POE: The Best of Games and the Worst of Games

My replies here are not intentionally set out to criticise the OP, but rather offer healthy debate on the topic raised. :)

"

johnnysd wrote:

…
The "crafting" system is a complete abomination. Sorry but it is true. It adds literally nothing to the game other than annoyance and frustration and serves no strategic or skill value, rather simply a nested completely random slog through tons of orbs just to get features of an item to progress in the game. There may be underlying "economy" and grinding rationales behind the orb system but the reality is that is not fun on any level and really brings the enjoyment level of the game down significantly. There should be enough barriers in build, gear, monster AI, stat stacking etc...to make progression difficult and thought provoking not to need a gambling system on steroids to grind everything to a screeching halt. I am not convinced it does anything to make people play more, but it certainly will make people leave. It should be completely scrapped and overhauled to be honest. It is abysmal.

I completely disagree. It certainly adds to the game. Note that the orbs etc are POE’s “currency system” that apply to multiple areas of the game: from NPC trading to Player trading to modifying gear to modifying maps and potentially yet to be added “item types”. Currency doesn’t mean just crafting, even though it enables crafting.

You post assumes that “crafting” should provide strategic or skill value. Why should it? IMO the currency items provide an alternative method of “getting lucky” along with “getting lucky” with drops. They also provide a method of trading with the NPC and the community. Then provide a method of tweaking items to squeeze out that bit more.

IMO it shouldn’t be some full blown crafting MMO crafting system. What players determine is fun will vary between player, but I certainly have no problems with the currency system. What did we have in D2… gambling? POE is far better in this regard.

"

johnnysd wrote:

…
… There is very very rare joy in finding anything in POE.

I couldn’t disagree more. Plenty of joy in finding things and more to come as new items are added. I’ve leaped for joy when “Chancing” a Soul Taker, finding a 6 Link, or crafting a 6 Link off 2 fusings… but then I’ve been frustrated when blowing 10 chaos on a levelling item just trying to get better mods when thinking “just 1 more” and then thinking “F#$% I should have just traded for one”.

Sometimes the most satisfying meals are the ones we eat when we’re the hungriest even though they’re not the best. IMO in a ARPG we need to have the crap loot drops/rolls in order to find that “joy” when we get something good.

"

johnnysd wrote:

…
In fact drops are so bad, that it is actually more efficient to sit in town and "buy" items with the crafting orbs, because you are never going to find what you need, and the orbs you have because of the completely random nature are completely useless for trying to actually craft something.

I find the above position interesting. Now you’re talking about wanting to be “more efficient”, but at the same time you want the “joy of finding” something. IMO these 2 positions counteract each other: if we’re more efficient at getting exactly what we want then it deteriorates the “joy” we receive. There is no appreciation for the work involved to obtain the result. However, if we work hard in trying to get something we appreciate it when we finally get it, or if by chance (RNG) we come across it easier, we find joy in that scenario.

IMO you can't have both... efficiency and joy... unless you get joy from being efficient.

"

johnnysd wrote:

…
POE just needs more fun stuff to drop. Think about the fact that D2 had gens jewels, charms, set items, runes, class specific items

POE is still in development and GGG will be adding things for years to come. :)

Cheers.

"

Chris wrote:

On the other hand, if the currency items dropped extremely rarely, then players would almost never get the chance to create a rare or to add mods to one. They'd be relying *almost* entirely on item drops, so it'd be far harder for items to converge on the best rares.

Yeah, right. Gonna buy additional tabs for these orbs, at least a dozen.
Cause you know, they drop like crazy.

I rarely post on the forums but am an active player but still casual

in that I don't trade and play self found most of the time

(I think I've traded 2 times since Beta) so currency for me is pretty precious to

say the least :)

I have to agree with the opening post on most (if not all) of his constructive

observations, especially when it comes to crafting - it's just not rewarding often

enough.

I end up with no currency / crafting materials

(that took me an "abysmal" amount of time to acquire) and get that "empty" feeling inside.

Also I find that the gears all look and feel the same and perhaps could use some flavor.

Everything seems to have to have Life and resistances on it, or IIR or IIQ to be good.

T'would be nice to see some new affixes appear on weapons and armor and accesories.

Just a quick overview of my own thoughts but OP nailed it :)

I'd also like to thank GGG for being open minded and receptive about these issues!

"

JohnNamikaze wrote:

"

cutt wrote:

Dark Souls is a single player, skill dependent game. Soccer and chess are competitive games. Don't mix it. And no, you would't replay Dark Souls for hundred of hours like D2 or PoE. Stop lying. You know why? Because it doesn't have RNG, because it's not a loot driven game. Because once you completed the hardest difficulty of the game - it's finished. In ARPG games you play not to beat the game, but to acquire the best possible loot and build the most powerful character. It order for these games to be repayable - they need to be randomized.

And if Chris Wilson, the main designer of the game can't convince you in it, then you are truly playing the wrong game.

You can play PvP with Dark Souls, and I have already played hundreds of hours along with my RL friends. Also, Dark Souls is a pretty massive game if you have the PTD edition. When you beat the storyline, you can go game plus, then game++, then game+++ until you reach lvl 1000.

Well ok, didn't know it had PvP and multiplayer. But then again, PoE is a different genre and never intended to be Dark Sould-like game. People knew this is going to be a loot driven game with heavy RNG. Now they suddenly want something else out of this game which was never promised. This whole topic is really stupid, in my eyes.

Completely agree with OP.

As for Diablo 2. It wasn't 100% RNG. Runewords allowed me to acquire specific items after safe time investment (because runes were quite common and each next one was craftable using lower ones). No trade chat or RNG could stop me from achieving that. It always felt like going towards the goal.

