This post is nothing but constant conflations–taking what people said and arguing things they didn’t say or weren’t even talking about.
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I’m confused why someone with a ‘twink’ build and some nice exalted gear who is ready for empowered timelines at low level can’t simply obliterate the short path through the normal monos in about two hours?
If your build can do empowered you are god-more in the normal difficulties and can simply run to the objective and complete the whole map in under 2 minutes in the majority of cases. I’ve timed it.
Are we asking that as soon as one character has cleared all the empowered monos they are then available to choose for other characters on the account? I don’t understand how saving a couple of hours for twinked builds for the best players is particularly useful (other than saving those builds about 2 hours of shooting fish in a barrel which is admittedly not exciting, but once its done its done.
Should the gaem at this stage in development be looking at situations that inconvenience the most able and experienced players a small amount? I’ve seen many more posts with people facing difficulties (this is good, we want challenges) than saying its all too easy and not fast enough.
I am actually confused about what kind of endgame experience people want for their builds, particularly for how long it should last. I want MANY hours, but I am only one type of player here.
I’m not even talking about Empowered, actually. I just want my alts to be able to go into higher leveled monos because I find limit testing in this way more fun than grinding to the very top endgame stuff. I like to try a lot of builds, not play a single build for 50+ hours. This is one of the reasons I hate the campaign in PoE–long ass run/grind to get to where the game actually starts every time I want to try something new. It sucks.
The problem with the current system is that I take a character through the overly long, no-point-in-repeating-it campaign, get to monos, and I’m stuck doing the 55 ones when I want to try 75-80 instead.
Also, if you’re speed running through them and it takes you 2 hours (not counting your campaign time), and I want to try like 30 different builds, that’s 60 hours of pointless, unfun grind. Considering the campaign is typically 6-8, this gets out of hand really quickly. It’s extremely demotivating.
This is what Shrukn didn’t seem to understand in his post. It isn’t that players don’t want to grind at all. It’s that they want the grind to be fun. Otherwise it’s like an unpaid job that has very little or no payoff.
It’s important to remember too that the loot in this game isn’t exciting. Not saying they can’t find ways to change that, but just how it is right now. It’s the combat that makes it worth playing, but not when you can just steam-roll everything near your level. This is why being able to jump ahead to where challenging enemies are is important. Doubly so due to low monster pack size!
Lately, I’ve started taking my characters to the point in the campaign where they get their mastery and just jump into the 55 monos–idols be damned–until their level is closer to the monos. From there I either resume the campaign for the idols or just make a different character. It’s the only way to find something close to what I’m looking for.
Even then, I’ve just been playing a lot less the last few days because there’s just too many things that suck and not enough things that rock. I want this game to become really good, but so far it’s really shallow and the systems in place grossly inhibit my desire to explore the deepest part of it–build variety.
Given all this, it’s weird that people think I ask for certain things in order to make the game easier. It’s just that I want to cut through the fake “choices” and be able to choose which content I engage because each build has different thresholds on how high it can go compared to its level. I can achieve this to some effect in PoE, Grim Dawn, Diablo 3, Torchlight 2, and Wolcen. Speaking of Wolcen, I’d say the endgame has a pretty similar depth as LE, only they let you push whatever difficulty you want (of those you have unlocked account wide) on your alts. If it’s too easy/hard, you are free to adjust it. I have no such option here.
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Thank you for explaining! It isn’t a style of play that interests me, but I now understand where you are coming from.
My hope for the long term success of this game (I want ten years out of it!) is that they work in support for all the playstyles as a varied and active playerbase is probably the overwhelming factor in longevity.
For the comparison with GD, its my recollection we only had the majority or twink/alt support fairly recently. When I started GD I can only remember getting reputation boosts but not much else. I’m pretty sure most designers will go pale-faced and sweaty for each suggestion that cuts down the time it takes to do content–especially when the content you have is limited. It was my recollection that XP pots for GD only came in from AoM?
In Wolcen, which has a fantastically scaling endgame system to really push hardened veterans, it only really has that system. Probably the biggest reason Wolcen doesn’t have more players is that is mostly all you have to do. Run harder and harder instances but you already capped the best gear that can drop at 161.
