Act 4 Normal Sucks and Is Way Too Hard
" Very good, thanks for the :D I personally don't feel like it is "way too hard" - except as melee of course. Which is a problem with melee in general and mob/boss design, not simply a matter of balancing numbers. Last edited by dyneol#3245 on Jan 12, 2016, 12:16:25 AM
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"and after you skipped them all, " " " " " " So that's what's called "hardcore" nowadays? And worst change is putting almost all bosses in new version of maps into fucking small areas, where you can't kite well or dodge stuff. What a terrible idiot invented that I want say to him: dude flick you, seriously flick you very much.
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Yes, I think the issue with act 4 is that it really emphasizes the very uneven, erratic damage curve of PoE that has been commented on for years. Most of the game's content is relatively easy. With a bit of paying attention you really won't die, but when you die, it's almost always too fast, nearly instantaneous.
I actually like act 4 from a perspective of level design and atmosphere. That run through the arena is pretty awesome: the music, the tension that builds up, the spoken lore bits while you head toward the grand arena, that stuff is great and memorable. The storytelling qualities are noticeably improved in this act. But the difficulty curve is just off. It's like "easy, easy, easy, dead" with little inbetween. Some of the "optional" bosses do so much burst damage (like the one in the dream) that unless you know exactly what to expect, you'll just drop dead; even if you do, you may still just drop dead. (This aspect of "not knowing what happened" is another problem with the game altogether.) Then you get the bosses that don't properly telegraph their attacks. You have, if at all, a split second to react. Great in an offline game that is super twitchy, not so great in an online game that isn't all that well optimized and responsive. Earlier acts do this much better: Merveil with the geysers, Vaal lifting his fist, etc -- even if you are there for the first time, you know what's happening. Act 3 Piety may still kill you, but you'll know why: Oops, maybe 10% Cold Resist wasn't really enough when she shoot those ice shots at me, and I could have gone behind the pillars! Oh, she got all fiery, so I need fire resist! In act 4, that happens to a much lesser degree. There is bad stuff everywhere, which partly you can't see well, it's very fast, very crowded, and heck, you can't even easily tell what damage type an attack has. That laser of act 4 Piety, what is it? Looks like fire, except it isn't. It's apparently physical. Malachai? Tiny boss room, ground effects everywhere, frame drops even on my 980ti. It's like a condensed version of every issue Dominus used to have before things were toned down/fixed up a little. It's not just an observation in act 4, but in the whole game: 99% of the time you run around at 95-100% health. You never get close to dying. But when you do face the possibility of death, it's almost nearly instant and extremely burst-y. The solution? I would probably increase the sustained damage that mobs do, and tone down the spike damage, at least in normal and cruel. If players either have to watch external videos to understand a fight, or they give up and say "screw this" and kamikaze twenty times into the boss until it somehow dies, a design needs to be looked into. The fights also need more telegraphs that are: actually visible, actually convey a message, and that give a little more time (Vaal is perfect) to compensate for latency and screen lag. And really, the damage type needs to be more obvious. With Malachai everything is red, so you'd think "fire". But the ground effect is physical degen damage, the tentacles do cold damage, and the rest is fire and physical damage. (Way too much physical damage for such a small boss area where ranged builds are already at a disadvantage and don't generally have armor.) Anyway, just agreeing with what a lot of others have said, and this time with words. Lots of them. :) | |
" I agree with everything you said, and my comments were of a similar nature (but you used more words; lots more of them ;o). MOAR PANTS, because every good game needs a pointless meme.
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Act 4 normal difficulty should be tuned for new players. It can be difficult yes, but a new player with no special gear should be able to follow a build and not get stuck there. Normal difficulty should be accessible. There's still cruel and merciless and maps to weed out the fainthearted.
