Why I Believe RNG in Excess is Counter Productive

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jaxxxson wrote:

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Startkabels wrote:

The best option in my opinion, but something that will never happen, is to take those core stats out of the passive tree completely..

Could you provide an example? I think what you're saying is instead of having +10 strength a node would give 10% physical melee damage and 2% attack speed.

No I meant removing them from the passive tree to put them somewhere else, for example on the character screen. I'm talking about STR / ACC / HP / MANA / DEX

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Jiero wrote:

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Startkabels wrote:

The best option in my opinion, but something that will never happen, is to take those core stats out of the passive tree completely..

I actually feel the opposite, keep the stats on the tree but turn all hard requirements into scaling soft ones. So a sword normally requiring 100 str can be equipped at 10 str, but all its str based stats scale down, at 100 strength its stats are as normal and above 100 it gets stronger. Granularity, scaling, flexibility and balance all in one shot (as long as diminishing returns are understood)

edit - I had a lot more comments on what else has been said and numerous other changes I would love to see to this game to turn in into that ultra hardcore friendly arpg... but atm I just do not feel like writing a book on this forum.

I've had two attempts at "writing books" on this forum thus far haha, I am glad people take the time and read what's posted. Even better when I get responses. If you feel like adding more to the discussion, I urge you to do so, and if not, that's just fine. Thanks for posting.

Nice feedback. I think I might go as far as to say nothing here would make the game worse in any way. Although, I still have a few things I can add.

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jaxxxson wrote:

Resists: I think these need to be re-evaluated. I think either resist penalties should be removed or lessened for a few good reasons. Mostly, it isn't fun trying to get your gear to match up to the resist level, it's just busy work to make sure all your gear up to par. But the more important feature, is if it's easier to max out your resists. you gives you more creative freedom with the bosses. More players at full resists means that bosses can be more fierce, and you risk less one-shot forum posts of "I quit dis game and so did my friends." Having more players at full resists easier makes it so your bosses can be crazier while not doing so much damage it kills players faster than they can think, and in an unfair manner.

I can't disagree with removing or lessening the penalty, I would be all over that and the gear options that might provide. What I feel I can disagree with is keeping max resists a necessity for almost every character that exists. Why can't Veil of the Night be a viable unique?

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jaxxxson wrote:

Mapping and End Game: I really like the thought of maps, it can create a nice varied experience, something new every time you go into a map. Actually with that said, the randomness of all the maps in the game, including the campaign ones are very fresh every time you enter them. However, there's undoubtedly a point where you will be going up tiers of maps and come up short, whether you're running that last level 70 map and not getting map drops to help you continue playing in them or you're selling certain maps to mitigate costs. I think a good way to counter this, while still making maps worth having and buying is to have the eternal laboratory let you go to maps in the same way waypoints let you travel across Wraeclast. This is a good idea because you can enter any map you'd like, but it'd be like going into a white one, thus making drop-able maps desirable as you can add affixes to them for greater reward. This makes it so you can come back more easily from bad map RNG.

I wasn't sure about how to feel about this suggestion at first, but I think I'm warming up to it. Fuck yeah, tangible endgame progression! What I would avoid, however, is the sharing of these "waypoint" maps. So, I guess have the white base area not actually have the waypoint itself in it.

I don't see why this couldn't apply in a similar way to Atziri too. I mean, if she's as hard as she seems to be, what's wrong with giving someone infinite attempts to kill her? Heh, I guess I know the answer to that one. The content wouldn't last as long. I suppose bosses can be difficult in more ways than one.

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jaxxxson wrote:

Auto-Sorting:

Yes.

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square0 wrote:

Nice feedback. I think I might go as far as to say nothing here would make the game worse in any way. Although, I still have a few things I can add.

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jaxxxson wrote:

Resists: I think these need to be re-evaluated. I think either resist penalties should be removed or lessened for a few good reasons. Mostly, it isn't fun trying to get your gear to match up to the resist level, it's just busy work to make sure all your gear up to par. But the more important feature, is if it's easier to max out your resists. you gives you more creative freedom with the bosses. More players at full resists means that bosses can be more fierce, and you risk less one-shot forum posts of "I quit dis game and so did my friends." Having more players at full resists easier makes it so your bosses can be crazier while not doing so much damage it kills players faster than they can think, and in an unfair manner.

I can't disagree with removing or lessening the penalty, I would be all over that and the gear options that might provide. What I feel I can disagree with is keeping max resists a necessity for almost every character that exists. Why can't Veil of the Night be a viable unique?