Some of the orbs have never simply dropped for me in Domination for example, some just under 10 times during entire time I play. Too bad I would require hundreds if not thousands of those to actually somewhat "craft" something. If an Exalted orb dropped for me for example, I wouldn't dare to use it on an item. I am not a gambler. I view it as throwing bag of money in fire.

The only way to get a specific unique in this game without social interaction is acquire specific quantity of points in a race season and only for those that are available (and for reasonable quantity of points as well in my case since there is time limit).

As for the trading part. I totally despise trading in this game. It is not that it didn't work, but it is not fun. The interaction with people is not that everyone enjoys. Even if you have the knowledge what would you want to buy or sell - it is just sometimes more rewarding (enjoyment reward) just to vendor items rather than deal with people.

I still like this game, I support it. But I would be off to another game if I found another one with as deep skill mechanics + deep crafting system (true crafting I mean, not gambling). But I am slowly getting tired of this choking item acquisition system that I may sacrifice the skill mechanics depth and play something else eventually.

+1 OP elegantly said.

My biggest gripe with the crafting system/item drops is that GGG is balancing it around players trading items. Which would be fine, if we had actual currency. But what do we have? "Bastardised Gold"... wait, I mean orbs.

When I first found out about PoE (was in CB at the time) and learn't about it features, Orbs sounded like a great idea. But when I actually started playing in OB, I quickly came to the realization that crafting was only reliable for 4L, 4/5 sockets, chroming but not looking for offset colours and the extremely wealthy. And if you didn't meet any of the criteria which I just stated, then you would have to be extremly lucky or be prepared to waste alot of orbs. So like the vast majority of players in this game, you hoard up orbs and buy what you want instead. And heres where the trouble begins, the only reliable orb that can be farmed are, Transmutes (I keep a stack and vendor the rest for Wisdom Scrolls when I run low) and Alterations and the the higest value of currency they can be traded with a vendor for is fusing.

So why GGG make an economy based aRPG (because it sure not a barter game), then prevent players from grinding/farming any worthwhile currency? Not even the abomination D3 prevented players from doing that. Because all orbs currently do is exacerbate the glaring problems with the "crafting" system, because it can't really be called crafting, lets face it, its gambling. And prevents many trades from even taking place. By this I mean;

Buyer : Hi, how much for "item"?
Seller: 5c
Buyer : Deal, while 10 fusings do?
Seller: No, only pure chaos and the current rate for fusings is 2.5:1
Buyer : Ok what about 15 fusings?
Seller: FFS I DON'T WANT FUSINGS!
Buyer : But I've got no chaos
Seller: Then go trade for some....

I mean, what sort of assbackwards sort of economy is this? It's like going to your local shop for a pint of milk, and when you go to pay the shopkeeper, he will not except your currency because he wants another sort of currency instead.

So if your not going to makes this game have a barter economy i.e make orbs account bound, up the drop rates and have vendors exchange all orbs all the way up to mirriors. Which I might add I really don't want to happen. Then scrap orbs and put in new crafting vendors and have monsters drop gold. Because how would gold be bad for this game? The rich would still be rich the poor would still be poor and RMTers would still be RMTing. But it would actually allow players to Self Find and Self Craft and cut out this "middle man" bullshit during trades. The only peeps I could see being affected by this are orb flippers. But really GGG I would like a response how gold would be a bad thing for PoE.

Anyway, enough with my wall of text I got to check poe xyz to flip some items :)

"

cutt wrote:

"

Randomzx wrote:

"

cutt wrote:

This game is not Dark Souls, it never was and it never will be. You knew this when you downloaded the game.

This is your main problem. This game is not something you were expecting it to be and is not something you were searching for, if you make these kind of complaints.

This is a loot game. Loot has to be random in order to be fun and repayable. The better loot you have the harder it will be to find an upgrade. This is common logic.

Would you replay Dark Souls for hundreds of hours like this game, or D2, or D3? The answer is obvious.

Yes I would, by your logic people would have stopped playing soccer or chess after a few days when it is invented.

Dark Souls is a single player, skill dependent game. Soccer and chess are competitive games. Don't mix it. And no, you would't replay Dark Souls for hundred of hours like D2 or PoE. Stop lying. You know why? Because it doesn't have RNG, because it's not a loot driven game. Because once you completed the hardest difficulty of the game - it's finished. In ARPG games you play not to beat the game, but to acquire the best possible loot and build the most powerful character. It order for these games to be repayable - they need to be randomized.

And if Chris Wilson, the main designer of the game can't convince you in it, then you are truly playing the wrong game.

Dark Souls is not single player only, players could invade your world to claim your life and there are quite a few different ways of participating in PvP in different factions. And not to mention with new game +, the game doesn't really end as the difficulty increases with each playthrough.

And there are a lot of single players games with lots of replay value without relying on lots of RNG. Like certain RPGs, SRPG, 4x4. All could have a lot of different playstyle or new storyline/route each playthrough.

great post.

i think the passive skill tree is fantastic. flasks are good. the active skill/gem system is pretty good as well.

But the Crafting system almost brings the game tumbling down for me. Random stuff in games like this is good but a crafting system basted entirely on randomness is a complete disaster.

I think many gamers today are like me and have been through many games and delt with grinds and lottery systems before and though it may have been ok in the past its really not anymore. We ground through Diablo, D2, D2, titan quest or maybe other games like DAoC, WoW, whatever.

Fact is the grinding and lottoing I do in this game just adds more to the pain from doing similar systems in other games.

Its not ok to keep us grinding BS systems like that anymore. There is not excuse not to have meaningful and complex crafting and loot systems now. Make it deep, complex and interesting, not entirely a grind or lottery.