LE is in beta. We only have one endgame system available and it has been evolving so fast (compared to any other game development I’ve ever experienced as a player). There have been numerous threads about people with different playstyles that somehow becomes a conflict between their desires? I can’t imagine devs think like this, but we passionate players that get unreasonably angry when our Flaming Sword of Awesome gets nerfed (justifiably!).
My own personal worries (too many things will get simplified and shorted, because I personally want longer games) are specific to me, and of course will be very different to people that are differently motivated. for my mindset I’d have loved some dev references to, “hey, this change is to help hardcore players, and this one is for beginners, and this one is for racers,” that sort of thing.
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Yeah, AoM brought in exp pots, but that wasn’t even the exciting thing for me. Crucible was where I liked to start, but eventually the leveling slows so hard that I get forced into the campaign anyway. However, it was Forgotten Gods that added that challenge functionality I craved. I could start a new character, play some Crucible for awhile, jump into campaign until the 2nd or 3rd waypoint, then pop that difficulty skip token and just play on the highest difficulty. That game became incredibly more fun at that point.
Before that, though, it still had some good stuff going on. The power curve was more front-loaded, with the skill points tapering off a bit at higher levels, so it was easier to try more things across many characters. Their gestalt class system paired with the devotions made for a ton of playability, which they notably didn’t handicap with a terrible respec system.
They also had target farming in a fairly wide array of both how and what you would farm, and this was in the game very early in its life. I’m a huge fan of target farming–in addition to the regular world drops–in these kinds of games. Borderlands, Torchlight 2 (esp w/ Synergies), Diablo 2 (in small capacities), pretty much the whole genre of Monster Hunter-like games, Cyberpunk, Path of Exile, Elder Scrolls and Fallout games (generally), Warframe, Phantasy Star Online 1 & 2 + P. S. Universe… There’s just so many and it adds so much.
Anyway, like I said a some posts back. I’m not upset that the game still lacks quite a bit, given that it’s still Early Access. What worries me is that people constantly misconstrue QoL as “casualization” in a very narrow-minded way. I’m not a dev, but I imagine that if I was trying to develop a game, I’d want to streamline the UI and UX side of things as much as possible while trying to provide as much variety and depth as possible in the gameplay itself. This is definitely much easier said than done, but it’s made harder than necessary by obstructionist attitudes that can’t seem to see the forest for the trees. That’s not aimed at you in particular, btw, but just a common attitude I see frequently, especially among games with highly active development.
My biggest beefs with the game in its current state:
- Lack of autocollect. No, it doesn’t “add weight.” It adds chores for loot you’re always going to collect and which you probably don’t even look at.
- Respec sucks. No, it doesn’t make “choices matter.” It actually makes your previous choice irrelevant while removing the option to make a new choice. It’s also one of the biggest demotivators in the game on top of being overly punishing to newer players still on their first characters who haven’t reached endgame yet.
- Campaign needs meaning. I’d rather it was just open exploration with all zones scaled to your level (ideally with some way to alter this scaling for difficulty), then have the quests set up more like Chrono Trigger. Failing this, some post-campaign purpose for the zones so that players have reason to visit them.
- Monoliths aren’t account wide. This thread covers a lot of this ground already, but again, highly demotivating.
- Loot is boring. This is partly because the XCOM style crafting feels terrible to use and partly because uniques/sets are the only things that drop which have their own use right off the ground. Everything else is tied into crafting. At least give us buff pots, grenades we can hotkey, scrolls to summon pets that last until we die or leave zone, or something! Also, loot having no gold value is atrocious.
- Movement skills feel like ass. They are slow, clunky, and sometimes are more of a liability than a tactical tool–except for Shift. Shift feels fine.
Basically, this game still has a long way to go. The notion that they want to have Multiplayer out around the end of this year or starting of next is some mix of hilariously optimistic and horrifyingly foolish. I would implore the devs to ignore this as much as they are able until the rest of the game is solid. Most of the bullet points above could be resolved in a couple weeks, but a couple of those are no simple matter. I don’t see how that will be possible before next Summer.
As if my previous post wasn’t already too long…
To this point I want to say that I agree in principle. However, the things that can be simplified right now, and the ways they can be, only highlight how shallow the game currently is. To use a crude analogy, it’s kind of like a house of mirrors. It looks super impressive at first, easy to get lost and fun to explore for a little while, but when you knock down the mirrors and see the room laid bare, it’s not much to look at. It’s basically a deception, even if it not a malicious one.
