Thoughts from a game dev in the industry ...

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scale_e wrote:

"I think your argument is weak. You're comparing PoE's RNG to soccer and chess."
No I was not. I was using soccer and chess as an analogy. I was attempting to show how ridiculous it is to change something fundamental to a game. In this case, only using feet in soccer, and taking turns in chess, are fundamental parts of those games, in the same way that strict RNG is fundamental to PoE. At no point did I make a direct comparison to any RNG in either soccer or chess. That would be absurd. Because soccer and chess have no RNG. You know this damn well, and are clutching at straws. You further confound this by bringing up the ages of these games. Which has no relevance to my point, nor your counterpoint.
But, as you previously said, you don't care about my argument.

Y'know, I was just going to let this go because I'm finally tasting the bait that I've swallowed, but god damn, kids today are amazingly good finding ways to draw out arguments.

Did I say that soccer and chess have RNG? No, no I did not. Though, if we're going to be pedantic about things, both of them actually do involve a tiny aspect of random chance. You compared RNG to aspects of soccer and chess. You call it an analogy and not a comparison, but guess what? Analogy is freaking synonymous with comparison. Soccer and chess, as you just clarified, are nothing like PoE. You are comparing apples to oranges. And the reason I brought up the ages of those games was to illustrate that soccer and chess have undergone many iterations and a ton of refinement. PoE is incomplete and subject to change. "Fundamental parts" are being added and changed over time. To make a more fitting comparison, comparing PoE to chess is akin to comparing a half-built house to god damn Notre Dame.

Face it: Your intention was to troll and pick a fight. Hiding it behind spoiler tags doesn't make it invisible. And good fucking Christ, I fell into it. Have a gold star and a juice box, kid. Now comes the part where you predictably find some way to drag this argument out even further, convincing yourself that you've won something.

Comparing PoE to Diablo this much is blasphamy. If PoE is too hardcore and merciless for you, play Diablo instead.

Hi

POE and Diablo will this comparison ever get old? The wind whispers NO!!!!!

I played POE first and feel it ruined my D3 experience because D3 is brainless gruel for the sheeple like the new ghostbusters: what a bust. Lets use the classic formula: a dash of old spliced with new let stew for 10 years, now what do we have: something pseudo new but relatively the same. D3 king Leoric's line are so laughable and the acting... I can nit pick that game into nothing, but whatever; it comes down to simply: people will play what they like, devs will do what they like.

POE has its flaws but I think are more forgivable compared to Blizzards fortune at using a name and barely anything amusing in D3, if D3 was actually D1 then there would've probably been no franchise, most people bought D3 simply because its D3, part of a great series, hence it should be a great game...POE caters to that D1 style of gameplay, to me POE is the spiritual successor of the Diablo series because without that series POE wouldn't exist, mmm paradox. Blizzard has the resources to easily do as many updates and add-ons as GGG if not even more, yet they don't.

POE is and will never probably cater to casuals, it comes close in some ways, but no it does not cater to casuals if compared to D3 which was designed for casuals.

cheers

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Finkenstein wrote:

POE is and will never probably cater to casuals, it comes close in some ways, but no it does not cater to casuals if compared to D3 which was designed for casuals.
cheers

I would very much like you to define "casual".

it is my belief the target audience of an ARPG - pretty much *any* ARPG - likes investment.
even if you don't ultra-high-map-to-100 for 25 hours a day, 8 days a week, you will certainly be Googling and Wiki-ing game mechanics, creating builds (and/or studying pros-cons of others'), learning your loot options, knowing your lore, loving your crazy failed build experiments...

I still do it. a proud D&D nerd who nowadays happens to have a family and a home and a place of work - so no more of the ultra-grinding ~15-20 years ago - but still a nerd.
one who already spent a very, very considerable amount of time and effort in Path Of Exile, even if said 4-digit hour amount was accumulated in years rather than months.

I believe 99.999% of the people playing Path Of Exile feel the same as I about investment...
and I'm probably wrong about the 0.001%.
that's just who we are. we are all "hardcore", because we wouldn't be here otherwise.

"

johnKeys wrote:

that's just who we are. we are all "hardcore", because we wouldn't be here otherwise.

