Exit stage left

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Recently a D3 streamer called Moses played PoE for the first time and streamed his first character. He was playing solo, self found, self built just making it up as he went along and disregarding the majority of advice from his chat. His first char within a week was grinding lvl70 maps, a lvl82 witch now I believe? Took him 7 days coming from diablo 3 knowing absolutely nothing about the game to completely destroy this concept of self found viability for reaching endgame and competently playing it being broken.

another then started up, Fand is it? He was progressing slowly, taking the scenic route, within a few days hes already past the point a lot of people who claim the game is impossible without trade have managed in over a year. Both of them made it looks easy, and thats because if you do it right, it IS easy. These guys are ARPG vets, sure, but they knew nothing of poe, still know very little but are clearing content and progressing.

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Wittgenstein wrote:

I can't deal with the general feeling that I am just wasting my time (beyond the typical feeling felt when playing games).

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Snorkle_uk wrote:

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Kandamo wrote:

This game is making a nice profit, they wont change anything *SAD!*(they dont care that much because the game produces money as it is right now)

I think youre wrong man, I think they care deeply about the game and the players.



Its not as easy as just pushing a fix button though. What people complain about is often not what the problem they are having is. Its very hard to know what to change to fix a given set of feedback of the sort often posted here. Im talking generally here, not about Witts particular points or Witt at all.



An example is solo self found viability and gear walls through the game. some people have been playing for over a year and feel locked out of getting to lvl75 and playing maps, and they blame a lot of different factors for this. However...


Recently a D3 streamer called Moses played PoE for the first time and streamed his first character. He was playing solo, self found, self built just making it up as he went along and disregarding the majority of advice from his chat. His first char within a week was grinding lvl70 maps, a lvl82 witch now I believe? Took him 7 days coming from diablo 3 knowing absolutely nothing about the game to completely destroy this concept of self found viability for reaching endgame and competently playing it being broken.

another then started up, Fand is it? He was progressing slowly, taking the scenic route, within a few days hes already past the point a lot of people who claim the game is impossible without trade have managed in over a year. Both of them made it looks easy, and thats because if you do it right, it IS easy. These guys are ARPG vets, sure, but they knew nothing of poe, still know very little but are clearing content and progressing.


So how do you balance these problems people post? what are the actual problems? What is going wrong with players that they dont seem able to just walk through the game like other people? Is this a drop rate issue? Seems like its not, feels more like game knowledge issue to me. People getting stuck behind not understanding something, getting to a dead end with combinations of builds and items rather than not finding items that are capable of clearing the content they face. The answer to most of this feedback, I feel, is not to push the 'make game easier' button, in some regards its almost too easy atm. the solution is a far more elusive. They do care, too much to do something as rash and misguided as nerfing/buffing everything a player calls for.

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Snorkle_uk wrote:

]Recently a D3 streamer called Moses played PoE for the first time and streamed his first character. He was playing solo, self found, self built just making it up as he went along and disregarding the majority of advice from his chat. His first char within a week was grinding lvl70 maps, a lvl82 witch now I believe? Took him 7 days coming from diablo 3 knowing absolutely nothing about the game to completely destroy this concept of self found viability for reaching endgame and competently playing it being broken.

another then started up, Fand is it? He was progressing slowly, taking the scenic route, within a few days hes already past the point a lot of people who claim the game is impossible without trade have managed in over a year. Both of them made it looks easy, and thats because if you do it right, it IS easy. These guys are ARPG vets, sure, but they knew nothing of poe, still know very little but are clearing content and progressing.

So how do you balance these problems people post? what are the actual problems? What is going wrong with players that they dont seem able to just walk through the game like other people? Is this a drop rate issue? Seems like its not, feels more like game knowledge issue to me. People getting stuck behind not understanding something, getting to a dead end with combinations of builds and items rather than not finding items that are capable of clearing the content they face. The answer to most of this feedback, I feel, is not to push the 'make game easier' button, in some regards its almost too easy atm. the solution is a far more elusive. They do care, too much to do something as rash and misguided as nerfing/buffing everything a player calls for.

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Boem wrote:

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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Did you ever read the thread where Wittgen wrote:"I consider every cent I spent into the game a waste?"

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Wittgenstein wrote:

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).