[Megathread] Path of Exile

[unfilteredJW]

Tone deaf is an understatement.

[bloodwulf]

That is a manifesto to rival the Trade Manifesto in its lack of response. Not accepting any criticism and "lol git a loot filter hur hur". There is a major problem if you as a developer is actively acknowledging that 80% of your loot is useless and should be filtered out so you can't see it. Saying suicide bombers and heat seeking missile mobs were to address speed builds, yet those are the builds most apt to ignore the effects is literally assbackwards. I don't think there was a single glimmer of positivity from the manifesto other than being able to bind the Delirium end button.

[potis]

I really can’t say I get any of the complains. I’ve had no problem with visual clarity, have only been one shot to deep mist stuff and I’m under 4K life in some pretty garbage gear and the game really can’t handle dropping a map worth of gear all at once stoping for a second to grab fancy things that drop isn’t the end of the world.

Its the design choice problem.

If the 1-5% of the high end players starts having problems , it means the 95-99% has/will have major problems with it.

Frankly i dont care so much, i can see some things clearly, but i wont lie that my life/ES has gone to almost dead or dead, multiple times at stage 4 of the delirium out of nowhere, with reduction/armor flasks, multiple buffs on, immortal call 3 endurance charges and all that shit with me just running 24/7, because the corner of some explosion touched me.

So yeah, it is overtuned when you start mapping, not because of item picking, but because if the better players with correct builds/defensive stuff are getting 1 shotted in low maps, it means they done fucked up with balancing.

They are basically trying to make the 1-5% feel challenged, which they are feeling it, but the wrong way, they dont die because of something they can counter with experience/skill/build, they just randomly get 1 shotted with even less indicators than before.

[bloodwulf]

Its the design choice problem.

If the 1-5% of the high end players starts having problems , it means the 95-99% has/will have major problems with it.

Frankly i dont care so much, i can see some things clearly, but i wont lie that my life/ES has gone to almost dead or dead, multiple times at stage 4 of the delirium out of nowhere, with reduction/armor flasks, multiple buffs on, immortal call 3 endurance charges and all that shit with me just running 24/7, because the corner of some explosion touched me.

So yeah, it is overtuned when you start mapping, not because of item picking, but because if the better players with correct builds/defensive stuff are getting 1 shotted in low maps, it means they done fucked up with balancing.

This. This is the longest i have been lingering in yellow maps ever. I normally set a goal of fighting Elder by day 2 or 3, and this time i barely pushed into red, mostly because i wanted to give Delirium a shot. Now i start it, look at rewards, end if its Weapon/Chest/Armor type and push maps. It has sped up my progression a lot but it cost me a lot of time. Also a normally safe player, i have so many deaths this league its outrageous, and i don't think i can attribute one to nonDelirium content.

[Inuyaki]

So after some failed attempts, I decided to go fuck it and did Vortex Occu again...

My first map on her was a t2 with lvl66, underleveled gems and 2.8k ES (lazy, so I went CI early), did instantly lvl5 reward. This league is a joke, you have to play something strong that is fast and does not need to stand still. GGG is just shit at pumping out leagues for years now. Metamorph was pretty much the exception in all of 3.x -.-

Edit
Forgot Legion, that was good as well imo
Yes, I did not forget Delve. I really like it now, but the league was bad, it was really alt unfriendly. "So you didn't like your first char or want to play something else? Well, sucks to be you"

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Its the design choice problem.

If the 1-5% of the high end players starts having problems , it means the 95-99% has/will have major problems with it.

Frankly i dont care so much, i can see some things clearly, but i wont lie that my life/ES has gone to almost dead or dead, multiple times at stage 4 of the delirium out of nowhere, with reduction/armor flasks, multiple buffs on, immortal call 3 endurance charges and all that shit with me just running 24/7, because the corner of some explosion touched me.