I have heard people saying that they play the game to relax and that ARPGs are about making builds that trivialize everything (feeling powerful), so I wouldn't be sure. Some people don't like challenge, and can't tolerate nothing except hyperefficient facerolling. There are two threads in Reddit right now about putting things in the towns to save five seconds (a few minutes overall in character progression), and then the labyrinth threads that say "I have to STOP. That's boring. This is not an ARPG. Stop making boring stuff GGG else I will quit".

Truth is, grinding games tend to atract all type of people that rather do trivial efforts for many hours, and pretend hardcore people that don't want any challenge or change to the status quo. GGG has put nice things around all that, but the truth is that they shoot themselves in the foot allowing that kind of people to grow complacent.

"

POE is and will never probably cater to casuals, it comes close in some ways, but no it does not cater to casuals if compared to D3 which was designed for casuals.

Actually PoE is a very casual friendly game. The distance from waypoint to waypoint is usually quite short and maps aren't that big either. The labyrinth might be a bit tough for casuals, since it can take a while and they likely take longer to get used to it, but overall it is still just maybe a 20-30minute investment which is bearable.

Casual basically just describes the way people play games. And if someone has homework to do and finishs early and asks himself what do, just doing a quick map is a totally legitimate answer. PoE is a game that can easily be played in rather short blocks, and thats very casual friendly. Is it hard? Yes it can be challanging and punishing, but that doesn't make it casual unfriendly. A lot of casual gamers from today grew up in the harsh nintendo age, they now how hard and punishing games are, they now how valuable good informations are (back in the days from Nintendo Power... today with a big internet for this). A casual gamer is not necessarily a bad gamer. He might need more time to get used to new things, but that is just because he doesn't play that much. And PoE allows such players to exist and they actually moved some of the waypoints for this and implemented the restart at checkpoint for such players.

"

Emphasy wrote:

"

POE is and will never probably cater to casuals, it comes close in some ways, but no it does not cater to casuals if compared to D3 which was designed for casuals.

Actually PoE is a very casual friendly game.

mmm
no?
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1y2QoalrBoHiYcQBbOHAjL8PsTBKLpLBwysuM-8Li1as/htmlview?usp=sharing&sle=true

"

Antaiseito wrote:

What's the problem with the story? It's great here, nice dark and gritty, interesting characters. Love to read about the lore in-game. D3 story actually bores me personally :/

I also like the Dominus and Malachai Boss-fights (in normal, didn't finish cruel yet..).
Especially Malachai is extremely epic with all that stuff going on... you need to focus to dodge it all.

Is the size of an expansion or add-on (there's a difference?) really relevant if it's for free? :)

Allow me to nerd rage a little.

As an example, please refer to Metal Gear Solid for the PS1.
The story of MGS is pretty evident from the beginning: You're an operative infiltrating an enemy base to prevent a nuclear attack on the US. From the beginning until the very end, the objective is set and progresses until completion. You're aware of roles and the major plot but certain other details come into play that change your perception of the story or the story itself. For example, Master Miller was actually Liquid. Which means he was aware of what you were doing the entire time. It turns out Naomi Hunter had an ulterior motive, etc etc.

Path of Exile follows the style of Final Fantasy 9 and Far Cry 3. This is bad for obvious reasons and I'll elaborate by going through all 3:

Final Fantasy 9
From near the beginning of the game, Kuja is introduced as the bad guy. Your first encounter with him? He beats your ass. He beats your ass so bad, you're lying on the floor, in the rain, watching him flip his sexy hair around and strut away like his shit doesn't stink (It doesn't, just FYI). He's constantly getting in your way, setting traps to kill you, and doing evil things for the entirety of the game. He is the bad guy of the game. Then you defeat him at the end and Necron appears out of nowhere. BORING.

Far Cry 3
At the beginning of the game, you and your friends are captured by Vaas. He's introduced as the leader and the obvious bad guy of the story. He kills your friends, tortures them, and sends his men after you. He's always in your way and your objective is to stop him. So, what happens? You finally have a showdown with Vaas and you kill him. Then his boss appears out of nowhere and he's the real final boss. BORING.


If you haven't figured it out yet, when you have a clear and present obstacle in your way from the beginning, the viewer/reader's impression is that they're the bad guy. All throughout the story, you're developing as this obstacle stands in your way. You develop a connection with that person. You're able to empathize with your character and understand their feelings towards the obstacle, which is to usually overcome said obstacle. Then when that obstacle has been defeated, you bring another one out of nowhere that was practically never mentioned in the story. This is bad storytelling.

