[Megathread] Path of Exile

[potis]

You have like 22 respec points from quests. If you want only switch from life to ES theres alot shared nodes because you still use same skill so not all nodes need respec. Regrets also are not that rare drop. Rest missing can be easily bought with chaos orbs (ratio around 1,3:1).

For many people no free respec is a big minus but for me its a plus here. I feel more attached to my character and having access to easy respec would make the game less interesting for me.

Thats just silly excuses.

Leveling in PoE is a joke after the first week, mostly because Tabula's, all shitty leveling uniques have dropped and you can speed level in a few hours.

The whole "We are keeping the old pointless ARPG systems in to trigger nostalgia" is getting really boring and its gonna bite them in the ass if any of the upcoming ones are half decent, or even D4 gets announced.

They really need to start making actual QoL changes because the game is turning "not fun anymore" very fast.

[Edge-]

Thats just silly excuses.

Leveling in PoE is a joke after the first week, mostly because Tabula's, all shitty leveling uniques have dropped and you can speed level in a few hours.

The whole "We are keeping the old pointless ARPG systems in to trigger nostalgia" is getting really boring and its gonna bite them in the ass if any of the upcoming ones are half decent, or even D4 gets announced.

They really need to start making actual QoL changes because the game is turning "not fun anymore" very fast.

If they want to grow their audience, yes. But they seem pretty happy with the current size (and spending) from the playerbase. They've got a hard-lock on all the ARPG whales that dump hundreds/thousands into every single league. It's possible they don't want those "casual" players, and I'd argue that's very much the case when you look at the continued overall design.

[potis]

If they want to grow their audience, yes. But they seem pretty happy with the current size (and spending) from the playerbase. They've got a hard-lock on all the ARPG whales that dump hundreds/thousands into every single league. It's possible they don't want those "casual" players, and I'd argue that's very much the case when you look at the continued overall design.

Which only happens because D3 is a failure and abandoned and its the only real reason PoE has the population it has, which is still very low realistically.

It doesnt have its population because its "good", PoE has major flaws, there is just nothing else equal out there, which wont be the case after 2020.

[Edge-]

Which only happens because D3 is a failure and abandoned and its the only real reason PoE has the population it has, which is still very low realistically.

That's nonsense, PoE was growing and doing well long before D3 landed. And if anything it was more the overall design of D3 (aggressive "streamlining") that drove some players to play PoE over D3. PoE was always going after a different section of the ARPG market - the more hardcore, trade oriented playerbase that stuck with D2 in the longterm. D3 was never going after those folks, it was going after the folks that bought the game, played for a bit, then moved on.

It doesnt have its population because its "good", PoE has major flaws, there is just nothing else equal out there, which wont be the case after 2020.

It does though, it's why they got so much crowdfunding well before the crowdfunding boom. It's far from perfect, and even the most hardcore of players can give long lists of issues and flaws. What's coming in 2020? D4? Because even if it's amazing, unless Blizzard makes a huge turn in terms of how they design the game and the audience they're targeting it's not going to pull folks from PoE in the longrun.

[Mamut]

It doesnt have its population because its "good", PoE has major flaws, there is just nothing else equal out there, which wont be the case after 2020.

PoE is great because theres no other ARPG that offer so much depth and diversity in building your character. And whats coming in the 2020 that can offer something similar or better?

[Edge-]

PoE is great because theres no other ARPG that offer so much depth and diversity in building your character.

What other game lets you create absolutely hilarious, functional, trolling builds like this (warning, potential eye cancer) -

[Marrilaife]

Which only happens because D3 is a failure and abandoned and its the only real reason PoE has the population it has, which is still very low realistically.

It doesnt have its population because its "good", PoE has major flaws, there is just nothing else equal out there, which wont be the case after 2020.