So yeah, it is overtuned when you start mapping, not because of item picking, but because if the better players with correct builds/defensive stuff are getting 1 shotted in low maps, it means they done fucked up with balancing.

They are basically trying to make the 1-5% feel challenged, which they are feeling it, but the wrong way, they dont die because of something they can counter with experience/skill/build, they just randomly get 1 shotted with even less indicators than before.

Things could very well be tuned to high and ice just been lucky in avoiding it. I’ve mostly died to. Flashy stuff like the delayed lightning crashes because I stood in them.

But I’m also playing a rather defense heavy build with my only real damage coming from a glitched cluster jewel combo so that is likely a factor.

[potis]

Things could very well be tuned to high and ice just been lucky in avoiding it. I’ve mostly died to. Flashy stuff like the delayed lightning crashes because I stood in them.

But I’m also playing a rather defense heavy build with my only real damage coming from a glitched cluster jewel combo so that is likely a factor.

High tuned with logical response time/clarity of visuals and all that is much different to.

"This lightning that has 0.75sec reaction time appeared in the fog, and sorry to say that despite it was half a screen away, one of its end lines touched you, so you dead now".

So yeah, this league has no excuse as to why things are like this..I am used to this though, as i have said before, i always did "my builds" or "yolo" cause its softcore so couldnt care less, but if i started dying pointlessly and taking longer to level, i started fixing stuff around more balance like.

But if i am playing a rather meta build (Bane Occult), with ~6k combined energy shield/hp (undergeared scrub still), running 40% physical reduction with the flasks running 24/7, with Enfeeble + Occult 10% dmg reduction + Temporal Chains, and some white little spider suddenly hits me for 5-6k on a magic T4 map already just because of Delirium.

Basically the damage output of T4-T7 maps with delirium, is like Rare corrupted dmg modes T14+ maps, which is just weird.

[Edge-]

Added on death effects because good builds were just one shotting everything and mobs had no time to interact. Except those builds still speed past the mobs as the explode and are safe. While builds that don't one-shot now stand in between mobs, some of which are exploding and kill them....

Yeah, this got me in a big way like...dude, the builds that get fucked the hardest are those that ACTUALLY HAVE TO STOP TO DO THINGS, not folks zooming through. And it just further pushes us to speed-clear the whole thing to avoid getting killed, which makes us annoyed when we go back to retrace our steps and loot.

And the ubiquitous 'we are looking into it' for visibility. How the fuck are did your internal feedback not get filled with 'can't see shit'. Either no one played it or they completely ignored the feedback.

Legit stumped by this, and by the bug that delirium shit stops spawning after a while. I was running into that while leveling, not sure how that wasn't caught or flagged as a "must fix" before it went live.

GGG is making it real easy to skip this league so far. Starting with a character I apparently don't enjoy doesn't help, and every time I think about making another one my mind always goes, "Yeah, that would work but...do you know what would work way better, especially for this league? Cyclone."

Oh well, easy to put the game on a "hard pause" for now and just dick around in standard a bit while playing other games. Hopefully next league will be more enjoyable for me and I can pick a character that's more fun to actually play.

[Gorsameth]

Yeah, this got me in a big way like...dude, the builds that get fucked the hardest are those that ACTUALLY HAVE TO STOP TO DO THINGS, not folks zooming through. And it just further pushes us to speed-clear the whole thing to avoid getting killed, which makes us annoyed when we go back to retrace our steps and loot.



Legit stumped by this, and by the bug that delirium shit stops spawning after a while. I was running into that while leveling, not sure how that wasn't caught or flagged as a "must fix" before it went live.

GGG is making it real easy to skip this league so far. Starting with a character I apparently don't enjoy doesn't help, and every time I think about making another one my mind always goes, "Yeah, that would work but...do you know what would work way better, especially for this league? Cyclone."

