If the game requires unlimited stash tabs, probably some overall design should be changed 
There have been longstanding philosophical arguments for and against unlimited stash, and I get the reasoning for having limits, but it always gets to being specific about how much is ‘enough’ and agreement never comes.
Other than the database cost, there’s no reason not to do unlimited, especially if it is not up-front but something I must expand and manage myself. Other than some arbitrary philosophical ‘enough to not overwhelm’ type argument.
I’m an altaholic in my fav ARPGs and I like playing through campaign. Therefore, I might want stash space for leveling gear for all classes, endgame gear for all classes, one of each unique, some LP items, some interesting ‘new build idea’ items, backup items (if I’m playing HC), idols, ‘for shattering,’ ‘for ascending,’ etc. I’m glad I don’t have to face the frustration of curating all that to a set limit (cough Grim Dawn cough), but I know if I want to use it well I need to spend a bit of time organising the stash with categories and rules and buying them in the first place. I’m fine with that.
The friction of creating new tabs and rules also means when one fills up I’ll evaluate a clean-out vs just adding another.
I’m not arguing about whether or not tabs should be unlimited, I’m saying that when there is such question in the game, maybe overall gameplay design should be changed so you wouldn’t need to collect hundred of tabs of loot.
Why spend time figuring out the ‘perfect’ stash size though if you can just make it unlimited? It’s unrelated to the itemisation system. And to be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever heard arguments for ‘less stash size please, it’s too much.’ Ever.
Nothing about unlimited says 'you must use as close to infinity as possible. The game’s system might only ever produce enough loot to need 3 tabs. Who cares, if you can do infinite, do it, remove the argument.
Again, I am not arguing about if they should be limited or not. I am saying that there is some overall design problem if dozen of stash tabs is not enough. What we are, hamsters?
And I explained why that’s not true. Especially if I can search. Let me hoard if I want, I’m ok with that. I can’t think of an ARPG where no one could need dozens of tabs if available, it’s a feature of the genre. Unless it’s D3 and all you care about are gems, sets and primals. But I wouldn’t say D3 is an ARPG that nails build diversity and strong itemisation…
You explained why you want unlimited tabs, not why there is no problems with overall design. For example, are you sure that it’s more fun to start each mew class with already having all the items you need? You will not find much new items for your character this way, so you will play him without usual progression, which supposed to be fun. Sure, maybe current progression speed is not fun for you, but this is an overall design problem then.
So? Yes that’s what I might like. I’m not sure what your point is. It’s a subjective player desire and if the tech supports it (for LE, it’s already done) there’s no ‘design’ downside.
I’ll give you an example of why you might want items already there using Grim Dawn.
Say I want to play an Aether damage based build with a class that doesn’t normally support it. But there are items in the game that provide needed damage conversion. I know now I can start my new build with a few items ready that allow me to maintain the build design while I hope to come across other or better items and I get to enjoy my idea from the start, rather than “level to endgame then respec.”
That’s just one example, there are many more I’m sure. Again, ‘overall design’ is irrelevant if the cost for unlimited stash is not problematic.
You seems to not understand what I am saying. It’s either more or less fun for you to have that damage conversion from the start. If it is more fun — no need to lock it from you in the first place, so it makes more sense to have the option to unlock that power by default instead of filling endless tabs with items.
I think you’re missing the point this kind of ARPG gameloop. You drop sweet gear that inspires another playthrough so you stash it for that playthrough.
If you’re just going to pick up everything you need as you play the first time, why have stash in the first place? Then you just need a degree in loot filtering to make sure you know what you need in advance and are not just swamped with all the constant loot explosions to make sure you don’t miss out.
Anyway, this is enough off-topic for me.
2 Likes
Will still answer though. If some gear inspire you for another playthrough, you don’t need endless tab for that gear. If you inspired only after collecting hundred of items, then you need endless tab, and then something is wrong with design or how you play.
Well thanks for telling me how I should play I guess…
Neither inherently true or wrong, it depends on the missing implementations brought out from GGG before release… and even subsequent ones.
The core difference is the lower affix pool (a given since the game is at the beginning), lack of influenced bases (same) and the rework of the passive tree and support gems only being able to be used once.
Support gems only being used once is neither a positive or negative, though given their type of implementation going forward likely a net-negative as it’ll be build limiting. What GGG is supposed to do - and hopefully wakes up to - for longevity of the game is to provide the same type of support gem in a variety of downsides… or very similar ones. Thus allowing to spread them out between skills, putting them together into categories so you can’t double-dip them into the same skill.
Likely won’t be done, but design-wise it wasn’t a inherently bad decision.
The passive tree though… that’s a disaster. Energy Shield nodes galore but nothing for life? Whoever greenlit this should be whacked for their absolute inane design decisions. It changed nothing to ‘fix’ the former downsides of the passive tree and only made decisions all the more important to min-max there, a overall detriment. The system already enforced too stringent choices into the tree, something which majorly gear is supposed to handle with the tree being a basis to build upon through said gear.
Also something which LE does ridiculously bad actually. The majority of player power is in the passive tree, to a degree where a level 100 character can run around with only the boots and a weapon and beat empowered monoliths. That shouldn’t be the case, gear power is so miniscule it’s laughable after the campaign. And even in the campaign you can just slap anything onto gear that even remotely fits and you’ll be golden to beat content outside of Lagon and Majasa. A really really bad state.
First thing first: Never pay into promises, pay into results. Paying up-front before enjoyment is given which warrants a price-tag money shouldn’t be given to a company. The exception is treating it as a gamble with the chance to loose it all with no return, mostly, with kickstarters and similar sites only. Same goes for Early Access.
You’re paying into promises of the future, not the existing product… unless the existing product already is fully functional and worth said price-tag.
