Complaints this season

Discuss Median XL!
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Marco
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there are many valid points coming in from all directions.


our "dev manifesto" is pretty simple. we have community segments with conflicting interests. This topic does a good job to illustrate it (or it did, before some of the drama was deleted). So naturally we have to take turns to please both because they're equally as important to us. The game needs to be exciting for our loyal playerbase that fell in love with an unforgiving game and stood with us through the years, but also welcoming so it can attract a new audience and hopefully keep some growth and new people coming in.

So, a very common complaint is how many characters can't perform well in the very endgame. We've done a lot of effort to make all builds (which btw, are so many :( ) be able to complete most of the content pre-130 ("midgame"). But why is there such ruthless content in the first place? let's rewind a bit. how did we get here? did everyone live happily ever after before labs, scos, sam, deim existed?

when "all characters could do all content" and leveling grind wasn't there (easy 120) there were as many complaints as there are today, just different. Most difficult charms (void) were completed in first 24h even by naked chars. Vets - who provide most realm activity - would get bored and move on, so our difficult task was to try tackle a issue that is massively shared among arpgs. To extend the duration of the "ladder cycle".

this is how we got here. We already had "all chars can do all content" but there was a problem just as big as there is today. Balancing the game has a contradicting nature as you are trying to please opposing user segments.

- if game is too easy, ladder is over in a day. if its too hard, ppl quit because no interest in "shallow endless grindfest"
- if we make new content, rules change, guides become outdated, and information inaccessible. If no new content, meta is stale.


while some people don't believe it, it's in our best interest to make this game as enjoyable as we can for as many people as we can. it's nice to see people engaging in (mostly civil...) passionate discussion about it. we are always taking notes, so thanks for the feedback.
smartasss
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Not sure if its doable in d2 engine, but implementing account bound for charms would go long way to help ladders seasons. Along with a bit of buff to party play.
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Zennith
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Marco wrote:there are many valid points coming in from all directions.


It's good to see you here Marco.

I come from a somewhat unique perspective as a vet, the furthest I ever progressed through MXL in every and any iteration is probably unformed lands and fautz. I remember doing J-Day, and Dunc. Never killed Astro, never killed Belial, at least not on my own. The most fun I had was learning how to accomplish Triune using the charm skill from some bow instead of the book...

The last time I got to Dunc, or the unformed lands was pre-sigma. I am not of the elite, in fact, I'm pretty terrible at the game. This isn't to say I haven't tried to get to endgame since Sigma released, I was able to get to around level 118 when it was fresh a couple of times.

I can't do it anymore. While playing I keep coming across different things that completely dishearten me. Often times I forget many of the changes that were made and attempt to play like it's an older version. I remember multiple times across trying to come back to Sigma getting confused and wonder why a certain change was made. I'd make a new character, play for a bit, decide to make a jewel word because my resistances are low, I make the jewel word only to be like "Oh... right..." Or I had found a rune and attempt to downgrade it, only to once again, be reminded I don't have these options I'm used to anymore.

Sometimes I'd get to higher levels, then see a wall that requires level 120 when I'm 118. I'm running around everywhere trying to figure out "What old places I enjoyed to farm can I go to?", only to find I have only one other option for a place that Sigma decided I should farm because it's the only right area level, even if I'd rather farm/grind somewhere else that's less than perfect but I enjoy being in more.

It's easy to say these changes were made to increase ladder longevity, but as a player that doesn't care about endgame, it feels like it's had the total opposite effect. I just keep getting disappointed when trying to play and that makes me not want to play any longer. I used to last about 2-2.5 months in a ladder, be involved in trading, sing praises for the mod. I had a comment featured in Kotaku :roll: about how much I enjoyed the mod.

It's understandable, change doesn't come easy, but it does feel like the game is much less fun than it used to be. In the end, that's all I care about from a game, how fun it is. Fun is subjective of course, but for all those complaining about the game as it is today, it boils down all to how fun the game is for them.

I can't help but feel like fun has been replaced. I'm not sure with what, but I wish I had the same enjoyment for MXL I used to.
heamn
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Thanks Marco for sharing, at least i have a clearer picture to set my expectation now. :-D
Manu300000
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smartasss wrote:Not sure if its doable in d2 engine, but implementing account bound for charms would go long way to help ladders seasons. Along with a bit of buff to party play.



Thats a realy good idea.
Ive been missing party play alot on mxl multiplayer...
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Anonymous:
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Cool how ?

Instead of buying charms people would buy "charm services" - you make game, kill boss, invite paying person to pick up charm. profit.
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Taem
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Anonymous: wrote:Cool how ?

Instead of buying charms people would buy "charm services" - you make game, kill boss, invite paying person to pick up charm. profit.


This. Or sell entire character with charm(s) for TG thus increasing charm costs substantially.

Speaking of TG, I think it would be an interesting idea if, once a shared-stash becomes operational online, you could purchase page tabs of shared stash. Maybe the first page would be 1-TG so anyone can get it, then 100-TG (+last) for each additional page so pg 2 = 100-TG, pg 3 = 200-TG, pg 4 = 300-TG, etc.
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iwansquall
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After seeing marco post here, i cant help myself to post here
Im for first time, decided to do all challenges in current PoE league, grinding for more than 2 months in always online game
I almost completed it at the moment (36 out of 40)

I will try to look how i played medianxl throughout the many years
And i have tons of suggestions pm how to make things interesting moving forward
at least for casual like myself
I wont post it here now since I havent finalized everything in my head

I personally really want to try realm play,
but firstly it must not be clunky to play compared to modern game
or feel time spent not rewarding aka monotonous like i feel back in early 2.0
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OnlyForFun
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Well its decent, same old engine with desync, for softcore you will be fine :) want to see your feedback/ideas )
newbe
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Need more item chests per character