You guys know rampant RMT abuse comes from a shit economy, right?

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Nephalim wrote:

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No, that is wrong. Alot of people are simply gated from lots of builds and content because of the low drop rates, so it would do alot more than just shifting the curves to the same equilibrium.

Cam you give me some examples of gated builds that cause people to turn to rmt?

Pretty much every ES melee build. The tons of builds that are based on Aegis Aurora, Soul Taker, Kaoms heart, shavronnes, voltaic, bringer of rain.

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Nephalim wrote:

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No, that is wrong. Alot of people are simply gated from lots of builds and content because of the low drop rates, so it would do alot more than just shifting the curves to the same equilibrium.

Cam you give me some examples of gated builds that cause people to turn to rmt?

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Empirically speaking, you are wrong

The games that have more issues with RNG are always that are as I described above. Another really good example actually is WoW, where there was an RMT service to level characters to max level when all the expansions started getting released. Then Blizzard drastically increased the ability to gain exp on lower levels (directly or indirectly, i.e. quests) to the point where you could get to max level in a week, and it suddenly shut down most of those RMT sites

Have a look at what nGio said as another example. Of course there are the RO servers.

You are dead wrong about this, thats all there is left to say

What do you propose would be some good balance changes to poe that would deter people from rmt.

Have a very clear progression curve, unlike PoE's current curve which is good until Act 3 merc, and then it suddenly skyrockets for no reason (where in act 3 merc depends on your character build)

I am talking about both item and character progression

Shitty item progression is mainly a result of how sockets/links/fusings work. Due to this reason its practically impossible to find an item item that actaully drops which you can actually equip without breaking your skill build

Having to also waste fusings/links/sockets and the extortionate amounts of currency to create gear that you can progress

Then there is the way the passive tree is designed, many builds don't complete up until around level 90, where as in D2 your builds where completed around lvl 45 (this was due to the way the tree was designed in D2, extra levels in the tree just made your skills do more damage, they didn't really completely your build, unlike in PoE where builds still get keystones around level 70, and then you have things like CI)

All of these things combined basically give PoE a really shit form of progression

As for solutions, the whole socket/fusing system needs a rework, so you can actually equip items that drop. Orbs actually need to work as their intended crafting mechanic, instead of currently as currency (the only people who use orbs to craft are the elite players who form a lot of currency). In aRPG's, crafting is mainly used as a buffer incase nothing good drops due to RnG, this doesn't happen due to PoE.

The game also needs to be catered for self found progression rather than trading, having the game based on trading basically throws the entire "effort vs reward" equation out the window

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deteego wrote:

Then there is the way the passive tree is designed, many builds don't complete up until around level 90, where as in D2 your builds where completed around lvl 45 (this was due to the way the tree was designed in D2, extra levels in the tree just made your skills do more damage, they didn't really completely your build, unlike in PoE where builds still get keystones around level 70, and then you have things like CI)

This is interesting.

In my opinion, a build should be very close to done around level 80, and be in very good shape by 65 or so, if you actually want to have fun with it. Any points past 80 are icing.

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syrioforel wrote:

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deteego wrote:

Then there is the way the passive tree is designed, many builds don't complete up until around level 90, where as in D2 your builds where completed around lvl 45 (this was due to the way the tree was designed in D2, extra levels in the tree just made your skills do more damage, they didn't really completely your build, unlike in PoE where builds still get keystones around level 70, and then you have things like CI)

This is interesting.

In my opinion, a build should be very close to done around level 80, and be in very good shape by 65 or so, if you actually want to have fun with it. Any points past 80 are icing.

It should be, but the way that the tree is designed doesn't make this so in the general sense. D2's/TL's tree is much more structured, so they can actually control when a build should be "completed". You can't really do this in PoE

Of course, this wouldn't be as much of an issue if it wasn't for all the other things, or if PoE worked more similar to MMO's where getting to max level wasn't made practically unfeasible for the majority of players (for most MMO's, getting to max level was completing your build, but getting to max level was achievable in around one week to a month depending on the MMO, getting to lvl 100 in PoE in a month practically equates to playing 8+ hours a day and having no life)

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deteego wrote:

It should be, but the way that the tree is designed doesn't make this so in the general sense. D2's/TL's tree is much more structured, so they can actually control when a build should be "completed". You can't really do this in PoE

Right, "completed" isn't really an appropriate term anyway. Characters aren't ever really "completed" until they reach level 100.

As a player, though, you can set constraints the set of builds you're willing to use, so that they meet certain benchmarks at various levels. I do this when planning my builds. I've seen written down builds do this, too.

