Eadan

The game gets easy enough without doing things like this. Though it would be nice if they removed these kind of abuses in PoE2.

I think Paladins are definetely much more useful than fighters as tanks and having a tank is important.

It doesn't make sense because you misunderstood me, horribly. Having ALL of the abilities makes a class boring. And yes, making choices is more interesting than not making choices . 30-60 well-designed abilities is way more than enough to be versatile... Agreed, thanks for proving I am not alone in my suggestions.

@Loren Tyr Sorry I didn't know we couldn't make suggestions if the posters here wouldn't agree to them according to you. Nice job ignoring the part where I prove the impossibility of the current system and trying to make it about me, after making me waste all this time trying to explain the obvious to you. I don't know why someone like you who can compute total bonuses for 1 billion combinations while remembering which combinations they relate to, and then deciding the best among those 1 billion total bonuses and then doing this for each character and each time they receive a new item even bother to explain things to a simpleton like me. I clearly don't have the capacity to understand your posts, so I will be ignoring them. Not that any of my suggestions were directed at you anyway.

That's why I suggested removing the restriction along with rebalancing stats and limiting certain stat bonuses to certain slots. Stat balancing is already necessary even without the restriction being removed, so it isn't extra work. In late game you will likely have 10+ viable choices for each slot, but let's go with your example of 2 choices for each slot. In this very unrealistic example where the 4 items have in total 2 different stat bonuses, and each of the items only has 1 type of stat bonus, you can make an independent selection, but still leaving you with 128 different comibnations that you may not simplify later. There definitely won't be a strictly better option for 2 slot combinations realistically ( with 10+ items for each slot, each with possibly more than 1 different stat bonus), and that's assuming you can remember 10 ( not 100, since you just eliminate some combinations as you go along) different total stat bonuses and which item combinations they relate to while making a decision. With more than 2 slot combinations, the whole thing is just impossible. I am inclined to believe you didn't reach late game or didn't bother to get ( loot / buy /get rewarded) many items since apperantly you didn't experience the issues I talked about or you didn't even notice your builds were nowhere near subjectively or objectively optimized. Less tedious and more fun isn't a subjective goal, it's objectively better. As you suggest, I already stick to suboptimal decisions, which along with easy, non fully scaling combat, removes 2 of the most fun parts of the game for me- combat and character customization. This is also the reason why I want it changed in PoE 2. As for artificially gimping myself to make the game more fun, that's the game designers job giving you restrictions and tools to overcome them to provide a fun, challenging experience. If I am trying different self-invented ways to make the game fun ( which won't be as sccessful or efficient as a game designer desiging the game around it), I might as well design my own game. I am not talking about PoE here, but "you can do so many different things in this game" that I hear about lots of games means nothing if the things themselves aren't fun. If anything it means the things that you do won't be as fun since lots of effort went into quantity over quality.

And I ask again, allowing full stacking as you propose solves this how? Let's run through your example here. In the current system we have the following four options (let's assume there is only one available ring slot): a) +9 DEF +2 DEX, b) +9 DEF, c) +3 DEX and d) +9 DEF +3 DEX. Thus, it's a no-brainer, option d) is optimal. However, if we remove stacking restrictions as you suggest we get: a) +9 DEF +2 DEX, b) +18 DEF, c) +5 DEX and d) +9 DEF +3 DEX. We are now suddenly faced with three viable options rather than one. Rather than removing the alleged tedium and speeding up the optimizing process, it did the exact opposite. And as noted, by making it so much easier to reach high stat bonuses balancing becomes more difficult and inherently more unstable. The reason I don't run into many length equipment quandaries is because I generally have quite a clear idea for each character what kinds of bonus to prioritize for them. If I have an item giving, say, a Resolve bonus, there will realistically only be a few characters at best for whom that item is going to be the best pick in that item slot (unless it's the only choice). Of the many possible permutations of available equipment, the vast majority can be crossed off out of hand because they are never going to be the top choice. There are only a few that really need further consideration. But what I fundamentally don't get is just exactly what it is you're aiming for with the changes you propose. On the one hand you say you like build optimization, and you propose a change (remove stacking restrictions) that would considerably increase the number of potentially viable equipment combinations. But you also complain about tedium, about having to constantly reevaluate equipment choices, and propose another change (restrict bonus types to specific item slots) that considerably reduces the number of viable that need to be considered (and removes much of the reason for lifting stacking restrictions in the first place). It seems like you're saying you want build/item optimization, but you would like to see the number of options to do so be reduced so it doesn't take too much effort to do so. You need to check all your equipment and keep their stats in your memory to even be able to come up with those 4 alternatives. In reality it isn't just 2 slots either. Let's say you have approximately 10 different potentially equipable items for each slot for a specific character (this is after you filter out irrelevant items or strictly worse items for that character), and 9(?) slots. Without further complicating things with armor enchanments, 2 ring slots or 6 characters, the amount of different combinations is 109 . With stocking restrictions the way they are, you need to compare your complete build with ~109 other builds, you can't just compare items for specific slots. Without stacking restrictions you can just compare 10 items for one slot, choose one then go ahead and compare 10 items for each of the other slots. As you can see, the amount of effort required increases insanely and becomes impossible with the stacking restriction. Your last sentence is the goal, players want to spend the minimum amount of effort and have the maximum amount of fun. Deciding between specific choices is fun, computing and trying to remember 109 different choices for each character is tedious and impossible.

