Another long-term player signing off.

"

Odoakar wrote:

- he disliked that not one unique dropped for him during our run through Normal and Cruel (lvl 42s now).
.

Its kind of weird to me that players like myself will keep finding uniques in maps that I don't want at all and yet new players can go through each difficulty and find no uniques or very few. Shouldn't the drop rates for those leveling uniques be much higher for people who actually need them?

"

iamstryker wrote:

"

Odoakar wrote:

- he disliked that not one unique dropped for him during our run through Normal and Cruel (lvl 42s now).
.

Its kind of weird to me that players like myself will keep finding uniques in maps that I don't want at all and yet new players can go through each difficulty and find no uniques or very few. Shouldn't the drop rates for those leveling uniques be much higher for people who actually need them?

Then we wouldnt be able to rip those newbies off taking their chaos orbs for the low lvl uniques we would vendor otherwise.

It seems to me that hardcore just means farm more. We you get down to it, there is nothing hardcore about POE. Hell, even "hardcore" allows you to die and retain your character and gear.

They have a huge passive tree, but you soon realize it is a pigeonhole.
They have awesome currency items, but you soon realize their rarity outweighs their reward.
They have a cool idea for endgame, but you soon realize the experience is gated behind RNG. You cannot attempt the harder content, because the rarity of said content is more valuable than the content itself.
They have one of the coolest skill progression designs ever seen in an ARPG, but you soon realize that that too is gated behind RNG.

There is so much potential in this game, but GGG doesn't see it, or doesn't care. They have created a game "they would want to play." I guess they would want to play and endless farming game/ trade simulator.

"

iamstryker wrote:

"

Odoakar wrote:

The game needs to drop more uniques. Period. It has over 200 uniques now available (237 to be exact!), and the drop rates are almost at the CB levels, when there were 20 uniques. You can run through 2 difficulties and maybe get one unique to drop.

I have thought the same thing recently. In closed beta I figured that once more uniques were added that we would so more drop over time. But that doesn't appear to have happened. It seems that GGG keeps lowering the overall drop rate as more and more uniques are added.

Except, you know, for the time they doubled the unique drop rate due to having added a lot to the pool.

I think I may be approaching the end myself. I'm a pretty patient guy but this is reaching the absurd. I play. A lot. A quick check of my character list shows this. I have not had one drop of any significance since release. Not a single one. This is not hyperbole. I feel like I am playing a different game than others when I happen to turn on trade chat and see all these items scroll by. Where are these coming from???

I can live with desynch. I can live with the terrible trade system. I can live with quite a few of the things I would like to see changed in this game. But man the drops are becoming tiresome to say the least. I am not asking for shit to "rain from the sky" as I am sure those such as f3rret will interpret this as. But the drop rate is just screwed down too damn tight.

I'm sure I'll keep plugging along for a while longer. But it is wearing pretty thin on me at this point.

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BARL wrote:

I think I may be approaching the end myself. I'm a pretty patient guy but this is reaching the absurd. I play. A lot. A quick check of my character list shows this. I have not had one drop of any significance since release. Not a single one. This is not hyperbole. I feel like I am playing a different game than others when I happen to turn on trade chat and see all these items scroll by. Where are these coming from???

I can live with desynch. I can live with the terrible trade system. I can live with quite a few of the things I would like to see changed in this game. But man the drops are becoming tiresome to say the least. I am not asking for shit to "rain from the sky" as I am sure those such as f3rret will interpret this as. But the drop rate is just screwed down too damn tight.

I'm sure I'll keep plugging along for a while longer. But it is wearing pretty thin on me at this point.

Your post inspired me to tell a story how i feel, since i feel like you, dunno how many hundreds(thousands) of hours i have in this game and i got 0 tier one uniques by killing monsters, not just me but most of the people i played with.

The story:

Since i was doing time in prison for few years, my very first day i listened to that old advice, "Hit the biggest guy you see". And there he was, Grumpy they called him, extremely big swedish guy. So i took a swing at him and that was best 10 seconds of my prison time. Ofc he got up, gathered his friends, and well, i wear grown up diapers today.