Games like 7 Days to Die or Barotrauma definitely are EA-wise worth it, others aren’t. For the base price-tag of 30€ PoE 2 is definitely worth the money, anything further not so much.
As for the video: Starts with SSF mindset, which inherently doesn’t function in PoE 2, so already a bad premise plainly spoken. The game wasn’t design with that and it was seen before EA even came out. So a bad buy-decision from that guy’s side.
Followed up by ‘this is not a fair take’ already de-values a ton by design, but I went and listened to the whole thing, so the breakdown:
Also, as mentioned, I agree, current PoE 2 is bad, hard to say anything else. It’s badly cobbled together, though the individual cobbles are surprisingly well designed individually… just not in conjunction, and it’s worthwhile to dismantle them and showcase the positives and negatives of the parts rather then getting stuck on the complete state of it.
Why? Because then suggestions for other games of the genre have a much higher quality, providing feedback on implementations which failed in other games but were - with respective adjustments - not only good idead but marvelous ones at times. As well as showcasing why it nonetheless fails to avoid pitfalls other games have gone through.
Proper evaluation hence.
Action RPG’s are not inherently defined by ‘killing enemies and picking up items’, that’s a misnomer. What he talks about are looter Hack’N’Slash games. Top-down being only the visual direction as well, you can make the same gameplay style as a FPS and it works great, seen with Borderlands for example.
What’s showcased though is that the focus of design is set on gradual step-by-step itemization with high variance (to provide higher dopamine hits which last longer then alternative methods do) and combat.
A pure looter game focuses solely on the loot, an example would be the idle-game ‘Lootun’ in that category. And a pure Hack’N’Slash would focus on the killing of enemies, ‘Vampire Survivors’ is a prime example of that. Both do well, the genre we play is a combination of the best of both worlds, great!
Also few days ago a very severe re-balance of loot has happened. And it solved this issue nigh entirely. The base drops are good now. Actually functional and as supposed to be existing, with a severe focus on picking up those higher-tiered rares from the ground as they’re guaranteed to have good mods on them now.
So that parts a thing of the past, with GGG able to finally tune into the sweetspot rather then trying to throw a ball through a small hole and missing the entire damn planet!
And yes, GGG unlearned the knowledge from PoE 1, which is why Mark got pulled off to PoE 2 to fix their crap since otherwise they would be utterly incompetent and misguided. I blame it on a bad lead for it, but it could be entirely different reasons as well… but it points in that direction.
As for the sockets: That’s because the current socket system doesn’t hae the inherent power that those in PoE 1 had, adding now stats to the item rather then enforcing you to re-design your whole build which was extremely limiting. Hence that is a thought that’s not… well… thought out 
Also yes, identification scrolls are a detriment from start to finish. At least they got rid of the portal scrolls. It’s outdated design leftover from RPG times where items could be cursed, hence there being a distinct reasoning for those to exist. That reason has vanished, now it’s just pure tedium. And tedium without reasoning is bad inherently.
Yes, the rune system for resistances is awful, agreed. Dumb decision, bad design. Would be good in another context… but it’s the wrong context. What would’ve solved the issue is to focus charms in providing permanent resistances up until you outlevel them, leading to them being a early-game crutch to ensure builds can be fixed up properly while then traversing over to providing interesting unique affixes. But GGG as usual dropped the ball for such implementations.
Armor (the value) is absolutely garbage, yes, LE has a fantastic system for that, one which does the job well, is a fixed scaling and isn’t entirely situational and only helping for non-massive hits… where it would be needed the most after all.
Yes, Level design is also crap. Not a mechanical aspect though focusing on you… that’s the base design of the game which is messed up.
Already mentioned the passive tree above, abomination. Simple downgrade, agreed.
But I’m not praising the passive tree from LE either… that’s… lackluster. I’ve ran into so many builds which simply go ‘where the heck am I supposed to put my points? I’ve ran out of things which actually do something good!’ that it’s laughable. That stuff needs a re-design from the ground up, at least 1/3rd more options there, actually enforcing choice as is mentioned in the video as well rather then ‘Well I guess since everything is bad I’ll invest into the least bad option’. And on the counterside depending on build it’s so brokenly strong that a wrong allocation of a few points will cause your character to become a wet noodle splattering apart from a breeze while otherwise they’re godlike and indestructible killing machines.
That’s bad design too.
As for the downsides on support gems? Yes, detriment, purely so. Bad choice. But that has nothing to do with the core design, that’s values simply… reduce them to 1/4th they have now and stuff feels good while providing the downsides as a meaningful choice rather then a build-crippling menace.
Yes, the skill-shoehorning in PoE 2 is hefty. But that’s a upper-layer design decision, not a base layer. It can be entirely nullified by simply adjusting some values. It’s a low-friction change for GGG. That’s different from fundamental design aspects which need a large amount of effort to change them.
A prime example is the old DR mechanic versus the new boss-ward mechanic. It’s a severe change which needs a complete new design, not only saying 'yeah, DR now works differently with the values ‘xyz’ but instead re-designing annoying crap into another flavor of annoying crap.
If I’m a strong character and fighting a boss I wanna see it melt. I don’t give a single shit - sorry but no milder way to say it is available for that - that the devs want me to ‘see their mechanics’. I don’t give a crap, I’m happy that I smacked that thing down without giving it a chance. That’s the whole power fantasy.
And yes, challenging content and bosses are great, but they need to be respectively balanced with the classes and builds accordingly fitting to that, as a baseline. And extreme outliers being reigned in while underperforming builds are subsequently buffed.
