The main source of frustation, especially for new players

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Elhazzared wrote:

Only a few available that are specific type, colouring can be hit or miss, supposed couple can become 40 or 60 or more. In fact to get a single red slot and 4 blue in my mage armor I spent almost 50 orbs. Odds are you aren't going to need as many but odds are odds at the end of the day, the problem of RNG and sometimes you haven't made enough sacrifices to the gods of RNG for them to smile upon you.

Granted I do see one or two armor pieces there that could be used at somewhat afordable prices... Somewhat being the keyword here. I mean, a few chaos orbs are still going to hurt. Of over 400 hours played I have about 21 chaos. Granted I've bought a thing or two here and there, but never spent more than a chaos in those items. Heck, you can find uniques and rare gems cheaper than a 5L white piece which is ridiculous... Well, not so much ridiculous as it is a problem of RNG. Still It's not so much the RNG of them droping that is the real problem, as it's the orbs being RNG themselves and not fix you something simple and very much absolutly necessary for granted.

Obviously I'm ignoring everyone who has not price tagged the chestpieces.

You do know how to use the chaos recipe right?

I suppose I don't. I know the most basic recipes. I searched for recipes but I got the most basic ones everyone knows. if you have a link of all available recipes that exist. That would be wonderful... So again, no. I don't know a recipe for getting chaos orbs.

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Elhazzared wrote:

I suppose I don't. I know the most basic recipes. I searched for recipes but I got the most basic ones everyone knows. if you have a link of all available recipes that exist. That would be wonderful... So again, no. I don't know a recipe for getting chaos orbs.

Check here: http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Vendor_recipe_system

Scroll down a bit and you'll find the heading "Full Rare Sets" and you can check the table for the Chaos Recipes available. Generally, most people do the 'Chaos x1' or the x2 if they already have decent rare gear.

Ah well I never got a character to level 60. My furthest one which I had stoped playing was level 59. Otherwise I'dprobably be gaining more chaos.

this game doesnt need to be easier. go back to d3 if u want faceroll content and easy gear.

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SteveZ wrote:

this game doesnt need to be easier. go back to d3 if u want faceroll content and easy gear.

As always SteveZ, your comment are truly an inspiration. Such helpful advice from you to the community. I wonder where PoE would be without you...

I haven't explained why I like links being difficult to attain, I've been conclusory and just said that it has advantages. That's my fault I can see why you might be baffled when you only understand the advantages of your own side.

First, some foundation: Finding a gear upgrade is a multi-dimensional problem in POE. This means you can accept an item that is bad on one axis if its good on another. Another player might make the opposite decision shown the same two pieces of gear because the evaluation across independent axes is intangible (x isn't better than y nor vice-versa). Each person can value that conversion as they see fit. The fact that there are different ways an item can be good increases the number of gearing decisions a player may make. In time we can get all axes to roll well simultaneously, but that's such a long-term goal it diverges from the topic of new player frustration so I will not further discuss it.

How is gearing a multi-dimensional problem in POE?
1) One axis is the item's affix modifiers (+Resist, +Life, and so on)
2) Another axis is Sockets links
There's more but let's just talk about these 2 first. These axes are orthogonal to each other (rolls in one axis have no bearing on the other) and have a long-term progression of comparable length. When deciding between:
-a 5L item and bad affix rolls, or
-a 4L item with good affix rolls,
Some will pick the 5L, others will pick the 4L, and neither side has made an objectively "wrong" choice. If you absolutely cannot play without a 5L then Scour/Alc one that you find and use it, that's a perfectly acceptable choice! Because the axes are orthogonal, valuing sockets or affixes greater is merely a decision the player makes; it's not a mathematical evaluation.

There are other qualifiers on gear evaluation but they don't rise to the same level as the two axes described above.
3) Item base type is another thing that can vary independently from the rest of the item's characteristics, so it is technically another axis
However, I discuss it separately from the first 2 because:
-There's no way to fix it when it rolls wrong
-The progression is rather short
Accordingly, item base type doesn't feel "good" when it rolls well. It just feels "bad" when it rolls wrong. It's a different emotional response caused by the change in circumstance- mainly the short progression which results in higher expectation.

When you ask for 6L to be standard, not only do I disagree that this would give us more choices, I think it would do the opposite and give us less choices! The multi-dimensional gearing decision has been collapsed to just one axis, and that remaining axis is something that's already been done before in much the same way. It makes socket linking like item base type where there's no longer any aspirational goal; there's just a baseline and things below the baseline. In other words: there's many ways an item can fail, one way it can succeed, and zero ways for it to be exceptional. Looking at it from this wider perspective, such a change appears to result in many losses and the only gain is something that already exists (6L setups), so it is difficult to see why this change should be condoned.

It boils down to this: I like the depth of a multi-axis gearing decision. Making socket links easily achieved doesn't replace that depth with something new which is equivalently complex, it simply eliminates it. Having aspirational goals is a good thing! If you feel bad that you haven't reached an aspirational goal yet, then you can at least feel good that you still have interesting choices to make! Once you reach that goal there's no where else to go, you're already at the top. As I alluded in my first post, the journey is where the interesting part is.

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Elhazzared wrote:

I was running ball lightning + faster casting + spell echo + life leech + lightning penetration and

2 - 5L in standard is NOT afordable.

