[Megathread] Path of Exile

[Redblade]

Yeah... To do what though? By 80, most builds will be have been seen. More power at that point just means you'll want to run higher level maps and so on and so on. High level maps and Atziri and so on are for the minority. Well, that's my experience anyway. People just roll builds, level to around 80 or so, then reroll or quit. A bit like in D3 you your gearset with most items ancient, do your achievements, and quit the game.

I was talking about when a build feels finished.

This brings me back to the original question though...if people play it as if it was D3 then why don't they just play D3 asking this game to be changed in to it?

[Deleted]

I was talking about when a build feels finished.

Obviously the build isn't finished until you're level 100, and even then you can most likely still upgrade your gear quite a bit by getting better rares. But yeah, I was talking about the fact that by 80 or so (give or take a few levels obviously), you've most likely seen what the core of your build is about, and how it works. There's really very few new mechanics to be gotten and so on. You can wield and wear all(?) gear long before 80, and passive-wise most of the build-defining passives have already been taken, and the rest is typically just damage and life and so on.

This brings me back to the original question though...if people play it as if it was D3 then why don't they just play D3 asking this game to be changed in to it?

I'm not sure who's been asking Path to be made more like D3, so I don't know.

[Redblade]

I'm pretty sure all of them would like to get a lot of exalts, but many of them can't.

Then I'm curious why they can't tbh.

At the end of the day I know at least some of them would, if they had to, rather login to jsp if they really had a burning need of currency rather than spending hours doing boring shit in-game.

And there it is...they don't want to play the game as it's designed so instead the game should be changed to fit them. This is what I have an issue with, claiming you can't get exalts when the real cause is that you can't be fucked to grind for them invalidates the whole argument.

It doesn't really, because chaos orbs used as trading tool doesn't consume the orbs, but rolling maps does, and the amount of orbs in the economy is pretty much unchanged. Besides the real treat in high level maps are the better rares which still cost the same - if not more. And in my experience, the high level maps were much harder to sustain because of the drops that never fucking happened. Every great unique I ever found was when comfortably farming mid-tier maps.

The guy mapping consumes them like he's always been, that's why he trades for them...

The fact that those random uniques you get while mapping are worth less means you're getting less income from mapping while the cost remains the same. You're not getting around that. And what you got or not has no bearing on the subject as I could provide an anecdote that counters it.

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Obviously the build isn't finished until you're level 100, and even then you can most likely still upgrade your gear quite a bit by getting better rares. But yeah, I was talking about the fact that by 80 or so (give or take a few levels obviously), you've most likely seen what the core of your build is about, and how it works. There's really very few new mechanics to be gotten and so on. You can wield and wear all(?) gear long before 80, and passive-wise most of the build-defining passives have already been taken, and the rest is typically just damage and life and so on.

80-90 is a huge difference for most builds I've ever played as that when you can put points in that extra crit multi or attack/cast speed and what not. The core of the build is done but over the following 10-15 points how the build plays changes dramatically as the full potential is unlocked.

I'm not sure who's been asking Path to be made more like D3, so I don't know.

Pretty much everyone that goes on about how great Cadiro is for the game as "now we can get access to cheap uniques". It pushes the game towards what you're talking about, play the game for a week or two and then wait for next league, never really engaging in end game.

[Deleted]

Pretty much everyone that goes on about how great Cadiro is for the game

Well I think I've said half a dozen times that Cadiro is a pointless addition to the game, and a bad league feature.

[Redblade]

Well I think I've said half a dozen times that Cadiro is a pointless addition to the game, and a bad league feature.

Yeah I wasn't talking about you specifically.

[Hermanni]

Then I'm curious why they can't tbh.

Because it's not an aspect of the game they bothered to learn, they can level up a char, farm high level maps, sell items, then either die or get bored and reroll... None of that includes automatic massive wealth gain if you don't get very lucky.

Look at it this way: Even if you played every day for 3 months, you probably wouldn't find 10 exalted orbs as drops, right? So it's a sheer impossibility that everyone could have that many, even if the only people playing were the hardcore gamers. PoE economy is pretty much a "the rich get richer" scheme where the top players find ways to "cheat" other people out of their precious rare Exalted drops. Cheat is a fairly extreme word, but in a world where limited amount of orbs exist, they tend to gravitate towards the players who already have plenty.