All things EHG sadly doesn’t do properly. They act as if afraid of their own system ‘better not touch it, it might break!’ Break it! Experiment! Reverse it! Make the last darn 2 weeks of a Cycle ‘the big experiment’ and mess up everything as long as you finally dial into the stuff properly! Nobody cares at that point, let it only affect character on the temporary Cycle too, nobody sane starts 2 weeks before a Cycle ends anyway, the people just ‘finish up stuff’ and that’s it.
Crafting is a given, a mess, nothing more to say for that, just… a mess. A actual idiotic mess.
Mind you, I find LE’s crafting also not ‘great’. It functions, it does its job, nice! It’s a severe hindrance for future implementations though without causing base-drops to either loose value severely or become too valuable (as currently is the case).
It’s a weak mechanic currently, not upholding the core principle on which it should function, which is to alleviate drop-RNG properly. Instead it’s more used as an excuse to keep high variance drops not catered towards the played character while causing those to break most of the time anyway!
That’s also… bad design overall.
PoE 1 crafting in comparison is great. The downfall is the complexity… the functionality though is immense. It does at a baseline exactly what it’s supposed to do: Fixing sub-par items to make them worthwile. The end!
But what it does beyond is to elevate items from start to end into god-like items. Knolwedge and repetition will bring you that outcome. What the detriment there is… is the repetition. That crap needs to be automated. Nobody likes spamming 500 alteration orbs onto a ring just to roll over the finally appearing affix because you’ve been bored out so heavily that it happens, loosing focus by then!
Wells… yeah… what the actual fuck? Intern design level. Boy’s first game design choice having never played the genre once.
Charms… yep, crap. Mentioned above what they should do. The idol system in LE is a really good system, it’s an improvement of the original D2 charms giving them a proper place and spreading out item power a bit better. Now we just need to have EHG put actual power on items outside of + level and some other rare mods which are basically mandatory. You know… things which actually matter to give us substantial defences and offences, not solely scaling off of the pasisve tree which is our core potential, being screwed simply if we have a class+skill combo which doesn’t have enough options to scale it.
Chests have been fixed I think. Not tested yet. The exact suggestions have been implemented, with the guaranteed drops
So yeah, the obvious stuff, but not fundamental design issues. Just bad choices which can be fixed mostly fast with a few exceptions.
The major issue is the usage of gold, which is a resource for MG, which is acquired by someone knowledgeable in a really short amount of time. I made 20+ mil per 4 hours of playing when 1.2 dropped because I inherently knew what things would be scarce on the market, simple player knowledge. In comparison I would need half a darn month of playing 4 hours a day to reach 20 mil in CoF without focusing on Gold.
Is MG supposed to have the ability to respec mastery + everything else 20 times a day without issue?
How many builds are in a class? 15? 20? From the ones which aren’t a mess? So… 6 days to get all tomb of the erased builds on lastepochtools being provided there tested out completely?
Where’s the replay value then? You tried everything, you’re done… choices have meaning. Make choices easily changed and they loose value.
It’s simply out brain doing that if we want or not. There’s studies about it. People in dire straits getting help which they’re in dire need of… then it was compared what happens if that help is completely free or comes at least at a small cost.
The people - despite being in dire need of it - which didn’t have to pay at least ‘something’ had a substantially lower success rate. Our mind attaches value to things based on what we have to give up for it. The value of money is so ingrained in our brain since we’ve been children that we have a clear-cut thing showcasing to us that it would be a net-loss if we don’t get in motion.
The absolute same happens when you’re presented with a choice, one which the more limiting it is the more value to that choice is given by our brain. Obviously we try to avert that, why? Because giving a choice meaning means not only taking responsibility for that choice but it also produces anxiety by the fear of picking the wrong thing. That’s something which we can’t avoid… but also a tool for a good game designer.
If we’re stressed out Cortisol is released, which is a net-negative… but when feeling relief then Endorphins are released, which are a pain reliever and stress reliever, also serotonin, dopamine and oxytocin are released at once, giving a massive mood-boost which does far more then counteracting the initially released Cortisol.
So as a good game developer you minimize the options to ‘pick wrong’ but without providing said info to the player. Stress and anxiety are a natural thing happening and only through those do we even have the ability to feel success, which is the feeling of overcoming any form of challenge of any kind. For that it needs to have meaning though, stakes of some form, as miniscule as they might seem, so it’s the most important tool to manage in entertainment.
It’s not unlimited, 200 tabs max.
Yes, sortable needs to be implemented in the outdated system of PoE.
Filters are vastly stronger in PoE.
Categories exist as well.
The only upside as mentioned is the sorting.
We also need to compare how it came to be, the time investment for it and the hoops to go through.
It should’ve been a day 1 fix in 1.0 and it took over a year.
That’s the quality we’re speaking about, and that’s not even tackling the core issues of the crafting system, like exalted affixes de-valuing crafting to a major degree, with runes of Havoc not even remotely making up for it unless their drop-rate is at least improved by 500% or more reduce the impact it has. Which would be disastrous though as the system was made in mind with the utterly crappy base situation EHG has put themselves into. It’s a system designed to work based on a flawed core state, so it can’t function ‘great’, it can only function ‘decently well’ at best.
Yeah, since the QoL of crafting in PoE is missing we don’t perceive the difference properly, as a implementation it’s obviously better, as potential it’s simply sub-par though sadly.
It’s like saying a Ornitophter is better then a jet plane because the average person has the ability to control it.
No, it isn’t, it’s still a shitty thing which barely works. The goal is to simplify the complexity and not to remove capability.
There’s a very distinct and important difference.
Which is… absolutely wrong.
It’s a very widely strewn system simply, one which causes inherent complexity. It can be counteracted heavily by proper QoL, which isn’t existing.
