What killed ‘POE’ For me is the fact that some people really knew how to exploit the ‘Map’ and grind the same levels over and over again until they reached max levels. The complexity of the Skill Tree along with the way the ‘Map’ worked end-game wise was really what became overwhelming for me and my friends. It was not as self-explanatory as Diablo 2 and definitely not as balanced in the end.
That is just my humble opinion of course.
Seriously, why? If it is your goal to compete with top players, playing a game casually wont be the way. And telling players that play a lot, that their time isnt worth anything, wont make the game a better game. It would just make it an emptier game.
Also i dont really see where you get the agreement on the gear and crafting system.
@Maes I think you misunderstood what I was saying. I am saying not having unique items wont change anything you still have a best item to get the perfect rare. A Unique item is only semi-random compared to a rare being fully random. The bit about perfect rare being more powerful is from other games I played were a perfectly rolled rare can out preform unique in say pure damage.
@Elouin I think Maes means that given enough time the gap should close as everyone will eventually hit max level and get BIS gear. Though given that he now saying this his problem with gear balance etc is moot.
I always thought that perfect rolled rares should be the “most powerful raw items” and that uniques/legendaries should be items that alter skill interactions and are build defining (with legendaries also adding a bit more raw power than uniques). That way, if someone just wants to play a canned build, they can craft good rares… but if they want to shoot for a specific playstyle or look for more synegry between their skills, then they could farm uniques and legendaries. That way, all items have value at higher levels and end-game, and not just BiS simply because it has bigger numbers.
All points are fine from casual player point of view.
Gear imbalance widens the gap and renders 30% of content unplayable. Solution is to purge all uniques from game and have only RNG stats on rares (gap will be ~20% instead of ~500%) or make uniques available to all via reasonable droprates and spread out through bestiary, not locked behind hardcore atziri or costing 400 exalts.
But it’s like talking about climate change and convincing people to ride a bicycle instead, it’s a non-starter. I will still fight for casual player friendliness versus all this elitism. Nobody cares if you kill some big bad with no armor and an iron dagger. Majority just wants accessible content without having to watch 10 youtube vids on boss mechanics as a ritual.
How does this change anything? All you’re doing is shifting the label from one tier to the next. In your scenario, the perfect rolled RNG rare becomes the new Unique. And, because the hardcore player will have put in more time and will be more likely to be fully equipped in perfect/near perfect gear, your imbalance/gap will still exist.
I am a casual player as well and I have to say I really don´t like how you claim to represent casual players and how you arrogate yourself to speak for the majority. Your post is just so arrogant and wrong starting with your first statement that games in general should appeal to the majority. That couldn´t be further from the truth. Games are designed with a specific audience in mind and don´t have to appeal to everyone. Of course it certainly helps if they are beginner friendly, but ultimately not everyone can or has to like the game.
I disagree with everything you´ve said, because it can all be summed up as: “Make a game, where all content is accessible to everyone in a short amount of time.”
If you have read the dev blog, you would realize that the Last Epoch team has a completely different design philosophy and concept (and are indeed vivid players and fans of PoE as well as active community members). If you don´t like that concept, that´s perfectly fine but don´t claim to speak for other players who only can play a couple of hours per week. I like complexity, I like depth, I like planning my character and build for hours and I am absolutely fine with the fact that there is content for players with more time that I won´t experience.
There are plenty of ARPGs which are more to your liking. Grim Dawn is probably still too complex and grindy for you, but how about the Torchlight series (+ Torchlight Frontiers coming in 2019 seems to be more casual as well), how about Van Helsing, Victor Vran, Vikings: Wolves of Midgard and of course Diablo 3, which basically does a lot of things the way you want them to be.
@Azazoth87 Nah those games all have the problem the OP is complaining about. I think it be far better if they don’t bother playing ARPGs at all.
There are some issues I have with games like PoE and D2. But most of these are minor.
But I do agree with the death penalty in these sort of games. In GD it’s fine since you aren’t going to die that often and you can reclaim your exp back, and hitting level 100 isn’t very hard. However I feel like losing 5-10% exp per death is a bit too high.
