[Megathread] Path of Exile

[Fencers]

Well, GGG have stated that they wanted Hardcore to be it's own reward. Not to reward you for doing harder stuff, per se. Just doing it was the reward if you so wanted.

[Redblade]

Well, GGG have stated that they wanted Hardcore to be it's own reward. Not to reward you for doing harder stuff, per se. Just doing it was the reward if you so wanted.

Well like I said it's not harder nor more rewarding, it's actually less rewarding as you're slowed down with no extra reward to compensate.

That's not my beef with it though but more how the game play is slowed down making it less fun and slightly frustrating in some cases. And on top of that you have the not so great combos emphasizing the poor balance/design of some of the newer monster types. For example just imagine P-link birdmen, or as in my case a 10+ pack of powerful crits cult of elements devourers...

[Lysah]

I carry level 1 deto dead on my cycloner expressly because of bloodlines, heh...

Cult of elements and otherwordly are the worst mods imo, very easy to run into them and die instantly if you aren't careful. Obelisks can be painful but it's easy to see the mod and kill 1 of them to see what totem spawns and if it's too dangerous (lol spinner totems). Rest of them are pretty much a joke, phyla is just a waste of time.

[Redblade]

and die instantly if you aren't careful.

And that's my beef when combined with devourers that are impossible to be careful with. Not only that, once they are pulled it's almost impossible to shake them or split them up.

[Lysah]

The main problem seems to be that otherworld gives mobs chaos(?) damage, so CWDT IC which is the classic counter to the devo ambush won't even work. You talked a lot about GGG introducing things you can't counter, this time I mostly agree. At least I haven't had the misfortune of encountering it myself yet, though there are tons of RIP vids already.

[Redblade]

The unable to counter part is fine if it's a boss in it's own room like lets say jungle valley or if it's a rare that you can run away from (and have reasonable time to notice it) then it's fine. It starts to become a problem when it's monsters you encounter frequently or can't spot before encountering it. Especially when it's applied to full packs of monsters like with BL or like previous discussions with lightning thorns (have encountered packs with thorns casters as big as 10+ blues).

To die because you play poorly is fine and a part of the game, dying to some arbitrary combo of mods and monster type isn't though imo.

[Fencers]

Well like I said it's not harder nor more rewarding, it's actually less rewarding as you're slowed down with no extra reward to compensate.

I think this doesn't make sense to me somehow. These are more difficult monsters in BL, objectively. I understand that you personally might not find the monsters "harder" but that is neither here or there. The monsters themselves are tougher than non-BL monsters of the same stripe.

GGG said they don't want the HC leagues to have any other incentive to play them beyond (har har) the experience of just playing hardcore. Now I agree HC in the last 2 seasons has been more of a "annoyance" league. The totally lopsided balancing of early Invasion is perhaps the best example of GGG's somewhat faulty policy.

Though things are more or less as GGG wants it: no greater reward for playing HC or it's seasonal mods. You just play for the experience of it alone. Which may be true but also think the concept meets some disconnect with players. Mostly because the SC leagues are more rewarding and, in some cases, "harder" sans the lack of perma-death.

Sure I can play BL and that's cool and all to be at the edge of my seat. Though it's kinda pointless ultimately to the global mod if the subjective player experience is "why bother?" League of Avoidance, so to speak. Or least one is likely to avoid the HC globals till endgame where it seems (real or perceived) some of the global mods are more reasonably balanced or sensible (Beyond in maps, Invasion in 1MHC).

In contrast to loot boxes, exiles and ghosts at worst being minor annoyances vs. potentially great payouts? The equity of the leagues is kinda silly at times because GGG are somewhat bad at balancing challenge. I don't mean to say difficulty, I mean challenge specifically in the context of testing one's capacity/ability.

I couldn't agree more with the sentiment of dying to one's own play is fine, though dying to arbitrary game mechanics is rather lame. But I believe actual problem is the GGG don't vet these ideas thoroughly. Sometimes it feels like the first 3-4 weeks of a the new league are a beta for additional passes.

