PoE leaving its hardcore niche and turning generic

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Char1983 написал:

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.

QFT.

Couldn't agree with you more.

I don't mind trading and sometimes it's even fun. For me though, the way Cadiro was introduced didn't make sense to me. Perandus Coins and items received from him should not be made transferrable. That's the only way a system like that works.

If I can buy items from him and just sell them on the open market, it completely fucks the economy. That is what we see happening now (especially with trade tabs being introduced!!).

If those same items were account locked, he would have had a very different impact to gameplay. Since GGG probably can't do that, I don't think that this league was fully thought out.

I still can't for the life of me understand why they made Perandus Coins tradeable. If they weren't tradeable, players wouldn't have had headhunters Day 1. You would actually have to grind out coins and pray that Cadiro shows up later with similar offers.

Making PCoins non-tradeable would have been the first step to at least curbing gear acquisition a tiny bit...

+1 to more mechanical difficulty, ambivalent about the grind.

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derivi8 написал:

which is why we're seeing uniques go for 1 chaos that used to be 100+

I'd say the biggest reason for this is that most uniques are garbage. When drop rates were lower, there were fewer for sale and pricing wasn't as competitive. Still, most never sold, and they still don't despite being priced at 3 alts or whatever.

The few uniques that are actually good are still worthwhile to trade. The majority is vendor trash, as they deserve to be.

Prisus nailed it with trading overall - that is definitely what made things much easier. That, and the fact that we have so much more knowledge (and skill) than we used to have. You praise old leagues like Invasion and such, which weren't that fondly received when they were current. Invasion more than any other league was known as Path of Oneshot, and while I agree it was fun, it was a bit too punishing overall and had no clear risk vs reward scheme. Most people didn't engage the Invasion bosses after awhile, just tried to play around them because they were so dangerous. Same thing with Beyond, that you tried hard to avoid until geared up well into the endgame when you could faceroll them.

Anyway, I guess it comes down to the question: what is a hardcore game? Is it the time investment? The risk and danger of being oneshot at every corner? The complexity of the mechanics and game systems? That you only have one life and if you die your character is deleted? I'm sure there's as many different answers as there are questions. For me, I consider a game hardcore if it has a deep and interesting skill system, which I think PoE has. Wasting time, getting oneshot and wasting more time due to "real hardcore" - that is not for me anymore. Too old and too little time for that.

I've been playing this game casually since closed beta, the summer of 2012. What got me into it in the first place was the skill tree and the myriad of possibilities I envisioned. That is hardcore to me. Four years and many revisions later, I still think this is true. And the game is so much better in 2016 than it was in 2012 - there is no comparison.

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I'd say the biggest reason for this is that most uniques are garbage. When drop rates were lower, there were fewer for sale and pricing wasn't as competitive. Still, most never sold, and they still don't despite being priced at 3 alts or whatever.

The few uniques that are actually good are still worthwhile to trade. The majority is vendor trash, as they deserve to be.

It depends on what uniques you are talking about. Yeah, a heatshiver isn't supposed to be 10 chaos. But should a goldrim? In my opinion, it should be. If everyone has one, like right now, then they're nothing special. Or what about a ming's heart, a crown of eyes, maligaro gloves? All very powerful uniques but because of how loot works this league, and trading, they've lost 95% of their value compared to a year or two ago.

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Prisus nailed it with trading overall - that is definitely what made things much easier. That, and the fact that we have so much more knowledge (and skill) than we used to have. You praise old leagues like Invasion and such, which weren't that fondly received when they were current. Invasion more than any other league was known as Path of Oneshot, and while I agree it was fun, it was a bit too punishing overall and had no clear risk vs reward scheme. Most people didn't engage the Invasion bosses after awhile, just tried to play around them because they were so dangerous. Same thing with Beyond, that you tried hard to avoid until geared up well into the endgame when you could faceroll them.

The reason I chose Invasion/Ambush leagues as an example are for many reasons. The first reason is that they gave you a great amount of choice. Wanted a ridiculously challenging league where you'd be scared of dying at all times? Pick Invasion. Wanted something a bit more fun and casual with a nice combination of risk and reward? Pick Ambush.

These choices aren't available anymore. We have Perandus HC or Perandus SC. Personally I found both to be Warbands + inflation. I might aswell had played Standard league, but Standard arguably has a more stable economy.

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Anyway, I guess it comes down to the question: what is a hardcore game? Is it the time investment? The risk and danger of being oneshot at every corner? The complexity of the mechanics and game systems? That you only have one life and if you die your character is deleted? I'm sure there's as many different answers as there are questions. For me, I consider a game hardcore if it has a deep and interesting skill system, which I think PoE has. Wasting time, getting oneshot and wasting more time due to "real hardcore" - that is not for me anymore. Too old and too little time for that.

