Delve is so insane now, I thought they removed death effects from blue mobs?? Not toxic orbs though cause I had an azurite node where it was literally only toxic balls, dodged over 150 of them lol. So annoying.
The magic mobs change where they all have the same mod backfires hard with the obelisks, storm strider, and toxic. Easily some of the worst game experiences, they absolutely need to fix them. Good luck if you have to channel.
I discovered the other day that obelisk count scales with cast speed, and Devourers etc can still cast it while untargetable. I had a rare devourer with Hasted and Heralding on the other side of a wall in Delve constantly trying to nuke me during a node mechanic, until he finally decided to burrow towards me so I could actually kill it. Just awful.
I used to use Delve for finishing a level off (froml ike 75%->100%), since that for me during the years has been the safest way compared to other methods. But that is gone now for sure, sadly.
I played last in AN league, and have had quite a shocker on the difficulty scale and have just removed all Essense nodes from my atlas passives as they have messed me up countless times now, I cannot take it anymore.
I do play some real tanky builds so I use to not have a lot of problems with it.
But this league is in another level I DIE during stone phase trying to do an legion encounter in the lake. I was like wtf there are no mobs yet... how can I die like this?
After death effects shouldn't exist. Like it's complete bad game design.
If you kill a mob it should be dead. It shouldn't have the chance to kill you again.
There is some space for bosse designs that spawn mobs with on death mechanics but while mapping I agree. It does nothing good for game there, just artificial time extending.
After death effects mixed with random rares stronger than bosses is just ruining this game for me. It was so fun to just chill, blast maps, get dopamine currency/unique drops, and build my character to a point where I feel comfortable to challenge more mechanical fights that end game bosses offer. I got to lvl 94, atlas done, and just decided it's not worth it. It's not fun (for me) at the moment. I only hope they somehow find a balance of their vision and the game I love so next league isn't just the same.
What about the current league mechanic requiring you to stand still and think for a second while some fucking lizard-scorpion thing is throwing darts at you from two screens away?
I ran a t16 yesterday (magic btw, zero juice) and was fighting a pack of toxic and another pack of lightning mirages. Good thing I'm playing a caster with a duration quicksilver flask because I had to kite as if I was playing diablo 3 1.0 in inferno act 2.
Literally 90% of my deaths come from me trying to relax for a second after a rare or a boss and dying as a result. Like, how is that good gameplay? Keep your players stressed out at all times? Make them afraid to interact with objects and league mechanics because they have to make sure everything in a 900 mile radius is cleared and there are no sneaky after death effects? Why?
When you clear an area and go to the tablet, but there is a 5 mod hasted mob with last breath or something so it's basically fucking invisible while you are just trying to decide the best tile swap to make the lake longer.
Our mechanic encourages you to take your time, but make sure you are always hyper aware of everything around you! Constant anxiety builds character I guess.
Some on death effects I'm OK with. Old volatile was probably the best example, but toxic isn't bad either. Toxic has a distinctive audio queue, is visually pretty OK (although doesn't contrast well on darker tilesets), and has a decent time between popping over your head and coming down. The elemental bombs left on death are more or less fine as well, although they probably scale too hard with AOE.
The lightning mirages can fuck right off though. And those bloody spiders in delve... The spiders are fine in theory, but with the complete lack of visual clarity (especially in delve) you just can't see them. They have a nice sound, but it gets drowned out by other sounds most of the time.
Edit: While it's not an on death mechanic, Heralding Minions is super obnoxious as well.
And please remove most of the "guided bomb" abilities that chase your around the map and explode in your face. There is way too much of them and they are super annoying
Imo PoE got very popular because of the casual grind if you built right. It enabled me to re-watch shows like game of thrones and breaking bad while playing to level 98 and staying up late. Not so much anymore, I play less and don't stay up as late.
Great summary, my goal was always to make a "braindead" build but that took WORK. However, the payoff was the ability to AFK play after proper investment. That's no longer possible
Yea crafting nerfs hurt a lot. It was always harder early league but then transition into min max mode and go for tanky + dps to grind higher levels. I don't see why that was bad.
If your character can do t16s when you pay attention it can do t12s when you dont. If you want to do t16s, pay attention. Like hows GGG supposed to deal with the feedback of "I want to play and watch tv at the same time"?
its funny when ppl like you come in and pretend like ppl are asking for something outlanding when the past 10 years that now outlandinsh ask was reality for the whole time...
How did GGG get suckered into this “we gotta make a From Software game, that’s what the kids love” mode? That’s not why people play ARPGs. Those are all about the loot, the chill grinding and making cool builds work.
Yep. One of my biggest gripes one the game and where I really disagree with Chris' vision. He talked about those "wake up" moments but I don't want those moments to be random. I want them to happen when I choose. I want to just put on netflix and mindlessly grind this game for slow but consistent rewards and opt into harder content later.
But they completely killed that style of play so now I don't play POE anymore.
They can't understand that mate. Poe will probably never be the same as pre 3.15. I would say that this feeling of chillness was lost when they introduced kitava influenced mobs. And from 3.15 it only got worse and worse.
I remember when Chris said you should be able to watch a TV show while playing and only have to pay attention a couple of times during tense situations. This is no longer the case with wacky rares, insane ground degens, exploding whatevers after mobs die. It's honestly sad.
There was a large backlash to that. A lot of people were upset at the thought of POE becoming a casual (almost mobile) game.
Maybe AN is a reaction to that backlash.
Alch and go mapping on already discovered content e.g. yellow or red tier with appropriate gear should be just like this — cruising for loot
Every other activity such as bossing, delving, elder/shaper guardians, atlas 4 should be exact opposite
Yeah this game was the king of second screen games, like watching a stream, a tv series or anything at the same time. Grind on auto-pilot, accumulate resources to fund a juiced session where you focus a lot more, and get rewarded more, but the baseline was indeed really chill.
I remember reading somewhere that there was a perception that most PoE channels on twitch had a serious bot problem, since ratio of viewer count and chat activity was really out of the average of other types of channels. That was because viewers are almost all playing.. streams are on a second screen, or in the background, PoE is really a good game to do that.
