[Megathread] Path of Exile

[Coldkil]

Yeah, I'd really like a "proper SSF" for PoE too (as in better loot). I just want to be able to find good items and not have to rely on trading, or crafting playing such a huge role. But it appears PoE is not heading in that direction, so hopefully D4 or Lost Ark can do that aspect better.

I agree with this, but ONLY if SSF becomes a PERMANENT toggle. A better drops/easier mode would destroy the economy since now you can bring out characters from there.

While i don't like the way the game is headed right now (but i'm waiting for poe2 actually) i don't want to change it if most of the playerbase is fine with the game as it is.

Right now i'm just keeping an eye on Lost Ark. But that's an mmo, it just plays like an arpg. From what i tried in alpha and checked online, it seems it's going to suit me.

[Fencers]

SSF doesn't necessarily mean better drop rates. That is just saying you want better drops but either don't want to play with others or simply want to 'soft cheat'. In a certain sense.

A lot of the appeal implicit with SSF is making do with what you get. Certainly in the case of POE that was how the mode has been presented thus far.

Not opposed to a sandbox, roll-your-own-rules-of-the-game, mode of POE personally. I think that would be neat actually. But I also do not think it is fair to say that SSF implies a better drop rate of X, Y, or Z.

That is just two different things; don't want the interaction but want access to the stuff gained via interaction.

[kaminaris]

There is no such thing as "proper SSF as in better loot". Actually it does somewhat exist in D3 and it makes loot damn boring.

Whole point of SSF is to make use of what you get, not get anything you want. There is a trade for that.

You absolutely can get good items in SSF but its hard to get really good ones and that is the point.

That being said PoE has some issues with itemization and some of them could be solved by:

1.
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Removing low tier rolls on high tier bases. I think 86+ boots shouldn't even be able to roll complete garbage like +10 move speed or +10 life or actually anything that is super low tier.

Slightly weighting of mods per ilvls, so ex Low tier boots ex ilvl 50 stays as it is BUT ilvl 86+ has higher gravity towards 35%:



That is JUST an example, instead of 0.5% it might be like 0.2% depending on mod and stuff.

2.
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remove useless mods or make them not totally useless. Like increased rarity (see below), reduced attr requirement.

3.
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Make use of item rarity and quantity better. This is something GGG has been considering. Instead of dropping tons of garbage, defer the loot and slap "sanctified fossils" per 10 pair of boots. And make a damned use of rarity as its absolutely dead mod.
For example when doing map with +100 rarity, give a +1% chance per tier to roll.
So.
0% rarity = boots with 35% movement speed 2.87%,
100% rarity = boots with 35% movement speed 4.5% chance.
(its still not gonna guarantee the rest of mods wont be useless but at least its it will have a chance to not be a complete trash.

Apply rarity to currencies/shards as well.

4.
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Stop dropping trash bases in 14+ maps or rebalance existing ones to not suck compared to other ones. Like for example pure armor base is always going to be astral plate.

Overall this should make loot on the ground actually maybe worth picking up as it for now, people just filter them out.

[Coldkil]

Not opposed to a sandbox, roll-your-own-rules-of-the-game, mode of POE personally. I think that would be neat actually. But I also do not think it is fair to say that SSF implies a better drop rate of X, Y, or Z

That was my whole point. If GGG wants, they can make something like that with the caveat you cannot bring out characters from there. I totally don't want the destruction of current gameplay loop.

I'm not an expert of PoE but it's not about "proper" SSF. SSF is just an additional game mode one can choose to play, and doesn't have to change things. But i think since they added custom.leagues or whatever they're called, they can also make it so one can create its own sandbox league with the caveat that nothing goes out from there (and have "standard sandbox" so you can keep your characters). Maybe is just a stupid idea.
@kaminaris not really that of an expert of PoE but you're basically saying that there's too much bloat of loot at endgame so many drops that would be useful are actually trash due to multiple reasons. Reason why loot filters exist.

[kaminaris]

Not really that. Item bloat is one thing.

Essentially the average loot is solved by generating thousands of items and having thousands of chances to get something good. Technically its the best form of RNG because:
1. You are not limited to X number of trails like weekly bingo lottery in systemlands.
2. It evens out players based on time spent multiplied by juice (quant + stuff).

So the problem of item bloat (aside from deferring currency) is pretty simple, the more you squish items the more uneven players will be.

Think of it this way, a you have 10 people and give each of them a scratch card with 100 chances to "win", where the max payout is $1 000.
Reducing this bloat too much means giving them a scratch card with just 10 chances to win but the max payout is $10 000.

First way pretty much everyone will be (assuming 50% chance) ~ $50 000.
Second way you will have much higher disproportion between lucky and unlucky people.

https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?...+success+50%25
See the distribution.

So its not easy to solve but possible.

Now the other thing is itemization.

Loot can be extremely good and extremely bad. Meaning the difference between a complete trash and mirror tier items is astronomical in both value and chance to get.
That makes loot on the ground basically trash.

