Nearly 1k hours .. New player thoughts on the big picture problem + solution

poe2 is my first arpg since playing Diablo 2 Lord of destruction in the late '90s and early 2000s. fate of the vaal is my third league. so far I have played two blood mage builds and an invoker build... and probably have around 800 hours in the game.

I played a cast on crit comet blood mage build with Frost Nova supported by astral projection, that also used elemental invocation and spell slinger to fire frost bolts. then I played a lightning warp build that used ball lightning + spell slinger w/ ball lightning to warp and trigger cast on crit ball lightning and arc and infinitely warp. getting these builds to end game required help from my cousin who would hook me up once he finished his league .. even with that help getting them to work was difficult... figuring them out was gratifying though.. and I learned a lot about build mechanics. being able to min max a build forces you to learn a lot because you see all the missing pieces at once.

for fate of the vaal I am playing invoker. I saw people recommendimg doing the first 20 or so levels with a bow... I will probably do that if I level an invoker again. but .. overall I played whirling assault, tempest bell, charged staff, and Harold of lightning as my main skills through the campaign. it's was very smooth... transitioning into the addition of flicker strike and harold of ice was pretty easy for me.... but I also got pretty lucky with a quarterstaff that was cheap .. it had less than ideal stats so not even a divine .. but it was soooo good. +5 attack, adds 3 to 240 lightning damage or something like that, gains 33% extra as cold, 25% to crit damage, and desecrated + 60% cold damage / +19% freeze build up... with the +10-35 cold damage and +5% elemental damage runes it was only around 350dps... but all together it was enough to freeze and proc Harold of ice. I made it to lvl 92 and could do most 4 mod t15-16 maps, and some 6+... but got pretty hard stuck. all the upgrades I need are beyond my reach and again there isn't really a clear path outside of dumping literally hundreds of hours into a COMPLETELY RNG based system.

- problem - the game doesn't provide a clear cut path for players, new or old, to get to high end builds. your league is highly dependent on RNG... even if you are a theorycrafting wizard, unless you can dump 50-100 hours into the game on launch, and have decent RNG, you're basically never going to have enough currency for crafting, or buying, high end items. .. and ability to do top tier end game content is heavily tied to itemization. .... on the heals of the Chris Wilson video... I will also add... if you don't want people to cheat you can try to enforce things .. but enforcement is only possible if the problem is limited. you need to discincentive the behavior... and as long as there is so much RNG that you can play for 100+ hours in a league and feel like you're not only broke, but didn't even get to max out one build, people will always be incentivesd to YOLO slam $40 into a currency site. it's the sunk cost fallacy... are you going to walk away from 100s of hours, or are you gonna spend $40 to get a few hundred div ... and that isn't even to cheat on the ladder. that is just to get your build to a point where you can screen clear t15 8 mod maps and kill all pinnacle bosses. ...

- you shouldn't have to be a streamer or a nolife sweat just to finish an end game build. .. anyone who is willing to study build guides, listen to pod casts, learn everything they can, and invest 100's of hours should be able to play the game without feeling stuck and discouraged.

solution - multi-tier end game journey based around itemization that leaves you ready to fight Uber pinnacles, and blast all uber tier end game content.

we already have the theme of the weapon. we can assume the story will continue to be something along the lines of - once the beast is dead we must continue to go around wraeclast cleansing the land. ... you could have part of that be that when the beast is killed he takes part of your soul and binds it with himself in the weapon, then a second large explosion occurs... creating empowered corrupted nodes and empowered corrupted nexus's.

