Improved Hailrake Fight in 1.1.3

Well...

There goes one of the few encounters that was actually an advantage for melee.

1.1.4 a Keystone that increases weapon range to 50?

Now said billion times already, but yeah - this improvement just seems unnecessary when there are other issues and improvements to be made. While carrying deep hatred towards Hailrape for the characters that I've lost, I can't really say that it is unbalanced. Sure, its hard but quite easy to defeat if you just watch what it's doing for few seconds and keep moving. I'd really, really love seeing other "classic" bosses to be rewamped, such as Dweller and of course aforementioned Fairgraves, if nothing else. I sincerely doubt that changing Hailrape would attract more players and/or maintain those that have just started.

Ok so one of the most OP early side boss got "improved" which usually means it becomes twice as powerful as before so anyone who managed to take 1 hit from him would die instantly offscreen, or if you manage to get close to him with melee then you'll garantued to die again.
Looks like GGG never learns. PoE turns into a fuckin mario game, anything hits you, you'll die, no matter what you wear, no matter what passives you take, this is the 10 years future of this game.

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DaddyChaddie wrote:

Yawn, never knew him to be an issue, way to work on the tough issues first. Lets keep fixing what aint broke +1 ggg

I know it's been a while since the data was posted, but Hailrake is the number one most lethal spot in the entire game. Merciless Dominus has less deaths per capita then normal hailrake.

It's important to not start playing a game, and then 5 minutes in get perma-frozen until you die.

It took them 2 minutes to go in and give him a level 2-3 GC and take out the last skill.

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Alternalo wrote:

Ok so one of the most OP early side boss got "improved" which usually means it becomes twice as powerful as before so anyone who managed to take 1 hit from him would die instantly offscreen, or if you manage to get close to him with melee then you'll garantued to die again.
Looks like GGG never learns. PoE turns into a fuckin mario game, anything hits you, you'll die, no matter what you wear, no matter what passives you take, this is the 10 years future of this game.

He just said the idea was to tone him down. How do you people even play these games when you can't read or think?

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Chris wrote:

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unkempt wrote:

Redesigning the same fights over and over while never touching the other 90% seems a bit weird.

This one is an important one because it's so early in the game. During later fights, new players have become much more comfortable with what options are available.

The only problem with that is of course that you have designed the game in a way that requires players to have "a priori" knowledge of the game to beat it without dying (irrespective of natural skill).

It's of course great that you have (somewhat) identified this problem now, but it seems like wasted effort because it's not a problem you will ever get rid of, because it's inherent to the game and not just limited to bosses.

There are many examples where players will simply die unless they somehow already now what awaits them ahead of time. Try going into sins 3 with 0 lightning resist in normal for example or Western Forest with 0 Fire res.

New players that don't yet understand the importance of ele resists or even what type of damage certain monsters do will always die to things like that, because it's how you have designed the game.

The only real solution to that problem would be to lower the elemental damage output of monsters all throughout normal. The game doesn't communicate clearly enough (to new players) the importance of resistances and what type of damage monsters do before you encounter them.

It wouldn't surprise me if many new players quit because they entered sins 3 for example and got oneshot by sparks because they had 0 lightning resist, not knowing that they needed lightning resist for that particular zone, same is true for Docks, where all of a sudden you have void bearers there that require 60+% fire res, with no prior warning to players.

You can't have it both ways Chris, you have so many game mechanics in this game that require a-priori knowledge to beat them without dying, that people are bound to quit, because from the ground up you have designed this game to trap new players.

Now you say it's the first 30 minutes where most players have a bad experience with the game and then quit and apparently Hellrake is the main offender here. Ok fine, fix that problem and you will find that all you are doing is just shifting the focus, because then most players will quit shortly after because they died to merveil exploders or lightning damage in sins, because the game didn't communicate to them in any way that they needed fire resistance vs. exploders or lightning resistance in the chamber of sins.

You have to realize that this is how you designed this game, alot of ambiguity or lack of information, surprise deaths to new players, etc.. so if you really see that there is a problem there you might aswell re-design monster damage output and resistances from the ground up or at least communicate to players ahead of time how important these restistances are and what type of damage they have to expect in zones such as Docks, Sins, etc...

Information like that shouldn't be external to the game (or be part of a trial and error-process) if you want more casuals to play your game (and I'm assuming the whole point of changes like these is to make more casuals stick with the game, which is fine, but don't just focus on the first 30 minutes, because you are just shifting the problem to the following 30 minutes and so on, if that were the case).

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elvy wrote:

Should help with player retention, which helps with income, which will help with all other aspects of the game. Also an easy, fast fix. Good call, overall.

Warning: some people in the thread should probably avoid going through this line of reasoning as it might melt their brains. Probably better to stick to 'fix desync'.

Seems good in theory but guaranteed this will have no effect, if someone is willing to quit so early because they died a couple of times on the first boss then the game obviously isn't for them, and they are almost certainly going to quit sooner or later and not invest into any micro transactions or help increase the player base etc.

When games like this that are supposed to be niche start making changes for accessibility (or "player retention"), I get worried. :/

I sincerely hope that GGG knows who they are designing for, designs for them, and is willing to look some people in the eye and say, "Hey, maybe Path of Exile isn't the game for you." If I wanted to play a game that tries to cater to the masses, I would play... Well I won't say it, but you get the idea.

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Dellusions wrote:

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Alternalo wrote:

Ok so one of the most OP early side boss got "improved" which usually means it becomes twice as powerful as before so anyone who managed to take 1 hit from him would die instantly offscreen, or if you manage to get close to him with melee then you'll garantued to die again.
Looks like GGG never learns. PoE turns into a fuckin mario game, anything hits you, you'll die, no matter what you wear, no matter what passives you take, this is the 10 years future of this game.

He just said the idea was to tone him down. How do you people even play these games when you can't read or think?

Experience beats reading and thinking, and we've had... experiences with toning down in the past.

Besides, they never explicitly said the idea was to tone him down, be careful with Chris-sedai he never lies but what he wrote might not always be what you think it is :)

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the_lost_emberbright wrote:

Good news for new player. At least they wont leave the game after 5 min !
Still dont understand why some people are so angry about this change?

Because people are silly? lol

I see comments about not wanting everyone that tries the game to continue playing it, or only catering to a certain type of player. Saying something like that is just plain hogwash. (I wanted to use stronger words there, but I'm trying to stay civil)

Of course GGG wants EVERYONE to play PoE. The more people that play it the more chances for revenue, bottom line. Of course the game should be hard. But they do not want people throwing up their hands in disgust in the first 15 minutes and telling other people they know to not even bother.

If I had gotten raped by Hailrake the first few times I tried the game out I would have quit. Then GGG would have missed out on the hundreds of dollars I spent on their game. I got just far enough with my first toon that I wanted to keep going.

weed out a certain type of player. Sorry, that's just a stupid thing to say.