Difficulty Gap Is Widening - It's Making the Game Less Fun (HC)

I love hardcore. Every decision matters, and death actually means something. But this league due to less available time to play, I chose to play softcore and I realized, the difficulty gap is reducing the fun for HC players.

Softcore is linear. You're going to get to lvl 90+ every league, and you're going to make wealth. Because when you die you don't have to "sink" wealth into a reroll char, your progression is relatively stable. It's just a matter of time, and you'll get there.

In response to this, the market doesn't value specific attributes as much and builds are more geared towards damage. GGG's response to that is:
- making bosses harder
- introduce more 1 hit mechanics
- introduce boss phases

That leaves Hardcore players pigeon holed. The game is getting harder by arbitrary means and the end result is fewer and fewer builds become viable to play if you want to experience end game content. Furthermore, experiencing end-game content comes much much later, as most people are risk-adverse to dying and therefore won't attempt to experience the unknown until they are relatively certain their chances of survival are greatest.

Another con is experiencing the game in HC often just means: looking up videos online first to make sure you learn the mechanics of what you're about to face. Thus, I wouldn't call it experiencing... as it's not like you get the a second chance if you fail (without re-progressing a new char).

So herein lies the problem: for those of us who dislike to play linear wealth generating leagues, and instead, enjoy the challenge of HC mixed with a better economy...

- fewer builds are viable
- the difficulty is becoming harder (1 shot mechanics, phase bosses etc.) in response to softcore dps builds
- the game becomes less fun and creative as you become pigeon holed to certain classes

Before I leave, yes I am totally aware every HC league there are hundreds of people who make it to level 100 and do all end-game content. But that doesn't mean the gap that widens the play-ability is any less of a problem.

My feedback for this or suggestion is inexperienced, but perhaps if more community members feel this is an issue we can collaboratively create a better thesis:

Perhaps creating HC only class ascendancy nodes would help resolve the pigeon hole affect. This is perhaps an easier solution that rebalancing the whole game. Just make a new subsection or branch of nodes in ascendancy only that help HC classes that are underplayed become more viable.

I think that the problem lies in the fact that most if not all difficulty is concentrated on bosses. Normal, magic and rare monsters pose no challenge at all, unless they have after death effects, since they instantly die most of the time.

Lack of constant challenge is what makes hc not fun to play since when you die to a damage spike you:
a) Feel like it was unfair to die like this since the rest of the game didn't give you any indication that your char was lacking.
b) Feel bored about leveling up on the "easy mode" monsters you already bested.

Having a constant challenge would require a lot of nerfing in both player damage and boss health or an increase in normal monster life (since regular monsters actually hit hard if you let them hit you). GGG must have realised this since all league content monsters have a blatantly higher health pool or damage reduction compared to normal content monsters. But that still doesn't offer consistent challenge since it only appears in league content.

Power creep got us here and now there is no going back since GGG is afraid to take power away from players for some reason. Maybe because most people quit when they don't feel instantly powerful.

It was discussed multiple times, but anyway.

PoE's not "balanced" around HC, it's for long, and it's a trend. Not that it ever was, but back in the days game provided way less features and encounters, and it was easier for players to differentiate doable encounters from certain death (it's also related to damage spikes).

Over time game accumulated massive amounts of power creep, so the number of instant out-of-prediction deaths escalated.
In most of the times, when you die in PoE nowadays, it's instant and undodgeable. Inevitable certain death. No matter how you build or play.

In relation to this, PoE is already in a state where it's impossible to get balanced, literally. Also, game's shedule and business model leave no room for anything else but more issues over time - imbalance, power creep, "unfair" encounters. GGG are where money is - the softcore crowd and the fast food content.

Because of that:

1. Leave any hopes that HC experience would be improved.
2. Switch to SC and forget.
3. Play HC at own risk, prepared for yet another oneshot and tedious leveling through 10 acts of boredom.

Heavy damage mechanics aren't a response to softcore dps builds. This has been going on for as long as I've played the game(open beta). Hailrake used to kill you in 2-3 shots with ice spear. Bandits used to be really deadly. When they introduced vaal side areas, those bosses would pretty much all 2-3 shot a lot of builds, sometimes from off screen. That blue guy that summoned a lightning storm was terrifying. All the HC exclusive leagues had these mechanics. Invasion borrowed those vaal side area bosses and put them in every zone. Nemesis had corrupting blood(before everyone carried staunchings for it), that lightning storm ability(used to be really scary), and various kinds of volatiles that would blow up instantly on kill(not the easy volatiles we've got now). Order of the frozen sky was famous on the forums in bloodlines. Phylacteral link was basically an invulnerability phase.

GGG likes spike damage. They've always had it in some form or another. The only thing that's really changed over time is the progression of it. There's less of it while leveling now and a lot more of it in high tier maps.

