A realization about Path Of Exile economy, from watching Streamers

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Phrazz wrote:

Maybe the line has been moved, but it has been moved for the easier. It's EASIER to beat everything in the game now than it was 2 years ago. It's EASIER to make a good budget build beating all content today. The only thing that has changed, is you watching streamers and are having an epiphany of what's possible, something that has "always" been possible.

No one is being "fucked over".

I'd have to strongly disagree with this. Don't get me wrong, I hit 36 in metamorph on two 5 links, which was the first time ever. So what did they do afterward? Nerf not just the necro but hit also the gear and gear that is used by other builds too. Oh, and then they buffed the health of montsers and made Sirus more "finicky". And then there's the league mechanic which further degrades performance even when its not killing folks with on-death effects. At least it's been improved compared to launch.

But easier, definitely not. My old league builds are no longer "strong enough" to cope with the increased health, even the one I used to kill my first pure chayula. It's not that they're beyond salvage, but that I have to spend even more to upgrade them just to bring their performance on par with how they performed in their actual leagues.

The bar didn't get lowered, the minimum damage and health thresholds have increased with progressive leagues.

EDIT - Fixed quote

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johnKeys wrote:

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Phrazz wrote:

I couldn't care less that the rich people can do what they want, as long as the game isn't balanced around them.

Oh but it sure as fuck is.
But I'll tell you what - let's assume it isn't.
how many times can you, me, or a "less than 10 hours a week" player, fight Level 8 Sirus? Uber Atziri? Cortex boss? Simulacrum? Pure Chayula? Uber Elder?
once or twice, right? with the right broken meta build because you can't really afford the gear needed for non-meta to get to that point.
in my case literally once or twice in years, but I'm very casual.
so let's assume once or twice during the League.
and you need to dodge shit because it will likely kill you. and you need to fight the thing for at least a couple minutes and know the mechanics. and you may actually fail one attempt, or both.
and then you see some Streamer chaining that shit "for science". skipping the dialogue. not even knowing what the fight is about.
and he literally stands in one place and tanks the thing that killed you when you did it. and he doesn't know nor give a flying fuck about the fight mechanics. and he kills the boss is seconds with a quadrillion DPS, then proceeds to do 5 more in the next half hour alone.
and he sells the drops and gets paid for the "carry", to make more Exalts in that half hour alone, than you will see in the entire League.
and you may - like me - stare at the screen and think "fuck this game".
or you may be a Phrazz and say "whelp yeah this is knowledge". THE FUCK KIND OF KNOWLEDGE???

So how about GGG just give these guys some ultra boss they can bash heads with? one that's protected by 2^64 layers of RNG and you need at least one Mirrored item equipped or a Mirror Of Kalandra in your inventory, to access. one that has the HP of a fkn World Of Warcraft Raid Boss, with 90% resistance to all, and does 2^16 damage with his most basic melee attack + 75% penetration and 100% added as Chaos that ignores CI because why the fuck not.
and then maybe, just maybe, they can remove all the RNG layering and on-screen crap they added to the "core endgame", as a stupid attempt to balance around those fkers.

Ok, I'm tired of hearing this. Look at this. This is probably an 8 exalt build if that. Even less at this point in the league. And, its an off-meta build, thats why everything is so cheap.

This is the Viper Strike Pathfinder I played this league. Here's a Sirius A8 I did 3 weeks ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CZAnaCG0CE&t=3s

Thats a budget, nothing build. Yes, I eventually poured currency into it, becuase thats the name of the game, but I was killing him all league. That build is like 7-8 exalts or some nothingness. I dont even remember what gear I had at that point, but it wasnt anything like the gear I have now. I've alreayd quit teh league, but listening to constant lies and excuses gets old when there are a ton of budget builds out there capable of doing the content if you just play the game.

If you cant even play the game enough to earn 8-10 exalts to put into a build, then stop blaming the game. A 10 hour a week player could do that; I've been one of those for the majority of my PoE time, outside of this covid mess, so I understand the plight of being broke in the game. But RF/Cyclone was always there to carry me through content, just like Poison/Minions/Cyclone/whatever is now. If you wanna whine and refuse to play said builds, then so be it. But stop acting like its impossible to do the content on non-meta, non-streamer builds when its 100% bullshit. How many people you think using Viper Strike this league? 0.2% or something? And it kills him. You just refuse to play the game, and want even the most budget of builds handed to you on a platter.

If you dont like economics, go SSF (BTW).

there is a growing disparity even as the game is getting easier for new players to get too end game content. They do have to have a hard cap on the final bosses to make some challenge.

The problem is that its more of a frustrating ledge instead of a smooth curve. So when new players hit it, there is 100000 things you need to do to figure it out. Also this game is more about economic skill now than player skill.

This game needs a much smoother learning curve and player skill curve. Its way too easy too long then harder really fast.

Also while there are like 4-5 builds a season you can win the game with 4-5 exalts (or less) there will always be grass is always greener syndrome with cool items that are not obtainable.

This does kind of suck, even though they are unnecessary to win the game and probably better if they were never in the game at all.

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SeCKSEgai wrote:

The bar didn't get lowered, the minimum damage and health thresholds have increased with progressive leagues.

Maybe, but the power creep has also made both easier to achieve.

