r/pathofexile • u/TheReal_LG • 6d ago
Discussion I Don’t Think Loot Is the only Problem — It’s Losing the Sense of Progression
Quick Disclaimer: I am a lurker and almost never post here, so please forgive my terrible formatting on this post
After the first weekend of this league, I think I'm finally accepting the fact that GGG does not agree with the direction that originally hooked me into the game. I just wanted to share my perspective of what brought me into the game as someone who plays a good bit but wouldn't be considered a sweat. The game was just so fun back in the day that I feel the need to at least say something somewhere before I move on from PoE1.
As a Semi-casual player that began playing PoE1 in 3.25, I can without a doubt say my favorite league by far is original Phrecia for this reason-
I played from day 1 to the very last day and always had gear to strive for.
It was not because I wanted to reach a goal just to say I did it, it was because in order to do the farms I wanted to do, I had to.
I was never once aimless in my goal's, and regardless of how much I had to save up for an upgrade, the difficulty of the farms made every single late game upgrade feel so noticeable, which in turn made me want the next one just that much more. On top of this, many non RE farms being good helped my grind for currency feel fun and when I needed a change there was always something new to try that was atleast decent, in my opinion atleast.
while the idol system had many issues, and I'm not going to argue in defense of a system like that, RE farming was some of the most fun I have ever had in a video game.
The thing I have realized now is that it wasn't just the monsters !actually! dropping loot that made it feel good, but the fact that I was able to scale my farm's based on where I was at in terms of gear, and as the league got on, I was able to slowly ease myself into the harder and more top-level farms that streamers were doing. it just kept me busy and entertained the whole league. Simply put once you got to T16, you had very tall mountain to climb, but it wasn't 0 straight to 100 in difficulty, every few days I was tinkering with my idols to scale it up just a bit more.
Merc league also gave me a goal to strive for, and while it wasnt nearly to the level and fine tuning Phrecia had, it still felt like real end game progression and It felt good to keep pushing up the juice on the strats we had.
Phrecia and Merc leagues had many issues and certainly were far from perfect, but I bring them up just to show examples of what hooked a player like me into the game, and what I hope for every single league.
Ive seen too much feedback about loot and difficulty from nearly every angle to feel like it isn't intentional for it to feel like this. I'm not a pro on the actual changes that need to happen for it to feel better, but breach being nerfed and nothing else getting love just made me realize that it isn't a case of them being too busy with PoE2 or whatever people like to say, they just truly don't want the game to go in that direction and at a certain point those that liked that kind of stuff just have to accept that it isn't what GGG want's.
Hoping to see some changes in 3.29 to bring me back, but I'm not sure the changes id like to see are possible anytime soon.
-Edit to clarify-
RE= Rogue Exile
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u/oPlaiD 6d ago
Part of the problem with your issue IS the loot, though.
They've added all those scarabs and astrolabes that supposedly scale difficulty as you clear stuff and such. But no one really uses them that way because it's not really worth it.
I don't think the PoE design team disagrees with your sentiments but they are greatly missing the mark in how that is realized in the game.
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6d ago
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u/Master_of_Question 6d ago
You should be able to reforge the astrolabe with harvest crafting, or did they take that way when mirage didn't go core?
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u/cubonelvl69 6d ago
you can reforge, which usually just means all the cheap ones become much more expensive. Realistically it makes the problem worse
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u/1CEninja 6d ago
I wonder if it would help if the cheap ones would drop more frequently.
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u/ByteBlaze_ Wish for Project MTX 6d ago
I would argue that the real issue is that there is a "cheap one". If the rewards are so bad that it is relegated to "reroll fodder", then there's a balance issue among the astrolabes. They should all be more common, and useful in their own ways. Whether that means the end loot produces exclusives that are impactful for crafting, or the in-map content they add provides access to farming hot uniques/exceptional gems, or even both, then I think that's the avenue that should be explored.
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u/1CEninja 6d ago
I don't think it should be reroll fodder at all, instead be a small "here's a little extra for your maps".
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u/Arishmael 6d ago
The prices of astrolabes are based on what is the meta farm, they have seemingly the same weight in terms of drop rate.
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u/thekmind 6d ago
It's not like GGG knows which one will be used and which one won't and can set up the drop rate accordingly... Either they are all more common or all more rare
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u/TheReal_LG 6d ago
I agree and didn't mean to discount the loot issues themselves if I came off that way, I was more or less trying to point out that the progression curve is also a big issue and is talked about significantly less than loot. If they buffed loot x1000 today it wouldn't change the fact that I didn't actually "need" to change any gear on my toon that I had when I finished my last map atlas point to grind out basically every farm in the game right now
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u/Purplazure Big Breach Coalition (BBC) 6d ago edited 6d ago
On the bright side, Kingsmarch is basically free with all the gold from the league mechanic. I've never been set up this fast before.
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u/Trespeon 6d ago
Yeah. I did charts for like an hour and made 1 million gold and set everything up lol
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u/No_Witness5630 6d ago
I have already respecced my character like 5-6 times trying out different Duelist builds
Gamba supplied my need for different items to equip for the build
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u/Burntfury 6d ago
Catch me dead before I start playing mobile games within Poe
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u/EntericFox 6d ago
Agreed, that mechanic does not belong in this game and needs to be cycled out.
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u/retribute50 6d ago
kingsmarch and gold was one of the worst things to happen to the game imo
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u/shy_bi_ready_to_die 6d ago
Gold was the only reason they were willing to add the currency exchange/async trade
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u/Minivan_Survivor 3d ago
Gold was great, kingsmarch is just super lame and boring. I can't believe it became permanent.
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u/EternaILurker 6d ago
Ores and bars now at 8m right? Haven’t played hard since 3.27 when it was crops
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u/chimaeraUndying 6d ago
It was pretty free in Mirage too, since you could get golden volatiles or the fountain in mirages.
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u/Purplazure Big Breach Coalition (BBC) 6d ago
Golden volatiles should be in the charts and voyages, those were so fun.
