Originally posted by Ape:

Pretty sure that forum post you've linked is what is known as a "joke". Romances, gender lock, boobs have been things people complain about for years. Though I'd argue among all of them we certainly get a lot less boobs in games these days.

And i'm pretty sure that (seeing what is the answer you did on this linked thread since my post) this is not really a "joke" for some people :)
And even if these things existed years or decades ago, it was anecdotic and wasn't spammed everywhere. Now, we can't have a game without this ♥♥♥♥♥♥' spam. Generation Mass effect, thanks Bioware :p
Anyway, it's not the subject of this thread, so, i'm done right here.

Originally posted by RodHull:

Originally posted by ♥♥♥♥ Dota.:

Then don't use trash uniques??? lol... They said that endgame uniques with high legendary potential would be a really rare occurrence, but they WILL drop. It's also good that they'll be so rare to avoid invalidating every other system. These devs do a pretty phenomenal job of balancing the game systems in a way where they all stay relevant.

I think the "trash uniques" you're talking about are going to have a lot more potential than you think, though. There are some pretty nasty combos that don't get used because of the lack of overall stats on one or both items past a certain point. Shoring up those weaknesses is going to open up a lot of options. For that matter, it'll also let you lean even more heavily into a specific aspect of a weapon or piece of armor, even if you only have 1 legendary potential on an already powerful item, really pushing your pre-existing synergies to a new level. By the same token, specializing your character to a higher degree and giving it more personality / uniqueness (no pun intended).

Your missing the point.

My point is why add a system to make trash uniques good (and a good 70% of the low tier uniques are pure trash atm) when you could just, not make them trash to begin with??

It's a very modern game design concept that lots of companies do.

Create in game issue - implement system to fix issue rather than fixing issue.

It just baffles me why do it like this? The low tier uniques (some of which have great abilities but terrible stats) are not suddenly going to see widespread use cause they got a 90% melee damage boost.

The point I was making was the game is full of bad uniques (bad as in they see zero use at high level play not their design or look) so why spend so much effort adding a system based on RNG to make them somewhat usable at high level rather than just doing a balance pass on them and make them all good to begin with?

I have nothing against the concept of buffing or modifying uniques in essence but I just don't think it really addresses the bad uniques to begin with. Which by their own admission was a core design philosophy and goal of the system. ARPGs should be power fantasies, let us smash uniques together to make wild crazy items, let extraxt unique abilities and implant them on exalted items... it just feels so hamstrung and half ***ed to me... but hey its just my opinion.

I see this throughout LE like the skills, where they put boring cooldowns or crazy high mana costs on the best nodes. Let us have fun with the game !

You make good points and I agree with the principle behind what you're saying - the creating a problem to serve up the solution is usually a model seen in f2p / p2w monetization models though where the solution is the cash shop. I don't think it's in their interest to create and balance a whole complex system around solving an arbitrary problem.

As for why not just buff em in the first place I mean I can't speak for 11th Hour but if I understood correctly you're speaking of endgame when you say that a majority of items see no play time - You need weaker uniques during the level up process to add excitement and to reward progression (I mean you don't NEED to but I think I'm with most people in really enjoying having a new toy to play with). I think this system is meant to help the lower tier items keep up, and in some instances higher tier uniques to have a "wow" moment when everything lines up just right.

Idk man it's just speculation. I could be just as wrong as the next guy, this system just feels right to me at face value but we'll have to wait and see!

As an aside, it was nice to have such a civil exchange on a public forum - it's almost like we're not in the age of telling people who prefer a different juice flavor to kill themselves.

Originally posted by Ape:

Originally posted by DanteYoda:

I disagree gender locked character just hinders the games population and stops many from playing.

why does this matter to you? its an ARPG. With games in general you're not really supposed to self-insert and play 'yourself' or directly relate with a character, despite the unwashed masses being unable to do otherwise. Not only that, none of these characters have defining dialogue that makes the story - just a character model and some voice lines. Are you really that fragile?

Dude who ♥♥♥♥♥♥ Your dog? Seriously, get off that high horse before you fall off when he bends down to do another line.