It's very nice if you can get a nice "something extra" for hitting level 90, but PoE right now just isn't the kind of game that's fun to play to 90+. You end up with all the muck about trading/etc. in the mid 80s, and there's not a ton to be gained by playing it past that. You almost certainly can't solo past it, for sure. :)

For me, a character is "done" when I see that the maps I'd need to still be gaining XP without a huge penalty become too expensive for my stash. That's around lv85. I build to that.

I don't mean to tell anyone how to play the game, but I do mean to provide a suggestion as to how to play the game and not hate the world.

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syrioforel wrote:

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deteego wrote:

It should be, but the way that the tree is designed doesn't make this so in the general sense. D2's/TL's tree is much more structured, so they can actually control when a build should be "completed". You can't really do this in PoE

Right, "completed" isn't really an appropriate term anyway. Characters aren't ever really "completed" until they reach level 100.

As a player, though, you can set constraints the set of builds you're willing to use, so that they meet certain benchmarks at various levels. I do this when planning my builds. I've seen written down builds do this, too.

It's very nice if you can get a nice "something extra" for hitting level 90, but PoE right now just isn't the kind of game that's fun to play to 90+. You end up with all the muck about trading/etc. in the mid 80s, and there's not a ton to be gained by playing it past that. You almost certainly can't solo past it, for sure. :)

For me, a character is "done" when I see that the maps I'd need to still be gaining XP without a huge penalty become too expensive for my stash. That's around lv85. I build to that.

I don't mean to tell anyone how to play the game, but I do mean to provide a suggestion as to how to play the game and not hate the world.

Good games arguably have a multilayered definition of what is meant by completed. The first layer is often build. So when I say that the build is completed, I am talking about what defines your character as an identity. So if you are trying to build a character that throws lots and lots and lots of fireballs that bounce around, when you character (more or less) is able to do that, thats what "build" completion

Then there are things like "item" completion (i.e. getting godly gear). And in MMO's, you have many more layers above that when you deal with guilds

Obviously in MMO's you were never completed at max level, but your build, which is mainly defined by your tree (in your typical MMO), was finished at max level, and as I said earlier, reaching max level in most non korean MMO's was very achievable by casuals. They had many other layers of depth defining completion above that, but build completion was very easy to do

In fact, D2 and TL/TL2 (made by the same people that made D2) had a very low level of build completion, you could literally finish your build in days, if not less in those games.

You can't say the same for PoE, unless completing your build was left click

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deteego wrote:

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syrioforel wrote:

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deteego wrote:

It should be, but the way that the tree is designed doesn't make this so in the general sense. D2's/TL's tree is much more structured, so they can actually control when a build should be "completed". You can't really do this in PoE

Right, "completed" isn't really an appropriate term anyway. Characters aren't ever really "completed" until they reach level 100.

As a player, though, you can set constraints the set of builds you're willing to use, so that they meet certain benchmarks at various levels. I do this when planning my builds. I've seen written down builds do this, too.

It's very nice if you can get a nice "something extra" for hitting level 90, but PoE right now just isn't the kind of game that's fun to play to 90+. You end up with all the muck about trading/etc. in the mid 80s, and there's not a ton to be gained by playing it past that. You almost certainly can't solo past it, for sure. :)

For me, a character is "done" when I see that the maps I'd need to still be gaining XP without a huge penalty become too expensive for my stash. That's around lv85. I build to that.

I don't mean to tell anyone how to play the game, but I do mean to provide a suggestion as to how to play the game and not hate the world.

Good games arguably have a multilayered definition of what is meant by completed. The first layer is often build. So when I say that the build is completed, I am talking about what defines your character as an identity. So if you are trying to build a character that throws lots and lots and lots of fireballs that bounce around, when you character (more or less) is able to do that, thats what "build" completion

Then there are things like "item" completion (i.e. getting godly gear). And in MMO's, you have many more layers above that when you deal with guilds

Obviously in MMO's you were never completed at max level, but your build, which is mainly defined by your tree (in your typical MMO), was finished at max level, and as I said earlier, reaching max level in most non korean MMO's was very achievable by casuals. They had many other layers of depth defining completion above that, but build completion was very easy to do

In fact, D2 and TL/TL2 (made by the same people that made D2) had a very low level of build completion, you could literally finish your build in days, if not less in those games.

You can't say the same for PoE, unless completing your build was left click

OK, I think I understand what you mean. So, do you think that PoE shouldn't have this property, and that builds should be "completed" at a low level (e.g. 80)?

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syrioforel wrote:

OK, I think I understand what you mean. So, do you think that PoE shouldn't have this property, and that builds should be "completed" at a low level (e.g. 80)?