The system isn’t bad, the interaction methods are. There’s also a distinct but important difference about that.
A odd example would be the ‘stay-on-tab’ on aluminum cans for drinks. You know why it isn’t a solid thing? Because it’s made by the design of the inventor still - and nowadays to save on material as well - which designed it specifically in mind to put a strw through it, holding said straw in place.
Obviously an ingenious little addition! Just the interaction sucks… how often do you carry a straw with you after all?
It’s in the same ballpark of that, the mechanic itself is great, the handling of said mechanic is crap, with the ‘stay-on-tab’ it obviously would be by providing a straw at the side of a can… but people forgot why it even exists, in the case of PoE it would be according UI elements to ease the usage of the systems interacting with it.
Automated re-use of consumables until outcome is achieved. Showcase of distributive chance of success, a provided handbook to see where specific craft types can be obtained. A unified UI and storage for all crafting consumables. A one-click mechanic to use them on an item. A option to design your own crafting steps to get piece by piece to the end result.
Tons of options which could be implement but none are. Fault of the interaction, not the core mechanic. The core mechanic is as solid as it gets in PoE 1, the initial design is so well made that it causes nigh all fringe cases of bricking an item to simply not exist… nowadays the only option is corruption to ruin a base completely, and even that has been removed with the introduction of consumables which actually influence those too!
It has for consumables which given that the access to top-end content is part of those (And the ones left out are simply half-baked methods from GGG once more) and hence providing a realiable long-term functional exchange place.
Items are supposed to be acquired personally as well much as possible, RNG is what a market is supposed to alleviate. Crafting is the core mechanic to alleviate said RNG.
Using a market for finished gear rather then personal acquisition is skipping the mechanic supposed to deal with that in the first place! And acquisition of consumables - including content access - is where the value actually is. Gear itself can be clunky for trade, that’s fine, consumables need to be automated.
EHG simply has their system backwards sadly. Which shows as access to items through MG is one utter and entire disaster. Boss uniques at Rank 3? Great, I can buy my uber-aberroth item at Rank 3! A simple exalted item at Rank 7? (non weapon) That’s so mind-brokenly dumb in design I don’t even know where to begin!
Uniques need ranking related to rarity. Boss-uniques need limited access based on personal progression state. LP needs to be tiered as well, with relation to the rarity of an item. Exalted drops need to, based on overall total rarity of potential drop-chance.
That’s the start of it, lemme not get into the nitty-gritty of the details of what else is wrong with it, it’ll actively double my post-size otherwise.
And as a reminder: If you as a developer provide a function then you better make darn well sure that function is properly implemented rather then a half-baked mess. Otherwise? Don’t provide it if you can’t do it, find workarounds to allow people to achieve the result without the usage of a specific function instead.
‘A bit’ is good It needs a boatload of that. CoF is a good start but utterly unbalanced. It double-dips into quantity of qualitative drops together with the quality of said drops. As a palyer in MG I can’t kill Aberroth more often then someone on CoF, hence CoF will get a better outcome for the same time investment to achieve a rare drop from him with LP.
And since the sought after items are not accessible in MG because of demand CoF has a overall higher chance to own a top-tier item.
Also exalted items with a T7 and a T6 on a good base with fitting affixes are a basically non-existent unicorn in MG, you can play for 100 hours and drop not a single one of those for any build at all while in CoF you instead have the same chance of getting a 2T7 item or even a 3T7 + T6 item in comparison. That’s laughable to even happen, the power disparity of exalted versus non-exalted affixes is so massive it makes it defining.
So I’ll state it clearly: It’s fine not to design a game with a specific audience in mind. It’s not fine to address a specific audience and then provide a insultingly bad experience.
Last Epoch prides itself on having the option to either go for trading or for personal progression only… but it actually only provides one functional state. Which is CoF.
Mind you, I’m a trader and crafter at heart. My 2 core premises which bring me enjoyment are collecting items and making stuff better. Despite that I’m currently after switching over to Cof. To reiterate: After investing 600 hours into the game I’ve decided it more valuable to throw basically my whole progress of that time away in favor of switching to another faction. Solely because the experience difference is just that atrociously bad long-term.
And to clear it up: The core design of the factions is fantastic. The execution is beyond abysmal simply.
Oh, they’re a lost cause in that regard, absolutely
Item drop to crafting. Crafting is supposed to alleviate RNG. Their design doesn’t as the base itemization is solely hinged on drop-luck. Exalted Affixes are a completely destruction of any meaningful crafting mechanic.
You could call LE’s system a ‘potential item fixer’ (as not even that baseline which is a guarantee in any other game is one here) and not a crafting mechanic.
Once again, drop-based, the LP mechanic. At first glance a great system until you look at the history of itemization overall and at sets, something which EHG also has fallen into as a trap. Since the conception of set items they always were either worthless or the top-tier items, being hence a waste of design space since they’re unused or so good that it ruins the whole otherwise existing itemization systems. D3 had that as a major issue. Core items becoming useless at times.
LE ‘fixed’ that by simply removing the items… so they could’ve just made them affix shards anyway, right? Not solved, it’s basically realizing there’s a lot of dirt while cleaning up so you sweep it under the rug, that’s not ‘fixing’ it
And LP has the same underlying issue. The more uniques are added in the game the more likely that one is a viable one for a slot not formerly occupied. The more that happens the more likely for builds to ignore item bases of core drops and go for those items instead, making a large chunk of the itemization system meaningless. Also re-introducing the RNG layer which should’ve been solved by crafting (but isn’t properly anyway…) again!
Wolcen had the same issue and it was - one of the many - a reason for its downfall (besides absolute shoddy development bordering a scam, great campaign though! Had in been properly finished at least) and EHG didn’t check that out.
