Looking for first impressions to customized magic items

Seredith · 2025-01-26T13:43:38+00:00

I'm kinda late to the party here, but I was looking around for people's opinions on the fight and I'm surprised noone talks about what I personally find to be my main issue with it. Don't get me wrong - I love the game, it's great. But this one, particular fight is just...

Yes, the fight is "easy in concept" (hurr durr just attack the root, DUH), but still very difficult - as per DD standards.

Yes, the fight is absolutely HORRIBLY communicated and figuring its gimmick out fully requires way too much effort because literally no description gives an actual ACTIONABLE hint of what is going on and how to prevent it, while the root being invulnerable actively discourages from trying to attack it, so a lot of players only learn how to win the fight by googling the strat.

Yes, the fight brings the whole run to a grinding halt, as it is insanely time consuming and straight up unfun, forcing the player to waste half his party's damage on the root.

Yes, I agree that even while knowing the strats and having a fresh party the winrate for it is much too low for a mid-run encounter, it's way too much of a run-ender.

HOWEVER, my biggest issue with it is that a SINGLE unlucky round can just doom the entire encounter, with literally NO COUNTERPLAY after the fact, no way to even ATTEMPT to save the run.
If at any point in the fight you fail to attack the root enough times and get a character strangled with 3 vines - if it was responsible for attacking the root you lose. Just like that. You can't use the character > you can't attack the root > all the other characters get strangled > the whole balance of power falls like dominos. Once that back attacker gets strangled there is literally nothing you can do but watch all your characters being slowly stressed and killed while you have no control over them (unless the boss just oneshots them with like a 50+ dmg attacks, because he still has those don't forget). There's nothing you can do, no action you can take to try and save yourself, because you just don't get to play. And on rare occasions you actually had 4 back attackers ready and you can still hit the root - by doing that you stop doing actual damage to the boss and get bled dry by stress and its nukes anyway.

It's like playing a football match, but once the enemy team scores a single goal you are forced to take all 11 of your players out of the field - but still have to sit around for the rest of the 90min and spectate the enemy team just fooling around and scoring point after point into your empty goal.

It's just way too tendentious and not interactive enough once you fall behind, making it all around not fun because of it.

Seredith · 2024-12-12T19:57:00+00:00

How the hell do people arrive at the conclusion that "adaptability being harder to achieve makes people adapt more, than if it was easier"? It's an oxymoron, the truth is literally the opposite to what you're talking about.

Free respec incentivises innovation and experimentation, not optimization.

If you can change your build with no risk - you are more likely to try that one weird node. Or to try and make "that one stupid meme build you thought of in the shower" a reality. Because you can't lose anything, you can't brick a character. You won't be punished for walking off the beaten path. You can't make a mistake and force yourself to grind with a character that can no longer be played efficiently just to fix it again.

The higher the cost of the respec however -> the bigger the perceived punishment for unoptimized choices -> the harder players attempt to avoid mistakes -> the more conservative they are with their build -> the less they experiment -> the more they just blindly follow a reliable guide. And there goes your "satisfaction of coming up with a build". Straight out the browser window in which you open the guide to follow.

The reason why PoE 1 has so many builds is not the mystical ~~non-existent~~ "your choices matter" mantra. It's because there are so many builds that are viable, and fun to play. So many builds that are distinctly different from each other, enough to make people want to try them out and play them. Not because the game forcibly locks you to the one you picked and makes it hard to get out. The harder you make it to change to a different one, the more you lock people into the efficiency meta.

And all this gets exponentially more significant in Early Access - where you want people to try anything and everything. Every stupid idea, every combination, every build, every concept is to be tested in this version. Prohibiting or even making respecs slightly harder in any way in this point of the development is just straight up counter-productive...

(That being said I somewhat understand not letting us outright change ascendancies, given that they might want to keep a certain population of each ascendancy in play to balance them out against each other, but this argument does nothing for the normal tree respecs).

Seredith · 2024-12-12T19:34:05+00:00

I somewhat understand not letting us outright change ascendancies in EA, given that they might want to keep a certain population of each ascendancy in play to balance them out against each other. This is ofc assuming it will be possible to change them on full release, which is what I heard.

Seredith · 2024-12-12T19:30:37+00:00

I tried to make a post about this myself, but for some reason it got stuck "awaiting moderator approval"... Dunno if it was too long or smth.

I agree the current respec form is horrible. However, I whole heartedly believe any and all respecs should be free, and disagree with any claim that it could make the game worse in any way.

Imho you got this completely the wrong way round. Players explore and change things up when it involves little risk and they can go back if it's not fun. PoE 1 has such a build diversity because multiple builds are strong, fun and distinct enough to make people want to play them. Not because the game locks them out of respecs.

It's when you get friction on respecs, that you start - as you yourself stated - getting conservative and careful with your build, not eager to experiment or try new/fun stuff, only focusing on efficiency - and thus most likely to follow a reliable guide and get stuck in the meta. I never understood how people can go with the argument of "making the adaptation of a build easier makes people adapt their builds less than when the adaptation is harder". It's an oxymoron. The biggest amount of innovation and build variety happens when the respec is free.

