Point taken as it being a better focus, but also likely a vastly vastly more time intensive one.
That depends… I would argue a loadout system which fulfills the points mentioned isn’t thaaaaat hard to implement… at least not in comparison to the massive issues LE has in terms of performance at some areas.
So it entirely depends how many magnitudes harder the performance solutions are, because they are definitely magnitudes harder and some of them long-standing issues.
Imagine the outcry when switching the loadout freezes the client for three minutes - like a certain stash tab feature…
Possibly not and in a normal case I’d agree with you on this, but it will most likely also have unintended consequences. As can be seen by stash priorities (I would say it’s a similar level of implementing difficulty) and the massive issues it’s caused for performance.
So investing time in a system that might also make performance worse and then spend time fixing that problem as well doesn’t seem worth it when the whole premise goes against the basic game identity. So they’d be “wasting time” on something that goes against what they want LE to be.
I can’t understand this mindset.
Games like GW1, Vermintide 2 and Godfall, admittedly different genres, have the ability to save loadouts and also have meta builds, but just like LE currently has meta builds and aren’t balanced around specific loadouts for specific things (I mean, I suppose GW1 had Running builds to ferry people between outposts?). But there’s nothing stopping a player from never saving a loadout and just using a meta build. Rather than introducing challenges to limit these meta builds, they just… Nerf the thing that makes those builds meta or buff the things that are underperforming in comparison. Being able to save a loadout wouldn’t impact this at all? LE, as DJ has mentioned, is balanced around builds being able to clear echos AND bosses in one build. So the meta builds are already capable of doing all content as efficiently as possible.
What he means is this:
Currently every build in PoE has an alternate setup. You have the regular setup, then you switch a couple pieces of gear and a few gems and you now have a boss killing build. This means that since this has become a norm, GGG has balanced their game differently because of it.
Likewise, LE is balanced around the fact that you need to make choices and create builds that can tackle all content. You need a build that can both clear echoes and also kill mono bosses and now even Harbingers.
But if you introduced layouts and everyone could simply have a specialized boss killing build and also a specialized echo clearing build, then the difficulty of everything has to go up, since everyone is now stronger in each of those things. Not only that, but now everyone is expected to be able to kill all bosses easily, whereas currently you need to invest to be able to both kill the boss and still clear stuff.
Gotcha, I don’t play PoE and it’s never been an issue in any game with loadouts I’ve played before.
I can kind of understand the worry, but with how LE is balanced I can’t see it becoming a problem without some drastic changes to how the skills work. I can’t think of any way to build a character just for bossing. Obviously making a build better for clearing would be a thing, but at that point even the fact that you have to go to town to swap would be annoying when you could just have different variations of “it does everything” like we currently do.
That is the current state of affair with not so much content out there and no loadout options, so people - for the ease of use - stick to one build for everything.
Imagine more varied game modes that greatly benefit from different build variants.
Of course, there are other games and genres that embrace loadouts and different game modes - Warframe is an example I played a lot. It’s not inherently bad, there are pros and cons for it.
I am just not a fan of it in games like LE, diablo, or PoE. If a preference thing.
An obvious example would be the currently OP build of frost claw/static orb. Currently the build needs both skills, since static orb is only useful for bosses and frost claw is only useful for clearing. If you allowed loadouts, then you could just have one loadout without frost claw for boss clearing, instead using another support skill to increase your damage/survivability, and another without static orb, using another support skill to increase your clear speed/survivability.
So a broken build would become even more broken and be able to do a few more hundred corruption than it currently can.
And if all you need is to go to town and then do an echo, that’s not enough of a deterrent to stop it. As I mentioned, you can easily just line up a few bosses/harbingers with your frost claw loadout and then switch to static orb and do the bosses.
That is because those games were balanced already with that in mind. Even PoE, that didn’t start out that way, is now balanced with that in mind.
But LE was never balanced with that in mind. Quite the opposite. It was balanced with the expectation that a single build will have to do all content equally.
Imagine it like this: builds are expected to have a “total power of 100”. So players make a build that is “40 AoE and 60 Boss killer”, or “75 AoE and 25 Boss Killer”. If you allow loadouts, what will happen is that every build will be “100 AoE and 100 Boss killer”. Which means that the current content will all have to be balanced.
But the main issue that people have against loadouts isn’t even that. It’s that they like to have to make the choice on where their build lands on the spectrum. And loadouts remove that choice by letting you have both.
