PATH of Exile: Delve fail. Not Fun for more than a few leagues. Here is why & suggestions.

Due to player support in this forum & some requests. I decided to to put my yesterdays’ reddit post here; which I got only ridiculed & denied my experiences by redditards. + suggestions to developers

PATH of Exile: Delve fail. Not Fun for more than a few leagues. Here is why & suggestions.

Intro; Path of Exile - extremely disappointing gameplay quality is getting worse by the league. Spelling out the core issues of a current “Delve” league as an example to attract developers’ attention in making necessary changes before game loses its entire player base. Please, share.[Ref. player base playtime statistics by league from Harbinger to Delve].

Recurring problems are being ignored; forum posts deleted & all you make is cringe worthy bloopers in poor taste; welcome to GGG’s policy to make game “risk/ reward based”. Except, adding so many extra steps to even try & enjoy the content is completely overtaken by endless running around in the dark, then go back & run around some more for a chance to find something, while your special currency is running out. Wherein, I’ve been playing delve every day since its launch, got two characters to 90 & 94. Yet, have not found a single boss. Sad to say, you have learned nothing from previous mistakes.

As an example; brief summary of what delve is like; You NEED to find “azurite” to progress in delve, then you NEED to pay for “resistance to darkness” to make sure “darkness” doesn’t kill you; then you NEED to buy Flare because “darkness” is everywhere & will kill you anyway; then you NEED to buy dynamite in case you run into a wall; then you NEED to find a wall in the “darkness” because you can’t get to the content without it; of course you NEED a right to hold more of “flare” & “dynamite” because you know the dungeon is dark & infinite, but your limit is 3 of each; then you NEED to pay to buyback your flare/dynamite every time with a special currency; but wait there is more you can’t even find what you NEED on a chart, because it doesn’t show an exact location of a boss; so you NEED to run around the area in “darkness” in a circle using all of the mentioned above, while dodging monsters who can’t get killed while in “darkness” just for a chance to find something; also you NEED to keep an eye for really dangerous mods of monsters that drop nothing, but you can’t avoid it. Now, remember you are using a special currency which means that when you “run out” then you can’t progress further & NEED to farm maps. Finally, in case you die, you lose all of the above & NEED to pay again & try again. Just to make it even more complicated, you NEED two different type of currencies “sulphite” & “azurite”.
The reward [if you find any] has NEEDS too... you NEED to find correct ones; you NEED to combine them in the right order & a correct type to work; just to get a chance for a roll & it doesn’t even have a good chance.

Will only mention that “Delve” had to be patched a few times now; due to neglect in development of “walls” not exploding at first try; very low gain rates of “azunite & suphite” & unability to progress at certain points due to paths in the chart not connecting. Also, still needs to change rates again...

As you can see, the gameplay is completely unbalanced. Therefore, not fun & has a very low retention rate of players. Honestly, this is my last attempt before I go as well. Hence, I don’t see any improvement over more than few leagues now regarding these issues.

Recommendation/Solution; do not add extra layers of Needs in your content; more complicated you make, less enjoyable it is in general as it doesn’t match the core gameplay which should always be the priority.

In case, you had not realised; the core problem is this. Can you please, focus on developing a core content & not waste everyones time on these stupid gimmicks that doesn't add any value to the actual gameplay.

As a customer, all i want from this game is More main content & less crazy "ideas" that I have to endure. Can you finaly listen to players "feedback" & not repeat the same mistakes almost every league?

NEWS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Guess what? this tread gonna stay relevant due to new expansion. My worries where real. RIP

"Now I have to keep running in a "dark" & while throwing "flashes" & "TNT" in search for "walls" under which i need to capture "beasts" with my "NETS" on a "Time limit" to "change the future" while my "fuel" is running out within a map. + i'm a detective & I give "NETS" to my npc”

After Bestiary league fail GGG don't learn. At all.

yeah they should focus on simple stuff like perandus, legacy, breach, anarchy, invasion, beyond, harbringer and abyss. Layers of time waste in leagues like bestiary, talisman and delve should be cut by alot.

