we have a winner

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

As for loot filter, I think they made the smarter choice and simply reduced drops/tightened the loot table significantly. A loot filter is a bandaid. A surrender to the idea that you as a dev haven't properly figured out how to make drops meaningful. Other than an occasional blue item and an already-known Temper recipe (I'm still in WT3), I pick up and 'use' everything I find in Helltides -- either as equipment or resource recovery.

Oh, so you havn't played much, that explains a lot.
T3 is like 1-2h into the game, so you're probably still in honeymoon phase, but saying you find everything useful? Since level 15-20 all rares, magic and normal items are prty much useless junk.

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

The other regards the writing/story. I should point out that pretty much every review agreed that the story/campaign was quite well done, before making my own argument. I am not a professional reviewer but you might be the type to dismiss all reviews for one reason or another.

It is rate poorly for a reason, if you want to take external ratings into consideration.

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

Firstly, it managed to do a young female character that I didn't find grating. She didn't quip. She didn't have all the other older, more experienced characters fawning over her. She faced a pretty serious loss early on and had to work through that. Her arc was well done, even I felt the last third was sort of rushed compared to the build up.

You mean Leah 2.0? It felt almost like a copy-paste from D3. Her story didn't hold together if you spend at least a second thinking about it - our characters got slashed ad bit million of times, she got bit ONCE and got necrosis, so we have to cut her arm off BECAUSE SHE FAILED TO OPEN A DOOR FOR US, AND WE HAD TO BLAST THEM DESPITE 5SEC AGO WE COULDN'T! Does blizz think we're 5 to buy this crap? Rhetorical.

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

But easily the most sympathetic character for me was Vigo. He represented the deceptively significant effect of human vices -- he took a small bribe that he downplays at first (...)

That is hands down worst written npc in whole game. Wow, game literally force you to pity him, a corrupted soldier that you interacted with for a few seconds. Game tells you HAVE TO feel this way. About an NPC you interacted with 5sec with 0 significance.

This is a problem with whole d4 story - they don't build any form of relation between players and npc, and they tell you how you need to feel about them, despite there is 0 reason for it. It is as shallow as a puddle. I guess they knew it is a one time short experience, so why bother.

We got fed liliths blood, got blessed by 3 prime evils - game force you to act like carebear sweetheart.

d4 bad

"

DarthSki44 wrote:

Just to put a bow on this, I wasn't, and am not, lying. As Mr Chan said, at best we have different versions of viability here.

A lack of player character agency is kind of a given in ARPGs, and should not be a factor when judging its writing. DIV isn't bad because it has the same lack -- it's good because the writing makes you notice it. Makes you wish it wasn't there. Makes you question why you have no choice but to do what the plot/story tells you to do, or avoid it altogether.

As I said: that's all ARPGs. This one included.

Main difference being PoE gives you no alternative path even after you have been pulled through its zero-agency plot. Again and again. And again.

So frankly I don't see how anyone could make the argument you have made and conclude "D4 bad" without also saying "PoE bad" based on the same criterion.

In which case we have a level playing field in terms of how you are judging the writing and there isnt really an argument.

That's my bottom line. Stay safe, Exile.

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

A lack of player character agency is kind of a given in ARPGs, and should not be a factor when judging its writing. DIV isn't bad because it has the same lack -- it's good because the writing makes you notice it. Makes you wish it wasn't there. Makes you question why you have no choice but to do what the plot/story tells you to do, or avoid it altogether.

Rather the opposite - story in d4 seems like it doesn't even fit their own world, blizz is making player characters a pink fluffy carebears despite taking blessing from PRIME EVILS. There is no consistency, no narrative building, they just push you towards some NPC, he introduce himself, and game tells you 1min later you're now best friends, just like that. And thats just the tip of the iceberg.

It is safe to assume at this point that on d4 story worked few students, independent of each other, and someone there just decided to merge few parts, tossing out the rest.

Why you're trying to make everything about PoE tho? There is plenty of topics for that, but at this point it looks personal.




d4 bad, hoho
*this hoho didn't get the official approval of "hoho movement" author.

I need to give props to all of you engaging in this back and forth. It is highly impressive how yall have managed to take the old "is to, is not" argument to new heights.

Well done to you all.

"

JunkHeadJoePC wrote:

I need to give props to all of you engaging in this back and forth. It is highly impressive how yall have managed to take the old "is to, is not" argument to new heights.

Well done to you all.

That comment make no sense.

As they are saying Diablo 4 suck. So does POE.

Worse is the comparative form of bad. Ok who's worse though?

"

Phrazz wrote:

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

Again, I chose my metaphor carefully. Blinders that are self-imposed aren't really blinders.

Sure they are, if you know your game and build.

Again, if you look at/pick up every item that drops in D4, a filter wouldn't serve a purpose. If you don't, a loot filter would be better blinders even if you're "too aware", because it would hide more. You can't really disagree there.

Who am I kidding, sure you can :P

Because I said I would.

So I DO agree with your statement there. It's sound.






But.