People can play a game however they want. I could go on and on about why that's totally normal but it's literally CALLED AN ACTION ROLE-PLAYING GAME. Like how are you gonna argue against self-insertion when this entire genre stems from pretending you're something / someone else and literally defining its self as a ROLE PLAYING game?

I can't even with your ♥♥♥♥.

Originally posted by ♥♥♥♥ Dota.:

You make good points and I agree with the principle behind what you're saying - the creating a problem to serve up the solution is usually a model seen in f2p / p2w monetization models though where the solution is the cash shop. I don't think it's in their interest to create and balance a whole complex system around solving an arbitrary problem.

As for why not just buff em in the first place I mean I can't speak for 11th Hour but if I understood correctly you're speaking of endgame when you say that a majority of items see no play time - You need weaker uniques during the level up process to add excitement and to reward progression (I mean you don't NEED to but I think I'm with most people in really enjoying having a new toy to play with). I think this system is meant to help the lower tier items keep up, and in some instances higher tier uniques to have a "wow" moment when everything lines up just right.

Idk man it's just speculation. I could be just as wrong as the next guy, this system just feels right to me at face value but we'll have to wait and see!

As an aside, it was nice to have such a civil exchange on a public forum - it's almost like we're not in the age of telling people who prefer a different juice flavor to kill themselves.

I do think thats where they are coming from with it. I think they (misguidedly imo) think having lower tier uniques is going to be fun in some way then felt they need a system to make them useful at high level.

Aside from the fact that levelling is pretty fast in LE and you dont spend enough time at lower level for that to be worthwhile, I just think its not a very elegant or exciting way of going about it or adding a system to modify them.

Consider for a moment that all uniques are created as lower tier version then they simply add a buffed 'end game' or max level version that is intended for end game use. Kind of how GD does it with legendaries and mythical legendaries being their end game counterparts.

This would then free up the cache mechanic to allow for wild things like melding uniques together.

As it is they are wasting (IMO) a good idea on simply trying to make bad uniques somewhat useful. I just don't ever see myself getting excited cause my unique rolled a 92% melee damage bonus vs 86%... but hey maybe thats just me, plenty of people clearly love the idea.

Originally posted by RodHull:

Originally posted by ♥♥♥♥ Dota.:

You make good points and I agree with the principle behind what you're saying - the creating a problem to serve up the solution is usually a model seen in f2p / p2w monetization models though where the solution is the cash shop. I don't think it's in their interest to create and balance a whole complex system around solving an arbitrary problem.

As for why not just buff em in the first place I mean I can't speak for 11th Hour but if I understood correctly you're speaking of endgame when you say that a majority of items see no play time - You need weaker uniques during the level up process to add excitement and to reward progression (I mean you don't NEED to but I think I'm with most people in really enjoying having a new toy to play with). I think this system is meant to help the lower tier items keep up, and in some instances higher tier uniques to have a "wow" moment when everything lines up just right.

Idk man it's just speculation. I could be just as wrong as the next guy, this system just feels right to me at face value but we'll have to wait and see!

As an aside, it was nice to have such a civil exchange on a public forum - it's almost like we're not in the age of telling people who prefer a different juice flavor to kill themselves.

I do think thats where they are coming from with it. I think they (misguidedly imo) think having lower tier uniques is going to be fun in some way then felt they need a system to make them useful at high level.

Aside from the fact that levelling is pretty fast in LE and you dont spend enough time at lower level for that to be worthwhile, I just think its not a very elegant or exciting way of going about it or adding a system to modify them.

Consider for a moment that all uniques are created as lower tier version then they simply add a buffed 'end game' or max level version that is intended for end game use. Kind of how GD does it with legendaries and mythical legendaries being their end game counterparts.

This would then free up the cache mechanic to allow for wild things like melding uniques together.

As it is they are wasting (IMO) a good idea on simply trying to make bad uniques somewhat useful. I just don't ever see myself getting excited cause my unique rolled a 92% melee damage bonus vs 86%... but hey maybe thats just me, plenty of people clearly love the idea.

The GD comparison really illustrated your point well, and I now have a better understanding of your take on it - I actually do agree with you, while retainijg my initial excitement & optimism for the system. I did really like how GD did that though- it's a simple system, I imagine pretty easy to balance, and if you find something early on and go OMG THIS IS PERFECT FOR MY BUILD!!! You don't have the bittersweet feeling of knowing it'll eventually be obsolete.