I am selling a few 5 link weapons right now for *1 alchemy orb each*. Not because I actually care about the currency, simply so they can be there on the market for people like your friend. Who apparently let you check poe.trade for him?...

Your point is not unreasonable, but when you say you need a 5 link for cruel, and need to spend at least an ex to get any 5 link (I've never paid for any 5 link, and I've had 20+ in the last three months, including 7 I linked myself and a couple given away by my Guild like free candy), ... I wonder if you've given your friend the wrong idea about the game.

You do have some other reasonable points, such as the one about 5 offcolour on a 5 link. But then again, I can't imagine a good reason for any melee/caster (not sure which, red/blue combo) to want to go pure evasion - not to mention that depending on the build you may do just fine if you went for a hybrid chest piece or a pure non-evasion chest piece.

The only other thing I'd say is as a game of progression it's not unusual for people to level up on completely different combos than they end up with. Which to me feels more diverse, not less. It's fun to play some dorky combo for a while until you get what you're looking for; heck, I only just got a chest armour coloured right for a lvl 86 yesterday. ...

To Charan: I've seen a lot of absolutes/black-and-white approach in your recent posts. I get the feeling the game has become a complete drag for you;... I've been there and sometimes it's best to just cut the umbilical cord.

Actually sorry for a double-post but thinking about it, the 'yea' points to the OP and other posts helped crystalllise what I like about the game compared to D3.

D3: If you get to X level, you will have Y skills. You then only need a good weapon/whatever. You'd be extremely unlucky to not be godlike by a pre-determined point.

Poe/Moria/Angband/Borderlands type games: If you're quite lucky, by the time you arrive at the end point (whatever it is), you may well be a god-like being. But equally, you may be suffering under the weight of poor gear and lack of survivability. The joyful feeling you get when you get something *really* good in that type of game far outweighs the feeling of 'oh, finally made it to level 30' on Diablo 3 and other games with a set-progression approach.

davidnn5 - Weapons aren't important, i actually have a 5link weapon, the only 5link we found the whole game. He is spec for dual wielding cleave and I am a mage. I do very honestly appreciate the offer, if you have a 5L armour based chest piece I'll be glad to take it off your hands for him and hope he decides to come back and play.

I didn't gave my friend the wrong idea of the game. 5L are extremely rare drops, at least at our level. 5 sockets are not rare, but 5L are pretty damn rare. You get them more at higher levels, past mercyless and into maps as I've been given to understand. Thing is, it's just not working for him without a 5L.

Allow me to explain my mage reason. It started with a stone of Lazhwar, add rathpith for full spell block possibillity. Now you'll need a lot of block nodes but I got it setup to get max block, some life, a minimal amount of extra spell damage. Now we add lots of evasion and dodge. That's a character that's pretty tough to get any hits in! He's also a caster because I want to use extra casting from the amulet. Add cybil's paw to get a bunch of extra spell damage to make up for the lack of nodes. A spell going with life leech and blood magic, I chose lightnign tendrils for very quick hits and cybil's paw life gain per hit. You also get atziri's boots to get more spell dodge. Then you try for max resistences as well and voila. A character that is pretty damn tough to hit... it's a funny idea but the problem lies with getting a good evasion based armor with the right colours.

PolarisOrbit - That is a good post and I do feel I understand better why you advocate against the 5L and 6L being readly available though I suppose that now that I understand your point it's more of a point of view thing.

From my point of view there is no way a piece of armor with the right stats but less sockets substitute more socket. The gain is far more tangible from an extra slot than from some better stats and if you are to use 2 or 3 alchemies (using scourings in the meantime as necessary) is going to yield quickly something acceptable. Even if not as good, still pretty decent while you gained the extra socket which allows for much more tangible gain.

The only point where this point of view is moot is when we talk about some specific unique items that have some pretty powerful abillities that are indeed required for the build to work at all. But to be honest if you need such piece as part of the build it's obvious you're not going to settle for anything less than the perfect unique piece for you and that includes getting it to 6L.

Because from my perspective there is no choice between a 4L with better stats and a 5L with lesser stats as the 5L wins every day of the week since you can scour+alch 2 or 3 times until you get something at least decent that without a dubt justifies the upgrade then the lack of a 5L or 6L only limit the game further because:

Let's assume that out of a pool of 100 skills, only 10 can work in a 4L setup, everythign else won't work with any less than 5L and a few cases are designed specificly for 6L but that is a minority (do not argue on the arbitrary numbers please, this is just an example to drive the point).

You are limiting players to play with 10% of the skills, with minimal variation possible inside the tree and support gems because you have to make it work pretty darn well with only 4L.

If 5L and 6L are readily available on the other hand, players are free to use at least 80% of what the game has to offer, much more diversity = more fun and longer life to the game.

you are still looking for the gear that has the right stats or better than what you have. You are still looking for uniques. you are still looking for the things that make the build work perfectly, but you can still play the build none the less to a lesser degree of success.

On the same note this will not make the game any harder nor any easier. If anything this will allow for more builds to be able to work early on. This improves the journey.

I doubt that my point of view will change your opinion and that is fine. It do is good that we are able to understand eachothers opinion and merits.