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Last feeback.

Had a great time watching this game come together, and I would like to congratulate GGG on making one of the best games (for a time) that I've ever played. Sadly, however, the way this game is now shaping up is the antithesis to what I feel good games are.

1. The Orb system is a waste and a failure. Intended to replace the gold sinks built into games which become nothing more than meaningless treadmills for the player to allocate time to, it has become the shining example of how to make a meaningless treadmill. Whats worse though, is that at least with a gold sink all I have to do is grind gold, in PoE I have to grind various types of gold in the hopes of being blessed by the RNG Gods, which itself wouldn't be that bad if the RNG Gods of PoE weren't akin to the Old Testament God who seems to delight in the misery of its creation. I can grind for hours and hours and come away with *nothing* - and that is a horrible system.

2. Skill Web - is now pointless, our paths are dwindled down to 2 now and for the first... what, 20 levels or so, we really have 0 choice beyond deciding which of those 2 paths to follow. Later it branches off, and some interesting things can be accomplished, but really there is nothing in the web that couldn't have been done in a branching tree system. When the game was first in CB I enjoyed the web so much more. From the start you could go in 4 different directions and things felt much more open. Now, the web's only purpose seems to be:
(a) punishing new players who don't know what path to follow and
(b) creating the illusion of choice and complexity on screen shots for new players to be impressed by and drawn in. A bait and switch

3. Crafting - apart from my complaints specifically aimed at the acquiring of orbs in 1. I also hate using the orbs. Crafting isn't fun. It's just flipping coins over and over and over. Its cool if a game has some systems like that, but when the entire system is like that... just fuck off with it. I don't have time to sit behind a screen flipping coins over and over. The way you increase % in the game is great. I *really* wish more 'crafting' options were available that were like adding quality.

4. Resists - I understand that resists play a large role in many ARPG's, but in PoE they play much to great a role. It seems like a lazy way to fake difficulty, honestly.

There are many great things about the game. I'll be checking in on the forums from time to time and may come back to see the next big expansion, but barring major changes to the things I mention above, I simply cannot imagine myself every putting significant time into this game. Given that I invested over a grand into its development, I think it's very telling that I still don't want to play. Still, wish everyone at GGG the best.

*edit*

I want to point out that I didn't bring up desync. I can deal with desync. I can't deal with the general feeling that I am just wasting my time (beyond the typical feeling felt when playing games).

What the hell is going on? All the old supporters are leaving in droves...

I agree with everything you said, Witt, and it's sad to see you go as one of the more level-headed posters of feedback on this forum. I should do my own feedback sometime soon I guess since it's been a while.

To much old-skool big supporters ripping recently :/

I'm interested to see what the next expansion will bring. If it's more pseudo-content gated behind treadmill, then the only major thing to look forward to is Act 4 next year.

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2. Skill Web - is now pointless, our paths are dwindled down to 2 now and for the first... what, 20 levels or so, we really have 0 choice beyond deciding which of those 2 paths to follow. Later it branches off, and some interesting things can be accomplished, but really there is nothing in the web that couldn't have been done in a branching tree system. When the game was first in CB I enjoyed the web so much more. From the start you could go in 4 different directions and things felt much more open. Now, the web's only purpose seems to be:
(a) punishing new players who don't know what path to follow and
(b) creating the illusion of choice and complexity on screen shots for new players to be impressed by and drawn in. A bait and switch

What exactly makes the skill web pointless from what you said?

The correct paths depend on the build. Some branches lead to different nodes which means there is different optimal paths for different builds.

There actually is a lot of choice and complexity in the tree, it's not an illusion. Anyone who has created their own build knows as much. Many builds will vary and optimal paths change depending on your focus. It gets more interesting when you're going beyond 95 points or so since you'll often be trading one benefit for another.

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kasub wrote:

"

2. Skill Web - is now pointless, our paths are dwindled down to 2 now and for the first... what, 20 levels or so, we really have 0 choice beyond deciding which of those 2 paths to follow. Later it branches off, and some interesting things can be accomplished, but really there is nothing in the web that couldn't have been done in a branching tree system. When the game was first in CB I enjoyed the web so much more. From the start you could go in 4 different directions and things felt much more open. Now, the web's only purpose seems to be:
(a) punishing new players who don't know what path to follow and
(b) creating the illusion of choice and complexity on screen shots for new players to be impressed by and drawn in. A bait and switch

What exactly makes the skill web pointless from what you said?

The correct paths depend on the build. Some branches lead to different nodes which means there is different optimal paths for different builds.

There actually is a lot of choice and complexity in the tree, it's not an illusion. Anyone who has created their own build knows as much. Many builds will vary and optimal paths change depending on your focus. It gets more interesting when you're going beyond 95 points or so since you'll often be trading one benefit for another.

Perhaps 'pointless' was the wrong word.. how about.. superfluous? You don't need a web to do what this game wants you to do. This game doesn't want or reward originality or experimentation - if you look at 'success' as equating to something like 'being able to compete at high levels with other players who followed different paths' because the ability to fix mistakes is pretty painful - therefore, the web itself is misleading. It comes across to a new player as WOW LOOK AT ALL OF THE OPTIONS, a big sandbox of fun, but really its just a smoke screen.

Look at your example, 'once you have 95 points' it gets 'more interesting' - what a sales pitch!

I'm sensing a trend here.


Nevertheless you do provide good feedback OP. I strongly agree with your point on resists. This fact also makes minions and totems paper weak early and mid game.

I really hope GGG can shape up and deliver the quality we all know they can.

Sure for a new player they're going to be making mistakes. Optimizing skilltrees is not easy. Even veterans can make big mistakes on their skilltree since they don't realize they can trade one benefit for a bigger benefit.Not everyone is going to do the math for HP per node or physical damage % per node.

GGG has promised to get rid of lots of passive noobtraps in the upcoming expansion though. I assume they mean the smaller nodes with no notables such as the 6 all res node, some of the starting stat nodes(should be condensed into actual keynodes so racers still benefit from them) and similiar lesser nodes. Keeping the offensive ones is ok though since I've seen some people decide to take ALL crit nodes including the 15% ones and all castnodes including the 3% ones.

Anyways there will always be optimized builds. Even within those optimized builds there will be variations depending on what a player prefers, it's not always clearcut. Making an optimized build is not easy but that doesn't make the skill tree bad.

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This game doesn't want or reward originality or experimentation

I disagree with this part. Creativity is rewarded if you're experienced enough with making builds. That's how many of the most popular builds were born. Of course builds stagnate a bit towards the end of leagues till the next patch.

Charan put this into motion, will be interesting to see how many more follow.

At least you provided feedback witt, good feedback even.

I agree just like with worldbreaker's recent post.

I hope you come and watch your ring in action do, it looks like a very interesting piece. Maybe chill for a bit and come play PoE a bit casually at lower levels with your designed unique? :)

Peace,

-Boem-

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Boem wrote:

Charan put this into motion

no, he did not.

GGG did.