I know more people that left because PoE is easy.

"

raics wrote:

It's strange they aren't worried about trading directly shrinking three of those four to tinkerbell levels, and I can't really imagine the fourth one being at any significant level if the other three aren't, none of those are really independent but emotion factor is very rare to exist independently.

Trading isn't necessarily non-hardcore, and is capable of testing three of four axes in the rubric (mechanical skill isn't one of them). Thus the question isn't "can it?" but "does it?" The way I see it, trading works best when items and builds are extremely diverse and well balanced, making the "best" difficult to determine. This makes market values are too uncertain to remain firm, giving clever traders more opportunities to make profits... or, for that matter, to suffer losses. A stale build and item metagame leads to a static economy and thus a lack of hardcoreness, particularly on the emotional investment end when prices are well-known.

I don't think the PoE economy is horrible in this department, but we could always introduce a little anarchy into the system.

So, after SotV 'content', which massively buffed the brain-dead investment of time axis, to keep people grinding more (effectively achieving the opposite), can we expect that some other "hardcore axis" will be buffed the next expansion?

I'm more interested in the risk/reward axis (lets call it investment of risk), which GGG apparently doesn't think it's a hardcore thing because it was not included in the "what's hardcore" description.

PoE awards you for avoiding risk, instead of facing it. This is especially obvious in endgame maps, where someone rolling blue packs size will get the same progression (map drops, XP, gear drops) as someone rolling 100%q deadly combos. The difference in reward is barely noticeable, while the difference in risk (aka difficulty) is huge.

Also the wild variance in map drops, governed by hidden parameters (aka 'seed'), makes so that it's not worth rolling your maps to high quantity (== difficulty), but instead just wait for the spikes in RNG luck. I've had huge map drops from 11% blue ones and nothing from 120% deadly insane rolls. This happened too many times to be ignored. Therefore, why bother playing difficult content? The bigger your map pool is, the more you can afford to roll your maps blue and progress just on RNG variance spikes.

Sadly devs that 100% believe in RNGesus, cannot properly implement risk/reward. And a game without risk/reward cannot be called hardcore. Implementing a shitton of contrived time sinks and hamster wheel tasks, wont make the game more hardcore, because time investment != difficulty or skill.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Trading isn't necessarily non-hardcore, and is capable of testing three of four axes in the rubric (mechanical skill isn't one of them). Thus the question isn't "can it?" but "does it?" The way I see it, trading works best when items and builds are extremely well balanced, making the "best" difficult to determine. This makes market values are too uncertain to remain firm, giving clever traders more opportunities to make profits... or, for that matter, to suffer losses. A stale build and item metagame leads to a static economy and thus a lack of hardcoreness, particularly on the emotional investment end when prices are well-known.

We need to introduce a little anarchy into the system.

Sure it is, if you got godly gear you don't really need much skill or knowledge, certainly not at hardcore levels, your time investment wasn't hardcore compared to selfies, and I can question the attachment you can feel to spoils gotten that way or level of challenge the game can offer you. So there, you just made the game 100% casual, which is probably what this thread is about.

But ok, if you don't think it's strange that's precisely what devs expect us to do - you don't, no helping it.

@morbo: Investment of time is still an axis of hardcore. It's just not the only axis. The optimal effect is only achieved when all four are working together.

Also, there's no difference between "investment of risk" and investment of skill. Nor is it necessarily true that penalizing failure is the opposite of rewarding skill. Actually, I believe both serve the same purpose in different ways; you normally achieve the best results when you use both the carrot and the stick.

@raics: You're essentially completely ignoring my argument and continuing on as if trading is necessarily non-hardcore.

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morbo wrote:

I'm more interested in the risk/reward axis (lets call it investment of risk), which GGG apparently doesn't think it's a hardcore thing because it was not included in the "what's hardcore" description.

You know, it's really interesting, just look at this:

* With every significant mod, price of the item (and often effectiveness too) increases exponentially.
Risk factor also increases exponentially with every significant mod on maps.

* At the same time, quantity bonus on maps scales linearly, and even has diminishing returns at high values.

"

Scrotie wrote:

@raics: You're essentially completely ignoring my argument and continuing on as if trading is necessarily non-hardcore.

I am, I don't recognize trading as an integral part of ARPG experience, therefore it can't be a 'hardcore' factor. If you're hardcore about trading in PoE you're playing the wrong game, or even genre... or at least that's what I'd like to say.

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raics wrote:

Risk factor also increases exponentially with every significant mod on maps.

This essentially assumes you're playing on autopilot and do not adjust to more dangerous situations with evasive actions. In other words, it blanks out the very component you're supposed to be focusing on: investment of skill.

A map with very difficult mods isn't really about "increased risk." If you're competent you're not going to die. What could happen, however, is that you have to play the map slower, or you might skip some battles entirely because you figure you can't handle them (at least not in anything resembling a timely manner; non-regenerating foes are almost always possible to dispatch, although it might require multiple hit-and-runs). So what's really going on is that difficult map affixes slow down clear speed, which in turn affects rate of progression (not just gear but XP as well). This is a far more complicated situation than you've given it credit for, and is definitely not strictly exponential, although it may have exponential terms in the equation.