Not even remotely, rather some builds need a secondary setup to even have any semblance of becoming a clear-build (and still sucking at it) or a boss-killer (and still sucking at it).
Much like in LE (and inherently nearly every diablo-clone) there’s some focused builds for one direction and some which do everything obscenely well beyond what they should.
Which is a inherent upside since it provides variety and choice of playstyle… hence catering to a larger crowd of people while also not enforcing everyone to do ‘everything’.
PoE does a decent good job with that nowadays, with the 3 distinct atlas passive trees to switch between as well as the variety of content they have. Obviously LE can’t reach that yet… but I think their focus on ‘one build to do everything’ will be a detriment over time.
Honestly that’s a really good point. D2 used characters but you didn’t use a Pitzerker to farm Ubers for example. Having a loadout would let you say “I’m going to go do this activity for a bit.” and not need to level an entirely new character of the same Mastery (something I like to avoid, give me my 15 characters and I’ll just manually swap between my builds on those characters if they never add loadouts lol)
Ultimately, in the current state of the game its not a necessity, but the more endgame activities they add with different purposes, the more you’re likely to enjoy having different playstyles for those different activities. Like in D3 you could have a Speed Rift loadout, a GRift pushing loadout, and a Bounties loadout.
Again, LE isn’t quite in that state yet, but it would be nice to transition in the future imo. I can understand why people are against it though. I’m fine with the manual swaps for now. I just wanted to initiate a conversation of how it could possibly be implemented without being overpowered or detrimental to the game philosophy
It won’t only be nice… to keep a game like LE long-term viable as it expands and not constrictive to the player it needs to ‘expand’ in a broad manner over time, not solely a linear one.
It was a major issue for years with Path of Exile where they struggled to gather more people and basically waded around in a circle before deciding to ‘open up’ their end-game ever further.
While some - very very very few - people enjoy a single-minded approach and want to go into a singular line along a game the majority nonetheless needs a ‘mental breather’ from time to time, which is when you change up what sort of content you do simply to have something ‘fresh’.
Currently in LE we have ‘Monolith’ and that’s it, and I do neither count ‘atrociously underdeveloped dungeons’ (which might… yes ‘might’ get fixed with 1.2) or ‘extremely monotonous Arena’. Yes, they offer a miniscule change in pace… but for the majority the start/stop mechanic of Arena is off-putting by design and Dungeons are 2 bad monoliths + boss simply because we don’t even need to use the dungeon mechanics outside of Temporal Sanctum before the boss.
This is something EHG direly needs to address going forward, as you mentioned… the more they go forward the more varied the end-game mechanics need to be… and the more varied the end-game mechanics are the more constrictive a ‘one build does all’ becomes design-wise. You can’t create content which doesn’t feel ‘same’ unless you allow people to specialize into a specific direction while foregoing the others as a side-effect.
For example… if EHG implements a defense-type mechanic then all characters with single-target focus will be extremely disadvantaged… while those focusing on large-scale AoE will shine massively. So one part won’t be able to do them at a high level while others will rush through and outscale it.
On the contrary the same character wouldn’t do well when they have to tackle content where the goal would be to target singular enemies in a specific order to clear content which enforces that as their AoE would cause them to misfire at the wrong ones and risking to either fail the task or reduce their rewards substantially… which is where the single target characters would shine.
There’s a lot of directions it can go, and opening up the design-direction opens up the option to implement them in the first place.
Also, variety in style allows for balance to be handled easier since distinct builds can do specific content better rather then the current state where corruption is the ‘one-minded solution’ solely, creating literal ‘trash’ builds and ‘OP’ builds in comparison.
Fine, using my example of 0-100, PoE had builds that did 80 AoE and 20 Boss Killing, until it changed and now every build does 150 AoE and has an alternate setup to do 30 boss killing. Or 150 BK and 30 AoE.
As for being just some builds, I can’t say as I haven’t delved into the details of most builds in the last 2-3 years, but most of the meta builds before then had alternate setups for one thing or the other, since meta builds usually focused a lot on a single content type. The odd couple of builds I checked for curiosity since then (from Ziz videos) had the same.
Because of course it did. If you give the option of fully focusing in one direction without having to sacrifice too much in the other, players will do it.