Remove darkness, azurite, flares, dynamite, sulphite. Keep the cart, give us light. Add mobs, more mods in those area and increase difficulty by ALOT like delve level 200 should be already very very hard. When you increase numbers, numbers loss their value. That guy is at level 2500 already what the hell ? Lower the loot, them chaos worth nothing now.

Now you will say, if there is no sulphite the end game atlas map system gonna be useless ? Nope, at deep 200 you get smash by white mobs in delve, its so hard that you cant farm them all day long. delve is here to test the limit of your build, not to be farm.

"

FULL_SYNTEC wrote:

Now you will say, if there is no sulphite the end game atlas map system gonna be useless ? Nope, at deep 200 you get smash by white mobs in delve, its so hard that you cant farm them all day long. delve is here to test the limit of your build, not to be farm.

I would add that they remove all of the special drops from Delve also. Make those maps only. I’m talking essences, abyss, prophecy, everything except mine specific drops and normal gear and currency. Then things will balance out on their own. People who like maps will map and provide gear for people who like to Delve. People who like to do both will no longer be restricted by GGG’s idea of what mix of mapping to delving is “fun”. For me this is the only way Delve will have any interest. If it is added to core with an even worse sulphite rate than we have now (which is likely based on past experience) I would ignore it completely as an unrewarding grind.

"

Niiyos wrote:

Due to player support in this forum & some requests. I decided to to put my yesterdays’ reddit post

i did not read after this part. i ll give a short advice based on thread name tho; its up to you to find the part of the game you have fun while doing it.

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Niiyos wrote:

As a customer, all i want from this game is More main content & less crazy "ideas" that I have to endure.

Agree.
Maps take you to the End game content.
Delve does not take you to the End game content, because, besides of the ladder and challenges we have nothing there!
Ladder is broken (Most of the players do not care about it anymore).
Challenges are broken (I have not seen a single person here with 40 challenges yet! This is C-R-A-Z-Y! Once I saw how RNG-random the challenges are, I stopped playing at all.).

So, here comes the main problem.
When you delve you don't do maps.
No maps -> no end game.

Not every league can be amazing. Delve had huge potential and was oversold. That to me was its only problem. There are other games to play; I'll definitely come back for the next league.

I'm still having fun after 4+ years :-)

Delve is the best expansion since Legacy IMHO, though I think the loot drops (especially currency) are a bit OTT.
Fast gameplay, easy to grind access to, and above all else, FUN!

From my perspective, after the first week, you can cross Azurite out of your list (~at least for me it is ever growing, not the other way around)

All in all, things go back to expectations, I guess. We CANNOT expect a ground-breaking game changes in the three months cycle from a studio of GGG size. And I know they grew alot lately. Still, that is just not realistic.

I am very disappointed in the direction challenges went, yes, but Delve content itself is not bad, not failed, not "unfun" at all I would say.

What stands out for me :
1, GGG switched to "customers test our product, we fix what they complain about the most". Not a fan.
2, You go meta build or you go sad. That is just how I feel about the game now, and it might be because of how long I play it. Effectivity is the name of the game.
3, You need to learn how to make currency quick the first days of the league, from there, you ride the wave. Currency opens most of the doors in the game. For rest of the doors, see number 2

@OP

I just can't even...

Seriously, no wonder you have been ridiculed for this post on Reddit.

Where to start...I will just say that Delve while introducing new and interesting concept to PoE still need lot of tweaking to be in the right spot. I also agree with OP on the fact that GGG did not learn from previous mistakes especially rerity of boss encounters from Bestiary. It is disappointing to see GGG repeating same mistakes again.

OP is full of incorrect statements or outright falsehoods. Fractured walls did not explode in single dynamite due to programming error. GGG made a design decision where breaking a wall was based on actual amount of damage dealt by dynamite. This was clearly unpopular among players and GGG changed this mechanic.