Then we have the market implementation… hooo boy… lemme cherry pick a small bit of the myriad of issues then.
Price-curves, price-checking, sorting by roll-range, sub-sorting by secondary roll-range, affix count system beyond ‘1’, personal sale-list search, repricing.
All the named ones are UI elements and function not implemented and hence completely missing. A large portion of them being universally mandated core functions (like the price-checking and roll-range sorting) simply not existing, making it one absolute barely-functional chore to list items accordingly.
Personal example? I had a quarter inventory filled with potentially valuable idols. So I went ahead to price-check them manually and list them. It took me more then 45 minutes to do that.
Would you consider listing ~20 items for 45 minutes acceptable? That’s a 1 1/2 hour farming session. 2/5th of the time outside of content or the choice of simply ‘throwing them in randomly priced and hoping for the best’. That’s not functioning.
Then we got affixes not listed with their functions (champion - or personal called - affixes are only listed by now. What do they do? Great for searching, right?)
Gold causing a double-dipping through CoF, making switching from one side to the other substantially easier then the other way around. Which is supposed to be avoided after all, we got those severe and absolutely atrociously picked downsides for a reason… right?
Gold breaking the max storage limit.
No viable regular worthwhile gold sink causing inflation to increase very good items to the gold cap.
Items beyond that value being unable to be listed without inherent loss, the top-end is all equally worth the same. A 4 LP red ring is the same as a 2 T7 exalted, the 2 T7 exalted is kiiinda more common though. Causes them to never be listed and only hoarded, breaks the functionality of the market and returns to barter.
Those are the most severe ones.
Any further questions as to te why?
Now we got corruption, which functions but has been implemented in a similar way in PoE 1 very early on, dunno even the name anymore. Content which has no limiter to be played (endless tries like the echos without actual detriments that are worthwhile) causes people inherently to overextent themselves, regular deaths following, that taking away the enjoyment of the game and reducing engagement time.
EHG decided to reduce monster density at failure, meaning you run through a vastly less populated echo which hence also provides vastly reduced rewards, making it underwhelming after being frustrated already. That’s obviously bad design.
No option to target-farm core gear in any way. Pure RNG factor. That’s the D2 way which has since been phased away for a reason. The vast minority of people stays engaged if nothing changes over a substantial timeframe. That’s a psychological aspect which is very easily repeated to ensure it’s a true aspect happening. Loss of interest because no reward happens, hence no enjoyment simply.
There’s actually been a dev-talk about this specific topic for a quite long time, from Chris Wilson years ago by now, stating exactly what is happening.
Basically it’s ‘steps of upgrades’ which is a basic game concept nowadays even taught in design courses.
It’s even showcased in Baldur’s Gate 1 already and implemented as a design aspect there. When you were in a especially long-lasting area/dungeon then the developers put interesting loot there… not at the outcome but already along the road. This made players stay invested since they are given a sense of success.
In LE this vanes extremely quickly. You get constant things you can change early on up until you get into exalteds. Then you have some uniques… the core affixes on exalted items and slamming them more often then not onto a unique… and then nothing for hours upon hours upon hours. In the last 70 hours of gameplay I upgraded my most played character (warpath) in offline mode… once. With an item that was identical beyond a better roll of an affix, 3% extra res… nice! That’s it.
That’s what modern multi-step crafting systems instead alleviate. You get a hefty RNG layer for the beginning step(s) and hence get minor feelings of success even if it bricks afterwards. But the top-end is either allowing items to be ‘locked in’ (suffixes/prefixes done in PoE) or to give a deterministic high-cost top-end to finish up an item. Often with high-risk moves for a step beyond (T0 crafting in Torchlight, corruption in PoE). That’s entirely missing.
I think those are enough examples. Each one of the core bits there have been established from former creators of games in the genre, or general creation of a similar mechanic (trade) in other games. All EHG needed to do was take in this information and take care not to repeat those mistakes. Others have done it for them. But well, they’re trailblazers clearly, even if someone else already did clear the path and showing there’s a cliff at the end!
Yeah, so from ‘not enough’ it switched with the changes (after all 1.2 is a good direction) to ‘acceptable’ to invest your time into.
Tactical gameplay isn’t for everyone, and it’s definitely not for people who are used to blasting through and enjoying that aspect.
And… it’s a bad fit for the genre. PoE 2 has a uphill battle there since they need to combine that and the adhered to ‘power-fantasy’ which is mandatory.
The rolling is a major issue, much better by now, rolling into a wall shouldn’t commonly happen though, the wall doesn’t move
And weapon class restrictions for skills, and the lack of currency (why the hell you need currency for this) to unlock 5/6l for skills.
But of course we can say that about most decisions, it’s all in the implementation.
I agree, I think this is mostly because of the defensive side too. You really don’t have to worry about defenses for a loooong part of the levelling process. I think to adjust this they need to add an another prefix/suffix generally to gear (instead of as a ‘bonus’ mechanic) and allow more flexibility in filling gaps from the skill tree. Too often you have two affixes you care about, with the others being ‘who cares’ yet still wanting more in the prefix/suffix slot that’s full. Agree with your point that exalteds devalue crafting.
To be honest I thought this was a no-brainer with all quality of PoE1 leagues recently and the previews getting good feedback and looking quite impressive. Lesson learned…
The problem is, and with your comments here about the fixes, is that ‘fixing’ all their issues just basically works back all their new ideas. Because underneath it’s built on PoE1. It’s going to be PoE1 with spears and some new ascendancies. Because the itemisation, currency, crafting, skill system, monster design and class archetypes aren’t uniquely new (ok crossbow dude is cool I’ll admit). So, they’re in trouble the minute they decide PoE1 and 2 are getting too close and one needs to stop.