Yes, but the difference in LE is that you can’t have a fully boss killer focused build, otherwise it will take forever to clear echoes. Because the big difference between LE and PoE is that maps are account wide but monolith is character wide. You can’t clear echoes and then switch to another character for the bosses. So your character needs to be able to do both somewhat efficiently in some manner.
It is. But if you look at PoE, you don’t have players respeccing to switch between playstyles when they decide to farm something else. They make a new character. Even in the same class.
This is fair. Which is why I said that if you legitimately just want to switch a build because you’re tired of the old one, then the current system in LE is just slightly annoying but you only do it once in a while, so it’s no big deal.
But if you want to switch builds for cheesing then it becomes aggravating to the point you don’t do it, and I don’t think we should change that and make it easier.
I mean, this is already what happens in monoliths. Some builds will rush to 1k while others will struggle to reach 500c.
Variety in endgame doesn’t create the necessity for loadouts, though. Just for more character slots. Which PoE does have via MTX.
Personally, I wouldn’t mind if LE did more character slots via MTX as well. It’s not p2w anyway.
Lastly, this is something that mostly affect legacy. In cycle, you won’t fill your 25 character slots. So you can definitely just make a new one for the new archetype. Which is mostly what also happens in PoE.
Wow, this got away from me. Sorry.
By “game’s identity”, you mean, “character choices matter”? I think that is right, I’ll assume yes.
EHG may have said that they wanted character choices to matter, but the only choice that actually matters is the mastery. Everything else is just friction, and I personally think EHG is wrong when it comes to friction making a player more invested in the game. Especially when it comes to the ‘friction’ being a task that you’ve already spent a lot of time doing once.
I think most games are moving toward further enabling player’s changing builds. Which, if you think about what players are asking for, has to be confusing for game devs. On the one hand, players definitely do seem to want lots of options, interactions and build complexity. On the other hand, they want something like build loadouts. But from a player’s perspective, it’s pretty obvious; you want to be able to roll your sleeves up and really tinker… up until you’ve got the build in as good of a state as you can, then you want to try something else.
My argument is that this is and has been the evolution since Diablo-like’s started. D1 was all random, including skills. Maximal character identity. Players* hated that, thus D2. Players wanted to be able to reskill, thus D2R (I think? I don’t think you could reskill in vanilla D2, could you?).
*other than me, I liked it, but I always wanted a way to sacrifice a skill to the goddess of luck to increase your chances of getting something else.
D3 said fuck it, and turn the dial to 90, which I hated at first, but then I actually started using and noticed how much more I played around with builds in D3… unfortunately D3 also decided that choice was an anathema and only they were awesome enough to come up with sanctified builds using SETS!
D4 has the legendary affix codex (finally, should have launched with it).
PoE 2’s changes to gear is their version of giving players what they are asking for; less pain/more ease of use in changing a character’s build. This means less character identity and more build identity.
I think this is the main disconnect. LE is clearly targetted at altoholics. And altoholics don’t mind doing the campaign once more. Altoholics like to start a new character and spec into their build as soon as possible, even if leveling is harder that way. Because they like to watch the character grow.
For an altoholic, simply respeccing to the new build isn’t fun. The fun is the growth process from doing crap damage with skills that aren’t online yet until everything comes together and the build is doing what it’s supposed to do.
And yes, you can always say that “it’s an option, you can still do that”, but the fact that the obviously much more efficient method exists detracts from this. This is why I never made multiple characters in D3 even though I’m an extreme altoholic. There was no real growth process and there was no incentive to make another character since your character was already all builds at once. Which meant I played for a week until I had all sets and BiS gear and then gave up.
You could. Respec was introduced in 1.13 sometime in 2010 or 2011. You got 3 free respecs, then you needed to farm a lot to get another one.
All that respec did was change the meta into “level with this build, then change to the build you want at level X”.
Because that’s what respec does. It changes the meta (and thus the game identity as well).
Really?! I made multiple alts of the same class. I was really skeptical/resistant to the loadout. “Each character needs his/her own identity!”. Eventually you realize, at the end of the day, they all have the same story. And then I get nostalgic about D1 (rose colored glasses, no doubt).
So I really wouldn’t call you an extreme altoholic. Not compared to me, anyway 
And that’s funny, because I hate running the campaign multiple times. Give me alts and adventure mode, or give me death! I do like to run the campaign again when a new expansion/additional campaign story drops.
So true!
