GGG’s Masterclass in How to Make Mapping Miserable - Chilling Grounds.

BIG DISCLAIMER

1. If you love Chilling Grounds, this post is not for you. Please skip it and enjoy your icy maps in peace.
2. This post reflects my personal experience, plus opinions I’ve gathered from other frustrated players on the forum.
3. I’m not asking for Chilling Grounds to be deleted completely, but for them to be tuned down - smaller zones, lighter effects, and smarter design.

---

Let’s Start with the Obvious: Why Do We Play PoE?

Because it’s FUN.
That’s it. Fun is the core reason anyone plays a game - and Chilling Grounds are the opposite of fun.

---

The Core Problem: Zero Gameplay Value

* No one enjoys it. There’s no gameplay depth, no skill involved, no reward. It’s just visual clutter and movement slowdown.
* Covers way too much area. You can’t meaningfully avoid it, so it removes any tactical thought.
* Kills map flow. Some layouts like Crypt and Augury become unplayable - and Frozen Falls is just a whiteout mess.

---

Difficulty ≠ Frustration

* I get that Waystone mods are meant to make maps harder. That’s fine.
Bu Chilling Grounds don’t make things harder - it makes them painful.
* The patches are massive and overlap constantly. There’s no way to “play around” it.
* When surrounded by monster packs, you literally can’t do anything.

---

Chilling Grounds Everywhere

* I swear, it’s on 80% of maps. Enough already.
* Mapping is already repetitive after 50+ hours of farming - this mod just kills what’s left of the fun.
* My character is already slow, stiff, and heavy by design - stop making it worse.

Let’s be honest: people skip these maps or rage-quit halfway through.

---

Design Logic That Makes Zero Sense

* This isn’t “challenge.” It’s annoyance.
* Spending three seconds to cast a spell because you’re half-frozen is not engaging - it’s torture.
* Whoever thought this was “fun” should try running nothing but Chilling Ground maps for two days straight.

---

Modifier Pool Makes It Worse

* There are already too few affixes, and you removed the positive prefixes.
* That means we’re now twice as likely to roll Temporal Chains or Chilling Grounds compared to before. Brilliant.

---

“Just Build Against It” – Yeah, No.

* I know some people will say, “Invest into reduced slow potency, use Wanderlust boots, or an anti-slow charm.”
* No. I don’t want to be forced to build around a bad mechanic just to make the game tolerable.
* There’s also “monsters deal +X% damage as cold,” which adds even more chill - so now we have three separate slow-down mechanics stacking together.

It’s absurd.

---

The Core Design Mindset Is the Problem

The real issue isn’t just Chill Ground - it’s the philosophy behind it.
GGG needs to focus on adding challenges, not creating obstacles that simply annoy players.
If this mindset continues, we’ll keep getting more of these “slog mechanics” disguised as difficulty.

---

And Yes, I Know These Stats Exist

* “Reduced effect of chill on you.”
* “Reduced effectiveness of slowing effects from debuffs.”
* “Reduced effect of curses on you.”

Sure, those are options. But they’re not fun investments - they’re taxes on enjoyment.
Having to waste build potential to reduce tedium shouldn’t be part of the game loop.

---

Final Words

Even with slow-reduction gear and charms, it still feels terrible.
We already complain that the game feels slow without these mods - adding more slow effects just makes everything worse.

At this point, it’s not about balance - it’s about fun.
And right now, this is NOT FUN.

Until then, I’ll be somewhere thawing my character out - and maybe my patience too.
Thank you

"

Ma7ya7#4219 wrote:

Let’s Start with the Obvious: Why Do We Play PoE?

Because it’s FUN.
That’s it. Fun is the core reason anyone plays a game - and Chilling Grounds are the opposite of fun.

Lets get rid of unfun things then. How about taking damage and dying ?

"

Ma7ya7#4219 wrote:

The Core Problem: Zero Gameplay Value

* No one enjoys it. There’s no gameplay depth, no skill involved, no reward. It’s just visual clutter and movement slowdown.
* Covers way too much area. You can’t meaningfully avoid it, so it removes any tactical thought.
* Kills map flow. Some layouts like Crypt and Augury become unplayable - and Frozen Falls is just a whiteout mess.

Makes you think about building your gear, building a correct charm, avoiding certain mods if you dont want to. Possibly having a swap specifically for a backlog of these maps you save up.

Plenty of gameplay value and decision making.

"

Ma7ya7#4219 wrote:

Difficulty ≠ Frustration

* I get that Waystone mods are meant to make maps harder. That’s fine.
Bu Chilling Grounds don’t make things harder - it makes them painful.
* The patches are massive and overlap constantly. There’s no way to “play around” it.
* When surrounded by monster packs, you literally can’t do anything.

Interchangeable terms and from what I can tell; you just dont like the mod, being the sole reason behind saying its not difficult.

There is a way to play around them, several actually.

"

Ma7ya7#4219 wrote:

Chilling Grounds Everywhere

* I swear, it’s on 80% of maps. Enough already.
* Mapping is already repetitive after 50+ hours of farming - this mod just kills what’s left of the fun.
* My character is already slow, stiff, and heavy by design - stop making it worse.

Let’s be honest: people skip these maps or rage-quit halfway through.

80% of maps, whats your sample size?

Mapping is repetitive whether or not this mod is there.

Dont skip them personally. As there are several easy solutions to have it as a free mod slot.