And there it is...they don't want to play the game as it's designed so instead the game should be changed to fit them. This is what I have an issue with, claiming you can't get exalts when the real cause is that you can't be fucked to grind for them invalidates the whole argument.

It's a game where almost every activity is grinding. There isn't a specific place that you can grind to be more likely to get an Exalted or a high end unique as a drop. I'm talking about people who play enough to easily be at least in the top 500 of the ladder early in the league and you're here talking like "yeah those fuckers don't deserve wealth if they can't be dicked to grind." Wealth is supposed to be something you gain by playing (a lot) or engaging in difficult content. The reality is that the design of the game is changing and the only people who are opposed to it are the elitist "economy experts" or the people who have been living under a rock and were shocked to find out that their Shavs drop wasn't worth 15 exalts.

The guy mapping consumes them like he's always been, that's why he trades for them...

The fact that those random uniques you get while mapping are worth less means you're getting less income from mapping while the cost remains the same. You're not getting around that. And what you got or not has no bearing on the subject as I could provide an anecdote that counters it.

Onslaught costs 2 chaos instead of 8. That's already a huge cost reduction to high end mapping, and as far as anecdotes go I've personally been getting much more income from mapping than I have in the past 2 leagues.

Pretty much everyone that goes on about how great Cadiro is for the game as "now we can get access to cheap uniques". It pushes the game towards what you're talking about, play the game for a week or two and then wait for next league, never really engaging in end game.

I don't think that's a bad thing considering you can get to "end-game" in less than a week. I have friends who will play for 2 weeks and some who will play for 2 months. Either is fine. And I'm pretty sure uniques should have always been as cheap as they're now because they're items you make your build around, and wouldn't it be fun to dream up a clever low-life build and then wait until you're level 96 before you can spec into it because you didn't get lucky drops. Very few high end uniques were built to basically be equal to good rares (Void Battery kinda is one), and I doubt much more such items will get added. You can still spend an exalt minimum on every rare gear and jewel slot in your gear if you want to perfect your build, and then there's the issue of getting 6-links, corrupted 21/20 gems, level 3-4 empowers or enlightens... I find it pretty amazing people think getting great gear is somehow easy now.

I personally enjoy PoE a lot more as a game where I can start the league with virtually any build in mind and be able to actually play that build in less than a week instead of after a month of grinding currency, and being able to enjoy it while doing other stuff after the first few weeks.

[Lysah]

Your view on D2 is wrong on so many points it hurts.

I'm not sure where in your post you disagreed with anything I said. Did you forget that I was talking about PoE and not D2 with almost everything I wrote?

@Redblade
You seem to be missing the point. Just because people COULD play 20 hours a day seven days a week and farm the currency to buy tier 1 uniques doesn't mean the game should be balanced around that. The simple reason is that many people can't actually do that. For a lot of people, between work and family and chores and exercise and everything else that has to happen in day to day life there is little time to play PoE more than an hour or two, especially if kids get involved. No matter how fast you are able to run maps, an hour or two a day will not get you exalts very quickly. You want to balance the economy around the ability to slowly farm alts to turn into fuses to turn into exalts so that people who dedicated 120 hours to farming can have their shavs and you've just prevented 99% of the player base from ever getting a shavs in their life because leagues literally do not last long enough for them to play that much. That is the point.

Do I need to go find the data where GGG pointed out that the majority of the players in this game never even make it to merciless? You seem to really lack the understanding of what the average gamer means, and no matter how much people try to explain that we are talking about regular players, not you and me, you seem to just willfully misunderstand every step of the way. The PoE community is much bigger than the 200 players who fight for ladder spots and control over the exalted orb supply. I'm really not sure what else I need to say here to get you to understand. Cadiro was not made for us, it was made for everyone else. And I think it was a good addition. Not something I would want to see every league, but it has made for a fun time for a while.

[Redblade]

Because it's not an aspect of the game they bothered to learn, they can level up a char, farm high level maps, sell items, then either die or get bored and reroll... None of that includes automatic massive wealth gain if you don't get very lucky.

This is how I play yet I seem to be able to gain wealth...

I don't sit and merch all day long, I mostly map and sell shit I find. If that makes me lucky then I must have the longest streak of luck in history.

