Synthesis power creep vs Atlas follow up?

"

But you haven't really done anything hard lol

I did kill shaper, with my op meta summoner when that was the endgame content. I did not enjoy it, and had similar thougths as the OP is having now. After that i was seriously dissapointed with the power differences between skills and ascendancies. That was one painful realization. I did not play meta since then, thats why i didnt do "anyting hard". Hard in your book. The endgame is just a DPS meta check, nothing more. I had the honor of reading some of you posts before, so i doubt you will understand what im talking about.

"

Motopsycho a écrit :

"

But you haven't really done anything hard lol

I did kill shaper, with my op meta summoner when that was the endgame content. I did not enjoy it, and had similar thougths as the OP is having now. After that i was seriously dissapointed with the power differences between skills and ascendancies. That was one painful realization. I did not play meta since then, thats why i didnt do "anyting hard". Hard in your book. The endgame is just a DPS meta check, nothing more. I had the honor of reading some of you posts before, so i doubt you will understand what im talking about.

You haven't done anything hard either wtf lol

At least im not hiding like you do. ;)

Err that doesn't have ANYTHING to do with what I said LOL get shut down like you LITERALLY have done nothing hard.

"

Err that doesn't have ANYTHING to do with what I said LOL get shut down like you LITERALLY have done nothing hard.

That's unfair I_NO, you haven't done anything hard either.

Your good at a game that requires a modest amount of dexterity and a fair amount of trading.

We all have different definitions of hard :(

Peace,

-Boem-

"

Motopsycho a écrit :

Of course im mad. There was a time when this game required some thought process and you had to make meaninful choices. Unique items gave huge penalties and you had to work around them. Now power is given for free, for everybody. You can build a shaper viable char from 10c.
GGG making these balance changes to let casuals see the endgame content, while spitting in the faces of those who had to work hard to reach it before.

You play winter orb because it is fast and cheap (your words). Yeah, that is exactly my problem. You are getting power cheaply. You can skip a lot of grinding (content) because you chose a broken skill. The main content in this game is grindig, even the company name tells you that much. If you chose an op meta, you dont have to grind that much to see the endgame.

Ask for more and harder content on the forums, because you are done with the game. This was your decision.

My decision was however to play the game as i see it fit. Gimping myself with shtty skills so that i can get my "hard game" experience back. No, thats not normal. But what can i do? GGG trivialized their own game, yet im still trying to have fun with it. This is the sad reality of the game.

Im not mad at you personally. You just reptesent the new, poweraddicted players that GGG created with their poor balance decisions.

"You play winter orb because it is fast and cheap (your words)." that's certainly inaccurate. Winter orb is NOT cheap, not at endgame viability. A good build for it is going to be around 60x or so.

"There was a time when this game required some thought process and you had to make meaninful choices"

Sounds like you're pining for the good ol days and trying to tell the kids to get off your damn lawn. Dude, games evolve over time. Once those meaningful choices become understood they become the established meta, it's not rocket science, yo. The only way to combat that is to do exactly what I'm asking for and adding new content that ups the ante. The fact that you're mad about it shows that you're just not understanding how the solution exists.

""You chose the short route twice and now you are wondering what to do"

No I'm not, I know what to do, you're very much putting words in my mouth to serve your narative, either that or you completely don't understand anything I'm saying.

"The main content in this game is grindig, even the company name tells you that much"

I don't think you understand game design in games as a service very well.

GGG is doing a good job here. They are actually releasing an upped power scale which introduces a greater reward system. If the game stayed exactly as it was in your fantasy golden age of poe, then people would get bored and stop playing, including you, because there wouldn't be more content and it would get old.

A responsible path is to sprinkle in new reward then new challenging content to use the reward against, rather than releasing challenging content first that is unplayable for the vast majority of players. This is responsible game design in terms of the game continuing to exist and the devs being able to pay their mortgage.

I would still call the game challenging last league as a newer player, but adding more power means next league I'm hoping they add more challenging content, that's all I'm asking for.

If you want it to remain in a perpetual state of when you think it was best, guess what, the game dies, GGG goes bankrupt and you have no more game to play. Think a little bit about what you're saying exactly.

"This is the sad reality of the game."

