A realization about Path Of Exile economy, from watching Streamers

do you play 8-12 hours a day farming the most efficient possible maps and with perfectly min maxed builds? Do you run 2-300+ maps a day?

if you answered no to anything i just said
thats why you arent that rich

PoE years ago: oh look, a unique item, can't wait to identify it!!


PoE now: Six unique items dropped...oh well, I'll just grab that chaos orb over there.



P.S.:
making real money is: crafting, trading (and I don't mean trading what you found), botting and scamming.

oh look a normal person comparing to people who dedicate themselves to perfection oh man what a surprise!

"

Phrazz wrote:

So I really don't get it. In farming/grinding games with trading, time investment will ALWAYS yield more power. It's inevitable. If they lower the top end, they remove a lot of reasons for certain players to "push on", and if the raise the low end, the also lower the reason to "push on".

So it's all about the threshold and where to set it. And that will always be subjectively too high AND too low, depending on your skill, knowledge, effort and available time.

I agree with you on their philosophy, but it comes across ... actually, rephrase, it IS... hammering all builds that arent based on 'rich' players. Which is related to what the OP is saying.

Again, we agree 100% on their philosophy, Im saying the secondary effects of destroying all but the expensive builds league after league as soon as people figure them out may not actually push people to want to play the game more.

You can design the power curve in three general ways - linear (power increases linearly with effort), exponential (power increases only a little until you hit the threshold then it increases VERY fast), or logarithmic (power increases very fast initially then levels off).

This game is mostly exponential, which suits power players. I think allowing 1 ex minion builds to kill endgame content without nerfing them would put us closer to linear, which is middle of the road and better suited to a wider variety of players.

I missed you guys. there's the usual "Warren Buffet makes millions a day" comments. the "investment" sub-thread by Phrazz. the I_NO...

But here's the sad truth for me:
let's say I come back right now, and log into any of my strongest characters in Standard.
some of whom took 3-6 years to gear-up at my filthy-casual pace.
some of whom beat Uber Atziri one time, Shaper a couple times, Mastermind one time, red Elder a couple times, after years of trying.
all great milestones, for me.
none even remotely close to Mirror-geared, because not everybody is super-rich in Standard.

I could probably beat a... level 5 Sirus? and even that after a lot of trying and never, ever, deathless.

Yeah I know, being old sucks. bad reflexes. Arthritis.

But then I watch Streamers who have Mirror-gear in a fucking league just completely shit on everything. stack and juice-up maps to the very extreme. ignore and leave on the ground loot that for me would be a build-enabling "wow" moment if that dropped - because I haven't seen one myself for 7 fucking years playing the game.

GGG balance the game around these guys.

Delirium monsters that have more life than map bosses, can hit for 10k+ with some crazy mods, and spawn directly on top of you? check.
A Synthesis boss that lasers you in the face for a billion damage? check.
A Metamorph that fills up the screen with unavoidable shit? check.
....
So many things balanced around "rich", when the "rich" have the DPS and gear to completely ignore any of that. to insta-phase ultra-bosses. insta-kill things designed to insta-kill you.

So what is the point for someone like me to keep playing? to keep setting milestones for myself?
I cannot afford a Headhunter or an insane-DPS sword.
Even if I slowly farm up the amount of Splinters a guy like Empyrian makes in one map, and gain access to Simulacrum - I'd be demolished in Wave 6/20.
what's the point?

I don't see myself playing this game anymore.
Watching - yes. looking at cool builds and mechanics in forums and Youtube - sure.
but playing? no. this game isn't for me. not anymore.

Many streamers use RMT and accept donations from viewers to accumulate insane wealth. It's no longer RNG when the same dudes are consistently in the top 1% of wealth in PoE. Guys who know how to craft, how to farm currency, how to flip items, etc... these same guys are no where near as rich as many of the streamers, and it's not because of bad RNG but because they don't use RMT to acquire wealth, nor do they accept secret donations from viewers (cuz they're not streamers).

They kinda remind me of Trump, who is a terrible businessman, but who also inherited a fortune from his father's will and who lied to the banks in order to get billions of dollars in loans so that he could keep the appearance that he is a business mogul, even though he's not.

"

johnKeys wrote:

It's been a long time since I last played the game...
Watching others play Delirium League is more entertaining than playing it, currently. call it burnout if you will, or just a realization I should be more concerned about my family and my old self these days.

But one thing about this League, its mechanics, and the current state of this game, stands out like a sore thumb - to get rich you need to be rich. and then you get richer.