It's a game where almost every activity is grinding. There isn't a specific place that you can grind to be more likely to get an Exalted or a high end unique as a drop. I'm talking about people who play enough to easily be at least in the top 500 of the ladder early in the league and you're here talking like "yeah those fuckers don't deserve wealth if they can't be dicked to grind." Wealth is supposed to be something you gain by playing (a lot) or engaging in difficult content. The reality is that the design of the game is changing and the only people who are opposed to it are the elitist "economy experts" or the people who have been living under a rock and were shocked to find out that their Shavs drop wasn't worth 15 exalts.

Like I said, I gain my wealth by simply playing a lot...

Wealth can be gained by engaging in difficult content such as über, or grinding maps with some MF, or grinding dried lake with a lot of MF. Not wanting to do either of these things doesn't mean you can't gain wealth it just means you're not motivated enough.

Onslaught costs 2 chaos instead of 8. That's already a huge cost reduction to high end mapping, and as far as anecdotes go I've personally been getting much more income from mapping than I have in the past 2 leagues.

Anarchy > Onslaught and it's not as huge of a reduction unless you Zana mod your sub T12 maps which is just unnecessary.

I don't think that's a bad thing considering you can get to "end-game" in less than a week. I have friends who will play for 2 weeks and some who will play for 2 months. Either is fine. And I'm pretty sure uniques should have always been as cheap as they're now because they're items you make your build around, and wouldn't it be fun to dream up a clever low-life build and then wait until you're level 96 before you can spec into it because you didn't get lucky drops. Very few high end uniques were built to basically be equal to good rares (Void Battery kinda is one), and I doubt much more such items will get added. You can still spend an exalt minimum on every rare gear and jewel slot in your gear if you want to perfect your build, and then there's the issue of getting 6-links, corrupted 21/20 gems, level 3-4 empowers or enlightens... I find it pretty amazing people think getting great gear is somehow easy now.

They weren't supposed to be this common in the first place, if they were then they would have been a long time ago and items like Skyforth for example would be as common as Shav's now. From a design perspective there needs to be rare rewards that hold great value, if there isn't the game becomes flat and stale...look at Blizzard games, they design that way nowdays.

Then again we were never supposed to reach 90+ this fast either, reaching level 100 in less than a month was an absurd thought...

I personally enjoy PoE a lot more as a game where I can start the league with virtually any build in mind and be able to actually play that build in less than a week instead of after a month of grinding currency, and being able to enjoy it while doing other stuff after the first few weeks.

To each their own I supposed, this game wasn't advertised to be that though...

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You seem to be missing the point. Just because people COULD play 20 hours a day seven days a week and farm the currency to buy tier 1 uniques doesn't mean the game should be balanced around that. The simple reason is that many people can't actually do that. For a lot of people, between work and family and chores and exercise and everything else that has to happen in day to day life there is little time to play PoE more than an hour or two, especially if kids get involved. No matter how fast you are able to run maps, an hour or two a day will not get you exalts very quickly. You want to balance the economy around the ability to slowly farm alts to turn into fuses to turn into exalts so that people who dedicated 120 hours to farming can have their shavs and you've just prevented 99% of the player base from ever getting a shavs in their life because leagues literally do not last long enough for them to play that much. That is the point.

If they are that strapped for time then there is always permanent leagues...

This game was advertised as a hardcore game made by hardcore gamers for hardcore gamers. What you're describing doesn't really fit that frame and as such the game shouldn't be dumbed down to fit that type of player. This is what I'm talking about, catering to the guy that has an hour a day at best isn't what this game was supposed to be, that's what made it great as it was a niche that wasn't filled.

Do I need to go find the data where GGG pointed out that the majority of the players in this game never even make it to merciless? You seem to really lack the understanding of what the average gamer means, and no matter how much people try to explain that we are talking about regular players, not you and me, you seem to just willfully misunderstand every step of the way. The PoE community is much bigger than the 200 players who fight for ladder spots and control over the exalted orb supply. I'm really not sure what else I need to say here to get you to understand. Cadiro was not made for us, it was made for everyone else. And I think it was a good addition. Not something I would want to see every league, but it has made for a fun time for a while.

As it's a free game that says very little though, people who quite before end game, hell even before the final difficulty, probably isn't contributing to the games financial success anyway but you want to develop the game for them?