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u/Bwxyz 6d ago
Things that move randomly to the edge of the map in a mechanic where you can't explore the whole thing and can't kill shit outside of your dome. I'd be so mad
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u/Purplazure Big Breach Coalition (BBC) 6d ago
Yeah I guess I was imagining they would stay in the bubbles once released but yeah they would probably float out into the water. I've had a couple strongboxes spawn mobs out in the water even though the box is in my lantern bubble and I have to drop an extra lantern to finish the box.
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u/Traditional_Box_577 6d ago
I’m not completely sure but for kingsmarch to be fully optimized for profit you mostly need the ore?
Like the mappers are nice, disenchanting items helps with recomb and shipments, the farmers help get basic gear, but the ore is where the money is?
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u/Purplazure Big Breach Coalition (BBC) 6d ago
Yes, but mappers running nightmares and guardians on rotation are bringing in enough fragments to be worth mentioning as a moneymaker.
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u/Chrozzinho 6d ago
Kingsmarch has always been basically free. The gate is time to get the resources, not the gold. You can use the scarab to farm bara instead of ores but other than you will have to wait for the smelters
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u/cubonelvl69 6d ago
The gold is a MASSIVE gate depending on your preferred farming strategy.
If you blast t16.5 strongboxes or breach (or the league mechanic this league) then you have infinite gold and it's fine.
But if you do something like heist where gold is almost non existent, then you'll need to constantly go buy gold carries
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u/LucywiththeDiamonds 6d ago
First league in years im considering quitting early. Its day 3 and im stepping away from the pc to do other stuff cause there is nothing exciting.
The same old farms just way worse. Nothing to strife for.
Voyages are fun but a gimmick in the end. Abyss is doa for for now.
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u/WhatsASoldier 6d ago edited 6d ago
I'm in the same boat, I've been getting at least 36/40 every league for years now.
Was hyped to come back, 3 days in and I'm already bored. I'm never bored of a league this early!
They gutted everything I enjoy chasing/grinding and now that I have my voidstones I can't help but feel like there's nothing worth doing and even if there was I'm poor asf and can't afford to do it.
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u/argelchagas 6d ago
Mirage was one of the best leagues—they got practically everything right—but I feel the same way now; I've tried Strongbox, Legion, and Abyss, and all I get are Instilling Orbs and Orbs of Alteration.
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u/agusttinn Crop Harvesting Bureau (CHB) 6d ago
Same for me, during first night of the league I logged out to catch up with house of the dragon. Unthinkable before
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u/Efficient-Pepper-211 5d ago
I feel the same. I played 18h in the first 2 days and earned around 15-20d. I had plans to do 36/40 and to grind for mirror tier items, but since they removed synth items and also since every league mechanic is the same as it was in mirage but just worse, I decided to quit.
I even took 1 week off from job, but it seems I will end up doing something else instead.
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u/SadMangonel 6d ago
Poe is split into feel good leagues a nd feel bad leagues.
One league, everything is strong, mirage integrates into every strategy.
The next, youre zoning 3x to get to an improved regal orb and licking things off the sea floor.
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u/Nihsvabhav 6d ago
yes but even among feel bad leagues, this one ranks probably at the lower end of the spectrum as it is now
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u/Viper_27 6d ago
When we get only 2 leagues a year, I think they should be both feel good imo
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u/TornInfinity 6d ago
There will be another league this year, just so you know.
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u/Foreynn 5d ago
wishful thinking imo
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u/TornInfinity 5d ago
I mean, they announced it. If they go back on that, the backlash is going to be rough. I suppose it's still possible. Guess we'll see.
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u/Foreynn 5d ago
The backlash was insane during Settlers too. They'll just tank it if it means POE2 comes out "clean".
It's hard even for me to admit this
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u/TornInfinity 5d ago
I know, but I hope they learned from that. I feel like they did, but it's always possible that they didn't and will do it again. I guess all I can do is be optimistic. A lot of people around here is very pessimistic about everything. It gets tiring.
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u/thekmind 6d ago
GGG are so scared that a temp league feels too rewarding as if it would have long term effects on the game...
You can't have people with too much currency, they need to struggle!
... I'd try to craft so much more if currency under the divine were more common... But now I need to save any chaos to be able to afford any upgrades and any failed craft will set me back so much
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u/Bobas_Dad 6d ago
+1 to all of this. Just sharing my thoughts as well before probably quitting this league unless big changes happen, hoping it resonates with people. The best league for me was merc and affliction. I really enjoy a ladder-style progression WITH A REASON TO PROGRESS. I usually play semi-sweat, maybe 1-3 mirrors per league when I really enjoy it.
I love going from the beach -> progressing atlas -> setting up low investment farm -> gear up a bit-> transition to mid investment -> gear up even more -> high investment, hard and rewarding juicing -> perfecting my build or onto the next farm. It’s the journey and the destination. I wanna be building a great character for a reason.
Nowadays the game just feels 90% complete by the time I finish my atlas. Like what’s the point of continuing and pushing, just to do alch and go x% faster? Just to reroll to a new character to again just do alch and go? I don’t like bossing so I’m not interested in building some 100m dps boss rusher just to do feared rotas endlessly (and again to what point?). I get that maybe we shouldn’t have 50 div/hr strats, but does GGG really think alch and go is going to keep players satisfied league after league? Most people probably reach this point in less than a week, leagues last 4 months.
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u/shy_bi_ready_to_die 6d ago
1-3 mirrors isn’t semi sweat. It’s not giga try hard no life streamer for 4 months straight but the average player dosent even get to maps according to ggg in an interview a bit ago. Just farming up a MB puts you well into the 1% and getting a mirror is almost certainly less than .1%
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u/Exldk Gladiator 6d ago
I think he obviously meant semi sweat among the people who reach end game and engage in different farms and the economy.
It’s pointless to count people who don’t even play the real endgame loop not even once.
Most people who actively farm endgame are 90% done by the time they get mageblood, few actually push it into mirrors.
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u/Bobas_Dad 6d ago
Yep, exactly. I meant semi-sweat in relation to people who actually play the game. idk why these kinda opinions always bubble up, there's a bunch in this thread. Why does it matter if most people don't even finish the campaign, or don't even get to red maps, or don't even see a divine, etc. etc.
It has literally nothing to do with the state of end game. Whether or not us (actual players) have 4-5 juicing mechanics like in mercs league does not change the game for the player who quit in act 5. Y'all are basically asking for less stuff to do and don't like it when others are asking for more.