So very nice posts here and additions to feedback - thanks to everyone who took the time to share their thoughts.

I agree with alot of what is said here. It's difficult for me to comes to terms with, but the "rush" and "thrill" of barely making it out alive that gets the heart pumping is sadly dying (no punn intended) in this game.

It's either you're OP and 1-2 shot everything... or you're insta-gibbed by some effect. This in turn, reduces the ability for any heart pumping action to occur inbetween.

The real issue is, the alternative besides SSF (where you can't play with friends) or standard (where economy is doomed) is only Softcore league. But unfortunately, the entire league is always linear and progressive.

- the XP loss before level 90ish is not enough
- skill gems don't lose any experience on death
- there is no "economic" loss on death besides the value of maps you need to sink in to return the experience
- items that should be worth something are underballed because everyone is progressively slowly perfecting their build. No medium level items are worth anything beyond first 3 weeks except in build circumstances.

At least the new party play feature will enable friends to play together more without penalty - but there really is no challenge to this game (in my opinion) other than repeating what you did last season (fill out atlas, find build items, gain wealth).

Once you gain that wealth, finish your build and fill out the atlas you might as well quit for the season. Which depending on your play-time requirements and seriousness can be achieved in the first 3-4 weeks of a new league.

So assuming you play PoE every league, thats 4 months out of the year of "good playing" and the rest is systematically pointless as leagues reset.

At least in HC there is something of a thrill inbetween the linear progression.... something that actually means something.... but that ... as been discussed above, is eroding away to 1-shot mechanics.

My secret to keep on playing on HC while knowing well the disadvantage I've put myself into by playing this mode, and all the glaring balance issues this game has, is the "how far you can push" mentality.

When the only motivation to keep going is if you are gonna do better than the last time, your mind doesn't feel the pain if you end up dead.
So I stay in vanilla HC pushing it, waiting for the oneshot to end it up.

On a side note, temp HC leagues put you into an even greater disadvantage - it's about nolifing and doing easy content ad infinitum, to avoid fuck ups. Deaths also impact you way more.

After coming back after ~2 years not playing, I find that game has never been easier. Most bosses are a joke compared to what they were. I remember the time when Kole (not even a boss) would one-shot most people if he hit them, once. Dominus? Piety? Then I came after a little while when they introduced Malakai, damn that was a hard fight for my toons. Save for legacy aegis blocker, but the fight would drag for ages since dps is low.

Now? Lol. You can one-shot Piety with a magic driftwood club.
I just watched the other day a guy in HC showing Deodre fight mechanics. Since I died there some time before. He had ~750 life. Easy mode for HIM, but I guess he stacked LPS and we all know degens are % based sooo....


So, if you are a HC player, for some reason, just please don't try and push more penalties for people that don't care for HC leagues/modes or whatever. Normal league players are not asking that HC player should endure more of this or that, but some of you think that just because YOU play HC, for some reason, we, the normal players, should have it harder.

You didn't get it.

Game's definitely way easier than it has ever been, it's the unpredictable damage spikes people bitch about. Because such state of balance literally bans HC as a mode, or at best positions it straight into the no-life masochist's territory.
BTW it affects SC players as well.

Back in the days one knew what's dangerous. Basically everything. And payed attention to any encounter, from leveling to end game.
Now you just breeze through the game to the point you get randomly oneshot no matter what, rinse and repeat.

Yes, PoE has always been about damage spikes and it's an ancient complaint, nothing new.
But nowadays this issue escalated to a glaring discrepancy between overly easy content and random inevitable deaths.

"

torturo a écrit :

You didn't get it.

Game's definitely way easier than it has ever been, it's the unpredictable damage spikes people bitch about. Because such state of balance literally bans HC as a mode, or at best positions it straight into the no-life masochist's territory.
BTW it affects SC players as well.

Back in the days one knew what's dangerous. Basically everything. And payed attention to any encounter, from leveling to end game.
Now you just breeze through the game to the point you get randomly oneshot no matter what, rinse and repeat.

Yes, PoE has always been about damage spikes and it's an ancient complaint, nothing new.
But nowadays this issue escalated to a glaring discrepancy between overly easy content and random inevitable deaths.

I'd like to point out that the damage spikes are only perceived as a spike because the "overly easy content" monsters never have a chance to attack you. If you stand in the middle of a zombie horde you might realise they actually hit harder than X boss.

There is actually not much of a difference in damage dealing potential between those two. The only difference is that the boss has invuln phases or high health and has the chance to actually hit you.

Apart from that, ranged monster packs can be other sources of "damage spikes", like the vaal constructs, and get regularly critisized for being able to hit you.

I can't believe GGG ban for using auto clicker to buy orbs from the vendor when they allow players to use logout macros, that shit makes no sense.