Being a mediocre player gets you nowhere in POE

"

SeCKSEgai wrote:

I struggled with red elder running hierophant totems, primary weakness being difficulty increasing output with pure totems - if I didn't limit myself to totems and had another castable attack spell it probably would have been less challenging.

Point being is that its really disingenuous to claim shaper is a build tester when the majority of the player base never gets that far. I think the last ggg data had like 6% actually running top tier maps.

If you're going to be elitist about it, own it.

Otherwise, show me vids of random folks in 4-5 links with miscellaneous junk gear taking down shaper and uber elder. I've seen a handful of vids with low end gear succeed even deathless, but even then it was hardly "trivial".

I think you are confusing gear with build. If you still have "junk" gear, your build isn't finished yet. And every reasonable build should be able to kill shaper when finished, around level 90 with a rare 6 link or unique 5 link (30c or so, not exorbitant). Hence, build tester. And I said "near trivial". So I agree Shaper is not trivial yet, but it's easier than ever to get enough dps to skip most or all of his mechanics so even mechanically poor players can kill him.

You are also confusing Shaper with Uber elder. They are not even close to being on the same level as each other. Uber elder is insanely difficult compared to Shaper and was not part of this conversation. He's the real final boss of this game now.

Wasn't confusing them at all. But given that a majority of the player base never even makes it to mapping, shaper is clearly out of reach for most.

For the few that are actually completing all end game content, shaper is just a stepping stone - but those players typically know enough to accept that most of the playerbase will not see that content outside of youtube vids.

The biggest challenge I've had thus far since starting Poe was mentioned earlier about learning mechanics like how increase/decrease and more/less interact differently with damage.

If one can only follow instructions without understanding why they have no tools to address the issues they're bound to come across.

Right now I should be experimenting with different builds but a severe lack of desire to farm currency would make that a frustrating endeavor.

"

鬼殺し wrote:

The only saving grace is how many there are, which sort of makes 'elitist' a difficult term to use, since 'elitist' typically means the narrower part of a pyramid. As others have pointed out, if there's a pyramid structure to PoE's playerbase, it's incredibly flat, such that we have a fairly large layer of elitism right above the mediocre, and right below the actual elite. To an outside eye, it might even be hard to tell the two apart until they open their mouths, as the OP has done here. Then the division is super fucking obvious.

Oh no, I get where you're goin. Normally I avoid Gen Discussion boards but here its seemed like all I really was going to pay attention to was it and Gameplay.

Don't get me wrong, even Swtor had people in top tier gear that never actually learned how to play the game. Whenever they would start to sound elitist my guildmates and friends could feel me rolling my eyes across the internet.

But I think I get what you mean, its rarely the top looking down but the folks just right under them.

"

krizzexile wrote:

Another league, another try. I love Arpgs, I played them all. However POE is the first game I admit defeat. The problem? Being a mediocre player.

It starts around level mid 80 - I only play softcore, I know my limits - when I map and map, trying to farm currency, trying to level. My goal: seeing the "endgame". The T16 bosses, maybe beating the shaper.
Problem: I make mistakes. Many. Not, too many, but enough to prevent any progress. Sometimes I missjudge the situation, sometimes my reaction time is too slow (by a lot, I am 40+), sometimes I simply forgot the mechanic or the threat a particular enemy poses.
Well here goes another 10% exp. 2 hours down the drain. My highest char is 91. 10% here is like 4 hours of mapping for me and I try to play maps I know are somewhat safe. I know most of the "nope" bosses in the maps etc. However being a slow player also has another disadvantage: in the time you farm x currency for item y, the inflation already made item y two times x and so on.
Watching POE streamer on twitch is like watching someone playing another game. Seeing those super corrupted amazing "fluff" items on reddit is a parallel universe. I never had enough currency to make enough attempts crafting something good let alone find something.
At the beginning of a league I might snatch some nice items with a patient trading approach but usually after week 3 this over because inflation. I have no idea how these people do it. I can't

it's super frustrating because there is no way around. Can't overgear/overlevel or any other solution.