I'm getting a bit off topic here but I actually stopped playing gd after getting several characters to level 75ish because on most of them I had green weapons (I think those were rare, right?) 40+ levels lower than my character level that I couldn't find an effective replacement for because they had some insane +skill combos IN THE ITEM BASE TYPE.... I had a wand that had like +3 or 4 to ... ♥♥♥♥ ... trojan man's frozen meteors? You know the one I'm talking about lmao and +3 to cold nova... it also rolled some other really good stats for its level but in a genre when progressuon is as item-based as it is xp, I found it pretty depressing that the best weapon I'd found by the mid 70s was level like ... 32 or something.

I have almost knly good things so say ablut GD and I think they're a truly fantastic entry in the scene but the issue I illustrated above really curbed my enjoyment of it when I hit end game.

Wait it was Trozan's Frozen Sky Shards..! I think... I also don't want to look it up because having been born and mostly raised before the internet was ubiquitous, I think it's a lot more fun to try and rack your brain to remember and come up with a bunch of ridiculous wrong answers in the meantime than instantly access some database :P

Originally posted by ♥♥♥♥ Dota.:

Originally posted by Ape:

why does this matter to you? its an ARPG. With games in general you're not really supposed to self-insert and play 'yourself' or directly relate with a character, despite the unwashed masses being unable to do otherwise. Not only that, none of these characters have defining dialogue that makes the story - just a character model and some voice lines. Are you really that fragile?

Dude who ♥♥♥♥♥♥ Your dog? Seriously, get off that high horse before you fall off when he bends down to do another line.

People can play a game however they want. I could go on and on about why that's totally normal but it's literally CALLED AN ACTION ROLE-PLAYING GAME. Like how are you gonna argue against self-insertion when this entire genre stems from pretending you're something / someone else and literally defining its self as a ROLE PLAYING game?

I can't even with your ♥♥♥♥.

Think the issue was with a previous commenter saying the game is already dead because they can't pick the gender of their character. Each to their own, but not being able to pick a gender isn't a game-defining feature - and if that is truly what ruins this game for them, then maybe it's just not the game for them, and that's fine. Most ARPGs don't have much customisation in the way of the character appearance. Diablo let's you choose the gender, but has no other customisation. Path of Exile doesn't let you pick the gender or customise. These are arguably two of the largest ARPGs in the genre and are very successful without these features.

I'd dare say that ARPGs are more about the gameplay than they ever are about the 'roleplaying' aspect.

Either way, I think calling a game 'already dead' for that reason is just over the top hyperbole.

Originally posted by Zolik:

Originally posted by ♥♥♥♥ Dota.:

Dude who ♥♥♥♥♥♥ Your dog? Seriously, get off that high horse before you fall off when he bends down to do another line.

People can play a game however they want. I could go on and on about why that's totally normal but it's literally CALLED AN ACTION ROLE-PLAYING GAME. Like how are you gonna argue against self-insertion when this entire genre stems from pretending you're something / someone else and literally defining its self as a ROLE PLAYING game?

I can't even with your ♥♥♥♥.

Think the issue was with a previous commenter saying the game is already dead because they can't pick the gender of their character. Each to their own, but not being able to pick a gender isn't a game-defining feature - and if that is truly what ruins this game for them, then maybe it's just not the game for them, and that's fine. Most ARPGs don't have much customisation in the way of the character appearance. Diablo let's you choose the gender, but has no other customisation. Path of Exile doesn't let you pick the gender or customise. These are arguably two of the largest ARPGs in the genre and are very successful without these features.

I'd dare say that ARPGs are more about the gameplay than they ever are about the 'roleplaying' aspect.

Either way, I think calling a game 'already dead' for that reason is just over the top hyperbole.

Oh yeah I'm 100% with you - ARPGs have never been dress-up simulators, and the I think the role playing bit is more in honor of the traditional games that arpgs come from, but my argument was more "Who the ♥♥♥♥ are you to tell someone how to play a game they bought if it doesn't directly impact you?". It's annoying to see people get all righteous when not only do they not have a leg to stand on, but they've got their nose stuffed so far up someone else's business it's brown.

