Rathlord

Counterpoint: Risk of Rain. While certainly not entirely motivated by random loot, it is without a doubt an RNG driven game whose replay value is largely influence by the loot system. It's really a paragon of RNG-done-right, all things considered. For a very short game (I can complete it in just 15 minutes probably, if I was in a hurry) it gains amazing replayability and fun from its RNG systems. One thing I don't disagree with is that RNG, in unexperienced or unintelligent hands is a dangerous tool and has been the bane of many otherwise-good games, not to mention a contributing factor in many bad ones. And, whilst I feel the execution could have been better in PoE, my final conclusion is that (personally) it's very far from souring the experience for me.

See my post above Edit: There's a joke in there... something about being unarmed for the duel. Too lazy to type it out, just laugh, please.

I can definitely empathize with how you feel. I do agree that in some ways it almost feels a bit half-arsed, how it's currently implemented, with psuedo-random loot. It encourages bad, unfun gameplay (resting over and over to get items; why not truly make it random so it can't be gamed?). It should have been an all or nothing system. But I still don't agree with this: I could only get behind this idea if having good loot were required to progress through the game. But it's really not. In BG2 you could go through the whole game without the Holy Avenger. In PoE you can make it through the whole game without any specific items. So I don't feel the criticism is terribly valid. If you get an awesome item- awesome! If not, there's always next time. If you envision a world without wikis (which is where this genre thrives anyways), if you didn't set your expectations around getting certain items, you'd never know you were missing them. And that would free you to play the game any way you wanted, without disappointments. Now, I'm certainly not one to disparage how anyone plays. If your fun revolves around getting specific items, while I kind of feel you're missing the point- that's fine. And if the majority or even a large portion of the playerbase feels that way, and I'm in the minority- they definitely need to look into this. But if it's just a small minority, I don't feel they have an obligation to change it up just for the minority playing the game in a way it's not particularly designed to be played. You seem to have been very rational about the discussion so far, and I appreciate that. I'd love to see what a larger sample size of the players think about current loot distribution.

Guess what, entitlement generation are the ones buying games now. Times have changed. Taking consumer feedback isn't just a cool thing to do. It's an absolute necessity. Why do you think PoE was on Kickstarter? Do you seriously think you can develop a $60 game without giving people like OP what they want? AAA gaming isn't high art. If you are that specific about your vision and goal of antagonizing players. Make a $20 indie game. Plenty of people love that (myself included). You make a $60 game. You make mass market adjustments and try to satisfy everyone. And you start acting like you care. As a consumer of course I'm going to be stand on the side of another consumer. Even if I don't want what the OP wants, his demands as a fellow consumer empowers me. And so should you. Because you are as much as a consumer as we are. And you don't know more about "visions and goals" more than any of us. You don't work for OBS. Or you would've been fired for belittle the OP, aka people who put food on your table. Thinks that gamers are good at designing games. Sorry to break it to you, but they aren't, and 99% of the time gamers don't even know what's fun or makes a good experience. I work in the industry, I've seen the oodles and oodles of bad ideas vomited repeatedly by people. You can take consumer feedback into consideration without caving to every person who whines about how they demand something be changed. It's not belittling people to call bad ideas bad. But the only thing that approaches the entitlement we see here is the fits that are thrown when people don't get what they want. Consumers have always funded video games. Always. Maybe not as directly, but that still doesn't mean one individual or even a small group gets to determine how a game should be made. You aren't standing on the side of the consumer. You're standing on the side of garbage game development. I've seen time and again games fall apart because they try to pander to too many bad ideas. It's a crucial, critical flaw in many game developers and you can find the evidence of it plastered all over the internet if you have the will to look. I get it. You feel like you're important when you make a stand. You feel even better when your ideas get incorporated into a game. But that doesn't mean all ideas are good ideas, and the only thing you get for blindly supporting everyone who makes a game suggestion is a reputation for not having any common sense. Chose your battles and make stands for ideas that have merit, not because theoretically you feel empowered and tingly for supporting a consumer. Now, if you'd rather discuss the relative merits of the ideas posted here rather than how ridiculously entitled and demanding you are, I'd be happy to have that discussion without the need to be so blunt.