How is this relevant to POE?

Every time i drop ANOTHER FUCKING ARAKU TIKI AMULET in lvl 78 map, i instantly get that sensation in my spine, feeling of Grumpy extremely huge hands on my shoulders and then i cry for 15 minutes in a corner.

No, i was joking, i wasnt in prison, but seriously, i really feel like that.

Yeah, that's exactly why I play less and less. Drops balanced around trading (muh economy!) and bizzare RNG-based progression system in form of maps (it also screws over solo players).

And instead of playing in Hardcore, like I want to, I have to start all over again every 5 months, because we have all these broken legacy uniques. Playing in Softcore/Hardcore just feels disgusting.

listening to you makes one realize that it was a bad design decision of ggg to never destroy your efforts in favor of increased drop rates.

for fulfilling your wishes, it's about time ggg lets your 6 linked chests corrode over time lowering their stats, wipe default league and hardcore every year or introduce higher item properties and max player levels with every patch.

alternatively they could have a random enemy steal parts of your gear, if you don't play it is stolen from your stash.
economy would have also been more stabilized and people happier if vaal orbs had a lesser chance to trash your item but make it account bound.

hail to the higher droprates which are following.

to op: if you had mentioned in your last sentences that the low drop rates don't encourage you to further play the game then i would have taken your post as feedback rather than blackmailing ggg to change their game. but that title...

This is probably one of the first "I'm quitting" posts that I thought was reasonable, well thought out, and very on target. And Charan was 100% correct. You bookended your criticism artfully.

I also agree that itemization is a critical issue in POE. I also think that GGG realizes this but their focus seems misplaced to me. Qarl has specifically stated that he thinks the issues are in the level 40'ish range and 4L items. I completely disagree with that. I've rolled well over 60 toons and I hit a wall in the high 50's to low 60's usually where I don't find any item worth upgrading to for 5-6 levels at least. That is a sign of poor itemization IMO. Or it's a sign that GGG feels trading is uber important to an ARPG which would be a poor design decision IMESHO.

Unique items are a critical draw for new and existing players. Useful items are also critical. What I'm reading in your post is that it's not so much about having a Mjolnir (sorry, unique du jour) drop every other map but that getting useful gear or useful uniques at almost all levels is a real drag. I have to say that is 100% true in my experience. A 5L item is not a tier 1 GG item but it's ridiculously hard to craft or find. I don't mind that a 6L is GG or that certain godly uniques are hard to find but getting three "Crown of Thorns" drops in 66+ maps is supremely disappointing, demotivating, and demoralizing.

This issue is one of the few issues that makes me toy with taking a break and is actually why I took a break just before OB ended. I hope that for you this is just a break as well and GGG does introduce something that will entice you again.

And to my favorite rodent friend, der Numerical Ferret, you're right. This is the game GGG wanted to make. But I'm also pretty sure they also want to attract new players and keep existing players. This type of feedback isn't blackmail. It's like going to a tailor that you heard was the best in the city and asking for a blue suit. Instead of making you a blue suit he keeps making you purple suits because that's his favorite color. You find at first that purple suits are pretty cool but as time goes on you really wish you had a blue suit. As a customer you try and ask him repeatedly (and respectfully) to please make a blue suit because that's YOUR favorite color and he says "fuck you, purple is my favorite color so suck it." Eventually you'll try to find a new tailor to make you that blue suit.

Now, it's obvious that not everyone likes or wants blue suits. Maybe they're happy that the tailor always makes them purple suits regardless of the color they ask for. But surely they can't fault the guy who explains to the tailor why he has to find a new tailor because although he did end up enjoying wearing his purple suit he's looking for a blue suit. The tailor can choose to start making blue suits or say "don't let the door hit ya where the good Atziri split ya". Even the least savvy of all merchants would realize that "hey, if I want to retain this guy as a customer then I should think about making those blue suits." That ain't blackmail any more than ain't is a word.

And to stop before we start, even in a F2P yet not P2W game, the player, regardless of their monetary contribution, is a customer and can has a say.

And that's all I has to say about that.