Let's see, D3 was a massive failure in the original game (play AH not the game, yay), only the reaper of souls expansion revamp made it actually good, they changed everything, loot, endgame, added bounties / greater rift system etc. Even then I remember getting hyped for Crusader only for it to be unplayable competitively until some better sets were added, some proper legendaries to support builds and the melee damage reduction that monk / barb had (wish poe had that, melee have no benefit for playing "in the face" while ranged can kill stuff screen away and be much more safe).

Well, in a game that makes it hard to redo things once you've set them (you can, but it requires a lot of grinding, since each point requires a reset individually, 5 for each ascension) it's not surprising, you don't want to go in to a new season and try something new and have to toss the character.

It's actually the reason my wife doesn't like the game that much, its too hard to reset your character.

I agree, some mechanics irk me, same with the xp loss on death, I understand they want things to matter and have consequences but there's a reason I never played permadeath mode in either D3 on poe, lag spikes / dcs happen etc.

Not sure why gear is fully tradeable and there's no concept of "soulbond" in any form, but specs are so set in stone. Well not 100% but it really restricts freedom of experimentation, you're ending up scared of fucking up your character so you stick to something tested by famous streamer that has 500 exalts donated by viewers to spend on stupid builds because maybe one of them will become the new hotness.

Also I don't entertain a concept of making throwaway "starter" character that is easy to farm with no gear but has extremely low ceiling it can't pass, so you only use it to farm for your "real" character who will need more gear investment to get going.

Still it feels like melee don't have enough viable spells to use across 3-4 classes that can be considered melee archetype. Even bow builds have more viable alternatives while only 1 class is dedicated to typical archer archetype. Casters have quite decent variety if we look past the winter orb domination, there are still lightning builds, cold builds, chaos builds, not so sure about any good fire spell though.

Personally I'm using current flashback event as some testing ground for characters because due to nature of the event I don't plan to heavily invest in a character that has sub 3 week expiration date. Obviously I can't really test any builds that requires specific gear though, I have a friend who wanted to try a specific build that requires a specific weapon to enable it, on synthesis season I had that weapon drop, sold it for 3c, come flashback, lol cheapest 1ex. Nice. So yeah, that's another issue if you wanna try a build that is tied to specific items to work.

[potis]

Let's see, D3 was a massive failure in the original game (play AH not the game, yay), only the reaper of souls expansion revamp made it actually good, they changed everything, loot, endgame, added bounties / greater rift system etc. Even then I remember getting hyped for Crusader only for it to be unplayable competitively until some better sets were added, some proper legendaries to support builds and the melee damage reduction that monk / barb had (wish poe had that, melee have no benefit for playing "in the face" while ranged can kill stuff screen away and be much more safe).

I know bro, but talking realistically, D3 RoS was abandoned early, and its why PoE started picking up, it wasnt because the game was "That good", around when they added the last sets in RoS, and then stopped, pretty much 3-4 months after its when PoE started picking up.

Despite that, even when D3 has a new season, it still has more players checking out the season EVEN WHEN ITS DEAD, than PoE has at its peak league day, why? Its simply a more fluid game (more famous obviously cause D2 legacy), its much more fun but its so accessible and fast that with some luck you can be done in a few hours for the season.

Obviously comparing the hardcore playerbase of PoE to the D3 playerbase is unfair but my point stands.

I am not defending what they have done with D3, thats a completely different story/discussion.

PoE has major QoL flaws that realistically do not affect the game if the changes happen, at least they affect the 99% of the game playerbase positively.

But because the people from 3rd world countries that abuse some bug/flaw/hack and make money to survive spam against it, and somehow thats the "majority" of the playerbase.

PoE was made with d2jsp in mind, for the developers to make money on the side when it was new (conspiracy theories but i am 100% sure this was the case in early PoE, the crafting system is literally made with that sense).

I am not asking for nerfs or changes, game can be a joke after you get the jist of it, uber elder my ass with 2m DPS on 3ex gear.

The problem is, PoE is my secondary game, if i wanna give 10h/week to PoE, but for 8h i have to trade, something is wrong.