[Vespian]

I'm not sure where in your post you disagreed with anything I said. Did you forget that I was talking about PoE and not D2 with almost everything I wrote?

I responded to the fact that you seem to think that D2 had many general purpose uniques that were the end all be all.

[Hermanni]

Wealth can be gained by engaging in difficult content such as über, or grinding maps with some MF, or grinding dried lake with a lot of MF. Not wanting to do either of these things doesn't mean you can't gain wealth it just means you're not motivated enough.

Yeah this is pretty much the essence of where you go out of touch. Uber is, especially in hardcore, way out of reach for 99.9% of the players (Fragi ran über in Talisman but died on his 5th or so run) and to be frank stacking MF is a pretty boring way to play the game. Sure you can get 100 or so MF for soloing if you wanna invest more currency in your gear to get it but it won't make a huge difference, and the number of people I know who are willing to dedicate their characters to party MF is 0. I played a LL aurabot culler in Bloodlines and a FT solo MF'er in Beyond and as far as I'm concerned they can remove the entire MF mechanic from everything but maps. And because good rares with high MF values tend to be expensive, it's just one more piece of the "rich get richer" problem.

Hell, if you ask me the absolute number 1 reason why this league is so good it's because I don't have to even consider running a MF char to fund my future builds. The recipe for successful first character pre 2.0/2.1 for me was 1) very low budget 2) stack MF. And while it worked I really never wanna see Flame Totem again...

And I also wanna point out that MF is much more effective for finding rares than uniques, and the prices of good rares are high as ever... So there really should be no problem.

Then again we were never supposed to reach 90+ this fast either, reaching level 100 in less than a month was an absurd thought...

To each their own I supposed, this game wasn't advertised to be that though...

Yeah this is pretty much why even you sound like the "things have changed wahhh" kind of people. If this game hadn't changed in the current direction since the Anarchy/Onslaught days there'd only be a handful of people playing... and I wouldn't be one of them. For me it's incredibly hard to get to get my friends to try this game, and most who do try quit before they hit maps.

Only gripe I have with this league is that they did nothing to combat the Ascendancy Class power creep (like increase monster HP scaling in maps) but I imagine it'll get addressed in a future patch...

[Fencers]

I have a mind to try out Incinerate this league. Controlled Destruction, Pierce and Elemental Focus might make a potent combination. Throw that on a Pledge of Hands... could be some potential. I haven't looked in Elemental Focus a whole lot, but the lack of ignite might not matter.

[Lysah]

This game was advertised as a hardcore game made by hardcore gamers for hardcore gamers. What you're describing doesn't really fit that frame and as such the game shouldn't be dumbed down to fit that type of player. This is what I'm talking about, catering to the guy that has an hour a day at best isn't what this game was supposed to be, that's what made it great as it was a niche that wasn't filled.

The game is already like this. It offers an actual challenge and much of the content in the game is extremely difficult. Most ordinary players can't even make it past normal in hardcore and the developers are unapologetic about that, not to mention the fact that it takes dozens of hours to level if you aren't a speed runner, which is also by design. Pretty much everything in PoE takes a very long time and that is where the hardcore part comes in. The game simply being a pain in the ass to play is not the right way to make it "hardcore."

Noobs who die in normal and give up and uninstall might not contribute to the financial future of the game, but if you do not actively try to draw new players into the game, there will not be a game. The same thousand supporters will not continue to fund the game forever, and GGG is absolutely working in the best interest of the game and the company. So far they've done this without pissing me off, and I bought the Ascendancy pack in a heartbeat and will buy the next most expensive pack they release if they keep it up.

If you feel bored a week after a new league comes out, I would examine how many hours you've put into the game by then. I think Hermanni seems to be bored of this league already judging by the fact that he never plays it anymore, but I'd also love to see the /played on his Duelist. If you've dropped 120 hours in the first week of the league and then bitch that the game was too easy and there's no reason to play anymore, it's your own fault. 120 hours is a hell of a lot of gameplay from one patch of a game you've already played through a hundred times and 'beaten' repeatedly. You really can't expect any company to deliver more than that four times a year.

I responded to the fact that you seem to think that D2 had many general purpose uniques that were the end all be all.

But...you didn't really disagree? You pointed out items like shako, stormshield, cota, items that are simply far better than any alternative on pretty much every character you will ever create.