It's predicated on an 'if' that I feel shouldn't be the issue. Rather, I feel right now most people *do* pick up most/every item that drops in DIV. The devs noticeably reduced drop rates across the board, removed the chance for most of the real 'trash' to drop in higher difficulties -- it's worth picking everything up for salvaging, consumption, crafting, or just plain equipping on the spot if thing are quiet and it's a really good raw drop. So people generally aren't clamouring for a filter in this season as they were before. Like or not, and whatever the repercussions, Blizzard did what GGG won't or can't. They didn't 'leave it up to the players', probably because they know their players aren't galaxy-brain sweatlords or whatever backhanded compliment we want to give to the super-dedicated, super hands-on, super-capable Exile for whom I believe GGG are now making this game, beyond a fairly low threshold of content progression.

And if you are playing a game where you don't want or need to pick it all up for some sort of use, then sure, filters are great. BUT at no point should you be unaware that you're using one, have been forced to use one, and in PoE's case, encouraged to at least modify your own. And that's what I mean by 'blinders' as a thing of which the wearer/user is ignorant, blissfully, and why a loot filter doesn't fit the metaphor.

It's sort of like the difference between adjustments/balance pre-release and post-release buffing and nerfing. I think I speak from a mild position of experience when I tell you I have played versions of PoE you never will, and they weren't very good. They weren't healthy. They weren't well balanced or adjusted. Had they released in that state, they'd absolutely have needed a buff/nerf cycling. But players would have eaten it up, the way kids will eat up ice-cream until it makes them sick. And they'd have been unhappy when/if it was taken away, even if it was for their own good.

But that's not the point. The point is this is a form of blinder.

You and anyone else playing the 'released' PoE are, in essence, ignorant to what could have because as far as you're concerned it never was. I feel this comparison works because if you did, it'd be like if a thoroughbred lost the blinders someone else put on it, suddenly becoming aware of what else is happening outside the turf. Which is lovely and all but sort of makes it hard to run races.

It's far too late for PoE 1 in this regard, but maybe PoE 2 will be...as I said...more elegant. But probably not -- I feel Exiles are so conditioned to being that hands-on, that in control (it's an illusion of control but a damn good one), that something approaching elegance out of the box, something that feels a little too streamlined and automated, would possibly offend them. Sometimes I wonder if Exiles even trust devs to polish their own game, given how synonymous with 'roughness' its genius really is.

But this thread is about DIV, not PoE (despite being in Path of Exile's general discussion forum, which is why we inevitably hold it up to Wræclast's Mirror; it's nothing personal, GGG), which is a game of supremely tight blinders.

Now for me the real argument, and here I think is where agree to disagree will be the only recourse, is whether it's better to have *almost* obvious blinders build into a game or to have a game so vast and complex you have to (make and) put on your own blinders because there's just so much to take in, not all of it pertinent to how 'you' play.

I think it's a game by game case, or at least genre by genre. And for me, the ARPG falls squarely in the former category. I want Action: to kill shit in spectacularly rewarding fashion, giblets spraying everywhere, based on how I've built my character using the tools at hand, which should be largely self-explanatory in-game** -- the Role Playing part of the genre's initials.

(**I make an exception for rune words, but only because D2 taught me to).

It can't be TOO simple, because then it's basically Gauntlet (too much Action), but it can't be too complex, because then the aforementioned Action takes a back seat to the dry craft of character theorising. (too much RPG.)

PoE has never had that balance and it never really wanted it, which is why I feel it's only really cosplaying as an ARPG. Diablo has always had it, although D3 came REAL close to being too simple for a while there.

DIV season 4 balances it pretty well for me, with the changes made to Aspects as 100% deterministic, Tempering serving as a super-strong but still RNG-governed 'orange item' crafting style from D2 (or basically all crafting in Last Epoch, I believe -- which in turn drew from Torchlight's durability-based enchantment system), density increases to its story-adjacent open world Helltide mode (it was an event but now that it's constantly going, I consider it a mode), drops being almost entirely worth picking up without much scrutiny (that's what town runs are for), and skill mutators that while definitely not finished, suffice to give the skeleton of your character some decent muscle.

Okay, enough of a break. Ball's in your court, but don't rush to smack it back. :)

Absolutely having a blast playing minion necro (65+ pit or something). The last time I had so much fun playing a necro build was 3.14 or 3.15 (the patch when they nuked necro from orbit, and srs doesn't count lol because it's a guided arrow amazon).

Now I'm leveling up a thorns barb and was quite blown away by how effective it is.

Two of the most iconic builds from D2 and I've enjoyed both so far.

At the end of the day, nothing matters if you're having fun. And that means I'll play PoE too lol

^Doing it right right there!

You owe devs nothing. Not your allegiance to their game. Not your loyalty to their 'vision'. Not your time and not your money. Let them earn those, and never forget -- what is earned can always be lost, if not necessarily taken back.

You owe it entirely to yourself to play what you enjoy and, in true nerd fashion, feel no need to justify why.

...Of course it can be a lot of fun trying to fence with folks who have different opinions, their foils and masks no more valid than one's own...which is why I'll always consider the PoE forum a much better game for me than PoE itself.

Quitting a thing itself is so much easier than quitting the culture around it, and resisting the thing itself despite association with its culture becomes just one more game. :)

"

d4 bad, hoho
*this hoho didn't get the official approval of "hoho movement" author.

approval granted.