Of course not, it’s just a gross generalisation for making a point about the core thing that makes them ‘fun.’ I imagine he meant ‘isometric ARPG’s.’
Fundamentally though, what has it changed. You actually kill things faster now? Has it changed skill progression or made itemisation more exciting, other than actually meeting a basic expectation now?
You just have to look at how the engagement has gone since release: Release game version → interview streamers → implement things streamers said to change. They’re basically designing on the fly, lead by community feedback. It’s… interesting. Look at the LE devstreams with question responses, you get pretty solid design reasoning (whether you like it or not) for why things will or won’t change. GGG don’t seem to have very solid reasoning most of the time and instead try to be responsive.
Again, trying to do new things on a PoE1 base and… they’re not good. They should have started building PoE2 from scratch, then they most certainly, I would hope, would have ditched the useless armour system and reworked all the secondary defense effects like corrupted blood, damage over time, on-death, etc. Maybe.
And it’s fundamentally worse because again, it’s built on top of PoE1, which allows for the flexibility to work around the issues with balance, giving players the agency of it.
I actually think they should do this at end of cycle. One, it stops the early complaints. Two, it brings people back and Three, it let’s LE play with things before the new cycle starts so they can go a bit more wild. The community will quickly get used to the 'final fortnight free-for-all!" and it will work for everyone.
Same, but I think this is because you don’t get to craft things from scratch, but sort of still do sometimes. I’d like a system where if you drop some crazy high tier exalted or legendary item, you could learn its ‘recipe’ to craft in future, at a cost of glyphs of some rare type or something like that. Reduce the RNG but add cost for the determinism.
I think PoE’s crafting would work much better if you could just do it all in one place with appropriate menus. I often don’t bother crafting in PoE1 because I just can’t be bothered with all the bouncing around to use it.
Yeah lol. Another ‘new’ PoE2 idea that will just look like flasks in the end. Idols is a great idea, but I think they need to change a bit to either be more impactful or move some of it off into gear instead. Dunno, just feels less effectual than the promise at the moment, but I really like them as a system.
I agree with your sentiment here, but again, that’s a personal choice. If people wanna rush through all combinations and burn out, go for it. The main downside I see is that finding the ‘meta’ will happen super quickly now and all the sheep that like to follow will immediately skew the ‘what builds are popular’ feedback to the meta.
I don’t mind it being in there, but it should come at a significant cost if it can affect outside factors: you lose out on progress or something by doing so. MG faction is a problem here, it can’t be a gold cost if gold is so cheap. Perhaps it should reset your faction rep…
Aside of course the need to buy them all in the first place… And the unique one keeps only one copy, but still tries to auto-store there 
I haven’t attempted MG in LE and have no intention to, so can’t comment really on how good or bad that it, but the feedback seems to generally be that it’s a clusterf**k.
Well yeah, MOAR please 
CoF shouldn’t apply to boss drops I would think, though if I can just go and by those drops at some reasonably quick point in MG, I’m not sure. It’s tricky because how busy MG is (aside duping, RMT etc) makes balancing those drops difficult. I think on the whole, it probably works out fairly evenly, it’s not like you can’t still farm bosses in MG while you wait to buy. And sure, tune the balance to bring the drops closer in line, it depends, imo, if it’s making it too easy to progress in CoF with the current benefits.
Ok I get you now. Agreed. I like the intent (exalted affixes making loot exciting and not just relying on crafting to progress), but the balance is out for sure. I also don’t like the breaking of sets thing. One, I don’t like dropping a whole set at once, kinda ruins the ‘ooh I can’t wait to complete that set’ feeling and also, sets should define specific, unique build ideas. If they’re just boosters to skills and stats, they’re useless. Make them do something cool like provide a skill, change a skill entirely (like make surge work like flicker strike or elemental nova become like warpath or something crazy). Sets need strong identity, they’re chase items that inspire new build playthroughs.
Probably why GGG won’t bring the market in-game, it’s difficult.
This is the bit I don’t like. Grim Dawn is the best at this: I always know where to go with my builds (and game knowledge) to farm some core items as I go. Makes me look forward to getting to certain areas as I play through the campaign because I know I can find an upgrade (and you get faction rep as you go). Those steps of upgrades are very useful in driving the will to progress.
Yep absolutely, that’s where crafting needs to come back in to give you new targets. I’m torn on slamming uniques though. Part of me says it shouldn’t be allowed because it indicates the uniques themselves aren’t ‘unique’ enough, but also it is a neat way to build your power and keep your unique item capabilities. Perhaps there should be like a ‘Primal’ unique imprinter, that magnifies a unique’s power at the cost of no slams/LP or something. If magnifying a unique’s power doesn’t justify the trade-off of losing stats, then the itemisation needs a review to see why.
That’s playing it down a bit. I went from ‘eh’ to ‘this is fun.’ That’s a significant change. I’m not a min-maxer though, my expectations are modest.
Oh no, I love tactical gameplay, that’s what excited me about PoE2 the most. It just feels crap in PoE2 because the game’s mechanics don’t support it. I was playing falling thunder Monk as my main, but it just hit a wall of frustration because the monster combinations just didn’t allow me to be tactical, or for instance that skill that creates a shadow when you dodge that gives a power charge if it’s hit didn’t work half the time and FT without power-charges is weak as hell. It was so clunky trying to get my idea working, I gave up. Sure, at some point I could probably just gear up and completely roll over everything, but then the whole point of tactical play is gone and we’re back in PoE1 territory again. They can’t fix this, because they’ve design in zoom and boom gameplay as well. Tactical will never compete in a game where the skill system is fairly open and mechanics encourage blasting.
