[Megathread] Path of Exile

[Edge-]

I just think there are probably 1000% too many barrels/boxes/trunks/whatevers in the game. Do people actually open all those? I'm sure I'm missing out on some cool loot, since I only open maybe 5% of them, but UGH.

They're fine, it's not different than a lot of the garbage breakables in D2 and other games. Sure, you might luck out and get an exalt out of one out of every 3 million you break, but like, it generally doesn't matter much. The time needed to intentionally break all those open isn't worth it, so if you're not passively cleaving them down with your AoE then /whatever

Only places I actually bother are specific maps like Distant Memories and safehouses and whatnot as they seem to have a slightly better chance of dropping something (and there aren't that many so it doesn't eat up much time).

Though the actual chests...I always open those, even if they're just white. Why not, it's a bunch of free dudes to kill /shrugs

- - - Updated - - -

https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile...s_game_is_too/

Given the recent discussions, felt this is a pretty topical thread. Note the extensive confusion for a new player on everything including a lot of the very basic concepts.

[Tojara]

It's just dumb slippery slope arguments. Anybody that thinks something is lost from the game if shards and shit dropped in one big pile is fucking delusional to be honest.

Infinity stash tabs for example literally extended the life of this league (along with harvest, which ironically they're neutering) for me, and I'm not even joking. I'm literally the type of person who sits down, rolls a couple dozen maps and enjoys blazing through them and hitting some main objectives and moving towards the next one. Doing that and quickly stashing shit every couple maps into a quad tab was fine, until I got to the dreaded point where I had to sort the entire fucking thing. This league? Not so much. The amount of times over the three week period I play the game were greatly diminished and it just allowed me to actually play the game more. You still have to sort a lot of shit when those tabs eventually do fill up, but the amount of times I had to do it was pretty miniscule compared to past leagues.

QoL doesn't mean the game gets bad lol. I don't know what kind of serial killer has to gate keep clicking a massive amount of items as part of the true experience of PoE (among other things).

Most of the bosses in PoE are pretty brain dead, except for a couple of them, and your experience will vary depending on how meta your build is and what it's designed to do. My first league was Metamorph (which I guess was the revamped Atlas too), and I had no idea what any of the bosses did because the build I did was pretty safe and just fucking destroyed shit. The only bosses that posed any threat to me was Uber Elder (which I went in blind, and still did it without wasting an attempt), Sirius (which took several tries to do the first time), and Uber Atziri (reflect is fun, and a poor mechanic for a boss at this stage). If you have a strong build for bossing and pick a meta build, you can pretty much face roll a lot of the bosses in the game without really learning patterns. You might die, but unless you're playing HC that doesn't really matter.

On another note I don't think Maven influencing bosses (at least earlier in the League) was necessarily good design either. You could play Shaper perfectly and master the encounter, and still end up taking forever to do it because she decides to spam heal on the boss in parts of the encounter where he's literally immune to damage. While I'm sure I didn't count perfectly, my first Shaper kill in this league had me go through 10 of his full health bars before actually killing him. My build wasn't a great bossing build, but the experience also wasn't fun.

It's funny because vanilla D3 if you weren't well geared had fairly brutal bosses, especially when infernal difficulty was involved. It didn't make the game fun though, but the bosses when you didn't massively overpower them were still fairly difficult. It wasn't hard to get over run by adds on Azmodan, and most of the telegraphed attacked from Belial would straight up nuke you (at least Diablo has extremely good visual clarity, and you know what physically kills you).

[kaminaris]

It's just dumb slippery slope arguments. Anybody that thinks something is lost from the game if shards and shit dropped in one big pile is fucking delusional to be honest.

TL;DR its far from things ggg should focus on, just dont pick them up, they are worthless anyways. I would welcome some aoe looting but honestly its quite irrelevant.

Infinity stash tabs for example literally extended the life of this league (along with harvest, which ironically they're neutering) for me, and I'm not even joking. I'm literally the type of person who sits down, rolls a couple dozen maps and enjoys blazing through them and hitting some main objectives and moving towards the next one. Doing that and quickly stashing shit every couple maps into a quad tab was fine, until I got to the dreaded point where I had to sort the entire fucking thing.

Affinity stash are nice Qol but then again, even without them i just removed stuff from filter. It's not worth the time to pickup random garbage unless you are selling them straight away.

Most of the bosses in PoE are pretty brain dead, except for a couple of them, and your experience will vary depending on how meta your build is and what it's designed to do. My first league was Metamorph (which I guess was the revamped Atlas too), and I had no idea what any of the bosses did because the build I did was pretty safe and just fucking destroyed shit.

Because bosses, at least map bosses, are fairly easy, meta doesn't exist. There is no build that excels in every way. And because of this you can play meme builds.
People don't seem to understand that making bosses hard would just turn PoE into another meta slavery game.

