You play Self Found, Solo Only. I assume this means you have yet to actually play in a party? The incoordination in pub games is amazing, at the least. Most people run the same auras, just at different levels. Getting different auras in pug games will rely almost solely on getting different base classes or builds after the aura change.
I can also say that for the most part, most pug players will not go "oh hey, they're running Hatred, let me put on my Anger instead." People are typically more stubborn than this.
Obviously, this does not apply to high end map groups. That level or coordination should be seen as a plus though.
This change says you were never meant to stack auras without a massive investment. As it is right now, with 3 or so of the auras being a flat cost, its incredibly easy to stack them.
I know I won't change any opinions though, everyone wants their cake and to be able to eat it too.
I did try out party play with my very first toon. I made terrible skill tree decisions had crappy gear and didn't know anything about PoE game mechanics. I could not progress and got raped. So I did try party play. The thing is it was much much easier to play this way. Survivability was much higher, I could actually do content I could never solo and clear speed was much higher as well. This was the case even in a unorganized party. This is also how I found out that I get a terrible headache from the effect blitzkrieg going on in a party and decided to go back to solo self-found.
Today it probably doesn't matter what kind of auras other players have because chances are high that at least 1 or 2 players have multiple auras running and therefore the most important ones are covered anyway. This will most probably change once 1.0.0 hits. People in public parties will start coordinating auras more than today. Even if not, chances are that different players will use different auras and hence do buff each other. There is no way a solo player can do this and hence the gap between solo and party play is only increasing.
If GGG intents to create diversity with auras then please don't do this in a way that mainly hurts solo player. A much better option would be to create more auras. In this way players also have to choose. E.g a magic find aura or one that guarantees you a unique drop every x experience points? Auras that grant a chance to avoid stun, elemental status aliments? Auras that increases crit chance or crit damage? One that gives you a chance to block/doge spells? One that heals you for x% life when you would otherwise die (obviously with a long cooldown)? One that grants chaos resistance? Auras that transform incoming damage of one form into another? Aura that redirect some incoming damage to your minions or allows you to share charges with them? An aura that reduces cooldowns? One that allows you to wield two two-handers or a two-hander and a shield? Another one that increases AoE radius? What about auras that grant similar stuff as the upcoming trigger gems? A smoke-screen aura that grants a chance to blind? Auras with synergies, e.g. give a special bonus if used together with aura x but also a penalty when used together with aura y? An aura that allows you to use gems from your alternate weaponslots without actually switching?
Some of these suggestion are probably hilarious but I feel providing more auras would do more to create diversity than limiting the use of them through a massive cost increase and most importantly this would not nerf solo play. Of course even with this party players would still profit from more auras than solo players. This is not avoidable without an aura cap, maybe uniques and/or a keystone to increase the cap (same as for curses) and even then the questions which auras take precedence if the cap is reached would give a lot to discuss.
I did try out party play with my very first toon. I made terrible skill tree decisions had crappy gear and didn't know anything about PoE game mechanics. I could not progress and got raped. So I did try party play. The thing is it was much much easier to play this way. Survivability was much higher, I could actually do content I could never solo and clear speed was much higher as well. This was the case even in a unorganized party. This is also how I found out that I get a terrible headache from the effect blitzkrieg going on in a party and decided to go back to solo self-found.
This is exactly my experience with party play, although I like all the particle effects. But the divide in difficulty between solo and party play is monumental, if for nothing else than the monsters have more targets to choose from than just you. This is also what makes Spell Totem + Skels so powerful for solo play. But at this rate we'll see a nerf for that in tomorrow's announcement.
I did try out party play with my very first toon. I made terrible skill tree decisions had crappy gear and didn't know anything about PoE game mechanics. I could not progress and got raped. So I did try party play. The thing is it was much much easier to play this way. Survivability was much higher, I could actually do content I could never solo and clear speed was much higher as well. This was the case even in a unorganized party. This is also how I found out that I get a terrible headache from the effect blitzkrieg going on in a party and decided to go back to solo self-found.
Today it probably doesn't matter what kind of auras other players have because chances are high that at least 1 or 2 players have multiple auras running and therefore the most important ones are covered anyway. This will most probably change once 1.0.0 hits. People in public parties will start coordinating auras more than today. Even if not, chances are that different players will use different auras and hence do buff each other. There is no way a solo player can do this and hence the gap between solo and party play is only increasing.
If GGG intents to create diversity with auras then please don't do this in a way that mainly hurts solo player. A much better option would be to create more auras. In this way players also have to choose. E.g a magic find aura or one that guarantees you a unique drop every x experience points? Auras that grant a chance to avoid stun, elemental status aliments? Auras that increases crit chance or crit damage? One that gives you a chance to block/doge spells? One that heals you for x% life when you would otherwise die (obviously with a long cooldown)? One that grants chaos resistance? Auras that transform incoming damage of one form into another? Aura that redirect some incoming damage to your minions or allows you to share charges with them? An aura that reduces cooldowns? One that allows you to wield two two-handers or a two-hander and a shield? Another one that increases AoE radius? What about auras that grant similar stuff as the upcoming trigger gems? A smoke-screen aura that grants a chance to blind? Auras with synergies, e.g. give a special bonus if used together with aura x but also a penalty when used together with aura y? An aura that allows you to use gems from your alternate weaponslots without actually switching?
Some of these suggestion are probably hilarious but I feel providing more auras would do more to create diversity than limiting the use of them through a massive cost increase and most importantly this would not nerf solo play. Of course even with this party players would still profit from more auras than solo players. This is not avoidable without an aura cap, maybe uniques and/or a keystone to increase the cap (same as for curses) and even then the questions which auras take precedence if the cap is reached would give a lot to discuss.