so now we are set up for tier1-15 mapping. which could include a whole system around questing for renley. it could be tied to the corrupted and even cleansed nodes. .. and you could have systems of empowered bosses, and locked maps with even more highly empowered bosses that spawn with weapon fragments that renley then crafts into gear for you. this gear would be high end gear where you would literally be able to pick all the mods. then you could continue to farm empowered bosses for tokens or something that would increase the tier level of the mods. .. these items would be soulbound, and souldbound items would be neither tradable nor craftable... but you could have more tokens for renley to do simpler things like add desecrated mods, or more advanced like sanctify, corrupt, double corrupt, give max sockets... etc. for these highest end mods there could be a chance to destroy the item, and you could farm tokens to decrease or completely eliminate that as well. .. these items would be completely disconnected from the economy... soul bound... non tradable, non craftable... the quest could be open ended... so you could have multiple attempts at higher end stuff that can get destroyed, or have the freedom to change ur build strategy up... and the tokens could be quest items that couldn't be traded for or found on the currency exchange... a pure end game quest system that takes you all the way to the the pinnacle bosses and tier 15 8 mod maps. .. leaving you ready for the final final end game.. and facilitating a grind that is rewarding and not based on RNG.

final final end game would be a new atlas linked to juicing certain zones and fighting empowered bosses. .. which would allow you to farm currency efficiently and craft completely maxed out chase items ... and end with fighting Uber pinnacle bosses. .. it wouldn't be until this point in the game.. lvl 85-90ish ... that you would be left to RNG and grinding to finish the Uber end game content .. but you would have a fully decked out build ... you would be able to farm juiced maps efficiently.. and if the end game atlas progression allowed you to empower bosses enough to be challenging and highly rewarding... you would see people having to do mechanics in boss fights. .. beating Uber maxed out citadel bosses could be a real achievement... uber arbiter could be a top % player only achievement... ..


this would not only allow the game to be balanced in a way that make the game more accessible at all levels, it would solve the feeling of no end game progression, and discinentivise RMT. if I know I can get a build to the point where I'm deleting screens of juiced dense maps just by following a quest progression, I'm not gonna be nearly as sad in a league where I have shit RNG... I can just quest and at the end of 100 hours I will have a solid character that feels rewarding no matter what. .. and I still have all the Uber end game progression... which again could include a whole new atlas .. like you unlock the most corrupted zones in wraeclast where there is all new maps with 100% chance for coalesced corruption to spawn empowered corrupted monsters and everything is overrun with abyssal. and in this atlas you can only run t15 or 16 6+ corrupted maps. .. and the tree is all about adding effectiveness, density, rarity . etc .. similar to the temple actually. ... so all the Uber bosses, from citadel - Pinnacle, and all map nodes and tablet effects in general can be multiplied to the point that when your uber atlas passive is fully maxed these Uber end game maps and bosses would only be possible for not only the most maxed out item wise, but also the best builds in theory. ...


so you lose nothing by making 100% of the high end game mirror tier builds accessible purely through mapping and questing... and leave the last 10% as a sweaty RNG grind. .. even people that have no desire to beat Uber end game will have sick builds and be able to see the new zones and boss fights despite getting molly whomped if they don't grind out multi-mirror tier builds. ... so no one will feel bad about it. very few people are going to cheat at that point because they will be satisfied that their time wasn't wasted and they got everything they wanted out of their build... people who are competitive will still have ultra high end to max out... and it just makes sense... crafting works fine as it stands to get you through the campaign, but depending on it to create the endgame items you need just to progress ruins the game for most people. having a quest system like the one I described completely fixes that problem and gives people purpose in the game.... while still leaving a huge gap at the end for players that need to chase items that would normally cost like 500 div to a mirror so they can beat the Uber content.

ultimately the problem isn't the rich people that game because proportionately there aren't as many. it's all the normal people that can't take time off work who still want to access the high end builds that really blast. make that accessible to them with a constant progression that feels meaningful and 90% of the problem goes away. .. also the game will just be better. you don't have to make the game easier... you don't even have to make it less of a grind... you just have to make it. so it's basically foolproof that if you are playing the game well and putting 100 hours into it that you will have a good season to look back on.... Right now the RNG is so bad that you could literally play every season and not have a single one where you really pop off.... Even streamers that are playing 10 plus hours a day hit walls and feel like the progression is pointless. ... By creating a system like the one I proposed you literally fix all the problems.... you give people meaningful progression all the way into the end game... you have a built-in system that keeps people from skipping all the content even if they are min maxing a build unless they have ultra good RNG. if these quest items are set up the way I'm imagining then virtually, no one would want to skip them... so you can really force people to actually play the game more, while giving them purpose, and also still leave an entire endgame race open for the top 10% of players. ... you literally lose nothing by allowing average players to reach a high-end build after 100 hours or so, and you make the quality of life for people pushing Uber content that much better. so they are encouraged to do multiple builds in a season.


