Is Path Of Exile too much to handle?

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Aynix wrote:

PoE definitely has too much in it. Sure you can focus on one thing and ignore the rest, but when new player comes to the game and first thing he hears is "ignore 90% of the game and do only this, otherwise it will be too much for you" they probably wont bother with the game at all.

Who decides what goes and what stays ? Removing any system, you will lose players who enjoyed that system ....

The answer is simple. Give more control over what content you want active, but just removing things because some people can't manage it, is ridiculous .

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johnKeys wrote:

I'm not.

Which "mods" to play (and which not to) should be up to the individual player.
You like full mayhem mode. I enjoy vanilla. Others like anything in between.

Exactly what I am saying.

Removing it from game - NO
Giving players the option to choose - YES



HAHA and yes... Mayhem was fantastic. So wish they would bring that back.

My idea of fun for these event, for instance, would have been permanent Delirium, with Atlas Invasion on Scourge. THAT would have been a event people would remember for ages, IMHO.

That would be "arcade mode" PoE.

I'm more of a "story mode" player, and to me the last time the story made sense was when The Shaper and the Atlas were introduced.
giving a meaning to the maps and a character/villain that ties it all together.

Afterwards it just went into fan fiction territory, in my opinion.

The Elder was "here's a bigger bad than the Shaper. also the Shaper isn't bad anymore". plus a rehashed "Guardians" mechanic. plus an ultra boss fight with both of them together just to push particle effects to the maximum.

Sirus is just full blown mod territory, where the maker of the mod inserts himself as the big bad boss, who somehow killed the previous one and took his place.
Makes no sense but has screen-sized red tornadoes and "die" beams.

And on the way to him you're constantly getting random alien invasions, and tower defense segments, and moving chasms, and killer flower pot things coming at you...
And quad tabs worth of stuff that interact-with or unlock all those crazy side-mechanics.
while another fan made creature called a "Maven" watches.

GGG are just biding their time until PoE 2 at this point.

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johnKeys wrote:

That would be "arcade mode" PoE.

I'm more of a "story mode" player, and to me the last time the story made sense was when The Shaper and the Atlas were introduced.
giving a meaning to the maps and a character/villain that ties it all together.

Afterwards it just went into fan fiction territory, in my opinion.

The Elder was "here's a bigger bad than the Shaper. also the Shaper isn't bad anymore". plus a rehashed "Guardians" mechanic. plus an ultra boss fight with both of them together just to push particle effects to the maximum.

Sirus is just full blown mod territory, where the maker of the mod inserts himself as the big bad boss, who somehow killed the previous one and took his place.
Makes no sense but has screen-sized red tornadoes and "die" beams.

And on the way to him you're constantly getting random alien invasions, and tower defense segments, and moving chasms, and killer flower pot things coming at you...
And quad tabs worth of stuff that interact-with or unlock all those crazy side-mechanics.
while another fan made creature called a "Maven" watches.

GGG are just biding their time until PoE 2 at this point.

i was never story mode arpg gamer, to this day i dont know what d2 story is about even tho ive played 10k+ hours of it

The story mode people are the ones who pitch a fit when they are grimly hewing their way through the bowels of the living beast to cut the corruption out...and Jorgin rounds the corner at the wheel of a triple tractor trailer fulla junky veiled worn underwear shouting "Just tha git I was hopin' ta see today, Exile! Beep beep, comin' through!"

They're also the ones who gave us Oni-Goroshi, Jack the Axe, and Jorgin himself. Can't really complain too much. Most games take themselves way too seriously and this is probably the poster child for them all, it's nice to have a little prat humour now and then.

On-topic: FOMO is the end result of an attempt by GGG to (fairly, imo) compel players to try new things and different gimmicks that they would otherwise skip or recognize as poorly matched to their build/playstyle. It's a form of negative reinforcement that game companies use to either pad sagging retention numbers towards the end of a quarter, or distract players from an actual impending loss.

"Oh no, prophecy is going away, taking with it bountiful traps and Space Reflectors and influenced Asenath's Chant! Oh noez!" Meanwhile, we already know they are planning on reworking the atlas for Q1 2022 which may remove the conquerors, or maven, and their entire modpools, or shaper/elder/guardians, or sextants/watchstones...

