The drop rate dilemma

So,

there is one thing that just kills it for me, every time I play.

Quite often on a new hero, I find my first exalt round about Act 4. Often, after multiple chaos. At the same time, I play this game for over two years now and have not found a single six link, nor was I able to craft one, with round about thousand orbs of investments.

In the current league, I had to retire my necromancer, as I was unable to find a zombie mace, a Baron or even a working five link with decent stats. Red map drops were rare as well, pretty much non existent, a beachhead map - not once! and who has fun running shore all the time, due the pitiful drop rates?

The game just doesn´t let you progress, if you don´t trade.


Now at the Turmoil race, a similar situation. I find an exalt at Act 3, but at Act 5 I am not offered a single useful threshold gem... I was offered a zombie gem, heck I am an archer... I was offered melee games, again I am an archer...

What is this? How is it possible, that the game hands you an exalt every now and then, but not a single useful item for any of my builds?

There is just something completely wrong with the drop rates in this game and also the quest rewards. Why not offer ranger threshold gems to me, gems that have a use for me with lightning.


If GGG feels that this is right, then they need to add a use for exalt orbs. Let us use them for six link crafts, let us use them to get threshold gems, or let us use them for anything useful at all. Same with chaos, I wasted hundreds of those on yellow items and nothing came out of it.

If I would trade, I would have BIS gear, but so... I am just one very sad customer, who is stuck for two years by now.

You know you can just flat pay 1,500 orbs of fusing to get a six-link item, and six sockets for 350 jewlers orbs, right? Like, there is literally a direct mechanism to pay for those, via Voricci crafting. I sympathize with the jewels not being exactly what you want, etc, but ... chaos and exalt orbs definitely help with building things you want, in those areas, even if you can't just buy them from an NPC.

PS: I didn't kill the shaper, but was comfortably running T14 maps on my summoner necro in the short time I played at the end of harbringer, and I had only the Bones of Ullr shoes, and good ol' skullhead, in terms of minion supports. No baron, no zombie wand, no midnight bargain, no vis mortis.

If you accept that you may not get quite exactly the build you want, or that you may need to accept some "wasted" things along with useful ones, SSF builds are much more usable than many people think. (In fact, it is the rare category of "exploit a synergy" builds that use several uniques together in some ... maybe not entirely exploity, but definitely overpowered-synergies way to, y'know, face-tank shaper, or whatever.)

As an example, I took the zombie gem, even though I use zero zombies, because they are somewhere between annoying and useless even when buffed all to heck and back, and I took the "one percent damage reduction per zombie" node in the ascendency, despite both of them having zombie related stuff that did nothing for me.

I'm not saying that you are entirely wrong here, though: in trade-enabled leagues, you absolutely, positively have no chance of keeping up with anyone who does trade. This is the inherent property of adding trade to an ARPG: once that is done, loot drops are rendered essentially useless. (eg: they are vendor fodder, to fund buying the right gear, or selling fodder, to ... well, not much difference, really.)

If you are concerned because you can't, eg, place on a ladder, you may find the SSF checkbox useful, which at least puts you on an equal footing in terms of trade to the other folks in the ladder.

Open up your profile, coward, and let us see if you're lying to us or not. ;p

<3

Well in harbringer league mapping was ez af, horizon orb to unlock maps and habringer to unlock next tier. If you didn't use them properly is kinda your fault.

The game is indeed balanced aroud trading. Since there are so many uniques is simply hard to hit the jackpot and get the one that you exactly want. However if you happend to find rares or uniques that doesn't fit your build but that can be useful for others you sell them and get the ones you need. Trading doesn't take that much time. Is just a click or two. I agree that when you are stucked in that moment when the only upgrade comes from trading you kinda have to trade because the chance of you getting the item you want is way too low. If you know how to make a custom loot filter this can be helpful as you can highlight the chancing bases you want. If you are looking for a unique in ssf try chance the base item and eventually will get it as long as it's not a hh kaom's heart or other "chase unique" which are more about luxury and not actual progression.

"

You know you can just flat pay 1,500 orbs of fusing to get a six-link item, and six sockets for 350 jewlers orbs, right? Like, there is literally a direct mechanism to pay for those, via Voricci crafting

I know that, but it´s not possible to find 1500 fusing orbs in a three month season. I might have found that many in the two years I play, but not in a single season.

It is as I said, if I would trade, I could get a six link for a few chaos, but if I don´t trade and yet invest 10 times as much currency, I am still not getting it.

The system is just broken, it´s the same terrible mechanic like at D2. You cash in and have BIS, but if you don´t, you sit there with nothing.

"

PS: I didn't kill the shaper, but was comfortably running T14 maps on my summoner necro in the short time I played at the end of harbringer, and I had only the Bones of Ullr shoes, and good ol' skullhead, in terms of minion supports. No baron, no zombie wand, no midnight bargain, no vis mortis.

Last season, I found two Barons early on, three zombie maces and killed several T15 maps. Fun fact, no matter how often I killed the T 15 bosses, a map for the guardians did not fall.

At the end of the league, I had like 5 exalts and hundreds of chaos, but not a single guardian map :). You would think that if you find so much currency, that you could buy hundreds of guardian maps for (literally speaking), that you might find a single map yourself. :) But it´s just not happening.

