Path of Exile or Path of progressively one-dimensional playstyle? A history lesson

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Bars wrote:

I'm not sure if it's avoidable in an ARPG which gets quarterly expansion packs. GGG are trying to keep the game fresh and afloat and that's now they are doing it - perhaps there might be another solution and their methods might not be the best but hey, it works for them and we aren't the owners of a successful game studio, are we? What do we know?

It's very hard to avoid in a game where gear grind is a major supporting pillar. To be interesting, the expansion has to offer new challenges to strive for. If the new bosses are only equal to the old bosses, they will be quickly defeated and players will be bored again. To feel rewarding, the expansion has to offer some way to advance your character to even higher power levels. And thus powercreep is born.

If PoE's boss battles were more mechanical in nature, there might be some room for adding challenge laterally. With the massive outcry about the Labyrinth and its traps though, I don't think that's what PoE's community wants. Exclusive cosmetic trophies work well as rewards for many players without adding power creep, but I have a feeling GGG would rather keep those in the microtransaction territory.

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databeaver wrote:

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raics wrote:

But I'm not an unreasonable man and I don't think OP is either, I'd settle for apparent balance, way better in my book than glaring imbalance.

PoE is a very complex game. What should be the balancing target? If GGG balances 6L setups with the best possible uniques, very few players are going to achieve that and most will cry that they are underpowered and can't kill stuff. If they balance for 5L setups with good rares, there will be players running around in 6L setups and OP uniques one-shotting everything.

Of course not, the target should be 'a 6L skill on a good build should offer similar performance to other skills'. Which doesn't mean all should deal similar damage or kill bosses equally fast, if a skill has excellent coverage it should do lower damage per hit, if the skill has both it should be hard to use. The standard point system, give the skill 30 points and distribute it over its attributes, as it is we have skills with excellent damage, coverage and boss killing potential that are also easy to use while others suck at everything.

A good example of a balanced skill is Animate Weapon, very powerful but also very fiddly. A damage spell like Glacial Cascade is also well balanced but Bladefall or Flame surge aren't, the former has pretty much everything and the latter does very good damage but has bad coverage and very high mana cost per second, the bad outweights the good.

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raics wrote:

A good example of a balanced skill is Animate Weapon, very powerful but also very fiddly. A damage spell like Glacial Cascade is also well balanced but Bladefall or Flame surge aren't, the former has pretty much everything and the latter does very good damage but has bad coverage and very high mana cost per second, the bad outweights the good.

Without knowing it you also highlighted another problematic area in the game that i forgot to talk about in the op. See what skills you mentioned, and realise that no even one of those are melee. It probably completly random that you didnt but its an excellent intro for what i want to say.

This damage meta is also a part of the reason why melee sucks compared to the other two "archetypes" spell users and ranged weapon users. What do melee need to be viable? Absolutely as high as possible EHP, damage, and some form of aoe, in a lesser extent some form of mobility/ms is also very useful.
If you people take into consideration what i said before you can easily see another reason melee as the game is now will never be comparable to ranged/spellcasters. They simply need DAMAGE to try and clear faster/die less, but the EHP is mandatory to them cause they are ALWAYS in danger, where the other two
"archetypes" simply have the range/aoe to stay safe from different thing. Melee are torn between those different approaches to the game, and they are those who suffer the most from changes to the game like the ones i mentioned.

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raics wrote:

Of course not, the target should be 'a 6L skill on a good build should offer similar performance to other skills'. Which doesn't mean all should deal similar damage or kill bosses equally fast, if a skill has excellent coverage it should do lower damage per hit, if the skill has both it should be hard to use. The standard point system, give the skill 30 points and distribute it over its attributes, as it is we have skills with excellent damage, coverage and boss killing potential that are also easy to use while others suck at everything.

Ive analyzed this in another thread. Basically there are skills than need ZERO investment and are super effective, while others need half your points to be even fun to play with or "just enough". Mostly newer support gems make this problem even bigger, like pierce for example, even now with 19% more damage at lvl 20 its still uneeded to the support. Or Controlled destruction for another example that even Crit builds use simply because the downside is irrelevant. And then you see other support or mechanics like knockback and endurance charge on melee stun, that are soooo fucking specific or so clunky to use that havent received any love since the beggining.

To understand it better, look at fortify and look at endurance charge on melee stun. Both are mainly used for defensive purposes. The first is literally used by anyone except bow/wand users. The other is so specific and needs to be build with that in mind that you spent 1/4 of your points just to see some result which is by far inferior to fortify's effect.