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jaxxxson wrote:

Mapping and End Game: I really like the thought of maps, it can create a nice varied experience, something new every time you go into a map. Actually with that said, the randomness of all the maps in the game, including the campaign ones are very fresh every time you enter them. However, there's undoubtedly a point where you will be going up tiers of maps and come up short, whether you're running that last level 70 map and not getting map drops to help you continue playing in them or you're selling certain maps to mitigate costs. I think a good way to counter this, while still making maps worth having and buying is to have the eternal laboratory let you go to maps in the same way waypoints let you travel across Wraeclast. This is a good idea because you can enter any map you'd like, but it'd be like going into a white one, thus making drop-able maps desirable as you can add affixes to them for greater reward. This makes it so you can come back more easily from bad map RNG.

I wasn't sure about how to feel about this suggestion at first, but I think I'm warming up to it. Fuck yeah, tangible endgame progression! What I would avoid, however, is the sharing of these "waypoint" maps. So, I guess have the white base area not actually have the waypoint itself in it.

I don't see why this couldn't apply in a similar way to Atziri too. I mean, if she's as hard as she seems to be, what's wrong with giving someone infinite attempts to kill her? Heh, I guess I know the answer to that one. The content wouldn't last as long. I suppose bosses can be difficult in more ways than one.

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jaxxxson wrote:

Auto-Sorting:

Yes.

Hey, thanks for reading and posting, I'm glad you feel these ideas wouldn't make the game worse in any way.

I would actually love if resists vanished completely and instead of gear that requires 2 resists we got gear that increases attack speed and casting speed or add damage. It would also make it less stress that gear NEEDS to have these or they're considered trash.

It'd be a lot of fun I feel if we weren't limited to map drops, that way we could do the maps we wanted to, and the tiers. I'm not sure if this system was implemented it would have the unique maps though, other wise it would undermine them dropping, but this is also just a theory, so it's not like it pays to over-think it haha. As far as Atziri goes, I wish they had the pieces of the mask have the same chances of dropping, it's...dumb to have it where there will be a ton of players with the first quarter and none with the other quarters.

And yes, auto-sorting, I would be so happy to receive this.

I'm sad to see this go so far down on the feedback forum list.

jaxxx put a lot of effort into the OP, so I guess I'll reply in detail. Feels like a bit of a chore, but whatever.

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jaxxxson wrote:

Loot tables

I think loot tables that have items that can only drop from a certain boss is a bad idea, I think that certain items that have an increased chance to drop from bosses, areas and difficult sections to be a good idea. There are a lot of items that aren't achievable to many players, Shavronne's Wrapping, Kaom's Heart etc. This idea would make it so you would at least have an area to go to to have a stronger chance to get these items, or at least farm them while actively seeking them on a trade chat. This also gives areas more value, many players don't stray far from farming Merveil for alts or Piety for chaos recipe. It makes it so players don't want to skip bosses instead of fight them and make people enjoy areas they might not have originally.

Of course there are some items which aren't achievable to many players. If every item is achievable to everyone, then in relatively short order everyone achieves them, and all sense of item-based progression is lost. In order for the system to work as optimally as possible, there need to be items which are not currently achievable, but achievable with items which are achievable, or some non-infinite regress thereof.

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jaxxxson wrote:

Resists

I think these need to be re-evaluated. I think either resist penalties should be removed or lessened for a few good reasons. Mostly, it isn't fun trying to get your gear to match up to the resist level, it's just busy work to make sure all your gear up to par. But the more important feature, is if it's easier to max out your resists. you gives you more creative freedom with the bosses. More players at full resists means that bosses can be more fierce, and you risk less one-shot forum posts of "I quit dis game and so did my friends." Having more players at full resists easier makes it so your bosses can be crazier while not doing so much damage it kills players faster than they can think, and in an unfair manner.

I don't think it's an unfair manner, except when desync is involved. When it isn't, it's merely doing so much damage it kills players faster than they can think ... which is the only way players die.

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jaxxxson wrote:

Linking gear

I would like to start by saying I am glad that there were changes to make 4 and 5 linking easier. This was a step in the right direction. I do think there should be a recipe for 5 linking an item however. Any serious end-game build will need a 5 link item. By making it as random and frustrating as the current system is, it can cause players to quit. I think my most rage inducing moments is spent trying to 5 link my items and wasting exalts worth of fusings. It's definitely not fun, and it's certainly too much of a gamble right now. With that said though, I think fusings are at a good place for getting a 6 link item. Those should truly be something to aspire for, and I don't think a recipe for them would be appropriate. This idea would make it so you could still chance using the fusings on an item for a 5 or 6 link item and have an alternative of getting a necessary 5 link by maybe vendoring a few stacks of fusings.