Oh well, easy to put the game on a "hard pause" for now and just dick around in standard a bit while playing other games. Hopefully next league will be more enjoyable for me and I can pick a character that's more fun to actually play.

funny you say Cyclone. The game decided I should switch it to (SSF got an early Facebreaker and 6link corrupted 4r-2g chest) and am now cruising through maps as a Champion. Its a good league to be a spinning meaty boy.

[Marrilaife]

The problem is the game rewards you for high dps / clear speed but doesn't reward you for building tanky. I've seen RIP clips from this league from people with 7-8k hp, fortify, flasks up, molten shell, endurance charges and whatnot, so what's the point of making a "balanced" or "turtle" character if it gets 1 shot the same as "glass cannon", we've already seen it in the last 2 seasons of deep delve meta, at some point zHP raiders and deadeyes overtook ubertanky juggs.

Also in that scenario I'd say only people left playing hardcore are masochists and famous streamers (who get publicity from entertaining the crowd with picturesque deaths and on-cam reactions). Not even mentioning you can just die to random fps drop from nowhere. Imagine playing already particle heavy build like the popular this season volatile dead, then entering delirium and then opening a breach or legion within it. 0 fps game.

A friend of mine wanted to try VD necro as he was bored of minion builds so wanted something more spellcaster-y, but after seeing all the clips with screen clusterfuck and fps drops he rolled storm brand instead... And VD isn't the only spec suffering from this, I head icestorm is also very problematic. And wtf is that delirium cold snap effect, that tanks my dps every single time.

Also wondering if you can make this archmage spec work with anything else than storm brand, like give some life into underused spells and not one that was already popular before.

- - - Updated - - -

Starting with a character I apparently don't enjoy doesn't help, and every time I think about making another one my mind always goes, "Yeah, that would work but...do you know what would work way better, especially for this league? Cyclone."

Tbh every league it's same old same old unless one of that gets nerfed to the ground. Let's have another season of mines, essence drain, storm brand, cyclone, blade vortex... well herald of agony would be there too if he didn't just get nerfslapped, together with zombies.

By making game "harder" all they're doing is suffocating build diversity because the strongest survive and the lower tiers get pushed out. If people get trashed on their oddball builds then all they can do is reroll meta or quit. The game offers hundreds of builds but probably less than 20 are "good".

[Gorsameth]

The problem is the game rewards you for high dps / clear speed but doesn't reward you for building tanky. I've seen RIP clips from this league from people with 7-8k hp, fortify, flasks up, molten shell, endurance charges and whatnot, so what's the point of making a "balanced" or "turtle" character if it gets 1 shot the same as "glass cannon", we've already seen it in the last 2 seasons of deep delve meta, at some point zHP raiders and deadeyes overtook ubertanky juggs.

Also in that scenario I'd say only people left playing hardcore are masochists and famous streamers (who get publicity from entertaining the crowd with picturesque deaths and on-cam reactions). Not even mentioning you can just die to random fps drop from nowhere. Imagine playing already particle heavy build like the popular this season volatile dead, then entering delirium and then opening a breach or legion within it. 0 fps game.

A friend of mine wanted to try VD necro as he was bored of minion builds so wanted something more spellcaster-y, but after seeing all the clips with screen clusterfuck and fps drops he rolled storm brand instead... And VD isn't the only spec suffering from this, I head icestorm is also very problematic. And wtf is that delirium cold snap effect, that tanks my dps every single time.

Also wondering if you can make this archmage spec work with anything else than storm brand, like give some life into underused spells and not one that was already popular before.

- - - Updated - - -

Tbh every league it's same old same old unless one of that gets nerfed to the ground. Let's have another season of mines, essence drain, storm brand, cyclone, blade vortex... well herald of agony would be there too if he didn't just get nerfslapped, together with zombies.

By making game "harder" all they're doing is suffocating build diversity because the strongest survive and the lower tiers get pushed out. If people get trashed on their oddball builds then all they can do is reroll meta or quit. The game offers hundreds of builds but probably less than 20 are "good".