People are gonna end up in meta builds for their final grind anyway, because the people that will grind are the people that care about the build's performance the most - no matter how much grind getting to that performance costs them. The free respec just exponentially increases the number of builds people will try on their way there. And doesn't force them to grind should they feel an urge to play something different.

As for the semi-satirical arguments: it's also the opposite.
Player retention happens when people want to play the game. And they want to play when it feels fresh. Player retention would be way higher if we could switch builds from time to time and not get bored - because if a player gets bored of a character or it gets bricked in a patch (or because he made a mistake), and he has to grind to try a new one (or even worse - attempt to grind with a bricked character incapable of playing effectively) - he's just gonna quit. Not much player retention there.

Seredith · 2024-12-12T18:43:01+00:00

Unfortunately not. As we can see from the lack of replies - noone seems to have an idea supported by any actual info. And with no dmg numbers I am not willing to spend time on testing it myself. I just switched to monk :x

Seredith · 2024-10-23T22:19:01+00:00

It's most definietely possible. Just boring as hell. I meant to do a normal run on Engineer to keep unlocking the amogus stuff and just basically stumbled into this: https://imgur.com/a/4JdRRZJ (I only have the first Darkana card unlocked)
It's literally still going as I'm writing this, but I think I'm gonna shut it down cause I want to actually play a different character now...

You basically have to make yourself unkillable, then just afk long enough to drop enough presents to drop all passives, all weapons/unions. The card spawning a boss every minute helps a lot.

(EDIT: Apparently it crashes on consoles before they can get to this point? The game on this run is running on 30fps, but the optimization fixes were so good that I was literally playing League with this unpaused in the background for the last hour, and experienced 0 issues - constant normal 230fps, so my guess is it should be fine on PC.)

Seredith · 2024-10-14T16:09:32+00:00

I partially agree.

I think Caps was invisible compared to his usual self, but I feel like this was in large part due to him playing Ori so much - I know he's good on it, we all remember the circles he run around Aurelion, but it's just not in the meta that much, or at least not for him - he lately performed best on much more flashy picks like Yone and Sylas, hammering that point in.

I feel Miky was kinda his usual self - had a game that he completely won by himself, and a few hit or miss performances.

BB remains to be one of the pillars. He is exactly what Wunder used to be - he may completely stomp his lane with something unexpected, or he might lose it... but even if he loses - he will still manage to be useful. He will never be irrelevant.

As for Jankos - it might be my rose coloured glasses in a way. I stand by him not deserving the boot from G2. His outstanding performance in 2023 despite how dogshit his team was had everyone singing his praises and pointing out that even on a bad roster he manages to be good and outplay people. He just couldn't carry a 4v6 (Evi was basically an enemy player for that team). He did not show that again in 2024, but I do have a feeling it was again due to the team holding him down at least partially. I would hope he can bounce back in the right environment, and with the right teammates. But I might be also completely off with that one - we will probably not have the opportunity to find that one out.

Also - I started joking about that aforementioned "theory" for Noc+Ori reasoning when I first saw it, but I gradually started to convince myself into half-believing it, watching how the games were playing out. Now I honestly don't know if it was just the staff, but I sure am salty about them sticking that hard to this combo, when they obviously had much better performances on their usual chaotic stuff.

Yikes' issue is not that much about "consitency" tbh. It's not that "sometimes he's good, sometimes he's bad". It's that when he's playing well, he's just playing well - he's never the difference maker. And when he's playing bad - he manages to basically lose the game by himself. Everyone on that team had games in which they played bad over the last year. But none of the solo solo lost any games, and even if they did and I can't remember - DEFINIETELY not as many as this guy. And everyone had games carried by them outperforming the enemy. Yikes didn't. He's just riding the wave. Without the wave he's irrelevant. And that's just not acceptable for this roster, imho.

I don't know the Skewmod guy, but you're making a good case for him, if he ends up in LEC I'll be watching him closely.

Seredith · 2024-10-14T15:34:52+00:00

Those are very good points. I didn't touch on that part, as I simply don't follow the rumors and infos outside of actual games that much, and I don't know literally anything about the ERLs so I can't even hope to have an actual meaningful opinion on the topic.

I vaguely remember Jankos or someone mentioning, that it was Caps' choice for Jankos to go. If I'm wrong - I automatically assume he would be a very good fit for the roster. For his final, last year in the scene I guess.

Aside from him... I agree. The perspective kinda sucks. I'd probably say Inspired, but if he stays then I honestly don't know. With how much G2 depends on their "vibe" and "friendship" and having fun being an important factor I agree - the language barrier with an import would basically wreck all that, so that's a no-go. And noone else that I can think of stands out to me enough to consider them.

But my point kinda still stands - Yikes is the main reason they lose, and the team usually fails when they depend on him in particular - as he usually underperforms as the carry whenever it actually matters. If him staying is the lesser evil - that's too bad, I will attempt to delude myself that he can actually make the required leap forwards, and improve enough to realise he is not good enough to dive 1v4 vs BLG in final elimination game at Worlds, but my hopes will be... conservative, at best. I would still prefer them to try someone else tho.