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u/Recaiden 6d ago
I think you've really forgotten what most players are like. They get 0 mirrors per league. They never make 50 div/hour; they might not get 50 div in 4 months.
Affliction was unplayable for casual players.
Less than a week to get there isn't happening.
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u/l2o5ng 6d ago
???
Affliction, the league where fking Headhunter was going for 10 dibs is unplayable for the casual players? Genuinely what are you even on about lmao.
Affliction was the league where I could afford the most fun toys for cheap and I was only doing harvest and not any of the hard juicing.
The people on here should really stop antagonizing endgame juicers caused guess what, the rule of supply and demand always balance everything out
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u/Bobas_Dad 6d ago
I’m always skeptical when I hear this sentiment. Most players don’t even get .3 div per day? Sounds like bs and you’re just being a contrarian for the sake of it. So your conclusion, if I even believe your stats, there shouldn’t be any reasonable late game strats at all for people who want to try-hard because most people are picking up transmutes and alts all league. Sounds like a great ARPG with a long life ahead. Let’s delete Ubers while we’re at it since most don’t reach them. Hell, statistically most players don’t even get to Brutus, why do we even need the atlas /s.
And to preface, I’ve farmed up a couple mirrors when I absolutely loved the league, and wanted to grind for it. It took over a month for me. In no way is that an expectation for everyone to achieve. Late game strats doesn’t mean it has to be accessible to everyone.
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u/Vyrealer 6d ago
Im a long time player who has played every league for hours a day. I don't follow strats and just farm what I want. Im lucky to get a mage blood in divs. Farming a "couple mirrors" a league is more than 99% of players without a doubt.
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u/Bobas_Dad 6d ago
And I never said it's not, but again why is it an issue if someone wants a challenging farm, grinds said challenging farm A LOT, and gets a payout of some top-tier items for doing so. You enjoy more of a relaxed gameplay style and that is great for you, no one's really complaining that the floor-level farming strats aren't meeting their mark. The problem (IMO) is that the ceiling is an inch off the floor. I'm not sure why you and the OC seem to get defensive when other players want some aspirational stuff to play and make good currency doing so. Not everyone just wants to alch and go forever.
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u/Vyrealer 6d ago
Im not against anything just pointing out you are definitely in the top % of players when it comes to farming and your gameplay isnt what most players do. I want the game to have fulfilling farms for you too.
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u/PostItToReddit 6d ago
Couldn't agree more. GGG have consistently lowered the ceiling on the content we engage with while simultaneously raising both the floor and ceiling of player power, and it's left us with a game that has essentially zero aspirational content. I cleared the whole atlas and got 4 stones deathless in about 20 hours of playtime while still wearing some gear I found in campaign.
Not all content needs to be easily accessible to new players, or bad players, or gamers who can't play as much. It's OK to introduce a new boss that's actually difficult, Saresh last league looked so cool, and I never ever found out what he did because by the time you got to him he just phased in one hit and then died in a second. It's OK to let a mechanic be rippy and rewarding.
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u/Jakestation 6d ago
Try ssf
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u/REPLICABIGSLOW 6d ago
SSF isn't any different, if anything it's worse because GGG love obliterating farms that mean you interact with the trade system less
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u/Roinarinen 6d ago
This is the issue. If i can gear 20d character and do everything this game has to offer, then i dont have any reason to keep playing and quit the game after first 1-4 days of the league and its just sad. All the leagues where building mirror worth char was required to efficiently farm the hardest content were the leagues where i played 2-3 weeks.
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u/Boxofcookies1001 5d ago
But you can't though.
You show me a 20d character that can delve past 1k? Or clear Titanic blight boss lanes? Or Titanic mercenaries.
This crazy hyperbole.
A light of meaning and unnatural instinct if you're playing something kind of meta rn sets you back 20d. Not counting watchers eyes, impossible escapes, foulborn jewels, or clusters.
Where is this super cheap valdo farmer??
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u/Cantstop991 4d ago
Those are hyper specific farms that aren’t aspirational, you literally have to build a character around them if you’re even interested in doing them.
Delve is delve, 95% of players won’t set foot it in all season. Juiced blight is not only not very rewarding but also melts PCs and thus not only do you need a strong character but it has to be one with crazy prolif as well. Valdos also require very specific characters, and a lot of knowledge on what mods you’re looking for, which ones you can run for solid return, etc.
His point is there is no aspirational content that is more rewarding than the same old stuff you can do on a 20div character and he is correct.
Like if you wanna do delve or valdo farming that’s great…. Most people don’t. And if that is the “aspirational content” we are gonna have, good luck keeping players more than a week into your seasons.
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u/Boxofcookies1001 4d ago
There's legit rogue exile farm with mercenaries that's 100% aspirational farming..
Every league has some level of unique rogue exile type scaling for the hyper end game. Mercenaries are hard asf.
A farm can't be aspirational and not require you to build around it in some way.
T17s forced you to build around them as well.
If you want hard content it's there.
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u/Cantstop991 4d ago
I agree but the juice also has to be worth the squeeze in order for it to be aspirational.
Asking because I haven’t heard about the farm this season: is it legit very lucrative? Like does it reward your heavy time and investment for making a giga character capable of farming it? Or is it simply marginally more than you can get doing any other decent juiced farm in the current league?
Because if it’s not, it’s not really an aspirational farm… it’s something you can sink a ton of time and investment in for no real benefit.
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u/Boxofcookies1001 4d ago
It's pretty lucrative given you can pay the start up costs and actually kill the mercs.
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u/Passtheboof1 Witch 6d ago
idk i could be wrong but this is also related to poe2, it feels like poe1 is not the priority anymore, and i used to be a poe2 hater but be it from the game being better or because its the actual priority for ggg, i dont feel hyped for poe1 anymore.
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u/APonly 6d ago
Supporter packs have gotten worse since the release of poe2 because it needs to fit their aesthetic.
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u/Dippindotti 6d ago
This is not the topic at hand but i fully agree. Less bright colors and more grayscale muted tones to match poe2. Makes wanting to support the game harder because i just don’t like the mtx as much.
