[Megathread] Path of Exile

[Clozer]

Boss mechanic? It's just a regular elite monster, until it turns out he's more than that. It's not a boss.. jezus. He's just there in the middle of your adventures and will instafrag you if you don't get out. It's a pathetic mechanic that's solely meant to "surprise" you. Thanks, dicks.

The first time I killed him, I killed him so fast, I couldn't even look at his mods, let alone interpret them (which is a flaw of PoE to begin with) and the "explosion noise" is barely audible, so nice surprise that I got fragged completely beyond my own control. If I make a mistake and get punished, fine. This, is bs. Therefore, people should read guides before they start, absolutely.



Nobody is saying that all deaths are unfair. Some of the traps in this game are beyond unfair en he is one of them.

Most people in the gauntlet were actually killed by regular monsters. It's how the game works? If you are completely clueless and for some reason still play HC - you could pull slowly and notice after the first monster that they explode and you should pay attention. It's not like as soon as he appears on your screen you are dead.

[bloodwulf]

Bullshit, you are trying to push your agenda that casual = dumb player. I have casual friends that plays PoE basically hour a day, managed to kill sirus after 3 leagues.

Casual means plays little, so obviously his learning path will be longer. Its just that simple.

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You have all the tools you need and you still complain about not being handheld thru every step. Following guide as first thing you ever do in game is not learning for test, its just using cheat sheet. Sure, you won but you cheated not only the game, but yourself. You didn't grow. You didn't improve. You took a shortcut and gained nothing. You experienced a hollow victory. It's sad that you don't know the difference.

So the mathematicians that graduate from MIT cheat themselves because they studied the work of others instead of proving everything themselves? If you followed a guide, and it got you to Shaper and you said "hey that skill was fun, i didn't realize shouts exert a slam, but now i do" you learned and you improved. If a guide taught you an interaction between Uniques that you didn't know, you learned and improved. If you think all players rob themselves of an experience by not experimenting with every skill\unique\jewel interaction, you are expecting too much of people. Even as you say, casuals are defined with people who don't have as much time, why would you then expect them to spend all their limited time dying to stuff the game does not explain.

What tools do we have ingame? Tooltips, largely inaccurate because they dont take into account monster level. Death Recap, nope. What tools does POE actually give people? Hell even the passive planner they give you is missing a ton of tools and features.

[Vespian]

Most people in the gauntlet were actually killed by regular monsters. It's how the game works? If you are completely clueless and for some reason still play HC - you could pull slowly and notice after the first monster that they explode and you should pay attention. It's not like as soon as he appears on your screen you are dead.

But there is nothing to notice. That's my point. There are no visual queues, no HP/shield drops on the other mobs, no audible explosion sounds. You don't even know anything is going on until you reach him. Well.. until you die on top of him. I don't think this is in the gauntlet either ;? Just during leveling to ~50? Some mining region in A5 I think.

And there is a lot of information to process as a new player. You are basically ignorant of almost everything. That doesn't mean insta-frag should be a thing.

[kaminaris]

So we went from "don't follow a guide" to "well, yes, you need to LOOK at a guide, but don't blindly follow it". LOL. OK.

No, read my posts again, this time with comprehension and dont put your words in my mouth.

[Vespian]

No, read my posts again, this time with comprehension and dont put your words in my mouth.

You really didn't leave much room for interpretation tbh...

[Clozer]

But there is nothing to notice. That's my point. There are no visual queues, no HP/shield drops on the other mobs, no audible explosion sounds. You don't even know anything is going on until you reach him. Well.. until you die on top of him. I don't think this is in the gauntlet either ;? Just during leveling to ~50? Some mining region in A5 I think.

And there is a lot of information to process as a new player. You are basically ignorant of almost everything. That doesn't mean insta-frag should be a thing.

There is a huge explosion with spikes coming out of them so a lot of sounds and visuals. After you slowly pulled one and killed it you will notice. One of the reasons most HC builds go for corpse explosions - so they don't have to pay attention to on death effects. And yes these type of monsters appear in lategame too. Even more of them and different ones. So on death effects are very common in PoE and you better learn early to not stand still.

