POE: The Best of Games and the Worst of Games

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Chris wrote:

Thanks for the great post and discussion. This kind of constructive thread is very helpful.

I'd like to present my opinion on this. It doesn't necessarily represent any changes we're going to make.

If we had no currency items, our item system would be similar to older action RPGs like Diablo 2. You'd have to rely on finding rares as you play. Some of those rares would (by chance) be appropriate for your character, and others could be traded. We have a similar drop rate of rare items.

The addition of currency items like Orbs of Alchemy and Exalted Orbs allow players to modify their items in a more directed way. The extent to which this game system is important depends on how often they drop.

If alchs and exalts drop every minute then players would have easy access to masses of rares, all with six mods. This would create an extremely crafting-heavy game and content would have to progress steeply in difficulty to compensate. Rares would quickly "converge" so that everyone had top-5% ones.

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.

This continuum, controlled by currency drop rates, dictates both the difficulty of the game, but also the amount of expected item manipulation that players need to engage in to gear up for Merciless.

Players play Path of Exile more efficiently than we imagined when we initially set the currency drop rates (which have remained mostly unchanged since then). Players are concentrating their item rerolls into fewer and better items than we intended. While this level of end-game item manipulation is often described as really fun, it has the problems that you've discussed in this thread. One way to address this would be to reduce the drop rate of higher currency and also make content easier. I am very aware that if we did this, people would complain that we nerfed currency drops and dumbed down the game difficulty. We'll find a better solution!

One thing I learned from launching Path of Exile is how difficult it is to modify a game once it's live and people are relying on enjoying their current characters. As much as I'd love to make sweeping changes to try to improve how fun and satisfying the item system is, we have to be mindful to do it in the correct way so that the silent majority aren't upset at the changes.

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Chris wrote:

One thing I learned from launching Path of Exile is how difficult it is to modify a game once it's live and people are relying on enjoying their current characters. As much as I'd love to make sweeping changes to try to improve how fun and satisfying the item system is, we have to be mindful to do it in the correct way so that the silent majority aren't upset at the changes.

"

Chris wrote:

Thanks for the great post and discussion. This kind of constructive thread is very helpful.

I'd like to present my opinion on this. It doesn't necessarily represent any changes we're going to make.

If we had no currency items, our item system would be similar to older action RPGs like Diablo 2. You'd have to rely on finding rares as you play. Some of those rares would (by chance) be appropriate for your character, and others could be traded. We have a similar drop rate of rare items.

The addition of currency items like Orbs of Alchemy and Exalted Orbs allow players to modify their items in a more directed way. The extent to which this game system is important depends on how often they drop.

If alchs and exalts drop every minute then players would have easy access to masses of rares, all with six mods. This would create an extremely crafting-heavy game and content would have to progress steeply in difficulty to compensate. Rares would quickly "converge" so that everyone had top-5% ones.

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.

This continuum, controlled by currency drop rates, dictates both the difficulty of the game, but also the amount of expected item manipulation that players need to engage in to gear up for Merciless.

Players play Path of Exile more efficiently than we imagined when we initially set the currency drop rates (which have remained mostly unchanged since then). Players are concentrating their item rerolls into fewer and better items than we intended. While this level of end-game item manipulation is often described as really fun, it has the problems that you've discussed in this thread. One way to address this would be to reduce the drop rate of higher currency and also make content easier. I am very aware that if we did this, people would complain that we nerfed currency drops and dumbed down the game difficulty. We'll find a better solution!

One thing I learned from launching Path of Exile is how difficult it is to modify a game once it's live and people are relying on enjoying their current characters. As much as I'd love to make sweeping changes to try to improve how fun and satisfying the item system is, we have to be mindful to do it in the correct way so that the silent majority aren't upset at the changes.

"

Chris wrote:

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Randomzx wrote:

But why does almost everything have to be RNG? How can it be called Hardcore when skill matter very little?

The experience we are designing Path of Exile around is the experience we had playing Action RPGs when we were younger - the thrill of the next item being potentially the best one you've every seen.

Skill matters in combat. Skill matters in races. Skill matters in PvP. Skill matters in trading. Skill matters when checking the vendor and knowing what to look for. Skill matters when looking at white items on the ground and realising that one of them has chromatic sockets or is a really high itemlevel.

If you succeed at the above areas through your skill, then you receive more (and hence better, on average) random items. Without the RNG, it would not be fun.