Is Blight Playable on Console?

Well, so far so good. Xbox 1 S w/SSD.

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Kundarin wrote:

Well, so far so good. Xbox 1 S w/SSD.

I play on XBox One S, but with no SSD. What build are you running? (Curious to see if I can improve things by switching. Already on my third build, though. :/)

Red Atlas maps with Blight Events are not "doable" for me. I'm running a minion build, my first, and that's just too much for the XBox, it seems. A friend of mine runs on an XBox One X and is not having any issues. I don't do Blight Events at all, anymore. (I might have to drop down and do lower level Blights just to get enough Oils to vendor-recipe so I can get the Annointing I need. That'd be a huge number of them, though...)

On some "Red" maps with lots of effects/debuffs/AOEs going off, the XBox One S ends up chugging to a crawl. By that I mean one frame every six+ seconds kind of "craw."

Once again, I'm going to start what appears to be my Quarterly Review of "everything connected to teh interwebz and getting upgraded tickets from my ISP" to ensure, completely, that it's not something on my end. Once again... My ISP probably has a flag on my account page that tells the service people I'm "difficult to satisfy."

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pbfloyd2112 wrote:

I have been hesitant to start a Blight character because I assumed the towers would be a tremendous headache on console. Picking up loot is already clunky enough and I just assumed it wasn't going to be a good league for us. Any opinions on the subject?

Normal PS4 here, SSD installed.
If I avoid blight stuff, game runs good enough.
Blight maps = NO
Blight encounters = 50/50, if over 5 lanes, FPS drops to zero, and you just hold the attack button and hope for the best.

Its playable. but can be annoying, few deaths due to 1FPS situations.

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pbfloyd2112 wrote:

...Any opinions on the subject?

I have about ten pounds of internet ink worth of an "opinion on the subject." But, in an effort to help a fellow console player, I submit the following:

1) The actual mechanics are a bit wonky on consoles. Because we can't move a mouse around the screen and click on things, we have to move our character near a pylon in order to be able to activated it. PC players do not run the same risks as we do in tough Blight encounters because of that. For all that's good and true in this world, don't play Blight in Hardcore mode... In normal Blight, you will fail a good many of them simply because you have to move around more than PC players and can't be at so many places at once, trying to activate towers while getting pounded.

2) Blight Events in the regular campaign are easy and work smoothly. Tougher Blight events deep into the Atlas maps are extremely taxing on consoles. AFAIK, for XBox, only an XBox One X has a chance to run these without turning the game into a slideshow.

3) However, "builds" matter. If your build doesn't do much, doesn't have a ton of effects and Auras popping off, isn't a Necro build with lots of minions, etc... Then you may have a better chance of running Blight Events and maps deep into the Red Atlas, perhaps even a Blight Map itself. Or not. I dunno. BUT, any lag-inducing builds should be avoided if you want to try out the new "content" GGG has gifted us with.

4) IMO, this content only actually works, in terms of being playable, in the campaign chapters for consoles. After that, it's a mess and a cause of so much frustration that it's really not worth exploring unless you have the perfect combo of build choice and a dice-roll of perfect performance luck.

Is it worth playing? Meh... If you like playing PoE, just play. The Blight Content does not wall off the rest of the game. Just farm for currency to pay others for their good luck in order to buy Oils. That's the "game" in Blight League, as far as I'm concerned.

PS - First, I chose a Cyclone build. I had run one long ago, but it was too much for the console to handle. I figured they had enough time to iron those issues out, so tried it again. Bad choice - The game can't keep up with how awesome my Cyclone Slayer Crit build it... I get "disconnected" in very heavily populated maps when I hit too many mobs at once. So, then I chose a Necromancer build. My first experience with a Necro! YAY! Stupid, dumb, stooopied choice for this League. I've experienced framerates of 1 frame per six, sometimes ten, seconds at times in Red maps... The only times I have died have been due to lag-related issues.

IMO, they do little if no serious optimization work nor do they take performance seriously regarding their console port of PoE. They're relying on Next-Gen consoles to "fix" their performance issues. And, occasionally, some Community Manager will chime in with "run this app and give us the results so we can help you with your bad internet connection." I spent hours yesterday checking my connection and it's wonderful, with a big pipe eager to let the data flow... My regular XBox One Console, however, can barely keep up with late-game PoE. (IF GGG has an issue with their servers and certain instancing problems, I wouldn't know because I didn't check. At that point it's "somebody else's problem."

I play on a PS4 slim with SSD. Since the last update performance is better. I am in yellow maps now and I can do blight events more or less smoothly. I tried no blight map so far since I had no drop.

I also tested a totem build and a ranger with Ice shot. I was mostly not able to finish the normal blight events because I was not fast enough recognizing where to concentrate my firepower and was mostly overrun and very often died. The necro build is way easier, the minions decide on their own where they are needed and I have time to manage the towers. The damage output is way better with not that good equipment, I guess thats the reason why it works so well.

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Isomorphin wrote:

... The necro build is way easier, the minions decide on their own where they are needed and I have time to manage the towers. The damage output is way better with not that good equipment, I guess thats the reason why it works so well.

The Necro build is very much easier. Properly set up, it's basically the easiest to run kind of build there is. Pop some skeletons now and then, dump a curse out if you want, don't stand in the fire...

But, I just got through with dying twice on a Red map because of console-lag on the XBox One. "Shocking Ground", some missiles, dark blob spam and very fast minions turned the game into a slideshow, then a still image, then a "An Unexpected Disconnection Occurred." Then, I battled the boss and it slideshowed again, still-framed, then asked me where I wanted to resurrect... :)

Doing Blight Maps on a map like that? No way. The console would jump up and throttle me for such torture.