If i cant target farm what i want after all these years of extra content, but i am told "LOL NO, WE DONT WANT YOU TO FARM WHAT YOU WANT, FARM EVERYTHING".

Then no, as i said, the game is quickly becoming QoL unfriendly and their direction as i said 10 pages behind is 100% Blizzard developer logic of "We know better".

When , as i said before, the people that make money OFF STREAMING POE, abandon it 10 days into the league to stream Grim Dawn/Lost Epoch Alpha/Wolcen Alpha, then something is actually wrong.

All i mean is, new games will come out, and the same people keep expressing their feelings repeatedly and nothing is changing because Chris is all about "I AM RIGHT, YOU ARE WRONG", and its obvious its getting really tiring for the people that have done everything in this game repeatedly and want something fresh.

[Edge-]

I know bro, but talking realistically, D3 RoS was abandoned early, and its why PoE started picking up, it wasnt because the game was "That good", around when they added the last sets in RoS, and then stopped, pretty much 3-4 months after its when PoE started picking up.

Despite that, even when D3 has a new season, it still has more players checking out the season EVEN WHEN ITS DEAD, than PoE has at its peak league day, why? Its simply a more fluid game (more famous obviously cause D2 legacy), its much more fun but its so accessible and fast that with some luck you can be done in a few hours for the season.

https://steamcharts.com/app/238960

Granted Steamcharts only pulls a fraction of the playerbase as a huge chunk use the native installer, but it's still decent for guidelines.

RoS was released in March 2014. There's a bit of a spike in July 2014 for PoE, but pretty minimal. It's not until around 2016 that we start seeing the peeks and valleys of players with the more "set" league schedule that we start seeing the big player growth. None of that was tied to anything related to D3 as far as my memory goes.

How do you know how many players D3 has at a season refresh? Has Blizzard ever given numbers? I won't argue that production values aren't significantly higher than PoE, they objectively are, but mechanics > production values for hardcore players.

PoE has major QoL flaws that realistically do not affect the game if the changes happen, at least they affect the 99% of the game playerbase positively.

But because the people from 3rd world countries that abuse some bug/flaw/hack and make money to survive spam against it, and somehow thats the "majority" of the playerbase.

...what? I'm not sure what you're trying to say here.

PoE was made with d2jsp in mind, for the developers to make money on the side when it was new (conspiracy theories but i am 100% sure this was the case in early PoE, the crafting system is literally made with that sense).

This is actually a conspiracy theory, keep that shit outta here. They have no affiliation with JSP, even if many of their hardcore users use the site regularly. Hell, they've explicitly banned JSP trades IIRC, which is why, for example, when my brother trades through JSP he jumps through some extra in-game hoops to not trigger their automated systems.

And the crafting system is created to have a stable currency market rather than something that inflates perpetually. Crafting mats are regularly bled out of the economy by crafters of all stripes, preventing inflation/hyperinflation like we've seen in games that don't have effective currency sinks. It doubles in the sense that the volume of different currencies are designed to give players far more control over their gear than most other games allow, creating new shit from high ilvl bases or rerolling links/colors/etc. on existing items so they work with different builds.

The problem is, PoE is my secondary game, if i wanna give 10h/week to PoE, but for 8h i have to trade, something is wrong.

Except you don't have to. I've spent hundreds of hours in PoE and didn't trade at all until recently, and what little trading I do nowadays is largely to buy guardian maps or the odd piece for a build here or there.

If i cant target farm what i want after all these years of extra content, but i am told "LOL NO, WE DONT WANT YOU TO FARM WHAT YOU WANT, FARM EVERYTHING".

It's a fair criticism and one I've made as well. Some times I just wanna delve endlessly and not fuck about with sulphite farming and whatnot. But even if I'm short on sulphite, there's still plenty of shit for me to farm otherwise.

