[Megathread] Path of Exile

[Fencers]

Onslaught, Nemesis and Invasion all at once.

Not sure my enthusiasm for this 1 month league is all that high. Especially the tail end of which holds the prospect of meeting a Corrupted Blood Bolt Juggler with 20% increased mods in a hellish map of who-knows-what-the-fuck.

My feelings can be expressed as such: -_-

[Redblade]

Yeah not to pumped about the 1 month, I'll probably try it out and see if I can get my crit ball lightning idea to work. Alternatively an oldschool burning discharger as echo made it viable again.

[Fencers]

The like the idea of mods and so forth for the corrupted areas and even the idea of tougher "mini-bosses" via invader mob types. But I just don't think GGG are all that good at balancing these challenges or laying them out in a logical fashion vs. reward.

Now, I don't mean to say or drag up the old argument of "run past 90% of invasion bosses". For the most part I think it was okay to have more challenging mobs here and there. It is more that I doubt the value add things like Onslaught, Invaders and Nemesis mods bring to the core game experience.

I find it slightly ironic that the most positive, and by that I mean additive, inclusion from the challenge leagues have been softcore gimmicks. Strongboxes (somewhat unbalanced as they were in maps), Rogue Exiles and distantly the shrines (which don't quite live up to their promise).

All for things like Atrizi being added to the game though. I just feel like GGG kinda miss the mark by a hair or two in some of these gimmicks. It's a constant sense of "almost got it right" vs. effort, or rather, value.

Am I ranting? Perhaps it's just that kind of day in Wreaclast for me.

[Lysah]

I'll play the 1 month just for something to do, fresh economy etc etc.
Free chance at prizes is nice too, since it isn't a hardcore league level 80 should be real easy to achieve. Though I kind of expect this to change still.

What I'm afraid of is this being a preview of the next hardcore league. I wonder if they are going to keep going with the philosophy of making leagues meant to kill you and try to take a step up even from the Evasion league.

Strongboxes were a fantastic add, imo, only thing I'd change about them is to stop letting people craft them and make them truly random/not able to be identified. Would make for positive risk vs. reward then, you know a rare box is likely full of tons of goodies but who knows what kind of nonsense is waiting for you if you click. Would've been more fun than invasion anyway.

With that said, Invasion bosses were a good add too, they just failed to find a balance between fun and challenge and ridiculously overpowered. Every boss was either a joke or a "avoid 100% of the time." I feel the same about Exiles, for the most part, and playing Exiles Everywhere puts this into perspective real fast. Some are walking loot/exp bags and others (multistrike ground slam lolz) are death traps (at least for lowbies/in races). However, exiles actually give a decent reward which makes them a fun find and worth spending time on, unlike Invasion bosses. Even after the drop buff I would still run from Invasion bosses in merciless 90% of the time...rares just aren't worth having to remake at level 60.

All in all, I think it just comes down to the fundamentals of how PoE is designed. They could have a league where EVERY map inherits randomized mods, so you are essentially running maps from 1 to 100, but then people would just go back up the stairs and remake the instance if it was hard and it would just be another joke league. They could make those mods hidden so you wouldn't know in advance but then people would have to tiptoe through zones poking at mobs in fear of damage reflect, which would make the league as slow and boring as Invasion. Because in the end, while "challenge" leagues that are meant to literally be challenges are nice, they should still be fairly accessible. The problem with Invasion was not the difficulty, it was the fact that EVERY map had these bosses and you had to run from them for the most part starting at level 1, which made leveling a new character or releveling your freshly dead character a total chore. If you stop paying attention for even one second on your lowbie blender duelist, the biggest douchebag in the world (Draconides) will leap on you from the edge of the screen and one shot you at level 20. Getting to cruel should take a couple of hours and instead you crawl through even the easy stuff.

I'm probably the one ranting by now, but I've been disappointed in PoE this entire season. The races are extremely fun and every time they release a new skill I keep wanting to make a new character and try new builds. That's good design and I give them mad props for it. However, I find myself waiting for a new league because Invasion just isn't worth the teeth pulling to me, and Ambush, as fun as strongboxes are, will always be scrubcore =p

I think the economy is fine, only complaint I have is the rare items being just a little bit too rare for my taste. When you can look up voltaxic rift on poe.xyz and there is 1 after a full month of Invasion league, the amount of people who get to play around with true builds is stupidly small. I would rather they add more RNG to the loot drops, so that people can at least try builds with bad rolls, while the truly godly items remain 50 exalts.


I guess I'm just a filthy casual for this game, though. That kind of summarizes my opinion on this season, at least. When I complained about Invasion after a couple of weeks and seeing how stupid the bosses in merciless were, I got a load of "l2p noob" and "go back to scrubcore if you don't like it" type comments. And if someone who has put years of her life into this genre, and always been a hardcore player, to become a filthy casual/softcore player because of Invasion should speak a lot. Hopefully next season is better. At least they are so far keeping this 1 month league softcore, which to me makes it a "have fun" league rather than a "die a lot" league.

[Redblade]

and distantly the shrines (which don't quite live up to their promise).

Shrines should have functioned like the strongboxes where the monsters associated with the shrine had the effect no matter range from the shrine.

All for things like Atrizi being added to the game though. I just feel like GGG kinda miss the mark by a hair or two in some of these gimmicks. It's a constant sense of "almost got it right" vs. effort, or rather, value.

Atziri was great the only problem there was the god awful gating system.

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I think the economy is fine, only complaint I have is the rare items being just a little bit too rare for my taste. When you can look up voltaxic rift on poe.xyz and there is 1 after a full month of Invasion league, the amount of people who get to play around with true builds is stupidly small. I would rather they add more RNG to the loot drops, so that people can at least try builds with bad rolls, while the truly godly items remain 50 exalts.