One thing about Blights - Use the Towers. Yes, I know, it seems ignorant to say that, but the Towers are what should be doing most of the work. That's what the Ring Annointments are for - To pump up your preferred Tower damage/utility. It's very easy to get caught up in DPS'ing during Blight encounters and overlook Towers as part of the solution. One issue we have there is that we have to be standing next to them in order to activate them and that sometimes means being right in the path of mobs strong enough to kill us.

But, if you can make it through the slideshow, focus on getting all the right Towers up as much as possible. For a Necro with a movement speed Skill, it's not too difficult. But, on larger Blights it just doesn't seem as if consolers can reach everything fast enough. Again, have to be next to the Tower to activate it. And, if it's several Towers near each other selecting the right one is often difficult.

PS - Anyone know of a build on consoles that doesn't end up causing PoE to choke to death? Second one so far and I expected some lag... but nothing like this.

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Morkonan wrote:

PS - Anyone know of a build on consoles that doesn't end up causing PoE to choke to death? Second one so far and I expected some lag... but nothing like this.

I remember you mentioned one was a Cyclone character. Are you using Vaal Cyclone?

I switched one of my characters over to Cyclone last night, and whenever it gets out of control I pop Vaal Cyclone. It sucks everything up and wipes out enough of them that it gets playable.

After it happens the ones left by me slowly walk back to near where they were too, so it buys a lot of time.

Edit: Lul the remember you mentioning Cyclone part. It was a couple posts up.

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Morkonan wrote:

PS - Anyone know of a build on consoles that doesn't end up causing PoE to choke to death? Second one so far and I expected some lag... but nothing like this.

I remember you mentioned one was a Cyclone character. Are you using Vaal Cyclone?

I have two characters this League (Crit Cyclone and a Baron Necro), both around 89/90.

The Cyclone issue seems to be one of generating too much data for the console to handle or there's an issue transmitting big bursts of data. (My pipe is clean and shiny, so it's not my connection.)

There have been times when I've been hit with "Unexpected Disconnection" on both builds. For Cyclone, it's with large packs of mobs/targets hit by Cyclone. For instance, in a Legion encounter I was booted because I ran around hitting all the Legion spawn too much, too frequently, it seems. :) It was in a Red Map and the spawn was pretty big.

Last night I recieved another "Unexpected Disconnection" from the server because my minions rushed into combat with a large groups of effect-spamming nasties on a Red map with Shocked Ground animating all over the place... Then, I was disconnected a second time on that map because there was too much going on during the boss encounter. (The "Belfry Map" perhaps? The one with the Kitava boss.) IIRC, the experience bar showed me as having died, so that was two exp hits in a situation that would otherwise have been a cakewalk for that build.

I have not tried Vaal Cyclone, but I think that if the problem is truly one of "too much, too fast" on the XBox One, then that would just make a disconnection even more likely. (Depending on number of mobs, auras, effects and map-mods.)

The game has gone from one where Map difficulty is the intended ladder to climb to one where console limitations for certain builds and encounters is the "End Game Boss" I have to fight. :)

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Morkonan wrote:

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Morkonan wrote:

PS - Anyone know of a build on consoles that doesn't end up causing PoE to choke to death? Second one so far and I expected some lag... but nothing like this.

I remember you mentioned one was a Cyclone character. Are you using Vaal Cyclone?

I have two characters this League (Crit Cyclone and a Baron Necro), both around 89/90.

The Cyclone issue seems to be one of generating too much data for the console to handle or there's an issue transmitting big bursts of data. (My pipe is clean and shiny, so it's not my connection.)

There have been times when I've been hit with "Unexpected Disconnection" on both builds. For Cyclone, it's with large packs of mobs/targets hit by Cyclone. For instance, in a Legion encounter I was booted because I ran around hitting all the Legion spawn too much, too frequently, it seems. :) It was in a Red Map and the spawn was pretty big.

Last night I recieved another "Unexpected Disconnection" from the server because my minions rushed into combat with a large groups of effect-spamming nasties on a Red map with Shocked Ground animating all over the place... Then, I was disconnected a second time on that map because there was too much going on during the boss encounter. (The "Belfry Map" perhaps? The one with the Kitava boss.) IIRC, the experience bar showed me as having died, so that was two exp hits in a situation that would otherwise have been a cakewalk for that build.

I have not tried Vaal Cyclone, but I think that if the problem is truly one of "too much, too fast" on the XBox One, then that would just make a disconnection even more likely. (Depending on number of mobs, auras, effects and map-mods.)

The game has gone from one where Map difficulty is the intended ladder to climb to one where console limitations for certain builds and encounters is the "End Game Boss" I have to fight. :)

Seeing as you're only lvl 89-90 it shouldn't be too hard to keep pushing through

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Seeing as you're only lvl 89-90 it shouldn't be too hard to keep pushing through

Sure, I can keep leveling. But, dying due to Lag, repeatedly, isn't "fun." I don't mind dying if I suck... But, losing Exp to the Lag Monster because some combinations make certain play/builds somewhat untenable just isn't what I want to spend my time doing. My enthusiasm for the League is absent, already, with only some Blight Events on low maps being workable. Now, both builds are faced with situations where the console can't handle them.

And, those are supposed to be the "cool" situations you want to play in, right? Lots of mobs, all kinds of neato 'splosions and lightning and fire all over the place... :)