My biggest issue wasn’t even the loadout in D3. It was that your build only got online always at level 70, because that is the level of the sets and those were what defined the build.
So there was no point in making a new character because I couldn’t use the build I wanted until I was level 70 anyway.
So I saw no point in creating a new one. I mostly played with just 2 sets/builds and I couldn’t be bothered to make a new character when I was already feeling bored with the first 
I actually disliked adventure mode. I like running the campaign. I prefer to have objectives telling me to go this way or that way, rather than just aimlessly killing random mobs to level up until you’re max level.
But adventure mode was clearly much faster at leveling, so I had to use it.
THIS is why I grew to hate D3. They decided all the builds. There was zero player creativity. The arrogance!
But D3 adventure mode gives you tasks that are, other than being part of a larger story, virtually indistinguishable from ‘quests’. And even though they totally were just the same eight or nine different tasks, I could convince myself that they could add more/different ‘quests’ in the future.
Ugh the Set Meta with +30,000% Damage To X Skill was sooooooo booooring. I didn’t mind the bounties in adventure mode as a side activity to do other than rifts. Gave a nice change of scenery lol
Edit: going back to the campaign discussion, I’m not sure which I prefer. I really like the fact that Grim Dawn and Titan Quest have really in depth worlds with hand crafted maps and stories much more than D2 which was mostly just objectives with maybe a line of dialogue here or there that explained why what you did mattered. D3/D4 got rid of the “redo the campaign” and while it was nice for alts, I think I ultimately prefer LE’s method of do the campaign once per character (with the option for campaign skip on alts) and then start endgame vs GD/TQ repeat the campaign 2-3 times.
I have almost 80 offline characters, I don’t enjoy doing the campaign much.
Depends, friction is achieved with everything after all.
Time-gates are friction, overcoming challenges are friction… basically everything stopping you from reaching it ‘this moment’ is friction.
So friction itself is neither good nor bad in itself.
What I see as a problem though in the current state is the conservation of value actually.
After all Legacy is meant to be that place, right? So you have all the ‘remove only’ tabs showcased with all your gear… all characters move over.
That’s even for people which aren’t playing Legacy a decent thing, a sort of ‘personal hall of fame’ so to say.
And currently the preservation simply isn’t properly upheld this way. If you go and do 2-3 characters a league then with 25 character slots you’ll likely run out rather quick and you got to delete characters before long. Which… well… is bad to log into a old character and simply check it out again, enjoying it for a few moment, going the nostalgia route for a bit.
Which is why I’m in the current state a proponent for the loadout system. Instead of being enforced to delete characters you could at least put your build into a existing character and hence experience it this way again whenever you want.
The current state hinders the altoholic approach though substantially.
Yes, from a basis it’s fine, but it’s not sustainable since you run into a block of creating characters.
This goes entirely counter to that argument.
And even if we go the altoholic route and say ‘this won’t become an issue in cycle’… which in itself is already nonsensical since outside of a fresh economy (a working one rather) cycle has no value currently… someone which doesn’t care about pushing end-game and instead solely creating builds doesn’t care either, several builds will be ‘done’ with the appropriate items in monoliths… or even end of campaign at times.
So creating 25 characters for someone like that would even be possible in a cycle, albeit a hefty effort.
Not to speak of 2… or 3 cycles.
The general player though will mostly play 2-3 characters at best in a cycle.
Depends extremely on the type of player.
Saying ‘the campaign poses no issue for a altoholic’ is utterly insincere, since yes… yes it does.
Sure, the growth is a major aspect for them, but the campaign state definitely poses no challenge of any kind, making it a ‘empty growth segment’ basically. Mostly during the end of campaign and likely starting with monolith then it can be seen that there’s a pushback from the game finally to actually make choices meaningful.
Because without being in any way challenged is also not fun for a altoholic.
They just derive their enjoyment from another type of challenge.
Not really, it’s a really well done game. Clunky nowadays but still… for the time a fantastic game. With modern controls and adjustments it would still be a enjoyed game sure, not at the size of what’s expected though nowadays.
It’s also why D2 survives until today, it’s… a good game simply.
Isn’t a big part currently also the uniques in LE ‘creating’ specific builds?
That would fall into the same category, so for those anything before that wouldn’t be meaningful either, going with ‘something’ rather then the intended build.
Obviously less severe then in D3… where it was ‘all encompassing’ and plainly spoken a menace for early game.