I know more people that left because PoE is easy.

"

ScrotieMcB wrote:

From a pure progression standpoint, they are currently reasonable and fun. Perhaps not perfect, but even if trading is removed from the picture completely (say, some theoretical offline single-player version), delaying completion is important enough to deny increasing drop rates significantly.

Fun is subjective. But from my perspective playing for well over a thousand hours and from reading the forums a lot I don't think the drop rate is deemed as fun by most players (without trading of course).

"

You also seem to be under the perverse delusion that the quantity of stuff which drops is of prime importance. It's the quality. A more balanced, diverse, deeper itemization trumps drop spam. Drop rates are not really the issue. If you want to simulate the effect of doubled drop rates on progression, just play twice as much, problem solved.

Please quote me where I typed anything about quantity versus quality. I said the generic "drop rate" but my meaning there isn't strictly increasing the amount of clutter on the screen. I am of course referring to interesting drops that they player actually wants and/or needs. I would love to see even better itemization.

The devs are however increasing the drop rates of rare uniques which I was surprised to see them do and I think is good for the game.

"

I generally don't want drop rates increased, because I don't want to get done faster; I want to keep playing.

I'm not going to speak for anyone else but finding more items isn't going to make me stop playing any faster. I will continue making builds and the more builds I make the longer and longer I will continue playing. The build diversity is a huge key to the replayability in this game. Having really poor drop rates is a pretty artificial way to try to keep players playing.

"

ScrotieMcB wrote:

I generally don't want drop rates increased, because I don't want to get done faster; I want to keep playing. I do, however, want think rates increased. I want to look at more items and go "hmm." This doesn't mean they're upgrades, it just means I might believe they're upgrades. I'd like to be wrong on that more often. I want figuring out what to equip to be more difficult than it currently is.

Same here. Some things I'd like to see:

- Instead of the almost useless flat life-regen a percentage based one (0.1-0.3%)

- Thorns that actually has a point (e.g. proccing whenever you block or evade, and not when you get hit. Because you usually really DON'T WANT TO GET HIT)

- Or a chance for inflicting a status ailment when you do get hit

- A chance to generate a charge under various circumstances

Basically a whole lot similar to what we now only get on uniques. I imagine it much more fun to be able to create some sort of generic "themed gear" layouts, as opposed to now where we have certain uniques as keystones and rares serving as supplements.

"

Worldbreaker wrote:

1. Legacy items: the friends that played in the permanent leagues, this was the #1 thing that came up constantly. Legacy items are items that were deemed "too powerful", so let's let them stay to trivialize content.

this legacy stuff is by far the biggest bullshit i have ever seen in a game. it's a shame! I own a legacy shavronne's but demand that all legacy items be removed or forcefully changed to the current version!!! it's a farce...shame on you GGG !

about droprates: it's the wrong solution. make old uniques more usefull so IF they drop everyone is happy. I and almost all my friends don't hate the droprate but the fact that IF something drops it's most of the time crap.

"

iamstryker wrote:

I'm not going to speak for anyone else but finding more items isn't going to make me stop playing any faster. I will continue making builds and the more builds I make the longer and longer I will continue playing. The build diversity is a huge key to the replayability in this game. Having really poor drop rates is a pretty artificial way to try to keep players playing.

It's not wise to make promises about how you'd play if certain things were changed. What if you don't feel like keeping your promise? Although I do agree build diversity is good for replayability, an increase in drop quantity doesn't help build diversity at all. You still end up with more people "finishing" the game faster.

In my opinion, any level of drop quantity is arbitrary. Thus it's a choice between artificially keeping players playing, and artificially having them finish sooner. I don't see a "natural" choice along the quantity axis... part of the reason I'm more focused on quality.

"

Antigegner wrote:

I and almost all my friends don't hate the droprate but the fact that IF something drops it's most of the time crap.

That's what I've been trying to say.

Honestly i can not pick a side on your argument for their depart, worldbreaker

The game has become easier as builds go, true, like everyone else i too miss a more complex skill tree with 4 starting points and intricate node routes.