I've played this game long enough to know that, if your build doesn't work with a mere 4L, then it's probably not going to work with a 6L, either. Before trigger gems, every serious endgame build was very strong with 6L, strong with 5L, and doable with 4L. Trigger gems do mix it up a bit, I'll admit CoC builds need their links, but it's seriously not anything which needs to be guaranteed to players.

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jaxxxson wrote:

Mapping and End Game

I really like the thought of maps, it can create a nice varied experience, something new every time you go into a map. Actually with that said, the randomness of all the maps in the game, including the campaign ones are very fresh every time you enter them. However, there's undoubtedly a point where you will be going up tiers of maps and come up short, whether you're running that last level 70 map and not getting map drops to help you continue playing in them or you're selling certain maps to mitigate costs. I think a good way to counter this, while still making maps worth having and buying is to have the eternal laboratory let you go to maps in the same way waypoints let you travel across Wraeclast. This is a good idea because you can enter any map you'd like, but it'd be like going into a white one, thus making drop-able maps desirable as you can add affixes to them for greater reward. This makes it so you can come back more easily from bad map RNG.

You'd have almost no one actually using currency on maps if you did this; they'd just run the white version over and over. The reason people toss currency at maps is because they realize not doing so risks hampering their progression and going back to Merciless. It's important to keep that motivation in place, while making it reasonably likely that those who do use appropriate amounts of currency on maps stay in maps.

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jaxxxson wrote:

Unique Breaking Down

This concept is something I think would be fun and useful for everyone. There's a certain excitement you get when a unique drops, but then there's also an equal disappointment when it's the same few poor uniques drop. I think a good way to promote everyone being happy for uniques to drop is give them a secondary use. If there was a way to break down uniques into shard or orb that could be used on an item to make a unique you wanted, it would help prices of uniques from reaching too high, give more control to a player. Let's try an example, say I want a Facebreaker, a build enabling unique without a doubt. Maybe I'm just having no luck with it dropping, with this theory I could take all the Karaui Wards, Blackheart Rings and so on and disenchant them or whatever name you'd want to give it, into a shard. Let's say it takes 5 shards to make an Orb of Legends and using this on a Strapped Leather would finally yield my facebreakers. A very broad example, but it's a better alternative to vendoring all those Heatshivers.

Your "Orb of Legends" already exists, it's called Orb of Chance. Now if you say "but no one uses Orb of Chance on the gloves which become Facebreakers, they're too busy using them on Occultist's Vestments and Siege Axes"... well, just think about how people would use your Orb of Legends, then.

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jaxxxson wrote:

Pass Tree Imbalance

There's certain imbalances that are present in it, which I find counter productive. An easy example is that the new marauder tree has nodes that have 6% life and 6% armor, while the ranger has 4% life and 6% evasion. I think that 6% life should be good in both spots, as it creates a similar tree, while being very different in the other areas. The way it is now, the ranger is at disadvantage from a life build stand-point. Also, I think that the scion area is okay at 6% but only if other areas of the tree are buffed, for instance, the life node circle that is up by the traps, near the shadow tree are 8% life nodes with no variance, this doesn't promote you to want to get those, and to add value to them, I think at least the third node should be 12% or more, right now it's very difficult to build the right amount of life with the current tree because the value system of it is off in areas. There are concerns about some of the less used nodes, like energy shield recovery speed, and mana per kill, but without an entire overhaul, and admittedly no real suggestion on my end without further speculation, I can't comment on it. I think the best thing I can say, is I think there should be more consistency across the tree, making all classes relatively similar, but offering different types of damage being done, or life being gained.

I actually agree with you about the Ranger evasion/life nodes. However, I think the vanilla 8% life nodes by Mind Drinker are fine, and disagree with most everything else you said here.

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jaxxxson wrote:

Vendor Recipes

To me, this is crafting, this is how it should be. You can have variables that you have some control over, making it so you can get across tough times throughout the game. I think these should be expanded upon to armors that have life and resists, even if only a magic item, it would make it so it's possible to still progress in your game, while controlling how much power the player has. For instance, let's say you're in Act 2 cruel, that seems to be a stopping point where you need full resists. If you're having a really unlucky run with no currency drops, you could definitely get stuck here. If you could have a chest piece, a coral ring and a ruby ring, sold to a vendor, you might be able to have a Chest piece with Life and some fire resist. This is all easily farmable equipment, and would help you progress, while not cheapening gear's value.