So the idea here is to make loot better ON AVERAGE, by removing terribad mods and weighting slightly higher tiers on higher bases. This will have impact on economy.
But instead the average value of dropped item being 0.1 chaos, it would be like 0.5c.

Deferring currency is ez to solve (aside from server possible issues)

Low tier currency drop 20x less frequently but in stacks of 20 (scrolls), mid tiers in 5, chaos tier in 2, and everything above = no changes.

[solinari6]

Not opposed to a sandbox, roll-your-own-rules-of-the-game, mode of POE personally. I think that would be neat actually. But I also do not think it is fair to say that SSF implies a better drop rate of X, Y, or Z.

Oh man, I'd pay $50 for a "PoE construction set" where you could control all the levers for drop rates, turn on/off certain leagues, etc ... that'd be so fun!

[Fencers]

I like a lot of the ideas here about itemization and distribution.

[Coldkil]

Not really that. Item bloat is one thing.

Essentially the average loot is solved by generating thousands of items and having thousands of chances to get something good. Technically its the best form of RNG because:
1. You are not limited to X number of trails like weekly bingo lottery in systemlands.
2. It evens out players based on time spent multiplied by juice (quant + stuff).

So the problem of item bloat (aside from deferring currency) is pretty simple, the more you squish items the more uneven players will be.

Think of it this way, a you have 10 people and give each of them a scratch card with 100 chances to "win", where the max payout is $1 000.
Reducing this bloat too much means giving them a scratch card with just 10 chances to win but the max payout is $10 000.

First way pretty much everyone will be (assuming 50% chance) ~ $50 000.
Second way you will have much higher disproportion between lucky and unlucky people.

https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?...+success+50%25
See the distribution.

So its not easy to solve but possible.

Now the other thing is itemization.

Loot can be extremely good and extremely bad. Meaning the difference between a complete trash and mirror tier items is astronomical in both value and chance to get.
That makes loot on the ground basically trash.

So the idea here is to make loot better ON AVERAGE, by removing terribad mods and weighting slightly higher tiers on higher bases. This will have impact on economy.
But instead the average value of dropped item being 0.1 chaos, it would be like 0.5c.

Deferring currency is ez to solve (aside from server possible issues)

Low tier currency drop 20x less frequently but in stacks of 20 (scrolls), mid tiers in 5, chaos tier in 2, and everything above = no changes.

Ok, makes sense. If i get it right, is making so at high end content the average drop is better by "cutting down" the lower denominator (so the bad affixes/low tiers). The outcome is that if i run endgame stuff i'm supposed to find better stuff overall without having too common drops.

I don't like trading, i just prefer SSF even if it's harder, and this is a welcome change.

[kaminaris]

Ok, makes sense. If i get it right, is making so at high end content the average drop is better by "cutting down" the lower denominator (so the bad affixes/low tiers). The outcome is that if i run endgame stuff i'm supposed to find better stuff overall without having too common drops.

I don't like trading, i just prefer SSF even if it's harder, and this is a welcome change.

Weighting or cutting out. I would say weighting is better based on monster level, item rarity and quantity.

And as for SSF i really dont see a point in this aside from leaderboards but who cares in SC leaderboards anyways.

Because SSF is essentially a trade league without making any trades. The advantage is however, if you find yourself wanting to make a specific build based on one specific, hard to get unique, chances are you won't see it on SSF.

[bloodwulf]

Weighting or cutting out. I would say weighting is better based on monster level, item rarity and quantity.

And as for SSF i really dont see a point in this aside from leaderboards but who cares in SC leaderboards anyways.

Because SSF is essentially a trade league without making any trades. The advantage is however, if you find yourself wanting to make a specific build based on one specific, hard to get unique, chances are you won't see it on SSF.

That is the point of SSF. I almost exclusively play SSF or a very small (less than 10) private league). You play with what you find. I will have multiple tabs full of bases or build around uniques. Trade its easy for any experienced player to get a build going, but SSF adds a layer of difficulty because you have to make your own gear or find it. It adds value to even the simplest harvest crafts, and the currency value is flipped. For me Regals\Alts\Fuses are far more useful than Chaos or Exalts. Hell, you get more willing to "slam" exalts on less than perfect items because they have no other value except the occasional bench craft. Its all about an added layer of restraint.

[Fencers]

Hell, you get more willing to "slam" exalts on less than perfect items because they have no other value except the occasional bench craft. Its all about an added layer of restraint.

oof. I can't bring myself to do it even in SSF.

[kaminaris]

The point of SSF is to use what you get, which can be exactly the same experience on trade. Just dont do trades. I don't need the game to handheld me this so the only real difference is ladders.

Now as I come to the end of challenges I have to say it has been one of the most enjoyable leagues so far with only harvest being better.