Yes.

Thats all I was going to say but now I see I got sort of implicitly mentioned...uh...Its not so much that I was or am a story person. I was skipskipskipping the dialogue before long and I had little interest in the 'story' once it became clear it was all an excuse to go play in other dimensions.

And in a lot of other games I am more than happy to play outside any given story. I prefer to make my own if the game has room for it. I'm not a story person so much as I am the remnants of a roleplayer.

Hence OG, if we are being brutally honest. Look kids: for just 2.5k USD you too can shoe-horn your Mary Sue's talking weapon into an otherwise hardcore ARPG!

After all, once I finished both D3 and Wolcen, I played their endless dungeon modes exclusively. Neither were exactly hugo winning stuff. Same for PoE: give me a non story endless dungeon mode from scratch and maybe we wouldn't have OG at all. Or at least I would have found a way to hide it in that mode as a sort of extremely lucky drop.

Right now I am replaying Amalur. 25 hours in and I genuinely have no idea what the story is about beyond broad strokes. Also playing Division 2 with friends and other than 'virus bad DC pretty' I have no clue what it's about.

Maybe I just hate Mapping. It always just struck me as the real game tucked behind an arbitrary campaign that holds very little appeal on repeat playthroughs other than equally arbitrary quest rewards. The shift in development to really sell Mapping as the real game always made me wonder if GGG were somehow embarrassed about the campaign's perceived complete lack of engaging elements.

It's the standard Multiverse problem. Why care about any one world and its people when there are infinite others...and those others have much more in terms of challenge and reward? Maps are a cop-out design wise. GGG gave us Wraeclast and then failed to make it, an entire world, challenging or rewarding.

But Maps are also genius game design IF isolated from that. They really are. The sheer replayability and diversity. My god.

PoE without Maps would, I think, not be too much to handle. Enough league gimmicks pepper themselves throughout the campaign to make it interesting. 10 acts, side stuff like Delve, and a different endgame loop that doesnt go flying off the handle with the layers of area construction. That would be a complete game.

PoE that is only Maps, also not too much to handle. You can control the nature of the maps via mods between runs, which is very rogue lite...like. That would also be a complete game with a simple premise: planeswalker type character dealing with vague encroaching threats from deep within the dimensions.

But the two in one game? Both somewhat at odds with the other? And fairly regular additions of mutators and character tools? It works only if you never take a break of any substantial duration. FOMO isnt quite how I would define how PoE makes a casual gamer feel. It's more like fear of being left behind.

Which is...worse. FOMO encourages regular checking and maybe engagement when something desirable pops up. Fear of being left behind is much more insidious in its constant reminder: neglect this game at your own risk.

BUT as we've established long ago PoE ain't for casual gamers. It's for people who make it Their One Game, ultimately. Is PoE too much for them to handle? Dunno, everyone has their limits. I do believe that PoE pushes them extraordinarily hard for what it is. But I imagine that is part of the appeal. I remember feeling like a win in PoE was a real achievement, and that likely had something to do with being able to temporarily deal with that 'too much to handle'.

Specifically, I made my own build that could handle red maps indefinitely, which meant 100 was possible. Old school goals. Yay. But it was incredibly boring to play which contravenes my entire reason for playing any game. The mechanic was engaging...vortex something...but the method was shallow as hell. It's not that I couldn't die. It's that I wouldn't if I paid attention and took no risks. Constantly. I retired that character there and then.

That was my "too much to handle". I'd finally created a build that satisfied both me and the game, but the game threw so much at me that nothing short of constantly being careful and alert would suffice. That might be "challenging" for some, but for me it's a very clear sign to move on. So much risk, so little reward.

And I did try a little Expedition on console. Just to see what state the game is in in terms of "too much". The gimmick itself wasn't too bad but it felt just like any other "trigger this to unleash waves of enemies then grab rewards" gimmick from Ambush onwards. That aside there were so many new skills and supports that it would have taken me hours just to read up on them. It was an easy uninstall.

