99.99% of all item drops are complete trash
" I think the reason is more simple: They want to encourage player trading. They intentionally make valuable loot scarce to encourage trade. This keeps players farming, either for the loot they want or at least currency which they can barter away for it. This all keeps players coming back to the game as they continue chasing the minmax potential of whatever builds they're running. We need to remember that GGG is, at its core, still a company. And this company answers to Tencent. They don't make money selling cosmetics and stash tabs if the vast majority of the playerbase can get 40/40 and/or minmax builds in the first week or two of a league and then quit. " Eh, I wouldn't ever say smart loot talismans were broken. I'd argue in fact that the smart loot for them were the only things that made them worth glancing at. Now that GGG added tainted oils and removed smart loot for them, they've returned to being trash nobody cares about. The last time I saw a good talisman was when I had Jorgin transform an already decent amulet into the IIQ talisman, but that was years ago by now. I wish GGG would go back to giving them smart loot. If not for general talisman drops, then for Ritual rewards. PoE players: Our game has a wide diversity of builds. Also PoE players: The [league mechanic] doesn't need to be nerfed, you just need to play a [current meta] build! MFers found strength in their Afflictions. They became reliant on them. I am not so foolish. Last edited by Pizzarugi on Sep 4, 2024, 5:09:35 PM
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" I actually believe the opposite of this. Loot isn't abysmally scarce to encourage trading....it is abysmally scarce BECAUSE of trading and also because it is the hardest mechanism to balance around. The current drops doesn't "encourage" trade, it forces it. Which in turn, actually ends up shortening the game. I would argue (and I think others might agree...) that LESS trade, but better drops, would encourage players to play longer per league and interact with the game more over a longer period of time beyond a league. Instead, we are essentially forced by drop rates to interact with trade, which actively SHORTENS the length of time it takes to get to each character power level. Thus, contributing to the "emptiness" of new trade leagues after only a month or, at most, two months of play. Improving drops would decrease reliance / frustration with trade, increasing the time that players are actually playing the game for the sake of improving their character, rather than simply meeting a quota for the next guaranteed massive upgrade on the market. If drops were better, there would be a heck of a lot less "why bother? I'll never get the divines to buy x item", and a lot more solo play towards actually DROPPING an upgrade item. And a little goes a long way here...trade will still be important but the more the game itself signals that it values the player time commitment, the better attitude players will have, less ragequits, less overall feeling of disengagement, less burnout, less frustration. Ultimately, we come here to play for the drops but we are forced to play market sim instead. I am not anti-trade. Nor do I want SSF. But I do believe that improving the MIDDLE of the loot experience will bolster both trade and self-found play at the same time. Making self-dropped loot totally useless doesn't encourage trade, it forces less immersive and driven gameplay which ultimately harms every aspect of the game. It points to poor or inadequate balance in the design, which then circles back to my point on improper use of stats or inability to use stats to improve the situation. Last edited by jsuslak313 on Sep 4, 2024, 5:47:43 PM
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They nailed 2.0 loot in original heist, and that was the problem, it was deemed too powerful.
The problem is they don't want the game balanced around SSF. Frankly I had the most fun with the game when I could make a god character by week 1 at a (imo) lazy pace. By week 2 I had usually 3-4 level 96+ characters all completely decked out and all capable of "invalidating the game" -- aka, killing bosses before phases. This was 3.8, an entirely and utterly different game that was 100x more breakable. Around the time of the last nerfs that pissed people off GhazzyTV was approached by GGG and asked what makes minions tick -- they took all his advice and did the opposite, removing everything he told them was massively impactful. He made a whole video on it. it happened to another streamer too, he told them ways to quicken the campaign and they came out with direct counters to all his talks with them. I forget that racers name. But they both came out and said GGG literally farmed them for information then did the exact opposite in an attempt to nerf player power. I feel where both of you guys are coming from, but one need only look at the shipping nonsense and realize that loot is GONE next league, and the new lower drop rates in maps are what we get. Additionally there is not one POSITIVE result at all, only negative and bad outcomes -- that tells you so much about where GGG is as a company and their philosophy -- a team of like 300 people and not one of them ever considered a GOOD thing happening to the player. At this point GGG is just aggressively destroying the foundation of the game I used to enjoy. The historic loot nerf is still fucking us, they walked back a marginal bit of it and told us to shove it. They are a company, they are not incentivized by caring for their customers, they are incentivized by milking us of our time. I bought more MTX when I could invalidate the game with any build I wanted and like 50 exalts. That was the best iteration of the game to me. Last edited by Rakie1337 on Sep 4, 2024, 5:51:10 PM
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what would make people play for longer is shift from 'one character per league' to 'multiple chars per league'
