Jerle's Impression and Feedback on Patch 0.8.1

[Jerle]

So I’ve been playing a new Multishot Marksman to experience the 0.8.1 patch. Played character to level 85 and have done all the basic monoliths and unlocked the empowered version. Just want to share my impression of this patch.

Playing the Marksman (Rogue) from 1 – 85 feels really smooth. Aside from a bump when I reach Lagon’s Isle (I seemed to always feel a difficulty spike when first reaching here in many of my builds), my Multishot Marksman never really struggled with content. I was mostly using @Peddles Multishot Marksman for this so kudos to him for the build (link: Shotgun Multishot Rogue - Written guide with gameplay | 60-80k crits (up to 100k with better gear))

My other impression playing through the rogue from 1 – 85 was also that the whole experience felt like an extremely well-curated SSF journey. I made T8-12 items to power through most of the early game. I got decent bases to craft/upgrade in a well-paced manner as I ran through the monolith, eventually crafting to T14 – T18 gears as I reached the empowering timelines*. My BiS uniques (Drelkor’s Compass, Xithara’s Conundrum) both dropped for me right when I was at a good place to use them (around high 60 – 70 I think). The gearing curve is similar to my experiences in earlier patches playing Shield Throw Pally and Meteor Sorc.

I also quite enjoy the new monolith bosses additions. They are certainly mechanically interesting (particularly the Heorot fight). I find they all generally on the easier side though (have not tried the empowered version) – going blind on them and I mostly could clear them on the first attempt (Heorot took me two attempts). At this point, I’m not sure whether I should think LE’s boss fights are better scaffolded than POE’s, or that the former is still less mechanically challenging and undertuned compared to the latter.

The empowered monolith timelines also feel like they’re pitched at the right difficulty level. With T14 – T18 gears, they don’t feel completely unfair, but I do need to pay quite abit of attention or I would quite easily fail the echo.

I know all these probably sound like the solo/offline ARPG fan dream come true. In fact, if I were such a fan, I would probably be quite happy to have LE be considered released as of this patch. On the other hand, for online ARPG fanatic like myself who really enjoy the trading and MP aspects of such games, I really wonder – why would anyone need to trade in this game? And how would it affect the gear acquisition curve when implemented? How would MP find its place in such a well-structured solo adventure? I can’t wait to see patch 0.9.

*As a side note on crafting and gears, one of the changes that jumped at me was the whole prefix = offense, suffix = defence change. Philosophically, I am not sure I like such a clear distinction. From the point of view of my marksman run through, the main issue is that on quite a few gear slots I simply don’t have enough interesting affixes to choose from. E.g. for boots, prefix = movespeed and dex, gloves = crit chance and dex. For helm and chest, there are quite alot of different skills prefixes but it seems we’re likely always to go for our main skill affix?

TL,DR feedback for the devs - great content and pitching for the SSF experience as of 0.8.1. Now go ace the MP gameplay

[Heavy]

@Jerle

On the other hand, for online ARPG fanatic like myself who really enjoy the trading and MP aspects of such games, I really wonder – why would anyone need to trade in this game? And how would it affect the gear acquisition curve when implemented? How would MP find its place in such a well-structured solo adventure? I can’t wait to see patch 0.9.

I can definitely already see trading in this game being more catered towards endgame, if you decide to play in a trade-enabled cycle.
At the current time, there is really no need for trading (if it would be available) during leveling. The first time you would want to trade (or gamble) is usually around your first MoF timelines.

Now the question is: Is this good or bad? We still don’t know all the details yet, but i think having trading just as a secondary means of acuiring items is good. The devs clearly stated on numerous occasions, they want to go out and kill monster, be the primary way to obtain gear.
But depending on what items (rarity) are tradeable i can already see people buying (maybe) perfect exalted items or (maybe) some build enableing uniques, if those are tradeable.
For the normal rare items, there is really not much incentive to trade, which is good.
Maybe some new rare crafting materials (like runes or glpyhs) are tradeable, but already crafted items are not. We don’t know so many things.

All i can say, i have really high hopes the devs will come up with a trading economy, that is a bit different from similar games.