I agree completely here.

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jaxxxson wrote:

Skill Gem Balance

Rather than nerfing the most popular gems, I think it would be a wise decision to focus on the weaker gems and increase their effectiveness. Right now the best options are very limited, or at least the alternatives are not looked at favorably due to the inflation of amazing skill gems. Moreso, I think any physical damage skill gems should have their quality bonuses changed to "% Damage increase" instead of "% Physical damage increase", other wise there's less incentive to go into elemental damage. Alternatively, I think "% Attack speed" would suffice.

For some skills, Attack Speed is already the quality bonus. For others, physical damage; for others, critical strike chance (Dual Strike). Having a variety of quality bonuses for gems is far better than any form of universal scheme.

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jaxxxson wrote:

Boss Balance

This issue was addressed in in 1.1.1, but I don't think it is as a whole. The bosses that can one shot, are hurting the game in spots. I think the panic a player will feel when going against bosses is great, but it should be delivered in a way that is fair. I know this is a popular example, so I apologize for using it, but Maker of Rain is a boss that's scary for the wrong reason. It does far too much physical damage that can't be mitigated due to the excessive attacks it has, and a lot of physical damage being dealt per shot. A way to make this a scary fight, in a good mechanic way would be to have it cast rain of tentacles, that slowly hits the player, doing 0.5% of their health per second, causing urgency, without being excessive, while still doing it's main attacks that would be toned down. It's hard to comment too much on this, as I know it's being looked at, especially right now for the new bosses, but there are various map bosses (Orchard boss comes to mind) where the bosses are incredibly over-turned and are nothing more than a gear check.

There is absolutely nothing urgent about 0.5% of your max Life per second in damage. Nothing. I am not saying all bosses are properly tuned, some are overtuned, but let's not baby the players that much.

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jaxxxson wrote:

Reflect Mechanics

I actually like reflect as a mechanic, but not as an attribute. It's good to have so it makes you cautious, as long as it's not crazy enough to one shot you. I think it's in a pretty good spot, but I think a rare affix should be "Reflects 30% damage while in reflect mode." What is reflect mode? Let's say the enemy turns red, and while they are red, they will reflect that 30% more damage. This way you have to watch for the enemy to turn red and attack when it's not, or suffer consequences of your actions. I think it could make for a fun mechanic.

I played with a very similar mechanic while I was still playing Diablo 3, and I didn't really feel it was engaging; generally speaking, the plan was still to find a way to mitigate it completely and not care about it at all. I'm not really sure what to do here, which is part of the reason why I'm trying to log in playtime with the new leech on a variety of characters with very different Reflect-prevention mechanisms (one's pure burning damage-over-time and doesn't hit, one's Incinerate Arctic Armour, one's totems and traps, one's Vaal Pact, one's evasion Ondar's Guile and will be trying to get 95% evade against herself). I guess I'll get back to you on this one, because I'm not done testing.

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jaxxxson wrote:

Lightning Thorns Mechanic

I believe this is one of the worst mechanics in the game. This is something that exists to punish fast attacks or spells, and is far too punishing. Anyone that attacks faster than 3 attacks per second will kill themselves on these in less than a second. I think what it should be changed to is that you do 1% of your life per attack as lightning damage. It makes it scary, but not punish towards fast casting or attacking builds. The game should focus on making all builds viable to an extent, not omitting some completely.

I don't feel like this is an unbeatable thing, especially not with Purity of Lightning and such. Yes, it exists to punish fast attacks/spells, obviously, but I don't see how you could have very little concern over reflected damage yet hate so hard on Lightning Thorns. As I said earlier, I'm building an Incinerate character, so I'm sure I'll have a strong opinion on this at some point.

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jaxxxson wrote:

Auto-Sorting

I'm definitely trying to promote playing the game as oppose to spending time things that are less fun, and playing inventory tetris isn't very fun, it's never THAT time consuming, but it would be a Godsend to have it removed completely. Both Torchlight 2 and The Incredible Adventures of Van Hellsing use this feature, and what's nice about it is it frees up a lot of your time whilst playing. If we could get it in our stashes too, that'd be amazing. As a side note, I really like both game's Pet system where you can load up your pet and send them to town. It's a huge time saver and keep you in the action rather than being slowed down every time your inventory is full.

Really don't like the pet idea. I don't prioritize it as highly as you do, but an inventory Tetris auto-solver would be nice.