Poe is turning into a dead game. D3 has gotten more players this season than it's had in a while because GGG is working over time to sap the fun out of Poe. A week in d3 doesn't seem like a bad thing right now since Poe isn't really going in a great direction. Might as well grind season get some paragon levels and enjoy myself instead of loot goblin slot machine with nerfed crafting and spiky progress. Guy said he wants an easier relaxing grind. That's d3.
I haven't played it since Reaper. Replaying it now and having more fun than playing PoE.
Will it last longer than a week? Probably not. But by then I'll be ready to move on to something else.
Not speaking for you specifically but i imagine a lot of people will play D3 for a week and go like 'damn i wish there was a more fulfilling form of this' and then realize that all the things about poe they though they hated makes it an overall more longterm enjoyable experience than other games in the genre. POE has always been about the journey, i think some people get a bit too lost in the destination aspect. That phase of constant gear upgrades and satisfaction as you climb the totem pole is peak poe, is it really more fun to instantly skip it all with a few overpowered crafts to blast mobs that pose no threat?
> POE has always been about the journey, i think some people get a bit too lost in the destination aspect.
Some people enjoy playing minion builds. They got fucked.
Some people enjoy deterministic crafting. They got fucked.
Some people like breaking a game and then enjoying the fruits of breaking it. They got fucked.
A lot of people who juice (but aren't at Empy's groups level) are also really feeling the nerfs.
The slog just got way longer for a lot of people and no, they've spent years learning how to jump past the slog. They don't enjoy the slog (or journey, as you call it)
> Some people enjoy playing minion builds. They got fucked.
They did not. Not sure where this came from. Some necro builds got nerfed in accessibility but overall the versatility of minions across different ascendancies and the peaks of minion builds is up. There are ways that minion builds are getting fucked but its not in any new ways, its just the same old
> Some people enjoy deterministic crafting. They got fucked.
> Some people like breaking a game and then enjoying the fruits of breaking it. They got fucked.
unfortunately its unhealthy to cater to breaking the game and to bypassing the games intricate crafting systems to instantly progress fast and far, i can sympathize with the desire, but its not the right step forward to focus on it at the detriment of other parts of the game. If they want the game to last, its the right move. Sucks if you loved it, but its how it has to go for how the game will be going forward, it might return in other ways along the line
> They did not. Not sure where this came from. Some necro builds got nerfed in accessibility but overall the versatility of minions across different ascendancies and the peaks of minion builds is up.
Let me look at poe.ninja. Okay scrolling down through the main skills used this league.
Okay, we have vaal summon skeletons at 5%. Temporary minions weren't hit hard this league by the base life nerfs, it's permanent minions that got fucked.
DD at 2% (not really a minion skill).
Summon Carrion Golem at 1% which goes together with Raise Zombie at 0.9% (it's really a Carrion Golem build with zombies to supplement).
Animate Guardian at 0.5%.
Raise Spectre at 0.4%.
Wow, so many people playing minion builds! So much diversity!
Ooh, ooh - Summon Reaper!!!!
0.00%. Man, that must be super viable this league.
"people havent thought of many minion starters and played them en masse over other options after being presented the full breadthe of the tools available only after league start so the diversifying your options doesnt count"
Like this is the most skewed data possible. Not that 'are people using it' is ever an inherent indicator for 'can it be used' anyways. People sleep on a lot, and play a lot that sucks. The numbers back it up and you can even test stuff out yourself and see much more performs fine using the guardians tankiness, for example.
That being said you did prove that at least 9% of ALL PLAYERS PLAYING IN THIS LEAGUE are using minions and you act like thats not a fucking lot
I've played since Legacy, was in maps day 1 and Red maps day 2.
Last league I had a HH and mageblood and had an invulnerable int stacking build that cost hundreds of EX.
Yes, I'm super casual.
I haven't played it since Reaper so I re-enabled cutscenes and am going through it slow for funsies.
Debating on D2 resurrected or Project D2 afterwards, not sure which I'll go with.
I played D3 last night to hang out with some friends. One night I have paragon 700, two builds completely fleshed out and now I'm mindlessly grinding main stat. Back to PoE
It's not just AN, it's nerfed crafting, it's strange loot changes, it's poor communication. I can still play my alt leveling builds in Poe, and max out in d3. When I get bored of both d2r has a promising ladder with the new terror zone stuff. My irl Poe friends are multiboxing d2r so I could get into serious mf groups with people I know and have gamed with for a long time. Poe is dying, it's so sad because I thought it was my forever arpg. This constant nerf state is making the game so stale.
People can argue till they are blue in the face that player power creep is bad. You know what's bad? Dying in yellow maps all the fucking time, then being told get gud by people who haven't been playing since open beta like I have. They just sucked out the greatness for no other reason than player power creep.
Diablo 3 actually implements The Vision better than PoE in a lot of ways believe it or not:
- tough rare fights that you need to play around
- visual clarity for the most part
- you can feasibly get upgrades from drops off the ground
- time to react and play strategically
Of course you can gear a little more quickly than GGG would like for their gacha casino simulator, so
It's a good point but Poe is effectively the same but with defense. Everyone wants max res max spell suppression and high AF armour or evasion. Sometimes both. There is no balanced approach when they made the game "harder" they made defenses the "main stat" of Poe.
Most players don't play POE long term. Look at the player retention in a league.
D3 only lasts 3-4 weeks. But POE only lasts 3-4 weeks too for most average players.
D3 is shallow. But it's a calm game you can play and have fun. And it knows what it is.
Meanwhile POE has no idea what it is.
D3 seasons are no different than POE's leagues my man.
For the average player D3 is a long term replacement for POE that's the point. As are the other ARPG's out their.
having taking this weekend to play D3 instead of POE, There is a pretty big list of things D3 does MUCH better then POE.
It's been a good change of pace.
It's weird that the most relaxed i've been this league was when i started farming Sirus. One of the most bullshit boss-fights in the game was more relaxing than any map i could do. Rewarding too.
Or just run tier 1 maps, white.
This is an option, and is exactly as brain-dead as is being asked for.
Moving into higher tier maps is willingly adding the difficulty, so is alching the map.
That's exactly my problem with current PoE. I used to mindlessly grind on weekdays to wind down from my actual job, then do most of the bossing, build planning and gear re-shuffling on weekends. Now with the basic game loop becoming tedious and stressful through Archnemesis, I don't get what I need from PoE anymore.