Yes, one way or another.

PoE will always have endless item completion, like almost every other aRPG game does (as said by GGG themselves, PoE is an item based progression game). However the build, which is defined by both your tree and socket gems should be very easy to complete, like in a week or so.

The easiest way to to this in PoE would be to simply let characters reach level 100 really easily, and balance around this. So the same amount of time it takes to get lvl 1-85 currently would get you under a proposed solution to lvl 100. Drops due to item strength would however keep on going, and then you always have those unique items that can skew your build around if you want more progression (i.e. shavronns)

Trying to alter the tree so your build completes at 80 is going to be a lot harder than just making your character reach lvl 100. You would have to make like an inner/outer circle system, the larger inner circle would complete around 80, and this would have your major keystones and other character altering nodes (as well as everything else, like stat nodes), and the outer smaller ring (80-100), would just have your +stat,+life,+ES,+mana nodes (etc etc). The latter is obviously much more work.

You would jump from the inner circle to the outer circle when you hit like lvl 80

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Sickness wrote:

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Nephalim wrote:

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No, that is wrong. Alot of people are simply gated from lots of builds and content because of the low drop rates, so it would do alot more than just shifting the curves to the same equilibrium.

Cam you give me some examples of gated builds that cause people to turn to rmt?

Pretty much every ES melee build. The tons of builds that are based on Aegis Aurora, Soul Taker, Kaoms heart, shavronnes, voltaic, bringer of rain.

thats kind of ridiculous for tier 1 end game builds with ultra powerful uniques to be something easily accessible to the masses. also, some of the items you listed are not that expensive and well within reach even without rmt or excessive time investment.

for others like, legacy kaoms, i would argue is not a build enabler, it just allows you net a huge amount of passives which would have been spent on life, now spent for dps. people who rmting this arent looking for viable builds their looking for bis builds and those same people will continue to rmt even if the progression curve was made more reasonable.

progression curve does nothing to solve the issue of high end uniques unless your suggestion is to increase unique drop rates.

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As for solutions, the whole socket/fusing system needs a rework, so you can actually equip items that drop. Orbs actually need to work as their intended crafting mechanic, instead of currently as currency (the only people who use orbs to craft are the elite players who form a lot of currency). In aRPG's, crafting is mainly used as a buffer incase nothing good drops due to RnG, this doesn't happen due to PoE.

I do not see how this would curb rmt in the slightest. do you think people are rmting thousands of jewelers and fusings to get 4 5 links so they can rightfully finish a3 merciless? Everything you said related to being to clear a3 merciless, correct me if im wrong.

as for high end crafting, ONLY the elite should be able to make bis and rmt is strong enough that almost bis exist for almost every base item type.



There are 4 primary groups of rmt'ers

1)joe shmoe who rmt's 20 exalts to become viable and never again
2) rampant rmt dog whose highest is level 82 but wants a quick fix to end game
3) rampant rmt dog who managed to get to level 95+ yet feels the need to get even more bis gear
4) d2jsp/poe tychoon with 600k fg, 10 mirrors and 6 mirrored items etc etc

progression curving may at best affect joe shmoe and imo, joe shmoe is the minority of rmt'ers and the least harmful. The take away is that these people are rmting the big items like 6 link volt , legacy koams and mirrors, and nothing you do for progression up to a3 merciless fixes this.

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deteego wrote:

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syrioforel wrote:

OK, I think I understand what you mean. So, do you think that PoE shouldn't have this property, and that builds should be "completed" at a low level (e.g. 80)?

Yes, one way or another.

PoE will always have endless item completion, like almost every other aRPG game does (as said by GGG themselves, PoE is an item based progression game). However the build, which is defined by both your tree and socket gems should be very easy to complete, like in a week or so.

The easiest way to to this in PoE would be to simply let characters reach level 100 really easily, and balance around this. So the same amount of time it takes to get lvl 1-85 currently would get you under a proposed solution to lvl 100. Drops due to item strength would however keep on going, and then you always have those unique items that can skew your build around if you want more progression (i.e. shavronns)

Trying to alter the tree so your build completes at 80 is going to be a lot harder than just making your character reach lvl 100. You would have to make like an inner/outer circle system, the larger inner circle would complete around 80, and this would have your major keystones and other character altering nodes (as well as everything else, like stat nodes), and the outer smaller ring (80-100), would just have your +stat,+life,+ES,+mana nodes (etc etc). The latter is obviously much more work.

You would jump from the inner circle to the outer circle when you hit like lvl 80

OK. Interesting. That's something to ponder.