Same deal with the Boss HP boost from last league. It just means that builds that also suffered from weak single target got even worse.

Its clear that GGG knows a problem exists but they look to be to afraid of actually tackling the reason for the problem by drastically reducing player power. I hope its because they don't want to spend the resouces on it now because they will be doing it for PoE 2 but their own comments don't fill me with confidence.

[Marrilaife]

Same deal with the Boss HP boost from last league. It just means that builds that also suffered from weak single target got even worse.

Its clear that GGG knows a problem exists but they look to be to afraid of actually tackling the reason for the problem by drastically reducing player power. I hope its because they don't want to spend the resouces on it now because they will be doing it for PoE 2 but their own comments don't fill me with confidence.

The problem is the gap between mirror-tier geared streamers / pro players and average joe is insurmountable, it's same problem as wow balancing raids around world first race and m+ around mdi, the gap between pros and casuals is too big, but companies don't want to stop designing content around "e-sports" and pros because that's what brings them publicity also the streamers and pros are also often the people who dump tons of money into the game (cue Mathil buying mountain of lootcrates to open them on stream), so if they cut off the top end the hardcores would complain and stop dumping money into the business.

Imagine the difference between pro players who farm a few mirrors in the first week and casuals who won't see a mirror in the whole lifespan of poe.

The problem is the gap between average player and top player isn't 50% but more like 1000% so no matter how you balance the content top player will 1 shot everything while average player will struggle and maybe even abandon their build for one that is 20% more effective but that still won't scratch the surface of the problem that some players are pimped to the level of 1000% effectiveness and then moan how game became too easy and trivial.

[Gorsameth]

The problem is the gap between mirror-tier geared streamers / pro players and average joe is insurmountable, it's same problem as wow balancing raids around world first race and m+ around mdi, the gap between pros and casuals is too big, but companies don't want to stop designing content around "e-sports" and pros because that's what brings them publicity also the streamers and pros are also often the people who dump tons of money into the game (cue Mathil buying mountain of lootcrates to open them on stream), so if they cut off the top end the hardcores would complain and stop dumping money into the business.

Imagine the difference between pro players who farm a few mirrors in the first week and casuals who won't see a mirror in the whole lifespan of poe.

The problem is the gap between average player and top player isn't 50% but more like 1000% so no matter how you balance the content top player will 1 shot everything while average player will struggle and maybe even abandon their build for one that is 20% more effective but that still won't scratch the surface of the problem that some players are pimped to the level of 1000% effectiveness and then moan how game became too easy and trivial.

Which is why you bring the top down to shorten the gap. They did it a little with the Fossil changes this league but I would look to what those top players use to scale that much higher and nerf that down. People will complain and whine about it for a bit that they can't make characters who measure dps in Shaper kills per second but in the end it will be much better for the game.

[Mamut]

Its the first league in PoE when I fully dont like the new mechanics to the point Im for now skipping activating mirror till they fix this crap. I love PoE in general, I love starting from scratch with every new league but this whole Delirium mechanic execution in its current form is just too much to handle for me.

I really look forward to PoE 2, maybe there wont be need to implement such ridiculous mechanics to stop the whole zoom zoom meta.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Got my first six link through fussing today and it’s rather nice. Chest is likely worth a few exalts has 140 life 1600 Armor 30 fire/cold res and a open crafting slot.

The shield throw gods are really shining down on me this league.

[BeepBoo]

The problem is the gap between mirror-tier geared streamers / pro players and average joe is insurmountable, it's same problem as wow balancing raids around world first race and m+ around mdi, the gap between pros and casuals is too big

Skill need not apply to POE. You only have to be so good. Your build and gear have to be on-point, but make no mistake. It's not the mechanical skill of the player that's doing the heavy lifting in this game.

This isn't dark souls where, if you're good enough, you can parry the world and murder everything with your bare hands, naked, at level one.

