3gs, its a great game, but you need to extract some poison.

SSF

Difficulty vs reward.

The further into the game you get, the more difficulty ramps and reward falls away. Right now they directly oppose.

Two examples, gear replacement and exp loss.

Gear replacement:
Power increase from gear, falls off pretty early in maps. Even if you find decent gear, its difficult to fit it into your gear due to the way resistances are setup. This inflexibility directly causes an extremely stagnant gear replacement curve.

There a direct correlation, even early in the game. As resistances become more required, gear replacement becomes less and less frequent- which inherently means more and more difficult, which also means the game feels less rewarding.

I think resistances should be completely separate from gear, perhaps attached to like... the body of the character in separate slots. You could get resistance items that are like, earrings, wrist, neck, belt attachments- I don't know, but separate from gear. Thats a commercial, doesn't matter for the point.


I like that everything is a threat, and that you can still die- thats good. The gameplay feels pretty damn good in general. There are just some things that are cancer. Just- game killing cancer.

Again, difficulty vs reward.

Experience loss:
Imagine with me, we're late in the game, getting less gear, everything is just more difficult in general, suddenly we're losing exp when we die. The only thing we're really getting, if not gear... levels, gem levels, something, anything, is experience. Then thats taken away.

Suddenly we're playing a game and getting nothing in return. The rewards have literally scaled out of the game. Its a slight issue.

Experience loss is fine. Completely. No one dislikes experience loss. Heh- hear me out. What we dislike is the EXCHANGE.

Whats the exchange? Time, focus, effort. Players hate gaining exp at a snails pace and losing a huge chunk in an instant. The exchange is shit. Often when you die, you die multiple times quickly; because its a difficult mob or some sort of nuts combination mods rare. So this penalty is high to start, then usually always magnified- because you're only going to die, usually, to some sort of spike. You know, an enraged rare.

On top of that, experience loss penalizes something you've ALREADY EARNED.

You may have gotten 8% of that exp yesterday. Doesn't matter, its gone. You can only not lose exp below your level. Kind of a weird saftey net, isn't it?

If something is good and healthy for a game... why would you stop it at the level? Its good for the game right? Its fun, balanced, healthy. Smells odd, off- this smells like another issue entirely, this is just what players FEEL like it is- but its not. Its not experience loss at all, its the feeling you get from it, and the same feeling you get from a bunch of other aspects of the game. This is just something we can easily see and focus our rage on. So thats what happens.

Think with me. If you played for 10 minutes and got 50% exp, died and lost 10%, died again... and died again, losing 30% exp; but then gained another 50% exp in the next ten minutes... would anyone be mad about experience loss? Of course not, that penalty isn't as bad. You get it right back, its close to equal. Exchange. Difficulty vs reward.

Now think about what is actually happening.

Players are playing say 4 hours to get 20% exp. Dying once, twice, maybe three times on a bonkers mob... yikes- losing 30%exp. But its actually losing 6 hours of time... because what else did you get? Do you remember that one piece of gear you upgraded... which actually took a whole bunch of other stuff that also took a bunch of time to get...

No one complains about this early game. Oh wait, because there is no experience loss; but... what if there was? No one would care. Why?

Because it would bring edge to the game and still be balanced. Early game, like pre 50? You're still getting gear all the time, you're experiencing new things constantly, you're getting frustrated by your ascendancy points. You're getting things in exchange. You're also getting exp fast, so if you lose 10%, its not a fucking big deal, is it?

Anyways, risk/reward. Its obvious. This is why everyone complains about fun in the game. Its obviously balanced enough for most of the game- it falls off a cliff late. This is why everyone stops playing after a league release has been out for a bit. Its not because its boring, its because the risk/reward just isn't there. Its also not even close to balanced.

Players will go watch their grass grow, its more rewarding.

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SSF

1)Not sure why we have to title every single one of our posts/threads with SSF


maybe you arent ready for the game mode. Seems like its being used an excuse for issues that happen.

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The further into the game you get, the more difficulty ramps and reward falls away.

2) Completely false but if this is true for you. You dont know how on a lot of how tos.

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Power increase from gear, falls off pretty early in maps. Even if you find decent gear, its difficult to fit it into your gear due to the way resistances are setup. This inflexibility directly causes an extremely stagnant gear replacement curve.

3) False but if this is true for you. Then maybe learn to craft a bit better. You get rewarded with more essences, higher tiered essences, more abyss returns and higher rolls, higher rolls on currency tiers, omens that help with crafting.

Learn to craft.

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I think resistances should be completely separate from gear, perhaps attached to like... the body of the character in separate slots. You could get resistance items that are like, earrings, wrist, neck, belt attachments- I don't know, but separate from gear. Thats a commercial, doesn't matter for the point.

4) No, game would become stupid easy.

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I like that everything is a threat, and that you can still die- thats good.

5) Direct contradiction to your previous suggestion.

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Experience loss is fine. Completely. No one dislikes experience loss. Heh- hear me out. What we dislike is the EXCHANGE.

6) Stop dying, wont happen as much.

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Players are playing say 4 hours to get 20% exp.

7) Then those players are some of the slowest/lowest skill players in the world. I can get 20% at 97 in... 6.6667 maps. Thats less than an hour of time.

With a warrior 2h.

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This is why everyone stops playing after a league release has been out for a bit.

7) No its not.

SSF

1) SSF is a completely different game than trade. Its for context, its important. For the game designers and other players.

2) This will be true for any average or below average player. Obviously its going to be 'skill' dependent of some nature.

3) Perhaps true, but again, I'm viewing this from the average players point of view. Not someone with all of your advanced knowledge. Everything you mentioned is advanced play- and generally something an ssf player will have far less access.

4) It would change nothing except gearing. Slots could even be adjusted. It would change rolls on gear. Could be replaced with something else. There are options.

5) Unclear. Did you mean resistances(4)? I didn't say they should be removed.

6) That is a solution, but not a solution to the issue. Just a solution to losing experience.

7) This is likely skill level and SSF diff. I mean if you're following a broken bugged build, ok. I actually don't even see how thats remotely possible, but I've never been 97. I haven't gotten past 90, honestly the experience gain was so slow I would never even actually attempt it. You must know some tricks.

Again, above average gameplay, contextually completely different from the main point.

8) Well, I meant commonly. This certainly happens in ssf, I don't know about trade. Obviously I didn't mean everyone.

9) You must get invited to a lot of parties.