PoE is punishing, not difficult. Video to clarify the difference.

Thank you!

"

raics a écrit :

Personal grudges of the thread author aside, there is some meat on the boys of this story.

Take that 'evasion vs physical spells' issue. The problem has a solution, yes, but let's imagine this: you made an evasion-based 2H weapon user that doesn't use endurance charges, you can't block and going for acrobatics is quite an investment for, say, a duelist. So your build is 100% bust because you can't handle 1% of content and there is no instant solution, everything else you can tackle without issues.
Also, a new player would have an absolutely no idea what hit him, or 'why can't I dodge this and why in the seven hells does it hit so hard when all my resists are maxed?' Not a lot of hints in the game would point to the problem, much less a solution. And no, you can't ask a player to 'go and check the wiki'.

It's easy enough for most of us forum birdies, we're here for ages, we've seen all the changes as they were implemented and tackled new content as it came out, one spoon at a time. The learning curve was much more gentle for us.

The punchline of the video in respect to this game would probably be this: When something stumps him, does a player feel the urge to tackle the problem or just say 'aaah screw this, I'll go and play chicken invaders 5 - chickin coop the grace'. That might be the real issue, the tools are there, it's just that they're often not readily apparent, not readily available or they're just something you simply don't want to use.

...well, ya. If you make a bad build then it should fail. That's how life in general works, trial and error. That's why there are walls in general content to teach new players these hard lessons. Going to tidal island will teach you the importance of res and dodging certain spells. Brutus is a fairly difficult (but not impossible) challenge at the start. Prisoner's gate shows swarming. Once you complete normal you'll understand mechanics to avoid or figure out ways to counter them (or come to the forums bitching the game is too hard).

Well this is the reason PoE will never be that super mega awesome game everyone wants. Totally agree with the video.

The game is all about making easy choices to overcome difficulty (partying, trading and cukie cutter build builds design by some other guy). And if someone tries to do something different, it IS PUNISHING.

This is why I get so mad with PoE sometimes. It looks like the game was design to make people angry instead of making them have some fun.

I think I need another break :S

"

Moosifer a écrit :

"

raics a écrit :

Personal grudges of the thread author aside, there is some meat on the boys of this story.

Take that 'evasion vs physical spells' issue. The problem has a solution, yes, but let's imagine this: you made an evasion-based 2H weapon user that doesn't use endurance charges, you can't block and going for acrobatics is quite an investment for, say, a duelist. So your build is 100% bust because you can't handle 1% of content and there is no instant solution, everything else you can tackle without issues.
Also, a new player would have an absolutely no idea what hit him, or 'why can't I dodge this and why in the seven hells does it hit so hard when all my resists are maxed?' Not a lot of hints in the game would point to the problem, much less a solution. And no, you can't ask a player to 'go and check the wiki'.

It's easy enough for most of us forum birdies, we're here for ages, we've seen all the changes as they were implemented and tackled new content as it came out, one spoon at a time. The learning curve was much more gentle for us.

The punchline of the video in respect to this game would probably be this: When something stumps him, does a player feel the urge to tackle the problem or just say 'aaah screw this, I'll go and play chicken invaders 5 - chickin coop the grace'. That might be the real issue, the tools are there, it's just that they're often not readily apparent, not readily available or they're just something you simply don't want to use.

...well, ya. If you make a bad build then it should fail. That's how life in general works, trial and error. That's why there are walls in general content to teach new players these hard lessons. Going to tidal island will teach you the importance of res and dodging certain spells. Brutus is a fairly difficult (but not impossible) challenge at the start. Prisoner's gate shows swarming. Once you complete normal you'll understand mechanics to avoid or figure out ways to counter them (or come to the forums bitching the game is too hard).

Even the makers of Dark Souls/Demon Souls understand that their game needs to be more accessible to newer players. This doesn't necessarily mean easier; accessible can mean that the player is given more information as to why they died, why they failed, etc. rather than 'oh I fucking died from a fringe situation and I have no idea why.'

Like seriously, how many noobs are gonna realize that they got triple shock stacked by a Storm Herald into a big phys crit and instantly die? We would realize it, but they wouldn't. Really, if you're trying to argue that Path of Exile does a good job of teaching you why you died, you are wrong. Period. In fact, most of the time Path of Exile really just kills you without teaching you anything unless you know the underlying mechanics of the game (which are hidden away on the wikis).

Good example is the fact that armor is less effective on bigger hits. This is counter intuitive to most games and RPGS, because bigger armor values tend to be better. Or how evasion is based on entropy and not random chance, etc. Lots of hidden mechanics that are not available to new player.


This is exactly why tons of shit in DotA 2 got fixed, or the tool tips became much more clear on how the skill interacted with other skills. Why? Because half the shit in DotA 1 didn't even make any sense to a new player (for example Familiars can block Mirana arrows without getting stunned or taking any damage).

I agree with you. There was a thread a month or two ago where I was arguing for these tut posts and introductions for new players to be somewhere easy for someone who hasn't navigated the forums to find. People just then decided to dig up threads showing the info is out there but didn't address that new players are probably not seeing it until after their first build is completely fucked.

I really do think that if the game is going to keep confusing mechanics they need to make them clear rather than adding in random shit that we have to experiment to figure out what they do and how they work (like "lucky" mechanic).

On that note though, mob mechanics are fairly straight forward. Those mobs move quick, those mobs hit hard, that guy freezes me, etc. That stuff is easy to figure out.