It´s less about not being able to kill stuff, this season I managed T12 I believe, without a single necro item, except the zombie gem. But from there, I was unable to progress, as no maps did drop.

And this is my problem with the game. Each season I reach a point where I am stuck, unless I trade. I don´t even run any fotm builds, all builds are my own creation, I don´t need to speed run things, I don´t care about the ladder, I don´t care about being the first, all I want is a fair chance to progress in this game.

Said chance, you only have if you trade and this is wrong in an ARPG. If I wanted to play a trading game, I would install hello kitty - the trade simulator :D

"

Well in harbringer league mapping was ez af, horizon orb to unlock maps and habringer to unlock next tier. If you didn't use them properly is kinda your fault.

I had how many of these orbs...? Right, maybe five or six and those I had to use on t10 or t11, as no higher maps did drop :)

Last league, I was swimming in t13 and t14 maps - this league not a single one has dropped.

It seems to be as if GGG is reworking drop rates every season, as it seems unreal to not find anything at all.

From my point of view,

POE is a very nice game, I like the mechanics and possibilities, but to progress in this game, trading is a must and that is just poorly designed if you ask me. It´s just not making any sense why a game that is based on killing monsters, does not offer a fair chance to do so.

At the same time, you trade and rush through the game with ease.

The balance just isn´t there and it reminds me of D2 with the real money trade network. Back then, finding a full tal rasha set or IK, Griswolds was impossible, yet you found soj´s and co a lot. All you had to do was go to said illegal website and pay 5 soj and you had Tals set, but if you played the game for 10 years, it was very likely to never find the armor of IK and Tal.


Trading is just too strong and important.

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SlippyCheeze wrote:

You know you can just flat pay 1,500 orbs of fusing to get a six-link item, and six sockets for 350 jewlers orbs, right?

Didn't know that.

*checks*

No, I can't. I don't have 1500 Fusings. Not enough time yet in the league to farm 1500 fusings. Maybe in another month or two. Oh, wait.

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Ygidua wrote:

I know that, but it´s not possible to find 1500 fusing orbs in a three month season. I might have found that many in the two years I play, but not in a single season.

.......

Trading is just too strong and important.

Can't agree more to the entire post.

And thats for just one char... If you don't want to just buy you BIS and then 6L it you will probably go through a couple of items for that slot thus making it even worse.

Lets see... Harbinger league.. 8 chars in mapping... at least 2 6L need each... 24k fusings... yeah right!
Buing those items already 6L?? not a problem...


For me the currency drop rate and/or crafting costs are just broken...

I am pretty much a filthy casual. Play as far as I can until I NEED to trade, which I define as my progress in temp leagues stalls so badly that I cannot continue. Experience of playing since Open Beta has helped but pretty much getting to the end of the acts is a given by now. Once I am in maps, I try to buy my build items that are necessary plus any stat sticks for resists as cheap as humanly possible, depending on the build, usually can pull off sub 20 chaos, and usually because I will self craft as much as I can to meet max resists and what I need uniques-wise. Later I go ahead and upgrade what I need when I can afford it.

This is my first league killing uber Atziri and Shaper ever. And without any help. I may have used the popular spectre combo that is around right now but I didn't follow the exact same builds. I don't have a single 6l this league so far.

If you think you need a 6l to do end game you can go right ahead and quit the game for all I care. This isn't the first time I have said this: YOU DO NOT NEED A 6L, hell you can get to at least early red maps on a 4l. If you say or think otherwise you are absolutely without a doubt lying. You might need time and experience to do so, but it isn't excessive, 30 hour play time a day levels of experience. You just need to bother to understand the game mechanics.

Second, if you are building a build that the general price of the item is out of your willing price range to buy, or is too rare/unknowingly rare to guarantee and easy self found drop within a healthy time frame, you are again an idiot. This may again need some experience to get the pattern off the ground without fail, but as it stands, I can guarantee that almost any league-starter build can get to early red maps on anywhere between 10-20, or less in some cases, chaos worth of trades or an equivalent amount of farming and self crafting, maybe add on a small portion of time extra to compensate for self-finding your crafting bases.

You want D3's smart loot? Go play D3. That is what it is there for. Otherwise your points are completely mute. Maybe if you had different specifics of drop rates you may have had an argument. But you have no idea what you are talking about as drops and the game has become easier throughout time as it is.

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PleiadesBlackstar wrote:

If you think you need a 6l to do end game you can go right ahead and quit the game for all I care. This isn't the first time I have said this: YOU DO NOT NEED A 6L, hell you can get to at least early red maps on a 4l.

Depends on the build.

However, the 6th link gives way too much power. The "more" multipliers on support gems have become inflationary, and most of them are pure dumb. Add an intrinsic "20% less damage" to all support gems on top of whatever they do at the moment, and the game (and the need for a 6th link) would be in a much better state.

Of course there are better ways than just adding a flat 20% less to all support gems, i.e. rebalance them, but yeah.

Dude gets exalts by act 3 or 4 and complains about drop rate. Geesh. I'm lucky if I see an exalt drop monthly. If I find 3 exalts in a league I'm jumping for joy. And about 10% of my characters end up with a 6 link that's not a tabula. Stop expecting to compete with streamers and the game is more fun.