Spoilered to save space.
I'm sorry to boil it down to this, but what you want to happen is still what you are complaining about. Any buff to solo, will buff party play. There is no way for the devs to win this without capping auras, which will still benefit party play more than solo.
Party play will always be ahead of solo. The main reason for this, is simply that there is no reason not to party. Before loot options, you had the chance to lose drops. That was the downside to party play, this "loot tension". Before the loot options, we had people complaining that there was no reason to party, ironically enough.
I figure this will all be sorted out eventually, how they want to make it harder for party play. Aura costs are step one, so people have to cooperate with each other.
"Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right!" Henry Ford
I did try out party play with my very first toon. I made terrible skill tree decisions had crappy gear and didn't know anything about PoE game mechanics. I could not progress and got raped. So I did try party play. The thing is it was much much easier to play this way. Survivability was much higher, I could actually do content I could never solo and clear speed was much higher as well. This was the case even in a unorganized party. This is also how I found out that I get a terrible headache from the effect blitzkrieg going on in a party and decided to go back to solo self-found.
Today it probably doesn't matter what kind of auras other players have because chances are high that at least 1 or 2 players have multiple auras running and therefore the most important ones are covered anyway. This will most probably change once 1.0.0 hits. People in public parties will start coordinating auras more than today. Even if not, chances are that different players will use different auras and hence do buff each other. There is no way a solo player can do this and hence the gap between solo and party play is only increasing.
If GGG intents to create diversity with auras then please don't do this in a way that mainly hurts solo player. A much better option would be to create more auras. In this way players also have to choose. E.g a magic find aura or one that guarantees you a unique drop every x experience points? Auras that grant a chance to avoid stun, elemental status aliments? Auras that increases crit chance or crit damage? One that gives you a chance to block/doge spells? One that heals you for x% life when you would otherwise die (obviously with a long cooldown)? One that grants chaos resistance? Auras that transform incoming damage of one form into another? Aura that redirect some incoming damage to your minions or allows you to share charges with them? An aura that reduces cooldowns? One that allows you to wield two two-handers or a two-hander and a shield? Another one that increases AoE radius? What about auras that grant similar stuff as the upcoming trigger gems? A smoke-screen aura that grants a chance to blind? Auras with synergies, e.g. give a special bonus if used together with aura x but also a penalty when used together with aura y? An aura that allows you to use gems from your alternate weaponslots without actually switching?
Some of these suggestion are probably hilarious but I feel providing more auras would do more to create diversity than limiting the use of them through a massive cost increase and most importantly this would not nerf solo play. Of course even with this party players would still profit from more auras than solo players. This is not avoidable without an aura cap, maybe uniques and/or a keystone to increase the cap (same as for curses) and even then the questions which auras take precedence if the cap is reached would give a lot to discuss.
Spoilered to save space.
I'm sorry to boil it down to this, but what you want to happen is still what you are complaining about. Any buff to solo, will buff party play. There is no way for the devs to win this without capping auras, which will still benefit party play more than solo.
Party play will always be ahead of solo. The main reason for this, is simply that there is no reason not to party. Before loot options, you had the chance to lose drops. That was the downside to party play, this "loot tension". Before the loot options, we had people complaining that there was no reason to party, ironically enough.
I figure this will all be sorted out eventually, how they want to make it harder for party play. Aura costs are step one, so people have to cooperate with each other.
You don't have to be sorry ;-)
Of course party will always be ahead of solo. That is basically what I have stated at the end of my previous post as well. I can accept and life with that. But today the gap between solo and party is already huge. This change will increase the gap further and not by a small amount. GGG stated several times here in the forums that they would like the viability of solo play to be as close to group play as possible. The aura change is doing the opposite.
I don't agree with you there are reasons not to play in a party. Technical ones like Ice Shot or Summoner builds that destroy frame rates of other party players, social ones e.g. peoples that just don't want to play with total strangers, people that like to enjoy the game at there own pace or even sanitary ones like people getting headaches form the effect blitzkrieg that is going on in party play... I'm sure there more and they are all valid.
Do you actually prefer GGG's current solution to increase build diversity over a bigger pool of auras to choose from?
We've added the ability to scale Damage over Time effects. This means that you'll have more tools available to specialise in this class of skills, but has also resulted in rebalancing of all DoT effects. Some may be weaker until augmented, which is appropriate considering skills like Poison Arrow and Viper Strike were powerful without support gems.
Are you sure about this? Poison Arrow has virtually *no* support on the passive tree *at all*, so it HAS to be really powerful all on its own. If you mean that you'll be adding DoT passive points to the tree, then okay, I see your point. But if you mean to require players to have an additional gem slot full just to use the skill, then I think you might be really damaging poison arrow as a viable build.
-VG-
Invited to Beta 2012-03-18 / Supporter since 2012-04-08
OMG THIS IS AMAZING!!! I LOVE YOU GGG!
Most impactive updates that I've ever experienced!
Makes it seem as a promising updative game for veterans in later years :P!
It's approximately 233% easier to obtain four linked sockets.
It's approximately 25% easier to obtain five linked sockets.
By obtain, does that mean find/get as rewards, craft with fusings, or both? I am wondering if I should attempt to 5-link an item now (or soon thereafter) or instead wait until the release changes. I would rather not waste fusings if it will be easier in a few days.
Light as a neutral force.
The new flesh emerges.
Last edited by Baronfuming on Oct 19, 2013, 2:41:26 AM