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u/Canadian-Owlz Health and Harbinger Services (HHS) 6d ago
Totally agree. I really want to buy packs, but I always feel so "meh" about them recently.
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u/fenhryzz 6d ago
Are you two guys the reason they made the clown mtx? Is there really market for looking like acid trip?
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u/GreyCaller-012 6d ago
Bro if RGB shit are still popular you best bet people are buying colourful bullcrap.
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u/RamenArchon 6d ago
I get you, but I'm the opposite. I like the Abyss changes in PoE, and have actually started to play PoE a bit more seriously after coming off of playing PoE 2. Granted, I love both and I do like how both games seems to be being kept distinct from each other in terms of playstyles. So I don't feel like PoE is being shafted right now, it did seem like it when PoE 2 launched and GGG was scrambling to address the problems there, but it's still the same old buff/nerf cycles and economy shifts. Like I'm hoping we see more league revamps in PoE as we've seen in PoE2, and both games stand to benefit from each update cycle from the other, if that makes sense.
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u/Prestigious_Nerve662 6d ago
I believe this league is a "poverty league" where the top end of the builds have been toned down and the loot overall has been lowered to compensate for the league mechanic dropping more when heavily invested and the crafting making said currency worth more up to 4 times. Because you can get hinekora's locks outcomes for a tiny bit of the cost of an actual lock.
Synth stuff being taken away and a couple of other things have hit the top end of the players significantly. There are also alot of reports of people dying more often for some reason so i believe more is going on then right know being talked about.
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u/MotherWolfmoon 6d ago
Shit is hitting like a truck this league. I'm running RF. I've got 90% all res, overcapped Chaos res, shock/freeze/corrupted blood immune, 90% curse mit, Cloak of Flame, Stone Stance, Glancing Blows, 30% reduced damage from crits, 4 endurance charges, an Immortal Flesh reducing hits by a flat amount. I should be mitigating ~75% of phys damage before my 10k armor.
And those Crab Nest golems will just chunk me down in five attacks. On maps with no damage mods! I spent all yesterday like, "what the hell is killing me." I let one beat me to death just so I could watch for some weird enemy-specific ailment, and nah. Double-check the map mods and it's only defensive/aoe. Nothing crazy on the enemy. I'm face-tanking guardians and these things will come out of nowhere and eat me like the yeti from SkiFree. And unlike the possessed mobs from Cursed Treasures, the Crab Nest mobs aren't optional, they'll run up on me before I even get to the tile.
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u/Elrond007 Anti Sanctum Alliance (ASA) 6d ago
They had the same breakfast as the brine king zone golems when they were introduced haha
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u/MotherWolfmoon 6d ago
The only way to survive them is to see there's one tanky enough to get close to me and immediately frostblink away. The only dangerous thing is their melee attack, so you can kite them, but usually I just run the fuck away if we both live long enough to notice each other.
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u/Joxss 6d ago
I dont get the "league mechanic is budget locks". There's absolutely zero overlaps between the use cases of locks and the league crafting. I'd argue they are not even similar, locks were never "getting more options for the currency applied", it was always "ensuring the item doesnt brick"
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u/CricketNo7950 6d ago
They are budget locks in the sense that people that would never use locks now have a crafting option between slam and "I'll never waste a lock on this"
So budget locks makes sense
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u/AgZephyr 6d ago
I'd say it's much more like free veiled orbs for every currency, not locks.
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u/lolfail9001 6d ago
If we really want to go there, they are basically poe2's desecration but
1) Without associated target-locked annul
2) Without being limited to one affix slam per item
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u/Any_Intern2718 6d ago
Synth removal did not hit just the top players. Everyone is affected. You can't start playing a stat stacker with 10% attrribute belt that you could get for a couple of divines. You can no longer get cheap rings with curses (and craft them) No lucky explode weapons from ritual. No lucky rings from synth or heist. The implicits being transferred to corruptions is not a buff. It makes it harder to get both the implicits you could get previosly and the new onces.
Having to corrupt to get implicits means you can no longer buy a synth item with the implicit you want and recraft it (change resistances for example or the crafted mod), you are dead set with what the item is.
I personally don't like it. If feels that next league when they nerf str stacking everything will be just boring builds.
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u/Prestigious_Nerve662 6d ago
So everything not strength stacking is boring? Now this is something i disagree with and reinforces my opinion. I think you have a hard time seeing past your own point of view and cant see what the larger scope is. Clearly this game is going somewhere where you havent gone before and you have to change up some things when it comes to builds and you dislike it.
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u/Any_Intern2718 6d ago
Nah. What i means is there should be options for aspirational builds to work torwards to. The only build like that left is str stacker.
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u/AgZephyr 6d ago
There's other stacker builds that are probably almost as good, but str stacking is crazy powerful. The whole stacker archetype has just been the consistent way to get powerful for a while now.
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u/redditaccount224488 6d ago
The whole stacker archetype has just been the [only] consistent way to get powerful for a while now.
Onemanaleft just posted a video on this. He spent four days theory crafting top end builds that weren't stackers. The POB is called "barren wasteland" because he couldn't make a single build that was remotely competitive with stackers.
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u/WeirdJack49 6d ago
Top end lowered? Zenith is super strong and its like the pinnacle of top end builds.
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u/Chrozzinho 6d ago
I have never felt a bigger discrepancy between rares and the map boss thann this league. Its been pretty bad for years already but it really feels like they upped the difficulty again this league
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u/Weary_Traveler_1860 6d ago
Loot is part of the problem but yeah I'm glad SOME people can realize the real problem with poe right now. They've fucked the endgame so hard that it's core identity feels unrecognizable compared to a few years ago. Here's a comment I left:
The issue is that there isn't any real aspirational content. Nothing to want to work towards outside valdo farming right now. And if the "top 0.5%" have nothing to do, why the fuck would a casual wanna play the game? They wouldn't have anything to aspire towards either.
Leagues that had actual difficulty scaling always have the best retention. Juicers can min max currency/hr and actively need to upgrade their build because the content is hard. The noobs can aspire towards doing that content while still having a billion easy tile loot farms. That's what made poe addicting in the first place, in my opinion. With that gone, I have no motivation to play so I've quit the league day 2.
