Listening to the whiners opened Pandora's box

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Felix44#4475 wrote:

I haven't finished the campaign yet, so far with the exception of Act 2 the game didn't seem difficult to me. But the lack of loot makes it boring as hell.

I'd be fine to have a difficulty buff to compensate, but there needs to be more loot. An ARPG without exciting loot is just depressing.

I'm running on absolute dogshit gear, and while my build is performing fine, the lack of cool items to find, upgrade and wear is a major turn off.

People like you need to understand that loot is fundamental to an ARPG. When loot is not exciting you're missing 1/3 of what makes an ARPG fun.

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1453R#7804 wrote:

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Felix44#4475 wrote:

I haven't finished the campaign yet, so far with the exception of Act 2 the game didn't seem difficult to me. But the lack of loot makes it boring as hell.

I'd be fine to have a difficulty buff to compensate, but there needs to be more loot. An ARPG without exciting loot is just depressing.

I'm running on absolute dogshit gear, and while my build is performing fine, the lack of cool items to find, upgrade and wear is a major turn off.

People like you need to understand that loot is fundamental to an ARPG. When loot is not exciting you're missing 1/3 of what makes an ARPG fun.

Letting nineteen more pages of stuff breeze by for the moment because this post speaks to the problem, I think.

There's two camps of people who are both pushing very hard to make this incredible new game swing more their way. Those two camps have mutually exclusive goals, and whichever camp wins in the end is going to make the game impossible to play for the other one.

The camp you're speaking for, Felix, wants a POE1-style loot extravaganza. Loot everywhere, exploding from every enemy, with a constant stream of upgrades. They want characters changing out their entire gear load four or five times per act, sometimes changing out every piece of gear they're using within a single area/instance. They're looking for loot to be the excitement of the game, for finding stuff to be the goal. Defeating the enemies is a means to the goal of finding more stuff, ever seeking that dopamine hit of getting a Swag New Gear Piece. No new dopamine hit within the afterglow of the last dopamine hit? No dice.

Folks like Fae, myself, and others are arguing that in order to have any meaning, loot and build upgrades generally need to be scarce. As scarce as launch, perhaps not, but the idea of finding a significant and powerful build upgrade every one to three minutes of gameplay is absolutely unacceptable because at that point those upgrades stop having any meaning. why get excited about any given piece of loot when you're just gonna disenchant it or throw it away forty-five seconds later when the next pack you blow up drops two hundred items, including at least four that are direct upgrades of the cool piece you just found?

It takes away from the joy of actually making meaningful upgrades to your character, and it completely eliminates the joy of defeating enemies. Because by level 6 you've so thoroughly outgeared the content that enemies are no longer any actual credible threat to you. Upgrading your character is supposed to make engaging and defeating enemies easier, but if the game awards too many upgrades too fast then there's no 'easier' left to upgrade towards. if you beat the Bloated Miller while wearing a full set of rare and unique items all rolled with +200% damage, +45 resists, +100% local defenses, and the like, what the hell is left to upgrade? Why bother 'upgrading' when you've already trivialized everything the game could possibly throw at you?

If the game can't win- if it can't beat you - there's no point in playing it. And the level of loot drops most people on this forum are pushing for would absolutely push PoE2 into the same "the game is physically incapable of killing you" territory that PoE1 has been in for five years now. Which means folks like Fae and myself would no longer have any reason to play it, and we would be sad, upset, and furious in equal measure at this rank betrayal from GGG after a year and a half of promising us an ARPG we could actually engage with.

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1453R#7804 wrote:

If the game can't win- if it can't beat you - there's no point in playing it. And the level of loot drops most people on this forum are pushing for would absolutely push PoE2 into the same "the game is physically incapable of killing you" territory that PoE1 has been in for five years now. Which means folks like Fae and myself would no longer have any reason to play it, and we would be sad, upset, and furious in equal measure at this rank betrayal from GGG after a year and a half of promising us an ARPG we could actually engage with.

"

1453R#7804 wrote:

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Felix44#4475 wrote:

I haven't finished the campaign yet, so far with the exception of Act 2 the game didn't seem difficult to me. But the lack of loot makes it boring as hell.

I'd be fine to have a difficulty buff to compensate, but there needs to be more loot. An ARPG without exciting loot is just depressing.

I'm running on absolute dogshit gear, and while my build is performing fine, the lack of cool items to find, upgrade and wear is a major turn off.

