GGG has a Ben problem.

While it was a gradual process, we have finally arrived at the point of "being able to craft items is unfair".

It is completely OBVIOUS that a huge part of PoE is lottery-based lol. There's no question about it. ANY competition that uses POE as the medium will have some (and probably a large) degree of luck involved. In fact, I might even suggest that "luck" could even be considered a skill in PoE. Knowing how to "control" the various luck levers as best you can, knowing WHEN to play the "luck" game to give you the best advantages, and just simply being lucky.

That alone doesn't matter.

Skill ALSO plays a role. Knowledge ALSO plays a role. The luck aspect will be there, but its there for every single player equally. Every monster kill equals the SAME chances for every player. And luck doesn't automatically mean you win, especially not in the Gauntlet and certainly not at the "level" these players interact with the game.

Your unwillingness to talk gradients means that we cannot have any conversation. You are completely shutting off the conversation with ANYONE, without reason. Fairness is NOT an on/off switch; I said that earlier. You are trying to MAKE it into one, and that is a complete non-starter for any conversation we can attempt to have.

And its that forced binary that creates threads like this one in the first place, FOMO, and these odd takes on competition in general. If you see things in black and white, you will be highly affected by literally everything. But that is a complete PERSONAL hangup with no foundation in something you can talk to anyone about.


I appreciate you trying to clarify, but I don't think its clarity that is needed. Your point is very clear: you think that fairness doesn't exist. You think that grades of fairness don't exist. You think that competitions are unfair. You think that someone dropping a mageblood within the competition is unfair. You also think, for some strange reason, that this competition ONLY EXISTS for our entertainment watching it. That has been clear from the start.

All of those things are the same: you are creating binary situations where they don't exist. Misunderstanding "luck" as it works in PoE competitions and thus labeling all luck as unfair. Ignoring the very nature of fairness and refusing to talk about just HOW fair the competition is. There's no other way to say it.

"

cowmoo275#3095 wrote:

Competitions are DESIGNED to be fair, in pretty much every way:
<snip>
The Gauntlet, by design, is 100% FAIR because the medium and rules being given to every single competitor is exactly the same.

Tangential complaint: PoE is not "fair" in this sense. Player location matters too much. Players in bad locations would have to relocate to a good location to compete on even turns.
Based on reading some Reddit post/s this even had a significant effect in making Ben win over Allex(sp?) in the first boss race this league.
In this context there are three issues:

1) Connection to PoE servers. (Depends on precise player locations. In less developed regions there are AFAIK alot of problems preventing competitive HC play due to that.)

2) Quality of PoE servers connected to. (EU is bad for example)

3) Area transition times due to delay due to "the Texas server" connection. Apparently (based on own experience) this delay is based on what server players are playing and not a connection between Texas and client issue.

At least #2 and #3 could be fixed(#3) or improved(#2) by GGG.

"

cowmoo275#3095 wrote:

It is completely OBVIOUS that a huge part of PoE is lottery-based lol. There's no question about it. ANY competition that uses POE as the medium will have some (and probably a large) degree of luck involved. In fact, I might even suggest that "luck" could even be considered a skill in PoE. Knowing how to "control" the various luck levers as best you can, knowing WHEN to play the "luck" game to give you the best advantages, and just simply being lucky.

That alone doesn't matter.

Skill ALSO plays a role. Knowledge ALSO plays a role. The luck aspect will be there, but its there for every single player equally. Every monster kill equals the SAME chances for every player. And luck doesn't automatically mean you win, especially not in the Gauntlet and certainly not at the "level" these players interact with the game.

Your unwillingness to talk gradients means that we cannot have any conversation. You are completely shutting off the conversation with ANYONE, without reason. Fairness is NOT an on/off switch; I said that earlier. You are trying to MAKE it into one, and that is a complete non-starter for any conversation we can attempt to have.

And its that forced binary that creates threads like this one in the first place, FOMO, and these odd takes on competition in general. If you see things in black and white, you will be highly affected by literally everything. But that is a complete PERSONAL hangup with no foundation in something you can talk to anyone about.


I appreciate you trying to clarify, but I don't think its clarity that is needed. Your point is very clear: you think that fairness doesn't exist. You think that grades of fairness don't exist. You think that competitions are unfair. You think that someone dropping a mageblood within the competition is unfair. You also think, for some strange reason, that this competition ONLY EXISTS for our entertainment watching it. That has been clear from the start.

All of those things are the same: you are creating binary situations where they don't exist. Misunderstanding "luck" as it works in PoE competitions and thus labeling all luck as unfair. Ignoring the very nature of fairness and refusing to talk about just HOW fair the competition is. There's no other way to say it.

there is a lot of misunderstanding here, i never said 'that this competition ONLY EXISTS for our entertainment watching it'. the reasons why they are made are far more nuance than that, but their aim is to entertain- any 'game like' competition is to entertain, if it wouldn't do that it wouldn't be considered a game, at least a good one. and again you don't even need a 3rd party audience to achieve a degree of entertaining needed- i already talked about it, and frankly im getting tired of restating things (proceeds anyway lol)

grades of fairness exist as much as fairness itself (as a concept), but they undermine the concept itself. the more gradients you create the less meaningful it becomes because with enough grades of it everything can be considered 'fair' to some extend. i just find it pointless. its like saying anything is true if we account for observers perception- meaning the perception is true not the actual event that is observed, creating personalized 'truths' impossible to disprove, arriving at a moot point.
this is why i wanted to drop the whole 'fairness' long ago- because the world like you said is not black and white, and trying to perceive it this way is rather pointless.

and again if there is a big component of luck in these races then consecutive wins would be very sus, unless like you mention this luck would be somehow manipulated to a degree that in no longer matters. at which point- is it still luck?

what i mean is, if one can 'predict luck' wouldn't that mean its no longer a lottery, at least not the same lottery other players are engaging with? to make this 'fair', all information that could be gathered about this luck should be disclosed publicly because if its not this crated gates. these days even monetary gates because like i mention you can simulate things with enough gpu's, gathering information about monster spawn patterns, specific loot drop rules (loot tables), and i'm not sure if item mod weights are disclosed for poe2 but that could also be gathered.

On top of that you can use an algo or train an llm to create specific plans/strategies based on how all outcomes unfold in real time, creating a very reliable and massively advantageous model based on probability. such ability to simulate/compute at scale in real time would be a weird skill imo, unless we think having lots of money is a skill... 'the more you buy the more you save!'?

it was fun yesterday, but this discussion isn't moving much at this point. so thank you for a chat- i will work on my filter now, can't wait to be part of the server fire tomorrow! gl to you and everyone reading.

the ABYSS awaits! (~manacing~)

Disclaimer- all the above is presented for discussion purposes only, i am not making any accusations here.