I still think map drops are fine - boost drops and good players can do 79++ all day long

"

Opinionated wrote:

I get where you are going. But actually, you skipped a step.

First, they stop making new content.
Then, they start downsizing servers.

Let us try and avoid unnecessary derailing of the thread with our somewhat juvenile comments, shall we?

ONTOPIC - The previous method used to obtain both sustainable map drops, and maximise the XP gain from a map was to ensure that Pack Size mods were rolled. These were actually the most cost effective rolls as well, because you could achieve them with alt/augs, and maybe a regal if you thought it was necessary for extra IIQ.

GGG has fixed this with the new rolling system. It is now a hell of a lot more expensive to roll these mods on the maps. That expense is enough of a barrier to ensure that a decent portion of the playerbase is not going to be doing it consistently.

I think this is enough of a balance to the mapping system that perhaps the other things on top of it (rare mobs/beyond bosses/rogue exiles) were possibly not necessary.

We'll see, I guess. Maybe GGG will let the reins out a little as the league continues. I hope they do, I'm willing to wait a while to see how things go. But I've lost a little motivation in the last week or so, which is a bit weird for me.

Maybe it's burn out?

"

nait2k4 wrote:

We'll see, I guess. Maybe GGG will let the reins out a little as the league continues. I hope they do, I'm willing to wait a while to see how things go. But I've lost a little motivation in the last week or so, which is a bit weird for me.

Maybe it's burn out?

Maybe you are finally seeing the system for what it is? Truth is not always a pleasant experience.

Juvenile comments aside, I'm in the same-ish boat as you. I'm in no way jaded, I enjoyed the game and got countless hours of entertainment. Right now I'm just seeing which direction GGG wants to go.

"

Opinionated wrote:

"

nait2k4 wrote:

We'll see, I guess. Maybe GGG will let the reins out a little as the league continues. I hope they do, I'm willing to wait a while to see how things go. But I've lost a little motivation in the last week or so, which is a bit weird for me.

Maybe it's burn out?

Maybe you are finally seeing the system for what it is? Truth is not always a pleasant experience.

Juvenile comments aside, I'm in the same-ish boat as you. I'm in no way jaded, I enjoyed the game and got countless hours of entertainment. Right now I'm just seeing which direction GGG wants to go.

I believe you may be assigning malice where it is not intended. There are laudable reasons for the changes that have been made, but I'm leaning more towards the side that perhaps the changes have been too sweeping in their scope.

There was a lot of swift leveling taking place, perhaps it was skewing the statistics too much? We'll never know, we only see a very small part of those statistics. Much larger and much more "professional" (I can't think of a better word, sorry - the various drugs are sapping my thing with the stuff) developers still have trouble with macro-balancing.

2.0 has been an amazing success - even the dreaded SteamCharts tell that story. We're only, what a month or so? into the new release. We've got some issues with monster balancing, act balancing, drop balancing, and item balancing... lots of ground to cover. Worse than that, they are all inter-twined. Changing one thing has huge effects in all other aspects of the game from early leveling to endgame powerleveling.

I want to be salty and grumpy and shitty (you can tell that from my ingame status updates), but I don't think there is sufficient evidence to say that GGG has turned into some kind of evil AAA Beast of Nerfstruction.

"

nait2k4 wrote:

There are laudable reasons for the changes that have been made, but I'm leaning more towards the side that perhaps the changes have been too sweeping in their scope.

Every action has a reaction. I'm merely using math to explain the situation.

The rarer map drops become, the less rewarding they become.

map drop = .003%
150% quantity = .0075%
net gain = .0045%

map drop = 1%
150% quantity = 2.5%
net gain = 1.5%

Right now I feel the map drops are not in line with the risk involved. Alch and go is the most efficient way to map. Buying maps is the only guaranteed way to get a map. Save as many orbs as you can.

"

Opinionated wrote:

Right now I feel the map drops are not in line with the risk involved. Alch and go is the most efficient way to map. Buying maps is the only guaranteed way to get a map. Save as many orbs as you can.

Being a softcore player, there is no inherent risk in running maps for me :) The only real risk is to my sanity in trying to achieve higher and higher tiers.

As for buying the new maps? NEVER! Content does not become commodity until I've earned it myself :)

"

ScrotieMcB wrote:

"

Char1983 wrote:

The problem is that to the normal player 80+ maps are unaccessible.

I feel obliged to point out that the concepts of "normal player" and "80+ maps" are distantly removed. If you're concerned with 80+ maps, you're not a normal player, you're an elite player, and should probably be doing elite player things.

Why are they distantly removed? Within a few months of casual gaming, I can build a character for less than 10 exalt that can kill Atziri and most likely run 80+ maps (only tried 78s so far because I cannot get the freaking higher maps).

Now you are telling me that it is more expensive to get the content then to build the character to run the content? In that case, something is seriously broken.