Then no, as i said, the game is quickly becoming QoL unfriendly and their direction as i said 10 pages behind is 100% Blizzard developer logic of "We know better".

It's always been QoL unfriendly, and much of the hardcore PoE community loves them for that. And they take that stance on some topics, they don't on others. Chris Wilson has repeatedly admitted that they've screwed up, he even did so via a long post a few weeks back.

[potis]

snip

I will keep it civil but its simple.

People that dont want the changes cause it suits them, as example, currency flippers that RMT, 3rd world country farmers that survive off exalted RMT etc, create an echo chamber of why "changes" are bad to the game, when in reality they arent.

I dont remember the post, but it was shown before from someone how a "no ah" thread years back was literally echo chambered by a south american guild that was known for scamming/RMT shenanigans.

Now, no offence, but you are playing Standard, of course you dont have problems with trading in Standard where thousand of players just dont care and dump insane amount of currency and items for practically free, last time i logged into Standard was to give a random russian player that was obviously new and wanted something, and i ended up giving him something close to 20ex in stuff, for standard 20ex is irrelevant, but for him, i made his day.

Standard isnt really something that "counts", despite how horrible that sounds.

Now, your steamcharts also clearly show exactly what i said.

RoS release, PoE plummets.

Season 1 releases along with Forsaken Masters, a very major PoE patch, does go up, then goes down the moment S2 RoS releases and stays there for months until people realize nothing new is coming for RoS and suddenly PoE sees a 300% increase on July 2015.

If thats exactly what i said about D3 killing itself and thats the only reason PoE saw an increase, not sure what it is.

And then it saw the increase as a reaction to "Diablo:Immortal" cause everyone was literally saying "SHOW THEM BY PLAYING POE, FUCK BLIZZARD".

Anyways, this back and forth discussion is silly, PoE has major flaws, they are fixing one with 3.7, which is animations and speed at early levels.

4.0 is supposedly fixing the 3 pixel characters into characters that look like the rest of the game, we will see about that, but thats 1 year away, and when i say "New games are coming in 2020", its something that literally Chris Wilson said, and how "They dont have time to goof around" cause they arent dumb, the more D3 failed, the more successful they became.

If D2:Remaster releases tomorrow, next PoE league will plummet insanely as an example.

Again, dont get me wrong, i love PoE, have spent money to buy all tabs, extra stuff etc, not much, something like 150e maybe, but they arent giving me a reason to play anymore, no matter what they add, cause every league its the same shit:

Level to 80 in a couple of days-->End up 91-92 with yellow maps cause reds arent dropping-->Complain about maps-->"Everything is fine"-->Everything wasnt fine, hotfix 1-->New char/New build cause boring as fuck cause no maps-->Finally maps cause Hotfix 1-->Already 50% burnt out->Hotfix 2-->Hotfix 3-->Hotfix 4-->Burn out or dead league either way.

[Mamut]

I will keep it civil but its simple.

People that dont want the changes cause it suits them, as example, currency flippers that RMT, 3rd world country farmers that survive off exalted RMT etc, create an echo chamber of why "changes" are bad to the game, when in reality they arent.

I like the more hardcore aspect of PoE and Im not currency flipper and I dont consider my country as 3rd world either. Im not against all changes (game change with every expansion/league). Im against dumbing it down like D3 in the name of some "QoL" changes. Im not playing also standard so I hope my opinion matter?

RoS release, PoE plummets.

Season 1 releases along with Forsaken Masters, a very major PoE patch, does go up, then goes down the moment S2 RoS releases and stays there for months until people realize nothing new is coming for RoS and suddenly PoE sees a 300% increase on July 2015.

If thats exactly what i said about D3 killing itself and thats the only reason PoE saw an increase, not sure what it is.