Fear of being left behind can really grind a person down, until they realise what is leaving them behind might not be worth what they have to give up to keep up.

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johnKeys wrote:

I'm not.

Which "mods" to play (and which not to) should be up to the individual player.
You like full mayhem mode. I enjoy vanilla. Others like anything in between.

Can you please tell me what "Vanilla" is? In my head, that would be 1.0, but something tells me it's not in your head.

I do, however, agree that more player agency will help a long way into making PoE more manageable, especially for new players. But there are certain things they can't give players control over. We're still playing the same game, and we will always be playing the same game.

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chedrich wrote:

But this "in 10% of the maps you will encounter [xyz league]" with more and more league mechanics stacking on top of each other feels somehow garbage for me.

I agree. The chance of encountering a random league mechanic in maps need to go. That said; the problem that arises with more player agency, is drop rates. As long as you have the ability to spike your maps up with a lot of chosen mechanics, that need to be included in the drop rates equation.

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johnKeys wrote:

I've played the game for what seems like an eternity. watched it evolve from 3 Acts with a metal credits theme, to 4 Acts to 10 Acts. tons of content, mechanics, things to do and collect...

But... did it gain too much content at this point?

For me: Yes and No.

In its current state it feels too bloated. I don't want 20 different league mechanics interfering with the stuff I really want to do. A beast hunting me in an open breach while scourge and delirium are running and some prophecy activates... while I'm just trying to kill the boss in order to progress towards a conquerer is simply unnerving. Too much "garbage" happening and distracting from my actual goal.

But: I like most of the league mechanics, and I would like to have a true agency over them. Maybe something like in the legacy league - select which mechanics you want, and which you don't. But this "in 10% of the maps you will encounter [xyz league]" with more and more league mechanics stacking on top of each other feels somehow garbage for me.

Just to make it clear, OG on the beach is a far more pleasant grind than popping conqs. It's worth the endless sand in your shorts, worth watching chat scroll past with other people reaching their goals and being first to XYZ while you bonk deadguys around with a piece of driftwood and listen to podcasts, scrutinizing hillock for any sign of glint or je ne sais quoi...

It's the gift that gives and gives until you finally realize you're level 72 and it's been mighty quiet and you miss being on fire and it was a fun ride that made you forget about how banal and silly acts was.

When every zone is a fresh sarcastic comment or crackling wit or over-the-top succubus pulp line.

@Phrazz, you are right - "vanilla PoE" is tricky to define.

1.0 is a more complete Exile story than Beta. You get revenge on Dominus - the bad guy who exiled you - and save the world from evil mutated creatures in the process.
Slapping Piety was never the end goal. For all her evil deeds and annoying cameos, she was always just a henchwoman.

But then there's Malachai who invented the evil mutated creatures thing, and a bigger "save the world" event.
And then there's Kitava who - aside from the "kill gods" gimmick - is the ultimate "save the world" event.
Yeah you're more a generic RPG hero than a "criminal master among thieves" Exile at this point, but at least it clicks.

And then there's Shaper. I love Shaper.
Not the sissy "help! there's an eldritch being hunting me!" Shaper.
The original "little mouse" Shaper, who gave meaning to the "maps with random mods" grind at last, and presented himself as the literal god of it all, while having a compelling origin story via memory fragments.

That would be "vanilla" for me: Atlas PoE. With no stupid plant or tower defense mechanics, and no random Abysses or hands to hell.
My heart still races when I hear the Lich theme start playing at the loading screen, but those can be added as checkboxes for people who enjoy stacking or occasionally enabling them.
Oh and fuck Conquerors and Sirus.
Sirus can be a DLC.

@Charan, the fear of being left behind is certainly there. But even for a player who keeps up and tries to make sense of what's going on - it's too much, in my opinion.
The example @chedrich gave is just one instance of turning Path Of Exile into a Michael Bay film.
At this point I bet even some of the developers at GGG are going "fuck the story. Here's some more explosions!".
Where's Megan Fox as a scantily clad Act 1 NPC ? (Atziri is the closest we got).