One Death Maps is a monumental failure.

"

ChlenixOn#1541 wrote:

From his own reply on last interview he said he mainly tested warrior in campaign, where he is totally fine and that is fair take, but he was totally clueless on warrior issues on endgame, which is mark specialty

Lol.

"

Completely acknowledged the fact that Warriors were the worst class in Offense, Defense, and everything in between. Shrugs it off and says "sure".

I feel there are generally two opposing philosophies in designing a game.

One philosophy is that games are there to entertain, to fulfill. Developers who take this approach to game design will try to find ways to reward players and avoid taking things away from players, or provide remedies or second chances when a loss happens, even if it was the player's mistake that led to the loss, so that players can make a full recovery. Even if they fail again, players would feel a lot better about the loss since the game made an effort to let them recover.

The other philosophy is that games are there to challenge, to overcome, which in turn will provide much stronger sense of entertainment to players. Developers who take this approach to game design will try to create friction and obstacles everywhere, and deliberately design situations that will take something away from players, or provide mechanics that incentivize players to take risks with higher stakes, without giving second chances or remedies.

Perhaps surprisingly, a frequent mistake made by players who prefer the second type of game is to cite "Souls-like" design as type two, all the while Souls-like designs exhibit many of the characteristics of type 1 philosophy, such as infinite and practically immediate retries on bosses and full recovery by just picking up your "soul".

POE2, on the other hand, is obviously a type 2 game. From crafting to boss fights to endgame mapping, at every corner the game is designed deliberately to make players risk losing something permanently. It's what the devs believe in strongly, and so the game is designed this way. They even go a step futher and tune the game's loot tightly so that when you do lose something, you are more likely to feel you have lost a lot unless you have spent a really long time farming in the game and have the currencies to throw around.

There's no good or bad, right or wrong, better or worse between the two types of designs. They are just different ways to design games, catering to different groups of people.

It is up to the devs to decide if they want to provide a mode that is more accommodating to players who prefer type 1 games. But it wouldn't be the first time a developer feels so strongly about their philosophy, that they think their way is the superior and only right way to do things.

Personally, I think POE2 would sell even more and attract even more players if there is a mode with features like no death penalty, infinite portals, deterministic crafting, high currency drop rate as a baseline, and no bad outcome to corruption etc. But it's a call the devs have to make.

Back in the old days, games used to have difficulty settings that catered to both types of players. Nowadays it seems devs are generally more concened with enforcing their philosophy than with accommodating more players and entertaining more players. It's unfortunate, but it is a proven way to create a more tightly-knit cult following of your game, as you are able to "weed out" people who hold different opinions on gaming.

Hopefully POE2 devs would eventually find it okay to accommodate different player preferences. But until then, the best way to effect a change to this core design philosophy of this game, is to stop playing it. Because by playing the game, you are contributing to the data point as someone who is okay with this design.

I said this somewhere else before, but they should do what they did with pinnacle bosses;

6 portals for white maps (tier 1-5)
3 portals for yellow maps (tier 6-10)
1 portal for red maps (tier 11+)

The reason for this is to get you geared up and used to mapping. By the time you get to red maps, you should have resistances capped and have no issue surviving, even on SSF.

"

peter1990ex#0531 wrote:

I said this somewhere else before, but they should do what they did with pinnacle bosses;

6 portals for white maps (tier 1-5)
3 portals for yellow maps (tier 6-10)
1 portal for red maps (tier 11+)

The reason for this is to get you geared up and used to mapping. By the time you get to red maps, you should have resistances capped and have no issue surviving, even on SSF.

I have sort-of mixed feelings about that. It would be a great learning curve for a smoother introduction to the game for the newer players without really impacting the more experienced ones, but it also adds similar economic incentive to down tiering to do bonus mechanics as the devs are concerned about regarding their preference of allowing the use of a new waystone to re-attempt a map's untouched mechanics.

I get that in this case its more like an insurance policy than a bonus loot printer, so its not the same degree, but at the same time I feel like there shouldn't be incentive to encourage players to dial back their difficulty for any reason other than persistently struggling.

"

Bigwilleh#1842 wrote:

"

peter1990ex#0531 wrote:

I said this somewhere else before, but they should do what they did with pinnacle bosses;

6 portals for white maps (tier 1-5)
3 portals for yellow maps (tier 6-10)
1 portal for red maps (tier 11+)

The reason for this is to get you geared up and used to mapping. By the time you get to red maps, you should have resistances capped and have no issue surviving, even on SSF.

I have sort-of mixed feelings about that. It would be a great learning curve for a smoother introduction to the game for the newer players without really impacting the more experienced ones, but it also adds similar economic incentive to down tiering to do bonus mechanics as the devs are concerned about regarding their preference of allowing the use of a new waystone to re-attempt a map's untouched mechanics.

I get that in this case its more like an insurance policy than a bonus loot printer, so its not the same degree, but at the same time I feel like there shouldn't be incentive to encourage players to dial back their difficulty for any reason other than persistently struggling.

What bonus mechanics? There's only one Waystone. If they fail 6 times on a white map, it counts as a failed map and all the map bonuses disappear. I don't understand how this could be abused. We have 6 portals in PoE1. It would literally work the exact same way.