I personally get the fact that they want levelling to be a grind, but when there are people who know how to achieve level 100 (if not level 100 then definitely level 95) within maybe a week or two, and then you have casuals who are dying at levels 80 to early level 90s, it feels kind of mute to have a death penalty and only seems to punish casuals.
That said I am not fully against death penalties (hugely against broken/disabled gear on death) but I think the death penalty should be far less than 5%. Possibly even allow to reclaim some of that exp which can be a challenge of it’s own. Imagine you are in a boss fight -> die -> try to reclaim exp -> die -> try to reclaim exp -> die -> repeat. Reclaiming exp should work like in GD where you can only reclaim your latest death exp.
One small thing I’d like to add is losing exp feels like a soft hardcore experience, honestly if I wanted to feel like I want to suffer, I’d go play HC, not lose so much exp.
I might be weird, but I’d rather lose gear than any xp.
I am sort of a casual player and I disagree very very strongly with the OP points. He does not speak for the “casual” gamer at all. In my opinion, ARPGs need depth. Diablo 4 may have some popularity because of it being a Diablo game and Blizzard but it is a crippled, frankly awful game. POE is popular BECAUSE of its populariy. The buzz for POE was largely created from the simple image of their skill tree. People WANTED to experience that. D2 was in part popular due to its complexity at the time.
POE is not perfect, and I hope there are some elements that LE does not copy, but not dimishing the depth. In fact they should enhance it more.
What I would like to see LE not copy from POE are its almost hostility towards the single player, and the almost insistence that trading be a core system you MUST use to realistically progress. I HATE that. I dislike trading for items very very much as most of the joy is in actually finding stuff.
But POE has very much going forward for it.
Interestingly the leagues you hate are arguably POEs greatest strength. They are awesome, and as quite a few of the systems in the new leagues become core gameplay, the core game becomes stronger and stronger. I hope LE does something similar, as well as embracing the single player self found gamestyle.
For me trading is one of the key elements of ARPGs. And i think it doesnt kill the joy of finding stuff, but makes that even more exciting. But still, if you dont enjoy trading, you can play SSF, even if its not a clickable Feature as in PoE.
I have no issue with people trading items if they choose to but in POE the entire crafting economy and drop rates are based on the assumption you will trade for most of your key items, so the game sort of wants to force you into trading. It trivilalizes the game for me. I don’t copy anyone elses build either, it seems to defeat the whole purpose of playing the game. But POE wants to almost force you into trading, and it is something I strongly hope LE does not copy
I don’t get it why people call the PoE skilltree complicated. There are several tools that show you what you got in the end the way you skilled. If you didn’t manage to hit some healthy thresholds your build is crap. If you go for the tresholds your skillroutes are almost everytime the same. That’s not rocket science.
Getting items is the bread and butter of Hack&Slay games. You kill something=profit. so it’s pretty easy to put this roughly right:
Kill-get xp- get possible lvl up- get possible skillpoint- get loot- get better- kill more/faster
PoE did some strange things like the crafting stuff or all the currency items. The offline trade sites are a mess and all about this is the truely complex part of PoE. Sure you can play SSF and simply don’t care but that don’t solve the issue. I like distinct cuts between systems like
LE met a sweet spot with the system to “enhance” items through crafting. I’m okay with that. PoE’s throw in each item of x quality and push sell to get y currency is meh for me.
LE adds debth with 2 simple versions of skilltrees that offer enough possibilitys to tinker a bit and this opens up more with uniques and this is good. I have no problems with builds that simply work only because you have unique x because that’s the fun part about uniques. It all comes down to droprates.
I agree with this. Trading should be an interesting aspect of the game, NOT the primary means to end game build design and functionality. I should not have to trade to build interesting and diverse builds.
Now, part of this issue in PoE relies on how the character is designed: gear is integral to your skillset and power of said skills. Thus in order to make certain builds, you NEED certain items.
with skills and skill improvement being integral to the CLASS in this game, trading won’t have as much of an impact in the same way. however, I still would rather have finding gear being the primary focus rather then trading gear.
Looking at this game and waiting for its release to try it. I also played Path of Exile, first time about 6 months in the begining, and from September last year. But decided to quit. Im a guy with a work, and spend 3-4 hours every day playing, sometimes more if at rest or holidays. A lot of players are like that, and if you are not one of them, when you grow up, you will be the same. 