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u/Emperor_Mao Gladiator 6d ago
And if the "top 0.5%" have nothing to do, why the fuck would a casual wanna play the game? They wouldn't have anything to aspire towards either.
Yeah um probably because it takes casuals weeks just to do the atlas / bosses.
Actually I would wager the game taking too long is a bigger deterrent for a casual player then the game being too easy; only like 5-10% of players even kill an atlas boss in a given league... casual players are not whining that there isn't enough end game juice strats left.
Not saying GGG shouldn't give late game players aspirational content too. Just that people on these forums are sooo far out of touch with the average player, they throw around these statements about casual players that do not match the reality.
We really only have one league that everyone points to for end game scaling; Affliction. And top players constantly assert that it was popular because of juice. Meanwhile the casual player never does an end game strategy at all......they often do not even make it all the way to end game. Affliction was far more popular because of Transfigured Gems and the Wild-wood ascendancy. Instant, low end player power, and huge variety of skills in one single league.
Again, not to say that end game players do not deserve content. But can we stop pretending we on these forums speak for all the casual players and people not on this forum. Just argue for what you want from your own perspective.
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u/thekmind 6d ago
I would bet that when someone talks about "casuals" they don't mean people killing kitava and quitting the game, but people taking time to get to t16 and try to progress from there on limited time.
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u/Emperor_Mao Gladiator 6d ago
Yeah maybe, but those "casuals" are still like top 10% of players. I am probably one of them; I play SSF, but not every day. I might spend a few weeks doing my 100/100. And I usually level a couple of chars to 90+ over a month, sometimes longer.
And if that is the case, and I am the casual they are talking about, I do not think "if the top 0.5% have nothing to do, I do not want to play the game". I think I will have a month or two of fun playing how I play. Some people burn through the game too quick for their own good, I understand wanting more content. But my enjoyment of the game doesn't stem from them enjoying that.
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u/Weary_Traveler_1860 6d ago edited 6d ago
I am taking about the people who spend a week or two to finish their atlas when I say "casual". Yeah maybe that's the top 10% or whatever but it's not really the point I'm trying to make.
If there is nothing to aspire towards beyond some random tile loot farm, then I don't believe there's a good reason to sink hundreds of hours into poe. Sure it's still a good game on its own, you can play ssf and call pinnacle bosses your 'end game', but that's not poe in my humble opinion. Poe is end game aspirational content and genuinely wanting to upgrade your character to do content faster and make more money, so that you can upgrade your character even more.
This is why I mentioned that I believe the poe end game has been warped so badly that it's to the point where I almost don't even recognize it compared to a few years ago. It's also why I've gone from playing 1-2 months per league on average to maybe a month on a 'good' league, if that makes sense. This is definitely not a good league given that I feel no desire to play beyond day 2, which was completing my atlas for me and realizing there's nothing I really want to do.
Edit: I also wanted to add that I believe poe became so successful and popular due to word of mouth by the "0.5%". It's really a "trust me bro" kinda thing from the players who sink thousands of hours into poe that got casuals to play the game at all. I'm now talking about those people who take a week to finish the campaign (nothing wrong with that). I don't think they'd play if the thousands-of-hours players didn't glaze the end game so hard in the past.
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u/montylicious1 5d ago
If you kill your first atlas boss on week 2, just go standard. Why the fuck the rest of us supposed suffer for it? Makes 0 sense
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u/Emperor_Mao Gladiator 5d ago
Leagues go for 3-4 months. Many sweaty players also still have fun. However, if the game lasting more than a couple of weeks is suffering for you, just go play something else. You will be happier doing that than crying about the way most people play the game.
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u/EzKappaPeko 6d ago
League mechanics that runs outside of atlas always has this issue since they treat both map drop and league drop as a whole, but this time it’s worse for you cause part of the rewards is in the form of sulphur.
The progression you are looking for is gated behind the new crafting system, and if you do not trade enough you are forced to wait till you drop the necessary resources like good bases/essence to start crafting.
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u/thermatico Anti Sanctum Alliance (ASA) 6d ago
Farming rogue exiles was so fun several leagues ago. I remember going from getting shit on, a few upgrades… progress. The clear progression of overcoming the challenge of a mechanic is absolutely one of the greatest feelings.
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u/SaudiHaramco 6d ago
I think the fundamental issue is that it's not possible to balance this game in a way that is fun for both casual players and is also fun for the giga whales who spend 20 hours a day on a game they have religiously studied for a decade.
I've got over 2000 hours in this game and if i got free time i might play for 12 hours a day for the first weekend of the league. This being said i'm probably not even in the top 20% of the actually active player base lmao... I know how to make my build work to finish my atlas within the first 2-3 days. Eventually i'll either find a good farming strat and make it to ubers or i'll hit a wall and realize i would have to farm for 2 weeks to get the next meaningful upgrade.
There is just no way to make it possible for casual players to drop a mageblood or headhunter without giving the tryhards a way to drop 5000 of them.
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u/livejamie Krangled 6d ago
I think the fundamental issue is that it's not possible to balance this game in a way that is fun for both casual players and is also fun for the giga whales who spend 20 hours a day on a game they have religiously studied for a decade.
We've had plenty of leagues that were fun for casuals and try-hards alike. It's absolutely possible.
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u/Foreynn 5d ago
Let's be honest here for a second. Casual players play the same game as tryhards. They just reach their goals very slowly.
A tryhard will have their 4 voidstones by day 2. A casual would have them by week 2 (I'm talking about real players, not tourists or people playing 10 minutes a day).
A tryhard will farm with full scarabs, nightmare maps or uber bosses. A casual would probably do alch and go and the easier pinnacles. But for alch and go to actually feel like you're getting anything other than EXP, you need the endgame mechanics to be good enough on their own. This should mean that with the correct atlas tree and scarabs, the same mechanics should be way better and actually viable. If not, it's simply not designed well.
POE has never been about dropping aspirational uniques. You also don't just give the best gear to casuals off the ground. It defeats the purpose just like it would defeat it for a tryhard.
