On Playing Overpowered Builds in Path of Exile

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gibbousmoon wrote:

I felt similarly upon playing one of my (relatively) underpowered characters (which was nonetheless my strongest non-League character!) for the first time in a long time today. I felt like perhaps I was wasting my time when I could rack up rewards (loot) much more quickly playing my CoC Prophecy character.

In other words, since I figured out how to "cheat" at the game (play a CoC character), playing a non-"cheating" build stopped being as rewarding.

If loot is the only thing you find rewarding about PoE, then go for it, nothing but clear-speed will be worth your time.

But for those of us who are into it for the challenge, testing the limits of our resources against the most ferocious threats in the game are what gets the adrenaline pumping. To each his own.

For those who think you've done it all, I invite you to try zoomcore: melee fighting with the screen zoomed all the way in. It is a completely different experience from off-screen one-hit face-rolling.

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RogueMage wrote:

For those who think you've done it all, I invite you to try zoomcore: melee fighting with the screen zoomed all the way in. It is a completely different experience from off-screen one-hit face-rolling.

lol why stop on zoom there tho ? we can try playing with settings down to runescape, eyes closed, and one hand scratching our balls and another hand holding a beer.

there are no limits on self-imposed handicaps / personal challenges

but they're always done to get away from baseline of the game.

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grepman wrote:

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RogueMage wrote:

For those who think you've done it all, I invite you to try zoomcore: melee fighting with the screen zoomed all the way in. It is a completely different experience from off-screen one-hit face-rolling.

lol why stop on zoom there tho ? we can try playing with settings down to runescape, eyes closed, and one hand scratching our balls and another hand holding a beer.

Zoomcore is not an artificial handicap, it's the same game, but from a visceral, in-your-face perspective rather than an omniscient bird's-eye-view of an anthill.

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RogueMage wrote:

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grepman wrote:

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RogueMage wrote:

For those who think you've done it all, I invite you to try zoomcore: melee fighting with the screen zoomed all the way in. It is a completely different experience from off-screen one-hit face-rolling.

lol why stop on zoom there tho ? we can try playing with settings down to runescape, eyes closed, and one hand scratching our balls and another hand holding a beer.

Zoomcore is not an artificial handicap, it's the same game, but from a visceral, in-your-face perspective rather than an omniscient bird's-eye-view of an anthill.

I disagree. changing settings to lowest level is also the same game. so is lockstep->predictive. and many other things like filters.

its exactly an artificial challenge because you artificially gimp yourself, by limiting your field of views, seeing mobs, terrain, objects, etc.

I kinda agree, made a CoC spark bow char as my second one in prophecy, tried to gimp myself too by using The Tempest to get a hybrid attack-spell setup going and went for CoC from level 38. Didn't really work, it still ended up broken and leveling it was piss easy too.

Recovering from this experience will probably take ages, I was curious how damaging will the upcoming 'nerf to the way the whole CoC thing works' be so I wanted a CoC char to compare it firsthand, serves me right. Nothing to do but stay away from anything ranged for a few months and hope for the best.

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RogueMage wrote:

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grepman wrote:

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RogueMage wrote:

For those who think you've done it all, I invite you to try zoomcore: melee fighting with the screen zoomed all the way in. It is a completely different experience from off-screen one-hit face-rolling.

lol why stop on zoom there tho ? we can try playing with settings down to runescape, eyes closed, and one hand scratching our balls and another hand holding a beer.

Zoomcore is not an artificial handicap, it's the same game, but from a visceral, in-your-face perspective rather than an omniscient bird's-eye-view of an anthill.

Yeah, I understand completely. When I want a visceral, in-your-face challenge I use my cat as my mousepad.

And turn my keyboard upside down.

Seriously, though, zooming in is the only way to make stereo 3D work, so if you're into stereo gaming, give it a try. (I personally find "zoomcore" unplayably annoying.)

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grepman wrote:

...its exactly an artificial challenge because you artificially gimp yourself, by limiting your field of views, seeing mobs, terrain, objects, etc.

There's nothing artificial about zoomcore, it's solely a choice of perspective, which has relative advantages (that favor melee) as well as disadvantages (that favor ranged). The main advantage is that it enlarges enemy hit-boxes, which can significantly improve your manual targeting accuracy. A subtler aspect is that up close, you can actually observe the wind-up animations of many foes, and anticipate how they're manuevering to attack you. What's most fun, however, is watching them die in bloody agony, rather than just get squashed from afar. GGG's attention to detail is at times truly breathtaking.

Thanks for sharing, gibbousbro. I try to use the analogy of an "I win" button to try to explain to people who don't understand cries for "nerfs." "If it bothers you then just don't play it," they say. "Why must you ruin our fun," they ask. I wonder sometimes if those same people go on to get bored and complain about how easy the game is....

I think I'm fairly good at resisting the allure of OP builds. One time I cheated at D2 Single player to see just what kind of character could beat Hell (I was not very good at ARPGs then)... I did get that moment of "what's the point?" on the 99 barbarian I created for myself, but then I was able to go back to my piddly little level 16 and keep leveling Meteorb, eventually at least.

Similarly I made a CoC build here in POE but I don't play it very much because the playstyle wasn't the most fun, to me. Now I'm playing a melee poison build in Prophecy because it makes use of all 8 skill buttons constantly (well, 7 most of the time, but 8 when setting up vs tough fights). I like tactical play or at least the illusion of tactical play.

But when something is excessively overpowered, I start to get that sense of pointlessness the original poster mentioned... fork and chain builds are severely hurt in my mind because pierce is just so much better.

Since GGG seems to be embracing greater power creep I wonder if the game will go in the direction of D3. Deal 30,000% of weapon damage with x skills, lol.

thanks for sharing.
can definitely relate to that feeling, even though I do have a couple semi-meta characters, and a few more who were OP in the past.

side note about Median: there are uber quests and zones so difficult, even cheating won't help you :)
I love that Mod and always will.

It's funny - people always say that certain build types are just bad..

I must be the anomaly because ive always been able to make overpowered builds that often use the exact things people say are trash to ascend to godhood... usually like half a year later the meta catches up..

Anyway, i think you fundamentally play the game in a different way to some others like myself. I love the early boom of leagues, trading to maximize power, crafting characters to have a build you can be proud to show in public groups and so forth - the meta really is the meat to me. I play to theorycraft builds and farm to godmode gearz - pushing power(while at the same time it being a satisfying build to play), is what it is all about for me and you can farm thousands of hours and never reach the end in PoE.

That said, if a build is boring or cheesy i will be the first to forget about it, and usually yea i don't play builds i see others do but this is not by will this is simply by most of my builds originating from understanding game mechanics and figuring out good combinations without looking to other places for help. However, if a "meta" skill is OP but i love the skill then i don't care at all of its broken OP - my like for the skill alone decides if i whilst to play it. Always when im done with one of my "good" builds that i feel very confident in i compare it to whatever else is out there, and if there should be something similarish i will analyze the advantages of each build until i am sure my build is the best of it its kind. Thinking about it, most of my builds are about something i find "cool" and i want to make it work, so i theorycraft for the longest to see if i can make a competitive build using whatever i desire... and i don't play them unless i feel the builds are good enough, else i keep waiting and theorycrafting and trying other ideas until the build i want can be built powerfully enough to be worth playing.