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jaxxxson wrote:

Control of Items

It's very apparent that RNG is rampart in this game's design. This can be viewed good on your end as a time sink, to keep casual and hardcore players alike interested and invested, but it's an issue when it affects the progression. Right now, most of the currency is too big of a gamble to be used too frequently, and often gets traded as currency, which is this game's gold, something this game promotes it doesn't have. Making these currency items have more favored rolls would cause more people to use currency and for it to be re-valued. If using an Orb of Alchemy on something had a higher chance of item rolling resists, that's good for any build or any character, making the orb a lot more desirable. I think we'd see more orbs being used as opposed to them being traded for items. It's a win-win, it's more fun to be rewarded than it is to be punished, and would help you progress through the game through a fun manner. You'll rarely get that perfect item, this system wouldn't change that, it would just help you enjoy the content presented, making trading still very much so viable and fun.

You really have no idea what you're talking about here.

Currency is used. In large quantities, even. However, the vast majority of it is used by a very small minority of players, with one specific intent: to create the best, most Mirror-worthy items on the server. This is a far more productive use of the currency than, well, whatever it was you were planning, so they offer you deals better than the benefit you'd get from the currency — but worse than the benefit they will get from it — and then you don't use it and trade it to them instead — which they profit from.

So in order to actually create the change of "the majority of players actually use currency on non-map items," you need to create a situation where the common use can actually compete with the ultra-high-end, Mirror-worthy use. If you help both out equally, nothing will change, and actually things may get worse; for example, your situation would lead to even quicker production of mirror-worthy items and a faster godly-gear flood in Standard, controlled by the rich players rather than the common ones.

Any appropriate change here would specifically target low itemlevel gambling (because using orbs is gambling, not crafting) for some kind of buff, and/or target high itemlevel gambling for some kind of nerf. Any type of global change, which effects all itemlevels of gambling equally, is going to have no positive effect.

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Overall, I admire your enthusiasm, but I think you still have a lot of game design education in store for you before you can tackle all of these things with the intelligence they deserve. The good news is, you are enthusiastic, so there might be hope for you yet. I recommend watching Extra Credits on YouTube; also, if you're familiar with Magic: the Gathering, go read some Mark Rosewater articles. Or something, I don't know if those are the best sources for inspiration or if there is better out there. But try to work on your game design understanding some more, and I believe we could see some real quality posts out of your in the future.

Your post is very interesting, as usual with huge posts agree and disagree on some things. Scrotie's analysis is similar to my point, but still don't agree with some of his points either.

I am very sad about the state of affiars regarding 6l, I remember fondly the day that 4l's were what you aimed for, having a 4l in every slot to me was a perfect build, and I don't think I ever had a 5l in CB until right at the end despite mapping.

Now it feels like my character is missing something most of the time if I am only 4l (though I have still taken a number of chars to map level with only 4l).



Scrotie-> Really interested in your analysis of reflect based on the various options to deal with it, please write up a report about this that'd be awesome


But finally, resists, this is my biggest annoyance/disappointment. The percentage based system has the problem that each percent, because it is a percent, is MORE valuable than the last. Going from 75%->76% is less effective than 76%->77%. Indeed 75%->85% gives 25% dmg taken to 15% damage taken, essentially 60% less. Going 85%->90%, half the effort, goes 15% to 10% which is essentually 66% less. Its more effective to get 5% max than it was to get the earlier 10%.

That sort of system is terrible, and it leads to other problems regarding enemy damage, as if an enemy damage is scaled for 50% res, and you are at 75%, your taking half the dmg and its trivial. same thing if its scaled for 75% and you are at 85%, your taking 40% of the 'scaled for' damage and its trivial. Put it at 85% though and all of a sudden those without +max res are getting demolished.

ExtraCredits? C'mon ScrotieMcB! We do a little better than that guy, right? I mean he's sometimes got a good point, but a lot of the time, eeesh...

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anubite wrote:

ExtraCredits? C'mon ScrotieMcB! We do a little better than that guy, right? I mean he's sometimes got a good point, but a lot of the time, eeesh...

I think it's a very solid coverage of some very basic concepts, although admittedly most of them have only minor application in ARPGs. I only very rarely find myself in actual disagreement (although it does happen).

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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anubite wrote:

ExtraCredits? C'mon ScrotieMcB! We do a little better than that guy, right? I mean he's sometimes got a good point, but a lot of the time, eeesh...

I think it's a very solid coverage of some very basic concepts, although admittedly most of them have only minor application in ARPGs. I only very rarely find myself in actual disagreement (although it does happen).

Side topic, a person with some very good descriptions of things is Errant Signal. He generally talks about a specific game, but his video on kinaesthetics is very very applicable to PoE. How the game 'feels' for controlling it.