As a new (and self-found) SC player (solo and duo) I meandered my way through A4N on a witch summoner in December. The difficulty spike was tangible, and there were a few awful deaths here and there but it was not a D3 inferno situation. I didn't feel stuck. I got lucky (or felt lucky) when I found a vaal skeletons gem along the way, that made a big difference for dealing with tougher mobs. Playing summoner from scratch is apparently not the fastest way to go. It got better in cruel and merciless as the build fleshed out. It would have been be harder as a melee or a glass cannon caster/ranger and certainly my ranger buddy felt the pain of act 4 as early as Voll in the dried lake. Some of the enclosed arenas for several of the harder fights are too small, in my opinion. It made me abandon my HC project immediately. I went back with a flame totem in a Night's Hold talisman and A4N was cake. Well obviously. No sh*t Sherlock, as the saying goes. That doesn't reflect A4 difficulty. A4 should not be judged with twink gear, as long as trading is how it is. If there was e.g. an auction house for ingame currency it would be more reasonable to assume a special item or two. FWIW, I haven't really found any of the recommended gear for my lv 86 summoner yet. My highest master is 7, it's a slow process. However, the minions are very tanky now, until I meet one of those beyond bosses like Abaxoth that melt my minion army in 2 seconds flat. Thank you for turning up in my Zana quests buddy D: Last edited by Liguar#2050 on Jan 13, 2016, 2:41:51 AM
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First of all i want to apologize for my bad english, but i just have to share my frustration with this game... no, not with the game, with that fucking act 4!
Also, i want to adress "the pros" all over the internet who are mocking players that complain about act 4 being too hard. Get fucking life, ok? I love playing games, i love spending my free time playing rpg's, but i have other things to think about... i don't have free 1000+ hours to spend in a game learning every character build and experiment with it. What i like to do after work is sit down and relax with a good game and just having fun time. Don't get me wrong if i have the time i like to do big maratons, i played Risen for 9 hours straight one weekend.. yes sometimes i will do that, so i consider myself to be a gamer and not just a guy who plays ocasionally. I also like chalenge, but fair chalenge, not some bullshit like in Dark Souls with its retarded PC port and beyond belief broken controls. I beat fucking Gothic back in the day and anyone who is into rpgs knows how hard Gothic is, but also the chalenge there is realistic and fair. I don't have to grind for hundreds of hours in Gothic to stand chance. I also like Diablo 2, and while admit that Diablo 2 requires some grinding too, id say that it's 100 time more fair to the player than Act 4 in Path of Exile. So what the hell happend? I was having a blast with the first 3 acts and i was almost ready to declare Path of Exile the best hack and slash Diablo style rpg ever. I love this game but my god how broken can the challenge get? So i started 3 weeks ago with a ranger character and everything was great. I build it around fast bow attacks and i was destroying everything with the "ice shot" and "split arrow gems" and also with some good rare equipment that i found troughout the first two act. My first death was in some corrupted cave in act 2 and many i was very close to death. But then something happened in act 3, the game just stopped giving me good equipment. Also inthe first 3 acts i got 5 unique items, yes, 5! Gues what, non of them was for my class, i was in fucking rage when number 5 dropped and end up being boots with 100% rarity of the items found in low life, but the boots were for a fucking mage class! I can keep all this unique equipment, but again, i don't have the time or desire to master the game with every class... i like Ranger and want play as fuciking ranger and want to build my ranger to level 100, but i have to be fucking retarded no lifer to do the same with all other classes, think about how many times would i have to replay the fucking game for that. Back to the point... After 4 or 5 deaths in act 3 not counting the deaths in the act boss where i got fucking destroyed due to my bad equipment (i gues) i tought that it time to make diference so i used my precious orbs that i've colleted from trading and shit, and forged for myself some kickass rare equipment. With my new stuff and all the confidence in the world i dived in act 4 and got annihilated! I died more than 10 times in the first hour... What the fuck? Fucking fire totems killing me in a blink of an eye? WTF? That's not even a boss! I just rage quit that shit, but i'm not done, i'm going to return and get my revenge, i will finish this shit, but i just know that will probably cost me like 100 more deaths beffore i beat this act, seing how unfair and broken is. Fuck act 4! Last edited by SufferH#3500 on Feb 22, 2016, 11:16:23 AM
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A few days ago, I challenged act 4 normal for the first time as a "new" player, and didn't really find it to be too hard. I heard about it before and thought it would be impossible for me, but I beat it in 5 min though I had died a couple times. There was alot going on during the battle making it more stressing on me and my computer so I was lagging quite a bit. Either than that, I found it to be fine. I didn't really have any good gear either, I sort of just slapped together some gems and supports on ice crash and spammed it and my potions the whole time... It worked.. There was quite a gap in the difficulty levels transitioning into act 4 which was a bit surprising. It was a bit frustrating at times, but only when I kept freezing or getting dq'ed due to internet issues. Been playing the game for close to 6 days now, and am quite satisfied. Taking a break from the game cause I just can't play with my internet, it freezes me to death causing me to lose exp which is a bit rage inducing.