So now on the OP points and what i think about some of the topics:
1: Gear Imbalance i totally disagree. Unique is what makes every game interesting. Their colour is great, they should give emotion when drops, also there should be end game unique, as well as build enabling unique.
Big problem of POE is the drop system and 99% crap unique, unless it`s meta unique. Big reason why i quit the game.
Why some not agree, for me perfect balance should be 50/60/'70% equipped uniques, rest rares/sets.
And for that u need great end game unique, and also “build uniques”.
While some not agree on power unique. Diablo 2 has the best itemization and should be example to all.
They have tier uniques, low, mid and end uniques.
You can create perfect character with End Game uniques, but if you really want to be great, you need 1-2-3 Runewords.
I think something like that is the best receipt.
And last on this one, the problem with imbalance not coming from a items, but from some broken game mechanics, skills or build.
2: While i think some RNG should be involved, POE like and im talking about Standard is just wrong. Its purely gamble. Its not crafting. I dont mind the game to have gambling system, but crafting should be a way more different.
Not exactly but close to Diablo 2.
3: My only problem with deaths on POE was some idiotic one shoot mechanism from nowhere and some boss fights.
Otherwise im for the punish and hard content. So if you die, you should be punish. The problem with POE is 99% just not do the map boss. Its high risk and zero reward.
I really hope this game gives proper content/rewards.
POE 99% of the drops sucks, you are not even thinking of loot 99% of the items, and boss drops just sucks. Another reason i quit. What game enjoyment i have if skip boss 99% of the time ?
4: I have zero problem with league, unless the game is entirely focus on leagus(big reason i quit poe as well). Let`s face it, right now POE is all about league. Standard is death league. Prices are insane, and if you want to get gear and get some currency - league is the road.
Also legacy item totally meaningless play in standard.
What i really want to see from this game and that will keep my interest for long time is, good game story. Interesting and different end game contents(i know this is not MMROGP and im not expecting this level contents), of course some may come with time. Some good trade mechanics, cause POE one just sucks, and makes me hate the game. I also have big complain about POE balancing team, but here we will see how the things goes. Im totally against item nerfing and legacy items.
Item should be thinked before it realeased.
Also when the core game is fully done, of course to have change with path/leagues/expansion, but not in the POE level, to totally nerf/change and destroys whole builds.
I hope everything with game goes well and we can play the full game soon.
Hi Guys:
As everything in the live, depend of what you prefer. I don’t want to said that poe is a bad game, but for me is not fun.
I played for 700 hours GD, I really enjoy it but the community doesn’t like to play multiplayer (in this game mode coop) so the turn it bored for me and I quited. But is a good game.
D3…I played with the hope, that maybe something from D2 never happened so I quited.
TQA I played for 600. Great game but old graphic, no support, no new content.
In my opinion with the plan of Implement Season/Ladder in Last Epoch they can warranty longevity of this game. If always you have something new to do, you always be here. If they put also some rewards, maybe can be better. I have faith for this development team, they really want to do a good job and they really listen his community and this is something no common in this years.
Greatings from DR!
How is PoE similar to Last Epoch other than them both being action RPGs? That’s a ridiculous statement to start off.
Beyond that, criticize PoE all you want, but if you think PoE is a bad game then you don’t know anything about good game design. PoE is a masterpiece regardless of its flaws.
How the hell do you know you’re the “silent/passive majority”? Get over yourself man.
Especially given where PoE started and where it ended up. Have some respect.
On top of that I think a lot of your points are nonsense. There are skill cooldowns for example. Cast on crit cooldowns etc. They are just a lot shorter than MMOs.
The crafting system is incredibly easy to use. Especially with master crafts, you can make very solid gear without much investment. You’re upset you cant get the very best gear in the game without trying hard or taking a risk? Not to mention your lack of interest in doing any sort of research. Boo fricking hoo.
Overall it sounds like you are a typical spoiled gamer who wants to be spoon fed level 100 endgame content without doing any work, without risking anything, and without any sort of real challenge.
Poe is not a bad game you’re just really bad it seems. It has nothing to do with you being casual.