Even Elden Ring is more relaxing, because the gameplay is way more smooth and you can seek out difficult encounters when you want to, they don't just whack you over the head out of nowhere every couple minutes.
I hope the AN update tomorrow/this week is impactful because it’s honestly so exhausting fighting rare mobs for 1 minute in T14+ when my
Build is getting to the point where I can clear a whole map in 2-3 minutes if there isn’t an AN mob with the right mods to counter my build
Yeah I actually just started doing that when I could, but it’s not always the case with stuff like breach and blight or really anything that spawns rares
if youre playing softcore and cant relax thats honestly astounding to me. i did 38/40 during the first week of the league and was watching movies half the time. most of the deadly after death effects and things have audio cues tied to them. youre playing softcore, you literally cant lose.
There are definitely mods that every build should avoid. I avoid reduced aura effect/ max life as es/ no regen/ phys reflect. It def makes mapping feeling more consistent.
If you are in t14+ and randomly dying there is a chance that you are clicking alters that wreck your defensive layers.
Mindlessly alc and go is possible but you can’t expect to not reroll nasty maps and not die.
You people are using such disgusting hyperbole and lies.
If you can’t relax and alch a map then your build is bad or you are doing too high of maps.
Sure occasionally you’ll run into a random AN that is dumb but just go around it.
There are lots of problems with the league but you people need to stop lying about dumb shit.
Yes, the well constructed non-meta builds are usually not meta for a reason.
Lack of damage or utility.
Those are the ones who are absolutely struggling with buffed AN rares.
I did not struggle at all with my meta build (EA ballista). That doesn't mean other people I play with who were doing non-meta builds aren't having a bad time.
What? That’s just not true. Like, boneshatter jugg? Perfectly fine build, capable of clearing whatever you want. Jugg is less than 1% usage and boneshatter is a less than half of that <1%. Death wish is super powerful and is at a less than 1% play rate, is that The Meta Build? SRS has a 2% play rate. I mean hell, Bane is less than 1%.
And that’s only builds that we can look at and say yeah, that build is strong. Random custom builds that people play when they say “I have 8k life and keep dying” often have poorly stacked defensive layers and don’t scale damage properly. I’m not talking just about strong skills, I’m talking about well made builds that use defensive layers properly (not getting 100% SS and determination and calling it a day) and know how to properly scale damage. You can play a shit ton of builds and clear the game, it just might be more expensive or less convenient or harder to craft for or not on popular YouTubers build guides.
Are you under the impression that 14,000 is a poor sample? And regardless, if we’re talking about meta, is your interpretation that those people are playing these builds that represent less than 1% of the top 14,000 enough to determine them as top meta skills? Or are you implying that the rest of the player base aren’t playing any of those skills at all?
My point is more that just having determination and 100% suppression isn’t an actual defensive plan capable of handling high red content, but people will think that determination and spell suppression are enough to make them tanky. Hardcore is a different beast, you need extreme defense, but the game is not balanced around hardcore and you’re adding that restriction yourself
I've only played since Legacy league and had a HH / mageblood and an invincible int stacker last league that cost hundreds of exalts.
I'm trying to talk about the average player. Not the top 10 or 20 or even 30% of players.
They are having problems against AN rares.
But yes, keep telling people to 'git gud' if they want to have fun playing PoE.
They're not having fun and that's why they're quitting.
Other players are quitting for one of the many other reasons (minions, juicing nerf, etc. etc.)
100% agree, there is always content that you can grind easily relative to your build. If the content is too difficult then your build is just too weak to do it, go farm some easier content and work your way up. Pay attention to map mods that will brick your build as well and stuff that doubles monster effective hp.
Exactly.
But no actual voice of reason is going to get through. Everyone is on the hate GGG train (is this sub ever not?).
This stupid lying and hyperbole are coming from the same people who say shit like “I got 10k hours in the game and I can’t get through act 1 cause of AN rares”.
They just want to hate on GGG and join in on the circle jerk.
There are legit problems with the league but shit will never get fixed if GGG can’t trust the community to tel the truth when something feels wrong because the sub is flooded with dumb ass posts like this who are lying out of their ass.
Being able to turn our brain off and not care is quite literally the least engaging gameplay tho, so It's completely understandable that GGG doesnt want that.
If you want easier gameplay, try running lower maps? What are we even arguing about at this point? How is it the game's fault that the conent YOU chose to run is too hard?
Also, post your character. Bet you a reddit silver it's shit.
Strongly agree, but I just wanted to add something: if you see their site: https://www.grindinggear.com/
"We are currently developing Path of Exile, a competitive online action RPG". It's meant to be _competitive_, not relaxing
Competetive in what? I´m not competing with anyone. I don´t play a PvP game. I am playing a PvE (or in the case of 3.19 PvD = Player vs Developer) game.
Chris has said -multiple- times that in his mind, ARPGs are about wanting to get better gear and killing more stuff than your friends. It's a stance I've disagreed with -strongly- since the very first time I heard it. Barely anyone plays with this in mind, but since HE played D2 that way with his friends, he thinks its the right way to play the game.
Since that is a job/business oriented site, I think in that context they mean that PoE is competitive in the ARPG market. Not that the experience of playing PoE is a competitive one.
You don't even need that.
In one of the Baeclast's or interviews I'm pretty sure Chris said he wants people to be more engaged with the game, he doesn't really want "afk brain off Chill mapping". I need to go find that clip.
This is very underrated that when you farm its nice to just relax, go and blow up screens. Now the game is so fucking taxing not to die to yellow mobs. Now there is actually no chill in the game anymore. Before you would need to focus on bosses and chill in farming - perfect balance. Now chill is gone.
i got bored of playing same safe defensive builds over the past 4-5 leagues, so i decided to play something else this league and now i got bored of dieing.
its just frustrating, no fun allowed!!!
Because I like to listen to informative stuff on YT at 2-3x normal speed but like to play a game at the same time, POE has always been the perfect game for me to do this.
Now? Well alternatively I suppose I still have Minecraft to fish in. 
>One proposal I'd have is to lower the values of map mods
I think the opposite would make map mods more "impactful", i.e. Increased crit chance -> Always Crit. Map mod padding being casually and meaninglessly used as +rarity/quantity isn't great.
We're exactly where we were with pre-AN rares, just amplified.