[kaminaris]

So the mathematicians that graduate from MIT cheat themselves because they studied the work of others instead of proving everything themselves? If you followed a guide, and it got you to Shaper and you said "hey that skill was fun, i didn't realize shouts exert a slam, but now i do" you learned and you improved. If a guide taught you an interaction between Uniques that you didn't know, you learned and improved. If you think all players rob themselves of an experience by not experimenting with every skill\unique\jewel interaction, you are expecting too much of people. Even as you say, casuals are defined with people who don't have as much time, why would you then expect them to spend all their limited time dying to stuff the game does not explain.

What tools do we have ingame? Tooltips, largely inaccurate because they dont take into account monster level. Death Recap, nope. What tools does POE actually give people? Hell even the passive planner they give you is missing a ton of tools and features.

Mathematicians that graduate have to understand what are they doing. What you are trying to push here is to remember every equation exactly how it was in textbook and expect to have exact same equations on test. When equation is slightly different its insta fail.

Its the same in PoE, people end up playing some copypasted build, not understanding a damn thing about it. And even worse, when it doesn't work, they have no idea why. This is also partially a reason why there are so many bad guides.

[bloodwulf]

Mathematicians that graduate have to understand what are they doing. What you are trying to push here is to remember every equation exactly how it was in textbook and expect to have exact same equations on test. When equation is slightly different its insta fail.

Its the same in PoE, people end up playing some copypasted build, not understanding a damn thing about it. And even worse, when it doesn't work, they have no idea why. This is also partially a reason why there are so many bad guides.

Good guides have stuff explained, and then they also have active creators that over to help and answer questions on the forums. Just look at the official forums, find the guides that have 40+ pages, most of these have direct interactions with the creator. One Tectonic Slam guide creator even volunteers to help people in game, and will answer questions live. This is what defines a good guide, explained and willing to explain. You seem to think a guide is written with no interaction with the creator. Most new player guides tell players to reach out to the creators in game or on the forums if they have questions. Its not like POE is going to magically explain an interaction, it all boils down to you need someone more experienced to help or you need outside tools like POB and POE.Ninja.

[solinari6]

Its not like POE is going to magically explain an interaction, it all boils down to you need someone more experienced to help or you need outside tools like POB and POE.Ninja.

For new players, I would recommend playing a guide, and when you have questions, hit up the PoE reddit, they have a massive questions thread, where you can ask any stupid question you want, and people usually answer within the hour. THAT's where I've learned the most about the game.

[Vespian]

There is a huge explosion with spikes coming out of them so a lot of sounds and visuals. After you slowly pulled one and killed it you will notice. One of the reasons most HC builds go for corpse explosions - so they don't have to pay attention to on death effects. And yes these type of monsters appear in lategame too. Even more of them and different ones. So on death effects are very common in PoE and you better learn early to not stand still.

I'm not saying I never noticed on death explosions, I'm saying I never noticed it on them, or they were irrelevant, comparatively. The miniboss one-shots you, where the rest basically deal no damage. Especially as a first-time player, it's very hard to discern anything relative to all the particles on the screen. That's why you should read up on it.

I almost feel like installing the game again, just to see for myself.

[bloodwulf]

For new players, I would recommend playing a guide, and when you have questions, hit up the PoE reddit, they have a massive questions thread, where you can ask any stupid question you want, and people usually answer within the hour. THAT's where I've learned the most about the game.

Agreed, but id recommend the POEBuilds subreddit over the Main Sub. There is a reason the POE Sub has started calling themselves Toxic Sewers.

[solinari6]

Agreed, but id recommend the POEBuilds subreddit over the Main Sub. There is a reason the POE Sub has started calling themselves Toxic Sewers.

yeah, that sub gets a bit rough, but I've never had any issues in the question thread. Generally filled with people trying to help.

[kaminaris]

For new players, I would recommend playing a guide, and when you have questions, hit up the PoE reddit, they have a massive questions thread, where you can ask any stupid question you want, and people usually answer within the hour. THAT's where I've learned the most about the game.

And I have learned most by trial and error. My first build ever was complete crap but because of that i learned a lot what works and what doesn't. I learned basics without listening to hour long video. Then still as a new player I in delirium tried to do aura stacker, god what a massive failure it was (when herald/aura stacker was turbo OP).

Following guides again, no matter how "beginner friendly" for a new player is going to be frustrating experience.

[Edge-]

And I have learned most by trial and error.

Not everybody learns the same, dude. That's what we keep trying to say. What worked for you didn't work for a ton of us.