[Redblade]

The monsters themselves are tougher than non-BL monsters of the same stripe.

Not really when we're talking about P-link and Necro, the only thing that makes them harder is the extra time it takes to kill them or in the case of P-link the annoyance of having them in split rooms for example. This is from my perspective when your build either can or can't deal with the monsters as they are without the added BL effect.

GGG said they don't want the HC leagues to have any other incentive to play them beyond (har har) the experience of just playing hardcore.

And I get that, my complaint is more that it's less rewarding due to the game play slowdown.

Sure I can play BL and that's cool and all to be at the edge of my seat. Though it's kinda pointless ultimately to the global mod if the subjective player experience is "why bother?" League of Avoidance, so to speak. Or least one is likely to avoid the HC globals till endgame where it seems (real or perceived) some of the global mods are more reasonably balanced or sensible (Beyond in maps, Invasion in 1MHC).

Yeah, perfect example of that is Beyond which was, imo, terrible for the normal leveling experience but great as a map mod.

In contrast to loot boxes, exiles and ghosts at worst being minor annoyances vs. potentially great payouts? The equity of the leagues is kinda silly at times because GGG are somewhat bad at balancing challenge. I don't mean to say difficulty, I mean challenge specifically in the context of testing one's capacity/ability.

My biggest beef with the challenges currently is how they insist on forcing you to play both leagues beyond leveling, like currently I'm chasing the ID of the rare BL topaz ring or currency to buy the ID of it. It's not challenging but instead a frustrating split from your goals that ultimately comes down to pure luck which benefits streamers as they can bend the luck in their favor by having tons of followers.

I think they need to make the challenges more league neutral and only require you to level to X level in each league allowing you to focus your currency gathering to one league. And add more "skill" based once like clear map X with mod A B C D and E for example.

I couldn't agree more with the sentiment of dying to one's own play is fine, though dying to arbitrary game mechanics is rather lame. But I believe actual problem is the GGG don't vet these ideas thoroughly. Sometimes it feels like the first 3-4 weeks of a the new league are a beta for additional passes.

Yeah you get the feeling there is a lack of afterthought lately, sadly that leads to the game being more like D3 in terms of game play flaws.

[matchitehew]

I've played high mobility classes with little to no issues with desync. My last Rampage character was a Flicker Strike/perma Frenzy Shadow. Desync was a non-issue.

The way desync works in Path of Exile is a kinda meta mechanic. It is not an error or a fault. It was a deliberate choice the developers made as a side effect to how they wanted the game to play. All online games have synchronization methodologies between the client and remote server. Unless the game is hosted locally.

GGG specifically do not want the type of synchronization present in games like League of Legends, DOTA 2 or Diablo 3. This is a design choice.

So it isn't a "shame". It just is the way the game functions as part it's code and design. People can and do play builds of all sorts in POE with almost not desyncing issue of serious note. Including most high profile POE streamers, racers and tournament PVPers. Which one can see demonstrated LIVE as desync being a minor factor.

so having a game desync every damn time you use blink shot, is intentional? gotcha, or to have mobs randomly disappear and reappear in your face 5 secs later, nice design

[Fencers]

so having a game desync every damn time you use blink shot, is intentional?

Certain mechanics like collision are intentional. Desynchronization is a result of deliberate design decisions.

The designers of Path of Exile (Grinding Gear Gears) are willing to make the trade-off of desynchronization occurring occasionally for the capacity to have deliberate design functions such as collision work in the manner GGG intend.

Grinding Gear Games have given cause and explanation of the topic many times if you would like to investigate further.

[Beazy]

Certain mechanics like collision are intentional. Desynchronization is a result of deliberate design decisions.

The designers of Path of Exile (Grinding Gear Gears) are willing to make the trade-off of desynchronization occurring occasionally for the capacity to have deliberate design functions such as collision work in the manner GGG intend.

Grinding Gear Games have given cause and explanation of the topic many times if you would like to investigate further.