[Redblade]

Yeah this is pretty much the essence of where you go out of touch. Uber is, especially in hardcore, way out of reach for 99.9% of the players (Fragi ran über in Talisman but died on his 5th or so run) and to be frank stacking MF is a pretty boring way to play the game. Sure you can get 100 or so MF for soloing if you wanna invest more currency in your gear to get it but it won't make a huge difference, and the number of people I know who are willing to dedicate their characters to party MF is 0. I played a LL aurabot culler in Bloodlines and a FT solo MF'er in Beyond and as far as I'm concerned they can remove the entire MF mechanic from everything but maps. And because good rares with high MF values tend to be expensive, it's just one more piece of the "rich get richer" problem.

Never said the vast majority could do über, if was you who said that wealth should be acquired by playing a lot of engaging in difficult content
. And I never said you had to stack MF, personally I run a full 42 IIR atm and I'm getting more loot than I can carry out of maps with double uniques every other map from either bosses or exiles.

MF stats are at their highest efficiency in low numbers and diminish as you keep stacking them. Just putting on Sadimas and Perandus belt while leveling an alt I've had at least 20c worth of currency by the end of act 4 cruel.

We're back to that it's simply you don't want to as opposed to you can't, and I don't see why the game should be changed to accommodate you just because you don't want to.

And as for the rich gets richer, that will happen no matter the design. Look at WoW where the economy is the flattest thing you've ever seen, there are super rich there too. Personally I lost interest in acquiring more gold there after I had 1,5 million which isn't even close to the super rich.

Hell, if you ask me the absolute number 1 reason why this league is so good it's because I don't have to even consider running a MF char to fund my future builds. The recipe for successful first character pre 2.0/2.1 for me was 1) very low budget 2) stack MF. And while it worked I really never wanna see Flame Totem again...

And I also wanna point out that MF is much more effective for finding rares than uniques, and the prices of good rares are high as ever... So there really should be no problem.

You don't have to MF, that's just a straw man argument that keeps getting used. This league I had at most 43 IIR on my char, last league I had no MF what so ever yet my LL BM char had almost 10k ES with insane gear. Hell I even blew about 20ex in chaos just trying to roll a 3x T1 ES hubris. The best MF in game is simply time.

Yeah this is pretty much why even you sound like the "things have changed wahhh" kind of people. If this game hadn't changed in the current direction since the Anarchy/Onslaught days there'd only be a handful of people playing... and I wouldn't be one of them. For me it's incredibly hard to get to get my friends to try this game, and most who do try quit before they hit maps.

But that's the thing, every game doesn't have to cater to everyone. This was a nice game for the hardcore gamers and that's what it was great at, it filled a nice that wasn't filled before. And I'd love to see any factual support that only a handful would play it, I think you're highly underestimating how many gamers there are that actually want a more hardcore game.

Only gripe I have with this league is that they did nothing to combat the Ascendancy Class power creep (like increase monster HP scaling in maps) but I imagine it'll get addressed in a future patch...

This we can agree on.

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The game simply being a pain in the ass to play is not the right way to make it "hardcore."

Having to grind for some things isn't being a pain in the ass, it's asking you to make an effort.

Noobs who die in normal and give up and uninstall might not contribute to the financial future of the game, but if you do not actively try to draw new players into the game, there will not be a game. The same thousand supporters will not continue to fund the game forever, and GGG is absolutely working in the best interest of the game and the company. So far they've done this without pissing me off, and I bought the Ascendancy pack in a heartbeat and will buy the next most expensive pack they release if they keep it up.

I think there are far more gamers that enjoy this type of game than you think. So there really shouldn't be a need to cater to the people whom are not in to the more hardcore niche.

If you feel bored a week after a new league comes out, I would examine how many hours you've put into the game by then. I think Hermanni seems to be bored of this league already judging by the fact that he never plays it anymore, but I'd also love to see the /played on his Duelist. If you've dropped 120 hours in the first week of the league and then bitch that the game was too easy and there's no reason to play anymore, it's your own fault. 120 hours is a hell of a lot of gameplay from one patch of a game you've already played through a hundred times and 'beaten' repeatedly. You really can't expect any company to deliver more than that four times a year.

Who said I was bored?

I disagree with the direction GGG took with this league and the impact it has on the game as a whole, just wait and see if they remove Perandus mechanics how much bitching there will be. It's much harder for the developer to take convenience and accessibility away than to not give it in the first place.

