I will come back when GGG decides what game they want

Quick background...

Made it to level 78, tier 7 maps with a chromancer fire build. All resistances are maxed out, can survive most '1 shots' long enough to escape, use a flask and recharge es, got 3rd ascendancy, I can clear main map mobs pretty good, and most main map bosses are doable. My brain still has to be on though, since I will die if I get backed into a corner, and rarity is basically nothing.

All extra content and endgame bosses are basically unplayable for me because GGG has made it inaccessible to all but the most op, instant screen clear builds, or the top-tier 1% of players because the monsters swarm so insanely fast and their health is too over tuned. You are micro stunned into a corner before you can blink and then die immediately after. This is mostly frustrating because these are apparently the builds GGG doesn't want, but they made all this extra game content that essentially requires these type of builds.

The main campaign was fun, but only because I bought gear that gave me a reasonable chance of finishing it. The endgame, however, is a slog. I want to finish it out of a sense of completion, but the motivation to repeat this again is 0 with the way GGG is balancing difficulty.

So I quit. I deleted my character and am not coming back until GGG figures out what game they want. It is a spectrum, but basically falls somewhere between 2 extremes

A) Every single thing you get in this game you're gonna work for as if it's a part-time job. Good currency, good items, and a sense of completion only come from hundreds, if not 1000's, of hours of grinding and refining your skills.

B) Every player can buy their way to end-game if they want.

Games on either extreme are not fun. While GGG has made attempts to find a balance, they very clearly favor camp A. Here are the things that GGG does to maintain camp A that prevent me from coming back. If they are not changed, they're not getting my money.

1) Experience death penalty. This feels like a no-brainer, remove it for normal mode. I grinded for that experience. Punishing me, often for things out of control, is not fun. I understand why you do it, but that is why you have difficulty tiers. Any other game would put this in the hardcore mode, but leave it out in normal mode.

All I'm asking is you treat me like an adult and give me the choice about what kind of game I want to play. You don't sacrifice your core based by giving it to them as an option, but you alienate a lot of other players when you don't give us a choice to play without it.

2) Rarity and drop-rates. Whatever you do, give me a lot more currency or make crafting less reliant on rng. As it stands, there is 0 incentive to engage in crafting in this game. I can follow super-specific reddit farming builds (which is boring), I can spend dozens upon dozens of hours of grinding to get a few chaos orbs and exalts so that I can pray to the rng gods in the hopes I get a good roll, or...

I can spend hours working in the real-world to earn some disposable income that I can then use to just buy what I need. Why on Earth would I choose the first or second option?

And this is the thing GGG, and many players don't get. They think 'oh, you don't earn the game because you bought it'. Yeah, that's bs. How do you think I get the money to buy good items and currency? I work for it. I get up, I go to work, and I do my job for hours upon hours to earn money. Whether I grind in game, or I grind in real-life...

I AM WORKING!!!

So, when it comes to crafting, the 3 general options are...

1) make the game easier so magic items are actually worthwhile (which isn't the best option)
2) make a crafting system that doesn't rely on rng so much/give us more control, thus making things like exalts less mandatory (example...I forged 3 rare, pretty powerful weapons, and actually got a weaker item. How is that possible??? If a forge 3 items from previous levels in my campaign, it should go up in value, not down) or
3) GGG gives us A LOT more currency so we can craft good items

But, as it stands, there is no reason to craft in this game for most players. If the real world paid an equivalent currency per hour rate that GGG pays us, no sane person would work that job, which is why so many players are reliant on 3rd-party apps and build diversity is insanely low ( last I saw, like 4 ascendancy classes make up over 75% of builds because those are the ones that are good at farming, and most people are reliant on those farmers to get currency because GGG doesn't give it to us).

So, that's kind of it.

1) Give me an option about the experience penalty and

2) Get rid of rarity, give me more currency or make crafting less reliant on rng

Unless those things happen, GGG, and TenCent aren't getting a dime from me.

Oh, and 3...and this would go a long to reducing frustration...

3) Come out and say what you want this game to be. Dark Souls is what it is. It doesn't pretend to be accessible, so it's on me if I play it and I smash my keyboard out of frustration. If you want your game to be that, then Johnathon needs to come out and say that (the keyboard smashing is a little dramatic).

If you want to expand this game to a new audience and make it and crafting more accessible, however, then actually do that. Give us more currency, give us more control, and/or actually incorporate trading into your game.

The problem seems to be that GGG want to please everyone, but they are at risk of pleasing no one (at least no one beyond who was playing PoE 1). They are so worried about people having too much power in this game, but they allow trading. They put all these mechanisms in to control difficulty, but trading can bypass most of these if people are willing to pay enough.

And then they come out and say 'well, we're not doing that and it's not pay-to-win. That's a 3rd party thing/up to the players'.

And it just ends up being a mess. It kind of feels grind-to-win Souls like, but they allow trading so you can bypass that, but they won't really incorporate it into their game, so it feels clunky and inconvenient. They have difficulty tiers, but they refuse to give us an option about the death penalty. They want to encourage crafting, but drop rates are low unless you're playing maxed out maps with high rarity, but I need the currency to be able to do those maps. Or can I use one of the few farming builds, which dominate by far and away, and just follow a script. It just ends up feeling like GGG doesn't know what game they want. They want to expand it, but they refuse to let go of certain things that are holding that back from happening.

And either is fine, just pick a lane. .

I know that was long, but I wanted it to be thorough. Ultimately, I think GGG will end up going with essentially having 2 games. The main campaign will be made a lot easier so it's accessible for the average player, and the end-game is going to be grind-to-win, but they'll allow trading so people can pay-to-win it if they really want. Again, a please everyone strategy.

But I play a game with the hopes of finishing it, and GGG doesn't make that a fun experience by any stretch. It just feels like 2 completely different games, with guardrails on the endgame that can be bypassed using a function they won't prevent, but don't incorporate into their game. It just ends up feeling like a mess.

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SkyPrince30#4110 wrote:

The main campaign was fun, but only because I bought gear that gave me a reasonable chance of finishing it.

I can't agree enough to that

I like the game despite having some pretty big flaws which i expect all to be solved in the future, but the gear progression in specific is one of the worsts I've ever seen in a rpg, it's actually insane, it's either all or nothing

I had literally 0 sense of progression with my items, if i didn't have bought it i would still be stuck in late act 2 early act 3