On the dodge line, I would like if EHG fixed Flame Rush’s collisions, pretty annoying to have it explode early because I caught a fragment of terrain that’s technically a ‘wall’ I didn’t realise was one…
its because LE lacks a lot of social systems POE series has
I can give you my experience as to why I stopped, came back after the last major patch, and stopped again. The short answer is there’s nothing to do for me.
These games are all about the tender balance of gear progression. And in LE, I got most of my gear frontloaded really really quickly. I had a pretty stellar character with I’d say 90% of the needed gear right away. Then I hit a wall where I already had the pieces needed (in part thanks to the merchants guild), and the only improvements were better versions of the same equipment, higher % rolls, etc.
Once I reach that point where I’m chasing the same gear, just better versions of it, that’s normally when I stop. Grinding for a chest piece to drop is one thing, grinding for the same chest piece with a 2% better stat increase isn’t worth my time personally.
I did the same thing with D3 and my 5 witch doctors, each had the end set gear and when it was “close” to great rolls, I stopped and moved on. The difference I suppose is I don’t feel the need to roll another character in LE at all… the game feels so easy at times, it’s almost a walking simulator. At any rate, that was my journey from start to finish essentially.
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It’s still defensive.
-Helps you kill stuff faster → offensive.
-Helps you not die → defensive.
Offensive will be comprised of several different categories, like damage, speed, area, etc.
Defensive will be comprised of several different categories, like damage reduction, damage avoidance, health sustain, etc.
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I’d also argue that the illusion of progression (through infinite scaling) cannot be maintainted for long. Thus, games that do this have a nasty habit of feeling particularly stale or boring.
I’ve made an entire topic about this so I’d recommend anyone who wishes to discuss it to visit and comment.
The Seasonal model is built upon repetition until you can’t take it anymore. Once you’re done, you may be inclined to try again after you took some time off and devs did something to shake the meta (usually new FOTM and items + new mechanics).
It’s fine, but it’s not exactly my cup of tea.
I’m not gonna lie, I prefer Grim Dawn’s seasonless model of gameplay, and a fixed difficulty setting (like GD’s Crucible), but I’m open minded and I wanna see if a seasonal game with illusion of progress can get to that point and keep me interested for long enough.
LE has improved, but it’s not there yet.
TL;DR:
Infite scaling: you get better gear to change the number of greater rift/corruption but gameplay is exactly the same.
Static scaling: you get better gear and your performance improves in a obvious matter - you can either complete content you couldn’t do earlier, or you become faster and more confy in areas that gave you trouble earlier.
Aberroth is a form of static scaling and I think it’s a step of right direction for LE.
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This is similar to how I play through usually, though with this patch I am actually interested in rolling other characters and so I do. The game being easier makes it more fun to try ideas.
Though to increase difficulty I’d like to see things become more threatening/dangerous, not just have higher hit points and damage across the board. Make me check my defenses more (for instance Majasa and physical resistance, void slam dudes) by targeting them more and in different ways through progression.
Already existed in PoE 1, less prevalent though and needs a rollback for multi-type usage again.
Lack of currency has been changed.
Unlocking 5L/6L is mandatory to have since a massive amount of player power is - meant to be - build into. 5L is no issue to unlock along the way and 6L has become vastly more prevalent wiht the loot fixing and the unique gambling strongbox which has surprisingly good returns overall.
Yes, that’s what ‘potential’ after all means when people use the term. A game is made or broken by having or lacking it… and then beyond that this potential needs to be realized as well as possible.
A failure to realize even a fraction of present potential means players get substantially frustrated. Welcome to PoE 2 overall. There’s a whole slew of games out there having the same issue.
Yes, the number of suffixes on gear directly correlates with how close together drop-quality is… as the rule of large numbers causes the median outcome to be more likely to be in the middle then being spread out.
Also it allows a overall reduction of values on Affixes themselves, hence reducing the amount of power which is in each individual one, allowing a better spread rather then the current ‘One Affix changes and the item suddenly is trash rather then treasure’.
It’s the reason why PoE has for example 6 Affixes… and the higher the Affix number the harder the balancing and the more variance in Affix types needs to be there to counteract overly deterministic outcomes.
To a degree. As said, 0.1 was a great state feeling wise for the campaign, loot was lackluster - fixed - and end-game not provided enough - partially fixed but not ‘there’ yet remotely - content.
Then they gave a massive nerf to everything, which changed the premise of gameplay shown before release for years, with one-button builds said to be still very viable but combination play being rewarded.
Well… combinations suck as they inherently punish you and have nigh no upside and GGG is trying to shoehorn you into them. Obviously it feels bad. Also it’s actively broken promises.
And yes… Merc is really nice And PoE 2 is by design going to get closer to PoE 1, they’ve provided a substantially different feeling though to warrant the split existing. PoE 1 can go and lean into more blasting content of all odd directions… and PoE 2 more into mechanical interactions needing some brainpower and being overall slower to execute.
How they made the ‘slower’ part though is not causing meaningful interactions, it causes frustration by breaking their base interaction with enemies… since 0.2. Melee overall is a problem given that hammer attacks are so extremely slow and even further slowed through supports though, they messed that simply up.
The perception. And the actual rate of progression steps.
That’s a topic I’ll always come back towards. ‘Rate of steps’ is such a extremely important development detail which is often overlooked. Deprive a player of success and the player will be unhappy. Give a player success and even bad design are overlooked often.
I mean, take actual bad quality jank games… what makes em fun? Overcoming jank can inherently add to an experience, depending on type. A prime example is ‘The Long Drive’ which plainly spoken is just a game with little procedurally designed content and a really messed up physics engine. But that’s exactly what causes it to become fun, fixing their physics engine would actively take away the flair of the game. You overcome engine-imposed challenges without it being initially intended to happen. So heavily floating drive controls that you need to have a special way to handle tapping the keyboard to stay stable, the car explodes into all sort of pieces when failing and you having to pick it all up and cobble it together. Kinda fun for a surprising timeframe!