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I have a mind to try out Incinerate this league. Controlled Destruction, Pierce and Elemental Focus might make a potent combination. Throw that on a Pledge of Hands... could be some potential. I haven't looked in Elemental Focus a whole lot, but the lack of ignite might not matter.

Pledge is pointless as Incinerate doesn't work with echo anymore. I'm trying a pathfinder Incinerate atm and I use LMP, FC, Elemental Focus, Increased Critical and Life Leech. The crit gem is used so I can procc Elemental Overload which is working fine, the bild might be scrapped though as I don't think it will work out well enough to gain flask charges from Master Surgeon.

[Lysah]

Having to grind for some things isn't being a pain in the ass, it's asking you to make an effort.

This game already takes an insane amount of effort compared to most, there's a limit at which effort turns into pointless grind that isn't fun for anyone outside the most extreme.

I think there are far more gamers that enjoy this type of game than you think. So there really shouldn't be a need to cater to the people whom are not in to the more hardcore niche.

There might be, but if there are, they certainly aren't playing PoE, so let's examine why that is. PoE has only grown in numbers since it started being less hardcore - I, myself, got bored of it and didn't play it past level 50 back in beta because the game was just too slow and took too long. If you want to have a discussion on why these supposed hardcore gamers aren't playing PoE then we can talk about that, because I'm not seeing the numbers. PoE is still a pretty small game with a small, niche community, and it's utterly amazing that they are doing so well financially given the size of their staff and headquarters now. Nobody enjoys the same game forever, however, and it's inevitable that even their most loyal fans that have donated thousands of dollars will get bored eventually. The only way to survive is to keep getting fresh blood to play the game, and to keep innovating the game in unique and exciting ways to draw old veterans back.

I disagree with the direction GGG took with this league and the impact it has on the game as a whole, just wait and see if they remove Perandus mechanics how much bitching there will be. It's much harder for the developer to take convenience and accessibility away than to not give it in the first place.

I guess wait and see is all we can do. I think it's just as likely GGG will tell everyone to stop crying if it ever happens in the first place. Every league for the past like two years has had mechanics that can be abused for profit, Perandus is not unique in that regard. Remember free 6 links for everybody Tempest? Talisman was less obviously "farmable," but Rigwald was pretty damn easy at low ilvl and dropped guaranteed uniques much like Atziri, only they were actually worth something unlike Atziri, not to mention the ability to just flat out sell necks. Like Rigwald and Talismans, Perandus will probably disappear to history unless they add it as a map mod or something, and there will be some new league that gives us free stuff for people to be excited about. GGG has obviously learned that leagues that impact the economy do much better and are played for much longer, which is why the last several leagues have all intentionally been economy-impacting. Let's examine the first leagues that were 100% shit - nemesis (nothing but artificial difficulty increase for no reason) snorefest, invasion (extreme artificial difficulty and map cockblock for no reason) snorefest, bloodlines (nemesis but for blue packs WAOW) snorefest, onslaught (literally just a dps increase for mobs...fun?) snorefest. Beyond is the only league they made that was even remotely relevant past simply making the game hard-mode-standard, and it was their best league mechanically in my opinion. It's also one of their least popular leagues of all time if I'm not mistaken, and the ocean of tears that flooded the forum and reddit can still be felt to this day in people's cold, dark memories.

[Drunkenfinn]

I seriously hope they do not include the Perandus mechanics into the core-game....

Main reason being that I'm kinda salty about having 15k coins just sitting in my bank and the best item I've seen him sell was a Tabula Rasa... And I've played quite a bit since the first day of the league :P

The price-drop of the semi-decent uniques is also kind of annoying, but most of my revenue comes from good rares anyways... Never seen a T1 unique drop and I've played since open beta :P

[Redblade]

There might be, but if there are, they certainly aren't playing PoE, so let's examine why that is. PoE has only grown in numbers since it started being less hardcore - I, myself, got bored of it and didn't play it past level 50 back in beta because the game was just too slow and took too long. If you want to have a discussion on why these supposed hardcore gamers aren't playing PoE then we can talk about that, because I'm not seeing the numbers. PoE is still a pretty small game with a small, niche community, and it's utterly amazing that they are doing so well financially given the size of their staff and headquarters now. Nobody enjoys the same game forever, however, and it's inevitable that even their most loyal fans that have donated thousands of dollars will get bored eventually. The only way to survive is to keep getting fresh blood to play the game, and to keep innovating the game in unique and exciting ways to draw old veterans back.