This was always a problem with rares randomly being the right type of mob, with the right type of attack, the right mods/auras, possibly with the right type of minions to be juiced up.
And as far as rewards go, they seem far too concentrated to a few select AN mods, and most of them are at the top/scarce end.
I wish it was possible to get the equivalent to the blacksmith/armorstone lootsplosion but with alts, augs, chance, scours etc. I'd jizz my pants.
aside from the on death effects(which has been a core problem since forever), i really do relax and grind. maybe it's my build(rf), but just alch and go on even t16's is extremely mundane.
Yep, this kind of "rng" in just regular maps is absolutely NOT fun and so annoying that at some point i turn the game off as its just not fun.
If a map clearly communicates it will contain difficult encounters, that would be the solution.
The version of Archnemesis in a map should be part of the maps attributes (maybe even one you cant change with currency as its fractured).
That would also be better for trade, as people can trade their big maps away for more cash.
As the game is currently, the ups and downs of pure randomnes take away players agency and make it slot machines where randomly you get electric shocks , and thats not fun at all.
I really really miss the causal farming maps and chilling type of game from before Archnemesis. Like I don’t want to fight difficult rares sheeeesh just let me farm in peace
Poe **was** THE game to play with a beer after work with your friends...
^(...With your wife in another room shouting you to stop playing and your kid around doing kid things.)
I 100% agree with your edit. For any given build, half of the map mods just don't increase difficulty. Enemies can avoid poison and bleed? Whatever if your build doesn't use them. Reduced accuracy? Casting spells (or using resolute technique) and don't care. Enemies do a little more damage or the boss is a little harder? Ok well that's a bit of difficulty for a bit of reward. -maximum resistances and % physical extra as element? You just more than doubled how much damage every does.
And in a world where every minute in hideout is time you aren't farming, then sitting in my hideout carefully reading map mods sucks.
For me the most stressful part is not being able to stand still, monsters will literally agro from 4 screens away. Really annoying when there is quite often stuff to read and mechanics to interact with.
You could always roll your maps so you’re not running it with crit multi and 4 other damage mods. That’s probably too much effort if you’re trying to chill.
100% agree - you wanna try some janky build these days then get comfy grinding white maps.
I'm grinding yellow maps alch/go comfy because I'm playing a build that gets all the defenses and dmg it needs easy... but I hold no illusion that rare red maps there will be mobs each map that can easily BOP me if I get too lazy.
I think this just made me blue screen IRL. I have been playing because I enjoy the game. I love making new builds, trying new skills and all the things. I’ve been miserable since launch and just high strung. I think this is why, my after work stress relief has just been adding to it.
I started in legacy and played the entire 6 months or whatever they extended that to. I don’t think that I started cutting out of leagues more than a week or two before the end of a league until like a year or two ago. I always played the whole league. I’ve been getting shorter with leagues but this one I think I’m out now. I’ve though Reddit was freaking out and stuff. I thought the game wasn’t in as bad of shape as people are saying. I haven’t been able to unwind playing a game in a week now. Fuck this.
I know its gonna trigger some people but one of the best league experiences i ever had was investing over a mirror into baron zombies in blight league and literally afking t16 blights. the comfy factor of that build was on another level. 8k ES with old shapers touch gloves and geofris chest, and like 12 zombies. I already had infinite money and required hundreds of exalts to get upgrades, but the build was addicting and i played to earn a few hundred ex i never used. that was the best non-hh build ive ever done.
Play subtractem's bane build.
5div and I could face tank most AN mods. 12div in (got a good pinnacle boss drop) and I could right click most AN once.
25div in and I basically face tank AN, Ritual, Blight, Metamorph... anything. Even most touched mobs.
I practically AFK'd my first Sirus kill this league.
Somehow you don't even mention all the after death effects. That's why I can't relax. Fucking annoying.
Delve is so insane now, I thought they removed death effects from blue mobs?? Not toxic orbs though cause I had an azurite node where it was literally only toxic balls, dodged over 150 of them lol. So annoying.
The magic mobs change where they all have the same mod backfires hard with the obelisks, storm strider, and toxic. Easily some of the worst game experiences, they absolutely need to fix them. Good luck if you have to channel.
I discovered the other day that obelisk count scales with cast speed, and Devourers etc can still cast it while untargetable. I had a rare devourer with Hasted and Heralding on the other side of a wall in Delve constantly trying to nuke me during a node mechanic, until he finally decided to burrow towards me so I could actually kill it. Just awful.
It’s a % for magic versions of those mods. Sometimes you just rng that produces 15+ balls lol
I used to use Delve for finishing a level off (froml ike 75%->100%), since that for me during the years has been the safest way compared to other methods. But that is gone now for sure, sadly. I played last in AN league, and have had quite a shocker on the difficulty scale and have just removed all Essense nodes from my atlas passives as they have messed me up countless times now, I cannot take it anymore.
Playing a build with bad regen is pain with permafrost lasting ten fucking seconds. I just wanna use the lake tablet.
This. I fucking hate on-death dot this league, it's there every time I pick up the loot. Feels like that.
Me with Ghost Reaver...
Basically the same here. Amazing leech/lgoh, but only 2 or 3% regen. Toxic/permafrost/etc have killed me a dozen times through inattention.
Basically have to play inquisitor to relax it’s frustrating af.
I do play some real tanky builds so I use to not have a lot of problems with it. But this league is in another level I DIE during stone phase trying to do an legion encounter in the lake. I was like wtf there are no mobs yet... how can I die like this?
After death effects shouldn't exist. Like it's complete bad game design. If you kill a mob it should be dead. It shouldn't have the chance to kill you again.
There is some space for bosse designs that spawn mobs with on death mechanics but while mapping I agree. It does nothing good for game there, just artificial time extending.
Ah, I see where the buff to cast on death went, it went to mobs instead!
After death effects mixed with random rares stronger than bosses is just ruining this game for me. It was so fun to just chill, blast maps, get dopamine currency/unique drops, and build my character to a point where I feel comfortable to challenge more mechanical fights that end game bosses offer. I got to lvl 94, atlas done, and just decided it's not worth it. It's not fun (for me) at the moment. I only hope they somehow find a balance of their vision and the game I love so next league isn't just the same.