Another example is Spark, before the projectile buff, spark needed : projectile speed, duration, cast speed, fork/pierce and GMP.
After the projectile buff spark needed pierce and DAMAGE, literally as minimal of an investment as possible compared to before.
The skill might have been gutted since then, but its an example how GGG promotes simply going for damage.

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Regulator wrote:

Yes i know the playstyle existed in 2013 i was playing it. Thats why i wrote this thread, this playstyle is obsolete now and started to be after forsaken and mainly after the awakening, due to many additions and decisions. And im citing many reason why this keeps happening.

Coincidence that the xbox development started near that time? The go full damage path is a playstyle that resembles platforms or old arcade games (contra, metal slug etc), avoiding traps that ignore your defences is too an arcade in nature, are they sure over there at GGG HQ that xbox development havent affected their choices and ideas? Incredible actually if you put some thought on it.

Go play Final Fantasy 7 on Steam. Or you will rue your life.

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raics wrote:

Gotta say it's a good post, worth the time.

Unfortunately, don't expect a discussion. Those that agree with you already stated so on many occasions, are equally disappointed and more than a little tired. Those that don't will just say 'fuck you, play slower' without grasping the core of the problem.

Agree, and good post from Regulator also.

But the point of no return has been reached long ago imho, unfortunately ....
And another one has been reached with the recent Xbox anouncement.

Having so many people going for cheesing the content to avoid actually dealing with new mechanics is digusting, it's terrible.

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databeaver wrote:

It's all about DPS if you make it all about DPS. I can see how four years of playing has gotten you to the point where you are now; there hasn't been that much new content and after playing the same content over and over it's only natural to want to be done with it as quickly as possible. It's impossible for any developer to create new content as fast as players can consume it. At the same time, as someone who has only actively played the game for half a year, I still find it incredibly deep and complex. Since March this year I've played five different builds, some more successful than others, and I still have several more I'd like to try.

It's a little part of it, the crazy power creep is the main culprit, and it's not going to stop imho.

Agreed on pretty much all points.

It feels like the game had a lot more viable builds in the past, a lot more potential for creativity.
However, that's just how things are; Powercreep for the sake of keeping the players attention. It's a F2P game.
I'm basically just hoping we'll get another one like it in the future, and I'll again be able to enjoy the first year or two of it.

This thread is depressing really. So much misinformation being thrown around and so much stuff I disagree with.

How can PoE be losing its "aRPG" spirit when Breach was a record breaking league? The league still has an immense amount of fun left in it and this is the only league I am still playing after a month or so in. I'm not alone either. My friends list from 2012 is full, our guild is active and the economy is thriving.

Also, the power creep argument is bologna.


No one is forcing you to play a baked chicken offspring build where you shield charge with 123213% movement speed and one shot the entire map.

If you gear up to do that, you should be able to. That's the entire point of an aRPG is to play how you want to and experience the game at your own pace / veracity.

In my opinion, that's what makes this game so great. Every week or so since 2012 on the POE reddit/forum you will see hipster builds popping out of no where. And it still happens today.

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monkuar wrote:

No one is forcing you to play a baked chicken offspring build where you shield charge with 123213% movement speed and one shot the entire map.

If you gear up to do that, you should be able to. That's the entire point of an aRPG is to play how you want to and experience the game at your own pace / veracity.

But I think that is the problem, you cannot really experience the game if you do not go for damage. Breach just highlighted the problem, but there are other fights where being super tanky with low damage will be extremely gimping you, like Izaro fight - if your damage is low and he gains all the buffs, your tankiness goes out of the window (and if your damage is that low, he will eventually one shot you). However if you place a fully charged flameblast on him, he will burn down in 2s and will not be able to touch you. I am not saying this is 100% wrong way, I love labyrinth and Izaro fights, but saying that you can make a tank and outlast your enemy is pure wrong, you can not, or definitely not for reasonably similar investment as the damage way requires. You can't "play how you want to and experience the game at your own pace".

And come on, power creep... Everything hits harder and harder, players, monsters, bosses. I remember where the one boss one-shotting us was Vaal with his fire/phys hammer slam and people were crying about evasion being useless in that fight. How many more one-shotty shit we got since then?

Let me just address two faulty arguments:

1.) "Game/Company is doing financially well, numbers are great, therefore the game is great".

-> two words: Diablo 3

2.) "No one is forcing you..."

-> It's the game's task to challenge you, not your task to gimp yourself. People will always play at the optimal level. If you can choose from four skills: crap, crap, crap and awesome, you'll pick the latter. Esp. because you are forced to by the "economee" & the game being balanced around it.