Improving Delve Rewards and Endgame Scaling

GGG do something please.


















D4 bad.

I would love to see a renewed mindset in difficulty vs reward from GGG in regards to content like delve. it used to be so rewarding for being the most insane content in the game and theyve steadily chipped away at it every league, even long after the fractured fossil nerf

"

PrimeKetoth#3775 wrote:

Good morning

Last week we had the post regarding updates on Keeper of the Flames expansion

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3874760

In that we had

"

Outside of Breach-specific changes, we are aware of feedback from players that late endgame farming strategies are currently lacking in diversity and progression. We are putting together a list of adjustments to address this, with an emphasis on making currently underperforming strategies more competitive. We are targeting next week for the release of these changes. A larger amount of changes to this area are planned for 3.28.

One of the those areas that need special attetion is Delve.
In a pre-launch interview of 3.26, Mark said it was interested in working a bit with Delve.

I think what they were referring to here is related to mapping, given the changes they've made.

"

PrimeKetoth#3775 wrote:

• Currently, depths around 350–500 are achievable with moderate investment and many build options, while 500–600 marks the point where most builds start to fail. More mechanics are needed to help builds transition past that point.

Man, not gonna lie, this reads like a blast from 2018, back when Delve had just dropped and people were still figuring things out. This take hasn’t aged well at all; player power’s through the roof now, and the endgame ceiling’s in another galaxy. These days, hitting 500–600 depth is basically a warm-up lap,you don’t even need a Delve build or a vault full of mirrors to do it.

All in all, I’d say Delve is in a pretty good spot right now. That said, there are a few things that could make the experience significantly better.

First off, Azurite should scale a bit better with depth, as you mentioned. The rewards are already quite solid, especially considering that even in 3.25, you could easily sustain your Kingsmarch purely through Delve. What really added potential, though, was the change preventing Azurite from dropping outside of Delve. That was a fantastic decision and one that honestly should’ve happened ages ago.

I’d love to see the same philosophy applied to fossils as well. They should remain exclusive to Delve, where they belong, instead of showing up as a spammed reward everywhere else. Keeping them Delve-exclusive would give them more inherent value and preserve the identity of the content itself.

Delve is already very profitable on its own. We’ve got Delve-exclusive chase items like Precursors, powerful fossil and fractured crafting bases that sell for great prices, and plenty of smaller exclusives that add up nicely. There’s no real need to push the profits further, except perhaps a small tweak to fossil availability. Otherwise, we’d just be helping the already rich Delvers get even richer.

As for difficulty, I think deep Delving is in a fine spot. Scaling feels more or less as intended, and I actually think it’s healthy that only a handful of builds can go extremely deep, it helps GGG identify which ones are truly overtuned. And honestly, if some of the deep Delvers find the difficulty too easy or repetitive, maybe it’s time to branch out, try other content, experiment with different builds, or perhaps take a short break from their week first “off-site economic ventures.” Just my personal thoughts, of course take them with a grain of salt.

Another area that could use improvement is the tedious process of refueling Delve juice. Having to leave Delve and run maps just to restock is tedious and breaks the flow of gameplay. With gold now being part of the game, why not have Niko sell Sulphite directly for gold? That way, at certain depths, you could fully sustain Delve on its own and literally just keep delving all day without the constant side trips.

Lastly, I think it would be amazing if early Delve could serve as an optional alternative to the campaign for leveling alts. We’ve already seen this work in Endless Delve events, with the tech for granting skill points at certain depths or levels. Being able to level an alt character from level 1 to maps entirely through Delve would be a fantastic QoL feature and a great way to make use the early delve areas.

these ideas sound.. nice

but there is one problem with them - they want to improve something that is already good, very profitable and fun

what happens when you overcook something?



note to some points: they are quite.. elitist? notion that Precursors/Auls were replaced by Simplex/Helical/+charge jewellery is so detached from reality it is actually amusing.

for top 50 players? maybe, but for the remaining 30000 these are the only option as they cannot ever afford a helical, not mentioning a simplex

I do not think this game needs MORE catering to .001% of playerbase. the void between people wearing all-positive misted INT stacking simplex and the rest is COLOSSAL and if anything it should shrink


the points I agree with - as an amateurish delver myself - Azurite/fossil stack/resonator stack and number/quality of chests should grow with depth. right now there is a plateau or even outright stop. what changes is types of nodes and ofc difficulty - but azurite on 200 and 2000 is kinda the same? it feels wrong.

small thing - auto-replace flares when talking to Niko

Some very good suggestions here, and like you mentioned, the change removing azurite from the atlas was a great step in the right direction. Nice post!

#MakeDelveGreatAgain

corgosDense

As a not so casual delver im glad i need a 2+ mirror build to make 8d an hour. when I can use the same build to make double in valdos. Why does the hardest content in the game have such poor rewards in relation to the build requirements?

Shallow delve does not need a buff. Anything post 800 does.

As a delve enthusiast I approve.

Miners unionize or die trying

"

roosterbob#4950 wrote:

As a not so casual delver im glad i need a 2+ mirror build to make 8d an hour. when I can use the same build to make double in valdos. Why does the hardest content in the game have such poor rewards in relation to the build requirements?

Shallow delve does not need a buff. Anything post 800 does.

how did you manage to get 2mir+ build on 8d an hour? or maybe it actually makes more? ive frequently read such comments and the common part was HEAVY downplaying of the actual gains while ignoring that Delve pretty much requires no juice. all the investment is into the character - that is investment that is not perishable, again a great plus