Been away for a long time, curious about what has changed

I think the last time I played was the patch where Scion was released and act 3 was "finished" with the emperor fight or whatever. So! Questions:

1) Have there been any notable changes to the passive tree?

2) Is the current setup for the game that there are 4 month seasons, after which new seasons start and everything is dumped into standard?

3) Do people still have to use external websites to browse trading items efficiently?

4) Has item crafting changed at all to be less of a slot machine type approach?

5) Is the current approach to end game still about figuring out how to avoid getting 1 shotted?

6) What is the PvP scene like? Is it pretty simple, similar to the way D2 was?

7) Has gem leveling changed at all? I remember being extremely put off by the fact that no matter what I did, if I equipped a gem that was significantly below my current level, it would never really catch up. It'd get a bit closer to my level, but in the process I would gain 3-5 levels. Basically I felt like the only practical way to change (gem) builds was to start a new character so that the gems could level up with me.

8) Oh, right. Has end game (maps) changed in any significant way?




All I can think of for now...

1) Yes, some starting areas have been heavily reworked, some keystones changed, there's less block and life on tree, some new node types like hybrid life/es, life/mana or damage while holding a shield. Casters are very popular currently, so crowd favorites are witch (by quite a large margin), templar and shadow.

2) Roughly, yes, lately it has been three months of challenge leagues and one month mixed league with both properties.

3) Yes, we should get some ingame tools some time after the expansion launches but it isn't a priority and it shouldn't change the whole experience much.

4) Forsaken masters expansion changed that significantly, it's possible and not too expensive to craft decent gear now, the start is still left to chance but you can finish the item with crafted mods.

5) Depends, if you can get over 5k life you shouldn't worry about it too much unless map mods are a total shit, CI builds are able to go over 10k ES so it's not a problem.

6) Better than it was, there was a PvP revamp at some point but still not too popular.

7) It stayed mostly the same, however it will change significantly in upcoming expansion, level 19 will be easier to reach but level 20 will take longer.

8) Significantly, no. You can have a hideout with a map device now so it's a bit more comfortable and levelling map master gives you a permanent bonus to quantity. You can also craft map mods from previous challenge leagues and revisit them which allows you to get league-specific uniques which don't drop anymore. You can also run random corrupted areas with the map device, there are new unique maps and there's Atziri too, in normal and uber flavors.

Thanks for the reply, it was very informative.


Unfortunately, what I just cant embrace is starting over every ~3 months or being stuck in Legacy. Might give it a retry at some point when I have more free time and I can perhaps get my fill in a 3 month cycle.

Go to the beta invite thread, you will see that above all the other "changes" diapers are the most changed item in poe. Both sides are keeping pampers in business.

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BRavich wrote:

Thanks for the reply, it was very informative.


Unfortunately, what I just cant embrace is starting over every ~3 months or being stuck in Legacy. Might give it a retry at some point when I have more free time and I can perhaps get my fill in a 3 month cycle.

You don't want to start over every 3 months but don't want to play where you don't have to start over every 3 months? ...I see.

Standard doesnt maintain any sort of item balance with updates, and the game isnt designed to have a stable economy indefinitely. Didnt think it was such a difficult concept to grasp.

It kind of is. Either you want a fresh economy every few months or you don't want an economy reset at all. Of course all characters get reset with the economy.

That's a nice false dichotomy you've got there.


1) Periods of time greater than 3 months exist. Seasons could be 6 months, for example. It isnt a matter of "3 months or no months"

2) The economy doesnt have to be designed to stagnate if not wiped completely clean. That's just the approach that GGG has taken. It's not something I favor.

3) Legacy items are a simple concept, so I'm sure you can see why I'm not a fan of GGG's approach to them.