Build Complexity vs Casual Gamers

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metisuneatn wrote:
This game was my first action rpg. I never visited the forums to check on builds, ect ect. I just picked it up and started playing. My first character.... horrid. A ci witch with like 12k es that still died in fellshrine (witch was 54, fellshrine in ruthless). It doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out what a buff or aura is. Doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out how molten shell, enduring cry, dominating blow work. You just fucking read the gem!

I didn't know shit about the game, I was the one that died to the very first mob like 7 times because I didn't know I was suppose to pick up the fucking weapon right next to my feet and attack.

And now I'm an 81 elemental bow witch whos better off than most rangers and shadows Ive seen.



If I can figure out this game, I'm pretty sure any retard with a keyboard can figure it out as well.


Edit: And I would like to add. Figuring out the builds, spending time on them, building up to them. Thats what a casual gamer like me likes. It is fun for me going into something I have no idea about and learning it. And then perfecting my character to the way I use it. You can't fully learn without making some mistakes first.


You are awesome.
If I like a game, it'll either be amazing later or awful forever. There's no in-between.

I am Path of Exile's biggest whale. Period.
The fewer number of cookie-cutters, the better. The more variety we find will be a testament to good game design. The more cookie-cutter copycats we find, the more reason the developers will have to rethink the way the passives are set up.
Underrated stats: Basic human decency, small quantum of respect, microportion of compassion
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Ladderjack wrote:

tl;dr: I wanna get to end game but I don't wanna put any thought or effort into it. Can you guys get right on that??


Funny you posted here as you have a topic going currently requesting help for something in the same neighborhood as what I'm talking about. Your "thought and effort" went about as far as asking on the forum.

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/53882


EDIT: Hell you have multiple threads asking about things I mentioned.

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/53784

You are actually a prime example of what I'm talking about. Now put yourself in the position of someone just trying to make a build from scratch and not understanding how all these passives effect each and every skill. Would be pretty tough to learn by trial and error without reading or asking on the forums.
Last edited by Upem#2070 on Oct 17, 2012, 10:02:58 AM
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Upem wrote:
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metisuneatn wrote:

It doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out what a buff or aura is. Doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out how molten shell, enduring cry, dominating blow work. You just fucking read the gem!


Nowhere in my post did I say it was a problem figuring out HOW molten shell, enduring cry, and dominating blow work, they are clearly explained. But the passives that do and don't affect these buffs are not clearly explained anywhere but online.
Of those three skills, only Molten Shell is affected by Buff Duration. It's the one which explicitly says in the description of the skill that it puts a buff on you. The other two don't mention buffs, and don't apply them (and are thus unaffected by buff duration passives).

Could you explain in more detail where you think this system fails to be clear? I put a lot of effort into making these things consistent so people can get the right answer by intuition most of the time, so feedback which can help me improve that is always appreciated.
When it starts getting complex, just ask Global Chat.
My first build was probably around lvl 30-35 before I first looked at the forum; and I'd disabled global chat as being an unwanted/needed distraction so I didn't have any input from there either. I'd played D2 in the past; but only offline, never in realms.

I didn't do too badly; but a fair amount of that was that I picked my initial build based on something that didn't seem hard to screw up badly. I went with a mace and shield marauder and split my points roughly 50/50 between offense and defense. I picked the basic class because run up and hit someone is probably the simplest tactics of any major build; and figured that 50/50 would be close enough to optimal that if the right answer was 60/40 or 40/60 I could adjust as the game continued without major problems. As it was, I eventually did look at the forums and burned most of my respec points trying to optimize my build just before a skill tree reset was announced (ooops).
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
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Mark_GGG wrote:
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Upem wrote:
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metisuneatn wrote:

It doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out what a buff or aura is. Doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out how molten shell, enduring cry, dominating blow work. You just fucking read the gem!


Nowhere in my post did I say it was a problem figuring out HOW molten shell, enduring cry, and dominating blow work, they are clearly explained. But the passives that do and don't affect these buffs are not clearly explained anywhere but online.
Of those three skills, only Molten Shell is affected by Buff Duration. It's the one which explicitly says in the description of the skill that it puts a buff on you. The other two don't mention buffs, and don't apply them (and are thus unaffected by buff duration passives).