I call BS. This means your method of playing the game is still viable, you have the option. I also have the option of playing the way I like. That means more diverse player base, meaning more income, meaning more success and longevity for the game. What exactly are you fighting against here? The notion of success and progress? The concept of more content to play in the game so you have more game to play? So that the concept of endgame evolves?

I don't even understand your rage here, it's almost like you want the game to be just for you, forever, and don't realize that will cause the game to bankrupt because you yourself don't pay absolutely everyone's salary. That's some entitled thought process bro.

You get to play how you want, you have the option of gimping yourself, and I have the option of making the screen splode in shiney colors and GGG now collects 2 sources of income instead of one... and it's not like they are super evil empire EA trying to squeeze the player base for every possible penny, they are just growing the game responsibly.

Having multiple paths to success actually means there are more opportunities to have meaningful choices. If the game stays the same, the choices cease to be meaningful.

"Im not mad at you personally. You just reptesent the new, poweraddicted players that GGG created with their poor balance decisions."

No, I don't represent them, you infer that. That's your interpretation and really, your problem.

You have a viable method to play the way you like. Demanding that the game cater to you specifically and nobody else is entirely unsustainable, and unrealistic in every sense.

And here's the thing, even if winter orb didn't exist, I and a ton of other players would still figure out and map out the best possible progressions and choices and ways to make currency etc. Really you just seem mad that the game doesn't revolve around you anymore, and that there are more people doing, pretty much the same thing you used to do, figuring out the best ways of doing stuff.

It's almost like you want to keep PoE to be your super secret gaming club that you're the best at and nobody else can enjoy(?)

You have options to play the way you like. I have options to play the way I like, and even if it was a different set of balance, a healthy portion of gamers would still gravitate towards the path of least resistance.

Let me explain very quickly so you get it...

Many if not most players will 99% choose the path of least resistance, the path of efficiency and time saving and it's not wrong if you choose to do otherwise. Additionally, those same players will be upset if there isn't enough challenge and new content on the path of least resistance. Also this isn't me saying this, it's game design processes, if you like I can source some stuff for you on this, but honestly, it plainly evident to any gamer that has been around the block once or twice.

This makes finding that correct balance the trick of being a good game dev, and from what i've seen in the dev diaries and such, they specifically calculate this stuff with hard datasets, meaning they are at the very least thoughtful about it rather than being money grubbing jerks or people that just don't care enough to think about it.

Will they get it wrong and right from time to time? Sure, but that's part of their job. You can't expect them to get everything perfect all the time as the game grows and expands for everyone.

As such, you might consider being grateful that there isn't perfect balance, and that you have options like SSF, and new economies with leagues, and underpowered skill choices so that you can enjoy the game the way you like, rather than demanding GGG cut their own throats to cater to your whims of making it a private party just for you.

I could understand your gripes more if you didn't have the options you do, but you really do, like, they are built into the game as options that you can literally select (and yet, you're mad about this?). More options equals more players equals more meaningful choices in game and also equals more paycheck to develop new content. Do you not want there to be new content to enjoy? I just don't get it.

I don't really get your complaints. Perhaps you think GGG should make a private game just for you, and maybe they would if you alone paid their salaries, but frankly, i think you should be content that your play style is not only valid, but is a directly supported option and be happy that the game grows and expands so there is more to interact with and engage with.

if anything, doesn't more content mean there are even more choices to make?

Your logic really just doesn't make any sense to me and there is no reason you should be pitied because you don't like the way some players choose to play.


I'm literally holding back saying a lot of what I think here in the interest of remaining civil, because I'm really having a hard time respecting your opinions as presented.

"

Boem a écrit :

"

Err that doesn't have ANYTHING to do with what I said LOL get shut down like you LITERALLY have done nothing hard.

That's unfair I_NO, you haven't done anything hard either.

Your good at a game that requires a modest amount of dexterity and a fair amount of trading.

We all have different definitions of hard :(

Peace,

-Boem-

This is kinda my thought here.

the game itself was never "that hard".

I did play it back when it was obscenely ridiculous when it first came out. I got bored because there wasn't more content.