Wow. Great vid reference op, +1.

"

Moosifer a écrit :

On that note though, mob mechanics are fairly straight forward. Those mobs move quick, those mobs hit hard, that guy freezes me, etc. That stuff is easy to figure out.

is that so?

tell me, are Vaal Construct projectiles "spells" or not? do I need Phase Acrobatics or just Ondar's Guile to dodge those? can I block them with my "spell block"?
I've been here a year, and I still can't answer that question with absolute certainty.
what's more, there seems to be a difference between regular Constructs and Vaal Oversoul's Shadow Minions in this regard.

one example, out of a thousand.

very few things in Path Of Exile are "straight forward", and many are just needlessly and mind-fuckingly tricky with zero in-game information - so new players just tend to say "fuck this" and proceed to just brainlessly copy someone's build.
a game where the main feature is building your character yourself, should be a "little" more clear about which choices are good and which are bad, and in which situations - don't you think?

also, a situation where someone who copied my build without really understanding any game mechanics, is "richer", ranked higher up the ladder, and doing higher maps than me - is very, very possible.
makes sense, doesn't it?

and are the underlying mechanics "fine"? hell no.
just go ahead and stack a ton of life, and you are immune to half the perils of Wraeclast.
stack a ton of life, and you won't get stunned easily, won't get shocked/frozen/chilled/ignited easily, will be able to see better (light radius), and obviously be able to take more hits.
Kaom's Heart is an icon of bad "behind-the-scenes" design. a chest that has pathetic armour, no sockets and no useful stats besides a ridiculous (even post-nerf) life bonus, STILL being considered one of the best in the game. in PoE 1.0+.
but good old GGG reasoning said "yeah let's just nerf Kaom's Heart", instead of actually coming up with something more interesting than making *everything* a damn child-node of life.

"

johnKeys a écrit :

tell me, are Vaal Construct projectiles "spells" or not? do I need Phase Acrobatics or just Ondar's Guile to dodge those? can I block them with my "spell block"?
I've been here a year, and I still can't answer that question with absolute certainty.
what's more, there seems to be a difference between regular Constructs and Vaal Oversoul's Shadow Minions in this regard.

one example, out of a thousand.

That isn't the important part of that attack though, the chaos damage, their rate of fire and their aggro range, all things that are easily figured out after 2-3 encounters with them. What you're referring to is min-maxing, as phase acro, ondar guile and all that stuff won't be as required until end game play where their damage might be too high to mitigate easily just using a pot and manually dodging.

I remember my first encounters with them well. I thought, holy shit they hurt but it's a slow attack so I can dodge it then I figured out if I stay close to them they constantly attempt to establish range so it effectively lowers their dps. I don't think this is a stretch for most players to figure out on first impression.

When talking end game, min-maxing yes, additional research should be required because you're delving into the details of the game. It's either figure out all of that on your own very slowly or use the collective knowledge to speed up the process.

Please list these thousands, I'm sure most are this same situation. Easy to tackle 90% of their difficulty but the other 10% might be confusing. Leads to interesting gameplay IMO.

"

very few things in Path Of Exile are "straight forward", and many are just needlessly and mind-fuckingly tricky with zero in-game information - so new players just tend to say "fuck this" and proceed to just brainlessly copy someone's build.
a game where the main feature is building your character yourself, should be a "little" more clear about which choices are good and which are bad, and in which situations - don't you think?

also, a situation where someone who copied my build without really understanding any game mechanics, is "richer", ranked higher up the ladder, and doing higher maps than me - is very, very possible.
makes sense, doesn't it?

The trends I've noticed with my friends and my early play was there's the fail on your own first try. Then go to the forums and either copy a build or make a variation of it. Then there's the next one where the person either continues to copy saving himself the effort and work of figuring out something for himself or they go on their own. They learned from many of their mistakes on the first go around, the 2nd one they figure out why certain things work the way they do then they branch out to more detailed things.

With your last part I'm not sure what you expect as a reply. Some people are luckier, some people play the market better (took me 6-8 months to get into 73+ maps, my roommate was there in a month because he would just buy them, I refuse to) then of course there's RMT. There's more to it beyond he copied your build.

There's one other thing from the video that could apply - game rule consistency. Sometimes you feel enemies hold some other copy of the book from the one you read from. Take charges, for example, their effect on minions and enemies is what, double, triple? I still got no idea but they're hella lot more effective than on us. So, we got a noob whacking on those enduring cry bears from broken bridge and wondering why the hell are they so resilient - they got only 3 charges on them, 12% phys reduction and resist all shouldn't be that much of a problem. Also, they get more than one charge even if there's only one enemy... which is a very lame rule dodging, could have been a great anti-party-anti-summoner mechanics.

Also enemy auras are stronger and they have access to auras that would be beyond broken on us. And, while on that, content is heavily censored, we don't have access to skills that would be broken on us and enemies don't have skills which would be broken on them, or we use versions that wildly differ in strength.

"

Moosifer a écrit :

With your last part I'm not sure what you expect as a reply. Some people are luckier, some people play the market better (took me 6-8 months to get into 73+ maps, my roommate was there in a month because he would just buy them, I refuse to) then of course there's RMT. There's more to it beyond he copied your build.

That's actually a good observation, if you can eliminate difficulty by doing something, we could argue the game isn't difficult at all but punishing to those that don't want to do that, whatever it is. And we're not talking about a glitch or an exploit but a perfectly legit way to play the game.