Gah finding it hard to really care about PoE anymore

Started playing PoE way back in 2013 when it held only 3 acts. Even back then I was blown away and saw the games huge potential. Even in beta it was in my book lightyears better then Diablo 3.
Today I have a full time job and a family, so play way less but now and then I still get a few intense weeks of being hooked to PoE like a crazy heroin addict.

When I saw this league I assumed it would be the same, but I just see no enjoyment anymore.
My character had a really easy time through the campaign. But even then the whole game was just a messy blur of effects which just looks worse when dealing with breach and other monster-clogging league mechanics.
Even trying traverse maps is clunky and you can tell that the game is clearly not ment for such speed.
Worst of all I know it will just get worse as my character get more gear.
I will gather a myriad of splinters and random crap which quickly turns into a chore. By the end I just push on to see what bosses I can take, yet now I don't even feel like doing that.

I don't really know what to do? Maybe Ruthless is better and more rewarding due to the challange? but i'm afraid its just too slow and time consuming.
PoE 2 has a lot of potential and like the generally slower and more synergy-based combat. Still its incomplete and lacks the fun character building, endgame + campaign is a slog to get through those maze like maps.
Nothing manages to create a rush like way back when finding a shavs in Hardcore for example.

My heroin has clearly lost it's potency.
I still love PoE so a bit saddened how it turned out.

MTX and allowing nearly every league mechanic to go core slowly destroyed the game. I think people are only half realizing this now. Obviously the game can't keep its "fun factor" after 2000-5000 hours. It needs new content to keep things fresh. The issue is that ruthless was only ever a band-aid fix for veteran players back in 2022. PoE1 is fundamentally a vampire surviors clone at this point, completely abandoning its slower pacing from 2013-2015 era.

GGG is just going to appeal to its broader audience for the revenue. The version Chris Wilson made is gone and isn't coming back. Can't say if that's a good or bad thing, I've already had my fun with PoE.

Just play a different game. Most people arent meant to play the same game forever.

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Piousqd#0073 wrote:

Just play a different game. Most people arent meant to play the same game forever.

+1

also poe now is how poe will be. as much as i would prefer it a different way, the ship has sailed. changing it will result in playerbase backlash. hence loss of revenue.

i m currently enjoying poe now despite it not being the game i want it to be. i have to say i really need to temper my expectations a huge lot.

it is not a perfect game but despite everything it is the best at what it does.

Edit

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WickedSausage#2727 wrote:

Started playing PoE way back in 2013 when it held only 3 acts. Even back then I was blown away and saw the games huge potential. Even in beta it was in my book lightyears better then Diablo 3.
Today I have a full time job and a family, so play way less but now and then I still get a few intense weeks of being hooked to PoE like a crazy heroin addict.

When I saw this league I assumed it would be the same, but I just see no enjoyment anymore.
My character had a really easy time through the campaign. But even then the whole game was just a messy blur of effects which just looks worse when dealing with breach and other monster-clogging league mechanics.
Even trying traverse maps is clunky and you can tell that the game is clearly not ment for such speed.
Worst of all I know it will just get worse as my character get more gear.
I will gather a myriad of splinters and random crap which quickly turns into a chore. By the end I just push on to see what bosses I can take, yet now I don't even feel like doing that.

I don't really know what to do? Maybe Ruthless is better and more rewarding due to the challange? but i'm afraid its just too slow and time consuming.
PoE 2 has a lot of potential and like the generally slower and more synergy-based combat. Still its incomplete and lacks the fun character building, endgame + campaign is a slog to get through those maze like maps.
Nothing manages to create a rush like way back when finding a shavs in Hardcore for example.

My heroin has clearly lost it's potency.
I still love PoE so a bit saddened how it turned out.

This has nothing to do with the game itself, what you experience and feel. It's patch 3.27, and specifically the league content that takes up the entire space and is so poorly programmed and so poorly integrated into the game and the game code that it almost makes you want to vomit, and whatever else they've tinkered with. No league mechanic has ever taken over the entire map so well that you can't ignore it. It's impossible to ignore it in order to farm other things, which has never happened before. In other words, the entire patch is complete garbage.