While the average player probably isn't ready to spend 18 hours a day pushing ladder, that being a part of the game is still going to affect them. Watching the top 1% players fight out for the #1 spot for the duration of the league is exciting for a lot of people. The game wouldn't be the same if there wasn't such a big amount of competition in almost all aspects of the game. If they just arbitrarily changed the 1-100 journey and made it take 3 months instead of 0.5, that'd in my opinion help the game a lot. Again, this is just one out of many problems the game has.

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I've been playing this game casually since closed beta, the summer of 2012. What got me into it in the first place was the skill tree and the myriad of possibilities I envisioned. That is hardcore to me. Four years and many revisions later, I still think this is true. And the game is so much better in 2016 than it was in 2012 - there is no comparison.

I would agree that on paper the game is "better". Desync is basically fixed, there are amazing things like loot filters and so on. But the leagues, the difficulty and the competition is in my opinion in the worst spot so far. The passive tree hasn't improved in my opinion, but thats mostly because people have figured out how to optimize characters too well.

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derivi8 написал:

It depends on what uniques you are talking about. Yeah, a heatshiver isn't supposed to be 10 chaos. But should a goldrim? In my opinion, it should be. If everyone has one, like right now, then they're nothing special. Or what about a ming's heart, a crown of eyes, maligaro gloves?

I think all leveling uniques should be easily and cheaply available. What is the point, otherwise? Goldrim is an excellent unique I agree, and it certainly helps when leveling, in Cruel especially.

The others you mention are yesterday's news; the current meta doesn't favour them at all. That's just the way the game evolves. None of them offer any value today.

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derivi8 написал:

Wanted a ridiculously challenging league where you'd be scared of dying at all times? Pick Invasion. Wanted something a bit more fun and casual with a nice combination of risk and reward? Pick Ambush.

This is a good and forgotten point, and I agree with you completely. I miss this choice, but I also understand why they moved away from it - time constraints. That said, I wouldn't be against something making the hardcore leagues permanently harder in some way. It should be obvious that people who choose to play hardcore are in for an extra challenge. :) It would also make the e-peen kids happy because then they could finally claim they're better than us scrubs who are in softcore. Maybe would put that tired old argument to rest. I say this as a standard player by the way.

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derivi8 написал:

While the average player probably isn't ready to spend 18 hours a day pushing ladder, that being a part of the game is still going to affect them. Watching the top 1% players fight out for the #1 spot for the duration of the league is exciting for a lot of people. The game wouldn't be the same if there wasn't such a big amount of competition in almost all aspects of the game. If they just arbitrarily changed the 1-100 journey and made it take 3 months instead of 0.5, that'd in my opinion help the game a lot. Again, this is just one out of many problems the game has.

Not sure it would matter much, to be honest. I don't strive to reach 100 myself and never really have. I tend to get bored way sooner, my highest char is only 93. If I didn't enjoy taking stupid risks and generally playing recklessly I'd have multiple 100s by now, but don't really care. :)

The 100 race these days have lost all their appeal to me. It's all about clear speed now and bypassing as much of the game as possible. Honestly, it's like watching a bot play. If anything I think what needs to change is to tone down the clear speed meta a bit, to not make it so efficient. I've no idea how though. Artificially extending the amount of XP required, nerf maps or whatever - that won't really change anything.

Maybe some way to require us to play harder content to gain more XP, so there's some risk involved. Once you're around level 90 with good gear today, nothing really is risky if you roll your maps well and know what you're doing. Maybe that is what needs to change. Maps that scale with your level maybe. Let regular maps reward XP up to level 95 or so, and then require us to play level-appropriate maps with highly added risk and difficulty? Maybe.

Anyway, I agree that something needs to change, but I think it's important that it doesn't affect regular players who don't push to 100. Some Elite thing for 95-98+ though - yeah. Fun. :)

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derivi8 написал:

But the leagues, the difficulty and the competition is in my opinion in the worst spot so far. The passive tree hasn't improved in my opinion, but thats mostly because people have figured out how to optimize characters too well.

I think that's mostly because we're better players now, equipped with much better information. I'm enjoying Perandus a lot, I think it's the best league overall so far. Ambush was superb as well, but much simpler and far less dangerous. Like you I also enjoyed Invasion a lot, although I died many times. ;) Perandus kind of feels like a mix of Ambush, Anarchy and Domination - all in one. Massive packs of sometimes infurating mobs mixed with some exile wannabees, guarding an Ambush chest. What's not to like. :)

As for the skill tree: no. As someone who has spent way too many hours in the skill tree over the years, I think it's a lot better now than it used to be. I always make my own builds and tinker around with them for too long mostly - it's one of my favourite things about making a new character so I'd never copy someone else. Path of Life Nodes is more or less gone, and there are actually options to life nodes these days. Early on, not so much. Gone are the days where you spent 100 points on defenses and maybe 5-10 offensive nodes once you got to mapping. I really don't want those days back, it wasn't too much fun.