Streamers in insane gear chaining 20 waves Simulacrum after 20 waves Simulacrum and level 8 Sirus after level 8 Sirus like nothing, to earn even more insane gear and more Exalts in one hour, than I made in 7 years playing the game.
Streamers in Headhunters doing "fully juiced up" 100% Delirium maps like they were nothing, to get more Headhunters.
Mirror tiers getting Mirrors.

it is kind of silly. Entertaining yes, but silly.
Hard to believe this is not intentional by the Devs.

So on second thought maybe it's more than just burnout or being an old man scared of Coronavirus.
maybe I'm just not the type of player to see fun content or great loot in this game anymore, even if I did play.
maybe this game no longer has a place for players like me.

that's what happen if u gate drops behind certain content like sirus or simulacrum.
nothing really that wrong with it tbh though. just as in real life the rich get richer. because gotta spend money to make money.

"

satanttin wrote:

that's what happen if u gate drops behind certain content like sirus or simulacrum.
nothing really that wrong with it tbh though. just as in real life the rich get richer. because gotta spend money to make money.

Then why not make them Soul-bound?

You beat level 8 Sirus and got a Savior - that's a prize. a trophy. a giant sign that says "I beat max level Awakener".
and it's a heck of a cool weapon.
you can use it to get other boss-exclusive trophies and win fights you couldn't previously. that's character and gear progression.
going from milestone to milestone.

but when you allow to sell that Savior - repeatedly - you're doing 2 things:

1) lock it behind a proverbial pay-wall.

2) allow a few to gain inconceivable amounts of wealth in the economy. I'm talking multiple fucking mirrors worth, in a League, by one person or a small team.
so that team now has access to best-in-slot in every slot, of every build they ever create, and proceed to utterly shit on any and all kinds of efforts by the Devs to introduce challenging content or interesting boss mechanics because they'll just one-shot it all with a trillion Shaper-DPS.

but neither 1 or 2 alone aren't the "kicker". oh no.
the "kicker" is when you allow both 1 and 2, AND balance the game around that.
that's the point when you really crap in the face of a player like me, who never will be remotely near that level of power no matter how hard I try - and lock me out of content that, for me, isn't even hard or challenging - it's stupidly impossible. so stupidly impossible I won't even try it or strive to attempt it, because the outcome is obvious.

I agree with what your saying, but I also think too many people worry too much about the meta and/or being like streamers.

I currently play a build that probably costs 5-8ex right now. Can do Simulacrum 20s, 4-5 orb maps, A8 Sirius, etc.

As long as you pick a build that can actually scale the damage up, and preferably for cheap(if you pick something not meta, thats easier to do) you will be able to do the content.

This league I was able to play a lot; too much, because of Covid. So I actually played enough to buy a HH. Normally, I'm working 50+ hours a week and I'm a 7-10ex cycloner, RF, Totem Bro, whatever. Even now, I'm still playing what I would consider an off-meta budget build, just I threw a HH on it, which isnt needed, and I had to do all the content to earn that; especially Simulacrums.

My point is, most people who, well, work for a living and/or have a busy life cannot afford to play meta builds or streamer builds. You just can't. That doesnt mean there arent builds out there capable of doing the same content. You may just not do it as fast, or as clean, as some OP meta build a streamer is playing with 400 exalts in it. So what? So what if a map takes you 1 minute longer.

I mean cyclone alone has been one of the best skills in the game for a budget player since it was added to the game. You can do anything on a Cycloner. I'm playing a Poison Pathfinder; I feel the same way about that build.

I understand what you mean; every league but this one I'm usually broke as a convict. But, you just start spinning, or something similar, and you will work your way up to the hard content.

Too many people end up trying to play budget versions of streamer builds, or builds that have no damage in them(like the garbage-tier Molten Strike Jugg I made this league), and get frustrated.

"

johnKeys wrote:

... I don't see myself playing this game anymore.
Watching - yes. looking at cool builds and mechanics in forums and Youtube - sure.
but playing? no. this game isn't for me. not anymore.

You know, if you didn't watch all them streamers you might have had a different perspective.

I avoid watching other people play video games unless its specifically educational (learning something/anything) or in PoE's case, watching folks gamble a ton of currency and typically wasting it.

I remember watching one video where someone ancient orb'd into a headhunter in just 3 tries. I also remember another video where someone spent 100 ancients on 3-4 belts only to get the usual junk.

But other than that, its been all about personal goals. I hit my primary goal of 24 early. But given the time left in league and the quarantine I'll probably push that 36.

I myself can't do the streamer experience and play to that level of efficiency. Reminds me waaay too much of the old D2 grind of doing hundreds of brief runs for almost no return if any at all. I mean I still did run after run for a time, but eventually the long delays between gratification make other activities far more appealing.