And you're right, no game's gonna die due to gender lock hahah. I prefer genders being open myself, but it hardly matters in a game where as you said the roke play element is virtually non-existent.

Originally posted by ♥♥♥♥ Dota.:

The GD comparison really illustrated your point well, and I now have a better understanding of your take on it - I actually do agree with you, while retainijg my initial excitement & optimism for the system. I did really like how GD did that though- it's a simple system, I imagine pretty easy to balance, and if you find something early on and go OMG THIS IS PERFECT FOR MY BUILD!!! You don't have the bittersweet feeling of knowing it'll eventually be obsolete.

I'm getting a bit off topic here but I actually stopped playing gd after getting several characters to level 75ish because on most of them I had green weapons (I think those were rare, right?) 40+ levels lower than my character level that I couldn't find an effective replacement for because they had some insane +skill combos IN THE ITEM BASE TYPE.... I had a wand that had like +3 or 4 to ... ♥♥♥♥ ... trojan man's frozen meteors? You know the one I'm talking about lmao and +3 to cold nova... it also rolled some other really good stats for its level but in a genre when progressuon is as item-based as it is xp, I found it pretty depressing that the best weapon I'd found by the mid 70s was level like ... 32 or something.

I have almost knly good things so say ablut GD and I think they're a truly fantastic entry in the scene but the issue I illustrated above really curbed my enjoyment of it when I hit end game.

I love GD but its the only design choice I was always a little mystified by, why the legendaries and fun items only drop within very narrow ranges (50/75/94+) it makes levelling later on a bit of a grind as you know you won't find anything remotely useful until you hit 90 minimum.

But the system itself (having lower and higher tier versions of legendaries) is a solid one, its just implemented a little sub optimally in GD.

Originally posted by ♥♥♥♥ Dota.:

you're right, no game's gonna die due to gender lock hahah. I prefer genders being open myself, but it hardly matters in a game where as you said the roke play element is virtually non-existent.

Thing is not many people seriously make the argument of wanting to roleplay their characters, its usually a strawman people wanting to slap down those wanting customisation use to make their desire for customisation seem ridiculous.

Fact is LOTS of people really do care how their avatars look, POE has literally built it entire financial model on this fact. People buy crazy expensive cosmetics to show off on their avatars that you can barely see properly, for all sorts of reasons that can be broadly summed up with 'people like what they like'

And LE is also financing most of its future content on this model as well.

Whether its logical or not isn't really important. This topic has been discussed to death in an old post though, and the developers do recognise that people would like options and have not ruled out such an addition in the future.

Originally posted by ♥♥♥♥ Dota.:

Originally posted by Ape:

why does this matter to you? its an ARPG. With games in general you're not really supposed to self-insert and play 'yourself' or directly relate with a character, despite the unwashed masses being unable to do otherwise. Not only that, none of these characters have defining dialogue that makes the story - just a character model and some voice lines. Are you really that fragile?

Dude who ♥♥♥♥♥♥ Your dog? Seriously, get off that high horse before you fall off when he bends down to do another line.

People can play a game however they want. I could go on and on about why that's totally normal but it's literally CALLED AN ACTION ROLE-PLAYING GAME. Like how are you gonna argue against self-insertion when this entire genre stems from pretending you're something / someone else and literally defining its self as a ROLE PLAYING game?

I can't even with your ♥♥♥♥.

Cuz i've never understood the rotten husks of people that can't play a character unless they can identify with it in some way. And yes, you're right, RPGs are for 'pretending' you're doing something else or putting yourself in someone elses shoes, but not necessarily YOUR self. I have a friend that quite literally can't play another race other than humans in WoW and plays a generic human ret paladin for some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ reason despite being the least disciplined person I've ever seen in my entire life.

And yes, they can play however they want. I will judge them for it because it's hilarious to me that they get hung up on stuff I deem inconsequential.

Originally posted by RodHull:

Originally posted by ♥♥♥♥ Dota.:

The GD comparison really illustrated your point well, and I now have a better understanding of your take on it - I actually do agree with you, while retainijg my initial excitement & optimism for the system. I did really like how GD did that though- it's a simple system, I imagine pretty easy to balance, and if you find something early on and go OMG THIS IS PERFECT FOR MY BUILD!!! You don't have the bittersweet feeling of knowing it'll eventually be obsolete.