The problem here is that we're both assuming different things and there is no evidence to be had either way. I think casualizing the game just replaces it's player base much like WoW did and that it would be fine without doing that. You seem to think the game has to be casualized to survive, only thing I can say that speaks against it would be that the game built it's success on not being casual in my opinion.

I guess wait and see is all we can do. I think it's just as likely GGG will tell everyone to stop crying if it ever happens in the first place. Every league for the past like two years has had mechanics that can be abused for profit, Perandus is not unique in that regard. Remember free 6 links for everybody Tempest? Talisman was less obviously "farmable," but Rigwald was pretty damn easy at low ilvl and dropped guaranteed uniques much like Atziri, only they were actually worth something unlike Atziri, not to mention the ability to just flat out sell necks. Like Rigwald and Talismans, Perandus will probably disappear to history unless they add it as a map mod or something, and there will be some new league that gives us free stuff for people to be excited about. GGG has obviously learned that leagues that impact the economy do much better and are played for much longer, which is why the last several leagues have all intentionally been economy-impacting. Let's examine the first leagues that were 100% shit - nemesis (nothing but artificial difficulty increase for no reason) snorefest, invasion (extreme artificial difficulty and map cockblock for no reason) snorefest, bloodlines (nemesis but for blue packs WAOW) snorefest, onslaught (literally just a dps increase for mobs...fun?) snorefest. Beyond is the only league they made that was even remotely relevant past simply making the game hard-mode-standard, and it was their best league mechanically in my opinion. It's also one of their least popular leagues of all time if I'm not mistaken, and the ocean of tears that flooded the forum and reddit can still be felt to this day in people's cold, dark memories.

Yeah we'll see what comes out of it, they might sort it out and in the end it's a non-issue but I'd rather voice my concerns before it goes to far than after. My main gripe with this league compared to others in terms of economy effects is the league only uniques being pumped out en mass as I see them as more of a reward for playing in the actual leagues and as such a trophy once carried over to permanent leagues, much like alt art race rewards and such. Being able to get them though Zana was ok ish as it still required a lot of effort to obtain them.

[Lysah]

The problem here is that we're both assuming different things and there is no evidence to be had either way. I think casualizing the game just replaces it's player base much like WoW did and that it would be fine without doing that. You seem to think the game has to be casualized to survive, only thing I can say that speaks against it would be that the game built it's success on not being casual in my opinion.

My opinion is that the game is still anything but casual, and that you are horribly overreacting to a temporary mechanic. In fact, the game could probably stand to be a lot more casual than even free-uniques-Perandus, but GGG has taken a strong stance against that and continues to stay true to it.

I agree the league specific uniques are a bit of a letdown, but I've stopped being excited about uniques for a while now...it's been a very long time since GGG released a unique that was any good. They seem to have become quite afraid of introducing items people will actually want. Most uniques are so niche they are pretty much unusable entirely, but I guess many of these items are designed for a specific type of player that would rather make whacky builds than good builds and so they aren't being released for us. Since they're all vendor trash anyway, it doesn't bother me if they're easy to obtain.

[Deleted]

Some things just seem to be fucking rigged sometimes. Can't I just farm my head enchant in peace?


Found it earlier today, ain't she a beauty?

[Cyclone Jack]

My main gripe with this league compared to others in terms of economy effects is the league only uniques being pumped out en mass as I see them as more of a reward for playing in the actual leagues and as such a trophy once carried over to permanent leagues, much like alt art race rewards and such.

As much as I'm not a fan of trade or the economy, even I have to agree with this.

I wonder how people would feel if Perandus became a nod to self-found players and his coins and items were non-tradable.

- - - Updated - - -

Most uniques are so niche they are pretty much unusable entirely, but I guess many of these items are designed for a specific type of player that would rather make whacky builds than good builds and so they aren't being released for us.

To me, this is what the majority of uniques should be: a item that enables or boosts a specific build or theme.

[Redblade]

it's been a very long time since GGG released a unique that was any good.

Skyforth and Heretic's Veil are two new uniques that are both crazy powerful.