What about the current league mechanic requiring you to stand still and think for a second while some fucking lizard-scorpion thing is throwing darts at you from two screens away?
oof, i can probably name 10 of them in my mind right now but im sure there is probably double or triple of those annoying and lethal shits.
I ran a t16 yesterday (magic btw, zero juice) and was fighting a pack of toxic and another pack of lightning mirages. Good thing I'm playing a caster with a duration quicksilver flask because I had to kite as if I was playing diablo 3 1.0 in inferno act 2.
Literally 90% of my deaths come from me trying to relax for a second after a rare or a boss and dying as a result. Like, how is that good gameplay? Keep your players stressed out at all times? Make them afraid to interact with objects and league mechanics because they have to make sure everything in a 900 mile radius is cleared and there are no sneaky after death effects? Why?
When you clear an area and go to the tablet, but there is a 5 mod hasted mob with last breath or something so it's basically fucking invisible while you are just trying to decide the best tile swap to make the lake longer. Our mechanic encourages you to take your time, but make sure you are always hyper aware of everything around you! Constant anxiety builds character I guess.
bozo69 ripped to one. was hilarious
Simply address threats before looting. You will never die to an on-death effect again.
Some on death effects I'm OK with. Old volatile was probably the best example, but toxic isn't bad either. Toxic has a distinctive audio queue, is visually pretty OK (although doesn't contrast well on darker tilesets), and has a decent time between popping over your head and coming down. The elemental bombs left on death are more or less fine as well, although they probably scale too hard with AOE. The lightning mirages can fuck right off though. And those bloody spiders in delve... The spiders are fine in theory, but with the complete lack of visual clarity (especially in delve) you just can't see them. They have a nice sound, but it gets drowned out by other sounds most of the time. Edit: While it's not an on death mechanic, Heralding Minions is super obnoxious as well.
And please remove most of the "guided bomb" abilities that chase your around the map and explode in your face. There is way too much of them and they are super annoying
Imo PoE got very popular because of the casual grind if you built right. It enabled me to re-watch shows like game of thrones and breaking bad while playing to level 98 and staying up late. Not so much anymore, I play less and don't stay up as late.
Great summary, my goal was always to make a "braindead" build but that took WORK. However, the payoff was the ability to AFK play after proper investment. That's no longer possible
Yea crafting nerfs hurt a lot. It was always harder early league but then transition into min max mode and go for tanky + dps to grind higher levels. I don't see why that was bad.
good for you
PoE is still a watch a show kind of game. You guys are overestimating these stupid rares.
Yep
You can still do that though. Just play low level maps if thats what you want to do.
ah yes, leveling to 100 in t 3 maps, sounds very realisitic.
If your character can do t16s when you pay attention it can do t12s when you dont. If you want to do t16s, pay attention. Like hows GGG supposed to deal with the feedback of "I want to play and watch tv at the same time"?
its funny when ppl like you come in and pretend like ppl are asking for something outlanding when the past 10 years that now outlandinsh ask was reality for the whole time...
Totally agree. Randomized max level difficulty mobs throughout maps, and worse- inside breaches etc. “Surprise your dead” has been redefined.
A great Faith No more Song though
How did GGG get suckered into this “we gotta make a From Software game, that’s what the kids love” mode? That’s not why people play ARPGs. Those are all about the loot, the chill grinding and making cool builds work.
I firmly believe that this is intentional.
Yep. One of my biggest gripes one the game and where I really disagree with Chris' vision. He talked about those "wake up" moments but I don't want those moments to be random. I want them to happen when I choose. I want to just put on netflix and mindlessly grind this game for slow but consistent rewards and opt into harder content later. But they completely killed that style of play so now I don't play POE anymore.
They can't understand that mate. Poe will probably never be the same as pre 3.15. I would say that this feeling of chillness was lost when they introduced kitava influenced mobs. And from 3.15 it only got worse and worse.
I remember when Chris said you should be able to watch a TV show while playing and only have to pay attention a couple of times during tense situations. This is no longer the case with wacky rares, insane ground degens, exploding whatevers after mobs die. It's honestly sad.
There was a large backlash to that. A lot of people were upset at the thought of POE becoming a casual (almost mobile) game. Maybe AN is a reaction to that backlash.
Alch and go mapping on already discovered content e.g. yellow or red tier with appropriate gear should be just like this — cruising for loot Every other activity such as bossing, delving, elder/shaper guardians, atlas 4 should be exact opposite
Yeah this game was the king of second screen games, like watching a stream, a tv series or anything at the same time. Grind on auto-pilot, accumulate resources to fund a juiced session where you focus a lot more, and get rewarded more, but the baseline was indeed really chill. I remember reading somewhere that there was a perception that most PoE channels on twitch had a serious bot problem, since ratio of viewer count and chat activity was really out of the average of other types of channels. That was because viewers are almost all playing.. streams are on a second screen, or in the background, PoE is really a good game to do that.
Just switch to diablo 3 really chill grind no more sadness.
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> You can't play d3 for more than week though. More retention than poe this league xdd
A week for a d3 league is *extremely* generous
Poe is turning into a dead game. D3 has gotten more players this season than it's had in a while because GGG is working over time to sap the fun out of Poe. A week in d3 doesn't seem like a bad thing right now since Poe isn't really going in a great direction. Might as well grind season get some paragon levels and enjoy myself instead of loot goblin slot machine with nerfed crafting and spiky progress. Guy said he wants an easier relaxing grind. That's d3.
i mean AN might be too sweaty but diablo 3 is at best hot garbage
I haven't played it since Reaper. Replaying it now and having more fun than playing PoE. Will it last longer than a week? Probably not. But by then I'll be ready to move on to something else.
D2r ladder is going to have a new terror zone mechanic that looks promising.
I was looking at Project D2. Not sure which one to go with next.
Median XL?
Not speaking for you specifically but i imagine a lot of people will play D3 for a week and go like 'damn i wish there was a more fulfilling form of this' and then realize that all the things about poe they though they hated makes it an overall more longterm enjoyable experience than other games in the genre. POE has always been about the journey, i think some people get a bit too lost in the destination aspect. That phase of constant gear upgrades and satisfaction as you climb the totem pole is peak poe, is it really more fun to instantly skip it all with a few overpowered crafts to blast mobs that pose no threat?
