at least the PoE parts aren't).

I started this league with Soul Rend, which is somewhere around a 0.1% usage skill in ANY setup and far lower as a primary damage skill. Why? Because I hadn't touched the skill in about 3 years and I wanted to play it.

I didn't copy anyone's build or follow a guide - I don't know if there even IS an up to date guide, this is one of those skills most people genuinely don't even know is in the game - I just went into POB and hacked together the template for what became a low life transfiguration self cast Soul Rend Occultist. And it's pretty solid, it got me through non-uber pinnacle bosses and filled out my entire Atlas (minus a couple unique maps) on maybe 3 or 4 divines in gear.

Saying that you can't successfully play anything that you want in this game is what they call a vacuous truth: it's technically correct, but a useless statement. "Build diversity" doesn't mean "bad builds get to win." Saying that you HAVE to follow the meta has never been true; people kill uber bosses with heavy strike and I've personally made builds which were built around leap slam as a primary attack. You can definitely use any skill you want, provided you make smart, reasonable build choices.

As for doing all of the Diablo 3 endgame content without ever following a guide... I mean, come on, dude. Diablo 3 was an easy game with literally zero build diversity, that's not even an accomplishment. You don't even choose where you put skill points in that game, so what would a D3 guide even SAY? "Make sure you get the ancient legendary items with the BIGGER numbers." How profound!

You can self determine pretty well in PoE it just has a knowledge bridge you have to cross before you'll meet with any real success, how long that takes is entirely based around how fast you run across it.

Some people learn slow, or make no effort to learn and for them it can take quite a while - its absolutely fair to give GGG stick for the fact everything is nebulous, poorly documented and we use a third party tool to equate a majority of our build stats and none of that helps.

Some players learn real quick though and have no problem breaking down how to make a build and explore with it.

The only thing I can really add overall is PoE has a reputation and many players have a strange perspective that its for nolifers only and they balance around bitchbois and mirror gear.

They don't, they balance around 6 portals and a reasonable level of build development. This is why you can bop everything outside of Ubers on a trivial budget regardless of skill choice.

You might have to actually learn the fights which some players never do because its so easy to circumvent but its there for the taking if anyone wants it.

"

DeathorGlory wrote:

Diablo 3 required you to play the game and figure things out on your own. You could learn and manage your own system you designed, based on what made logical sense. If you put in the time, progress and effort, you could advance through the game and work towards your own personal goals. Sure, there was some things that were broken, but that didn't matter because everything was scaled to be on par with each other. It came down to pure preference, and even then there was min-maxing. But, IT DID NOT DENY YOU THE RIGHT TO DECIDE WHAT YOU WERE GOING TO PLAY.

Diablo 3 haven't required anything, it was going on by itself no matter what player did. It was hands down worst system in arpgs ever implemented. There were no bad choices, and if someone had slow progress, Blizz buffed every skill and gear so people had illusion of getting better - but they were tricked, their skill didn't improved, it was gear. Whole game was broken, from itemization, skills to personal loot.

Some people doing you a lot of harm here, saying "you're right, game is broken", but thats not how it is - you fail because of lack of knowledge how to make builds. If you don't progress, it means your builds aren't improving. The sooner you realize that, the sooner you can work on yourself.