You also clearly have no idea how hard it is to maintain a trade economy in a game. Nor the insight to even think about such things. If a game company followed your design suggestions in your post it would be a complete disaster. Especially without leagues.
That being said I definitely do think PoE is not perfect and could be improved dramatically. Mainly, as others have said, from rewarding difficult content properly. Providing clear and easy to understand mechanic explanations for newer players. Beyond that, a bit more fluidity in changes to ones build would lessen the pressures of planning builds and allow people to experiment.
I feel like Last Epoch is already on the right track to all of those things.
Reading the rest of your post… its just freakin nonsense. How the hell is it fun to be unable to play for 30 minutes after dying a few times? You don’t know shit about gaming man. Just stop.
Don’t like leagues? Here’s a concept - Don’t play them! Wow! Just play the perm leagues and it doesn’t matter.
In summary OP, I’m so so glad you don’t design games.
I’ve been playing poe since closed beta (back when they had invites on a timer), and I’ve played it every major patch since then. I’ve played it casual (5-10 hours / week) and hardcore (80h + / week).
Most of the stuff (bad stuff) about POE is what makes poe a great game.
Poe is not a casual game, but it can be played as that as well.
Those arguments would make sense for a single player game, focused on story, but OP is missing the whole point of what makes an online, multiplayer game popular. Without those “bad” things you wouldn’t have replayability, growing player base, players returning every X month and so on.
Thank god GGG is not listening to feedback like this one, and I hope LE devs are not as well.
As a very casual ARPG fan I disagree with the statement that PoE is a bad game. I think it a rather brilliantly designed game, both from a commercial and a gameplay perspective. It does however go out of its way to exclude certain types of player. I’m sure that has riled a good number of potential customers over the years; “we don’t serve your kind here” isn’t a very obliging message to receive. Nevertheless, it’s important not to mistake personal irritation for a well-founded opinion on quality. I don’t like PoE, but that doesn’t make it a bad game.
As evidenced by the number of different viewpoints expressed here that all claim for themselves the “casual” label, that term isn’t the most precise. In order to consider what puts off individual players from a game like PoE, it is useful to distinguish between different factors, at least between complexity and return on time investment.
For example, I don’t mind complexity. On the contrary, that’s exactly what I want from a game. However, I do want what everyone else wants too: a game that allows me to accomplish everything I want to accomplish in the time I’m willing and able to invest in it. I realise that “time invested” is not an immutable quantity, but depends on how good a job the game does at sustaining my motivation. But there are (in my case and that of many adult gamers) hard limits. 10 hours a week is already a lot of time, in particular as any one game competes with other games and other hobbies for my attention. (Incidentally the only hobby that I can think of in which 10h/week is considered “casual” is gaming). What do I want to achieve with that time? Not everything under the sun, clearly, but I do expect access to all of the game’s features. In an ARPG that translates to the ability to pursue any conceivable build and simultaneously maintain a decent variety of builds/characters. That is what PoE denies me whereas D3, for all its flaws, places this goal firmly within my reach.
Approaching this question from the other side, I can ask myself what I’m willing to accept as being inaccessible to casual players like me. The general answer is as straightforward as it is useless from a design perspective: anything that I don’t care about. In my case that includes any competitive element or ranking as well as purely quantitative scaling (i.e. functionally identical content or items just with higher numbers). I know it’s fashionable to hate on Blizzard, but among all the invective one shouldn’t overlook the quality that got them to where they are in the first place. Ancient/primal gear is a fine example of a game element that acts as an incentive to some without being unduly disheartening to others.
In summary, my take on how to design for my kind - the strapped for time kind - of casual is to consider not only what different types of player want to have, but also what they’re okay with not having. It seems to me that variety (in terms of content and rewards) could be part of the answer: the more there is to be had, the more parallel reward tracks there are, the more there is for casuals not to care about. And paradoxically I think that is, or at least can be, a good thing.
Personally, the only real deal breaker for me is seeing gameplay variety locked behind excessive time gates - if there’s a way of interacting with the game (i.e. a specific build) that looks fun I want to be able to try it.
All of this is of course my opinion shaped by my subjective experience - I shouldn’t have to say this, but this is the internet so I think I had better.