The game itself requires mild dexterity and some decent problem solving skills and basic math. That's about it. It never required more than that as far as i can tell. Pining for the good ol days is simply romanticizing the past into fantasy.

"

Sounds like you're pining for the good ol days and trying to tell the kids to get off your damn lawn. Dude, games evolve over time.

It is just like everything in the modern world. It is evolving, yet it losing quality and eventually its essence.

"

Once those meaningful choices become understood they become the established meta, it's not rocket science, yo.

Now there is nothing to figure out. The OP meta is handed to you on a silverplate with the "PICK THIS ONE" ledlights flashing right in to your face.

"

GGG is doing a good job here. They are actually releasing an upped power scale which introduces a greater reward system. If the game stayed exactly as it was in your fantasy golden age of poe, then people would get bored and stop playing, including you, because there wouldn't be more content and it would get old.

All i see is GGG spewing out half chewed content for beta test, and after 1-2 leagues nerfs the sh*t out of the obviously OP candies they gave out as a bait (the latest sacrefice was Poet's Pen, if you want an example).

Well, i guess melee is in its golden fantasy age state even now, so i dont have to go too far to enjoy that. It is just a little bit frustrating to do so.

"

I would still call the game challenging last league as a newer player, but adding more power means next league I'm hoping they add more challenging content, that's all I'm asking for.

I wouldn't be against that if they would fix the old content. A lot of game mechanics/skills/passives/uniques are so dated that it is mind-boggling.

"

I call BS. This means your method of playing the game is still viable, you have the option. I also have the option of playing the way I like. That means more diverse player base, meaning more income, meaning more success and longevity for the game. What exactly are you fighting against here?

Degradation of quality.

"

You get to play how you want, you have the option of gimping yourself, and I have the option of making the screen splode in shiney colors and GGG now collects 2 sources of income instead of one...

Unsatisfied customers do not pay. Your logic fails here.

"

You have a viable method to play the way you like. Demanding that the game cater to you specifically and nobody else is entirely unsustainable, and unrealistic in every sense.

I did not ask for catering. Im asking for the balancing and the fixing of the old content. When i say balancing i dont mean that every build should be on the same power level. But right now paying meta versus palying non-meta feels like two entirely different game. What do i mean? Im going to quote becuse somebody already written my exact thoughts:

"

enoecarg a écrit :

Now, to return to slow gameplay is the same as giving up the game.

Almost all modern contents require speed clear. When the clear speed is halved, the reward is not half. It is zero. To play current PoE with slow but fun build is impossible.

Well, first of all, PoE still has a ton of quality, more then any other aRPG and more then most other games, and it's 'essence' is well intact.

Playing a 'meta-build' is in no ways bad, I'm doing it because I like to farm the new implemented items each league, and a fast build is mandatory for that. In standard though I'm testing out things and building up my characters slowly. I'm not a person to do the 36 challenges or 40, I like the game-mechanics, min-maxing a build I worked out myself, even if it's fairly similar to those of others quite often.

Take Winter Orb - which is also my league starter as I like the skill and feeling of it - for instance. You can go pure cold and wands, running a loreweave or farrul's for instance, or best case the new shaper chest. Or if you want to be more offensive for clear-speed run an inpulsa and explode everything, also a nice feeling.
On the other hand, you could also go towards ES with the same build, remove a lot of the tree on the right side and go towards scion and templar a bit more.
Or you can go sceptre for fire explosions with cold to fire conversion.
Or you can go into crit with it.
Or you could go to cast while channeling and run ice spear for instance, all viable options.

In PoE you don't choose a 'meta build', you choose a play-style, or a skill. And that is focused on the content you want to run mostly. For me that's T16 maps and delve, so it's a fast, strong and not very sturdy build.
I could also go and make an uber-lab farmer, crafting some juicy helmets during league and dropping tons of currency, gems, uniques. My build isn't well fitted for that, a melee-char fares a lot better with the defensive options it has in the lab.

I could also go and make a character dedicated on low-lvl farming at quarry, simply 'gotta go fast' and not much more.

Or how about a dedicated boss-farmer, massive damage output but a lot slower clear-speed in maps.

You choose your style yourself, and that's the good part of the game, the actual core GGG followed along. Not every skill is actually meant to be uber-elder viable, or even shaper-viable, but each single skill has a place where it can be used well, even SRS despite it's bad situation.


