How do people enjoy Cycles/Seasons?

General
21

That is because people would rather get to endgame fast rather than watch their build grow. But I would rather start the build as soon as possible, even if it’s ineffective.
Even if the campaign takes 30h instead of 10h. Even if I die 100 times instead of 1.

I would rather start playing the build I want as soon as I can and then watch it slowly become more functional, then to just run something else and then respec.
When I try that (like I did with Absolution this league) what happens is that I get bored with it and give up on it (left it on act 6 and won’t be playing it again).

So nothing really funcional actually changes. You get more mana/mana regen, or more damage, clear speed, whatever. But you can still play the same build at an earlier level, even if you can only cast whatever 2 times and then have to wait 20s to regen mana.
So whenever I can, I will start the build as soon as possible. Much like, if I do decide to try his mage build, I will try it as soon as the gem allows.
Because that is what I most love about these games. Starting a build as soon as possible and watch it grow from gruesome to awesome.

22

I’ll provide a counter-example of a build which I’m actively working on since I find it really nice, Ghazzy’s mage-skeleton necro:

This build uses the Summon Skeletons of Mages gem in order to summon skeleton mages. It absolutely does not in any way, shape or form function without this item. While the build delivers a very reasonable effect for investment, and a fun playstyle, it does not work in low budget.
You will, as a result, have to play something else at the start of the league and transition into this as you acquire the necessary gear to do so. More on this later, but I feel this needs to be mentioned as early as possible to respect your time.

He is the best minion build maker in the game. So when he says ‘it won’t work in low budget’ then it won’t work in low budget.

This aligns with many other builds. Can’t make a CI based char without high investment. Can’t make a ES build otherwise without at leats a shavronne, only a hybrid build.
All of those are not starter friendly because you literally can’t survive even the damn campaign.

This is just factually wrong.
Sorry to say, but no.

You could at the same time say ‘the skill changes provide nothing else then a change in area, damage or use-speed’ and it would uphold as well in LE.

It’s a nothing-burger argument.

It’s fine that you want to start a build as early as possible, and a great thing… but that has nothing to do with the existence or non-existence of those mandatory builds at all.
They do exist in both games and that’s neither positive nor negative, it’s another style of keepign engagement long-term and a form of progression. Some love it, some hate it, but having or not having it does not inherently make your game better/worse, just a different audience.

23

While I do agree there are exceptions, as Heavy even admits, the general trend for LE builds is “you’re basically playing it by lv 30-50” even if it’s not quite there for some.

For example, my Burning Daggers Marksman has Cinder Strike, Acid Flask, and Explosive Trap specialized. I’m still missing Detonating Arrow (for E.Trap synergy) and Heartseeker (for more Burning Daggers and the buff). But the core gameplay is “spam cinder strike for oil coating and burning daggers, throwing traps and heartseeker on CD/as needed”. Two uniques I need/want are the burning daggers relic and the “auto heartseeker as a throw skill” helmet, dragonsong would be nice but isn’t a requirement.

I also don’t have the “throw multiple traps” node yet or the “convert to a bow skill” node for E.Trap, but the core playstyle is already there with Burning Daggers buffed by Oil Coating doing the significant majority of my damage. I’ll just be adding one (two before the helmet) skills to my “rotation” once I level up some more). So you could say I’m already playing my build at lv 22. Same with my Multistrike Smite Paladin even though I’m missing Judgement for Aura and Holy Symbols for the Divine Flare node. I have Multistrike, I have Smite, and I have Holy Aura aside from setting Holy Symbol and Holy Aura to autocast on CD and pressing Judgement, my playstyle of “Hold Right Click and watch smites rain down” is set at lv 22.

But, then you have my Runemaster who’s using a transitional build that’s fairly different from the end product as I work towards Runebolts. The gameplay is the same of “spam for runes, consume with invocation” but eventually it’s random invocations and Invocation itself is solely for refreshing Glyph charges.

1 Like
24

That will depend on what your definition of “it won’t work” is. If your definition is “can you farm maps comfortably with it?”, then he’s probably right.
If your definition is simply “can you eventually kill things with it even if it takes 5 minutes to kill a trash mob?” then I am.

It all has to do with your commitment to watching your build grow. And mine is very big.

CI, low life, health/es, has nothing to do with your build. If you have a flame totem build, it doesn’t change because you have 1 life or 10k life and 50k ES.
Those are build variants, not different builds. And there is no build that requires CI to work.

