Open Letter to Qarl, regarding topics discussed in RMT thread

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Tanakeah wrote:

I don't NEED god-tier items to have fun in this game, but instead of this game ENCOURAGING me to try and craft items, it DISCOURAGES me to do so because of excessive RNG amongst other things.

This part needs to be heard again. And again.

I like the crafting in D3. I am guaranteed SOME stats, typically stats core to me playing. The rest are random. That is a good crafting system. There's a cost to it, but I can at least be certain than some portion of the item will be relevant. If I'm looking for BIS gear or very specific mods I can still spend all of my currency trying my luck.

In POE, hoarding is the best policy in every case. If you hoard, you can trade at higher efficiency. If you hoard, you can choose to map or use orbs later. If you hoard, you can react to changes in the market more easily, or buy up really cheap stuff to either flip or hoard as well.

The only times I use orbs is when I know I can force a result in very little orbs spent. 4 linking is relatively useful now, and using chroms on hybrid gear, or shooting for 1-3 off colors is typically worthwhile. Jeweler's I collect so quickly that every once in a great while I'll roll something to 6 sockets. But I always keep a few hundred on hand.

I don't know of a perfect solution, but I think having more control or having less extreme cases of RNG would help. I mean, I got a 5 link today in one fusing. In the past, I've spent 100+ and not gotten 5 link. I feel this system is far too random to be enjoyable, even when I'm on the receiving end of good luck.

If 5-lnking instead required 30 Fusing + a 5 or 6 socket item, I could look at my 30 Fusing and make a meaningful choice of "Do I save for 6 link, to trade, or 5 link something now?" When I look at 30 fusing right now, I think, "I'm going to save these. No sense in probably blowing 30 fusings for nothing."

Sorry if I'm rambling, it is late here.

Surprised I missed this earlier.

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raics wrote:

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TheAnuhart wrote:

Wouldn't that be easily solved with...

2(?) low tier orbs combine(vendor) into 1 medium tier orb.
2(?) medium tier orbs combine(vendor) into 1 high tier orb.

?

Spoiler

As for it being a problem that people would hoard and only use at the end-of-tier ilvl, BS, some people would min-max like that, yes, they have to min-max everything. Others would use them as and when they thought they'd get the most fun out of them. Even those that did, are doing exactly what they would now only 1/3rd less hoard.

Unfortunately, not being able to conveniently convert lesser orb to higher tier is exactly why it works in the first place. Only on games that have no way to do that it works like I described, in those that do people hoard them to get better ones, like we did with chipped gems in D2. A half-exception are games that have so low exchange rate for the higher version it just isn't worth the trouble.

There's a critical difference in how chipped topazes worked in D2 and in D3. And, yes, I have to focus on topazes specifically, because the gems weren't all balanced against each other, and thus some of them were very useless at low levels.

In any case, I consumed topazes a lot. By "consumed" I mean: I stuck them in chest armor or whatever, and, due to how D2 worked, I never took them out; the item sink was successful. This was a common practice of mine whenever I'd reroll a new character, especially at the start of a new ladder season, in order to get some base MF while leveling. This process started with chipped topazes (which I'd literally stick into the first socketed items I found), progressing slowly to something resembling end-game gear (at which point I was much more particular about which items I'd stick my higher topazes into). And part of the reason I did this, not exclusively end-game, but from the very first opportunities presented, was because the cost for those early opportunities was appropriately low. The system worked.

Now compare the D2 system to D3. Here we would have the progressive gem scale, but we don't really have the sink; gems aren't really consumed, you just go to the vendor and have them taken back out. Thus, in that game, the system doesn't work, and becomes exactly as you described — all that happens is lesser gems are hoarded until they can be refined into greater gems.

Now compare the D2 system to PoE. Here, we preserve the gem sink, but we no longer have the progressive scale; in essence, instead of having topazes at all, the only thing we have are Ist runes, and not many of them — they're scarce. Thus, in PoE, the system doesn't work until that apex of end-game progression is reached, and the expenditure of "high runes" is justified.

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Going back to the idea of 'lesser' and 'greater' orbs things from earlier in the thread... here's what I'd propose. The names, of course, are just kind of made up. The formula for upgrading each would be 2 of the same level = 1 of the next level. (Zone references always refer to items dropped by white monsters; blue and rare monsters always take changes sooner.)

Regarding the proposal above: Should have mentioned that it would include increasing currency drop rates by about 33%. This is because the amount of currency needed to gamble on the highest itemlevels (70+) would be increased by the nature of the system.

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TheAnuhart wrote:

Gated from content, gated from crafting, facerolling shit lowball stuff.

Another reason for hoarding orbs, that maybe GGG doesn't realize, is the tax imposed on accessing the engame. While leveling in Domination, I tried to avoid 'crafting' as much as possible, because I was saving orbs for endgame. Until I hit mid maps, my chaos was mostly piling up.

It's not enough that crafting is a complete gamble currency sink, endgame access must also be a currency sink, thus gated behind trade.

And then some dev even claimed that "you don't need to trade, if you dont want to", lol. Connection with reality = lost. As is my hope that PoE will ever leave this tradecore RPG niche position -_-

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morbo wrote:

Another reason for hoarding orbs, that maybe GGG doesn't realize, is the tax imposed on accessing the engame. While leveling in Domination, I tried to avoid 'crafting' as much as possible, because I was saving orbs for endgame. Until I hit mid maps, my chaos was mostly piling up.

It's not enough that crafting is a complete gamble currency sink, endgame access must also be a currency sink, thus gated behind trade.

And then some dev even claimed that "you don't need to trade, if you dont want to", lol. Connection with reality = lost. As is my hope that PoE will ever leave this tradecore RPG niche position -_-

Well said.

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tinko92 wrote:

Well said.

Um, no. No it's not.

Here, let me break it up for you.

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morbo wrote:

Another reason for hoarding orbs, that maybe GGG doesn't realize, is the tax imposed on accessing the engame. While leveling in Domination, I tried to avoid 'crafting' as much as possible, because I was saving orbs for endgame. Until I hit mid maps, my chaos was mostly piling up.

It's not enough that crafting is a complete gamble currency sink, endgame access must also be a currency sink,

[shitloads of missing explanation]

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morbo wrote:

thus gated behind trade.

And then some dev even claimed that "you don't need to trade, if you dont want to", lol. Connection with reality = lost. As is my hope that PoE will ever leave this tradecore RPG niche position -_-

This post does absolutely nothing to explain morbo's position that content is gated behind trade, as opposed to gated behind, say, a shitload of grinding.

He did quote Anuhart, and Anuhart did explain a little better. But even then, not to my satisfaction. I won't say what I see here are people believing things which are clearly wrong, because I don't see the false premise here. But I will say there's a lot of dangling conclusions, where the premises aren't justified given what's presented.

Are they wrong? I'm not sure. Is it well said? Absolutely not.

If that were it, then I guess I wouldn't be chiming in. But I do feel compelled to ask for a little bit more evidence before you all begin the circlejerk.

yap for the sake of yap...

Me, and Anuh and many others already explained why content is gated behind trading so many times, we are bored repeating it...

Just one question for you Scrotie (and that dev, who said that you dont need to trade): which tier of maps have you been able to reach with your self-found orbs? I'm not interested in theory, just your practical experience.

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morbo wrote:

Just one question for you Scrotie (and that dev, who said that you dont need to trade): which tier of maps have you been able to reach with your self-found orbs? I'm not interested in theory, just your practical experience.

To reach any tier of map, you have to play game, not Excel.