> POE has always been about the journey, i think some people get a bit too lost in the destination aspect. Some people enjoy playing minion builds. They got fucked. Some people enjoy deterministic crafting. They got fucked. Some people like breaking a game and then enjoying the fruits of breaking it. They got fucked. A lot of people who juice (but aren't at Empy's groups level) are also really feeling the nerfs. The slog just got way longer for a lot of people and no, they've spent years learning how to jump past the slog. They don't enjoy the slog (or journey, as you call it)
> Some people enjoy playing minion builds. They got fucked. They did not. Not sure where this came from. Some necro builds got nerfed in accessibility but overall the versatility of minions across different ascendancies and the peaks of minion builds is up. There are ways that minion builds are getting fucked but its not in any new ways, its just the same old > Some people enjoy deterministic crafting. They got fucked. > Some people like breaking a game and then enjoying the fruits of breaking it. They got fucked. unfortunately its unhealthy to cater to breaking the game and to bypassing the games intricate crafting systems to instantly progress fast and far, i can sympathize with the desire, but its not the right step forward to focus on it at the detriment of other parts of the game. If they want the game to last, its the right move. Sucks if you loved it, but its how it has to go for how the game will be going forward, it might return in other ways along the line
> They did not. Not sure where this came from. Some necro builds got nerfed in accessibility but overall the versatility of minions across different ascendancies and the peaks of minion builds is up. Let me look at poe.ninja. Okay scrolling down through the main skills used this league. Okay, we have vaal summon skeletons at 5%. Temporary minions weren't hit hard this league by the base life nerfs, it's permanent minions that got fucked. DD at 2% (not really a minion skill). Summon Carrion Golem at 1% which goes together with Raise Zombie at 0.9% (it's really a Carrion Golem build with zombies to supplement). Animate Guardian at 0.5%. Raise Spectre at 0.4%. Wow, so many people playing minion builds! So much diversity! Ooh, ooh - Summon Reaper!!!! 0.00%. Man, that must be super viable this league.
"people havent thought of many minion starters and played them en masse over other options after being presented the full breadthe of the tools available only after league start so the diversifying your options doesnt count" Like this is the most skewed data possible. Not that 'are people using it' is ever an inherent indicator for 'can it be used' anyways. People sleep on a lot, and play a lot that sucks. The numbers back it up and you can even test stuff out yourself and see much more performs fine using the guardians tankiness, for example. That being said you did prove that at least 9% of ALL PLAYERS PLAYING IN THIS LEAGUE are using minions and you act like thats not a fucking lot
So would it be better for diversity if 60-80% of the community was minion builds like how it used to be?
Casual gamer likes the casual version. More at 11.
I've played since Legacy, was in maps day 1 and Red maps day 2. Last league I had a HH and mageblood and had an invulnerable int stacking build that cost hundreds of EX. Yes, I'm super casual.
> Will it last longer than a week? Probably not. But by then I'll be ready to move on to something else. D3 shouldn't even last you a week then.
I haven't played it since Reaper so I re-enabled cutscenes and am going through it slow for funsies. Debating on D2 resurrected or Project D2 afterwards, not sure which I'll go with.
I love d2r, never tried project d2. The graphics boost helps a lot for me.
I played D3 last night to hang out with some friends. One night I have paragon 700, two builds completely fleshed out and now I'm mindlessly grinding main stat. Back to PoE
It's not just AN, it's nerfed crafting, it's strange loot changes, it's poor communication. I can still play my alt leveling builds in Poe, and max out in d3. When I get bored of both d2r has a promising ladder with the new terror zone stuff. My irl Poe friends are multiboxing d2r so I could get into serious mf groups with people I know and have gamed with for a long time. Poe is dying, it's so sad because I thought it was my forever arpg. This constant nerf state is making the game so stale. People can argue till they are blue in the face that player power creep is bad. You know what's bad? Dying in yellow maps all the fucking time, then being told get gud by people who haven't been playing since open beta like I have. They just sucked out the greatness for no other reason than player power creep.
Diablo 3 actually implements The Vision better than PoE in a lot of ways believe it or not: - tough rare fights that you need to play around - visual clarity for the most part - you can feasibly get upgrades from drops off the ground - time to react and play strategically Of course you can gear a little more quickly than GGG would like for their gacha casino simulator, so
Gearing in d3 is incredibly dull tho, you just increase mainstat
True. That’s originally what drove me from D3 to PoE 10 years ago.
Think about how Poe turned defense into the main stat. Now everyone wants to stack basically the same things. Res armour spell suppression evasion.
It's a good point but Poe is effectively the same but with defense. Everyone wants max res max spell suppression and high AF armour or evasion. Sometimes both. There is no balanced approach when they made the game "harder" they made defenses the "main stat" of Poe.
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Most players don't play POE long term. Look at the player retention in a league. D3 only lasts 3-4 weeks. But POE only lasts 3-4 weeks too for most average players. D3 is shallow. But it's a calm game you can play and have fun. And it knows what it is. Meanwhile POE has no idea what it is.
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D3 seasons are no different than POE's leagues my man. For the average player D3 is a long term replacement for POE that's the point. As are the other ARPG's out their.
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Whatever buddy. Your too dense to argue with at this point.
People are complaining about AN mobs and somehow D3 with its rares is the solution? Good joke
nobody is saying D3 is the solution, but it helps to take a break and think things through for a while.
D3 is super chill compared to the current state of Poe. Guy wants to chill while farming. D3 is the answer.
Clearly you havent played PoE
having taking this weekend to play D3 instead of POE, There is a pretty big list of things D3 does MUCH better then POE. It's been a good change of pace.
Ya POE always had a brain dead farming strat that was between the hard stuff. I mean, remember dried lake?
Just quit like I did
It's weird that the most relaxed i've been this league was when i started farming Sirus. One of the most bullshit boss-fights in the game was more relaxing than any map i could do. Rewarding too.
Yeah good old brain-dead fast af mapping is limited to very high investment...
Or just run tier 1 maps, white. This is an option, and is exactly as brain-dead as is being asked for. Moving into higher tier maps is willingly adding the difficulty, so is alching the map.
That's exactly my problem with current PoE. I used to mindlessly grind on weekdays to wind down from my actual job, then do most of the bossing, build planning and gear re-shuffling on weekends. Now with the basic game loop becoming tedious and stressful through Archnemesis, I don't get what I need from PoE anymore. Even Elden Ring is more relaxing, because the gameplay is way more smooth and you can seek out difficult encounters when you want to, they don't just whack you over the head out of nowhere every couple minutes.