[Vespian]

I bit the bullet and started PoE again. The current league really is handing out uniques as if they're candy. I'm not complaining, because it makes finding upgrades a lot easier and the game more diverse and fun. I started with witch, early leveling with frost bolt (?) and the spirits on kill and volley links, then the league gave me a unique fire wand and somehow stuff just melts, compared to before. /shrug, not complaining.

I'm probably going to get absolutely wrecked in the future, but at least this time I'm stealing a build of someone that's actually playing end-game :-)

[Tojara]

Saying a meta doesn't exist in PoE doesn't make it true lol.

The only reason D3 has a 'meta' is because it's focused on pushing as high of a greater rift as possible, and that's pretty much it. There aren't that many builds in D3 compared to PoE (far from it), but there's at least half a dozen good builds for each class that can pretty much do everything in the game. You might not be able to push GR 135 (or whatever) with one build, but basically all of them can do a reasonable level of content. It's really not that much different than PoE is it? PoE just doesn't have a 'real' ladder, and the only ladder that actually exists in PoE is getting to level 100, which you can do with any build, no matter how shitty it is.

Diablo 2 is sort of the same way. There are certain trees that are just vastly superior to everything else in the game, but the lack of a 'real' ladder doesn't really highlight it as much. PoE, just like D2 has builds that are played WAY more than anything else.

If PoE had an infinite system at the end you would see more of a 'meta' focus, but that doesn't mean it still doesn't exist. For a game with dozens of ascendancies, hundreds of skill gems, and a giant amount of passive skills people still flock to certain builds over others. Some of that might just be because it's an easy build or flavorful, but let's be serious, a lot of people just want to play some of the most powerful builds out there that can pretty much do all content. Just look at PoE ninjas break down of what people play. This league is a lot more even than previous leagues, which probably won't be the case next league. Why? Harvest kind of changes things, or at least gives you options to work towards (even if they're expensive). You can make pretty much any meme build that's typically pretty lackluster when you start getting really good items.

This isn't me claiming that PoE needs an infinite system like GRs either. It's better without, as is having a hard cap on how much you can grow your character experience wise. The thing PoE gets right over D3 is that the journey to get your items takes forever but you can make that journey using items that only have ~3 good affixes across each item slot (depends what it is). It feels meaningful to keep upgrading your gear basically.

Hard bosses are good in ARPGs, as long as they have fair mechanics, good feed back (visual clarity) and reward people who understand attack patterns. Minimal gear thresholds should exist (especially for harder bosses), but it shouldn't be so brutal that you absolutely can't do them. It's better to have a system where it's still possible, but just takes longer (better gear and better builds leading to higher efficiency). PoE does alright on the majority of it's bosses, but I wouldn't say this is a great game for visual clarity.

Finally what does it matter what they choose or choose not to focus on? It really doesn't matter if you view the items useless or not, or whether they should be focusing on it, but putting shards into one single giant stack is positive for the game in lots of ways. They're rarely worth it to me, but that doesn't mean that they aren't worth it for somebody else. The more time you spend actually playing the game, as opposed to managing inventory and picking up items, the better IMO. I'm absolutely sure they could change shards to be a one click item, they just refuse to do it for reasons. Even if they're philosophically against it, the game would run better if less shitty items in vast quantities would stop dropping and/or be consolidated.

[kaminaris]

Saying a meta doesn't exist in PoE doesn't make it true lol.

It literally doesn't.

There were some builds that could be considered meta but still were not best in everything. Aurastacker in heist and herald stacker in delirium were good examples, still bad for: clear speed, delve, magic find, juiced map farming. Those were very good all rounders, sometimes with insane dps and survivability.

The reason why meta doesn't exist is pretty simple, there is no singular "win condition" that can be achieved in only way. There is not even such thing as "best way". You can't even define meta.

For example self-curse builds. With top ones being BV, KB and EK. BV is technically 54% of overall headhunter builds does this mean it's meta? Nope. KB is infinitely better in farming legion 5way. It's also safer build as it clears further away so preferred in group play where portals are limited.

Or perhaps you see meta as in highest dps? Those builds are paper thin.

People gravitate towards builds that tend to work and are tested but none of them is "best", and there isn't a single build that is best for everything.

[Gorsameth]

It literally doesn't.

There were some builds that could be considered meta but still were not best in everything. Aurastacker in heist and herald stacker in delirium were good examples, still bad for: clear speed, delve, magic find, juiced map farming. Those were very good all rounders, sometimes with insane dps and survivability.

The reason why meta doesn't exist is pretty simple, there is no singular "win condition" that can be achieved in only way. There is not even such thing as "best way". You can't even define meta.