Mathil makes 10-20 chars each league (ofc it is his job, adjust accordingly) and each one of them is somewhat fresh and different people sticking to one burn out quickly when they reach 'farm ubers while watching netflix' phase. there is no way they will want to level something new after that GGG cannot leverage POE's biggest strength - build diversity. instead they willingly or not push players to play one build per league - and as a substitute method of 'prolonging engagement' reach out for mobilesque games method (gold, offline farm etc) how they are forcing people to play just one characters? well.. the game is no longer about 'any mob can drop something amazing'. most amazing drops are (uber)gated and you either pimp your char or farm currency and buy them. this also includes crafting currency. this league this extened to map currency.. slowly but surely the drop structure is shifted into pinnacle end. the 'alch/go' maps hardly drop stuff you use. they drop bits of stuff you sell to get currency to buy stuff you use. that takes time. time you wont have if you spend 2-3 days creating new character. so pretty nobody does that, because it makes no economical sense to play more than one char. this leads to burnout and quiting. small wonder when everything below T16 has been made pointless wealth-generation wise (ignoring sanctum). it is kinda strange when the best advice you can give to a new player is to filter ALL rare gear out. sure, it will hide some good or amazing items, but is it really chance high enough to waste time with all the remaining garbage? pick currency, pick scarabs and maps - sell everything, buy pre-made gear. game about finding loot :) Last edited by sidtherat on Sep 4, 2024, 6:03:26 PM
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" Assuming we're not suggesting GGG find ways to force players to create more characters (ex. Add more content that penalizes certain archetypes), the biggest problem I see here is that GGG would have to change a lot of things to encourage people to want to do that willingly. I can only use myself as an example here. The biggest reason I typically don't stray beyond summoner builds anymore is largely to do with the overall cost of a vast number of builds to reach similar levels of DPS and performance. This is the first league in a long time that I not only made a flicker strike build, but it performed so amazingly well that I'm still playing it rather than falling back to my poison SRS character I started the league with. However, unlike the cheaper summoner build, this one cost me upwards of 200div or more. I've never made significant amounts of currency, and I've never owned a Mageblood or Headhunter so needless to say, spending 200div+ on a build feels incredibly expensive to me. I will probably not be making another build with this budget again, and chances are I might not even try this flicker strike build next league (that really depends on if GGG nerfs trickster or something crucial to the build). If it cost me that much to make this build feel good, I can't imagine how much more I might have to put down on a bow or caster which didn't get buffed quite as heavily as melee did. If GGG wants me to branch out and try other builds, they would have to fundamentally change the game to make it so higher-end gear isn't so outlandishly expensive. I just don't see that happening. PoE players: Our game has a wide diversity of builds. Also PoE players: The [league mechanic] doesn't need to be nerfed, you just need to play a [current meta] build! MFers found strength in their Afflictions. They became reliant on them. I am not so foolish. Last edited by Pizzarugi on Sep 4, 2024, 6:21:49 PM
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" And most of all Uber drops are often just the fine tuning of a character and not really something build enabling. Many players do only play one character per league as they simply don't care to create more while others do enjoy to play multiple each league to test out new changes before they get changed again. Ssf players are a good example that Uber drops ain't primarily high priority items in the creation of very powerful characters. Day 2 - day7 shoelace gear sponsored by ground loot alone let's you destroy most of all existing content in the game depending on your gaming pace. Flames and madness. I'm so glad I didn't miss the fun. Last edited by Pashid on Sep 4, 2024, 6:22:42 PM
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" And this is precisely the point I am making.....except that you are on the other extreme. Having 3-4 god-tier characters after a few weeks of gameplay is a huge huge problem. But GGG literaly could NOT solve the problems: instead, they had to reach out to someone like Ghazzy to show them what was wrong (or what he thought was "right" at the time). This example, again in my own speculative opinion, doesn't show what you think it shows. There was a problem with balance yet again, and it was that items (and skills) were TOO powerful, too quick to reach ridiculous heights. Yet another GGG extreme, no middle ground. And they had no idea how to fix it. No clue. They out-sourced their data analysis to streamers because they did not have the talent to sort it themselves. And they tried...over and over and over again, especially with minions. |
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" But this is EXACTLY THE POINT! That is exactly what Sid was saying. If the DROP were better, the "expense" of new builds would be far lower. It would completely shift the player perspective from "div / hr" and "cost", to "what do I need to drop", and encourage the player to actually WANT to play because the drop is at least somewhat likely to come at some point. You certainly aren't the only one who is reluctant to start a new build, because of the "cost" of that build. But cost is almost entirely a feeling brought on by useless drops and the need to farm currency ad nauseum. If that weren't the case, its no longer a "cost" associated with a new build, but rather "gameplay". Min/max.....that should and will still take forever. You aren't going to drop the "BiS" item, unless for your build that happens to be a unique. But you WILL have far more steady and far more reliable progress across the build, reducing burnout from repetitive "run map as fast as possible, pick up ONLY high currency, market sim, repeat". Last edited by jsuslak313 on Sep 4, 2024, 6:30:41 PM
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Much as everyone praises and tries to re-create Diablo 2. I find they often don't look at or perhaps know the things Diablo 1 did better. Like itemization.
Rolls were based on Dungeon Level with a fairly small variance. Diablo 2 tried the same thing but introduced a larger gap for bosses and Magic Find which devolved the game into boss spam. I hate boss spam so much and it was potentially a complete mistake from Diablo 2. They really need to re-think the play and reward system. I don't know anyone who likes killing the same boss 30+ times. One of the major points of an ARPG is it's dynamics. So why is this game so focused on static boss mechanic fights? Ubers were such a terrible idea. "Never trust floating women." -Officer Kirac
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I still like playing 30 or so builds a league. Most of my experimentation is pretty bad but i still enjoy it. If you're entire focus is divines/hr this is the result you get. 1 character pushing your d/hr as high as you can.
I think people that just push d/hr don't really enjoy the beauty of the game theyre just chasing dopamine red stars. |
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