I don't know. these are just my thoughts. I feel like this is a super good idea, but something tells me I'm just a scrub and I'm not thinking about something fundamental which completely bricks my entire idea. but I'd love to hear your thoughts.

You only have 1k hours??

I get it... my opinion is meaningless.... ziz has 10k hours and is still learning .. ack Ack ack.

Keep it up,
You will do good if you focus on one thing, then master it. I am glad that you have a cousin that helps you. Not having much time to play, my recommendation is to do Trials of Chaos or Sekhamas for currency I do this each league, and it funds all my characters into 20-40 div each piece gear in about a week of actual playing. That said it is pretty lucrative.
GL.

I feel it... I watch the farmer and have tried plenty of strategies. .. doesn't change the fact that you're left with an rng-based system that can completely destroy your progress and leave you discouraged...

when it comes to designing a game with high player retention I don't think leaving so much to chance will ever really work. .. obviously you don't want to make the game too easy... but having the difficulty come from the fact that you have to one if four chance fracture something, then chaos spam 600 times just to get another like one in four chance at crafting the item you want is rediculous. you shouldn't have to do that just to experience high end end game blasting. .. it's not even real difficulty... it's just gambling. .. you could have a quest-based system like I outline that could force you to play the game that is actually difficult. that could also involve grinding. that would just take away the RNG .. and like I said if it's designed right it would still take you a 100 hours to get a full build of tier 1 items... it just wouldn't be random.


I really don't think this destroys anything about an arpg by allowing people a deterministic set of gear, especially considering it would be exactly the same as it's ever been to get through the Uber end game. .. it would just feel better because even if you never grind out the currency for ultra end game items it would still feel like you got to play the whole game. .. it's be way easier to say oh yeah I'm never gonna try to beat Uber end game content but I still love the game. .. as it stands a lot of people love the game but still think it sucks because they get blocked from playing the most fun versions of their build. allow everyone to have fun... then allow people who want to do 100 million damage in a boss fight figure out how to do that.

There are already considerably deterministic ways to craft gear, and those who do not wish to engage with crafting have a pathway to gear up based on trading. You can focus on accumulating certain resources, selling them and using the profits to buy your gear. There are multiple farms for tradeable resources, you can pick and choose what to do or do a mix of everything to avoid being bored.

You are never solely at the mercy of the RNG.

there really isn't though.... with omen of homogenizing exaltation there was.... but as it is now I'm hard pressed to agree... there are some fairly fairly deterministic crafts you can do... but they still cost a ton of currency and you have a high chance of bricking the item. and you have to be able to do the craft and sell them before the market gets flooded. even with homogenizing exaltation I only had 4 of 7 wands hit, and it was at the very end of the season so I couldn't even sell them for what it cost to make them.. I only sold one, the other is still sitting in my shop on standard league... if you're only crafting one at a time and it bricks you're literally wasting like 24 hours + of play time.


whether you craft it, or save up to buy it .. you need 50+ div on the low end for top tier gear. that just isn't accessible even by the end of the season for the vast majority of players. especially if you're late in the league .. it becomes increasingly more hard to catch up to the economy which can literally keep you from even crafting your own items because of the cost of omans and other crafting supplies...