For example self-curse builds. With top ones being BV, KB and EK. BV is technically 54% of overall headhunter builds does this mean it's meta? Nope. KB is infinitely better in farming legion 5way. It's also safer build as it clears further away so preferred in group play where portals are limited.

Or perhaps you see meta as in highest dps? Those builds are paper thin.

People gravitate towards builds that tend to work and are tested but none of them is "best", and there isn't a single build that is best for everything.

But something being Meta doesn't mean it has to be the best at everything. Its something that is considered the most effective.

PoE generally has pretty good diversity but there have been times that the leaderboards were filled with DD Necro's and someone would certainly not have been wrong by calling it a 'meta pick'.

If you look at PoE-racing for ziz's gauntlet its full of EQ/ES builds, the ascendancies have some diversity but big beefy men slamming the ground is a meta pick.

[kaminaris]

But something being Meta doesn't mean it has to be the best at everything. Its something that is considered the most effective.

PoE generally has pretty good diversity but there have been times that the leaderboards were filled with DD Necro's and someone would certainly not have been wrong by calling it a 'meta pick'.

If you look at PoE-racing for ziz's gauntlet its full of EQ/ES builds, the ascendancies have some diversity but big beefy men slamming the ground is a meta pick.

Most effective at what? That is another thing why meta doesn't exist. Because even if your goal is effectiveness in something, there are several variables to take into account.

Do you intend to farm 100% deli maps? If so which map? Tower? BV might be better because its a tight map, CoC is also to consider. Canyon? KB will be better. Solo? Gotta invest something in defense. With aurabot? Might go full offense. With curse bot? Might wanna reconsider curse links. SSF? HC? Another build variations. Some skill might be better in certain setup.

What people don't realize is that there are too many variables that you have to consider. Because in terms of RAW effectiveness nothing comes close to playing with full party.
So if you want to call something meta, its that, full party and builds that work with it like curse bot, aura bot, MF culler etc. But this won't work in SSF or HC. Or multiboxing party with boss farming, hard to say which one does more money...

[Gorsameth]

Most effective at what? That is another thing why meta doesn't exist. Because even if your goal is effectiveness in something, there are several variables to take into account.

Do you intend to farm 100% deli maps? If so which map? Tower? BV might be better because its a tight map, CoC is also to consider. Canyon? KB will be better. Solo? Gotta invest something in defense. With aurabot? Might go full offense. With curse bot? Might wanna reconsider curse links. SSF? HC? Another build variations. Some skill might be better in certain setup.

What people don't realize is that there are too many variables that you have to consider. Because in terms of RAW effectiveness nothing comes close to playing with full party.
So if you want to call something meta, its that, full party and builds that work with it like curse bot, aura bot, MF culler etc. But this won't work in SSF or HC. Or multiboxing party with boss farming, hard to say which one does more money...

Your being way to specific and missing the forest from the trees.

Or considering the earlier 'discussion' about new players being intentionally obtuse because the notion that there is a 'meta' in PoE clashes with your perceived image of the game.

If you look at plain stats like https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2923890 you see 25% of people playing Necro, Necro was 'meta' during Harvest. Simple as that.

[LilSaihah]

Maybe I'm just a basic bitch and this is a basic bitch take, but I think people would be less peeved about Harvest if the game didn't just feed you shit gear to the point where the only way to get decent gear is through this weird stack of target-crafting using essences, fossils and harvest.

[Gorsameth]

Maybe I'm just a basic bitch and this is a basic bitch take, but I think people would be less peeved about Harvest if the game didn't just feed you shit gear to the point where the only way to get decent gear is through this weird stack of target-crafting using essences, fossils and harvest.

For sure.
There is to much RNG is raw crafting so everyone flocks to the methods that cut down on that.

[NoiseTank13]

Maybe I'm just a basic bitch and this is a basic bitch take, but I think people would be less peeved about Harvest if the game didn't just feed you shit gear to the point where the only way to get decent gear is through this weird stack of target-crafting using essences, fossils and harvest.

I think the whole manifesto thing could have been swallowed more easily (though still a lot of grumbling) if they (Chris) would have just kept his yap shut and not give an implication that they haven't played the game since patch 1.4. It gives the impression they didn't understand their own crafting system and why people liked Harvest so much.

Compounded of course, with the fact they didn't want discord trading to be essential yet pointedly did nothing to address, leads one to believe if Chris is profiting off it in someway.

But yeah, gear is shit, trading is really the only consistent way to upgrade your gear, leading trade to be essential if not mandatory, yet GGG doesn't want trade to be efficient and easy and you have the mess we are in.

[kaminaris]

Your being way to specific and missing the forest from the trees.

Or considering the earlier 'discussion' about new players being intentionally obtuse because the notion that there is a 'meta' in PoE clashes with your perceived image of the game.