It doesn’t, though. It’s very different, for example, to have a cooldown wandering spirits or a channeling one. That is not just a “area, damage or speed” boost.
It is very different having moving wraiths or stationary ones.
It is very different having upheaval as a melee skill or a totem one (much like it also is different in PoE).
It is very different having to aim your fireballs or letting them heatseek.

All of those things change the way you play with them. When and how you cast the skill.
For example, with regular fireball you’ll likely come upon packs and try to aim them while spamming the skill.
But with heat seeker fireballs you will likely walk a bit, fire up one fireball ahead, walk some more, fire another, etc. And when meeting a pack you possibly don’t stop but keep stutter walk/cast in their direction.
Much like casting manually or with a totem is a completely different playstyle.

However, simply having “more/less projectiles”, “more/less attack speed” or “more/less damage” doesn’t change how use the skill.

25

It feels like utter dog-shit, can’t even reliably do campaign and will take 15 minutes per map in the most atrocious way play-style was you can imagine.
Not to speak that any reliably speedy rare will kill you without fail, and not talking about messy broken combinations that rarely happen.

Which you know as well as everyone else that it’s not a reliable metric to go by. Stay within the confines of reason at least.
I know you like to make an example of things and play devil’s advocate (as I do) but things have to stay in a reasonable range even then.

99,999% of people won’t have thet commitment, so it’s not reliable to speak about it being feasable. We’re not talking about the ‘magicians’ of effort here, which like the ‘magicians’ of skill are so utter out of scale that you can’t make examples out of em anyway. I fall into that category with crafting dedication, I’m working since 3 leagues in poE on a single item since it keeps failing - with side projects to not burn me out but still - and used 550 divines for it by now. That is not something likely anyone else reading this forum here would even do, especially not with my playstyle that produces around 20 divines in 8 hours despite absolute top-end content being run, since I need extremely regular breaks to do random useless crap or burn out.

Tell me again if your EHp are below 1k and hence a white mob is a one-shot enemy. Since avoidance of 100% of attacks in PoE was never and will never be a feasable condition it means you’ll loose all 6 portals regularly, which is not a viable outcome.

In LE the same, if you run around with 500 HP as a armor build and no ward then you won’t need to be surprised when you get bitch-slapped.
Is a 500 HP build in LE viable by your definition? If so then I’ll stop the argument right after your answer because it’s not worthwhile to even discuss.

I’ve said it already, I’m no ABomb… but you’re showcasing the opposite extreme, which makes it the same. Don’t be an ABomb…
Stay within reason.

Soul Drinker notable Ascendancy point from Trickster does - with few exceptions - solely play into CI.

Not doing that - with few exceptions - is like you being limbless and saying ‘I will run that marathon!’ and then pushing yourself forward with your chin the whole way. Commendable… but not viable.

Use-speed.

Area.

Also Area.

Also Area, since they have a turn-rate.

So they do in PoE.

When your skill is always up versus every 10 seconds once for 5 seconds then yes, that inherently does the exact same. You can’t aim at the center since your minions won’t be invulnerable, so you gotta position them behind. You can’t stay still since you can’t allow aggro to get to your minions so they keep sustaining damage.

What’s the difference again?
Your example is really really flawed sadly. I know what you wanna get at… but you would be surprised how little is needed to change perception extremely and inherently.

26

That still has nothing to do with your build being online or not. Just it being well or poorly equipped. Deciding to play CI/LL/ES doesn’t change the way you play the build. And, other than CI because it’s a special case and requires a unique to work, any of the other two can produce either high or low eHP depending on your investment.

Soul drinker is not a build.
That is like saying that Boar Heart (beastmaster passive) is a build.

No, totally different thing. Being channeled means that you cast more for longer, but also that you’re stationary and thus vulnerable to attacks. It changes the way you play the game.

I feel like you’re being obtuse on purpose now. It’s completely different to go up to a pack and cast a melee skill 20 times in a row than it is to place a totem that casts your melee skill 20 times in a row while you run around waiting for it to kill things.

Otherwise you can just say that there is only 1 build and all that changes is “damage”. Playing lightning bolt? Some damage. Playing Judgement? More damage. Playing Acid Flask? Less damage. But they’re all the same build.

Skill transformations in PoE are very limited compared to LE. Surely even you have to agree with that. You can basically use the skill, make it a totem, trap or mine.
Other than that, you mostly just add projectiles, damage, speed, etc.