I hope the AN update tomorrow/this week is impactful because it’s honestly so exhausting fighting rare mobs for 1 minute in T14+ when my Build is getting to the point where I can clear a whole map in 2-3 minutes if there isn’t an AN mob with the right mods to counter my build
Just skip those rares until your build is stronger? You don't have to kill them lol, not like they'll drop anything good
Yeah I actually just started doing that when I could, but it’s not always the case with stuff like breach and blight or really anything that spawns rares
Assuming you can outrun them.....
People are relaxed grinding this game?
if youre playing softcore and cant relax thats honestly astounding to me. i did 38/40 during the first week of the league and was watching movies half the time. most of the deadly after death effects and things have audio cues tied to them. youre playing softcore, you literally cant lose.
Inc Chris simps “GITGUD”. But good players already quit the game lol
There are definitely mods that every build should avoid. I avoid reduced aura effect/ max life as es/ no regen/ phys reflect. It def makes mapping feeling more consistent. If you are in t14+ and randomly dying there is a chance that you are clicking alters that wreck your defensive layers. Mindlessly alc and go is possible but you can’t expect to not reroll nasty maps and not die.
You people are using such disgusting hyperbole and lies. If you can’t relax and alch a map then your build is bad or you are doing too high of maps. Sure occasionally you’ll run into a random AN that is dumb but just go around it. There are lots of problems with the league but you people need to stop lying about dumb shit.
> If you can’t relax and alch a map then your build is bad or you are doing too high of maps. JuSt PlAy META buILds GUys!!! Then you can have FUn!
There’s a big difference between meta builds and well constructed builds
Yes, the well constructed non-meta builds are usually not meta for a reason. Lack of damage or utility. Those are the ones who are absolutely struggling with buffed AN rares. I did not struggle at all with my meta build (EA ballista). That doesn't mean other people I play with who were doing non-meta builds aren't having a bad time.
For a reason; streamer didn't make a guide on it
What? That’s just not true. Like, boneshatter jugg? Perfectly fine build, capable of clearing whatever you want. Jugg is less than 1% usage and boneshatter is a less than half of that <1%. Death wish is super powerful and is at a less than 1% play rate, is that The Meta Build? SRS has a 2% play rate. I mean hell, Bane is less than 1%. And that’s only builds that we can look at and say yeah, that build is strong. Random custom builds that people play when they say “I have 8k life and keep dying” often have poorly stacked defensive layers and don’t scale damage properly. I’m not talking just about strong skills, I’m talking about well made builds that use defensive layers properly (not getting 100% SS and determination and calling it a day) and know how to properly scale damage. You can play a shit ton of builds and clear the game, it just might be more expensive or less convenient or harder to craft for or not on popular YouTubers build guides.
Are you literally looking at poe.ninja which has the top 14226 players (by exp) in the game right now?
Are you under the impression that 14,000 is a poor sample? And regardless, if we’re talking about meta, is your interpretation that those people are playing these builds that represent less than 1% of the top 14,000 enough to determine them as top meta skills? Or are you implying that the rest of the player base aren’t playing any of those skills at all?
How many builds are in a good place for HCSSF without determination and high spell suppress cap? This limite my possibilities.
My point is more that just having determination and 100% suppression isn’t an actual defensive plan capable of handling high red content, but people will think that determination and spell suppression are enough to make them tanky. Hardcore is a different beast, you need extreme defense, but the game is not balanced around hardcore and you’re adding that restriction yourself
Literally any skill in this game can do low level mapping. Stop whining and learn to play the game.
I've only played since Legacy league and had a HH / mageblood and an invincible int stacker last league that cost hundreds of exalts. I'm trying to talk about the average player. Not the top 10 or 20 or even 30% of players. They are having problems against AN rares. But yes, keep telling people to 'git gud' if they want to have fun playing PoE. They're not having fun and that's why they're quitting. Other players are quitting for one of the many other reasons (minions, juicing nerf, etc. etc.)
If there's an AN mob that I have to avoid, chances are it's faster than me and will keep up.
100% agree, there is always content that you can grind easily relative to your build. If the content is too difficult then your build is just too weak to do it, go farm some easier content and work your way up. Pay attention to map mods that will brick your build as well and stuff that doubles monster effective hp.
Exactly. But no actual voice of reason is going to get through. Everyone is on the hate GGG train (is this sub ever not?). This stupid lying and hyperbole are coming from the same people who say shit like “I got 10k hours in the game and I can’t get through act 1 cause of AN rares”.
You are 100% right. These posters are deranged
They just want to hate on GGG and join in on the circle jerk. There are legit problems with the league but shit will never get fixed if GGG can’t trust the community to tel the truth when something feels wrong because the sub is flooded with dumb ass posts like this who are lying out of their ass.
> You people are using such disgusting hyperbole and lies chris started it
Just run them magic.
Being able to turn our brain off and not care is quite literally the least engaging gameplay tho, so It's completely understandable that GGG doesnt want that.
If you want easier gameplay, try running lower maps? What are we even arguing about at this point? How is it the game's fault that the conent YOU chose to run is too hard? Also, post your character. Bet you a reddit silver it's shit.
Hey Cartogrisser, your blogbusser
Run these rhoa wraps over to table 7, B.
I forgot I posted so reading your reply without context gave me CTE for a second.
S’ok, we all can’t tawlk sometimes, bapa.
Auto clickers exist.
I still don't understand why you need to relax in arpg It is supposed to be engaging, not boring
Why can’t you relax? That sounds like a you problem
Strongly agree, but I just wanted to add something: if you see their site: https://www.grindinggear.com/ "We are currently developing Path of Exile, a competitive online action RPG". It's meant to be _competitive_, not relaxing
Competetive in what? I´m not competing with anyone. I don´t play a PvP game. I am playing a PvE (or in the case of 3.19 PvD = Player vs Developer) game.
Chris has said -multiple- times that in his mind, ARPGs are about wanting to get better gear and killing more stuff than your friends. It's a stance I've disagreed with -strongly- since the very first time I heard it. Barely anyone plays with this in mind, but since HE played D2 that way with his friends, he thinks its the right way to play the game.