Mechanical skill is the only skill in games for me at this point. "Skill" that comes in the form of predetermined things, gear luck in acquisition, etc, pisses me off to no end.

Don't act like POE has some huge skill gap. It doesn't. It has a huge knowledge gap (or at least people who are stubborn and don't want to meta build).

[Onikaroshi]

Skill need not apply to POE. You only have to be so good. Your build and gear have to be on-point, but make no mistake. It's not the mechanical skill of the player that's doing the heavy lifting in this game.

This isn't dark souls where, if you're good enough, you can parry the world and murder everything with your bare hands, naked, at level one.

Mechanical skill is the only skill in games for me at this point. "Skill" that comes in the form of predetermined things, gear luck in acquisition, etc, pisses me off to no end.

Don't act like POE has some huge skill gap. It doesn't. It has a huge knowledge gap (or at least people who are stubborn and don't want to meta build).

Really the only difference between one player and other in Poe is how much they play, the streamers will freely admit they can build crazy builds because they have so much currency because they play ALL the time.

[Marrilaife]

Don't act like POE has some huge skill gap.

Where did I say it's a "skill" gap? "Skill" that you define as basically fast reflexes and hand-eye coordination. For that kind of "skill" you should play a platformer or a shooter, a game with no gear or "progression" system except binary skill checks whether you pass or fail.

POE has huge efficiency gap. That's not only due to knowledge and playtime sunk gap, but also various strats that are unfun, but efficient. "Play what you find fun" often is not the "optimal" way to play the game, however only the hardcores and the streamers can stand wasting their time on unfun shit just to be OP in the end. For example crafting in this game to obtain a "perfect" item is absolute aids, but only the person who can stomach throwing thousands of currencies at an item to no end can craft a great item. Every time "average player" could easily craft something similar to "top item" it got nerfed, because god forbid average player has good items. RNG roulette is king to player retention, that's the motto of every gaming developer studio.

Also top players have endless stamina to play the game not only as their job (if you live from streaming then it IS your job) but to abuse strats that are boring, repetitive and sometimes borderline exploitative. I'm not saying every hardcore player will jump at a possibility to exploit, but there have been several exploits that *some* people abused. For example when awakener orb guaranteed not only 1 mod but all mods from 1 item. Or when you could anoint random chests (not the one that has special property). Or sometimes we hear some leaks about duping strats, like supposedly there was some fossil duping strat a couple of months ago. And since it's f2p game, you can always do the risky stuff on throwaway account instead of your main.

[BeepBoo]

Where did I say it's a "skill" gap?

You said it's a gap directly in the quote I pulled from your own post.. and you were comparing it to wow's gap, which is an actual mechanical skill gap, considering every overworld scrub will have in the same ballpark of gear, thanks to McForging.

Efficiency gap is a better term, but that also removes any synonymous meaning it shared with wow, then.

My point is: wow actually has a huge skill aspect that impacts performance. POE does not.

Edit: To be fair, the impact of skill in wow is going down with ever rental system, a'la corruption, that has as big of an impact as it does with as much variability as it does. So there's that... maybe that's just the popular game design now? Let everyone be a super hero if you no-lyfe hard enough or win the lottery? The biggest reason I quit that game, actually. At least POE lets me trade players for whatever FOTM gear I need/want since it doesn't have the asinine "soulbound" crap.

[bloodwulf]

I think after seeing Bex's reddit responses and how much GGG seems to be eating a bit of humble pie, i am going to be cautiously optimistic. Right now i am just going to laser focus my build a bit and ignore the league mechanic unless the div\incubator\harbinger rewards come up. I really would love to get a Golden Rule to switch to self poisoning build, but in SSF its hard to find one single unique jewel. I keep getting impressed with the scalability of poison builds. I have the large/medium/small clusters i need. I have a tab of ezomyte daggers i am chancing for CIP, so i have a direction, just can't get the damn jewel.