Finished my first league pass, my thoughts

First of all, I had a lot of help from a very nice person here who helped me a lot with my build. I can easily - EASILY - run T16 now, do the heists and also level up fast. The way to 98 is clear for me (I don't think I will do 100 because of the very long process).

So, here are my thoughts as an experienced A/CRPG player (D2 veteran, D3 a lot, D:OS2, PF:WotR, each of them 500-1500 hours or more, etc...).

This is the best ARPG I have ever played and it's the world I decided to see as my new "gaming home base". While I strongly disagree with the "friction" based game design decisions (no auction house, painful access to rogue harbor), this is what I was actually looking for when I wanted to play an ARPG.

Also I wish I could cross progress between PC and PS5, currently I have to connect my laptop to the TV to progress when in my second residence instead of simply using the PS5 I have bought for there.

Got somewhat used to using my tablet while gaming for trading, including "ok if I want to buy something I have to whisper a gazillion of people", but thats what it is now. I just hope that GGG will reconsider at some point.

Now, back to the process of getting to the end.

VoltageThatWalks (a name inspired by PF:WotR) is my third full fledged character, the only one I actually brought into endgame (the others are just for playing around and I have one on the PS5 where I play short sessions, nothing more). Had to create two witches (both deleted now) to learn the game.

Character build was initially tbxie's Arc Elemental witch, but I decided to follow nice advice from another player I got here (not fully, yet, but even with the 30% of the way I went right now this one really rocks).

Additional coaching by chatgpt was also helpful for me.

But, please what we need besides the auction house (urgent) and rogue harbor as a proper waypoint:

1. PLEASE tell us what actually killed us (exportable / traceable combat log to disk would be enough as well)

2. Please give us statistics page in the passive skill tree, similar to the atlas skill tree

GGG has a trade manifesto outlining why you'll not get an auction house:
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2025870
They've confirmed on a number of occasions that it is still current.

Both auctionhouse and deathlog have been among the most requested changes for years along with removing the xp penalty. The playerbase has been begging for it for ages with several topics here per week but GGG doesn't give a shit. They think intentionally annoying and frustrating players with horrible qol gives the game more depth and i doubt they will move away from that idiotic idea after a decade of sticking to it.

So yeah, as much as i agree with you, it's not gonna happen, give it up.

"

Baharoth15 wrote:

Both things you are hoping for have been among the most requested changes for years along with removing the xp penalty. The playerbase has been begging for it for ages with several topics here per week but GGG doesn't give a shit. They think intentionally annoying and frustrating players with horrible qol gives the game more depth and i doubt they will move away from that idiotic idea after a decade of sticking to it.

So yeah, as much as i agree with you, it's not gonna happen, give it up.

"Friction". I know.

Interestingly the first two letters are the same as in the word "frustration".

Fun fact:

All of the "issues" that GGG wants to avoid can be mitigated easily.

1. Trading: add a trade tax and possibly limitations on duration, etc... also disallow trading items just received from other players for 72 hours (would discourage RMT)

2. Having a rogue harbor waypoint would create no issue at all ("flair" should not be a reason for bad UX)

3. Death penalty: reduce XP from kills in maps / and give out extra XP if done without dying - no XP loss needed anymore, people are still very motivated to not die (can be as much as 50%!) but the content would be more available for experimentation instead of the current "do I level or do I try out the kewl content" style of play

The problem with the solution for xp penalty you propose is that no matter how low they set the xp gain, it will mean that everyone will reach 100 sooner or later without even thinking about it. It won't be a chase goal but the norm. There is an argument to be made of whether or not a chase goal has any value when you can literally buy it but still, even now level 100 has still more meaning than it would have in a game without penalty.

"

Baharoth15 wrote:

Both auctionhouse and deathlog have been among the most requested changes for years along with removing the xp penalty. The playerbase has been begging for it for ages with several topics here per week but GGG doesn't give a shit.

Actually, these are subjects GGG appear to be very much caring about.

You may not like their decision not to have an auction house, but their concerns are well explained and very plausible. As they say, they have to prioritise the long-term health of the game above some players sense of entitlement. It is the same for the death penalty. And they have a 1000 times your information about the game statistics and internals...

A death log has probably not been implemented because of the complexity. It is usually not one thing that kills you, but a lot of things combined (plus of.c. our own recklessness).

"

Cyzax wrote:

"

Baharoth15 wrote:

Both auctionhouse and deathlog have been among the most requested changes for years along with removing the xp penalty. The playerbase has been begging for it for ages with several topics here per week but GGG doesn't give a shit.

Actually, these are subjects GGG appear to be very much caring about.

You may not like their decision not to have an auction house, but their concerns are well explained and very plausible. As they say, they have to prioritise the long-term health of the game above some players sense of entitlement. It is the same for the death penalty. And they have a 1000 times your information about the game statistics and internals...

A death log has probably not been implemented because of the complexity. It is usually not one thing that kills you, but a lot of things combined (plus of.c. our own recklessness).

I mean it's really easy and convienient to declare that you care and then just stick your head into the ground and sing lalala ignoring any feedback and not making any improvements despite being already years behind the competition. Maybe it's really just stubbornness instead of carelessness who knows, doesn't really matter anyway. Whether that's good for the long term health of the game, well that's something the future will show.

"

Baharoth15 wrote:

Whether that's good for the long term health of the game, well that's something the future will show.

I'm fairly sure GGG are much better at determining what is good for the games than players feeling entitled :-p

Yeah yeah, the almighty gods at grinding gear games are all knowing and always right... now hush hush go and do your prayers.

"

Baharoth15 wrote:

Yeah yeah, the almighty gods at grinding gear games are all knowing and always right... now hush hush go and do your prayers.

No no, they should clearly cave to that part of the playerbase that needs a guide to reach act 5 and whines on every somewhat PoE related forum. /s