I tried playing the beefiest, sturdiest, tankiest classes. Those classes their gameplay make chess look like an action game. Problem: you die too because of the afforementioned reasons. Difficult fight take too long usually.

Gosh darnit. I haven't played in ages and was just about to load up and give it a crack. Just bought a new laptop too. Sadly, this has depressed me because you've described my PoE experience down to a tea, even the age. I am going to go back to Fortress of the Witch King.


P.

Oh dear dear people talking about stuff they know nothing about again.

6% reaching maps means nothing in a FTP game as I said several pages ago. Many folks see PoE being popular so they download it, try it for an hour or two, see they wouldn't like to play it and stop. This gets added to the statistics and inflates the number so oh gosh this little people actually completed the game! Bullshit, make it something you have to pay 40 dollars for and this % would skyrocket. Stop trying to imagine the average player being some 50 level fool who doesn't know how linking gems work.

Shaper IS a build tester. The game has been on a constant power creep for ages. The ascendancies, the new items even now the skill reworks - they all make your damage explode. People are reporting killing map bosses in several arc chains with crappy gear and you are telling me Shaper is a credible challenge now? Like that other guy said we have uber elder, shaper is not the top dog anymore and if he was he'd be a joke to anyone committed enough.

Whats even funnier is how mechanical the Shaper fight actually is. Kinda like Hydra you can dodge all of his attacks meaning a build with no life and 5 links would be able to kill him if the player has good connection and fast reactions.

But hey what the hell would I know, the game is after all so super hard I cant comprehend it properly.

"

Johny_Snow wrote:

Oh dear dear people talking about stuff they know nothing about again.

6% reaching maps means nothing in a FTP game as I said several pages ago. Many folks see PoE being popular so they download it, try it for an hour or two, see they wouldn't like to play it and stop. This gets added to the statistics and inflates the number so oh gosh this little people actually completed the game! Bullshit, make it something you have to pay 40 dollars for and this % would skyrocket. Stop trying to imagine the average player being some 50 level fool who doesn't know how linking gems work.

Shaper IS a build tester. The game has been on a constant power creep for ages. The ascendancies, the new items even now the skill reworks - they all make your damage explode. People are reporting killing map bosses in several arc chains with crappy gear and you are telling me Shaper is a credible challenge now? Like that other guy said we have uber elder, shaper is not the top dog anymore and if he was he'd be a joke to anyone committed enough.

Whats even funnier is how mechanical the Shaper fight actually is. Kinda like Hydra you can dodge all of his attacks meaning a build with no life and 5 links would be able to kill him if the player has good connection and fast reactions.

But hey what the hell would I know, the game is after all so super hard I cant comprehend it properly.

This is literally what Charan and I were talking about - not the actual elite but the "poelitist". You believe that the average player is able to complete endgame from start to finish. You assume that spamming a handful of skills mindlessly in hopes of perdy l00t is enough to motivate folks. You also assume that your experience is the norm, despite easily being able to read otherwise.

I spend more time talking with Charan on the forums than actually playing the game. He's uninstalled while I'm just not motivated after 1.5 leagues and a month of flashback. Given my gaming history, I'm accustomed to more depth and interaction.

Just browsing through the gameplay help forum you'll find people getting stuck all over the place, and fairly often its long before mapping.

I can totally acknowledge I've still got plenty to learn, particularly on the mechanics side with the math. I only started midway through abyss, and at this point I'm ready to settle in standard because having to not only rebuild characters but wealth,masters,lab and atlas every few months just doesn't feel worthwhile. To play league only means that you're essentially trashing everything you gain with very little time to enjoy it.

