What not to do: Lessons from PoE from a 1400 hours PoE ex-player (part 1)

Feedback and Suggestions
244

The smartest move GGG did was removing Gold from their game and making all items have value in situations, I think thats the best thing and imo should of revolutionized aRPG’s

Ive been playing Valheim a survival game with skill gain on use ie swing a Sword at something you get exp towards level ups starting from 0 to 100, you get approx 60-100% bonus at 100 so they are worth leveling plus incremental gains are still good

If you die in Valheim you drop all your gear on the floor and lose -5% current xp to all your skills so if you die at 90 skill you lose 4.5, but you lose running, woodchopping, swords - its quite brutal and I dont really enjoy the loss; there is a cooldown on death of skill drain effect if you die again but it means you have to be pretty careful, not run into silly situations, make sure you have good gear and are prepared

You dont even need high skills in Valheim to beat the game, you can easily do it at 50 skills. Translating to an aRPG - you lose more the higher you go ie xp loss at 90+ but you also dont need to be 100 but its there if you want the challenge plus simply put putting a penalty makes the game more exciting, otherwise its just dull overall

245

What do you care about other people’s skill level? Is that a kind of e-peen thing for you, this gatekeeping?

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246

A game that cannot separate the good from the bad is a game without depth.

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247

There’s already a penalty for death. If you die you lose time and progress. It’s trivial while leveling and going through the story but punishing in echoes. Why do people feel a need to make it more severe unless it’s solely to punish the more casual players and discourage them from playing?

LE seems designed to appeal to a broad range of players and is one of the easiest ARPG’s I’ve seen to experiment with builds in without being too shallow. I’ve never played POE so I can’t speak to that but one of the major downsides to Grim Dawn was how complex character building was and the constant need to either use a guide or spend hours on a build tool and constantly refer to it. Whereas in LE it’s pretty easy to experiment and respec. I think that, combined with the current loss of progress for death and the ease of the crafting system is a huge part of the game’s appeal.

I personally dread the introduction of xp penalties, the trading system and necessity of balancing loot around trading that comes along with it. Depending on how that works out I might step away from the game at that point.

248

Just to extremely clear, I started playing LE a while back and had to quit due to personal issues. But I plan to come back as soon as I can to soak in all this new content. I try to keep up on reading with the updates and reading the forums. I don’t post much, however.

With that said. I agree with you on a couple points (I only read the initial post and a few comments after). But, that doesn’t mean you don’t have valid points and you most assuredly are entitled to your own opinions, no need for anyone to flame you for having them. Having a courteous discussion with well thought out ideas is ideal in this situation.

Mainly I agree with you on:
EXP Loss - I agree with this 100%. My game playing path started with an old Korean grind fest MMORPG called Knight Online. That game exacts heavy exp penalties on those that die in the course of grinding exp. I hate it. In Knight Online you could spend 10 hours (yes, 10 hours) grinding mobs only to take a sip of water, miss using a health potion, dyeing and losing half the exp. It was horrendous. I also played POE and experienced the same. So, I do think their are many ways to avoid the EXP Loss penalty in favor of other more reasonable penalties. But, LE seems to have death penalties done well already.

Off Screen OneShots/Attacks - Putting it simply, being one shot by something you cannot see is incredibly frustrating and seems rather pointless in terms of a skill based ARPG. How do you expect someone to dodge/pre-pot/escape something they cannot see? Just my opinion, obviously.

I disagree with you, though, on the Trading and Boss Mechanics issues.

Trading - I come from the point of view that having to meet up with people and trade, even though outside resources like trade/buy/sell websites are tedious, is necessary to bring a community together. These extra steps I think make a community stronger. The downside is obviously those pesky butt nuggets that take advantage of new players and rip them off, etc.

Boss Mechanics - Boss Mechanics that can one shot you are fine by me. However, they most definitely need to be telegraphed somehow. Some text that flashes on the screen or some visual indicator that some shi* is about to go down are a must to even the playing field. But again, bosses are bosses, they are meant to be difficult.

Just my thoughts. Cheers.

249

Personally I take the big glowy circle on the ground as the thing to see & not be in.

My experience of PoE’s trading is quite different. It would be 10-20 mins of PMing people who have put stuff up for trade & usually not getting a response. I don’t mind if they say that they’re busy or in a map that they don’t want to leave for a trade, I’m fine with that & either happy to wait or move on to someone else, but the vast majority of my attempts to trade for consumables (currency or maps) was akin to shouting into the wind, not exactly a cuddly community-afirming experience.

I get GGG not wanting to encourage people to trade for gear too much since it takes them away from killing stuff in the game & getting upgrades that way but consumables such as maps & currency?

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250

I’d hate to see this form of trading implemented. I’m mostly a solo player and don’t want to spend half my game time pm’ing people trying to find gear. This isn’t a concern if they don’t rebalance loot drops around trading but at the same time how could they not if they want trading to be heavily utilized. An auction house type of trading might be ok but again, only if they don’t rebalance loot around it.

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251

Dude, could you please quote the whole section of my post and not just the part that you somehow consider “gatekeeping”.

Throughout the entire thread, when i posted my opinion i always,… always emphasized that i don’t want any major progression or content gated behind the last few levels.

This is the exact opposite of gatekeeping.

Thank you, have a good day sir.

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252

I was thinking the same thing as you are. No one likes gated content but there has to be a way to let the best prove themselves. If not, we all end at the same spot with the blue participation ribbon.

253

Isn’t the ladder already how the best prove themselves?

254

No, that does not take any skill. All you have to do is find the one busted build and make a run for it. This is not the time to determine the best as the game has to at least get out of beta.

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255

If it takes no skill then what’s the point of it (and way to insult everyone at the top of the ladder)? No matter what form the leaderboard takes, there are going to be people who use a build they got from a guide to compete. Skill certainly comes into play because you need to be able to successfully pilot and use the build, farm the gear for the build, etc.

256

Skill is in the Solo and Masochist difficulties. Even there there is still a debate on what is better Arena level defeated based on level of character or just arena level? So you are saying that a level 92 defeating a 331 is better than a level 86 beating a 323 using different build, I would disagree with that.

Skill and proving ones worth is all subjective and with an incomplete game it is nothing but a futile effort at filling the forum with text.

257

For you to say it takes no skill, I’m assuming you’re constantly top of the ladder every patch right?

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258

nope, I am a disabled player. I could care less about horn tooting over pseudo competition that makes no difference in the end.

259

So you’re not in a place to say it takes no skill. Gotcha.

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260

Fortunately, the ladder gives us a hard number on what is best. It’s ranked by waves cleared, regardless of character level and build.

261

You are missing the point. That an individual should not place their enjoyment or level of skill based on others. YOU are the one in control of your own goals. So you can either be the expert of the game day one and be crowned king/queen or learn about it over time. Skill is not instantaneous gratification like so many believe it takes time.

The skill could be for one to go deathless in the story. Another skill is learning all the classes and available masteries (i.e. boardman). Everyone skill again is subjective and we are succeeding in adding more useless text to this forum.

262

You are directly contradicting yourself here. You say there has to be a way to let the best prove themselves, then saying the ladder is pointless.

263

I said there has to be a way for the best to prove themselves. No contradiction at all if for me being the best is never placing on the ladder then I never will, I live with that fact. I have placed on PoE HCSSF ladders in the past when not so many were playing. So again all things are subjective.