@Jerle

*As a side note on crafting and gears, one of the changes that jumped at me was the whole prefix = offense, suffix = defence change. Philosophically, I am not sure I like such a clear distinction. From the point of view of my marksman run through, the main issue is that on quite a few gear slots I simply don’t have enough interesting affixes to choose from. E.g. for boots, prefix = movespeed and dex, gloves = crit chance and dex. For helm and chest, there are quite alot of different skills prefixes but it seems we’re likely always to go for our main skill affix?

I agree, that some slots have very few choices.

For me personally the following slots have the least interesting prefixes:

• Gloves
• Boots
• Belt

Some suggestions/solutions:

Maybe give gloves the secondary ailments, such as chill, slow, frailty and stun chance as a prefix instead of a suffix? This would lower the choice between the defensive suffix, but at least creates some cool prefix choices.

For boots i always thought a affix “cooldown recovery for movement skills” would be cool. I am a big believer in keeping the combat pace slow, but if we would get even more interesting affix to compete with it, it would be at least a choice.

The belt slot for me personally is the biggest gripe. I am not a big fan of the “on potion use” affixes, but if the devs really want to keep them in, we need more variety with those.
We currently only have the 2 ward potions affixes, additional potions, chance to find potions, ignite chance and dodge rating on potion use.

I think we would at least need more defensive options like armour on potion use, glancinb blow on potion use. Maybe even “cleanse ailments on potion use”
Another option would be: Your potions heal X health over Y seconds, which would make potions very cool to use for certain builds.

Just my 2 cents. Great feedback anyway.

[Jerle]

@Heavy

I can definitely already see trading in this game being more catered towards endgame, if you decide to play in a trade-enabled cycle.
At the current time, there is really no need for trading (if it would be available) during leveling. The first time you would want to trade (or gamble) is usually around your first MoF timelines.

I also suspect trading based on the current state of the game would need to be very endgame oriented. The problem is that when I spoke briefly with Lizard about this. He, and I also suspected, is quite clear that gold will not be the trading currency for endgame items. This I think might post a problem to EHG if they were to pursue their (early) idea of having a gold-transacted bazaar.

I am also concerned about how the list of T16-18 gears on the bazaar (if possible), would affect the motivation to craft our own gears. Right now, I would say trying to get a full set of T16 - 18 gears through picking up good bases and crafting, before you hit the minmaxing stage is quite an enjoyable process (probably a good 20 - 30hours of gameplay). If people can list their fractured T18 crafts, I am sure it will completely destroy this progression in trade league.

[Heavy]

@Jerle

He, and I also suspected, is quite clear that gold will not be the trading currency for endgame items.

For me personally it’s not that clear.

I am aware, that a one-currency economy is way harder to balance and keep the currency meaningful, but it also has alot of advantages.

We just need more gold-sinks that are meaningfull.

@Jerle

I am also concerned about how the list of T16-18 gears on the bazaar (if possible), would affect the motivation to craft our own gears. Right now, I would say trying to get a full set of T16 - 18 gears through picking up good bases and crafting, before you hit the minmaxing stage is quite an enjoyable process (probably a good 20 - 30hours of gameplay). If people can list their fractured T18 crafts, I am sure it will completely destroy this progression in trade league.

There is so much we don’t know an dthere are literally sooooo many ways EHG can go about this.

As i suggested earlier, maybe the will put restrictions like “Bind on Craft” on items.
They can also do things like “Bind On Trade” or “Bind On Fracture”.

This would massively decrease the amountof items flooding the market and people would think thrice, before brainelssly crafting all items.

This in combination with maybe some restrictions on how many items you can put up at once (if this is still something EHG wants to implement) would significantly increase the threshold for alot of people, to put items up for sale.

Of course, there will be all kinds of players and some depending on your current progress you might even put T10 items for sale or what ever.

This is one thing i always hated about PoE, you literally can selle everything, you don’t even need to think about it (other than doing some economy speculations and wait to sell certai nstuff to make more currency in the long run).
But after all we are here to play the game and not play a trading simulator.
So i would be happy if the trading really does become something that will always be suplementary.