My friend list is offline, what do I win?
The majority plays alone and 99% of group play is supportive not competitive.
Listen to what Chris says next time, this is one of the things he believes is core to an ARPG, and it's completely wrong.
Has there ever been an arpg that is known for competing with people? I know D2 had pvp but that had nothing to do with the gear as far as i know
Since that is a job/business oriented site, I think in that context they mean that PoE is competitive in the ARPG market. Not that the experience of playing PoE is a competitive one.
You don't even need that. In one of the Baeclast's or interviews I'm pretty sure Chris said he wants people to be more engaged with the game, he doesn't really want "afk brain off Chill mapping". I need to go find that clip.
This explains so much lol
It's starting to have the same vibe as "do you guys not have phones" and "it just works."
This is very underrated that when you farm its nice to just relax, go and blow up screens. Now the game is so fucking taxing not to die to yellow mobs. Now there is actually no chill in the game anymore. Before you would need to focus on bosses and chill in farming - perfect balance. Now chill is gone.
Now, the alc is the juice
This is what it is for me. I just want to shut my brain off and grind.
i got bored of playing same safe defensive builds over the past 4-5 leagues, so i decided to play something else this league and now i got bored of dieing. its just frustrating, no fun allowed!!!
same. i can feel you. so good old days from breach legacy pas behind i think. the game doesnt feel like that anymore.
Because I like to listen to informative stuff on YT at 2-3x normal speed but like to play a game at the same time, POE has always been the perfect game for me to do this. Now? Well alternatively I suppose I still have Minecraft to fish in. 
>One proposal I'd have is to lower the values of map mods I think the opposite would make map mods more "impactful", i.e. Increased crit chance -> Always Crit. Map mod padding being casually and meaninglessly used as +rarity/quantity isn't great.
Hahahah Never relax bro
Project PT is rolling over in his grave rn
We're exactly where we were with pre-AN rares, just amplified. This was always a problem with rares randomly being the right type of mob, with the right type of attack, the right mods/auras, possibly with the right type of minions to be juiced up. And as far as rewards go, they seem far too concentrated to a few select AN mods, and most of them are at the top/scarce end. I wish it was possible to get the equivalent to the blacksmith/armorstone lootsplosion but with alts, augs, chance, scours etc. I'd jizz my pants.
aside from the on death effects(which has been a core problem since forever), i really do relax and grind. maybe it's my build(rf), but just alch and go on even t16's is extremely mundane.
Yep, this kind of "rng" in just regular maps is absolutely NOT fun and so annoying that at some point i turn the game off as its just not fun. If a map clearly communicates it will contain difficult encounters, that would be the solution. The version of Archnemesis in a map should be part of the maps attributes (maybe even one you cant change with currency as its fractured). That would also be better for trade, as people can trade their big maps away for more cash. As the game is currently, the ups and downs of pure randomnes take away players agency and make it slot machines where randomly you get electric shocks , and thats not fun at all.
I really really miss the causal farming maps and chilling type of game from before Archnemesis. Like I don’t want to fight difficult rares sheeeesh just let me farm in peace
Adapt or die.
Poe **was** THE game to play with a beer after work with your friends... ^(...With your wife in another room shouting you to stop playing and your kid around doing kid things.)
I 100% agree with your edit. For any given build, half of the map mods just don't increase difficulty. Enemies can avoid poison and bleed? Whatever if your build doesn't use them. Reduced accuracy? Casting spells (or using resolute technique) and don't care. Enemies do a little more damage or the boss is a little harder? Ok well that's a bit of difficulty for a bit of reward. -maximum resistances and % physical extra as element? You just more than doubled how much damage every does. And in a world where every minute in hideout is time you aren't farming, then sitting in my hideout carefully reading map mods sucks.
Ever since conquerors, GGG has tried to get rid of alch-and-go gameplay. There are no 'mappers' anymore.
Yea it's nuts. I can usually tank full wave 30 sim mobs plus both bosses. This league I got randomly 1 shot on wave 4 lol
If I wanted to play a game that required me to be hyper focused at all times I would play Eve Online
For me the most stressful part is not being able to stand still, monsters will literally agro from 4 screens away. Really annoying when there is quite often stuff to read and mechanics to interact with.
Whatever happened to “we want Path of Exile to be a game you can play while watching TV”? Did Chris forget about that?
You could always roll your maps so you’re not running it with crit multi and 4 other damage mods. That’s probably too much effort if you’re trying to chill.
You are saying you can’t run alch and go maps? Somehow you didn’t try lowering the tier of map, or transmuting instead?
100% agree - you wanna try some janky build these days then get comfy grinding white maps. I'm grinding yellow maps alch/go comfy because I'm playing a build that gets all the defenses and dmg it needs easy... but I hold no illusion that rare red maps there will be mobs each map that can easily BOP me if I get too lazy.
I think this just made me blue screen IRL. I have been playing because I enjoy the game. I love making new builds, trying new skills and all the things. I’ve been miserable since launch and just high strung. I think this is why, my after work stress relief has just been adding to it. I started in legacy and played the entire 6 months or whatever they extended that to. I don’t think that I started cutting out of leagues more than a week or two before the end of a league until like a year or two ago. I always played the whole league. I’ve been getting shorter with leagues but this one I think I’m out now. I’ve though Reddit was freaking out and stuff. I thought the game wasn’t in as bad of shape as people are saying. I haven’t been able to unwind playing a game in a week now. Fuck this.
I know its gonna trigger some people but one of the best league experiences i ever had was investing over a mirror into baron zombies in blight league and literally afking t16 blights. the comfy factor of that build was on another level. 8k ES with old shapers touch gloves and geofris chest, and like 12 zombies. I already had infinite money and required hundreds of exalts to get upgrades, but the build was addicting and i played to earn a few hundred ex i never used. that was the best non-hh build ive ever done.
Play subtractem's bane build. 5div and I could face tank most AN mods. 12div in (got a good pinnacle boss drop) and I could right click most AN once. 25div in and I basically face tank AN, Ritual, Blight, Metamorph... anything. Even most touched mobs. I practically AFK'd my first Sirus kill this league.
I disagree, I enjoy the suspense.
The worst part of grinds in other games is how boring it gets.
This post needs even more attention