I'm getting a bit off topic here but I actually stopped playing gd after getting several characters to level 75ish because on most of them I had green weapons (I think those were rare, right?) 40+ levels lower than my character level that I couldn't find an effective replacement for because they had some insane +skill combos IN THE ITEM BASE TYPE.... I had a wand that had like +3 or 4 to ... ♥♥♥♥ ... trojan man's frozen meteors? You know the one I'm talking about lmao and +3 to cold nova... it also rolled some other really good stats for its level but in a genre when progressuon is as item-based as it is xp, I found it pretty depressing that the best weapon I'd found by the mid 70s was level like ... 32 or something.

I have almost knly good things so say ablut GD and I think they're a truly fantastic entry in the scene but the issue I illustrated above really curbed my enjoyment of it when I hit end game.

I love GD but its the only design choice I was always a little mystified by, why the legendaries and fun items only drop within very narrow ranges (50/75/94+) it makes levelling later on a bit of a grind as you know you won't find anything remotely useful until you hit 90 minimum.

But the system itself (having lower and higher tier versions of legendaries) is a solid one, its just implemented a little sub optimally in GD.

Originally posted by ♥♥♥♥ Dota.:

you're right, no game's gonna die due to gender lock hahah. I prefer genders being open myself, but it hardly matters in a game where as you said the roke play element is virtually non-existent.

Thing is not many people seriously make the argument of wanting to roleplay their characters, its usually a strawman people wanting to slap down those wanting customisation use to make their desire for customisation seem ridiculous.

Fact is LOTS of people really do care how their avatars look, POE has literally built it entire financial model on this fact. People buy crazy expensive cosmetics to show off on their avatars that you can barely see properly, for all sorts of reasons that can be broadly summed up with 'people like what they like'

And LE is also financing most of its future content on this model as well.

Whether its logical or not isn't really important. This topic has been discussed to death in an old post though, and the developers do recognise that people would like options and have not ruled out such an addition in the future.

I mean, I hope they don't follow PoE's model. There's only so much you can milk the 'poor indie company' thing before spending 40$ on some of the ugliest cosmetics starts to wear a little thin.

Originally posted by Ape:

I mean, I hope they don't follow PoE's model. There's only so much you can milk the 'poor indie company' thing before spending 40$ on some of the ugliest cosmetics starts to wear a little thin.

They are following its model in terms of MTXs.

All future content is planned to be funded by cosmetic MTXs and whatever residual income box sales bring in the future (which will tail off eventually)

Whether that changes who knows, but that is the plan.

Originally posted by Ape:

Originally posted by ♥♥♥♥ Dota.:

Dude who ♥♥♥♥♥♥ Your dog? Seriously, get off that high horse before you fall off when he bends down to do another line.

People can play a game however they want. I could go on and on about why that's totally normal but it's literally CALLED AN ACTION ROLE-PLAYING GAME. Like how are you gonna argue against self-insertion when this entire genre stems from pretending you're something / someone else and literally defining its self as a ROLE PLAYING game?

I can't even with your ♥♥♥♥.

Cuz i've never understood the rotten husks of people that can't play a character unless they can identify with it in some way. And yes, you're right, RPGs are for 'pretending' you're doing something else or putting yourself in someone elses shoes, but not necessarily YOUR self. I have a friend that quite literally can't play another race other than humans in WoW and plays a generic human ret paladin for some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ reason despite being the least disciplined person I've ever seen in my entire life.

And yes, they can play however they want. I will judge them for it because it's hilarious to me that they get hung up on stuff I deem inconsequential.

You know it's kinda funny, as I sat here groggy af having woken up just a few minutes ago trying to kick-start my brain and properly word a response I realized that we're actually more similar than I thought... At least, from our limited interaction. I tend to judge people who get caught up on really ignorant ♥♥♥♥ (and stay willfully ignorant), but didn't really stop to think that choosing not to deal with them vs verbalizing the sentiment was being any less judgmental. It would be hypocritical to criticize you for that.