As for 'op content' they give as candies: I was here when inpulsa was a common drop, T3 unique, before it got nerfed even. Nobody knew it's potential, people sold it for 1 alch, vendored it or simply didn't pick it up. And after someone found out how it behaves together with herald of ice, creating massive clear-speed of mobs despite the rather offensive setup the unique got nerfed and moved to be a T1 drop. So no, they just don't anticipate us players to work out such weird ways to use specific items, it's a side effect of having several hundred skills and uniques with hundreds of thousands of viable skill/item and passive combinations. You'll overlook some, that much is a given, even very obvious oversights. Since GGG works on the game steadily they don't have 8 hours a day time to play it, they'll not remember some weird things we thought up along the way and simply break it with every new item again, that's why they nerf them afterwards.


Some game-mechanics are definitely dated, though as we see... they are trying to fix it piece by piece. The masters got re-done, and that will keep up until 2020 when 4.0.0 comes out. Talisman got re-implemented in some really nice ways. Breach got updated with pure breachstones to make one of the best mechanics very worthwhile with it, scarabs got implemented to make T16 farming more viable and sought-after.
We still got tormented spirits as a bad mechanic, and we have some... annoying game mechanics like corrupted blood, silence and immunity shrines still existing, but I'm fairly sure those will be changed along the line as well.
Uniques aren't all supposed to be 'good', some are simply nichè items, some are only meant for leveling, some are purely for SSF means so people have 'something' decent to work with along the way. Also corrupted gems have very fun uses, even if they aren't 'meta' at all.


As for balance issues: 3.7.0 will have a melee balance, so that's incoming, they can't fix everything at the same time, the only issues I have are with the poor implementation of new leagues at the moment, but given their goal of bringing in several new masters with side-content until 4.0.0 it makes sense, especially since 4.0.0 will be a very big change again and offer a lot of new interesting things, we're in the set-up phase for that right now, bestiary, incursion, delve, betrayal and synthesis all brought in new sizeable game-mechanics, and all of those are made to have a lot more diversity later on, giving players the options to choose - or not choose with the darn betrayal missbalance at the moment - to do whatever they want, not being forced into a single direction.

"

Kulze a écrit :

Well, first of all, PoE still has a ton of quality, more then any other aRPG and more then most other games, and it's 'essence' is well intact.

Playing a 'meta-build' is in no ways bad, I'm doing it because I like to farm the new implemented items each league, and a fast build is mandatory for that. In standard though I'm testing out things and building up my characters slowly. I'm not a person to do the 36 challenges or 40, I like the game-mechanics, min-maxing a build I worked out myself, even if it's fairly similar to those of others quite often.

Take Winter Orb - which is also my league starter as I like the skill and feeling of it - for instance. You can go pure cold and wands, running a loreweave or farrul's for instance, or best case the new shaper chest. Or if you want to be more offensive for clear-speed run an inpulsa and explode everything, also a nice feeling.
On the other hand, you could also go towards ES with the same build, remove a lot of the tree on the right side and go towards scion and templar a bit more.
Or you can go sceptre for fire explosions with cold to fire conversion.
Or you can go into crit with it.
Or you could go to cast while channeling and run ice spear for instance, all viable options.

In PoE you don't choose a 'meta build', you choose a play-style, or a skill. And that is focused on the content you want to run mostly. For me that's T16 maps and delve, so it's a fast, strong and not very sturdy build.
I could also go and make an uber-lab farmer, crafting some juicy helmets during league and dropping tons of currency, gems, uniques. My build isn't well fitted for that, a melee-char fares a lot better with the defensive options it has in the lab.

I could also go and make a character dedicated on low-lvl farming at quarry, simply 'gotta go fast' and not much more.

Or how about a dedicated boss-farmer, massive damage output but a lot slower clear-speed in maps.

You choose your style yourself, and that's the good part of the game, the actual core GGG followed along. Not every skill is actually meant to be uber-elder viable, or even shaper-viable, but each single skill has a place where it can be used well, even SRS despite it's bad situation.