"

raics wrote:

"

Scrotie wrote:

@raics: You're essentially completely ignoring my argument and continuing on as if trading is necessarily non-hardcore.

I am, I don't recognize trading as an integral part of ARPG experience, therefore it can't be a 'hardcore' factor.

Whether or not trading is an integral part of the ARPG experience is utterly irrelevant to whether trading can be hardcore or not. To be honest, I am inclined to agree that it is not strictly integral. However, multiplayer deathmatch is not strictly integral to first-person shooters, either... but you'd have to be a little daft not to include it in your game, because it's a good system to add. In the same way, it doesn't really matter if trading is integral or not, it's simply good, not to mention expected.

"

raics wrote:

You know, it's really interesting, just look at this:

* With every significant mod, price of the item (and often effectiveness too) increases exponentially.
Risk factor also increases exponentially with every significant mod on maps.

* At the same time, quantity bonus on maps scales linearly, and even has diminishing returns at high values.

A bit offtopic:

I've wrote a post a long time ago, that map mods should also give synergies to quantity, because they synergize difficulty. Instead, quantity bonus is just a flat addition, that doesn't reflect the actual difficulty of the map. Even map boss skills & mob types should be factored in.

eg. a -max res. multiprojectile Temple is significantly more difficult than some equivalent Q mods that does not buff the final boss or the mob types that spawned.

Anyway, if you don't properly reward difficulty / risk, players will choose path of least resistance.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

"

raics wrote:

Risk factor also increases exponentially with every significant mod on maps.

This essentially assumes you're playing on autopilot and do not adjust to more dangerous situations with evasive actions. In other words, it blanks out the very component you're supposed to be focusing on: investment of skill.

A map with very difficult mods isn't really about "increased risk." If you're competent you're not going to die. What could happen, however, is that you have to play the map slower, or you might skip some battles entirely because you figure you can't handle them (at least not in anything resembling a timely manner; non-regenerating foes are almost always possible to dispatch, although it might require multiple hit-and-runs). So what's really going on is that difficult map affixes slow down clear speed, which in turn affects rate of progression (not just gear but XP as well). This is a far more complicated situation than you've given it credit for, and is definitely not strictly exponential, although it may have exponential terms in the equation.

"

raics wrote:

"

Scrotie wrote:

@raics: You're essentially completely ignoring my argument and continuing on as if trading is necessarily non-hardcore.

I am, I don't recognize trading as an integral part of ARPG experience, therefore it can't be a 'hardcore' factor.

Whether or not trading is an integral part of the ARPG experience is utterly irrelevant to whether trading can be hardcore or not. To be honest, I am inclined to agree that it is not strictly integral. However, multiplayer deathmatch is not strictly integral to first-person shooters, either... but you'd have to be a little daft not to include it in your game, because it's a good system to add. In the same way, it doesn't really matter if trading is integral or not, it's simply good, not to mention expected.

I know, it's hard to put those things into equation, dunno how can you express '% slower clear speed + % more chance to rip' but it certainly isn't linear, each significant mod will add more than previous one did. And it certainly isn't diminishing.

About trading, sure, I can recognize it as an addon to the ARPG experience, but not as a focus. It's Crysis versus BF4, first is single player campaign with a tacked on multiplayer, and BF4 is a multiplayer game with a tacked on campaign. A lot of people have problems with ARPGs turning from crysis into BF4, the sentiment is that overfocusing on trading hurts the game experience as a whole, or 'what ARPG is all about', so it should be left to genres more suited for it.

@morbo:
Right, I also suggested that a couple of times, besides regular bonus for sheer number of mods, we should also get synergies for mods that synergize. Also as a hidden bonus on rare monsters too.

Ah, got another idea in that direction, remember bandit goliaths from BL2? If you let them kill other bandits they 'gain levels' and get tougher granting better loot and more experience, so many let them buff themselves as much as they can safely handle. We could have the same thing here with soul eater nemesis mod, a potentially very dangerous XP and loot pinata.

"

morbo wrote:

Anyway, if you don't properly reward difficulty / risk, players will choose path of least resistance.

WTB next league: all maps are a) rare, and b) mirrored

also, why Nemesis mods were made so rare?

"

ScrotieMcB wrote:

Whether or not trading is an integral part of the ARPG experience is utterly irrelevant to whether trading can be hardcore or not. To be honest, I am inclined to agree that it is not strictly integral. However, multiplayer deathmatch is not strictly integral to first-person shooters, either... but you'd have to be a little daft not to include it in your game, because it's a good system to add. In the same way, it doesn't really matter if trading is integral or not, it's simply good, not to mention expected.

Not your best analogy. Including multi-player DM on a FPS has no impact on the "rest of the game". Including trading has a huge impact on the rest/all aspects of PoE by making it the strictly optimal strategy to gear-up.

Trading as it stands is not an additional "module" that provides a fun diversion or mini-game that is tangential to the core experience. The core experience of PoE revolves around certain elements, of which one is the economy/trading.

P.