But let's put it in perspective - if everyone who played more than a few hours stuck it in for the long haul and was doing all content - there would be a lot more items from the hardest areas flooding the markets. Imagine if Atziri's sacrificial garb was as common as Voll's Protector's...


But really, any game 5 gigs or more isn't something people just wait for to dump it an hour later. I still remember 14.4 dial up and despite the huge gains in speeds multiple gigs still take a while even when tapped into a backbone. F2p alone doesn't mean inflated statistics.

At this point it just sounds like you're parroting what people say on streams like you're at the same level - yet failing to recognize something you stated yourself, "He'd be a joke to anyone committed enough." Not everyone feels the same level of desire or enjoyment in this game. Just as not everyone has the patience to eat deaths in HC, not everyone has the patience to endure SSF.

That does remind me though. It's like people who still are stuck with bronze rating in LoL after several years. You can't say its lack of experience, but lack of learning or lack of motivation are both believable answers.

In other words, a "poelitist" fails to recognize any experience other than his/her own.

I am not sure what are you trying to say here. You say the game is spamming a few skills mindlessly then proceed with saying how many people get stuck before reaching maps. So on one side the game is as easy as spamming and moving at light speed, on the other its hard enough for casuals to routinely need help.

Its contradictory is what it is. You want more depth, saying how the game is shallow yet keep up your narrative that it is not noob friendly.

I honestly don't know how to respond to this. With the wealth of information readily available anybody can reach the end game. Easily. Motivation? Who the hell cares about that, if you are not motivated to play the game maybe thats not the game for you? I myself was not motivated to play certain leagues but in the end I always come back. You are really looking at this from the wrong perspective, if the game was paid for the definition of casual would have changed drastically.

OP, as a mediocre player like you and a filthy casual to boot there are hard truths you'll learn as you play POE. I have been playing filthy casually for 2 years now and yes, I have yet to meet uber izaro, atziri, the 4 guardians, shaper, elder and a host of "end-game" bosses that has come and gone, maybe I'll never will.

The hard truth is that if I continue to play as I do, "end-game" is not for me. People complain of power creep and clear speed meta but to a casual like me, power creep? clear speed meta? alien words. Power creep and clear speed meta are only for those who can put in a lot of time and amass vast quantity of exalts and can afford to creep power speed their gears.

It's not that I don't enjoy playing POE, I still am having lots of fun playing it. I even enjoyed those traps from the previous expansion. The thing is you have to manage your expectations of what you can actually accomplish in POE playing casually and being mediocre at it. Now if you're just mediocre but can put in a lot of time, there's lots to learn but don't worry after a few years you'll be playing like the God-mode streamers that they are and you will be. But for those that can't like me, we'll we just enjoy the game, enjoy the journey, smell the new shiny things GGG gives us and take it to where we can.

Just like life, we enjoy every moment we can play, every day we are online, we don't rush to the end game.

"

Johny_Snow wrote:

I am not sure what are you trying to say here. You say the game is spamming a few skills mindlessly then proceed with saying how many people get stuck before reaching maps. So on one side the game is as easy as spamming and moving at light speed, on the other its hard enough for casuals to routinely need help.

Spamming a few skills and moving at light speed is the endgame that Secksegai and Charan refer to. That doesn't mean there isn't a prerequisite (ok, sorry, I like litotes - in plain English 'despite that, there is still a prerequisite') to reaching that endgame mindless play. The prerequisite is mostly in the form of knowledge of which choices work the best, either via comprehensive understanding of game mechanics, or via following a build guide.

"

Its contradictory is what it is. You want more depth, saying how the game is shallow yet keep up your narrative that it is not noob friendly.

Complexity is not depth. A game can have 100 different flavours of cheese to select from - that is complexity. But if a handful of flavours out of those 100 enable the above gameplay, which is lawnmowing gameplay for all content, no consideration given for context, essentially clicking "Next" to view the next scene of a very colourful movie - that is surface-level complexity. Depth arises from choices having meaning and impact in the sense of providing advantages in one situation, and disadvantages in another.