Ive been playing the shit out of PoE in the last week or so and I rarely notice DSync. Maybe it gets worse at the top, but its not something that is wrecking my game experience ATM.

Are there abilities that cause dsync onClick()?

[Fencers]

Ive been playing the shit out of PoE in the last week or so and I rarely notice DSync. Maybe it gets worse at the top, but its not something that is wrecking my game experience ATM.

It does happen at all levels of play. It's not uncommon but the majority game experience is not effected by desync.

Are there abilities that cause dsync onClick()?

No. However, desycn is more likely to occur when using skills that move your character rapidly in relation to enemy collision and geometry. Though any instance in which the game client and server must reconcile both the location and collision of either a character or monster.

For example, Flicker Strike can easily cause desync when colliding with multiple targets. Skills with a lot of locational based damage, such as arctic breath, can also cause desync due to the resolution of the projectile's collision.

Understanding the complexity of Path of Exile in both a direct and meta sense are integral to the game.

[Lysah]

To add to what you said Fencers, I do agree with what you say GGG has said (nice sentence there), that is definitely their design goal, but I think they have gone about it the wrong way. It's not even so much about being annoyance leagues or challenging leagues or anything to me, it's about risk vs. reward. The biggest draw of hardcore for players, in my opinion anyway (so...the biggest draw for me at least), is achieving something other people simply cannot. It's the same with heroic raiding in WoW - once blizzard started handing out free epics to everyone that looked identical to raid gear and had the same set bonuses and everything, the allure of being the 1% of people to clear heroic raids evaporated. GGG seems to be making leagues that try to kill you randomly, but this doesn't actually make it harder to get to level 90+ and clear all maps, this only makes it "annoying" to do so. In the case of Invasion it meant leaving maps and restarting when you encountered certain bosses. In the case of Beyond it meant essentially the same thing for some builds, simply more time spent for others (though we also got untainted which dramatically reduced the time it took ). As far as BL goes, it is essentially the same as Beyond - simply being slowed down for its own sake.

There isn't a lot of risk vs reward with Beyond and BL. They made the mechanics much more avoidable than Invasion, which is great, because that gives you the choice of risk to some degree, but the reward is meh. And the risk isn't really that high, either. In that sense, I guess they balanced the risk/reward idea well, it's just that neither are high enough.

My opinion on things they did well for hardcore:
Atziri, very risky but also very lucrative if you can farm her, gives a way for non-MF builds to farm currency.
Beyond as a map mod, adds some degree of risk in the form of spawning ubers you can't handle but actually gives a pretty nice amount of extra loot from the beyond packs. Much better as a map mod than a league mod, interestingly enough.
Masters, while not super outright dangerous also don't usually have super rewards, but the random den full of blue mobs or free unique Zana map is fun to find, and all of these things still pose a bigger threat than most ordinary day to day farming (especially with bloodlines).
Most challenges. Getting an Abaxoth kill was a good requirement, again, something not everyone can accomplish. Same for killing all combinations of league modifiers and clearing many high level/unique maps.
Strongboxes, hilariously enough. Has to be #1 source of death or close now that it is a standard part of hardcore.

Things they haven't done so well is just buffing mobs and letting that be the end of it. This doesn't exclude anyone, softcore players could easily handle bloodlines if they just copy a strong build for it, and the same goes for Beyond. You can actively avoid the mods if you want, it'll just slow you down. Also, the grind based challenges are boring, all they do is separate who can play a lot vs. who can't. I'd like to see more actual hard-mode content, or an actual hard-mode league. Not "kill you at level 15" Invasion, but maybe a league that doubles the effect of all map mods and has challenges that are centered around clearing all possible map mods in some manner. Might have to find a way to make the leveling experience more interesting, but I honestly wouldn't mind if that part of the game were left standard. At the end of the day, leveling is pretty easy, especially now that Invasion is over.