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Ceri написал:

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derivi8 написал:

which is why we're seeing uniques go for 1 chaos that used to be 100+

I'd say the biggest reason for this is that most uniques are garbage. When drop rates were lower, there were fewer for sale and pricing wasn't as competitive. Still, most never sold, and they still don't despite being priced at 3 alts or whatever.

The few uniques that are actually good are still worthwhile to trade. The majority is vendor trash, as they deserve to be.

Prisus nailed it with trading overall - that is definitely what made things much easier. That, and the fact that we have so much more knowledge (and skill) than we used to have. You praise old leagues like Invasion and such, which weren't that fondly received when they were current. Invasion more than any other league was known as Path of Oneshot, and while I agree it was fun, it was a bit too punishing overall and had no clear risk vs reward scheme. Most people didn't engage the Invasion bosses after awhile, just tried to play around them because they were so dangerous. Same thing with Beyond, that you tried hard to avoid until geared up well into the endgame when you could faceroll them.

Anyway, I guess it comes down to the question: what is a hardcore game? Is it the time investment? The risk and danger of being oneshot at every corner? The complexity of the mechanics and game systems? That you only have one life and if you die your character is deleted? I'm sure there's as many different answers as there are questions. For me, I consider a game hardcore if it has a deep and interesting skill system, which I think PoE has. Wasting time, getting oneshot and wasting more time due to "real hardcore" - that is not for me anymore. Too old and too little time for that.

I've been playing this game casually since closed beta, the summer of 2012. What got me into it in the first place was the skill tree and the myriad of possibilities I envisioned. That is hardcore to me. Four years and many revisions later, I still think this is true. And the game is so much better in 2016 than it was in 2012 - there is no comparison.

Please, take all my likes/upboats and all others things. People seem to ignore the fact they get better at the game, and because of that game seems easier. It is not. Look at new players, and how easy the is for them. :P

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Please, take all my likes/upboats and all others things. People seem to ignore the fact they get better at the game, and because of that game seems easier. It is not. Look at new players, and how easy the is for them. :P

This is definitly true. Don't get me wrong: the game is a bit easier than before, but it's still really hard to master for new players. And it's still by far one of the most hardcore oriented games out there.

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Frattagli4 написал:

the game is a bit easier than before

You know, I don't think it really is. It's faster, but by no means easier. Act 4 is way harder than anything that came before it, that can't really be argued.

Sure, we've been oneshot for years, and struggled with new bosses and mechanics. It may feel that the game is easier now, because the overall speed of the game is much higher. We level much faster, we get gear much faster (in large part thanks to trading), and we reach the endgame much faster than ever before. Heck, people rush to level 90 in a day nowadays, that was unheard of just a few leagues ago.

To me though, the biggest reason I'm a much better player now than before, is simply access to good information. The wiki is amazing and can teach us pretty much all there is to know. The forums is full of good intel as well, including a lot of GGG clarifications and replies. We didn't have that back in beta, and that made things a lot harder. You may argue that was more fun, and I might even agree, but that's how it is.

Still, what content we actually face I'd say is much harder than it used to be. Sure, Invasion-bosses pre-nerf is probably the peak of difficulty, but other than that, not at all sure. Try running merciless act 4 with self-found gear, uncapped resists and 2k life or so. That's how most people ran act 3 way back when that was introduced, and had a really rough time. Upper Sceptre and Dominus was brutal on release, much like Malachai was when act 4 popped but in my opinion not as bad.

Anyway, sorry for rambling, I'm at home sick today - too much time on my hands. ;)

dificulty depends on the bar you are using to measure it, for profesional traders swiming in wealth and or cookie cutter builds that are known for their hability to faceroll everything yes game is easy.

for those who arent interested in MF/trading and or playing cookie cutter builds game is not easy at all.

do note that this has nothing to do with time spent or how hardcore you are, its about builds divercity and how some are far stronger than others giving the impression of the game being easy or hard depending on wich one you are using.


GGG cant balance for both sides, the closest thing to that is to close the gap between strong skills and crap skills.

alternative all those hardcore players can go and play a self found melee elemental hit build so they can ffeel the game being hard again.

@ ceri: I refer to the difference between pre and post ascendancy. It's right that is not much easier than before, but for sure you have a bunch of more dps and defences whike the rest of the game is pretty much the same.

Even drops are better but i feel funny when people say "it tooks me only 50 hours of flipping and now the game is so damn eaaasyyyy".

Don't flip and maybe you'll have more fun and challenge lol.