"

peter1990ex#0531 wrote:

"

Bigwilleh#1842 wrote:

"

peter1990ex#0531 wrote:

I said this somewhere else before, but they should do what they did with pinnacle bosses;

6 portals for white maps (tier 1-5)
3 portals for yellow maps (tier 6-10)
1 portal for red maps (tier 11+)

The reason for this is to get you geared up and used to mapping. By the time you get to red maps, you should have resistances capped and have no issue surviving, even on SSF.

I have sort-of mixed feelings about that. It would be a great learning curve for a smoother introduction to the game for the newer players without really impacting the more experienced ones, but it also adds similar economic incentive to down tiering to do bonus mechanics as the devs are concerned about regarding their preference of allowing the use of a new waystone to re-attempt a map's untouched mechanics.

I get that in this case its more like an insurance policy than a bonus loot printer, so its not the same degree, but at the same time I feel like there shouldn't be incentive to encourage players to dial back their difficulty for any reason other than persistently struggling.

What bonus mechanics? There's only one Waystone. If they fail 6 times on a white map, it counts as a failed map and all the map bonuses disappear. I don't understand how this could be abused. We have 6 portals in PoE1. It would literally work the exact same way.

Because of the way that they have designed mechanics to be not guaranteed every single map or bosses. And the loot that is dropped.

Whats stopping someone from killing the boss (which has the major loot) and then dying to some pack of mobs to rush through and farm it again?

Thats the abuse case they are referring to. They seem to want things designed around maps not ALWAYS having XYZ mechanic, or a boss.

"

peter1990ex#0531 wrote:

What bonus mechanics? There's only one Waystone. If they fail 6 times on a white map, it counts as a failed map and all the map bonuses disappear. I don't understand how this could be abused. We have 6 portals in PoE1. It would literally work the exact same way.

Basically, I'm saying in the presence of breaches, rituals, bosses, etc being removed on map failure, this would produce a situation where players who don't feel completely confident about their build, abilities, or connection might feel it would be preferable to attempt maps with those kinds of things using a lower tier waystone that still grants backup portals.

I guess I could be more clear of my meaning, its not so much of an abuse perse as it is a game design that would come with a potential to encourage some backpeddling on your challenge rating more than it should.

Like I said, mixed feelings...I'm not strictly against it, I just would rather that the game encourages challenging yourself as much as possible.

"

peter1990ex#0531 wrote:

We have 6 portals in PoE1. It would literally work the exact same way.

That is what baffles me... the mechanic and coding for 6 portals = 6 attempts without abuse was already a staple in PoE 1. How they could backward so much in this aspect?

This one death per waystone is just ridiculous. Make it like it was for 12 years... 6 portals, 6 attempts, mobs not respawn, instance is snapshoted where the player died.

Same thing in the campaing, which is great, the only detriment is the instance reset when player dies... why? WTF

"

Bigwilleh#1842 wrote:

"

peter1990ex#0531 wrote:

What bonus mechanics? There's only one Waystone. If they fail 6 times on a white map, it counts as a failed map and all the map bonuses disappear. I don't understand how this could be abused. We have 6 portals in PoE1. It would literally work the exact same way.

Basically, I'm saying in the presence of breaches, rituals, bosses, etc being removed on map failure, this would produce a situation where players who don't feel completely confident about their build, abilities, or connection might feel it would be preferable to attempt maps with those kinds of things using a lower tier waystone that still grants backup portals.

I guess I could be more clear of my meaning, its not so much of an abuse perse as it is a game design that would come with a potential to encourage some backpeddling on your challenge rating more than it should.

Like I said, mixed feelings...I'm not strictly against it, I just would rather that the game encourages challenging yourself as much as possible.

Oh okay. I understand now. So basically they get more attempts at certain league mechanics. I don't really see this as a problem.

It wouldn't work with Breach because it would close by the time you re-enter. It would work with Ritual & Excavation though but I don't see this as a problem at all. If anything, it tells the devs that those league mechanics are overtuned if people are too afraid to do them in red maps. Ritual right now is overtuned for example. I can't do Ritual on my SSF character. I'm literally forced to avoid it. I think this is a bigger problem. Players shouldn't be incentivized to skip league mechanics IMO. I want to do Ritual but with only 1 portal I have no choice but to avoid it.

Would I run Ritual on yellow maps instead of farm red maps? Probably not. There's a trade off. You get less XP and worse drops overall. I don't think it would be worth it for most people.

I don't think losing the map is terrible. It feels a bit bad after having lost the XP, especially with OPs original point of some

1. Jank rare mechanics
2. Said rare mechanics not being immediately visually present without reading a list of 10ish lines of affixes
3. Group play being absolutely bananas in its current state. Not sure what the scaling is, but it's seriously _off_ in some fashion.

Having to wait for your buddy to clear a map is also painful. We need to either allow N number resurrections (similar to arbiter where you get 6 lives now)

OR

At least add a 'spectate' mode so I can watch my friend clear instead of 'Dead' empty screen, or leaving the map and waiting in the hideout.