As for 'op content' they give as candies: I was here when inpulsa was a common drop, T3 unique, before it got nerfed even. Nobody knew it's potential, people sold it for 1 alch, vendored it or simply didn't pick it up. And after someone found out how it behaves together with herald of ice, creating massive clear-speed of mobs despite the rather offensive setup the unique got nerfed and moved to be a T1 drop. So no, they just don't anticipate us players to work out such weird ways to use specific items, it's a side effect of having several hundred skills and uniques with hundreds of thousands of viable skill/item and passive combinations. You'll overlook some, that much is a given, even very obvious oversights. Since GGG works on the game steadily they don't have 8 hours a day time to play it, they'll not remember some weird things we thought up along the way and simply break it with every new item again, that's why they nerf them afterwards.


Some game-mechanics are definitely dated, though as we see... they are trying to fix it piece by piece. The masters got re-done, and that will keep up until 2020 when 4.0.0 comes out. Talisman got re-implemented in some really nice ways. Breach got updated with pure breachstones to make one of the best mechanics very worthwhile with it, scarabs got implemented to make T16 farming more viable and sought-after.
We still got tormented spirits as a bad mechanic, and we have some... annoying game mechanics like corrupted blood, silence and immunity shrines still existing, but I'm fairly sure those will be changed along the line as well.
Uniques aren't all supposed to be 'good', some are simply nichè items, some are only meant for leveling, some are purely for SSF means so people have 'something' decent to work with along the way. Also corrupted gems have very fun uses, even if they aren't 'meta' at all.


As for balance issues: 3.7.0 will have a melee balance, so that's incoming, they can't fix everything at the same time, the only issues I have are with the poor implementation of new leagues at the moment, but given their goal of bringing in several new masters with side-content until 4.0.0 it makes sense, especially since 4.0.0 will be a very big change again and offer a lot of new interesting things, we're in the set-up phase for that right now, bestiary, incursion, delve, betrayal and synthesis all brought in new sizeable game-mechanics, and all of those are made to have a lot more diversity later on, giving players the options to choose - or not choose with the darn betrayal missbalance at the moment - to do whatever they want, not being forced into a single direction.

I'm assuming this is a response to the last poster. I think this is entirely sane, reasonable, and good practice.

Expecting everything to be as it once was and the game not to evolve and grow and have unexpected issues as it grows is purely unrealistic and I think you make that argument well.

I don't know that anything can satisfy the other poster here, but I'm in agreement I think that sure the game "could be" better, and different things serve different purposes, and some things have unexpected side affects.

I honestly can't imagine why someone wouldn't see the offensive power of inpulsa, but damn, if only I played then. Anything that gives a straight DPS buff like that IS valuable, provided it's like inpulsa in that it doesn't have a massive negative associated with it.

It might take a while to figure out how to work it best, but straight DPS buff mechanics like that are just always a good thing for clear speed. This is why you see even for builds that are suboptimal (like summoners) the best gear adds directly to the clear speed.

I can't really bring myself to understand the complaints of the other guy. his last post just seems like he's ignoring anything I said to dig his heels in, which is fine, I guess, not everyone is going to agree, but I appreciate the healthy look and perspective on the subject you bring.

Surely things can be improved, but that doesn't instantly make the game "worst ever, caters only to casuals the way candy crush lootbox mechanics do".

I tend to think even dude would actually be happier if there was more content to sink his teeth into whether he realizes it or not, since that would, in essence, provide more high end challenge, I just don't think he realizes that because it seems he wants the game to only be accessible to the top 1% of try hards, and that's... fine to want I guess, but also entirely unrealistic for any ongoing game as a service.

For me I'd really just like to have a reason to engage the synthesis mechanics more. I just don't see the need to outside of "lets try it and see if it's fun", which it is, and i think it adds a much needed aspect from last league, being, better treasure and xp per map, but the crafting aspect is a really intense grind, and that's absolutely great, provided there is a space that demands that quality of gear, which I don't think exists at present as far as I know, and that's really all I was asking for, as well as, of course, more lore and future adventures with strange new locales and stuff.

I personally think making alien new worlds that operate in otherworldly senses and terms would really provide GGG with some primo opportunities to really stretch what they can do artistically and mechanically and provide whole new ways and approaches to late game.