That said idk if you realize how rude and aggressive you come off as being - I'm more than happy to agree to disagree with someone but it irks me when they're super disrespectful for no reason which is why i answered you the way I did in the first place. I do respect that you actually read what we said and made reasonable arguments, though - too many people just spam straw men or ad hominem attacks instead of actually addressing the points others are actually making, so for what it's worth an internet stranger gives you a virtual high five for your communication skills :P

Though I would still like to know why you came on so abrasively in the first place - you look like you're able to express yourself pretty well and I rarely get to speak to someone who does that ♥♥♥♥ that isn't a troll or ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ insane so please humor my desire to understand =P

Originally posted by RodHull:

Originally posted by ♥♥♥♥ Dota.:

The GD comparison really illustrated your point well, and I now have a better understanding of your take on it - I actually do agree with you, while retainijg my initial excitement & optimism for the system. I did really like how GD did that though- it's a simple system, I imagine pretty easy to balance, and if you find something early on and go OMG THIS IS PERFECT FOR MY BUILD!!! You don't have the bittersweet feeling of knowing it'll eventually be obsolete.

I'm getting a bit off topic here but I actually stopped playing gd after getting several characters to level 75ish because on most of them I had green weapons (I think those were rare, right?) 40+ levels lower than my character level that I couldn't find an effective replacement for because they had some insane +skill combos IN THE ITEM BASE TYPE.... I had a wand that had like +3 or 4 to ... ♥♥♥♥ ... trojan man's frozen meteors? You know the one I'm talking about lmao and +3 to cold nova... it also rolled some other really good stats for its level but in a genre when progressuon is as item-based as it is xp, I found it pretty depressing that the best weapon I'd found by the mid 70s was level like ... 32 or something.

I have almost knly good things so say ablut GD and I think they're a truly fantastic entry in the scene but the issue I illustrated above really curbed my enjoyment of it when I hit end game.

I love GD but its the only design choice I was always a little mystified by, why the legendaries and fun items only drop within very narrow ranges (50/75/94+) it makes levelling later on a bit of a grind as you know you won't find anything remotely useful until you hit 90 minimum.

But the system itself (having lower and higher tier versions of legendaries) is a solid one, its just implemented a little sub optimally in GD.

Originally posted by ♥♥♥♥ Dota.:

you're right, no game's gonna die due to gender lock hahah. I prefer genders being open myself, but it hardly matters in a game where as you said the roke play element is virtually non-existent.

Thing is not many people seriously make the argument of wanting to roleplay their characters, its usually a strawman people wanting to slap down those wanting customisation use to make their desire for customisation seem ridiculous.

Fact is LOTS of people really do care how their avatars look, POE has literally built it entire financial model on this fact. People buy crazy expensive cosmetics to show off on their avatars that you can barely see properly, for all sorts of reasons that can be broadly summed up with 'people like what they like'

And LE is also financing most of its future content on this model as well.

Whether its logical or not isn't really important. This topic has been discussed to death in an old post though, and the developers do recognise that people would like options and have not ruled out such an addition in the future.

Well, just because of how life's been lately I haven't kept up too much with LE's development but I'm happy to hear that the devs are conscious of that and will surely act accordingly. Honestly as someone who's pretty ambivalent about cosmetics, I know what some people are really into them but I assumed that a significant portion (probably not a majority but if I had to hazard a guess I would probably go with a third) of people were just gamers who understood the importance of supporting the continued development of a game as, I know this comes as a shock to some, but game developers don't work for free heh.

PoE was a lot of fun but I'd had enough of their broken ass console version that was getting little to no love.. Literally unplayable, crashing every hour or so on ps4 (known issue, and it was the same for my gf as well, same house, both wired connections - it was ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥) and as someone who already spends 8h/day in front of a computer, if I can play a game comfortably off my couch instead I sure will... but yeah anyway. Disappointing experience, but hopefully whenever PoE 2 comes out it'll actually work on other platforms this time.

> Doesn't buff underused unique items
> Instead makes a whole new complex crafting system that requires farming, not only those same unique items AGAIN only for them to drop with a CHANCE of legendary potential but also needing to drop exalted items with EXACTLY 4 (as per the FAQ) unsealed affixes.

Also, you should swap the tier names for Unique and Legendary around seeing as "legendary" items are now actually more unique than their base "unique" item.