[POE2] Ascendancies - Don't discourage players from experimentation

"

cowmoo275#3095 wrote:

"

exsea#1724 wrote:

temp leagues were originally designed as a way for GGG to test new mechanics to add into the core/standard.

but look at where we are now? temp leagues are now the main league most players choose to engage with POE.

A tired....and wildly incorrect statement. They were never designed to be "tests", except within the beta. This is a simple untruth spouted by standard-lovers to try and defend standard. However, the reality is that standard is and always was the dumping ground for the "main" game which was the leagues.

"

exsea#1724 wrote:

how many diablo clones were temp league only or even had temp leagues before poe1.

"

Vyend#2601 wrote:

In a recent interview Jonathan said that the devs want to make the choice of Ascendancy matter so that's why we aren't able to change between them, at least for now

I genuinely understand this line of thought, but imposing something like that, especially when your initial goal is to finish the campaign discourages player experimentation, why can we respec passives with gold but not our Ascendancy??

So here's my proposal to try to make both ends happy:

1 - Make Ascendancies extremely easy to swap until you finish the campaign
2 - After you reach endgame, make players re-do the trials if they want to change their Ascendancy again
3 - At level 90 or 100 make players unable to change their Ascendancy or make it so it costs a lot to do it

This is just my humble opinion on the matter so let me hear what you think

"

chernimonta666#0960 wrote:

I'm a bit late to the discussion, but I have to say I think locking ascendancies is a very player-unfriendly decision from GGG. It discourages experimentation and will likely push players to rely heavily on guides and streamers' opinions to make the "optimal" choice. This approach punishes players for picking the "wrong" ascendancy unless every class is perfectly balanced and equally enjoyable which, let’s be honest, is highly unlikely.

"

exsea#1724 wrote:

this is a very divisive subject.

on one hand i like the idea of being able to respec

but on another i see the value of some character permanency.

permanency came from an ancient philosophy of living with your choices

"

exsea#1724 wrote:

back in d2, everything was deliberate. before synergies were a thing, if you put all your points into early skills, you would have an easy time leveling but harder time at later levels as the better skills could be lower leveled or you would have less points to spend on meaningful end game skills.

if you wanted to min max, you lived and died with your skill/attribute allocation. if you were unhappy you can ONLY reroll.

"

Akheira#7726 wrote:

"

exsea#1724 wrote:

this is a very divisive subject.

on one hand i like the idea of being able to respec

but on another i see the value of some character permanency.

permanency came from an ancient philosophy of living with your choices

Most players hate when game is exactly like RL. (Roblox, Minecraft, Terraria (etc) are examples, when devs don't follow this. History games are an exception.

"

exsea#1724 wrote:

back in d2, everything was deliberate. before synergies were a thing, if you put all your points into early skills, you would have an easy time leveling but harder time at later levels as the better skills could be lower leveled or you would have less points to spend on meaningful end game skills.

if you wanted to min max, you lived and died with your skill/attribute allocation. if you were unhappy you can ONLY reroll.

In Diablo 2 You could reset ALL POINTS invested for every AcT 1 You reached (2-3 times). So You put all points into lvling and then reset and put all points into build You want. Was it in the game from start? Duno... If it wasn't, they changed it because it was bad.

Please remove D2 from examples, because it's not correct.

"

cowmoo275#3095 wrote:

"

exsea#1724 wrote:

how many diablo clones were temp league only or even had temp leagues before poe1.

How many of them followed the f2p model? Zero? Oh. Hence....what I wrote and what remains the truth of PoE "standard" mode.

Chris literally wrote a massive post way way back in 2014/15 (very early on in the game) about how the leagues started taking priority, both in manpower and money, because that's where all the players were and that's where the majority of their income came from.

Where the money and manpower goes = the core of the game.

"

cowmoo275#3095 wrote:

"

exsea#1724 wrote:

how many diablo clones were temp league only or even had temp leagues before poe1.

How many of them followed the f2p model? Zero? Oh. Hence....what I wrote and what remains the truth of PoE "standard" mode.

Chris literally wrote a massive post way way back in 2014/15 (very early on in the game) about how the leagues started taking priority, both in manpower and money, because that's where all the players were and that's where the majority of their income came from.

Where the money and manpower goes = the core of the game.

"

cowmoo275#3095 wrote:

No matter what I say, or even what the devs themselves have said, you guys are in permanent denial mode living like its 2013/2014. The developers moved on rapidly after release, they publicly moved on in 2014/15, the mass playerbase moved on. And yet here you are: claiming a completely false reality. Is it still covid? Are we still in lockdown? You can latch on to any flimsy argument or comparison you want to make, or maintain that head-in-the-sand wishful thinking, but there is little I need to prove as it has all simply already happened.

Standard is a dumping ground and has been a dumping ground since the very early days of the game. It has been given very little to no developer interaction or attention or funding. At most, 10-15% of all PoE players play in standard which includes the randos and mules that simply sit there waiting for people to mirror their stuff, rmt-ing, or not actually really playing. It is NOT the "core" of the game: the core refers to any and all gameplay that is not "new" league material. The core still exists in every temporary league, with the ADDITION of new league on top of that. Old leagues are not being "added to standard", they are being added to the core of the game itself which exists across all modes.

There is no saving standard from that fate, not in PoE 1 and not in PoE 2. The damage will start slow, just like it did in PoE 1. But give it 3-4 leagues and it will be just as bad. It has a purpose, and that is to offer "permanence" or a trophy case for old league characters. Some folks may choose to play a character they really like beyond the league time limit, but 90% of the players will not. Things aren't magically going to be different, and the decisions to abandon standard so early in PoE 1 haven't changed: the money is in the temporary leagues. The entire game is in the temporary leagues. Especially now with modern gamers that have goldfish-like attention spans.