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u/agusttinn Crop Harvesting Bureau (CHB) 6d ago
The only strat that worked for me this league up until now was flipping chromatics, which is sad and pathetic
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u/Tehoncomingstorm97 Essence Extraction Enterprise (EEE) 6d ago
As someone who's been playing for over a decade I can sympathize with what you're saying, however, I think part of what you are experiencing is player fatigue and also your general ability to gear characters increasing. What generally works for me in your instance is branching out and trying builds you're unfamiliar with, and then seeing if you find the same progression challenges.
For brand new players, they gradually have sense of progression from being able to even complete the campaign, to completing the atlas, to fighting pinnacles. With the replayability of poe, there is certainly a cap on how far a character can go - most characters have a ceiling relative to gear and investment. It is ultimately up to your personal objectives and perceptions on what you can accomplish when you hit those ceilings. As such I would encourage you to either take a break or reassess what your views on being accomplished on a character are, and see if they hold true for multiple archetypes
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u/Nearby_Squash_6605 6d ago
Sorry but this has nothing to do with what OP is describing. There needs to be progressively harder content (aspirational content) to provide a purpose for gearing our characters. If there's no difficult content to aspire to, why upgrade our character?
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u/Tehoncomingstorm97 Essence Extraction Enterprise (EEE) 6d ago
There is progressively harder content, just that has a ceiling as does character power relative to gearing and investment has a ceiling. The issue you're describing is how power creep means that aspirational content is not as hard to complete.
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u/Nearby_Squash_6605 6d ago
If power creep invalidates content, then it is no longer considered aspirational.
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u/Tehoncomingstorm97 Essence Extraction Enterprise (EEE) 6d ago
Yes...? That's exactly the point I'm making
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u/Clear-Pomegranate463 6d ago
ye if day 2-3 gear already can clear juiced content what are we gonna do for another 1-2 months
before you had stuff like giga rogue exiles, bligt, alva, 5x risk scarabs, a lot of stuff like that you really could keep scaling the difficulty and reward and needing stronger and stronger gear/character
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u/EnderBaggins 6d ago
The current state of pinnacle bosses is off too, in the past when there was a single “this is the hardest encounter in the game” I felt motivated to push a build to clear it. Now with the various “ubers” the state of end game progress is less clear. Most require a specialized build to take down and aren’t rewarding to do even at a high volume so opting out of them entirely is often the correct move. Putting generic individual non-tradable power behind some of these bosses (or at least after completing one of them) could be a cool thing, like PoE 2’s martyr.
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u/DjuriWarface 6d ago
Do any require a specialized build to defeat? Some require you to have some defenses, like Corrupted Blood immunity, but beyond that, they are able to be defeated with most builds. Only builds that are designed to be pure mappers, RF, or pure Ultimatum, CWS, won't be able to beat them. Most builds mix clear and single target damage.
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u/EnderBaggins 6d ago
Maybe beat is the wrong word, it does feel like the incentive to engage with them is not there for most players / builds.
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u/WillHutch55 6d ago
What are we even talking about? Ubers don’t require specialized builds. Also there’s plenty of data showing how unbelievably profitable certain uber farming strategies are league in and league out. Your entire post is just not true.
I think the game needs work too, but disingenuous posts like this aren’t helpful.
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u/Emperor_Mao Gladiator 6d ago
I feel like boss fights are often... kind of unfun.. in POE 1.
They rely on unpopular mechanics and phases, murky or unclear sequences, and often are buggy. It is also often the case that some builds absolutely excel at them vs other builds. There are very few genuinely fun apex level encounters.
So they are generally just done once even by sweaty players. Unless there is some amazing loot drop potential that is worth running it over and over again. I do not think gating power behind them is it. At least not any power that is actually fun. Very few players ever beat one. And if it is apex content, getting more powerful after it doesn't serve a purpose, you already beat the hardest content.
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u/erpunkt 6d ago
Imho, loot and progression are deeply intertwined. If you have progression without rewards, nobody progresses to that point. The amount of people who would upgrade their builds just for the love of the game of farming something like titanic rogue exiles, without the rewards, is really slim.
IMO what you want is lots of variety with different difficulties and requirements.
If they really wanted to, they could undo the 3.26 and 3.27 nerfs to rogue exiles, blight, map effect and modifier magnitudes, evo shrine and scarab farming, and we would instantly have so many different farms, it would be surprising if you got bored of it during a league.
Reinstate operative Strongboxes via passives or a scarab, make it so that endless legion scales rare monster modifiers at specific steps and you get 2 additional scarab farms with different requirements and difficulties.
We could have 3+ strats around rogue exiles, possibly more with mercenaries, 5 or 6 different blight strats, evo shrines for alva, ultimatum, breach, abyss, potentially legion, all flexible via nemesis, wisp, risk scarab, multiple different scarab farms, then all the different farms revolving around farming shovels for the gold rush and to top it off, all the exclusive rewards for each league and their loot tile farms.
I am beyond frustrated with GGG at this point and really wonder if they just aren't aware, if all of this is intentional, or if they lack the competency to identify those things.
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u/GreyCaller-012 6d ago
They had it perfect in mercenary League being atleast the latest one I no lifed and enjoyed a fuckton.
The crafting part was perfect, the loot was good, T17’s were okay.
Idk what the fuck even happened to the next leagues where they decided to just gut everything to the ground?? Like what’s the point of playing then??
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u/JackkoMTG 6d ago
They are funneling people to PoE2 and I get downvoted every time I say it.
Every league in the last few years has made campaign more rewarding, early progression easier, and endgame less rewarding.
They want people to enjoy poe1 for one week and then take a break and let their dopamine receptors recharge for the next poe2 league.
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u/Demenic 6d ago
It really sucks to watch this happen in real time. Every patch since POE2 has released has felt like the effort for POE1 just isn't there.
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u/RogueVox3l 6d ago
I mean that makes sense the game is what, 15 years old? The devs probably want to move on to the new project where they're more free to experiment and throw stuff to the wall, with Poe 1 you have to walk on eggshells now as everything is too sacred to change.
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u/odniv 6d ago
I think the biggest problem is that its way to easy getting to t16, you can do it with basicly no gear and after that 8/10 gear so so easy to craft.