If you look at plain stats like https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2923890 you see 25% of people playing Necro, Necro was 'meta' during Harvest. Simple as that.

I think you miss point entirely. Necro wasn't most effective in harvest. It was most played, not most effective. People play minion builds because these can be powerful with relatively low investment, at least compared to really high end builds.

Its you who is obtuse since your example doesn't even match your own definition:

But something being Meta doesn't mean it has to be the best at everything. Its something that is considered the most effective.

[Gorsameth]

I think you miss point entirely. Necro wasn't most effective in harvest. It was most played, not most effective. People play minion builds because these can be powerful with relatively low investment, at least compared to really high end builds.

Its you who is obtuse since your example doesn't even match your own definition:

"Powerful with relatively low investment". Sounds like an effective build to me.

[Edge-]

https://twitter.com/quinrex/status/1373820723060383746

Yo, I don't know much about Quin outside of him ripping to all kinds of dumb shit on SSFHC, but like, homeboy is right. It's beyond fucked up that players are functionally acting as the marketing arm of GGG, crowdfunding the marketing budget for a private league to the tune of $13K just for the private league slots. It's crazy to me that most companies use esports (which this is essentially an esports event) for marketing and do big spends there, but GGG has a community that seems happy enough to pay for all that on their own. Production, organization, operation, casting, recaps, promotion etc. etc. all handled by players.

At the very least GGG should be giving these folks a break for the bigger events, it's a huge ad-value for GGG with no meaningful cost to them for the private server.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

https://twitter.com/quinrex/status/1373820723060383746

Yo, I don't know much about Quin outside of him ripping to all kinds of dumb shit on SSFHC, but like, homeboy is right. It's beyond fucked up that players are functionally acting as the marketing arm of GGG, crowdfunding the marketing budget for a private league to the tune of $13K just for the private league slots. It's crazy to me that most companies use esports (which this is essentially an esports event) for marketing and do big spends there, but GGG has a community that seems happy enough to pay for all that on their own. Production, organization, operation, casting, recaps, promotion etc. etc. all handled by players.

At the very least GGG should be giving these folks a break for the bigger events, it's a huge ad-value for GGG with no meaningful cost to them for the private server.

Ya,no. Steamers shouldn’t get any breaks because they want to hold there own events and make money them selfs off of them.

Hell even saying it’s free marketing is nonsense as the people watching hardcore private leagues with added mods to make it even harder are gonna be people who already know about the game not abunch of people who have never heard about it.

[Edge-]

Ya,no. Steamers shouldn’t get any breaks because they want to hold there own events and make money them selfs off of them.

Hell even saying it’s free marketing is nonsense as the people watching hardcore private leagues with added mods to make it even harder are gonna be people who already know about the game not abunch of people who have never heard about it.

I don't think Ziz like...actually makes much/anything from this? At least not directly. I'm not saying streamers should get a break, but the price for private leagues, especially event-based leagues the community puts on, shouldn't be that insane. That's bonkers.

And it's free marketing, all competitive events like this are. You get viral moments like Ziz having a heart attack when some dude almost dies to uber elder (300HP) that gets "remixed" by the community and shared around. It's not going to attract a ton of new players given the smaller scale of it, but it's going to engage with current/lapsed players which is a big part of what events like this are for.

It's not that it attracts people to play that event specifically (though it may), but that it gets folks interested in/playing PoE again.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

I don't think Ziz like...actually makes much/anything from this? At least not directly. I'm not saying streamers should get a break, but the price for private leagues, especially event-based leagues the community puts on, shouldn't be that insane. That's bonkers.

Unless they have all there monetization turned off there obviously gonna be making something directly from these events and so will the other streamers involved. Large scale event based leagues are also pretty much always streamer lead sure your can say streamers shouldn’t get a break and it should just be any large community based events but in reality that’s just giving streamers a break.

If there’s any thing to be done privates should just be brought down in price it shouldn’t only be large scale things that primarily if not solely help streamers.

And it's free marketing, all competitive events like this are. You get viral moments like Ziz having a heart attack when some dude almost dies to uber elder (300HP) that gets "remixed" by the community and shared around. It's not going to attract a ton of new players given the smaller scale of it, but it's going to engage with current/lapsed players which is a big part of what events like this are for.

It's not that it attracts people to play that event specifically (though it may), but that it gets folks interested in/playing PoE again.

This boils down to the same thing as paying artist with expose, there’s no reason they should forgo actual pay for the benefit of some one else on the possibility that the event will drive back players and then the possibility that those players will actually spend any money on the game which is unlikely given that current or returning players would likely already have things like stash tabs or banked points.

[Enjeh]

[Edge-]

Why POE2 on the endslate when that shit isn't until like, 2022 at the earliest?