Its only going downhill from here

Every patch from 3.13 onward has been a disaster that almost never achieved what was promised in the manifesto. Instead of proper balancing , character and ascendancy changes have led to nothing but decreased build diversity and a longer grind. Either you play a meta-build now, or you'll slog behind on your off-meta build on the ladder.

This patch a bunch of maps most people liked got removed

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The following Maps have been removed from the Atlas: Academy, Arachnid Tomb, Arena, Bazaar, Beach, Belfry, Bramble Valley, Burial Chambers, Cage, Castle Ruins, Channel, City Square, Cold River, Colonnade, Coral Ruins, Courthouse, Coves, Crater, Crystal Ore, Desert Spring, Excavation, Factory, Frozen Cabins, Geode, Graveyard, Iceberg, Infested Valley, Ivory Temple, Jungle Valley, Lava Chamber, Marshes, Mesa, Pen, Peninsula, Phantasmagoria, Pier, Precinct, Primordial Pool, Ramparts, Residence, Scriptorium, Shipyard, Shrine, Villa, and Volcano. The Perandus Manor Unique Chateau Map has also been removed.

Most of my favourite maps have been removed from the game. And i'm not alone with this, alot of people liked these maps. It wasn't so bad if the removal actually achieved what it promised: less time to set up the atlas for endgame.
Sadly the passive didn't bring more balanced power to all ascendancies. the ranger side of the tree got 'reworked' and lost a bunch of life, damage and attributes. you need to spend alot of points on a damage starved ascendancy just to compensate for the loss of dodge and half of the duelist masteries don't even work.

It feels like player power has been nerfed yet again, combined with lowered currency drop rates and an unrewarding league mechanic and thus even with the lower map count, itemization takes alot longer to reach endgame unless you craft or flip all day.

Overall this patch made things worse, build diversity is low, itemization is slow and more rng than ever and the league mechanic is a buggy, rippy and unrewarding mess.

I played to red maps, forced myself through acts, thinking i would have fun again progressing through the atlas endgame. I didn't have fun. It feels like i have to conjure up insane investment JUST to keep up with progression, not even thinking of outscaling it. Then i watched some streamers play meta-builds, new unbalanced skills like poison concoction or even some skills from last league that miraculously haven't been ruined yet: exsanguinate, corrupting fever. Flying through acts, maps, clearing screens at a time and instantly deleting bosses.

Then i look at my build, something i like playing, the classic cyclone slayer and i realize i have to spend around 100-150 exa JUST so i can get on a power level similar to what some of these metabuilds archieve on a 200c budget. It feels really demotivating knowing that i simply cannot keep up unless i play a meta build or flip/craft all day.



The 3.15 support gem nerf ruined alot of builds and ggg just doubled down on it by removing a bunch of power from the passive tree (even tho some ascendancies got better nodes). Making bloodstained fossils uselses and basically deleting vaal builds from leagues entirely and even nerfing a legacy mod just to fuck over standard players. The aura changes didn't even solve the claimed problems of "giving too much power to other players" aswell, the only thing it did was
kill aurastacking. Groups are still outperforming solo by a couple of order of magnitnudes as predicted and support characters are still giving insane power to other players early game.

don't get me wrong, i want to have fun and am thinking about rerolling a sponsored™ metabuild that can keep up with the game, then sit in hideout all day and craft for profit to gear up my cycloner. But i'm not feeling it at all. I usually play league to collect currency so i can upgrade my standard characters, but those apparently aren't safe from the developers all seeing fun-destroying eyes, even if its legacy gear. Why bother investing 10-20 mirrors into a gg standard build when ggg will just come along one patch and destroy it in the name of balance that never comes ?

idk.

They haven't been "removed from the game". They'll be back in future leagues. We just don't have access to them right now because they wanted to streamline the Atlas a bit.

You're also mistaken that you'll have fun playing a different build. You'll complain about that one too. That's because it's you, not the character, that is playing the game. You just need to take some time off. Normal. Do it.

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Shagsbeard wrote:

They haven't been "removed from the game". They'll be back in future leagues. We just don't have access to them right now because they wanted to streamline the Atlas a bit.

Why they didn't just do a community poll, or review most played maps is beyond me. Its seems so simple and they could have gathered some goodwill. Sure there will be a rotation every league, but why not let the community help with this to identity the stable favorites?

The small corridor maps, or the ones with many doors are just terrible for most players.

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DarthSki44 wrote:

The small corridor maps, or the ones with many doors are just terrible for most players.

They are also terrible for many league mechanics, which is even more reason why they should be reduced....

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Shagsbeard wrote:

They haven't been "removed from the game". They'll be back in future leagues. We just don't have access to them right now because they wanted to streamline the Atlas a bit.

You're also mistaken that you'll have fun playing a different build. You'll complain about that one too. That's because it's you, not the character, that is playing the game. You just need to take some time off. Normal. Do it.

Why did i have fun playing my leftover standard bv, cycloner and quant deadeye then ? Can you explain that or are you unable to find a fitting scapegoat argument for that.

In standard those issues are almost non-existent, gearing is easier and what remains is pure gameplay, which was and is fun. The only thing that remains that is not fun is the gearing progression and current item/skill balance of league. its the changes they're making to the game. Removal of movement speed, gutting of mobility skills. Lowering player power from passives and trashing item progression through removal of harvest crafting.

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impulze3 wrote:

LONG TEXT

Thank you for putting my thoughts into words. POE is getting indeed downhill. I am flabbergasted why they would sabotage their own game. I hope it hurts them financially so that GGG revert the course and bring back the glory days of 3.13 - 3.14.

I usually play off meta wintertide brand trickster which was never strong in damage or survivability and now it even sucks more to play. Wintertide brand died for the sins of the crit Stormbrand The Feared farmer Assassins.

PoE is in decline, no doubt about it.

Players: "We don't like backtracking" GGG: "Players will embrace and cherish going back through a zone looking for loot."

Players: "We despise one-shot mobs." GGG: "Players love to die and will relish one-shot mobs in Scourge."

Players: "SST is fun." GGG: "We don't like it when players have fun. Excuse us while we tweak some numbers."

Players: "Is the priority the core game anymore?" GGG: "Stuttering, game freezes, and crash to desktop is part of the core game 'tension' Excuse us while we put out a patch on Royale. By the way more exciting news on Hard Mode is coming!"

Players: "Is Fortify going to be okay?" GGG: "When we say 'Fortify is for melee' you players shouldn't assume Fortify is going to work for melee. Jeez."

Players: "In pre-league discussions, I heard Wilson say the Scourge loot will be great." GGG: "We told Wilson great loot is theoretically possible - we can't help it if he doesn't understand."

Imagine the game being in this position after the absolute banger that was 3.13. ...it's embarrassing quite frankly.

They did mention overhauling the End Game next league. Let's hope they do a better job with that. Personally,I'm not happy either with the current atlas. Sure, less maps to get to the good stuff, but shitty maps however few they are make the game worse for me.

I dont know when did you join PoE, but you clearly dont rmember times when 54% (yes, you see it right 54%, MORE THAN HALF OF PLAYERBASE) played Pathefinder. There were times Scion was reaching around 40% as well.

You think current situation is bad? Nice one.