This was more a problem with HC players being banished to Ambush for the sake of completing challenges. That and the fact that invaders were horribly unbalanced at the start pushing a lot of players to go Ambush instead.

[Lysah]

This was more a problem with HC players being banished to Ambush for the sake of completing challenges. That and the fact that invaders were horribly unbalanced at the start pushing a lot of players to go Ambush instead.

I have no doubt that had a large effect, but I don't see it much better in the softcore leagues. The price disparity between the map-only uniques and everything else is extreme, as has been stated, which is a shame as many of these open up some of the most interesting builds (my opinion anyway). The fact that people even have guides for 'self-found' or 'low-budget' characters is the issue to me. You might not have the same kind of fun that people with currency have, but at least you can beat the game kind of!

[Redblade]

I have no doubt that had a large effect, but I don't see it much better in the softcore leagues. The price disparity between the map-only uniques and everything else is extreme, as has been stated, which is a shame as many of these open up some of the most interesting builds (my opinion anyway). The fact that people even have guides for 'self-found' or 'low-budget' characters is the issue to me. You might not have the same kind of fun that people with currency have, but at least you can beat the game kind of!

If you look at it from the other perspective changing this would remove a lot of the motivation the hardcore player has to play the game, hence they wouldn't have as much fun as people without as much currency.

The price disparity will always be there due to rarity, the issue with Invasion was that not enough people played the content that produced these rare items. I found a CoE when doing my 90 for the challenge and it was the only one in both Invasion and HC up for sale. Flavor of the month has a huge effect on this as well, Shav's more than doubled in price due to LL crit ST builds being one of the few viable über killers.

[Lysah]

Would still be nice if these items existed in weaker, more common forms. The baby shavs was a good start.

[Redblade]

Yeah in cases where it's possible to provide cheap build enabling weaker versions I'm all for it.

[Cyclone Jack]

Awe, I was hoping for a HC EE, Totem, Invasion league. After playing some EE races, it's hard for me to play the regular game. EE has a decent challenge and drop rates that are actually tolerable.

[Fencers]

Shrines should have functioned like the strongboxes where the monsters associated with the shrine had the effect no matter range from the shrine.

Atziri was great the only problem there was the god awful gating system.

Yea, I agree for the most part.

Biggest problem I have with shrines is that they are not really "threatening". Too easy to diffuse/steal buff and go HAM.

The going HAM part is a lot of fun. Don't get me wrong, but I think a little more effort in getting there would be satisfying.

Would still be nice if these items existed in weaker, more common forms. The baby shavs was a good start.

I just found one of those like yesterday and was like, "I guess that's cool."

Part of the problem is the unique items are kinda way too powerful now. Maybe not everyone agrees with me on this, but I liked when early POE had unique items that offered unique effects but could still be bested by a decently rolled rare of equal ilevel or so.

Stuff like the new spell echo staff (as much as I want one) seems like too much of a definite linear power trip in favor of many uniques as BiS. Where does it stop really; did people really give a toss about other FoTM bows post-legacy Windripper? Yesterday's Marohi Erqi is superseded by the next GG two-handed?

Unique items are feeling a lot less "unique" and more "legendary" these days, if you catch my meaning.

Awe, I was hoping for a HC EE, Totem, Invasion league. After playing some EE races, it's hard for me to play the regular game. EE has a decent challenge and drop rates that are actually tolerable.

FYI, an HC league for the 1 month was announced today.

[Lyese]

Would still be nice if these items existed in weaker, more common forms. The baby shavs was a good start.

We could be sisters if weren't already not.

So...As much as I'd like to play this game, I'm super hung up on Lightning Javazons from D2. Is there anything similar to Lightning Fury and the Passive/Magic Tree 'Zons had in D2, or am I doomed to play HC Ladder for eternity?

[Fencers]

So...As much as I'd like to play this game, I'm super hung up on Lightning Javazons from D2. Is there anything similar to Lightning Fury and the Passive/Magic Tree 'Zons had in D2, or am I doomed to play HC Ladder for eternity?

No, and D2 is still perfectly excellent.

I would chose to play D2 over any game in existence if the resolution were tolerable to me still.

[Lyese]

No, and D2 is still perfectly excellent.
I would chose to play D2 over any game in existence if the resolution were tolerable to me still.

Yeah, it really blows, but I enjoy the playstyle a lot. Nothing quite like the thrill of being a high level character in HC. Although I cried for days when I was slain by exploding pygmies in Baal's chamber. Stupid randomly generated enemies.

Oh well, thanks for the info at least.

[Fencers]

Just bought a Bringer of Rain for 40 chromatics. Now I have two.

Worst economy of any game ever. Of all time. Plus infinity.

[Redblade]

Don't get me wrong, but I think a little more effort in getting there would be satisfying.

Know what you mean.

Stuff like the new spell echo staff (as much as I want one) seems like too much of a definite linear power trip in favor of many uniques as BiS.

While that staff seems nice it has it's drawbacks tbh. And if you think that's OP I'm guessing you didn't try the Atziri Acuity gloves... :P

Unique items are feeling a lot less "unique" and more "legendary" these days, if you catch my meaning.

I think it's inevitable to some extent when you're talking end game items, especially when players figure out ways to combine what's really unique items on their own to make them more legendary as a combo.

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Just bought a Bringer of Rain for 40 chromatics. Now I have two.

Worst economy of any game ever. Of all time. Plus infinity.

Mehh that's permanent leagues for you...

[Fencers]

Well, are the gloves even a fair comparison? XD

[Redblade]

I'd say they are by far the most OP item in game so perhaps not. :P

[Fencers]

That's why they aren't a fair comparison. They are broken.

[Redblade]

Well the staff does give you an effective 7 link for spells which can be really broken.