and you're wrong .. first off in SSf, yes, it's pure RNG... second . even in trade league it is RNG. regardless of whether or not you're crafting, or trading... the amount of currency you get per hour played is completely RNG. having a quest system that allows you to just face check map nodes and blast, then figure out how to deal with a handful of empowered encounters at each tier of progression, allows for a way smoother progression that is based on gameplay. .. and it doesn't change anything. if you have good RNG... know how to craft... can farm currency efficiently from abyss, breach, and ritual... then you can still bypass all this shit if you're having a lucky league. but it would still feel better even for those people to be able to craft a deterministic item here and there through questing.... like I really don't see how this proposal has a downside for anyone... you can still gamba and take risks ... infact.. you're more incetivised to when you know you can fall back on a grindy quest line and still get a piece of gear that in past leagues would have been unobtainable.

leaving the ultra grind and pure RNG for the Uber end game makes more sense to me.

id'l love it if the game had different balancing for ssf, would be cool for late starters to play it then,
like way way way higher chance on all the good crafting stuff omens for less tribute more often, exceptional bases, etc reforging odds like 50% rather than 5%

to keep up with the trade league you need meta build(which is expensive), then use the optimal juicing strategy before hotfix nerf or party play. and you need to get gear before inflation spikes too hard, or you'll end up taking 300 hours for what took another player 50. the core problem i think is that the game is balanced around trade league and inflation makes you unable to get to your desired goals in a meaningful time.

that would work too.... but tbh .. one of the main complaints is no meaningful endgame progression. I can't think of anything that would be more meaningful than giving people a path to a full set of gear with t1-t3 mods. .. the highest tier end game builds are already way overpowered for any content in the game. let the item acquisition progression in end game lead you to Uber end game ... it solves the problems for casuals while leaving everything else in tact.

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Dwizz666#8540 wrote:

there really isn't though.... with omen of homogenizing exaltation there was.... but as it is now I'm hard pressed to agree... there are some fairly fairly deterministic crafts you can do... but they still cost a ton of currency and you have a high chance of bricking the item. and you have to be able to do the craft and sell them before the market gets flooded. even with homogenizing exaltation I only had 4 of 7 wands hit, and it was at the very end of the season so I couldn't even sell them for what it cost to make them.. I only sold one, the other is still sitting in my shop on standard league... if you're only crafting one at a time and it bricks you're literally wasting like 24 hours + of play time.


whether you craft it, or save up to buy it .. you need 50+ div on the low end for top tier gear. that just isn't accessible even by the end of the season for the vast majority of players. especially if you're late in the league .. it becomes increasingly more hard to catch up to the economy which can literally keep you from even crafting your own items because of the cost of omans and other crafting supplies...

and you're wrong .. first off in SSf, yes, it's pure RNG... second . even in trade league it is RNG. regardless of whether or not you're crafting, or trading... the amount of currency you get per hour played is completely RNG. having a quest system that allows you to just face check map nodes and blast, then figure out how to deal with a handful of empowered encounters at each tier of progression, allows for a way smoother progression that is based on gameplay. .. and it doesn't change anything. if you have good RNG... know how to craft... can farm currency efficiently from abyss, breach, and ritual... then you can still bypass all this shit if you're having a lucky league. but it would still feel better even for those people to be able to craft a deterministic item here and there through questing.... like I really don't see how this proposal has a downside for anyone... you can still gamba and take risks ... infact.. you're more incetivised to when you know you can fall back on a grindy quest line and still get a piece of gear that in past leagues would have been unobtainable.

leaving the ultra grind and pure RNG for the Uber end game makes more sense to me.

If you are trying to make mirror tier items, then sure, its very expensive.

But crafting isn't solely for top end gear.

I crafted from the early levels all the way to the endgame, for personal use as well as for trading, and found success in both.

Crafting will never be a 100% certain path to anything, but you can strategize and remove a lot of uncertainties from it, and you might end up with a great item even if it has one or maybe even 2 crappy mods.

You can, of course, choose to not craft anything and just grind the crafting materials for sale, and then use the money acquired to buy the gear you want (which is hopefully not mirror tier).

That item can be the extra power you need to continue your progression towards harder and juicier maps, some other endgame grind etc. That's a relatively smooth path to power available to all in various forms.

I think the biggest problem we have is the wacky economy, but thats due mostly to exploits and group aurabot farming.