Feedback from a PoE player who started playing D3 again
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tmaciak написал:
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KenshiD написал:
As soon as you cannot sell your items there will be no point in acquiring better items anymore.
So, in RPG games we acquire powerful items to sell them? Ultimate PoE uber boss: Trade Chat... :D
No there are multiple stages of fun you can gain from online RPGs being it MMOs or ARPGs.
1) Character creation.
The most important part about RPGs is creating your character. Having an idea what you wanna play and progressing.
For example:
Before Nemesis started I thought what I wanted to play, I thought about an acrobatics, reave Ranger with a shield.
I worked on it, acquired the gear I needed, build the tree I wanted and changed some things along the way.
In the end I played 70 maps with her and reached level 81.
It was really what I was aiming for and had a lot of fun doing so.
2) Item acquisition.
Besides the base idea of your character and how you build it (skill and passive wise). Gear and special items are another driving force for RPG games. It was the main reason I played D2, because I saw a zombie gets slain and drops loot you can pick up and wear. My 11 year old self back then got his mind blown when he saw that.
3) Community Aspect.
Having friends to play with or against is another big part of where the fun comes from.
Killing and leveling together can be a main force behind your motivation to play the game in the first place.
With competitive elements such as ladders, pvp and races the game becomes dynamic and more open and not so much just "your experience" but a shared one.
4) Meta Gameplay.
This includes everything that is not directly the game itself. Like talking about strategies, streamers, builds, items community events, jokes and craftings (like pictures, clips or anything else that people post on reddit for example).
This works only if there is a community to build around, because you need someone else to appreciate meta aspects of something.
Trading is a combination of all of those aspects.
It includes creating a character, acquiring items, interacting with the community and talking about the game.
A good item is not just good because it helps you character to evolve, but also because you can sell it, show it off and use it to be competitive.
A major reason why I disliked D3 was that I actually didn't see what other people had as drops, it was basically as if I played alone with an additional NPC on my side.
In PoE we have Global, Trade and Guild chat where people are constantly showing off their cool items, trading them and showing how they either rolled something GG or fucked them up with a vaal orb.
Those things are fun, and are completely lacking in D3.
Don't cram this one in the same basket. It would hold water only if red gems were inherently more powerful than blue ones. You aren't necessarily getting a more powerful combination than a straight blue one with some other spell would be, you're punished for wanting something different, not something stronger.
If you want str aligned skills/support with an intelligence chest ... it's like in many other game where heavy armour give magical penalty, if one would want the armor without the penalty, basically, it's the same kind of thing.
I'm not saying than the system is perfect, at all.
One suggested earlier to allow gem to fit in another color socket with it having its efficiency reduced, that could probably be a really good thing ( it would maybe not chance much though, depending on the reduced efficiency parameter ).
SSF is not and will never be a standard for balance, it is not for people entitled to getting more without trading.
Последняя редакция: Fruz#6137. Время: 17 мар. 2014 г., 11:10:50
If you want str aligned skills/support with an intelligence chest ... it's like in many other game where heavy armour give magical penalty, if one would want the armor without the penalty, basically, it's the same kind of thing.
No it's not.
Those armors are straight up better for defense. They offer more objectively more protection at the cost of a casting penalty. Where robes offer objectively less protection without that penalty. That's how those games work, plate gives 100 armor points but reduced casting speed or whatever and robes give 10 armor points but increased mana regeneration.
PoE isn't like that. Robes don't offer 25% of the armor value of plate but without a casting penalty. They offer a completely different but equal defense mechanism.
My vision for a better PoE: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/863780
Do you think D2 was just released and everyone had BIS gear for PVP? It's an unfair comparision and I don't know why you'd even make it. Years down the line PVP in standard league will be similar for POE as there's allowed duping going on. Just rather than seeing the exact same builds with the exact same gear you'll have more variety. The skill goes beyond actual combat and how you set your stuff up. One or two passives, the use of a couple different support gems or even a different supporting skill might make a large difference in a close fight.
I have no defense for PVP, they said they had the PVP season coming with release, I spent 2 months farming and trading for it to see there's still nothing and barely any word of when it will be happening.