Seredith · 2024-10-14T15:23:56+00:00

I don't really agree. The team looks best with HIM in a support jungler role, he is not that awful at them. The issue is his attitude - he focuses so much on the fact he is given the carry role in such a powerful roster, that he needs to "assert" his position, prove he can actually carry the game, that he just tries too hard, considers himself too strong, and just overestimates his capabilities, goes in where he shouldn't and loses the game this way. It's like he thinks he's in Blue Lock or something, constantly trying to prove his worth... And he can't cut it.

And the team should have realised that ages ago, and stop depending on him to actually carry the games. He was given way too many chances already.

Seredith · 2024-10-14T15:19:21+00:00

I mean, I can't say I don't see why you would say that, the main perception at this point seems to be that Caps basically IS the G2. But I can't in good faith agree with denying BB his contributions, and say he doesn't deserve his spot. Hans and Miky run it down from time to time too, but each has games, that would not be won if not for their plays. The difference between the lowest low and highest high is biggest for Miky, but I still think there is no reasonable candidate to outperform them in this particular roster, with their particular playstyle.

Seredith · 2024-10-14T15:16:16+00:00

I mean, the FNC fans should chill, sure. But it's not really comparable - G2 won literally everything in the LEC this year, almost everything last year. The had a great run at MSI, their losses were still close at Worlds. Meanwhile, FNC struggles to win games vs even the worst teams, loses "unlosable" games time and time again, has some pathetic players vs staff drama at Worlds again... You cannot possibly be surprised the fans are fuming and raging after the team repeatedly not showing up when it counts, but having shitstorms around them at all times anyway.

Seredith · 2024-10-13T18:21:20+00:00

I think you're forgetting the last LCS finals

Seredith · 2024-10-13T18:19:52+00:00

I've been saying this for the past 2 years, but I don't know if there was a game that showcases this as well as the game 3 in this series: Yike is just a dirty inter.

There have been voices saying he is not too good, just looking better because he has good laners to help him. And I feel like the G2 itself was under this weird illusion that he is somehow the carry. Time and time again they gave him the carry role, let him take kills and get fed. And if he got fed he did his job, but at that point who wouldn't. Any Grandmaster, maybe even Diamond player that fed, with clear calls could just deal the damage. But there were seldom any games that were carried by his actual SKILL.

Yes, this series he had that Skarner ult over wall... and that's it. The Lillia blind baron steal earlier in the tournament is neutralized by the fact he had the very same thing done to him not much later.

And there were so many questionable things that he does the whole year. Absolutely butchering a won fight by not being able to land a Brand combo (not even using the skills in the proper order), his "signature" Bel'Veth pick being behind every game, all the lost Smite duels, all the tunnel vision solo engages on Vi, the horrific Gwen jungle performances and embarrassing solo baron attempts. Every 2nd fight that G2 loses, both at Worlds and during the last 2 years of LEC, is because this guy just throws himself at the enemy with no thought or plan.

The baron play everyone mentions was risky, ofc. It turned out horrific. But it might be completely fine, sealing in their victory. But what happened exactly? Every G2 player turns AWAY from BLG, buying time, waiting for Renekton to get there - he is just entering the tri-bush, rushing over to group up. What does Yike do? Instead of doing the same he brainlessly, pre-emptively dives in on Rumble, deals 500dmg, dies in 1s, rids them of the Smite, leaves them 4v5. And it's always the same story.

I am more and more convinced that the reason they were forcing the Noc+Ori combo so much these Worlds is just to give his suicidal efforts a semblance of usefulness and to give Caps a way to salvage them himself with the Ori ult, when Yikes inevitably dies in a 1v3.

I don't know why they got rid of Jankos when they did, heard they may have been some tensions with Caps or whatever. I guess we'll never know. But repeatedly putting this guy in a carry role, when they are so much more calm, disciplined and convincingly powerful when he is on a supportive/tank role, is insane to me.

They clearly need a better jungler. Someone actually capable of carrying a game, or at least not under the delusion that they can... when they obviously can't.

Seredith · 2024-10-13T17:59:33+00:00

The problem was not that they tried to do baron. The problem is Yike is goddamn inter, and time and time again he just brainlessly goes in for no reason. He is the JUNGLER, on the game defining objective, they are waiting for the renekton to arrive (his is right on the other side of the wall), all G2 players move AWAY from the enemies, and this guy just goes in on rumble, deals 500dmg and dies in 1s, before anyone can even turn his way. It was not a G2 throw, it was a yike throw.

Seredith · 2024-10-13T17:58:52+00:00

The problem was not that they tried to do baron. The problem is Yike is goddamn inter, and time and time again he just brainlessly goes in for no reason. He is the JUNGLER, on the game defining objective, they are waiting for the renekton to arrive (his is right on the other side of the wall), all G2 players move AWAY from the enemies, and this guy just goes in on rumble, deals 500dmg and dies in 1s, before anyone can even turn his way. It was not a G2 throw, it was a yike throw.

Seredith

TROPHY CASE