Following guides again, no matter how "beginner friendly" for a new player is going to be frustrating experience.

If that's all you look at, sure. But like, boning up on some of the basics and then finding a new player friendly league starter is likely going to be a better initial experience for a lot of folks.

There's no "one size fits all" approach, yaknow?

[solinari6]

Following guides again, no matter how "beginner friendly" for a new player is going to be frustrating experience.

Let me just fix that for you:

No matter what you do, a new player is going to have a frustrating experience

The question for a new player is, Do you want to actually have a chance to play your first character? Or do you want to accept that you will have to throw away your first character as part of the "learning experience", and start over?

[kaminaris]

Let me just fix that for you:


The question for a new player is, Do you want to actually have a chance to play your first character? Or do you want to accept that you will have to throw away your first character as part of the "learning experience", and start over?

You seems to have missed fundamental issue:
If you skip learning fundamentals, next steps are only going to be more complicated. So its like trying to understand "complex numbers" and imaginary units before even grasping concept of basic numbers.

And the questions is not "Do you want to actually have a chance to play your first character", because that is almost always false, but rather "Do you enjoy learning new things, getting better and better?". So yeah, your very first character should basically be a failure. Not that you can't "fix" it as nothing is locked forever besides the class itself. Actually process of FIXING character is very valuable experience.

And when the game is designed in away you cant fail, you basically get D3.

[Edge-]

Actually process of FIXING character is very valuable experience.

And when you don't know how to "fix" your character or are faced with a long grind to "fix" a fucked over passive tree and regear, it can kill interest for some folks.

And when the game is designed in away you cant fail, you basically get D3.

Nobody is saying the game should be designed that way, dude. Just that some folks may have an easier time at the start if they have some guides to look at for pointers.

[solinari6]

You seems to have missed fundamental issue:
If you skip learning fundamentals, next steps are only going to be more complicated. So its like trying to understand "complex numbers" and imaginary units before even grasping concept of basic numbers.

And the questions is not "Do you want to actually have a chance to play your first character", because that is almost always false, but rather "Do you enjoy learning new things, getting better and better?". So yeah, your very first character should basically be a failure.

And you seemed to have missed an importing issue as well: The VAST majority of PoE players don't even get 1 character through the 10 acts, much less 2. Sure, a small number of neckbeards enjoy that initial experience of blindly trying to figure out how things work on their first character, but most don't, which is evident by the fact that they just give up on the game.

You are setting people up to fail, possibly on purpose, to keep casuals from playing? I dunno. Just seems really weird, man.

[bloodwulf]

Ultimately, it comes down to what is best for each individual player. Some people enjoy learning by failing. Some people like a more guided experience. Just a casual glance of the overall video game industry shows that some of the most popular games are the least complex to pick up, so the few people that do venture into complex games like POE are going experience a game like few others. That said, POE's complexity is often exacerbated by GGG layering system on system and refusing to declutter the game.

I know GGG has said that with POE2 we will likely see some systems retired, but as with the Harvest changes, I do not have a ton of faith if GGG will trim the right systems. Some people will say that POE is a game that thrives on experimentation, but I feel that is just excusing GGG for their lack of clarity. They offer to explain next to nothing, and this leads players to searching Reddit or Youtube for guides on how to do stuff, just look at Heist when it was implemented and the number of spreadsheets and guides that existed, or the fact that Synthesis got so much grief because no one knew how to do it. GGG throws a system in, and then tells people to figure it out. Hell the original Harvest implementation was hated so much because of the idiotic fertilization system, and once GGG simplified it, it has become a beloved feature.

[Edge-]

GGG throws a system in, and then tells people to figure it out. Hell the original Harvest implementation was hated so much because of the idiotic fertilization system, and once GGG simplified it, it has become a beloved feature.

I think it's a bit more that they build a system and deploy it, but there's no testing like live testing. Some leagues just don't work at all like Synthesis, but most leagues can be rolled into standard with some minimal changes both to make them less powerful and update them based on how players actually interacted with it.

I don't think that's a bad approach even, it's pretty solid. Just the execution is sometimes not on-point IMO.

Beast league with the nets is another one that sticks out to me. I didn't bother with it and IIRC most folks hated the actual league, and while it's not great now since the rewards mostly suck it's still a big improvement over the original version.