Duping was ALWAYS an issue that plagued D2, even from very early in D2c. That said, duping actually made the metagame better because it allowed for easy rerolls, which contributed to the game's replayability. That's also possibly why they did not crack down more harshly on duped items.
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Moosifer написал:
As for the "hardcore" label you're pigeonholing it to fit your argument better. Here's what Rhys considers "hardcore."
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Rhys написал:
A game that is "hardcore" is one that "rewards investment"; this is a level of depth, and one that has multiple facets. Right now, I can think of four main aspects to it: time, knowledge, skill, and emotion.
~Investment of Time~
This is shallowest form of depth. Of hardcoreness, if that's a word? Players become invested by the sheer amount of time they have spent. They are rewarded for spending lots and lots of time playing the game. Often, their progress (whatever it is) is directly or indirectly a measure of hours played. Kill X goblins. Collect Y rocks. Accumulate Z experience points. If these tasks require "mindless grinding", then you are investing time when you complete them.
Many MMOs exploit this, of course, requiring huge amounts of time investment in order to reach (and explore) the endgame. Some people love this; some people don't. Some people are proud of their progress, and boast to friends or fellow forum-goers of their time well-spent attaining virtual glory. They're flagrantly hardcore. Others view their progress as a thinly-veiled representation of all the time they've wasted on that stupid game. And some people do both.
Path of Exile rewards time investment, as you've probably noticed. Of course it does. In fact, there are multiple ways in which it does. The most basic being is the XP/level grind. Just by looking at a character's level/XP, a savvy player can estimate the amount of time spent on it. But... even that most basic grind isn't so simple. When someone at the top of the ladder in Hardcore dies, they have to start again from scratch. Yet, the very same person who died at level 90 can come racing back to the top of the ladder (or near the top) again on a new character quite quickly. Clearly, they didn't spend the same amount of time grinding as before. There must be something more to it.
Note that RNG-based systems fall into this category, because players must invest enough time to ride out streaks of bad luck in order find good luck. The randomness simply obscures the correlation to time spent and makes it more fun.
~Investment of Knowledge~
Another way to achieve depth and make a game hardcore is reward knowledge. This where players can progress, or progress much faster than normal, by acquiring knowledge about the game and its systems. Discovering shortcuts, synergies, combos, secret levels, etc. Whereas investment of time most often yields more progress and content, investment of knowledge often results in increased speed of progress.
Another form of this is complexity. By offering up complex systems, players can invest knowledge and learn the optimal paths, the most efficient combinations of moves, etc. that may not be obvious at first glance, even if all the information is there.
In Path of Exile, we have several such systems. The most immediate is the passive skill tree, which is notoriously overwhelming at first glance. It often takes people several characters before they learn how to build effectively for endgame. But we have other, more subtle systems in place, as well. The vendor recipes are a prime example. You can generate a great deal of currency by simply knowing about the GBR 3-link recipe that yields a Chromatic Orb, and regularly checking the shops for cheap equipment. Even subtler, is knowing the best places to grind EXP during a ladder rush. By investing in knowledge, by learning about the game, you can make more efficient progress and gain wealth.
As another example, in a fighting game, you can look at the combo list, but you'll need to learn those combos off by heart if you want to become good at it. Or if you can't (or don't know to) look at the combo list, you'll be at a severe disadvantage compared someone who does know all the moves.
Of course, simply knowing what the moves are isn't nearly enough. You need to be able to actually pull them off. You need skill.
~Investment of Skill~
Some games allow - or require! - an investment of skill. Fighting games, for example, require players to learn and master a variety of moves for every character, if they want to beat the game, or beat other players. This is closely tied to investment of knowledge, but is quite distinct because it is about learning not what to do, but how to do it. This often involves acquiring the muscle-memory to perform a quick sequence of actions, but it can also involve puzzle-solving techniques.
Some puzzles are solved through knowledge, but some are solved through skill. Any puzzle that involves a random initial state will necessitate learning not the solution, but the method by which the solution is obtained. You may know how to solve Sudoku puzzles in general, but you may still struggle with a particularly difficult one. This is something of a grey area, I will admit, between knowledge and skill.