I don't think it's wrong to demand a game gives you satisfaction, a game you paid $60-85 for, and spend 100+ hours into. Maybe if he demanded to get the exact item he wanted whenever he wanted it, it would seem entitled. Here he's just demanded better loot from a fundamentally flawed random loot system that doesn't even give you necessary items (see previous posts on gloves) in most playthroughs. And he has a right to. In PnP D&D getting to live another session is its own reward, not to mention playing with (hopefully; most of us aren't that lucky) friends. This is a single-player computer game. Of course you need constant stimulation to keep you interested. We could have gone outside and be with other people. If we opted to sit in front of a computer and play with imaginary pixels, damn right I want my time to accomplish something. Bragging right, fancy items, achievements, whatever. If this... digital-sadomasochism is how you think videogames should be I worry for you. Like, if you have anything more constructive to spend your time on in your life. Guess again, entitlement generation. You don't "deserve" to have the game modeled around you. This is an ignorant, arrogant fallacy that gamers have dreamed up for themselves and now consider fact. Everyone doesn't "deserve" to be able to play the game how they want to. The game is modeled after the developers goals and vision. Do they take feedback? Sure they do, and that's awesome. But no one deserves to have the game forced to match their expectations. They were quite honest about what this game would be when it was being made. So no, he doesn't need to "demand" satisfaction from a game he's metagaming and playing in a way not in the vision of the developers. The game isn't built around min/maxing and if that steps on your toes- too effing bad. I don't go on Call of Duty forums and whine about how it's not a realistic shooter. He wants something from this game that it isn't designed for. Have fun with the game the devs (and majority of the fans wanted) or don't. It's not sweat off my brow. But don't act like anyone is entitled to anything other than the game they paid for- which is exactly what they got. No one anywhere was led to believe this game would have any specific loot system without RNG. If you wanna argue it's not fun for you- fine, argue that to your heart's content. But don't bring up how it's fine to demand whatever you want out of a game. That's not appropriate or accurate.

Again, all of this talk about being so many hours into a so long game and needing such and such stats still fall back to one thing: You thinking you have to play in the most optimal way possible to get through the game. And you're going to go right back to claiming that's not the case. Clearly, however, it is. People can and do beat the game without these items (literally) every day. You don't "need" any item to make a build- that is, unless you're metagaming with foreknowledge of some item you're basing a build around. And at that point- get over it, you're meta-gaming. That's not what the game is designed for. There is no requirement to have any of these items. Not required to beat the game, to do it easily, or even to have a good time. The only reason to complain about not getting the items you want is because you can't run with a perfectly min/max'd character. If you go in without knowing the items- or simply without forcing your "fun" to revolve around getting certain items- there is nothing wrong with the current system, at all. Your party is not hurt by the lack of these items. The game is still playable, and worse, it's still easy. Keep denying it- for what it's worth- what it all boils down to is wanting the items you want. And what's worst- absolutely, unarguably worse than anything else in this thread is the idea that your fun revolves around the items (It's demonstrably provable that you don't need items to beat the game [it's doable naked, without any hardship even] so don't even play that card); it's so glaringly offensive to the entire background of this game and the background of this entire genre. D&D was never about building a character around items, or even items at all. If you got magic items that was ****ing awesome but it was never a requirement or even something that was expected for many people. The fact that you've let your experience be damaged by not getting all optimal items on each run is a sad and startling eureka that you've missed the entire point- no, worse- the entire spirit of this genre of games. And that makes me sad for you; not in a mean way, I actually feel sorry for you to have missed out on what makes these kinds of experiences so magical.