I don't mind you arguing about this, but I feel we are hijacking the thread and making it harder for someone to just read players' suggestions. How did you not come across any situation as I described? The situation I described is the least amount of work that will be required with an item upgrade in this game. In most cases, especially at late game, there are also lots of potentially equipable items waiting in the stash other than the ones on your characters at that point. Take deflection for example. It can be on rings/neck/gloves and maybe other slots. Do you wear the +9 deflection ring with +2 dexterity gloves or do you go through all your items to notice you have a +9 def gloves and +3dex ring? In reality it isn't only 2 slots you need to worry in this manner for a character but 9 (?), and you have 6 characters. Not to mention you can also enchant armor. So it goes past fun and sufficiently complex to tedious and punishing to the point I can't even feel rewarded when I get good items. If ithere is some value in this design decision that I may be missing, let me know. Otherwise, they should at least make sure once the initial item build optimization is done, every new potential item upgrade doesn't require too much work to reoptimize your item builds.

You must never have played any of the old Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale games either then (which inspired PoE in the first place). And you are hardly the only one who likes customizing his characters, it's one of the main draws of PoE I'd say. The stacking could be clearer in the interface, but even without for example the warning system I suggested I still don't see what the big difficulty is here. Given a set of items it's not that hard to figure out how to get the most optimal results for your purposes. I'm not sure what other games you've been playing, but if you find this too tedious then I would suggest that that maybe has got more to do with you than with the PoE system. And I am sure your group isn't half as optimized as you think. So imagine this scenario: You have a wizard, a chanter and 4 more. Your wizard has a hat that gives +3 int, but you loot a hat with +4 int. So you equip it on your wizard, but notice that your chanter is wearing a hat that gives +1 dex. So you give the now free +3 int hat to your chanter, but then notice he has a belt that gives +2 int/ +1 per. And this goes on and on, so with every new good item gained you basically need to unequip all items on all your characters and start from scratch. I didn't play BG but I played Icewind Dale 1/2 and many other RPGs and none required you to waste so much time for optimal item build customization. If you don't agree, that's fine, I am just stating my suggestions.

This is the only game I have seen have this kind of restriction. Maybe it seemed like a cool idea, but it complicates things too much especially in late game. There are some of us who play these games because of build customization and this restriction makes item build customization 10 times more tedious than any other game I have played.

But that means a HUGE restriction being lifted. The item build customization would still be complex enough, without requiring players to go through the whole process again with every new item gained.

You are missing some cases where warnings alone won't help you much. The goal is optimizing the characters, not avoiding wasting any bonuses. In some optimal builds you should waste bonuses, because the equipment gives you other bonuses that you might be interested in.

Changed how, though? Just letting everything stack doesn't seem like a good idea, creates a lot of balancing issues. What would be nice though is a warning system of sorts, that when you equip an item you get a transient pop-up telling you which other equipment bonuses it is suppressing and which of its own bonuses are being suppressed. So they need to make sure there aren't balancing issues. Of course this needs all stats reworked as well as maybe limiting certain equipment slots to only certain kind of bonuses. Foot equipment only giving movement speed, defense to being knocked down and things like that. If there aren't many slots that can have the same bonuses, as well as a warning like you suggest, it would be less tedious for the player.

Stacking for equipment bonuses should be changed. It becomes really hard to equip all your party with the best available equipments when you need to make sure you aren't wasting any bonuses because of better bonuses from other equipments.

I focused int on all my created characters anyway, but int being better than other stats for a barbarian for example may be because devs forgot for a second about area and radius relationship. Maybe they can make it so int increases actual area by the stated amount, and have the game compute the appropriate radius for it.

It seems effects that are supposed to increase your abilities' area of effect by x% increase the radius of these areas by x%, therefore increasing the area by more than 2x%. Intelligence is already the most important stat for most classes but this makes it even more important. It would be nice if you can update the descriptions for this game or in PoE2.

Just signed up to say after playing 200 hours I would have preferred if someone told me the game gets easier later on even on PoTD with high level scaling, especially if you are a completionist. Not to hijack this thread, but now I am wondering if solo play provides any meaningful challenge or is it about abusing some mechanics? Would using ie mod with half xp makes the game more fun than a solo run?