There is no way to turn a skill into a channeled skill, for example. Or the reverse. There is no way to make it seek targets. Or orbit you. There is no way to make a damage or minion skill become also a movement skill.
All these things change how you play with that skill drastically in a way that they’re effectively separate builds entirely because the skill behaves completely different.

What are you talking about? What minions?
I’m talking about fireball with you having to aim or it searching the target. I play each very differently.
If I have to aim, I won’t be casting it all the time, I’ll just cast it when I see a pack and I cast it aiming at them.
If the skill seeks targets, then I’m constantly casting the skill ahead of me because it will often seek targets I’m not even seeing.

So with the first one I run, meet a pack, spam fireball.
With the second one I run a bit, cast a fireball ahead of me without aiming, run a bit more, cast another one, etc.
It stops being a “run until you spam and everything dies” and becomes a “periodically shoot ahead while you move”.

Much like upheaval stops being a “run to a pack and spam upheaval” and becomes a "drop a totem and run around (or ahead, or behind) until everything dies. And this is both true in LE and PoE.

27

If your use-speed is high enough and there’s animation lock then that means you can’t move during usage, hence similar to channeling.

Hence use-speed.

Simplest denominator, not obstuse.

And yes, you’re right, the totem is a combination of use-speed and AoE, because you reduce your use-speed for the same effect which frees up mobility at the cost of it potentially being ‘killed’ by enemies as well as being forced in position.

Forced in position is Area, One-time use is use-speed, repetition is also use-speed.

Most common denominator. Important for game-design to cull down effects into simplistic terms by the way. Allows proper systemic build-up.

No, I’m saying that the combination of use-speed, damage and Area make up for the majority of aspects which define a built.

We can discern between static area (hitting the ground with a slam for example is a static Area) versus a vectorized Area, be it seeking or fixed in vector. A fixed vector would be a circling hammer throw since it moves but stays in position. A seeking vector is seeking fireball as well as things staying with you, hence seeking your position. Obviously if the fixed point is coming from the skill itself - fireball moving based on where it is at any time combined based on the target - versus orbs circling you being fixed on you. But that’s solely the fix-point decision.

We get more complex from the most fundamental aspects of design, and most things are very fundamental, even humans are. The combination of those few core points make the variety though.

Really? Lemme see the jewels again for a moment, just the list.
Unending hunger changes your spectres into soul eater mobs which changes playstyle drastically.
Witchbane causes active hex builds to be curse immune and hence allow self-curse setups which are triggered, which changes the curse skills fundamentally.
Primordeal Harmony encorces a ‘rainbow build’ of Golems rather then singular focus, which changes playstyle too as each golem has a different playstyle.
Primordial Might makes Golems a re-summon play-style since they are commonly meant to stay.
Fortress Covenant makes it so you can force your minions to take extra damage for causing explosion on death, popcorn built.
Combat Focus changes Prismatic skill from triple-ele down to single-ele to change them into DoT builds or CC builds.
Ancient Waystones changes Aura-skills to cust 60% less when they summon totems, making several builds possible only because of that.

And so on and so forth.
While not directly affecting a distinct skill those effects to affect the playstyle made possible. As said, skeleton mages which are invulnerable play kinda different from skeleton mages which are not for example.
Can you agree on that?
If not then your own examples aren’t worthwhile either, because a foreball seeking or not seeking is still a fireball, right?

My skeleton mage example. PoE.
If you can’t accept that one as being a playstyle difference - which a myriad of other examples exist - then I don’t need to accept your fireball example either, because both are equivalent in playstyle change.

28

Sure. But to circle back to the original point, you can make a beeline for it and have the build functional before act 6. The rest of the stuff mentioned is either for more damage or for extra minion defenses (for some reason, aren’t they undamageable?).

Everything else you named are also jewels you can get early on.

So I still don’t see any case of a build not being able to be online by the end of act 5.

29

Because the passive needed to make it happen only drops through fractured fossils in Maps for example.
And the ilvl needed for it to even drop is 68.

This is not the only place where this happens. Many builds only are able to come ‘online’ with very distinct pieces of equipment that change the playstyle fundamentally.

Because you can’t tell me that a saviour build of any skill will feel the same as a non-saviour build. They are fundamentally different in playstyle and allows engaging on a distance for close-range skills for example, hence allowing to avoid building into AoE through the clones created.

In PoE the build changes are not based on skill conversions through specific unique pieces but through auxiliary mechanics which cause them.