People like you need to understand that loot is fundamental to an ARPG. When loot is not exciting you're missing 1/3 of what makes an ARPG fun.

Letting nineteen more pages of stuff breeze by for the moment because this post speaks to the problem, I think.

There's two camps of people who are both pushing very hard to make this incredible new game swing more their way. Those two camps have mutually exclusive goals, and whichever camp wins in the end is going to make the game impossible to play for the other one.

The camp you're speaking for, Felix, wants a POE1-style loot extravaganza. Loot everywhere, exploding from every enemy, with a constant stream of upgrades. They want characters changing out their entire gear load four or five times per act, sometimes changing out every piece of gear they're using within a single area/instance. They're looking for loot to be the excitement of the game, for finding stuff to be the goal. Defeating the enemies is a means to the goal of finding more stuff, ever seeking that dopamine hit of getting a Swag New Gear Piece. No new dopamine hit within the afterglow of the last dopamine hit? No dice.

Folks like Fae, myself, and others are arguing that in order to have any meaning, loot and build upgrades generally need to be scarce. As scarce as launch, perhaps not, but the idea of finding a significant and powerful build upgrade every one to three minutes of gameplay is absolutely unacceptable because at that point those upgrades stop having any meaning. why get excited about any given piece of loot when you're just gonna disenchant it or throw it away forty-five seconds later when the next pack you blow up drops two hundred items, including at least four that are direct upgrades of the cool piece you just found?

It takes away from the joy of actually making meaningful upgrades to your character, and it completely eliminates the joy of defeating enemies. Because by level 6 you've so thoroughly outgeared the content that enemies are no longer any actual credible threat to you. Upgrading your character is supposed to make engaging and defeating enemies easier, but if the game awards too many upgrades too fast then there's no 'easier' left to upgrade towards. if you beat the Bloated Miller while wearing a full set of rare and unique items all rolled with +200% damage, +45 resists, +100% local defenses, and the like, what the hell is left to upgrade? Why bother 'upgrading' when you've already trivialized everything the game could possibly throw at you?

If the game can't win- if it can't beat you - there's no point in playing it. And the level of loot drops most people on this forum are pushing for would absolutely push PoE2 into the same "the game is physically incapable of killing you" territory that PoE1 has been in for five years now. Which means folks like Fae and myself would no longer have any reason to play it, and we would be sad, upset, and furious in equal measure at this rank betrayal from GGG after a year and a half of promising us an ARPG we could actually engage with.

"

Fae_Lyth#6750 wrote:

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Telzen#2427 wrote:

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eldheim#2436 wrote:

I just love the "ITS TOO EASY" from players that didn't even reach lategame maps.
Wait till you get to the hardest maps and map bosses.
It'll oneshot you with little or no warning -elites too.

Come back with a 90+ character in a week and complain, and I'll believe you.

Its been a week. Sorry we all aren't either children or rich. No one that actually has a job is that far in.

They always move the goalpost because they never had a point to begin with.

They say the campaign is too hard.
When you show them evidence it's not, they'll dismiss it and say "come back when you're done with maps", or "look how much money I spent on supporter packs, therefore I am correct" (lol?)

They say the loot is too little.
When you show them evidence it's not, they'll say you're just lucky.

They complain about minion witch (of all classes).
When you show them evidence that minions are good and offer help, they'll reject it, and say you're just using OP stuff.

They say that we are "sweaty hardcore players wanting to gatekeep".
When you show them that the "difficulty" they mean is bosses that melt down in 5 seconds due to the busted gear we're showered with, they'll come up with another bullshit reason or excuse why you're actually wrong.

You can't have a reasonable discussion with them, because to them it's not about finding out the truth.
They're trolls.

You can give them all the help and show them all the evidence that and why their point is incorrect, and the only thing they will do is move the goalpost.

And this is why GGG has opened the door for people to seek to ruin a wonderful game. Because their demands are never going to stop. You give them this, and they'll want more. They'll always move the goalpost.

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Fae_Lyth#6750 wrote:

100%, but there is something more worrying I'd like to point out, and it's the fact that to me, it seems like they had no confidence in their product at all.
After all, after the slightest bit of "backlash" from a handful of people who immediately took to Reddit upon dying once, they immediately drastically changed the game in less than 3 days.