Six links go for a few chaos a few days into the league. Uniques like Kaom's Heart is worthless because of power creeped mods on rares. Curses on rings and damage mods are way easier to get. Scraping together a build to farm red maps and "get going" by earning some money is far easier today than 2-3 years ago. Has there been easier patches? Sure, a couple. But as a whole? Well... No, the game is easier now than it was.

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Phrazz wrote:

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SeCKSEgai wrote:

The bar didn't get lowered, the minimum damage and health thresholds have increased with progressive leagues.

Maybe, but the power creep has also made both easier to achieve.

Six links go for a few chaos a few days into the league. Uniques like Kaom's Heart is worthless because of power creeped mods on rares. Curses on rings and damage mods are way easier to get. Scraping together a build to farm red maps and "get going" by earning some money is far easier today than 2-3 years ago. Has there been easier patches? Sure, a couple. But as a whole? Well... No, the game is easier now than it was.

Here's the other side of the coin.

It wasn't that long ago that crafting a 6 link even without influence was worthwhile. But now they're barely worth more than the divine they vendor for - with the current dynamic, if you're going to commit to pushing end game you're going to invest into specialized armor/weapons. 6 links just for the sake of being 6 link no longer retain enough power from the 6 links alone to even use as a bargain.

Of the stuff I've actually sold this league, more of what was sold was specific to aura stackers than anything else.

Kaom's did lose its value, but not because of the power creep in rares so much as the sheer necessity to need more damage. The starforge/kaom's setup I originally used in legion just isn't worth it, especially with how uber elder is gated now. It's not that its bad so much as for what you'd spend to get that sword you'd have more cost effective alternatives with dramatically more damage.

If not for quarantine I would bet this league would have under-performed dramatically. My deaths have been primarily lag/slide show, followed by Kosis then Sirus. I ended up running a cycloner just to reduce deaths when the framerate dropped.

As far as getting something to red maps, plenty of folks have shown confusion with the new atlas (the old one was more straightforward). To get going was literally just a matter of running a league starter that worked decently with the active league mechanic. If anything, I would say that I didn't choose what to play so much as circumstance did, especially given that I ended up throwing my original plan out the window after getting my league starter to maps.

Like there was this one forum user (being intentionally vague) with a penchant for building every class the SAME way. He couldn't kill Sirus, until he built an aura stacking guardian... Is that what you mean by end game getting easier?

Uber Elder costs more to fight now than he did just prior to the conqueror overhaul - whether it be in currency or time.

Regular Elder and Shaper do too.

Delve bosses are still heavily gated by rng.
Same with Beastiary though they've lost most of their mojo.

Uber Atziri is a lot cheaper now, but demand for her drops is low, especially given the current meta(s).

There are other means to get pure breachstones outside of betrayal content, but that's rng all the way.

And I honestly don't think it was streamer envy that drove the popularity of aura stacking up - the league mechanic practically made it necessary for experiencing full delirium.

lol everyone knows GGG only care about the streamers, the whole game is balanced around them and their silly simp crowd giving them stacks of ex and chaos / gear



roll on diablo 4 at this point

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SeCKSEgai wrote:

And I honestly don't think it was streamer envy that drove the popularity of aura stacking up - the league mechanic practically made it necessary for experiencing full delirium.

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Well, thats 100% false, and just searching full delirium on youtube should tell you that, with people doing 100% t16 deliriums on a variety of builds.

Yet another hyperbolic statement made in this thread about how hard it is to do the content in this game. I even did a t16 5 orb map deathless on a Viper Strike character myself, and recorded it for the pathfinder thread.

The aura stacking build is/was just so OP, everyone wanted to do it.

It being one of the most busted builds that was ever in this game, is why the build was popular, not because it was necessary to do full delirium maps. People love god mode; people love cheat codes. Thats what the aura stacking build is/was. Thats why people wanted to do it, not because it was necessary to do. And the 100s of random skills and ascendancies people use to do 5 orb maps on youtube should be proof enough for that, but people love talking in exaggerated claims.

I had been here since closed beta. Dec 2018 whatever league that was i hit 100 in an insane time for a player with no group, it was over the span on 10days(i played around 12hours a day), after i ripped in HC i placed as a top 20 Jugg on the SC ladder.

Everyone i mapped with bought currency, everyone that placed in say top 200-400 ont he rankings were defintely "funding" their mapping and it wasnt through boss farming. Sure you make your money back in the process. Not the point.

That was essentially the end of the game. Once your use your head, and realize what the most efficient method of grinding is. There really is NO point in grinding past a certain point unlesss your mind being numb is fun.

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Destructodave wrote:

Well, thats 100% false, and just searching full delirium on youtube should tell you that, with people doing 100% t16 deliriums on a variety of builds.

I mean your right but your viper strike is more expensive than a herald stacker anyway lovely gear <3, 100% deliriums are extremely restrictive, they can definitely be done without herald stackers but realistically its going to be out of reach for most players without an unbelievably faceroll character.

Agree with your post overall just splitting hairs about the 100%s being accessible. I hit my 36 challenges in HC this league and it took me just shy of 15 minutes to kill unmodded minotaur in a 100% the stat buffs they receive are insane in context to the rest of the game.