Path of Exile rewards investment of skill. Some bosses require quick reflexes, or careful usage of projectiles or curses. Any monster with energy shield requires some skill, to not let it regenerate. Monsters with reflect auras often require a far more careful playstyle, and reward players (by not killing them) who carefully manage their damage output and healing. Using granite and ruby flasks at the right times is another example.
And, of course, there are races. When players are competing with each other, skill is absolutely vital. Knowledge is, too, but skill is very important. Yes, there is randomness of drops, which are also vital, but that just means skill and knowledge are be-all and end-all. It gives those aren't the best of the best a fighting chance.
~Investment of Emotion~
So the last point I want to cover is regarding the investment of emotion. This one isn't exclusive to games; TV, movies, books, theatre, even music, they also take advantage of this. By having compelling characters and plotlines, interesting stories and worlds can draw in the audience - or the player, in the case of a game - and get them emotionally invested. This isn't necessarily hardcore, in and of itself, but it can be. Ohhhhh, it can be.
Consider Trekkies, Bronies, Whovians, all the die-hard fans of Naruto, Spiderman, Batman, Lord of the Rings, Jane Austen, the Beatles, Justin Bieber, Halo, Call of Duty, Diablo, etc. etc. Are they not hardcore? They're totally into their respective fandoms/cultures/cults, some beyond reason, even. They are all emotionally invested, and woe betide anyone who disagrees with them over the internet.
Much more so than the others, emotional investment is its own reward. Some people like to mindless grind, to kill time. Some people love to learn about new things or master new skills. But everyone loves a good story. It's a great money-earner, too. By getting people emotionally invested in the story, it makes them want to finish the movie/book/game, and it makes them want to buy/play the (inevitable?) sequel.
So with all that in mind, how could a game be hardcore because of emotional investment? Is it even possible to NOT reward emotional investment? You might cite Mass Effect 3, but even so, most people thought that game was great up until the ending. But therein lies the answer.
Games that require emotional investment to the story are hardcore. What kind of game is that? Well, the immediate genre that springs to mind are Visual Novels. They're all about the story, the characters, the plot... literally! If you hate the story, you're not going to finish one of these games. Unless you're masochistically trying to prove something, I guess. The same goes for "movie games" such as Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls. It isn't the tangible gameplay that makes you want to progress, is the story. If you love the story, you'll love the game and finish it. If not... you probably won't do either.
Path of Exile is not terrible hardcore about the story. It is very easy to skip virtually all the NPC dialogue, and there are no cutscenes. There is actually quite a lot of backstory and so on scattered around, if you choose to look for it. Environmental lore, optional NPC dialogue, unique and quest item flavourtext. But this is something we are not "hardcore" about.
So, that's four ways I can think of through which games can be hardcore. There may even be others. I think most hardcore games use a mixture of them, though. I know we do.
The game is HC in most sense of the word. Hell even in your definition you're just brushing off the hardcore-ness because those are things you don't enjoy doing as I assume you consider yourself hardcore, but don't enjoy the hardcore nature POE has to offer. Competing on the temp league ladders and in races has much more to do than trading. Luck is a factor you can't brush off many of these people who are on the top of the race ladders season after season as a factor of luck. Also, I don't get why people play ARGPs and complain about grinding, it's the nature of the entire genre. I have yet to play any game that has RPG attached to it that didn't require SOME if not a shit load of grinding.
The game is HC is most senses of the word?
Let's go by Rhys's definition then, since you like to use his.
Is POE hardcore in the terms of time spent? No, not really. People can get pretty GG gear within a month or two of the league. There is probably someone out there on Ambush running around with a 6l Shavs. Is this because he spent more time than anybody in hardcore who doesn't run one? lol...
Secondly, hardly anyone sits there and simply "rides out" bad RNG so they can get to the good RNG. They don't normalize their RNG through sheer mind-numbing repetition so they can get to the good bits. They normalize their RNG through trading, bartering, and flipping items. You get wealthy off that at many, many times the rate of farming and actually playing this game. So does it reward time investment? Sure, as an econ simulator. Not as an ARPG.