In interest of actual discussion, wiping away all the jabs at people about various things from everyone, I can accept your idea that sometimes the boots are not useful for one specific party in one specific position. Where I believe your logic is failing is that sometimes this will be true for any item, no matter how good or bad it is. Sometimes, you'll get an awesome warbow, but no one in your party uses ranged weapons (or doesn't have warbow talent, or whatever you want to say). So what, in your mind, differentiates that between these boots? One is a strong item and one is a weak item, but it's perfectly plausible that on any given playthrough a party might use none, one, or both of these items. So why does the "weak" item (in your mind) become something so bad that we must rewrite a core game system for, but a "strong" item not that you might not use not merit the same reaction? You can't say "useless" (sorry, normal usage or not, it doesn't fit). Plenty of parties- especially people who are not completionists or min/maxers- may use these boots for a considerable portion of the game. That makes them, by definition, not useless for many people. I'm extremely thorough and used these boots for longer than I used some of the best weapons in the game with my latest playthrough. I realize we're being a bit pedantic about word usage here, but the pivotal point of everyone's argument seems to be the "useless" bit. I still think, when it really comes down to it, there's no reason people dislike these except that they're highly optimized. As I've already pointed out, they neither break immersion more than any other magic item in the game, nor are any more or less useful than any other magic item in the game. It's not the most optimal use of the slot possible, but that doesn't make them useless. To lay it out nicely, let's compare two items and use two groups as a template: Group 1 is a solo fighter who uses small shields and sabres to do decent damage and survive. Group 2 is a full sized group with a diverse class make-up. Item A. This is a small shield with a deflection bonus and retaliate. Awesome! Item B. This is Reflex +1 boots. Group 1 will use the small shield. It's good at what it does- add some deflection without lowering accuracy, and it gets him some free damage, too. Group 1 will not use the reflex boots. He's got a ring that gives a better bonus. Group 2 will not use the small shield. They have 2 tanks that use large shields and a berserker that uses 2 handed weapons. Group 2 will use the reflex boots. They're good at what they do- add some reflex without using a prime stat spot (ring). They don't have enough boots for their party, so this is perfect for the priest. The boots are no different from any other item in the game. They will be useful to some parties, and not useful to others. If you want to have a discussion about random loot in rpg's in general, that's fine, but let's not sit here and pretend that these boots are so broken that they're forcing us to have that discussion.

Items with no stats are useless. Agreed. Items with stats are not items without stats. You can't use an argument about items without stats to bolster your argument about items with stats. You're getting clogged up in completely unrelated stuff. If you want to discuss it, clean out all the complaints about helms and gloves and boots not having stats that I already agree with and get back to me. Again, you make the false assumption that two things that aren't mutually exclusive (having lower tier magic items and having a better enchanting system) somehow devalue each other. These things aren't related at all, and your logic completely falls apart. Whether or not there's an enchanting system you like has no impact on the immersiveness of weaker magic items. Then you again confuse the difference between game balance and realism. That's two different discussions, but you somehow mashed them together in a way that, again, makes no logical sense (You're telling me helmets and gloves being magical is somehow more balanced than giving them the properties of, uh, *actual* helmets and gloves?). Balanced is balanced regardless of realism. Realism is realism regardless of balance. Stop thinking they're related. I get it. You don't like it. It's okay to not like things. But please don't pretend that it's logical and everyone needs to agree with you. I can lay this out in diagrams for you if you want, but that's really time consuming and you seem bright enough to learn.

Are you referring to ME2 where you had armor that was resistant to certain damage, shields resistant to others, and health resistant to others still? Because this is essentially mirrored by damage reduction in Pillars anyways. You should be tailoring your spells and attacks to be the right type of damage in most cases. But, I'm assuming you've never tried this game on Path of Iron or any of the harder difficulties so you probably wouldn't have needed to. I even agree with you in many cases- you can read my post earlier in this thread heavily criticizing the game over several points. Please don't call me a fanboy, I haven't even beaten the game. But you aren't helping your point. If you want to discuss the relative merits of the game, grow up and do it without insulting everyone that disagrees with you. Having to resort to name-calling in an argument is a bad sign. Cant EDIT: please no direct personal attacks.