"

ScrotieMcB wrote:

1. This is a Diablo-style ARPG. Drops are random. Monsters are random. Randomness is in the lifeblood of a game like this, part of its very soul. I don't really understand how you could love and play a game like this, up to 80+ maps no less, and not have embraced the random for what it is. In a game like PoE, randomized is and should be the default, not the exception; from a game design perspective, you need a darn good reason to make something deterministic, and when in doubt randomize it.

Of course random should be the default for item drops. But not for content.


Content should be gated behind difficulty and not RNG / massive currency investments. Right now I have pretty much stopped playing maps, because they are so massively unrewarding, until GGG comments on the issue. If they don't, I might as well just stop playing the game, because it gets boring. The only challenge I have right now is to try to get to the point where I can run Atziri deathless.


EDIT: BTW, currently the biggest currency sink is probably people leaving. And I think there are much better currency sinks than maps.

"

nait2k4 wrote:

"

Opinionated wrote:

Right now I feel the map drops are not in line with the risk involved. Alch and go is the most efficient way to map. Buying maps is the only guaranteed way to get a map. Save as many orbs as you can.

Being a softcore player, there is no inherent risk in running maps for me :) The only real risk is to my sanity in trying to achieve higher and higher tiers.

As for buying the new maps? NEVER! Content does not become commodity until I've earned it myself :)

Not sure how you would define "earning".

If I can beat every map-boss shouldn't I be allowed to do every map? I earned it I made a char, leveled him but the content that might actually push my char to the limit is taken away from me. That is the issue that a lot of players have. They are never really challanged because 90% of the maps they are forced to run are so easy that it is sometimes even boring to just run through them.

"

1. This is a Diablo-style ARPG. Drops are random. Monsters are random. Randomness is in the lifeblood of a game like this, part of its very soul. I don't really understand how you could love and play a game like this, up to 80+ maps no less, and not have embraced the random for what it is. In a game like PoE, randomized is and should be the default, not the exception; from a game design perspective, you need a darn good reason to make something deterministic, and when in doubt randomize it.

So... Considering Diablo, it had the Uber-Trio, which I would equal to Atziri. But did you ever do a Baal Run which endet with a saddening sign "Sorry, Baal is not here today, please try again.". No Action-RPG ever gated actual content that hard and if they gated it, then by your ability to do prior content, which is not the case in PoE.

"

Emphasy wrote:

"

1. This is a Diablo-style ARPG. Drops are random. Monsters are random. Randomness is in the lifeblood of a game like this, part of its very soul. I don't really understand how you could love and play a game like this, up to 80+ maps no less, and not have embraced the random for what it is. In a game like PoE, randomized is and should be the default, not the exception; from a game design perspective, you need a darn good reason to make something deterministic, and when in doubt randomize it.

So... Considering Diablo, it had the Uber-Trio, which I would equal to Atziri. But did you ever do a Baal Run which endet with a saddening sign "Sorry, Baal is not here today, please try again.". No Action-RPG ever gated actual content that hard and if they gated it, then by your ability to do prior content, which is not the case in PoE.

What is not random in this game? You don't have to turn everything into RNG just because it works for something else. People like some amount of risk, randomness which makes replaying same area still entertaining. But if you put RNG to everything then only result will be chaos. People still need some guarantied results - like if I kill next boss, I go forward. But if everything is RNG it will make most people mad sooner or later.

In games like Baldur's Gate there was some random loot but uniques were fixed drops - usually guarded by strong boss. That made game interesting too because it made you plan your path through the game. So when you planned build you also planned your path through quests. There is nothing like that in PoE. You can't plan build requiring powerful unique because dropping it or buying it is often out of question - so you are limited by RNG again and again.

What is also interesting is that according to some of the proponents here in this thread,

a) the economy in 1.3 was very broken
b) there was no reward for building a good character
c) everyone could get to the highest character levels as easily as the top players

"

Char1983 wrote:

What is also interesting is that according to some of the proponents here in this thread,

a) the economy in 1.3 was very broken
b) there was no reward for building a good character
c) everyone could get to the highest character levels as easily as the top players

A) Economy is never broken since it's a naturally evolving cycle. It might get manipulated, but that does not imply it's core functionality is broken, it just means a lack of willingness of other participants to compete.

B) a definition of a good character needs to be specified to actually gauge what you are implying.
If i utilize my own perspective on it, then yes, a well balanced character that could run most modifiers on high tier maps was less efficient then a glass canon that could chain 78 maps with pack size/blue packs at twice the speed. So solid theory-crafts where less efficient than highly efficient but redundantly easy crafts.

C) map availability was extremely high, i chained 78's non-stop in all past league's, solo. If i was dedicated i could probably have pushed for lvl 100. I simply don't care for it that much, i run to many allts to dedicate to a single theory-craft.

Your points hold little value without any out-liners of what your actually talking about though. There so general that everybody will have an opinion about them without touching base.

Peace,

-Boem-