Class: Shadow Level (at the time): 39 Health: Around 900 Ability Used: Ice Crash Supporting Gems: Life gain on Hit and Faster Attacks Last edited by Potalion#5522 on Feb 23, 2016, 3:58:02 AM
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Act 4, normal AND cruel AND merciless
Rare totem instantly teleport under your ass like a giant dildo... HALF LIFE GONE!!!! Shoots machine gun (the usual ggg raging boner for mini gun mobs -.-) lasers. Die 6776886876867786 "sapling" (vakali totem) shoots FROM OFFSCREEN a "magma orb". INSTAKILL!!!!! A certain Triskeriaki shoots you with 3 mega powerful tails. DEATH!!!!! What a "fantastic" game -.- |
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This game has a lot of potential. However, with that said, it's definitely slanted for the elite end-game character.
Been playing the Ranger in Talisman League. Even following a tornado shot guide for the Ranger (lvl 85) and gradually getting "decent" gear, there are bosses that are essentially off limits (Malachi being one of them). It's a guaranteed death and another frustrating experience loss. Challenging is fun. PoE pushes challenging into the punishment range because of the slanted mechanics of elite gear. During the Talisman League, I've found 1 EX in Cruel difficulty. Traded for another EX with a unique item. All other currency has been through laborious grinding, selling to vendors, and some minor player trading. 6 soc gear? Ok, it's doable, expensive yes, but doable. 6 link? lmao, forgetaboutit! Orbs of fusing don't drop regularly, and even with Vorici' price break, it takes an extraordinarily long time to build up substantial amounts of these orbs. Not to mention it takes on average 1000-1500+ to 6 link a item. IDK, it just seems out of reach for most people to 6 link an item. Trading for a 6 link GG item? lmao forgetaboutit! 10-20 EX for 1 item leaves most of us out in the cold, literally. Looking to kills those end-game fragment map bosses for those end-game elite gear items? forgetaboutit! Unless you're one of the 1% that has managed to aquire the re So for the ones who grind and grind, trade for orbs, trade for this and that, and get the elite of the elite items, PoE is "easy", they are rewarded with being able to loot ridiculous maps and sell off the crap they don't want for even better gear. It drives the wealth of the game into the 1%. Hmm, just like real life no less. The rest of us are punished and end up becoming frustrated hitting walls of experience gain.. This is the crux of why many people quit playing. It's beyond challenging in most cases. The game loses it's "fun" aspect when it's obviously based on elite high level end game gear, which most of us will never see or acquire. As mentioned above, my 85 Ranger has "decent" gear. Passive skills are zeroed-in. Even still, I've hit a wall of effective experience gain due to the fact that in higher level maps, the propensity of a rapid death exists. Usually from some off screen ranged boss. |
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After several plays through Act 4 now, I can honestly say that without a doubt this is not only the worst act I've played in a game but the worst gaming experience I've had in 35+ years of gaming.
The only thing I can assume from their countless one-shot mechanics is that someone (or group) is trying to compensate for something. The nerfs will continue until morale improves.
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