So the base premise isn’t better… but it provides the player with proper options to overcome challenges, in this case of the core perceived mechanic which is nearly as important as the combat itself in the genre… itemization.
Yes, very… interesting 
Yes, we already know it could be different, that makes it frustrating.
LE is really lucky that they have nothing to compare against… unless someone comes along which is like me and compared it against the formerly produced game mechanics and their specific in-depth details which caused distinct design choices.
Yes, I think it would allow EHG to dial into issues vastly quicker, get a better grasp on their community as a whole and also allow respectively higher rate of polished implementations over time. Given they use it properly.
But that’s something which inherently as a developer of a live-service game you can’t allow!
It massively reduces retention time. Retention time is in direct correlation to revenue and game perception. It would be a clear detriment to happen.
That’s why I say while as a player you have no inherent downsides with the respec (outside of perception based things and some minor MG fringe-issues) but it’s a devastating aspect for the longevity of the game.
It can happen when substantial content is available to counter this, allowing the character build itself to not have such ‘weight’ overall in terms of keeping a fresh feeling existing for as long as possible. But… we don’t have that in LE yet, it’s a premature decision around 2-3 years too early with a ‘normally perceived’ release rate in mind (3-4 month schedule).
Which is the whole point of the issue!
People always come with ‘but in MG you can just bypass the whole progression!’ yeah, and that issue has to be seen in conjunction with the drop-issue of CoF! Not separate. One imbalance doesn’t fix another imbalance… both are still imbalanced heavily but simply perceived less severely so… but you still can’t built onto a unstable foundation.
So many urges to change things to a more stable and fair state get bashed away by people here because they literally lack to ability to see that ‘singular changes’ often don’t do a thing, only fundamental broad-scale changes do with some of the existing issues… and they need to be addressed nonetheles. They’ll only become worse… and worse… and worse as time goes on. Hence them being so present early in the life-cycle of a live-service game is a overall bad sign.
Sure, but you can’t get good exalted items which in CoF are seen as ‘basic drops’ in comparison even. That’s the top end.
The whole player faction setup is utterly screwed in many many places and it’s hard to dial down onto a single issue because there’s so many interacting weirldy and countering each other to a degree at times which will make any game-change related to loot highlight one side especially in a bad light.
That’s what target farming mechanics are for. CoF is supposed to have those. Circumvent the power of a community based pooling of items through allowing a more direct way to them.
And that’s heavily missing.
You know where we got it instead? In the weaver tree with the imprints! Which is odd… because it causes such a massive mess to happen. Those dropped items lack FP to change them beyond 1 craft usually (sub 10 FP) without luck on your side. So once again CoF has a severe upside since it allows affixes to be directly upgraded to exalted status, hence reducing the timeframe needed… but leaving them with a stronger item then MG can reliably grind for even as a community.
That should be a core mechanic for CoF itself… not on the weaver tree, it highlights the issues so well it’s surprising.
Yes, and then you get the issue of sets suddenly outperforming everything else since they don’t have a progression mechanic in-built, they are ‘as is’. Similar to why weaver items generally are badly received, because they need a long time to wear as garbage to potentially - but extremely rarely - become valuable.
Those are overall bad designs. Weaver items need a way to be unlocked outside of combat without reducing weaver potential at all compared to actively leveling them up, I think the rune does actually reduce the quality of the outcome if I’ve seen it right… or the interaction can simply be buggy when a 20 weaver item turns out to only have 19 tiers. But otherwise it’s basically a random rare-drop RNG wise, and that ruins that system for being enforced to actively wearing it before it’s ‘done’.
As for sets… they just need to go, deleted, forever. That’s the only market-wide solution that’s been found to date, and unless a proper fix comes in that’s what should happen for them.
GGG made a consumable market and it’s fantastic beyond end. Functionally nice, easy UI, a little wonky to understand how currency input works for a few moments but absolutely top-end design-wise.
Exactly, these types of game have a inherent need for target farming. It’s the alleviation of drop-spread. If your potential drop-upgrade is after all only 0,00003% of the whole available combinations in the item pool then obviously you won’t find a upgrade anytime soon and median chance is so spiky that RNG can screw you over majorly. If it’s 0,004% instead that makes a whole world of difference.
Yes, a ‘interesting’ mechanic overall. So many downfalls that circumventing them properly will take years at best to make. But it has ‘potential’ and interesting to follow.
It’s a ‘defensive measure’ but it’s not a ‘defense’, it’s a odd distinction but kinda important.
Defenses are things which avoid or reduce damage. It’s about an attack not killing you. Sustain does nothing in that regard, hence it needs to be seen differently. In base communication it’s fine to push them into a category, when it comes to design aspects it’s not because now we got a inherently different behavior.
Defenses → reduction/removal of incoming damage.
Offense → causing damage to enemies
Sustain --Y> recovery from already sustained damage.
Yes, hence why ‘clear-cut systems’ like Torchlight Infinite or PoE do so much better perception wise.
Agreed 100%
Those systems ‘work’ but they’re also dangerous as implementation is very hard to pull off ‘properly’.
This is where the ability to long-term engage in the game to avoid those pitfalls comes in.
If you always have a potential goal ahead and perceived as achievable (you have agency over achieving it directly, not pure luck-based like a lucky drop) then players tend to stay longer and don’t mind the repetition. Because if they don’t want to repeat it they can just wait for it to go ‘core’ and experience it with their established characters that are still not ‘finished’.