Yeah sure, PoE peaked in July 2015 because RoS did not get anything new. Its not because PoE got at this time big expansion called Awakening

Level to 80 in a couple of days-->End up 91-92 with yellow maps cause reds arent dropping-->Complain about maps-->"Everything is fine"-->Everything wasnt fine, hotfix 1-->New char/New build cause boring as fuck cause no maps-->Finally maps cause Hotfix 1-->Already 50% burnt out->Hotfix 2-->Hotfix 3-->Hotfix 4-->Burn out or dead league either way.

Still better than D3 reality: Nothing - Nothing -Nothing -Nothing.

And for red maps I also think they should increase the map drops or allow easier trading for them but they test some changes like boss having higher chance to drop adjacement maps so its not like they dont do anything or dont try new fixes.

[potis]

I like the more hardcore aspect of PoE and Im not currency flipper and I dont consider my country as 3rd world either. Im not against all changes (game change with every expansion/league). Im against dumbing it down like D3 in the name of some "QoL" changes. Im not playing also standard so I hope my opinion matter?




Yeah sure, PoE peaked in July 2015 because RoS did not get anything new. Its not because PoE got at this time big expansion called Awakening




Still better than D3 reality: Nothing - Nothing -Nothing -Nothing.

And for red maps I also think they should increase the map drops or allow easier trading for them but they test some changes like boss having higher chance to drop adjacement maps so its not like they dont do anything or dont try new fixes.

I am not asking for anything extreme about PoE man.

Make the map system actual content and not trade content, i dont care to trade to progress the game, i should trade to craft and to improve my gear cause i dont get drops, not because i cant get the next map to drop despite doing the previous 10 times so i can progress my Atlas, i have already 150ed my atlas multiple times, its not fun trading for Maps, end of story.

Content, should not be something thats tradeable, thats it.

Or if it is, make it something fast that just happens, spending 60-70% of my playtime trying to get someone to go to their hideout and trade is not gameplay.

And yeah, PoE 2.0 and ascendancys made PoE a completely new game, obviously it would see a return, even so on that chart, anything following a D3 RoS season release the first year indicates an insane drop for a reason, and the insane increase after D:Immortal fiasco etc.

There are other things, when everyone agrees if it wasnt for currency trade bots, no one would trade currency, you can realize what kind of flaw that is.

The reality is, the game no longer has a "small niche" of players, many joined, many will keep joining as long as something doesnt exist to take them, and something wont appear for a good 1-2 years easily.

They really need to do the few changes the majority is asking about that are simply QoL and dont really affect the actual gameplay.

[Morae]

Im thinking of trying out a shadow that does poison/chaos damage.

Not intending to go to anywhere high mapping or anything. I also always play on ssf. I have been looking at skills and passives and I'm already having a plan that I try out whether it works or not, but I cant seem to decide on ascendancy.
Tricksters have Harness the Void. This would obviously lots of chaos damage. Tricksters also seem to have damage over time multipliers.
Assassin has noxious strike and toxic delivery.

I cant seem to decide which to pick.

Am I even trying to do anything sensible? Shadow with main focus on doing chaos damage by any means possible. If possible i'd avoid being "caster shadow".

Edit: I was finally able to find some guides I could apply to my own ideas. It seems assassin is the way to go. As far as I can tell, trickster is used for other things.

[WoWGoneBad]

So question on these Events SRE 001-003.

What happens to the character and its loot when it ends? Does the character get deleted and loot goes to the account? I was rather mad that I had to start from 1 again but loving the witch as I do I am back up to 54ish from a 72 witch lol.

Least I got a better idea of a build I like out of it

[Gorsameth]

So question on these Events SRE 001-003.

What happens to the character and its loot when it ends? Does the character get deleted and loot goes to the account? I was rather mad that I had to start from 1 again but loving the witch as I do I am back up to 54ish from a 72 witch lol.

Least I got a better idea of a build I like out of it

Just like season character, when the event ends the characters will be moved to their equivalent Standard league.

The whole point of seasons is that you start off from nothing with each new season.

[WoWGoneBad]

The whole point of seasons is that you start off from nothing with each new season.