The same goes for block CI builds, for example the item ‘Aegis Aurora’ makes it so you recover ES based on your armour, which allows for example to do a uber-block build that recovers more ES then commonly removed, which substantially changes the build, no matter which specific main core skill you use.
But… and that’s the important part… several builds only come ‘online’ through the usage of a specific shield Affix which is mandatory. We can for example not do this with a melee build with extremely low dexterity and no accuracy modifiers but based on crit. Why? Because we would miss and this causes you to die in close quarter because of the leech/regain mechanics commonly used in that case. So you use a Lycosidae for example to circumvent that and change the playstyle.
Redblade Banner for example allows the pure focus on Warcry skills, as a main damage mechanic rather then the focus on the skill itself. It’s a diference to trigger the warcry outside a pack or to ensure you jump into the middle for max effect and scaling. Necessitates quite a different playstyle.
Or Svalinn, which trigers spells on attacks, causing you to make a retaliation build based on Ward for example, which is a completely different style from ES recivery or even instant life leech, you need to engage and disengage based on ward since it only sinks unless you allow it to snap back to full. There is no regeneration for that.

Every slot has a few distinct items which cause that, some more prominent, others just a stat-stick.

Also the difference is between ‘can’ and ‘will’. You can be lucky and get a Lycosidae at level 11, hurray! I saw the last one on my speed farmer around 250 maps ago, extremely juiced Harbinger maps and quite juiced unique drop-based exile maps.
So simply unrealistic. Hence not a ‘starter build’. You don’t go into the game expecting to have a Lycosidae based build anything else then feeling utterly trash before acquiring it. It makes a world of difference and enforces a distinct different playstyle.

30

What does that matter for anything other than your first build of the season?

I’ll try to explain because I don’t think you’re getting it:
-In PoE, I can prepare a build and level with it. Starting, at most, at level 25ish when I finish act 5. Because I bought the stuff before hand. There is no other limitation.
-In LE, I can prepare a build by buying an Aaron’s Will, for example, and I still can’t level with it. In fact, I can’t even switch to that build until I’m level 75. I am forced to level with something else.

And you don’t even need to account for a high level unique. For example, if you want to make a heartseeker build, your first 40 levels (at least, more likely you only switch at level 50-ish) are mandatorily leveled with something else.

Yes, but that is not a build. You can use Aegis Aurora with a dozen different skills. And what it does is give you more survivability. You weren’t unable to use, for example, poison arrow and now that you have the shield you can.

And I’m not discussing this just to be “devil’s advocate”. I’m discussing this because this is something I’ve felt often in LE, where I have to wait until high level before I can get my build working, which I’ve never felt in PoE.

And the main difference is that I can use, for example, flame totem to level up. And then I get an upgrade where they pop dead enemies. And then I get an upgrade where they heal me. Etc (totally made up example). But I’m still progressing the same build.
Whereas in LE, way more oftenly than in PoE, I have to use a different build altogether because I have no way of making the build I want to work before level 75. Or 64. It’s just impossible.

And you can argue that those builds should only be accessible at those levels because they’re strong or for theme reasons and that would be fair. But it does feel bad for someone like me that enjoys the growth progress of a build to be gated behind a high level unique without whom the build just doesn’t exist. Or behind a high requirement skill like heartseeker.
PoE also has some examples of this. I’ve just remembered one of my favorite builds which is spiders with Arakali’s fang or something which requires level 50-ish or something.

And I’m not saying it’s bad. I’m just saying it happens more in LE than in any other ARPG I’ve played so far.

31

Because that was the topic :rofl:
Starter vs. non-starter builds. :joy:

Which is fair! ANd very true given the few uniques present, makes it less generic unlike in PoE where the devs start to throw in things ‘and see what sticks’… literally.

32

No, that was what you started to argue about. The topic I was replying to was simply builds coming online, with Heavy saying by level 30-40 all of them are online and me saying that’s not true simply because of the build defining uniques.
It was even in a reply he was making to Scipo about his runemaster needing a much longer time until he had all the skills available.
There was nothing there about a starter build.

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33

Can confirm. Thread is about how different people find their enjoyment in Seasonal content and I mentioned how my Runemaster is the last build to come online due to the build defining skills being at the end of the passive tree vs the other builds where it’s all core skills or early-ish pickups and my limitation is levels for specialization slots and not the actual skills themselves.

No one mentioned starter builds until:

Though Heavy did say:

Which could be interpreted as “… don’t have to play [a starter build] and respec into your desired Build B…”

2 Likes
34

Yeah, except for build defining uniques. And LE does have the highest number of builds locked behind a high level one of the main games.
For those, you really don’t have all your pieces from the get go because your build is dependent on a single piece of gear.

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Which to be very specific came from the following:

This one initially. The description is the opposite of a starter-build, which led me to that, you’re right @Scipo0419

Which came from that argument:

Which presents the topic of ‘Build isn’t online right away’ unlike many others, which was the initial topic.

The follow-up discussion was about the difference in play-style and the need for specific equipment of some sort to allow a build to ‘come online’.
Since I provided PoE examples I provided examples for builds which you really really can’t make as a ‘starter build’ since it’ll feel awful, hence @DJSamhein 's comment of:

Which I wanted to debunk.

The reasoning after all is a different one. It’s not ‘because they want to get to end-game fast’ but rather because ‘they don’t want to experience boredom instead’. If they wanna play a specific build and not the one they start out with obviously they pick one which they can get through the game fast to traverse over to the wanted build, and not something mediocre they don’t want to play anyway to then traverse over.
People have distinct asks about a build and not everything provides it after all.

The provided reasoning takes away any possibility for a reason besides it being purely because they wanna get to end-game. Not the aspect of avoidance but rather the aspect of goal-seeking is given, which doesn’t hold true in a large amount of cases.

This then followed up with the argumentation line that you can play ‘any’ build from the get-go and it doesn’t matter how bad it is… which I hope I don’t need to explain why that’s nonsense.

And well, here we are. That’s how starter-builds were included.
After all I specifically mentioned:

Which is the current state, and one which won’t uphold in the current way EHG develops the game. Sadly? Gladly? That’s another topic, I think it’s a bit of a shame that it’ll be gradually more and more lost as the game expands given how LE already leans into providing equipment of near universal power for nigh every character through the bosses… which mandates at times bringing online specific builds through those uniques, which leans further into mandating potentially to begin having those starter-builds like in PoE which I talked about.

All of that comment was meant to provide is ‘It’s something which is in danger of happening’.
And all beyond followed up because of it :stuck_out_tongue:

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36

It would just require a chat server not a game server

37

It’s still a server that they have to maintain (though more likely more than a server, since there is a sizable number of people playing even now) against not having to maintain any now. They would have to hire people to keep them up and make sure they don’t crash.
Then they’d have to create the whole code for chat in-game. Along with features like blocking people, add to friends, filtering, etc.

Overall, it’s a constant expense they’d be adding for something that you can already do with discord.

This would be more likely to show up as a mod, if anyone would be willing to pay for the server costs. But I’m guessing most people wouldn’t use it anyway (much like most people don’t use chat in LE or PoE). This is a niche thing.

38

I can borrow them my old PC, for a chat server of no less then 10000 concruent players this should easily suffixe :stuck_out_tongue:

They can also simply use a second-hand PC for 150€ for that, doesn’t matter, can use a 1 GHz one even… chat really really doesn’t need resources.

Or they can rent a service for that. I found one which costs 3€ per month :stuck_out_tongue:

39

You seem to miss the point. It’s not simply the expense of having a server. It’s the expense of maintaining one. Which doesn’t simply mean infrastructures, but also creating and managing code for in-game chat. And hiring someone for that because it won’t be a dev that manages the servers.

Not only that, it would tied them to maintaining the game indefinitely.
Right now, if they want, they can stop working on GD forever and everyone gets a full experience. As soon as you introduce online features, though, that’s no longer true and the game will no longer be “complete” if you decide to drop it.

And, again and more importantly, why would they bother going through all the effort of creating and maintaining code for in-game chat when the few players that would actually use it can already use discord for the same purpose?
It’s not like it’s a game like PoE where players interact with other players oftenly. 99% of players in GD are playing single player.
And even in games like PoE and LE, most people simply mute the global chat anyway.

40

Yeah, the in-game code is the hardest part. The maintaining of it? It’s a chat server… I alone know more then 10 people which maintain vastly more complex server structures then that from home, on their secondary machines.

But maintaining it is really not that big, automated system to allow mentioning if something breaks and third party contractor which already supervises 50 of em… costs maybe 50 per month because plainly spoken… there is not much to maintain, it’s mostly parsing it from the game and into the game.

But you’re right that it’s not worth it, absolutely not.

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