Does this reward knowledge? Sure, it rewards to some point. But past a certain [very low] point it doesn't reward knowledge anymore. Being more knowledgeable about the game's mechanics will do nothing to help you advance your game when someone else is simply getting much better drops than you are. If they run their best map and get multiple +2s and you blank on all your maps, you could be their guru and they're still going to pass you. You can know that fusings are completely random and that a chance to 6l is about 1 in a thousand, but that won't help you if someone else 6l's on the first fusing and you're on 4782 with no luck.
Does it reward skill? Laugh. This game is probably the lowest skill ceiling of any popular multiplayer game today. Most of it is a few button spam and basic positioning. Is it a game where you can sink years of play honing your skills like an FPS or RTS? Yeah... no.
Does it reward emotion? I don't give a fuck. I don't play ARPG's so I can 'fall in love with the story' like a Jane Austen fan. I play it for good gameplay and the feeling of legitimately improving your character.
So again, HOW is this game hardcore, even using Rhys's obviously biased metric? RNG is not hardcore. Competitive and hardcore players HATE RNG in their games. RNG normalizes nothing but the skill gap.
Последняя редакция: UnderOmerta#1203. Время: 17 мар. 2014 г., 11:24:04
Those armors are straight up better for defense. They offer more objectively more protection at the cost of a casting penalty. Where robes offer objectively less protection without that penalty. That's how those games work, plate gives 100 armor points but reduced casting speed or whatever and robes give 10 armor points but increased mana regeneration.
PoE isn't like that. Robes don't offer 25% of the armor value of plate but without a casting penalty. They offer a completely different but equal defense mechanism.
Exactly, by using some other color combination you aren't getting a straight-up power boost, you can get the job done just fine with all blue or one or two off-color gems. But you want your combo to work, it might not be much better and it might even be worse, but game prevents you to do it without a single good reason.
Of course, Fruz, my man, unless you're saying it's perfectly fine a character in PoE is meant to go monochrome in order not to gimp himself. Opinions are nice and all that, but it's still a perfect example of a restrictive mechanics completely out of place, in fact it restricts nothing much, doesn't prevent you from getting too strong or anything, just annoys the roasted marshmallows out of you.
Wish the armchair developers would go back to developing armchairs.
Been playing D3 a lot myself lately, gotta say... its awesome. I think there is a lot of build diversity, I currently play (for optimal speed) on T4, as a wizard. I have 2 RL friends one plays a witchdoctor and the other a monk and the third plays a wizard as well. The two wizards don't play anything alike and yet they both work really well. I also really enjoy being able to switch skills on the fly to suit the battle ahead or to utilize a new piece of gear. For example, last night, I found a neck that on stun had a chance to summon 2 clones of yourself for 30 seconds. I didn't have any skills that stunned though, so I went back to town, crafted some items to take advantage of a skill that *did* stun and then went back out to see what it was like. Quite liberating.
"the premier Action RPG for hardcore gamers."
-GGG
The cut scenes, the voice acting, the story What a relief....
Most obvious troll ever.
Either way, there's gonna be a lot of hype around d3 like it was on release, and then a few weeks later people are going to realize that the game is still as deep as a puddle, then bitch endlessly. It's a vicious cycle.
Последняя редакция: Septile#3881. Время: 17 мар. 2014 г., 11:43:57
Guys can you leave Diablo 2 and stretched micro discussions out?
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Septile написал:
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Startkabels написал:
Gameplay
The cut scenes, the voice acting, the story What a relief....
Most obvious troll ever.
Really? You want to argue about this? Blizzard is an Enterprise company with millions of dollars available probably.
And it shows in the in all those elements, you disagree with that?
Any arguments? No?
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Septile написал:
Either way, there's gonna be a lot of hype around d3 like it was on release, and then a few weeks later people are going to realize that the game is still as deep as a puddle, then bitch endlessly. It's a vicious cycle.
You seem to be ignorant, Blizzard is listning to the feedback they have received and have addressed the major concerns. The removal of the auction house is the perfect example.
I taste a lot of hate in your response but not a lot of insight. Your avatar suits you and it a shame to this community that you are a forum moderator who is dismissing honest feedback as trolling...
Последняя редакция: Startkabels#3733. Время: 17 мар. 2014 г., 11:49:17
Those armors are straight up better for defense. They offer more objectively more protection at the cost of a casting penalty. Where robes offer objectively less protection without that penalty. That's how those games work, plate gives 100 armor points but reduced casting speed or whatever and robes give 10 armor points but increased mana regeneration.
PoE isn't like that. Robes don't offer 25% of the armor value of plate but without a casting penalty. They offer a completely different but equal defense mechanism.
Yes it is :
Robes are suited to offer easy blue combinations = easy spell combos most-likely.
If you want to use melee skills with on a robe, that can get really difficult depending on your combo.
If you want to have a lot of armour, you can use a pure str chest, but you will then have a hard time rolling your blue sockets for the spell that you want to use.
Note that in many games, robes gives magic resistances instead of armour.
Of course you cannot compare all the mechanism are different in their design, so the comparison is not 100% relevant, but the fact is : one type of armour is better designed for its aligned skills/support, like mages use robe in other games.
lots of quotes from UnderOmerta's post
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UnderOmerta написал:
Is POE hardcore in the terms of time spent? No, not really. People can get pretty GG gear within a month or two of the league. There is probably someone out there on Ambush running around with a 6l Shavs.
w00t, people spending 10+ hours/day playing can eventually get a 6L shavronne's within 2 weeks in a SC league, and that's not a time investment to you ? ...
so yes, it is honestly.
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UnderOmerta написал:
Secondly, hardly anyone sits there and simply "rides out" bad RNG so they can get to the good RNG. They don't normalize their RNG through sheer mind-numbing repetition so they can get to the good bits. They normalize their RNG through trading, bartering, and flipping items. You get wealthy off that at many, many times the rate of farming and actually playing this game. So does it reward time investment? Sure, as an econ simulator. Not as an ARPG.
And how did the guy in ambush owning the 6L Shavronne get it ? He dropped it as a 6L maybe ?
No, some people are undeniably brute forced RNG with a high number of tries, or most-likely the guy owning it ( if there is one yet ) did it.
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UnderOmerta написал:
Does this reward knowledge? Sure, it rewards to some point. But past a certain [very low] point it doesn't reward knowledge anymore. Being more knowledgeable about the game's mechanics will do nothing to help you advance your game when someone else is simply getting much better drops than you are
And you have been winning many races because you consider that the amount of knowledge needed to perform is low, right ? How come do the same guys wins many races in a row ? they are always lucky and other people are not I bet ?
Those are just poor excuses, I have never drop high end uniques, I have my character that do well what they are supposed to do, and I'm having a lot of fun playing them the way they are ( and their stuff is far from being bad, it's obviously not godlike though, I'm not playing enough (on one char) for that )
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raics написал:
Of course, Fruz, my man, unless you're saying it's perfectly fine a character in PoE is meant to go monochrome in order not to gimp himself. Opinions are nice and all that, but it's still a perfect example of a restrictive mechanics completely out of place, in fact it restricts nothing much, doesn't prevent you from getting too strong or anything, just annoys the roasted marshmallows out of you.
c'mon, you know well that getting 2 off colors sockets in a 5L combo is nothing difficult, 3 of them is a little bit more difficult but manageable with many chroms, I would not try more than that because I know that the probability is just ridiculously low, and I find it good that RRRRX ES chest are not common, because they should not be honestly.
Hybrid armor gives you less ES but allow you to get the combos that you need, therefore casters have the advantage when wearing robes.
SSF is not and will never be a standard for balance, it is not for people entitled to getting more without trading.
Последняя редакция: Fruz#6137. Время: 17 мар. 2014 г., 11:51:48
as if I played alone with an additional NPC on my side
It's my preferable way of playing a game, for almost 30 years already.
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KenshiD написал:
In PoE we have Global, Trade and Guild chat where people are constantly showing off their cool items, trading them and showing how they either rolled something GG or fucked them up with a vaal orb.
Really? First thing I learned in PoE is how to turn off those irritation red texts.
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KenshiD написал:
Those things are fun, and are completely lacking in D3.
Yup, in D3 I also had to turn off those irritating texts, but it's ok. now.