Could you explain in more detail where you think this system fails to be clear? I put a lot of effort into making these things consistent so people can get the right answer by intuition most of the time, so feedback which can help me improve that is always appreciated.


No matter what you write on the gems, any temporary effect that isn't a buff will be misunderstood. Buff is a widely used term in games, if you don't use it with the usual definition, it will be unintuitive. There's nothing you can do about it.

If you want to be clear, you have to create a word for what you call buff, just like you did for charges and curse. These two are commonly used terms but not as much as buff, so people understand that it's a specific PoE thing. Naturally, people will have to understand what this new concept is, but at least they won't misunderstand it for something else. There are many questions such as "what's a charge ?", but then there are no issues once they know what it is, except that they think it's a buff.

Besides, I don't think there is anything that says if curse are buff or debuff or whatever. In my opinion, as long as the word buff is used, it won't ever be clear. If you want to be clear in the passive tree, you should never use the word "buff", always use "curse", "charge" and whatever other word you want for the rest that is not the word "buff". Then it might become clear.

By the way, "skill effect duration" isn't clear either, because skills can cause charges, statuses, buffs. For me, "effect" literally means "anything caused by" so it's not clear. You should keep it to "skill duration", and have a tag "duration" for every skill that are affected by "skill duration" (I believe this is currently the case). So removing "effect" from the passive descriptions should be enough.
This make me think that you could also create a "buff" tag, but I think it won't be enough to suppress the common meaning of "buff".
Build of the week #2 : http://tinyurl.com/ce75gf4
Last edited by zriL#4590 on Oct 17, 2012, 6:48:17 PM
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anubite wrote:
I'm sure some casual players will figure it out.

But if none of them do, it isn't GGG's problem.

This game's core audience is hardcore. Chris and the others know that. They think there are a sufficient number of hardcore players interested in the game that it will stay solvent for a decade.

That sounds like a reasonable business plan to me.

If the casuals don't jump onto this like they did League of Legends, it's their loss.


That's a rather unproductive (or at least uneconomic) attitude. Regardless of who the primary target of a game is, casual gamers money spends just as well; and there're a lot more of them than hardcore types. From what I've gathered of history from before I started the skill tree's already been modified significantly to stop new casual players from shooting themselves in the foot by giving each class a separate starting area and placing them reasonably far apart.

If it's enough to keep newbies from shooting themselves in the foot is harder to say. My main concerns at present would be that some classes and/or natural builds are significantly stronger than others (witch/marauder vs rest, or ice witch vs fire/lightning). And that in some classes it's not clear if you should be specializing or not (melee, bow, or both for ranger; one spell type or multiple for witches, also summons?).

The first of my concerns should be addressable by future balance changes. I'm less sure about the latter; because it's not something easy to address naturally in a short tutorial. More general background information about the types of individuals that fall within each class? "Some use fire, others the power of storms, or tamper with the natural balance of life" perhaps?

Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
Last edited by Summoner#6275 on Oct 17, 2012, 6:56:51 PM
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Mark_GGG wrote:

Could you explain in more detail where you think this system fails to be clear? I put a lot of effort into making these things consistent so people can get the right answer by intuition most of the time, so feedback which can help me improve that is always appreciated.


What zriL said basically nailed it. With as in depth as the passive tree is it was just an over analyzation problem on my part. Gems clearly state what is a buff and what is a charge and so on but I was just unsure at the time how loosely you guys used the term "buff". I started thinking a bit too far outside the box.

Only thing I can think of to make it more straightforward is to maybe color code the tags on gems and in the passive tree.

Something to this effect.


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Upem wrote:
Only thing I can think of to make it more straightforward is to maybe color code the tags on gems and in the passive tree.
We're pretty against this kind of colour-coding in descriptions because it ends up looking really ugly and making the text harder to read.
Bufs/debuffs/charges are probably one of the less innately obvious parts of the game at the moment, but the things I can change to rectify that are mostly making sure we use the terms consistently. I'd like to redesign some of the systems and passives relating to this stuff, but that's a long-term goal.

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