Side note, my cycloner experiences desync CONSTANTLY. But it's almost always mob desync and doesn't get me killed anymore. 10/10 cyclone buff GGG

[Redblade]

Getting an Abaxoth kill was a good requirement, again, something not everyone can accomplish.

Agree and disagree, it was a good requirement if it had been a solo requirement...I payed some guy like 15-20c for the kill and got on with the rest of the challenges.

Also, the grind based challenges are boring, all they do is separate who can play a lot vs. who can't.

I see them more as a challenge in dedication, agree that they are quite boring though but in the context of testing dedication they serve their purpose.

I'd like to see more actual hard-mode content, or an actual hard-mode league. Not "kill you at level 15" Invasion, but maybe a league that doubles the effect of all map mods and has challenges that are centered around clearing all possible map mods in some manner.

Problem with this is how beneficial it becomes to play the softcore league then, even if I'd love to see this too.

Might have to find a way to make the leveling experience more interesting, but I honestly wouldn't mind if that part of the game were left standard. At the end of the day, leveling is pretty easy, especially now that Invasion is over.

Yeah the leveling part is where they seem to fail most in balancing. It's like they balance it based on you wearing top tier gear for every level which few do. Sadly most of the player base don't play end game the way we know it and as such I think they have to have the challenge league content throughout the leveling.

[Gumboy]

And that's my beef when combined with devourers that are impossible to be careful with. Not only that, once they are pulled it's almost impossible to shake them or split them up.

I actually had to tp out and abandon a map because of a certain pack of devourers+bears, I could not split them up and couldn't kill any of them :P

- - - Updated - - -

Also I died for the first time in bloodlines the other day, was pretty sad. My own fault, got a little to cocky with a pull and got essentially one shot :P the sad thing is, that same night, I died on a level 30 as well, because I desynced back into a huge stack of firestorm from a corrupted boss in a corrupted zone. Was like 100% desync, I warped out, ran a step, then was dead way back where I warped from

[nbm02ss]

I've died twice in Bloodlines, but neither time was because of the Bloodlines mod. The first was my Groundslammer in Malestrom; Cursed with punishment on a large pack of squid spawn with 14k tooltip DPS, curse remove Quicksilver flask down and no endurance charges = GG. The second death was on my ele trapper, and when opening a rare box I neglected to notice the "detonates corpses" mod, traps killed everything instantly, and the corpse explosion one shot me. It was actually pretty hilarious.

[Lysah]

I see them more as a challenge in dedication, agree that they are quite boring though but in the context of testing dedication they serve their purpose.

That's true, and I do like some of them (reach high level), but "all masters level 8" was kind of ridiculous.

[Redblade]

That's true, and I do like some of them (reach high level), but "all masters level 8" was kind of ridiculous.

Yeah, the whole design around that one was wrong imo. It should have been a requirement to be in the zone when the master did he's greeting to be eligible for the XP and balanced accordingly. That way it wouldn't have needed to be as annoying at least.

[Lysah]

Back to playing torment some so I can try a mega troll caster build, and I still don't understand why GGG made the ghosts disappear so quickly. I was lucky enough to get 3 ghosts to spawn in the same battlefront, but I probably didn't get more than 5 mobs haunted total between all 3. They disappear in maybe 3 repositions if you're lucky, and two of those will be spent running into a wall when you find them. I had a ghost no more than a screen away from Aurelianus and I had no chance in hell of getting it to chase him down. Just disappointing all around.

I really like the idea on reddit about having ghosts torment US and simply having a 2 minute timer to kill everything you can or whatever.

[Fencers]

I wish the ghosts were more like the D3 goblins. I suppose they are in a certain sense, but in practice the Torment ghosts are super flaky. You have to basically recognize and one shot them in all of three seconds maybe. Just due to the fact skills offscreen in POE rather easily.

Playing a self cast Spark Shadow on Torment is kinda crummy w/r/t the ghost mechanic.

I really like the idea on reddit about having ghosts torment US and simply having a 2 minute timer to kill everything you can or whatever.

Next league: Possession.