I have 3 chars,

1. Syndicate operative spectres life tanky variant - the best league starter as usual. Also can get really powerful really fast.
https://pastebin.com/HygW8qnD

Helmet was like 25ex, wand was 5ex. Rest of the gear is either crafted myself or bought ~2ex. Total budget I would say ~50ex. Altho it starts working really good as low as ~2ex.

U use him for maps and anything that doesn't require surviving vs really tough monsters.

2. Summon reaper boss killer
https://pastebin.com/7HJrZTSd

Budget is like 15ex. No kidding. Gear is trash mostly, most expensive was bow ~6ex (I guess amulet is 6ex but its not so hard to craft). Everything else was trash or crafted.

Real dps is however ~10Mil bleed dps (pob doesn't calculate that properly). I do with this, shaper, elder, sirus, cortex, catarina, maven, maven invitations and did even feared with it.
The cheapest boss killer i have ever made. It does bosses with 0-1 deaths, all of them.

BUT

Reaper is literally absolute garbage for anything else. There isn't a single thing that this minion can do even decently aside from killing bosses. I would die on maps 5x more often than on bosses. Thus its still 87 and i dont need to level it up further.

3. SST bleed glad (copy of steelmage character)
https://pastebin.com/U2M7Udxz

It was also fairly cheap, gear is trash or crafted, most expensive was shield and weapon (~10ex total).

Its really tanky and I do stuff that reper cant. Such as logbooks, everything else dies so fast there. While this glad can take literally everything on logbooks except reflect phys.

[Edge-]

Damn, finally got a Savior to drop, first time ever. Freaked out because it dropped alongside an Awakener Orb so I thought I was fuckin rich.

30c

feelsbadman.jpg

Oh well, I guess I'll finally have one on standard in case I want to play around with it.

[Fencers]

A few months ago, I read someone on here was playing Shield Throw. That stood with me because I tried to make it work in the past. I didn't, of course.

I gave Shield Throw another go the last few days. It was alright. Not great. But I remember your effort, dude in the MMO-C Path of Exile thread. I remember.

[Edge-]

I gave Shield Throw another go the last few days. It was alright. Not great. But I remember your effort, dude in the MMO-C Path of Exile thread. I remember.

Totally ready for it to get gutted next league. It's nice in that it's a tanky ranged build, even if playing a bleed glad with resotech limits damage potential.

[Fencers]

But ya' know what I am about? Spectral Fucking Helix.

[bloodwulf]

Totally ready for it to get gutted next league. It's nice in that it's a tanky ranged build, even if playing a bleed glad with resotech limits damage potential.

SST and Forbidden Rites Totem are dead for sure. The fact that CW went out of his way in Ghazzy\Tuna interview to specifically call out big changes to FBT means that particular interaction is gone gone. Hopefully though, the nerfs they do don't break other totem builds, as i typically like having an alt totem character for when im feeling especially lazy or just want to farm midtier blight\heists.

Im interested to see what comes of 3.16. From the sounds of it, it and 3.17 are going to be big changes to a lot of systems, and with masochist mode coming out, maybe they can filter some of the toxic antiQOL people to that hell. CW already said one of the benefits is they can be heavier handed with nerfs in Masochist and go lighter on the regular game.

[Vynx]

I dont even care that they will gut SST and forbidden rite totems. I played both builds and i wont touch them again. One is a good mapper with horrible boss dps and the other is the reverse.

[bloodwulf]

I dont even care that they will gut SST and forbidden rite totems. I played both builds and i wont touch them again. One is a good mapper with horrible boss dps and the other is the reverse.

I get that, but the problem is, GGG is notorious for being heavy handed when one particular skill of an archetype is too powerful. Instead of handling that skill, they devastate the entire archetype. Archmage, Saboteur nerfs, Spellslinger, etc are all examples of the whole archetypes who were punished for the sins of a few abilities. I just don't want to see totems destroyed because of an obviously flawed skill.

[Edge-]

I think I'm at the point where I usually stop playing, around 20-30ex invested in my character. Got my SST glad up to 3M DPS (more when my awakened gems level and I finish adding them to my Corrupting Fever) with just shy of 6K life and some solid defense (though still plenty of one shots). Got to the point where the "smaller" upgrades netting bigger DPS rewards. Kinda enjoying the new Usurpers unique hat, seems to really help scale bleed damage quite a bit. With 5 frenzy charges (frenzy on hit chest to generate them) it's bloody great, 20% faster bleeding and DoT multi. Each additional frenzy charge is like 200K DPS which is solid, so I can roll around with 3 endurance charges (minimum, 2 from shield, one from bench craft) and 5 frenzy charges.

Still have some upgrades (better cluster jewels, SUPER expensive double Malevolence watcher's eye), but kinda feeling tapped out again. But hey, it's been fun. First time I've had an explode character and running stuff like Blight is hilarious. Legion is also super fun. I'm too bloody lazy to remember to juice my maps with all these fragments and shit I've got.