I’m in favor of knocking down the mirrors so we can furnish the room properly, full of fun and interesting features so it becomes a rich and exciting place to visit.
Yeah but it seems that if someone likes current systems and dont see problems that you’re stating they are thinking wrong?
You can give your feedback and opinions like everyone else. Devs will read and they gonna make choices what they gonna do about the game.
But please dont start to state that other players opinions are bad. They are rightfully to give their feedback and own opinions about the game.
”but I think this community is doing them a wild disservice by not providing these truths in their feedback–in fact, plenty of people in the community try to silence/discredit the people who say it”
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I am totally in line with OP here.
If the endgame progression wont be shared among all my characters, I will either play only 1 character every season or stopp playing.
Only thinking about going through all the monoliths again for every new char makes me wanna xxxx especially now that the monoliths take longer in general!
You have to keep in mind that there are a lot of people playing this game who have a job and a family probably. They simply dont have the time to do that and I am sure this will be something which will keep people from playing the game.
Once more content is added to the game, people want to play what is the msot fun and most enjoyable, which is the endgame. Going through everything else for many many hours just to get there is jsut a stupid unnecessary obstacle to get there!
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This is always going to be a problem without a clear or simple solution. If you have a great game like this but there are players who want a 20 hour experience, and then to feel satisfied and completed, it is hard to give the same to players who want 100 hours before feeling complete (numbers pulled from where numbers usually are, and solely for illustration).
In a much deeper game, due enormously to the more mature development, GD has various points to finish a build. For some its killing Loggy, then they smile and roll and new wonderful crazy build to try. Others make a beeline for the huge range of different endgame sets. You can get to ‘max level and a full legendary set’ in say 20 hours (to correspond with my example). That is fun for a few hours as you try challenges appropriate to that gear level and maybe spend time tweaking it. Past this point there is a loooong chase for rare random items through targetted farming (Monster Infrequents), which can roll incredible new options for your build (but usually don’t so hence the 100 hours).
At this stage in development, for LE, can we expect to have 20 and 100 hours people both happy? Or is the game going to be initially created one way and then more options added in later on. I really would like to know how long we will play a build for. I know what I like and I know lots like the opposite.
Agreed. I’d say that’s why we need multiple endgame activities, some focused towards highly invested players and some others more casual-friendly.
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This is the sort of thing I’m talking about. You’re doing it right now. You want a shallow game with no future? Keep doing it. We’ll throw it on the Wolcen pile with the thousands of other failed indie start-ups.
It has very little to do with “opinion” and more to do with features in the game that push people away because they are pointless and arbitrary in their limitations, but hide behind excuses that sound like interesting concepts: “weight,” “choices matter,” “some things have to suck to make other things look better” (this usually when both parts suck), etc.
I’ve tried being nicer about this, but people always bring the subjectivity/opinion shit in when they don’t have anything worthwhile to add or a good point to make. I no longer care. They can get the point or they can take it personally–up to them and not my problem.
I know you’ve posted much more about this in subsequent posts, but this is the most succinct post that I could attempt to make a rebuttal.
When you are referring to making 20-30 builds that you try and test by going 20-30 levels higher, I’m assuming you’re talking about builds that somebody else already went through the effort to test and optimize and then get all the benefits of facerolling content without going through the same type of knowledge gathering that the original build-makers went through. At which point, when new people try to come in and ask what you do, the game experience rapidly comes down to “here’s the skills / combinations that actually work and the rest are trash / noob traps.” Meanwhile, the skills that are regarded as trash never get tested because who wants to test trash, anyway, and those just linger into obscurity while every else chases the new shiny thing so the 80+ hour a week streamers could entire more people to buy the game. This is also why I hated that the Ladder came on so soon even though the Monolith was in its infancy and the present skills were pitiful compared to what’s come since then.
The whole point of a beta test is to actually test things and make sure they work so that a player buying the game on release feels like he’s playing a finished product. There were bugs just fixed with the 0.8.2 patch that were around for over a year simply because nobody bothered to even look into the nodes to see if they were working properly. It’s not about “artificially extending playtime” or anything malicious; it’s about allowing people to give proper feedback about what feels right and what doesn’t.