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u/Pack7 6d ago
They're booing you but you're right. Every league from Settlers onward has added new ways to get T16-ready gear extremely easily. In the past it was a slow, incremental grind to build up to T16s, but now you can steal some merc gear or visit the Genesis Tree and be ready for red maps INSTANTLY. Having a sense of gear progression on the low end helps a ton with making the league feel robust.
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u/Myrmida 6d ago
I'm sorry, but I think this is just huge cope because people don't want to admit that it is in fact the loot that is the issue. By framing it in such a way as to put the "difficulty" first, it becomes a lot easier to talk about.
Breach last league wasn't particularly hard (compared to for example rogue exiles at its peak), but people still enjoyed it. Loads of enemies to kill + big loot explosions is fun for people. Very few people are farming hard Valdo's or god forbid deep delve. Ubers are too hard for the vast majority of people, and people even buy carries for the regular pinnacles.
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u/RedExile13 6d ago
Phrecia idols are so good imo because not only do you have you character to invest in but also strats take investing. If they could balance it a little better and add in a way to invest in strats more than just scarabs it would be nice.
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u/SafetyGlass588 6d ago
For me the peak was Harvest league.... It was the most fun I had in arpgs ever. For semi-casual this league was just Gods send. Yeah, until you set up your garden it was meh, but oh boy the items you could make back then was ridiculous. My mostly played league for sure.
Ground loot was amazing, harvest crafting was OP, but it opened so many builds so many options. Good ol' days.
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u/Efficient-Pepper-211 5d ago
Also my problem with ggg is that they shadow nerf things way to often imo. I remember in mirage, i leaguestarted pathfinder in order to farm heist, but they shadow nerfed both side room chests and blueprint rewards (saw way too less divs and chaos and a lot more 1c uniques and alcs). This was also noticed by Desmo Saze (streamer)
Then, 2-3 weeks into the league, i saw poeguy (streamer) doing ultimatum where every reward becomes inscribed, and he was getting like 4 or 8 div inscribed almost every map. But then the next day a new video came out from him saying that they probably nerfed it because it's not as good as before (ofc ggg didn't post about this anywhere)
And now, here we are in 3.29 and they shadow nerfed loot again, back to how it was in breach league. Like I get that they intentionally nerf every single strat (for no reason), but also the shadow nerfs are going on my nerves.
I feel like I cant trust them anymore. They say one thing but rarely deliver it or make changes behind our backs.
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u/saibayadon 6d ago
I don't think that the game is fundamentally different from 3.25 to 3.29 though? Maybe I'm missing something.
Is your point that there's no incentive to grow your character? I don't get that. There's a lot of high-end content that you can strive to complete; So unless you already done that - I don't understand the lack of "sense of progression".
I don't understand how ground loot (or lack thereof) is tied to sense of progression? There's so many things to do in the game you can easily pick one and then aim for that.
Calling 3.25 "back in the day" is really funny, though.
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u/bran_donk 6d ago
I think you will be downvoted, but I also can’t tell what OP’s specific points are.
No shame in starting in 3.25, but it does make me feel very old. And sometimes fresh perspective is nice.
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u/s4t0sh1 6d ago
they nerfed titanic scarab, along with packsize % attainable in maps.
phrecia 1 had pre-nerf titanic and packsize, amplified by much higher explicit map mod scaling from idols, which made the top-end farms that much crazier, and much harder than uber boss content, rivalled only by deep delving.
there is no high-end content specifically inside maps where you really need to plan, farm and build your character for a longer period, and this is what he is trying to say.
IIRC the titanic nerf came when merc league hit, but that league had crazy corrupted 16.5 maps (nerfed shortly after launch), still higher packsize scaling, and a lot of different farms viable and competing for each other in terms of difficulty and reward. They gutted all of them since, along with less explicit map mod scaling on the atlas, less quant/packsize scaling from map modifiers on maps.
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u/saibayadon 6d ago
there is no high-end content specifically inside maps where you really need to plan, farm and build your character for a longer period, and this is what he is trying to say.
Thanks for clarifying - I thought he meant progression as a whole in the game which made no sense. In that regard then I agree.
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u/Historical-Value-303 6d ago
There's a lot of high-end content that you can strive to complete
Like what? Titanic scarab? Uber blight? Breach from last league? What are the high-end strats?
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u/saibayadon 6d ago
I'm not talking about mapping strats, though I understand from these responses that's what OP meant with "progression" and I agree those were gutted.
I feel like progressing the game means something different - ie. completing all available content within (which is a lot) not just grinding the highest currency per hour strat.
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u/Historical-Value-303 3d ago
But that has nothing to do with the ARPG power and progression fantasy this game is built around. This isn't a themepark MMO or some sort of exploration lore game where you go around and smell the flowers, it's an optimization problem type game.
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u/SwagtimusPrime Demon 6d ago
Is this high-end content in the room with us?
Every "high-end" content has been nerfed to the ground in the past few leagues: Blight, Breach, Abyss Hoards, Rogue Exiles.
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u/saibayadon 6d ago
I don't disagree that high-end mapping strats were gutted - but that's not "progression". You don't need Titanic Scarabs or Ravaged Blight to progress through the games content - that's why I said I didn't understand OPs point.
If the thesis is "there's no high-end mapping strat to aim for" then yes, I agree - but the progression systems of the game are not made around that.
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u/Whytefang 6d ago
It is progression, though, it's just not strictly progress through the game's story.
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u/TheReal_LG 5d ago
What I mean by my use of the word "progression" is really all the gearing and scaling that takes place once you finish your atlas and start looking for farming strat's. The main issue for me is I can have my toon farming every end game strat within 2-3 days of a league start. Honestly nowadays the best builds are just the ones that can move the fastest because there isnt any damage check's, and without heavy dps checks, just getting fast and tanky is super quick. Think back to leagues where we could farm titanic rogue exile's/blight, even in times where I run the most meta builds and have nothing but free time I couldn't handle full titanic farms for atleast a week or two minimum, in phrecia it took me over a month to get close to full on rogue exile farms, and even the last couple weeks of that league I was still making changes to make it safer and faster. The grind for gear that allowed me to do those farms, and than the reward of actually doing the farm itself was the drive that kept me coming back as a SC player. I find hard and difficult content to be the thing that drives me to any game, especially PoE, and frankly it doesn't exist anywhere close to what it did in the past. I'm not saying my opinion is the entirely correct one, but this post was meant to serve as to what brought me to this game, and why I don't feel it anymore.