But look on the other side of things, they also quit because it has become too hard:

-getting the necessary currency for certain items is almost impossible for more than half of the player base
-there are too many 1 shot mechanics
-mobs do way too much damage

-CI is ridiculously hard to do and its been converted into just "blue life" as many people call it, as people return who have done CI chars long ago and try their old builds again they fail, such as Grits who has lately started playing again, he was one of the best players in this game and now he realized going CI is basically pointless(especially with the addition of chaos rez)

-Stacking life is the endgame now, for spellcasters and for melees as well unless they somehow get a Shavronnes(which most people wont)

-6links were made common because people acutally NEED 5-6links now, the days where you could rock the endgame with a 4link without any problems are gone.


Compare the game now to what it was back in closed beta, how many of these old players do you think like it like this? Back then you would blaze through MoC and maps with 3-4k life and insane DPS, thats what we all loved doing, CI used to be a proper keystone you didnt have leech or regen but you did have 8k es, you couldnt even return the old CI now cause the mobs are just ridiculous. A tank character back then would consist of maxing out resists and getting high block chance, now you basically NEED a aegis aurora to make one etc.

Some things have become easier, but a lot of things got harder

"

VictorDoom wrote:

-getting the necessary currency for certain items is almost impossible for more than half of the player base

that's another thing that somehow bothers me quite a bit. I am playing for roughly 2 years now and I would say I have only one char that is equiped well (far from perfect though). The rest have remained under construction for those 2 years cuz upgrading the first toon was too expensive and still is. In diablo 2 I had several toons well equiped after 2 years of intensive playing.

i wanna be honest though:
1.) maybe it's PoE's fault.
2.) but maybe we/I are just used to get things too fast from older/other games and can't see the positive long-term effect of having to search/trade for stuff longer.

I don't know yet.

"

ScrotieMcB wrote:

In my opinion, any level of drop quantity is arbitrary. Thus it's a choice between artificially keeping players playing, and artificially having them finish sooner. I don't see a "natural" choice along the quantity axis... part of the reason I'm more focused on quality.

"

Antigegner wrote:

I and almost all my friends don't hate the droprate but the fact that IF something drops it's most of the time crap.

That's what I've been trying to say.

Try reading my posts again. Thats exactly my point as well. I don't want more crap on the screen to look at and ignore. I think GGG is doing the right thing buffing the end game "good" uniques, because finding cool shit makes the game feel more fun.

For me personally the drops DO NOT keep me playing. The deep re playability is what keeps me playing, the drops are pretty bad and the only way I get what I need for my builds is because of trading. Making the drops better WILL NOT make me finish the game faster. I might finish a build faster but then I would just move on to a different build. D3 might need an insane amount of drops to keep people from quitting the game but I don't really see PoE that way. The drops just make it the game more fun and exciting.

"

ScrotieMcB wrote:

I tend to agree with the "Rhys rubric" of what hardcore means. I'm not going to repost his explanation, but he splits hardcore up into four axes: investment of knowledge, investment of time, investment of skill, and investment of emotion. The way I see it, lengthening the grind does increase "hardcoreness" along the axis of time, but it jeopardizes things along the axis of emotion. It's that final axis which goes to shit when one feels their farming is a never-ending monotony. On the other hand, shortening the grind may make gains in investment of emotion, but suffer losses along the time axis.

I googled Rhys Rubric and your post was the only thing on the first page that seemed relevant. Anyway, just going on what you posted, I would request clarification on whether the Rhys Rubric refers to the player or the game.

It is my opinion that time is something a hardcore player will invest in a game, but that a hardcore game does not necessarily demand time from the player outside of time spent on skill acquisition and knowledge acquisition. While skills and knowledge may take significant time investment, item grinding does not fit into either category.

"

Worldbreaker wrote:

To GGG: If you want a fantastic example of where you are heading talk to Marc Deforest, owner of S2 Games (Heroes of Newerth). He tried pleasing everyone, screwed his loyal customers, in doing so, lost the hardcore crowd to Dota 2 AND the casual crowd to League of Legends. Now scrounging for anything he can, working on Strife, an even more casual MOBA (more so than LoL), since his decisions killed HoN.

The irony is that League of Legends is so big because it both caters to the competitive (one major form of "hardcore") and the casual players.

For instance:
all game balance changes are made to balance the absolutely highest tier of competitive play. None of them just to please the casual player.

The "fun" modes in recent all stars, was to please the casual players.

Edit:
Some more things:
*Weekly "free champion" rotations is to please casuals.
*Rune page sale is to please the competitive players.
*Game analyzing of the LCS (LoL esport league) is to please the competitive players.
*Flavor casting of the LCS is to please the casuals.