Path of Exile
From the beginning of the game, you find yourself in Wraeclast. As you read some lore, you find that you were exiled by Dominus. Alright, makes sense so far. You're simply meandering and doing menial tasks until you're sent to the prison to kill Brutus. Who do you find? Piety. She taunts you and blocks your way. So you kill Brutus and move on to the Forest. Except Piety's blocking your way. Again.
You take a detour and end up killing Merveil, some squid woman who loved some guy named Daresso. Sounds neat, sure. Take a trip through the Forest killing random bandits and shit and then you end up in Sarn. First thing that happens? Piety's henchmen are attacking some girl. So you save her with your big, strong arms and she asks you to find her boyfriend. whatatease.png.
You go to the Crematorium and it turns out, you guessed, he's dead and Piety's involved. At this point, more than before, Piety is your nemesis. She's always taunting, impeding your path, and trying to kill you. The rest of Act 3 is you meeting people, killing shit, and journeying to Lunaris to have a showdown with Piety. This is the logical conclusion to the story. You just defeated Freiza and fulfilled the prophecy of your people.

But then the Androids arrive...
After you kill Piety, you unlock the Scepter of God and go fight Dominus. Who is this guy? He's the guy who exiled you in the beginning of the game who was never mentioned again. But here he is, your proverbial Necron or Vaas' Boss. You kick his ass and BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE! You get to Act 4 and have to kill Voll. The fuck? Who is Voll? Well, he's the guy in some of the flavor text for some of the Uniques. Um, ok?
After that you fight Kaom. He's also in flavor text. Then Daresso. Except Daresso was mentioned by Merveil (back before Merveil's speech was changed) indirectly so this one sorta makes sense. Then you go talk to Dialla who uses eyeballs to power a laser to punch a hole into something's belly. And then she turns gross. What a turn off.
After that you go find Piety, who apparently isn't dead because lolunexplainedreasons and then you go fight three more bosses who are mentioned in flavor text. Then you fight Malachai who (presumably) kills Piety. Then he implodes and that's it.



I'm not criticizing the story for being cryptic. The Dark Souls story was cryptic and barely presented to the player. However, when you start to investigate the story and get into it, it all ties neatly together. You get a good picture of the past leading up to the present. Your actions and the actions of other characters in the story make sense. The ending of the game ties neatly together. Even when Prepare To Die was released, the additions to the story tied in perfectly with the original game.
Path of Exile's story doesn't have that. It feels like everything after Lunaris was just tacked on. So many characters and places just pop out of nowhere. There's no connection with the character, their feelings, or their motivations after this point. It's just stuff to do.

The perfect analogy really is Dragonball Z up until Frieza. Raditz came to Earth. Vegeta and Nappa came to Earth. We go to Namek to find more dragon balls. Turns out the guy who exterminated the main character's race is there too. He's a super high level bad guy and even all of the good guys combined can't break his tank. It takes the main character, Goku, to lose his best friend to finally achieve the power to beat Frieza. In doing so, he avenged his race, avenged his nemesis, fulfilled the prophecy of his people, defeated a tyrant, and (presumably) disappeared/died while doing so. It's a perfect conclusion.

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casval776 wrote:

Path of Exile's story doesn't have that. It feels like everything after Lunaris was just tacked on. So many characters and places just pop out of nowhere. There's no connection with the character, their feelings, or their motivations after this point. It's just stuff to do.

Mixed feelings about this. While I do agree about that for, let's say, Dominus, the whole Act IV was hinted in a lot of places (uniques, masters, inscriptions everywhere, NPCs, the comic, etc.). A lot of things were being expected.

I think GGG has improved over this, though. The labyrinth lore is probably the most amazing yet (although the labyrinth introduction itself could be polished).

"

casval776 wrote:

"

Antaiseito wrote:

What's the problem with the story? It's great here, nice dark and gritty, interesting characters. Love to read about the lore in-game. D3 story actually bores me personally :/

I also like the Dominus and Malachai Boss-fights (in normal, didn't finish cruel yet..).
Especially Malachai is extremely epic with all that stuff going on... you need to focus to dodge it all.

Is the size of an expansion or add-on (there's a difference?) really relevant if it's for free? :)

Allow me to nerd rage a little.

pls
some analysis of dark souls series lore
and silent hill too pls
i want to laugh once more THAT hard.