It is arguable whether PoE has surface-level complexity or complexity with depth. Most of the depth in PoE's complexity is found in the building of your character, not in tactical combat, and the main reason folks like Charan and SeckseGai do not consider that depth very deep in PoE is the fact that there are a couple of "right choices" that, again, dominate all others and enable lawnmower tactics/strategy. A lot of the questions in Gameplay Help and Discussion are from people who are struggling with complexity - not necessarily with depth. (Did they choose to build their own characters, or follow flavour of the month?)

"

Johny_Snow wrote:

Oh dear dear people talking about stuff they know nothing about again.

6% reaching maps means nothing in a FTP game as I said several pages ago. Many folks see PoE being popular so they download it, try it for an hour or two, see they wouldn't like to play it and stop. This gets added to the statistics and inflates the number so oh gosh this little people actually completed the game! Bullshit, make it something you have to pay 40 dollars for and this % would skyrocket. Stop trying to imagine the average player being some 50 level fool who doesn't know how linking gems work.

Shaper IS a build tester. The game has been on a constant power creep for ages. The ascendancies, the new items even now the skill reworks - they all make your damage explode. People are reporting killing map bosses in several arc chains with crappy gear and you are telling me Shaper is a credible challenge now? Like that other guy said we have uber elder, shaper is not the top dog anymore and if he was he'd be a joke to anyone committed enough.

Whats even funnier is how mechanical the Shaper fight actually is. Kinda like Hydra you can dodge all of his attacks meaning a build with no life and 5 links would be able to kill him if the player has good connection and fast reactions.

But hey what the hell would I know, the game is after all so super hard I cant comprehend it properly.

You do realize, that WOW at it´s best days during Vanilla had less than 5% killing the bosses at AQ and Naxx?

Paying has absolutely nothing to do with being motivated to gain the end. People pay money because they like a product and if they don´t then they just stop playing and paying.


Another aspect that you seem to miss in your pointless rant is the fact that POE offers nothing for the casual player right now. Legacy was a great feature, as it allowed players to tailor the game to their liking and everyone had access to unique content ideas.

Bestiary is another example, as it allowed people to hunt for specific crafts and items in a normal way. No more gambling with thousand of fuses, no more chancing a million belts... it was finally accessible and affordable and why Bestiary was so successful and full of motivation.

Incursion just like breach & Harbinger doesn´t motivate people, as it´s no new content but recycled old one. It also limits you too much in your options as you can no longer play as you like, but the game dictates you to.
A lot of players, never had any movement skills besides flasks, now they are forced to run them, which will take away important gem slots for their builds.

But also the build itself must be an AOE speed clear build, which is very demotivating for casuals, who like to check behind every bush, open all doors...

If I take myself as an example, at Bestiary I saw my first shaper skill, I never played a league as long and much as I did there. I knew that these red beasts were out there and I could meet them. Yes, the spawn rate was too low, just like with the Lich before, but it was accessible content and this motivated me and many other players so much, that we kept playing a long time.

Incursion just like breach is boring, we can not play the builds we enjoy, it takes a long time to unlock the full temple and incursion are super frustrating as keys don´t drop and stop the time.

GGG made a huge mistake with incursions and if we check the forum and overall attention it get´s, then the majority is not into them. The forums have not been as quiet for a long time, which shows that people lost their joy with the game.
The only people who might still play the league are the streamers and fanboys, the rest moved past and this is a very sad result for GGG, who certainly put a lot of effort into this.

Your obviously a very young person, so you don´t know that much about the gaming industry and life in general, but you need to understand one thing. Video games don´t survive if a few thousand nerds play them, this was the case in the 90s when you could make games for a few thousand bucks. NO, today video games are million dollar deal and you can only get the money back if you get casuals in.
Here GGG failed and this is why they struck a deal with an investor.