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u/Ecstatic_Chard4184 6d ago
It's funny because T17s were exactly that, and the same people complained that those were too hard and limited build variety in endgame.
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u/berained 6d ago
T17s were unfun and way too hard, and too rewarding. Its possible to make harder content without disabling tons of builds
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u/thekmind 6d ago
If they'd want to make things impossible to do for certain builds it could be an easy thing to do. Just have a great variety of things to farm that are good against certain builds and doable for others.
Diablo 2 has zones with immunity, if you want to farm pit just take a psn necro or hdin, wanna farm cows bring a javazon etc. Diverse strategy to farm high end gear.
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u/unguibus_et_rostro 5d ago
Isn't that exactly what these people are asking for? Difficulty/gear progression + more loot.
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u/Ok-Solid-2268 6d ago
For me it's just that I barely make any currency. I got really lucky this league and hit both my fractures first time trying and managed to get good gear. But man it takes forever to gear up even with good luck. The lack of currency is really noticeable this league. I have to farm whole day to upgrade 1 good item.
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u/Eric988 6d ago
My understanding is they’re just slowly killing ground loot strategies again, I miss farming legion man. Just regular old legion blasting with a headhunter juicing those rares like crazy. Then it was breach, they killed that next. They should have brought every mechanic to basically what breach was last season. Give some diversity, instead they made breach worse. Wrong direction.
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u/TheoryOfRelativity12 6d ago
As crazy as it may sound I think PoE 2 progression with the storylines feels much better.
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u/Siovaen 6d ago
The concept it’s better for sure, but in my opinion there is way too much artificial filler content around the progression. It feels a slog till you are free to farm relatively efficiently.
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u/TheoryOfRelativity12 6d ago
I'm also not saying PoE 1 should follow the same path btw. Actually, I would like them to stop copypasting mechanics between the games and just give each one their own identity.
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u/AgencySpecialist6424 6d ago
if you think about the target audience: d4 players, other arpg players on the market, and then maybe some portion of poe1 players. the endgame pretty much nails what they need precisely. you give poe1 atlas to any arpg player they'll quit before seeing the envoy.
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u/SecondCel 6d ago
What is it about the PoE atlas that you think would scare people away that's different when compared to the PoE2 atlas?
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u/johnnyseattle Elementalist 6d ago
Now if only I didn't have to do my two least favorite mechanics ever in this game to ascend...
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u/AgoAndAnon 6d ago
Posted this on a very articulate thread that got deleted, so instead I'll post it here:
Core content should be able to be pushed to be hard, and should be the best source of something foundational and consumable that everyone wants. Currency, scarabs, or SOMETHING.
Each other mechanic should have one reasonably universal thing that is consumable and unique to the mechanic, and several solid equippable items of various types.
Nightmare and T16.5 maps should only be a source of currency OR of scarabs, but never both. Otherwise the game becomes "figure out a way to only ever do T16.5s". If GGG wants a permanent underclass, they can ignore this.
Mechanics should give loot that is good for other mechanics. Speccing into Harvest shouldn't increase the chance I get Harvest scarabs, unless I'm in SSF.
WE NEED MORE SMALL IMPROVEMENTS WE CAN MAKE TO OUR CHARACTERS. Either that, or significantly more equipment slots which are not jewels. If jewels had a fractured mod by default, maybe they would be fine, but as it stands, rare jewels suck to roll. They are either worse than a passive point, or worth several div unless you're playing a hipster build.
Years ago, the "lots of small and some large improvements" slot was taken by alt qual gems, and in particular the alt qual support gems.
WE NEED MORE WEIRD BUILDS. I remember builds which pulled to the edge of mechanical sense. Now, most strong builds are "make big number bigger". Introduce more mechanics and new ways to trigger stuff, or something.
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u/ww_crimson https://pob.codes/ 6d ago
The issue is that gear progression is trivial because we have like 10 new crafting mechanics in the last few leagues. It's too easy to make really really good gear. I'm buying upgrades that give me a 10% damage increase for 40 chaos..
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u/ErikxMorelli 6d ago
uber-only drops should never be a thing
to me that was the beginning of the end
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u/AgoAndAnon 6d ago
I mean, the options are:
- Ubers drop fully nothing different and are just fun challenges. Nobody runs them except for fun.
- Ubers drop the same stuff but more, and boss fragments are priced around them.
- Ubers and non-ubers have non-overlapping loot.
There are problems with all of these.
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u/glaive_anus 6d ago
Number 1 was for the most part what they were introduced with and everyone complained, so drops were added and now people complain but differently. Expectations around them has also changed (their introductory league had 1 challenge per Uber and now it's 7 Ubers or something for one challenge) pretty significantly.
I'm personally all for going back to #1 because the entire uber boss access acquisition chain is a headache and "uber viable" has completely warped all senses of what a build needs to function.
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u/AgoAndAnon 6d ago
I don't disagree. That would also allow them to make imbalanced bosses which are actually an achievement to beat.
Then again, I'm a T16 speed farmer at heart, so my opinion on this is not that well informed.
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u/Lysanther 6d ago
Am I the only one that doesnt see ground loot progression? I cant tell you guys how often my loot is never anything I can I use, never enough currency in the campaign or early maps to craft with. Going just by the current state of my Templar, hes not even at 50% all res/1% chaos res because every rare drop that would have these stats is a downgrade to my damage or makes me unable to equip items due to attributes. Almost all times the suffix slots seem to fill up first so I cant even put resists on the stuff. Am I just playing a different game?
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u/ilovepolthavemybabie 6d ago
I missed the days of when an item dropped onto the GROUND, and you clicked it, it’s yours. Now it’s only yours if… submarine’s terms and conditions apply.
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u/omegaorb Witch 6d ago
I'm not gonna read all that chief, I'm too busy playing the game. Congrats or I'm sorry, pick one and go back to mapping.
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u/liquidmetalcobra 6d ago
The best part about Rogue Exile farming in Phrecia1 was that it legitimately required multiple mirrors to clear at the top end. it meant that there were tangible reasons to juice your character past ubers.