Let's be real here, are you enjoying the league with your build?

Currently I do not enjoy playing this league. Though i never stayed for long for quite a long time now. But I have not wanted to quit a league this fast since forever! Not even near yellow maps and I am already sick of the bad design.

Do not get me wrong, I really appreciate the turn away from race/rush explode screen and loot time=money gameplay focus and welcome the aim of this "more tactical play smart" gameplay. But they went all in on all the wrong design direction choices they could do, just to reach that "feel" instead of designing it properly. (or maybe I am just super casual and grown out of this game, I do not know for sure)

I am casual. I have not experienced endgame since Shaper, maybe just 1 or 2 league..maybe. I miss viable fun broken build variety, builds that can be achieved easily without the currency/market mafia's involvement. Content that is challenging to master but still accessible to all. With the current pace and progression the game is turning into a chore with not much reward for me. My advice is play in a full group and forget solo... Harvest is awesome, it became the holy grail of casuals, but it turned into a nightmare this league.


I feel the game pushes me towards certain builds without giving me the freedom it used to. Just checking the current season roaster vs the available skill gems in the game, it feels like 10% of skills are viable for red+endgame and 5% is broken. The rest will get you till yellow maps, and either requires 15ex to move forward or just simply is not viable... previous leagues that 15 ex was a good casual week or two. But now... oh boy I am uncertain, maybe a month or two with punishing grinding gameplay. (Or roll a super tanky broken build from the 5% and feel free to tell everybody else that they are playing shit builds)

I am definitely playing the game wrong/inefficiently, but I was having fun. Watched some tutorials read some pages from the community, I mostly play solo while talking to friends and sharing loot. I understand the mechanics but probably lack the motivation to Grind this much just to hit another wall that I cannot progress through solo or just om my own.

Totally respect all SSF players whom are still playing this league, and the hardcore community.

I am still trying to enjoy it... but it is fading fast. (maybe I am old now, or maybe the voice in my head that says.. "Hey you have cool story games in your backlog, would you grind for weeks or experience the full spectrum of what gaming can offer.")

//Ps. I had the most fun gaming lately when I played It takes Two with my wife, and the Guardians of the Galaxy game. Highly recommend opening your eyes for other games.

I do enjoy it when it works, which doesn't most of the time, but when it does (good expedition+ sentinels) it's a nice challenge.

But what I noticed is, the game became EXTREMELY exhausting. The difficulty spikes jumps your adrenaline like a god-damn racing horse, and I have to take breaks each hour for at least 15 minutes. It's an eye straining, headache inducing barrage of information overload.

And I'm not even in maps yet...

I mostly like it. Something has to be done about the mods on the mobs - especially ones that counter builds, but other than that - great changes. 8/10 so far for me.

Not really enjoying the league, it seems a bit too simplistic. On top of that they really broke the game with the new rares and elites. It is abundantly clear that nobody tested old league mechanics with this new build, because several of them are completely broken. Metamorph, Incursion, Delve, and so on. I find I'm running around in yellow maps ignoring pretty much everything, because it's not possible to engage without fatal consequences. This on a tanky RF-build.

3.18 also makes the game unenjoyable in Standard, which was always a fallback when a league wasn't enjoyable enough. Not so now.

Some will say this is challenging and hard, but it really isn't. It's oppressive, and not fun. And really bad for business.

"

Sixtysan wrote:

But what I noticed is, the game became EXTREMELY exhausting. The difficulty spikes jumps your adrenaline like a god-damn racing horse, and I have to take breaks each hour for at least 15 minutes. It's an eye straining, headache inducing barrage of information overload.

Yes, I have noticed this as well. It's quite concerning, and making me seriously consider quitting for good.

"

Kane1992 wrote:

I feel like playing anything that is non meta will just completly wreck me this league, i started as lightning strike which i find terrible designwise...

My first character was a lightning strike champion which ended in... complete disaster, so I feel your pain on that one.

My second character though is a Viper Strike Pathfinder. Currently lvl 79 and quite enjoying it.

Still, my enjoyment takes place under the looming threat of those damn AM mods. As others have said, thanks to those mods, engaging with any older mechanics (Breach, Ritual, Harvest...) results in such an extreme spike in difficulty it almost seems too on the nose that they introduced those Atlas passives to make certain content disappear.

My nerves are getting a little frayed from always being one step away from death whenever I pop a ritual.

I have no problem with my build but i fiend the league so dry in loot its insane im in t13 im running out of alch and Vaal ORB !!!

Actually enjoying it currently. And I talked a lot of shit right at the start about the mechanic itself being really boring.

Once I got into maps however, and started seeing how combinatin' the sentinels can have some really cool on use effects, it got more fun.

On the issue of the rares, I really liked the difficulty spike even on league launch. Really my only complaint was the lack of drops for taking some of them down that took forever.

Currently into high red maps, have done a handful of t16's rare / vaal and whatnot. For anyone interested I'm just using my own build I spent last league refining. Deadeye elemental tornado shot, non crit with the newer attack keystone. Throw some essences into a bow and you're into maps.

Also the gear combinators are nuts. In 2 tried combined my really meh 800 edps bow with another bow with +2 arrows. Seems very strong haha

It feels like there's 9000 skills in the game but only a few are viable. By 'viable', I mean being able to do endgame content without pouring mirrors into gear. Seismic Trap and Lightning Strike are current examples of such skills. With the number of skills in the game, PoE's greatest strength should be build diversity. Nope. League after league everyone falls into a 3-4 skill meta because the devs can't be bothered to make the other skills playable. Making monsters more annoying isn't fun. Making them more annoying certainly isn't fun when there are only 3-4 skills accessible for casuals (the largest demographic of the game). So, casuals leave. I could deal with annoying monsters, but I don't want to play seismic trap or lightning strike on top of dealing with annoying monsters because neither one of those skills are fun to me.

There's a fine line between challenging and annoying game-play that these devs just can't seem to understand.

Meh.

I'd be having more fun without the archnemesis stuff. My wonky builds are struggling when they would've done fine.

Not bad enough to kill my enthusiasm yet though

2 death is not tanky. 1 death = delete character