Lot of personal opinion in that statement. RNG is not, in itself, poor design. There are games and even genres that do it incredibly well (roguelikes come to mind as an obvious example, though the concept has been done poorly there before as well). Some people don't like RNG, but don't confuse that with it being objectively bad. If you want to make the argument that RNG in PoE is poorly implemented go right ahead. I don't necessarily disagree. But RNG is no more "bad" in a void than any other common gaming concept.

The game can be a bit easy at times, but I haven't fully delved into the challenging difficulties. One thing I noticed a ton of people are doing is downloading a mod which doubles the experience needed to level (or decreases the amount you get by half, whichever) and this supposedly brings the game much more in line with what it should be as far as difficulty. I was extremely disappointed by combat in the beta and first couple of patches, but since coming back in 2.0 I've been impressed with the combat changes- though still quite disappointed by several bugs. In general things feel a bit tighter, a bit harder, and the game communicates with the player MUCH better than 1.0 (though still needs a lot of improvement). It's funny though- as far as the story goes- I'm really impressed by the quality of the writing and the voice acting, but somewhat disappointed by a bland overarching story so far. I'm finding the side quests far more compelling than the main story in many ways. There are clear parallels between the story of the Watcher and Bhaalspawn of BG, but I feel even though PoE's world is incredible, gorgeous, and immersive that it somehow doesn't make it as personal as BG did. I'm having trouble getting engaged with the Watcher's plight and that of its world. I think this comes down to a story telling failing (in my opinion) that the Watcher has no connection to the world at all. You start with no friends, family, home, etc. This makes having a connection hard for me. I find myself much more connected to party members and side quest givers, but still feel I have very few stakes in what is happening. I hope the sequel will do a better job of getting me connected to the story.

pi2repsion makes good points. I've seen this issue crop up in my personal D&D campaigns- people want to play monster races. That means with every situation we encounter, in addition to tracking personalities and reactions, I also need to consider how every individual is going to react to a goblin, drow, shadar-kai, etc. in their midst. You either do a bunch of work to be ready for that (in video game terms, incredibly expensive and time-consuming) or you ignore it (BG:EE with drow, for instance) and break a lot of immersion. Which then begs the question- why have them at all if people aren't going to react. In a perfect world, I'd be all for this, but given money and time as factors there's a lot of stuff I'd rather see, like the game being more communicative with the player or (please oh please) more options in the AI system.

See, min/maxers make a lot of excuses for what they do. Like this excuse. They aren't useless. The only time they are useless is if you've been incredibly lucky or you've been gaming the random drops and finding everything on the wiki. Sorry, I don't feel as if the devs should be compelled to balance the game around that. For all players who don't min/max, these boots will be useful in plenty of their playthroughs. There's nothing wrong with being a min/max power gamer at all- I find myself drawn to it sometimes, even- but don't pretend like this is anything other than what it is. You want every item drop to be something really strong. It's bad game design and it's poor for game balance. This is a great proof of gamers having no idea what goes into good and balanced gameplay. If you make all of the loot incredibly powerful and available easily as is being argued in this thread, you might as well just delete the stats from the gear and roll it into the character. If you don't, you either have game balance requiring you to get said loot, or you have people being ridiculously strong and broken because we have the loot (which is already somewhat an issue). tl;dr gamers don't know what they want and thank Gabe for devs that realize that.

I don't find them to be immersion enhancing. If they were going for immersive, why is body armor the only thing that affects DR? Why not helm/gloves? Speaking of faulty logic and this thread: "X" doesn't increase my immersion, therefor "Y" Is not a particularly compelling argument. Yes, helms and gloves not giving DR might sacrifice some immersion for the sake of gameplay balance. But, sorry, you don't get that as an excuse to discount having anything add immersion to the game.

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/81912-ai-doesnt-use-per-encounter-spells/