@vapourfire , as usual has pretty much expressed most of my concern as to how LE seems to be progressing now as opposed to all of the reasons I started playing it.
Dungeons are a great example, but for me at least, the worrying trend is RNG and the reliance upon it. Sadly to say, this brings me once again to one of the major reasons I quit PoE, their insane reliance on RNG for everything. Indeed, I used to call it Path of RNG over in their reddit & forums.
LE did well with an exodus of players from PoE and other similar Aprg’s to start off the playerbase here. However, as time goes on, it seems that they have somehow lost perspective on WHY people came here from other “places”. I personally can take a little RNG in my games, but there’s a tipping point for me. When things become far less deterministic and more entirely “luck based” then the game goes from something I grind to achieve to something I loathe (often citing bad luck).
I made many people angry with my comments on the new crafting system when it came in. My major complaint then was the increasing creep of RNG x RNG x RNG etc. I stated that I was concerned about the direction LE were taking, and as to how similar it was to the initial and progressive mistakes PoE made which drove me to quit and come here.
Now, the dungeon “systems” also have increasing elements of RNGxRNGxRNG as eloquently demonstrated by my friend Vapour. So, the two most recent innovations in LE are largely far more dependant on RNG than previous systems. Yet again, I will make myself unpopular by saying that I still think that relying on layers of RNG is simply a lazy and fast approach to introducing new elements to a game. I really do not like it one little bit. Vapour’s example above of trying to approach Temporal Sanctum in a deterministic approach is a great one.
The more experienced, as players, we become the greater our ability to play the game becomes. We then value our time far more and look to increase our gear quality with DETERMINISTIC methods of crafting/rolling/melding. When you are “fine tuning” a character using the Temporal Sanctum example above and looking to make a legendary you can use, you have already spent many many hours grinding to get the base unique with enough LP & farming/tweaking the perfect exalted base to add to it. You’ve already done many layers of RNG in those 2 processes just to get your “base materials”. To then have to do a Boss battle that has lazy one shots and a large level of RNG only to get to a forge that yet again relies on RNG to decide which suffixes you get to keep just feels like a massive slap in the face to me. By the time I’ve reached this final forging process, I’ve already got sick to the hind teeth of RNG elements, now after sometimes thousands of hours of play/grind I have to face yet more of it? It’s wrong. Sorry, but just plain wrong.
To grind a unique with 3+LP takes many many hours and huge amounts of RNG luck. To find a great exalt base with exactly what you are starting to look for in the T6/T7 takes many many hours. Then we get to face the RNG in the crafting system to make a base with 4 suffixes we can live with. Why? Because getting the Unique takes so long we don’t want to waste it using an exalt with only 3/4 good suffixes, obviously.
I could go on, but you get my point.
MY first few hundred hours playing LE were fantastic. I felt as though I could actually make what I wanted to, play how I wanted to, make builds I wanted to play with, and play with a style I wanted to. The mono system was great for allowing me to push my limits as my character survived. I felt I could do all of this mostly with a deterministic approach and a dash of RNG.
Then after the crafting changes, making END GAME gear became more of a frustration for me as a min/maxer.
Then the first terrible dungeon boss fight arrived, and then more RNG was thrown in with the forge.
Then yet more terrible dungeon boss fights arrived (I posted elsewhere why I think this), more RNG chucked in.
A large amount of my “good faith” built up initially by LE is starting to drain away, as I see remarkable similarities in approach creeping in to what happened to PoE.
I find it inexplicable as to how such a shift in approach can have crept into the game development here. I had, and still have, a ton of faith in the initial dev team with all they initially brought us. However, it is starting to feel as though a ton of ex-GGG employees have been taken on in those roles. I really hope I am wrong. This veering towards more and more multiplicative factors of RNG and lazy one shot mechanics is eerily familiar. The difference that I do hope the team here is aware of is a large one though, over there I was morally committed to a cause after years of play. As much as I love it here, I am far less morally invested due to time as I was there. It would take far less to jump of a sinking ship here than it did there.
So, once again, I plead with the powers that be. Look at your overall direction, learn from what brought you your initial player influx, and do not repeat those same mistakes. Bring back more deterministic approaches for us min/maxers who are not “noobs”. You can still leave in systems for newer players to the game, but please remember that a large portion of your player base are going to be experienced players who like to min/max and not run around subject to the gods of RNG (for noobs).
Sorry once again for a massive wall of text. I think as I type, and the more I type, the more thoughts become clearer.
may i ask how much u play each session? You only can have 0 drops when you level your chars until you can select your mastery. In monolith you get so many keys. They drop alot once you reach a certain zone level.
i mean i can only talk for myself and what i heard from friends/watched on stream. They drop alot.