This is a very bad sign to me, and signals that any bit of complaining will lead to drastic changes. It deters me from getting attached.

Reasons why I think this should have kept to make camp 2 happy over camp 1:

1. This was released like that initially, meaning this was their initial vision. This is a huge factor. Would I have minded it if it was released like a loot extravaganza initially? No. Reasons, see above.

2. PoE 1 already exists. Camp 1 has a game they can play. Camp 2 was promised one, only for it to be turned into a second PoE 1. This is disappointing.

3. Variety is a good thing. Some days I want a hot dog, other days I want a burger. Now we have 2x hot dog. Guess I'll get burger elsewhere.

4. If you turn PoE 2 into PoE 1, then PoE 1 becomes obsolete, as both compete with each other.

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m00s3m4n#0316 wrote:

Good post, however you seem to forget some things in my honest opinion.

Generally:
A. PoE2 is by it's definition not a souls game (at least that's not how they define themselves), it is built to be repeatable farmable etc. While I like high stakes in a game, put that in uber-bosses and the like, it does not belong in a campaign that needs to have replayability. One could also argue early maps.

B. Too many a times people got killed by nicely telegraphed attacks due to 360 no scope tracking, when they stood clearly behind the boss and it decided to track the player till the last second.
If you want the stakes to be this high, then build dodge rolling in a way where it actually provides invul frames (see Guild Wars 2).

C. Bricking builds sucks, eventhough I was not directly affected by this yet. It feels shitty if a patch bricked your build and you don't have gold to do a respect because you used it to get good bases to upgrade as an example. This then literally leaves your char dead in the water. And the solution here cannot be to just start over with a different build (see difficulty of campaign which makes another playthrough, specifically for the stated reasons, not really fun for most of us.

Now for the loot:
1. I 100% agree that drops in PoE1 are not meaningful and that this is better in PoE2, however if you're starved for loot and or currency and have to over level zones because either the currency you have does not roll the appropriate mods or you don't get currency and drops at all, that's not a good look. It feels like the game holding you back artificially, which is not fun.
Example: Player A & B have both the same mechanical skill but player A has been extremely lucky with his drops and got things like a 3 damage mod weapon while the best that Player B did get was a blue 1 damage mod weapon because no currency and no drop luck, player A will objectively have a much more enjoyable experience with the difficulty of the content. All while Player B basically has one of his hands tied to his back artificially

So if you want to go that rough you need to do away with randomness of drops or crafting outcomes. That or drastically increase drops/currency so that we actually can craft and get past spells of randomness.

2. Agree with this mostly.

3. Yes, but lets assume for a second PoE1 represents pizza and PoE2 represents pasta. Now imagine for a second the restaurant would pour ketchup on your Pasta and call it Spaghetti Napoletana, would that be a good level of variety?

4. Agree, they should be different, but I think they also should be both enjoyable. On my end I love the game, but looking at for instance the Act 2 endboss, where it just tracks so hard with its attacks and most of it insta gibs or severely junks you and you have situations where you can't get out, because 4 attacks happen at the same time. All the while you can't even see the boss animations because it's blocked by the health bar while the arena forces you to stand there because of gales, lightning rods and fire portals, that is objectively not good design.

I mean if PoE2 wants to be a souls game that's fine I respect it, but then be a souls game and get rid of the casino like randomness of drops and loot. You can't have it both ways.

Also if you want it to just be a ruthless type ARPG that's fine too but then don't be surprised that the majority of the player base might not enjoy that and leaves (hence my first suggestion to bury higher difficulty in specific bosses).

Looking forward to see you feedback and thanks for taking the time to read my more or less coherent thoughts ;)

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Fae_Lyth#6750 wrote:

I agree with your conclusion that higher difficulty bosses should not be early.
I just don't think the campaign bosses were particularly difficult.
Yes, you will die maybe 2-3 times, then figure out how the mechanic works and progress. I think that's fine.

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Nothv13#0740 wrote:

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Fae_Lyth#6750 wrote:

I agree with your conclusion that higher difficulty bosses should not be early.
I just don't think the campaign bosses were particularly difficult.
Yes, you will die maybe 2-3 times, then figure out how the mechanic works and progress. I think that's fine.

Difficulty of the campaign bosses rely almost entirely on whether you are getting gear or not. Get blessed with gear and you can pretty much just blow through them. Get cursed with no gear and it is suffering.