3.16 is disappointing, more powercreep for the wealthy and no toning down of OP content

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Lvzb3l wrote:

What they REALLY want is to increase player retention, [Removed by Support] If they wanted better player retention they could just broaden the viable meta builds so people will build multiple characters. The best example to this is when Harvest came back after Heist...

What broaden viable meta literally means is putting more power back into base character and gems, 3.13 did same by better access to top gear but too much power being concentrated in gear in comparison to other sources I mention is a problem in itself.

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Azarhiel wrote:

I could play standard yes, but that won't change the problem.

Standard is impacted every 3 month with nerfs that destroy build and youi still have to start over...

Standard or SSF standard shoould have been frozen a long time ago in a balance state that give players with low play time per session a way to finish the game. I'm a midcore player, of course i won't be statisfied with only being able to go to yellow maps...

GGG need to make a gamemode with 3.11/3.13 balance for low time investment players per session and never touch it again. If that means not having new league features going core, let it be i don't care. I only want to be able to finish this game once before i die of game is dead by lack of player base !!

You might want to define what is a low time investment, and what is your definition of "beating the game".

It takes about 100 hours for an average player to beat Sirus, sure it's 8 hours a week over a 3 months league, not everyone can play that much. But in standard, where you get a full respect and do NOT start over, you got all the time in the world. Sirus is an evolution of the old Atlas, if you beat the Shaper and Elder, or not, take your yellow or red maps and keep going.

Btw the power creep is not a product of being wealthy. Everyone starts off broke, butt-naked on the beach, every League, all of us. The "power creep" is a matter of knowledge and work, those who put in the work, have the knowledge, organize and take risks reap better rewards. Call it life, it's not socialism.

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ChimpMagnet wrote:

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Azarhiel wrote:

I could play standard yes, but that won't change the problem.

Standard is impacted every 3 month with nerfs that destroy build and youi still have to start over...

Standard or SSF standard shoould have been frozen a long time ago in a balance state that give players with low play time per session a way to finish the game. I'm a midcore player, of course i won't be statisfied with only being able to go to yellow maps...

GGG need to make a gamemode with 3.11/3.13 balance for low time investment players per session and never touch it again. If that means not having new league features going core, let it be i don't care. I only want to be able to finish this game once before i die of game is dead by lack of player base !!

You might want to define what is a low time investment, and what is your definition of "beating the game".

It takes about 100 hours for an average player to beat Sirus, sure it's 8 hours a week over a 3 months league, not everyone can play that much. But in standard, where you get a full respect and do NOT start over, you got all the time in the world. Sirus is an evolution of the old Atlas, if you beat the Shaper and Elder, or not, take your yellow or red maps and keep going.

Btw the power creep is not a product of being wealthy. Everyone starts off broke, butt-naked on the beach, every League, all of us. The "power creep" is a matter of knowledge and work, those who put in the work, have the knowledge, organize and take risks reap better rewards. Call it life, it's not socialism.

8 hours a week over 3 months in standard would be low progress to me and would be what i qualify being low time investment in the game.

It took me 3 month playing an average of 4 hours per day to break through the T14 map wall. At the time, my build went from 190k DPS to 950K DPS. That was still not enough for me to beat Sirus. I could beat him if i could repeat the fight over and over, but having to grind hundreds of maps to get another try is a no go. That was last year.

Now, i'm waiting to see what GGG will do with endgame in 3.17. They narrowed the Atlas in 3.16, i really hope that stays that way and they give another endgame system that coexists with the Atlas.

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Bosscannon wrote:

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Lvzb3l wrote:

What they REALLY want is to increase player retention, [Removed by Support] If they wanted better player retention they could just broaden the viable meta builds so people will build multiple characters. The best example to this is when Harvest came back after Heist...

What broaden viable meta literally means is putting more power back into base character and gems, 3.13 did same by better access to top gear but too much power being concentrated in gear in comparison to other sources I mention is a problem in itself.

Not necessarily. One could also even the field between different builds. But I guess PoE has become too complicated, the development too hectic, (in multiple ways and meanings of the word), and the developers too indifferent to do that.

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ChimpMagnet wrote:

It takes about 100 hours for an average player to beat Sirus, sure it's 8 hours a week over a 3 months league, not everyone can play that much. But in standard, where you get a full respect and do NOT start over, you got all the time in the world.

Have you actually tried Standard? It used to be that you mostly didn't start over, yes. The last few leagues meant starting new, though, because they invalidated builds, either by nerfing them too hard / buffing monsters too much, or by completely breaking certain game mechanics.

Also, map conversion in Standard still isn't working. Unless you have two map tabs, or lots of free space, you are left with the option of losing lots of maps or not using your map stash tab at the moment. Standard is a very frustrating place to be right now.

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Lvzb3l wrote:

What they REALLY want is to increase player retention, [Removed by Support] If they wanted better player retention they could just broaden the viable meta builds so people will build multiple characters. The best example to this is when Harvest came back after Heist...

The funny thing is GGG seems to be making a problem when there isn't one. For example one of their core design principles is making it so that there isn't an end to progression for a single character, i.e. you could play a single character for a decade and there would always be something to improve.

This sounds great in theory if the progression is somewhat linear with not too many gatekeeping mechanics but in practice due to how difficult it is too balance PoE, what it has resulted is that a lot of builds are only kind of viable with insane currency sinks so in general for the population, majority of builds are not viable.

So the problem GGG here is solving is that they don't want people to "finish" their characters easily (this is why Harvest was nerfed/changed so hard). I would however beg the devils advocate here, that is, is this really a problem in a game where one of the main points of the game is having lots of builds with different characters?

I mean if you finish a character and you get bored, you can make a new one with a different build and if THAT isn't interesting then we kinda hit the core problem here which is that from a gameplay perspective most builds aren't that "interesting". There is an interesting part which is finding a build that can work in endgame but due to how badly balanced the gameplay is certain types of builds don't work (i.e. actual melee builds that are in melee range that need to tank). In summary all builds basically gravitate to whack-a-mole where to be successful you need to clear content on screen as fast as possible while having enough defence to survive (the best survival due to ridiculous damage/spikes is to not take damage at all).