I know what you mean. Been playing since 2013 myself. I get super hyped every league but when I start playing, it never really matches that hype. And that is perfectly normal. Sure they add new content, shake things up a bit, but in the end it's still the same game with the same mechanics and same recipe for success.

Another factor is the big division between the playerbase - you got a large chunk of people who struggle to make 1 div / day and complain that the game is too hard/complicated. Which is a valid complaint, I sometimes imagine if I just now started playing POE, I'd be like wtf. It's overwhelming.

Then you got another large chunk of players who already have the basics of building their character, crafting, etc, who will always make currency even if they don't drop a single orb.

You can't please both, and balancing would be impossible. Ruthless isn't "fun" imo, it's just the same thing but slower. The recipe for success is still the same, and until that changes the game isn't gonna feel fresh.

The game isn't the problem, it's you (and I don't mean this in an offensive way, just the natural phenomenon of having played the same thing for 12 yrs). My advice - try playing in short bursts, maybe 1-2 hr a day. Do whatever you think is fun as opposed to the most profitable strat. You don't need to optimize and min max at the expense of fun. Do content you've rarely done - idk, beasts, delve, incursion.

My high is the crafting honestly. A good drop won't give me half the dopamine I get from a stupidly lucky craft. I don't even do super high end stuff (usually can't play long enough to get multiple mirrors), just in the range of 10-50 div. I'm not saying go craft, obviously not everyone's kick, my point is, do that thing that you want to do and enjoy. Don't think about strats, currency, div/hour, efficiency, all that bullshit. That's the real funkiller. My 2 cents.

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Felix44#4475 wrote:

You can't please both, and balancing would be impossible.

.....

The game isn't the problem, it's you (and I don't mean this in an offensive way,


.......
Don't think about strats, currency, div/hour, efficiency, all that bullshit. That's the real funkiller. My 2 cents.

for balancing, its impossible because the ship has sailed. its too difficult now. it would be better to make a new game and have the new game balanced. they did that and ended up letting the game be unbalanced all over again coz players love zoom zoom blasting more than a balanced game.

imho, a balanced game would mean a decent build with decent gear should be the minimum requirement to clear the hardest content. but an optimized build and godly gear can help clear the content faster and allow more mistakes but never trivialize the hardest content.

its ironic. ggg realized that in poe1 they had to make monster damage super high because some players had 10-20k life/es. this makes sense from this pov. but on the flipside, all the other players that had 3-6k hp could get 1 shot or a huge chunk of life gone in an instant while the high lifers could still take 2-3 hits of such calibre. also ggg has to make attacks come out faster and do huge aoes to balance around players with 100% movespeed.

ggg DID try to rebalance and lower the ceiling in poe2. but in the end the majority spoke and complained. they want poe1 all over again. so nah balance is out the window.

as for "its you". to me its good to complain and criticize. to give feedback with hopes the game improves. i used to bitch and complain even more than now. but all with the hopes of making the game i love be more of a game i love. now i've already accepted the reality. poe is what poe is. a lot of things i want changed are already part of poe's identity. if i got what i wanted, most of the playerbase would revolt.

so yeah the "its you" really is spot on. POE isnt for everyone. you have to either love it or not. i actually "moved on" but came back coz the league looks interesting. how i d put it is, its a game that i can come and revisit once in a while. but no longer a main game.

i have to admit. i have been too serious with poe for the longest time. it really required me to change my mindset. if i am to enjoy poe i have to accept anything i dislike about it too. i still get pissed the fuck off with stuff like lightning mirages. but if i get too annoyed. i can always uninstall.

as for "doing what you like". i normally do that. i temper my expectations and just enjoy the bits of poe i can enjoy. as for following efficiency as funkillers. i agree partially. on one hand they are funkillers. on another, you miss out a huge lot for being inefficient.

if your build is weak, you might not even finish the campaign. i remember back when yellow tier maps was a challenge enough. sometimes the fix is just getting better gear. but even then the reality is the bare minimum requirement to play poe is to be as efficient as possible.