If I were to give an order of priorities, it would be:
- Making the movement skills feel good, like you’ve mentioned in other threads.
- Updating the 2-year old alpha skills like Fury Leap or Summon Bear so that they don’t feel wildly out of place compared to more recent skills.
- Making sure that major bugs like Vines not scaling with Attunement (which was the whole point of a Vines build) are patched.
- An additional endgame method like the “Lost Memories” as listed on their website that allows you to engage with the story campaign maps at a higher level.
- Then making Monolith progression shared or at least tied through the other endgame systems (such as if you reach this point in Lost Memories, then you can access level X monolith) so that you can choose how to level from 1-100 without having to go through the same grind through multiple characters.
At that point, the skills will be fine-tuned enough that you can level with the skills you actually want with your build and you’re not forced to run a speedleveling guide because the skill only works with X Unique or after you already got the twinked gear that makes the build possible.
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I haven’t copied any builds. This game doesn’t require that. I can appreciate that this is a common behavior, but it’s an incorrect assumption.
I agree with the sentiment in a general sense, but this is why I was talking about different builds having different limitations–some of them can push 20-30 levels above current level while some are only like 10. Either way, current game doesn’t let me do this kind of testing in a very conducive way.
Again, agree in principle, but it is an artificial way to go about it. Then couple it with the trash respec system and not much testing actually gets done in any productive manner.
Mostly agree with your numbered points.
I don’t feel forced to do this because of the skills. It’s because of how repetitious and long the campaign is on top of monos not being shared.
I appreciate your reply, though. I totally get where you’re coming from with some of those points because we see that sort of thing quite widely in PoE and GD. Unfortunately, that’s more of a human nature / personality problem in some regard. I don’t think you can design around the fact that people will look up meta builds and just copy them. I think this game does enough in explaining how everything works (for the most part) that I don’t feel that need personally, but I’m not denying that others do it. I’d rather break down the obstacles to that legitimate testing of skills than maintain them (or make them worse, as some suggestions would).
I also think some changes would be good with the monolith progression, mainly how you unlock empowered monoliths. Assuming developers just don’t want us to start directly with empowered monoliths, I had 2 suggestions in mind.
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Unlocking the bridges only once per account per season/league. So if I opened the last three timelines through the Black Sun path with my first character, then I would be able to jump to Ending the Storm and then to level 90 timelines with my next char.
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A different condition to unlock the empowered timelines. I find it not that exciting to do the three level 90 timelines back to back to unlock the empowered ones. Partly because there isn’t really a difficulty / item rarity increase and partly because 2 of the 3 blessing are magic find. So it feels like I am doing an extra long timeline just so I can start with proper farming.
A solution would be to have the unlock condition to be a combination of no. of timelines finished / echoes conquered / sum of the level of the timelines. Do devs want that I have to finish a certain number of timelines / spend certain amount of time with regular monolith? Great, just let me play any of them not the same 7 every time.
Honestly, I don’t think that it will stay this way long term. If/when we get new timelines after the release, it would be just bad to play the same level 90 timelines, just to play the new content on empowered.
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This is very much what I had in mind, but your other points are good too.
Thx for all the comments.
I am now at the lev 100 Monoliths (i am lev 85 and it is easy). Still want to try another char, but doing it all again is just to much.
I hope the devs will say something about the topic.
I also want to say, the new monolith sysetm is much better then before : )
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I too will agree that seeing all the monoliths grayed out with my second char leaves a bad taste, it feels far too grindy and needless.
At least make the monoliths discovered and runnable, so i don’t have to progress them from easiest to hardest, let me jump into higher ones if i so wish.
This feels like having to run your lab trials with every char in poe separatelly, oh wait you don’t… Just have us open monoliths once and thats that. I know i’ll at some point have to run the easiest one for the blessing, but at least let me choose when i do it, sometimes my build is strong and i can’t wait to pit it against harder content, sometimes i need a slow start, but let me decide that.
I love testing out builds and seeing them grow, but if i have to grind everything from scratch in a linear pre-detirmined way, even though i did it a few times previously, every single time i try out a new build… it really impacts my moral to play and tryout new stuff.
The rerunning monoliths for the right blessing is already tedious enough and i hope it gets a slight boost
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