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

"

wiggin wrote:

"

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?

In any aRPG you need damage though. That's part of a game, you need DPS and skill. The Izaro fight is actually a perfect example of that, of which highlights your skillfulness in evading / dodging and DPS.

ProjectPT's old essence drain character did end-game content just fine. And his mobility was the worst I have ever seen (not even that high dps).

"

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".

If your damage is low, that sounds like a personal problem. Invest time and effort into your character. You guys are just grasping at straws because you have to complain about something. That's why this thread is so depressing.

Sure, you may have a point about Izaro requires a minimum xx amount of damage to kill before the fight becomes "unfair" and it becomes harder. However, that's a character problem not a game design one. Both distinctively different


It's not about "i don't do enough damage" it's about "How much time and effort should I invest to build a character capable of doing this"


This type of system is rooted into the core of the aRPG genre for crying out loud. You guys know better, come on.

"

monkuar wrote:

It's not about "i don't do enough damage" it's about "How much time and effort should I invest to build a character capable of doing this"

Take your pick
1 day with character A
2 days with character B
A week with character C
A month with character D
Never with the rest of the alphabet

The main complaint here is that A and B require too little time, not that D requires too much or that all should require the same. And I'm not even arguing the 'Never' part, it should exist too or you can't really 'lose' the game.

"

raics wrote:

"

monkuar wrote:

It's not about "i don't do enough damage" it's about "How much time and effort should I invest to build a character capable of doing this"

Take your pick
1 day with character A
2 days with character B
A week with character C
A month with character D
Never with the rest of the alphabet

The main complaint here is that A and B require too little time, not that D requires too much or that all should require the same. And I'm not even arguing the 'Never' part, it should exist too or you can't really 'lose' the game.

Every single league I played it was character B. Takes a couple days of playing the game religiously to reach end-game maps and start having a blast. Then maybe several more to indulge into "end-game bosses" (atziri, izaro, or whatever) -- so what's the problem again?


Oh right, it's the character.

"

monkuar wrote:

Every single league I played it was character B.

This.

Characters A and B shouldn't exist.

...and is something bad with B?

I am different though, I suspect other people may be quicker or slower to reach that level based on their game knowledge / skills / build / etc. Everyone is different

"

monkuar wrote:

...and is something bad with B?

Of course there is, the option to play A and B exists so I need to resist it to have any fun with 95% of the game and then I feel like an idiot for not playing it because 5% of the game is tuned to give a sliver of challenge for builds that can trivialize it. There, spelled it out, the build gap is too high and the content gap is too high.

Of course, take 'I', as 'me, the generic PoE player', I personally don't really mind too much not being able to do 5% of the content with a build that looks the most interesting at the moment.

"

raics wrote:

"

monkuar wrote:

...and is something bad with B?

Of course there is, the option to play A and B exists so I need to resist it to have any fun with 95% of the game and then I feel like an idiot for not playing it because 5% of the game is tuned to give a sliver of challenge for builds that can trivialize it. There, spelled it out, the build gap is too high and the content gap is too high.

Of course, take 'I', as 'me, the generic PoE player', I personally don't really mind too much not being able to do 5% of the content with a build that looks the most interesting at the moment.

But by who's standards of which you cannot play because of A and B? You can most certainly play.

If you are doing a build that takes a while to get going, again, that's your choice. It's not a game issue. Certain skills in this game blow, certain skills are fun and op. We have to play by their rules as we are not the developers. We are not entitled for every skill to work how we want it, or boss fights to flourish to our needs. We have to adapt to their needs, the game.

"

monkuar wrote:

In any aRPG you need damage though. That's part of a game, you need DPS and skill. The Izaro fight is actually a perfect example of that, of which highlights your skillfulness in evading / dodging and DPS.

ProjectPT's old essence drain character did end-game content just fine. And his mobility was the worst I have ever seen (not even that high dps).

"

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".

If your damage is low, that sounds like a personal problem. Invest time and effort into your character. You guys are just grasping at straws because you have to complain about something. That's why this thread is so depressing.

Sure, you may have a point about Izaro requires a minimum xx amount of damage to kill before the fight becomes "unfair" and it becomes harder. However, that's a character problem not a game design one. Both distinctively different


It's not about "i don't do enough damage" it's about "How much time and effort should I invest to build a character capable of doing this"


This type of system is rooted into the core of the aRPG genre for crying out loud. You guys know better, come on.

But you are completely missing the point and suggest that I am just whining because my character didn't kill Izaro. Come on.
I am simply pointing out that certain approach in character creation would result in that situation. This approach was valid before but is not anymore. The design has changed. It is not a "problem" per se, it is just the way it is and some people may like it more and some people may have liked the earlier way better. And yes, in the end it can be about "I don't do enough damage".

It is also worth considering that it is not the genre that defines the games, it is the games that define the genre. Argumenet about anything being rooted into certain genre is invalid. The game creators can copy things that are awesome in their eyes from all the other arpgs but can discard ideas that are lame (like buying stacks of health flasks with gold in town).

"

monkuar wrote:

We have to play by their rules as we are not the developers.

And I'm not arguing that, of course you should be at a certain disadvantage if you aren't doing exactly what the game says you should. The point of complaint is it shouldn't be by quite this much.

When I say that netflix builds shouldn't exist, that's not absolute. Of course they should exist if your goal is to draw in a netflix player and that's why the opening post claims the game moved away from the roguelike roots of the genre into Crimsonland, Ion Cannon - Ion Master - MFW -> Win.

Who knows, maybe it's just the natural evolution of the genre as a whole going on within the scope of one game, but if that's the case you can't expect to keep around those that don't enjoy it.

Unfortunately i have to agree with the OP. Damage is everything, and with the latest league they are even forcing you to follow this path.

Im very disappointed with the Breach league. If you dont have a certain clear speed you are not able to clear the content. You are denied. Your build, your playstyle, everything is denied. If you meet the DPS/clearspeed requiement you are free to enjoy the content.

No, this is not a gear check. This is META check.

When i failed to clear chayula or uul-netol breach in time (breach lords domain) i was very sad. Not because of the failure. It was because it reminded me of a game i was very angry about. As you guessed, it is D3. It felt like i was running a Greater Rift run. After reaching this conclusion i could not free my mind from these thoughts.

"

Get it or never get to try the highest of the content. Defences ? Nah, you can wear 3 uniques with no life and abyssus and do t15 and t16 because you kill everything before it can react. You dont have dps? Unfortunate, you are gonna struggle and die far more often.

Building a good defense and have moderate damage is not an option anymore. And with the armor/block/evasion nerf (map mods) it seems like GGG is supporting the all around damage meta.

When we talk about defence it became a common sense, that defence consist of a high enough life or ES pool to not get oneshotted. Everything else is handled by vaal pact and your insane damage. This is what pepole call "defense" nowdays.

Which leads me to the same conclusion the OP mentioned.

"

At this point you could as well play D3 to also see those big numbers.