"

Ma7ya7#4219 wrote:

Design Logic That Makes Zero Sense

* This isn’t “challenge.” It’s annoyance.
* Spending three seconds to cast a spell because you’re half-frozen is not engaging - it’s torture.
* Whoever thought this was “fun” should try running nothing but Chilling Ground maps for two days straight.

Interchangeable terms x2, challenging and annoying often go hand in hand. Though I would say its not really challenging as it has several, extremely easy, hard counters through player choice.

Fun and unfun, again. Maybe we should just get rid of dying. Dying isnt fun.

"

Ma7ya7#4219 wrote:

Modifier Pool Makes It Worse

* There are already too few affixes, and you removed the positive prefixes.
* That means we’re now twice as likely to roll Temporal Chains or Chilling Grounds compared to before. Brilliant.

I dont know the odds of rolling them nor will I assume what they are. Would like to know the exact math though before we start saying things are "80% of all our maps" and "twice as likely to roll"

"

Ma7ya7#4219 wrote:

“Just Build Against It” – Yeah, No.

* I know some people will say, “Invest into reduced slow potency, use Wanderlust boots, or an anti-slow charm.”
* No. I don’t want to be forced to build around a bad mechanic just to make the game tolerable.
* There’s also “monsters deal +X% damage as cold,” which adds even more chill - so now we have three separate slow-down mechanics stacking together.

It’s absurd.

Use this same logic then and apply it to resistances.
Or damage
Or health
Or defenses
etc.

Or anything in this game "forcing" you to do something to "build against it".

This reasoning quickly becomes inconsistent.

"

Ma7ya7#4219 wrote:

The Core Design Mindset Is the Problem

The real issue isn’t just Chill Ground - it’s the philosophy behind it.
GGG needs to focus on adding challenges, not creating obstacles that simply annoy players.
If this mindset continues, we’ll keep getting more of these “slog mechanics” disguised as difficulty.

Term slog being used here as "things I dont like"

Seems to be POE communities term for "slop" originating from "AI slop"

Which I think this thread has plenty in it. The AI part.

"

Ma7ya7#4219 wrote:

And Yes, I Know These Stats Exist

* “Reduced effect of chill on you.”
* “Reduced effectiveness of slowing effects from debuffs.”
* “Reduced effect of curses on you.”

Sure, those are options. But they’re not fun investments - they’re taxes on enjoyment.
Having to waste build potential to reduce tedium shouldn’t be part of the game loop.

If you dont want to use the solutions the game has in it then again, apply this same circular reasoning to

resists
health
stun threshold
charm choice
defenses
support gems
etc.

"

Ma7ya7#4219 wrote:

Final Words

Even with slow-reduction gear and charms, it still feels terrible.
We already complain that the game feels slow without these mods - adding more slow effects just makes everything worse.

At this point, it’s not about balance - it’s about fun.
And right now, this is NOT FUN.

Until then, I’ll be somewhere thawing my character out - and maybe my patience too.
Thank you

With charms it shouldnt feel terrible at all as it shouldnt do anything, to you.


Aka a free mod.




TLDR: If you dont want to build for things the game has answers to, apply your same reasoning to everything else that is "forced" of you, and your reasoning quickly falls apart.

"

Mashgesture#2912 wrote:

If you dont want to use the solutions the game has in it then again, apply this same circular reasoning to

resists
health
stun threshold
charm choice
defenses
support gems
etc.

You're post is full of false equivalencies And it's obvious you didn't at all comprehend his reasoning for pointing out an annoying game mechanic.

"

CovidPatientZero#4772 wrote:

"

Mashgesture#2912 wrote:

If you dont want to use the solutions the game has in it then again, apply this same circular reasoning to

resists
health
stun threshold
charm choice
defenses
support gems
etc.

You're post is full of false equivalencies And it's obvious you didn't at all comprehend his reasoning for pointing out an annoying game mechanic.

Not really the post doesnt like a mod that has many answers to it.

And instead of utilizing any of those answers, like everything else in this game, they rather see action taken against the mod.


Pretty equivalent.


Thank you though

"

CovidPatientZero#4772 wrote:

You're post is full of false equivalencies And it's obvious you didn't at all comprehend his reasoning for pointing out an annoying game mechanic.

Guy it's not f'ing rocket surgery. I promise everybody "comprehends" why you guys don't like chilling ground. What everyone who solved the problem weeks ago can't figure it is why there are still people on here writing short novels about it instead of using any of the literally dozens of solutions available in the game.

+1 to OP, have patience ppl, the forums here an not a kind nor understanding place

+1 OP - it sucks. No matter what the GGG simps say Chilled Ground is anti-fun.

If only surfaces affected enemies equally...

I'm sure it's worth investing in slow-reduction for the "engaging combat" players, cope merchants as they are, who enjoy "choosing" between mediocre situational stat checks or mediocre defenses. Bravo.

"

GabrielCorso#5386 wrote:

I'm sure it's worth investing in slow-reduction

I mean either it is or it isn't dude. If Chilling Ground is such a miserable burden that it's worth coming here and writing a 1500 word essay about then I would think it's worth spending a couple seconds swapping some passives or putting on an amulet ??

And please before we go down the inevitable "constantly swapping" line of conversation that inevitably comes up, just save up the Chilling Ground Waystones and run them together. Your total "investment" will amount to about 45 seconds per f'ing week.