Ok I can live with that. I may even be able to incorporate this into the video game I am building as a Scenario or Conflict style event.

But other than that, we just leave them sitting in our character list? Have you deleted any characters with this setup or is it worth deleting them?

[Darleth]

Ok I can live with that. I may even be able to incorporate this into the video game I am building as a Scenario or Conflict style event.

But other than that, we just leave them sitting in our character list? Have you deleted any characters with this setup or is it worth deleting them?

You can delete them after the season ended if you want to. No reason to keep them except you want to.

[potis]

https://youtu.be/o5cA2GvES2w

And i really didnt wanna play, but got to at least play a bit again for the animation changes and that size of Cyclone.

10/10 for song choice.

[Hinastorm]

Ya, the fact that there are no traditional respecs (you have to grind a ton, in late game, to access a real respec) and the trade system are the 2 things that make me only able to dabble a bit in poe, otherwise I think i'd be playing the crap out of it, I love everything else.

But those 2 issues are big ones, for me, and many others.

How are new players supposed to find a spec/build they like? Keep making new chars and going through the resident sleeper campaign over and over? I watch videos, I try to do my research at the start of each league, yet I always finding myself wanting or needing to respec, but not being able to. I am sick to death of the campaign at this point.

And trade, we all know the issues there. If they just made diablo style AH's, but something like a hundred per region, and cap how many players can access each one, so lower tier items aren't completely worthless. Boom, done.

Respecs and an AH....you now have maybe the best active game in the world.

[Darleth]

Ya, the fact that there are no traditional respecs (you have to grind a ton, in late game, to access a real respec) and the trade system are the 2 things that make me only able to dabble a bit in poe, otherwise I think i'd be playing the crap out of it, I love everything else.

But those 2 issues are big ones, for me, and many others.

How are new players supposed to find a spec/build they like? Keep making new chars and going through the resident sleeper campaign over and over? I watch videos, I try to do my research at the start of each league, yet I always finding myself wanting or needing to respec, but not being able to. I am sick to death of the campaign at this point.

And trade, we all know the issues there. If they just made diablo style AH's, but something like a hundred per region, and cap how many players can access each one, so lower tier items aren't completely worthless. Boom, done.

Respecs and an AH....you now have maybe the best active game in the world.

There are a shitton of guides available and there is also poe.ninja which shows a ton of additional information on how people build their characters for certain builds. Engineering Eternity also has some decent starter guides and builds if I'm not out of the loop. Regret Orbs aren't exactly expensive either later on. If anything, let the respec system stay in like it is, but make ONE QUEST a 1 time full respec - if I remember correctly, Diablo 2 added something similar like this some time ago. They still want some passive tree decisions to have meaning, but a 1 time free full respec wouldn't hurt anybody imo. In terms of the auction house: I'm only fine if it would be ONLY USABLE for currency and maps, to make those easier to trade, as normal item trades usually aren't the real problem here.

Also some additional information on the new league: https://www.pathofexile.com/legion?v=1

Ascendancies: As far as I can tell, both Gladiator and Berserker get a small rework (gladiator more than berserker). Berserker lost most of its downsides and the Rage mechanic overall got improved. Gladiator has now 2 stances which are suited for different situations I guess. Unfortunately no changes to slayer.

Items: Some old uniques got changed and might be viable as decent mid-level items now (Voll's Protector got a hell of a lot of improvements as did Laviangas Wisdom). New items shown look decent for certain builds to level. In general the new currency "generating" stuff seems alright. Waiting to see how the new jewels will change the passive tree up with their modifiers based on how many things you killed while the jewel is equipped. Also, more currency with the shards to spawn the legion bosses I guess.

Melee rework: I REALLY HOPE they go through with all those changes. So far the changes look amazing and should bring melee on par with spells for the late game. If they also manage to make melee easier to gear, melee will be great again imo.

Didn't watch Ziggy D's video yet, but here it is for people interested: