PoE leaving its hardcore niche and turning generic

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Yesu написал:

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The new leagues get boring after 2-3 weeks for the people who play a lot and its hurting the overall game. You quickly get to a point where your character is "done" with the increased drop rates and experience gained

It makes me think of MMO like WoW where top guilds clean new content very fast then leave till next content is released. Truth is no firm can add content fast enough to satisfy such guilds and players. It's kinda the same here i guess.

They can assuredly improve the end game content but i don't think they can hold such players for 3 full months.

Well, all the way up until about bloodlines or maybe just after that, it took people atleast a month to get to level 100. In invasion it took 4 months for 5 people to make it happen. It's a very easy solution to just make it take 3 months or so to get 100, that's my best solution to make the game last longer but change casual players experience any different. If say 95-100 took 10x longer or something.

People were enjoying the full 3-4 months back in invasion and the leagues before that. After that it took around 1 month instead, which is a bit of an improvement but not much.

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Prisus написал:

The game is a ton easier. I hate how everyone instantly jumps on the Cadiro train though.

The game is not easier because of him. The game is easier because

1) Ascendancy power creep (upwards of 40% more damage on some ascendencies!?!?!)
2) Monster power was not adjusted
3) Gear is so much easier to acquire. (read: trade improvements) Especially T2 rares which can do 99% of the games content.

The game is much easier, but it is due to GGG leaving monster power untouched after giving players so much power.

Chris already addressed this and stated they are looking for fun ways to make cruel and merc more difficult without blanket (X more damage) coding for the monsters.

I'm excited to see what they are going to come up with!!

Yeah, cadiro isn't 100% of the problem, but it definitely affects the economy hugely. On top of that there's a ton of new mechanics that do the same.

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PolarisOrbit написал:

It seems to me, OP, that your entire definition of hardcore is just "time consuming."

I clicked into this topic because I thought it was going to be about how much easier POE was in terms of surviving every encounter and how much simpler it was to build any new character to do the same, but FML you barely even mentioned those type of things in passing! Every single one of your complaints are leveled at the amount of time it takes to complete things. I am OK with abandoning the time-consuming part of the hardcore definition because a game which is grindy and long isn't automatically engaging, deep, complex, or challenging. The aspects of hardcore which are more important to me are the latter things (engaging, deep, complex, challenging), while time-consuming is something I can do without. Time-consuming doesn't add any positive properties by itself, it just lets you experience the extant properties for longer.

POE may be abandoning it's hardcore niche, but I don't think you've identified much of substance as to why that is. Perhaps slowing down the grind may prevent the game from becoming more mainstream, but there's a difference between preventing the game from becoming mainstream and keeping it hardcore.

I have plenty of reasons to think that the game isn't what it used to be, time is a part of it but there are many others. Perandus league isn't a challenge compared to something like Invasion, Beyond, etc, which is the biggest problem of having the leagues be combined.

I also think that the game is too easy in other respects. We are WAY too strong now compared to monsters. Getting a free 7th link equivalent of power from ascendancies is one of the obvious points. Not having to leave gorges to quickly get level 100 is another one. They shouldn't allow you to progress past level 90/95 without doing the hardest content in the game is my opinion.

But if it wasn't time consuming to get level 100 for example, if it took less time than it does now then it would be much more prone to luck. Someone could just be lucky enough not to die in those few days they played that character. If it takes 3 months to make it to 100 then there is very little luck involved.


You used to be able to die to white, blue and rare monsters in maps. You didn't oneshot everything offscreen, reflect actually did something to you so you couldnt just ignore it.

I don't just want the game to slow down in terms of time it takes to do things, also the time it takes to clear maps, kills monsters etc. The clear speed meta we have right now isn't great for the long term scope of the game, if we keep getting even stronger then maps will take even less time.

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If say 95-100 took 10x longer or something.

Yeah but grind from 95 to 100 is not game content. Very few people are concerned about race to 100 after all.

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derivi8 написал:

Here is an example of the difficulty the game used to have

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3ukP1KCXpg

You used to be able to die to white, blue and rare monsters in maps. You didn't oneshot everything offscreen, reflect actually did something to you so you couldnt just ignore it.

I don't just want the game to slow down in terms of time it takes to do things, also the time it takes to clear maps, kills monsters etc. The clear speed meta we have right now isn't great for the long term scope of the game, if we keep getting even stronger then maps will take even less time.

So desync was hardcore? ;)

Honestly, I'd rather have that kind of difficulty (be able to die to white mobs) than the endless grind.

Yeah, we don't have any desync and things like that anymore so if the game became harder in the way of monsters and the game slowed down in terms of clearspeed i'd be very happy.

You didn't mention the changes to the skilltree in your OP. It is so easy nowadays to create a good build, it's laughable. You'd think the developers wouldn't hold your hand in PoE, but they do. With tree changes that make all the nodes comparable and efficient, always adding new skillgems that are obviously too powerful and now with ascendancy classes.

PoE was getting more casual with each patch and i've been saying this for years, but oh well. Time to get on with the times. Casual games ftw. Loging in to do dailies and a few maps and back out.

After not reading most of the responses, I'm just throwing this out there. The thing that has really made the game easier to me was first the introduction of poe.trade and procurement. Procurement still required a little finesse to use though, so not everyone was using it, and items available for trade from poe.trade were still relatively limited. Then with this latest league, GGG introduced public stash tabs, which sites like poe.trade can ready automatically, thus eliminating the need to use Procurement at all unless you don't own any premium stash tabs. When I want an item now, I can typically acquire it instantly and at a fair price, while years ago I would have to dredge and scan through trade channel after trade channel for hours or more to find then item at even a mediocre deal.

Free trade is amazing, I love it! However, it has made things a lot easier. Accumulating currency early in Perandus was easy, I sold EVERYTHING through public tabs, even if only for a few alts. Then as I got some currency and decided on what to do, I just hit poe.trade and grabbed what I wanted, usually for anywhere from an alch to a couple of chaos.

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Raligard написал:

Free trade is amazing, I love it! However, it has made things a lot easier. Accumulating currency early in Perandus was easy, I sold EVERYTHING through public tabs, even if only for a few alts. Then as I got some currency and decided on what to do, I just hit poe.trade and grabbed what I wanted, usually for anywhere from an alch to a couple of chaos.

Boom. There you have it.

This is exactly what I am referring too. Is Cadiro a problem? maybe...but it's unproven. Cadiro has layers of RNG associated with him: 1) Is he in the map? 2) Is he offering a Unique you want 3) Can you afford it at the time it is presented?

There is no RNG with trade. 1) Flip some items 2) Get currency 3)Poe.trade and win. YOu even get to pick the stats you want. For example if you want a simple "unique effect" (i.e. Emporer's Grasp) you can concede and get the cheapest ones which might be under 10c. If you've saved a bit more and want to get better stat ones maybe you pay 30c...but either way you DIRECTLY GET THE ITEM YOU WANT RIGHT AWAY.

Something tells me if we did 2 parallel leagues: 1 with only Cadiro and NO trade and the other with only trade and NO Cadiro...the trade guys would hit a hundred in 3 days and the cadiro-only league would still be a bit behind... something like 5 days to 100.

The speed at which we navigate this game is simply because GEAR is easily attainable.

One thing I never understood from people that are so anti Cadiro:

Why is it okay to save up currency to buy THE EXACT ITEM you want from another player, but is not okay to save up currency to MAYBE get a good item from Cadiro that you may or may not use?

To blame the ease of this game solely on Cadiro simply is idiotic imo. The game is easy for a various of reasons. one being cadiro...another being free trade...and yet another being ascendancy power.

I would venture to say you would reach similar results in Perandus even if Cadiro was never introduced. Gear availability is nuts now. T2 rares and baseline (low rolled) uniques are allowing T15 map builds for under 2ex TOTAL!!!

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idiocracy1992 написал:

have you ever thought that people reach 100 faster now because they have been playing this game for years now and have a lot of experience ?

IKR?

"Hurr Durr gaem to ezy", has been playing nonstop for 3 years and can progress from a1n to a4c with his eyes closed, ignores the fact that new players still find it a challenge.

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joachimbond написал:

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idiocracy1992 написал:

have you ever thought that people reach 100 faster now because they have been playing this game for years now and have a lot of experience ?

IKR?

"Hurr Durr gaem to ezy", has been playing nonstop for 3 years and can progress from a1n to a4c with his eyes closed, ignores the fact that new players still find it a challenge.

New players aren't usually trying to hit 100. I am talking about the top 10% content and players here.


What you other guys have said about Cadiro is true, its just another layer of item drops basically. While it might not be a lot of extra loot compared to something like the trade improvements, he adds a TON of uniques you'd never have otherwise. I've found a huge amount of low-mid tier uniques from him, and if you look at the big picture with thousands of people finding Cadiro every day, he will affect the economy immensely.

Each league and expansion so far has added more loot, and all that put together makes loot way too common, which is why we're seeing uniques go for 1 chaos that used to be 100+. More loot makes each loot unit less valuable, so you're just clogging up everyone's inventory and stash with crap, or people only pick up the rings and amulets for example.


As everyone has pointed out, there are many many factors in why the game has become easier and loot more abundant. Be it trade improvement, Cadiro or just a combination of old leagues adding up to crazy amounts of loot, it's all making the game closer to what i'd consider generic. Like in diablo 3 where you can get 5 legendaries in 10 minutes.

As I said somewhere else, trade produces more problems than it solves.

Anyways, probably most of us know/agree that neither the fight system nor the loot system is the strong suit of this game. The strong suit are the items, the skill system and the passive tree and their interactions. The fights themselves are honestly not that great except for some few well-designed boss fights (Atziri, Torture Chamber boss, also Izaro if you like the mechanics, ...).

Which is kind of sad.