Biggest design problem of PoE - chore content

First, thank you for this wonderful and amazing game, full of such rich complexity and awesome gameplay.

Every game has its faults. IMO, the biggest with PoE is content that is a chore, eating up time with little or no difficulty.

1) Leveling masters. This is my biggest complaint.

Question: Would it be so radical and bad -- if players started their FIRST CHAR with fully leveled, complete crafting bench options? (or crafting options locked based on cLVL?).

In my mind, this would change nothing, except remove the wasted time spent on mindless master quests, and get rid of the need for crafting services (which I've used quite frequently because I hate levelling masters!)

Master crafting is great. Leveling the masters is a joke, and an frankly an embarrassment to the players of this game and their intelligence. Why add tedium to a game when there are other great uses of our time?

ZANA would be an exception! Those quests are interesting, bring up cool map modes, totally fine...

2) Ascendancy trials

Same rationale as above. Most players of PoE have been through the mill with many characters. No need for this "test" to get us ready for the lab. New players can figure it out pretty quick...

The trials are not a big deal at all. But its more the logic and game design aspect I'm referring to. It should be a lesson going forward... don't create chore content simply because its an addition. Be careful with additions to the game. Better to create nothing than to add chore content.

3) Some quests. Like picking up the fireflies. Or generally lots of quests that involve finding stuff.

Just my 2 cents. I love this game! Thanks GGG
Last bumped on Sep 27, 2018, 1:36:36 AM
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Getting fully leveled masters would remove one kind of progression from the game.

That said, RaizQT had an idea on his stream that was not bad I think:
- Have the masters give all of their crafting option from level one, but : make the crafts very expensive at level 1, and decrease their cost as you level them, making them equivalent to the similar costs as you reach the actual level of the different options.

Now that you bring Zana, there is one major difference between Zana and the rest of the masters :
Zana is rewarding.
Actually, Tora kind of is too to be honest as she just adds monsters for free, or an area with a big pack of mobs. Do you find Tora a chore to level up too ?

Anyway, a rework of the master is incoming at the end of the year, so give it some time.


What you see as a "chore" is not the same for everybody else necessarily.
How is any trial more a chorse than going through the Kaom's a4 areas for example ? many do see this part of the story as a chore too ...
you only need to do them once per league, where you need to go through the story ( that some do consider a chore .... ) for every single character.
SSF is not and will never be a standard for balance, it is not for people entitled to getting more without trading.
These are the things makes this game hard and fun. If any of things you suggest removed from the game it would be just like other arpg games, boring and mondaine.
Poe gives you NOTHING free and thats what i love about this game. You HAVE TO play to become better and on top of the game.

I just hope ggg doesnt give any credits to feedback coming from inexperienced players.
Trust your mind and strengthen your abilities!
Last edited by MrsDeath_ on Sep 26, 2018, 1:08:12 AM
Master quest being hard and fun. That is a very low bar. Very low.
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Bananaplasm wrote:
Master quest being hard and fun. That is a very low bar. Very low.


I can see that this game is pretty hard for you even w/o any of these :/
Trust your mind and strengthen your abilities!
I cannot disagree regarding the Masters. Supposedly this is being addressed within the next league or two so I think patience is in order.

The Ascendancies and the Lab have been a point of contention for so long! I think the simplification of the first two labs is all the concession you are going get from GGG. It could be addresses some day in another league but don't hold your breath.

The quest thing is so minor what difference does it make? You can skip a bunch of them (gear and respec reward ones) and most of the core quests force you to see at least MOST of the content (no one went in Dread Thicket anymore until they made us go there to kill a God for a skill point and collect fireflies for the main quest).
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Slaanesh69 wrote:

The Ascendancies and the Lab have been a point of contention for so long! I think the simplification of the first two labs is all the concession you are going get from GGG. It could be addresses some day in another league but don't hold your breath.


Thats not OPs point though.

Its just the trials not the lab itself.
Spawnrates can be bad, RNG getting the right trials to spawn can be bad, trials are much longer and more difficult than any trap gauntlet in uber lab (Why though? Why are trials to get access to ascension harder than the actual challenge of ascending?)

GGG addressed at least the spawnrates directly with Zana missions - they rest still is kinda weird and not fun to phrase it politely.
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Orbaal wrote:
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Slaanesh69 wrote:

The Ascendancies and the Lab have been a point of contention for so long! I think the simplification of the first two labs is all the concession you are going get from GGG. It could be addresses some day in another league but don't hold your breath.


Thats not OPs point though.

Its just the trials not the lab itself.
Spawnrates can be bad, RNG getting the right trials to spawn can be bad, trials are much longer and more difficult than any trap gauntlet in uber lab (Why though? Why are trials to get access to ascension harder than the actual challenge of ascending?)

GGG addressed at least the spawnrates directly with Zana missions - they rest still is kinda weird and not fun to phrase it politely.


Fair enough. And my apologies, I actually meant to include a comment that the RNG with the trials for Uberlab are an atrocity. I have been lucky in all but one league to find them easily and quickly, but that one time I did not, the level of frustration was real.
I somewhat see the point of a bit of RNG for uber lab trials, and while lore-wise it wouldn't make sense for them to be harder than lab, I appreciate that the challenge they present isn't entirely trivial and at the same time that lab is not that hard.

The problem I'm currently having in Delve is that I'm 87 (and I'm not a great player, so I do suffer from exp penalties), but Delve means fewer maps run and less chance to complete my trials. The trials that I have found so far on this character have been ridiculously easy and I haven't died once.

The part that I think can be skipped are all the trials up to merciless, which are even easier and hold no meaning if you're used to uber lab anyway.

Concerning masters,
Tora's loot is negligible and requires backtracking,
Haku is speedrunning back and forth,
Catarina also requires backtracking or cannot be completed if you find her too late,
Elreon is ridiculously easy (just hit all directions for a minute or clean up relics in 5 seconds), but at least there's nothing inherently problematic,
Vagan is only a problem for glass cannons,
Vorici would be an understatement to be called a chore for minion / aoe builds; more often than not I'm running around the map for a minute to separate exile and guards, which depending on how much they move, can be really difficult.

It's relevant to mention, that the daily mission levels don't correspond to character level at all (except Zana). I do most of the master missions while leveling (I skip the ones at start because the reputation they provide is insignificant, also a problem), but I always end up with level 40-50 daily missions, when I'm doing mid tier maps.

Lastly, I think locking some things behind grind makes sense, like changing sockets on corrupted gear. Corrupted gear is optional endgame stuff and not necessary early on.

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