PoE, my Forever Game lost?

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AbilityPoints wrote:

PoE is a simplistic game where your aim is to kill things to gain things, levels, currency etc.

Depending on why you play it can be as simple as that or far more.

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Astasia wrote:

I was very critical of this update when it came out, and really just didn't want to play it based on what I thought it would be like. It sounds like my fears were partially confirmed in the launch version, but after a couple hotfixes I loaded the league up and gave it a try. Content in the game is easier than it has ever been, stacking damage mods are basically gone, clearing maps has become pretty mindless, occasionally you run in a rare that takes far too long to kill but typically it also means they do basically no damage and you can just face tank them while holding your attack skill down.

Complexity and bloat is in a better place than ever, don't like/understand harvest or heist or blight or whatever, just turn it off. It's no longer a matter of ignoring it or feebly attempting it, or feeling like you are wasting time/resources by skipping it or not doing it right, now you can just turn it off and increase the chance of the content you want to see.

The mechanics of harvest and betrayal (or any other single league/master mechanic) are absolutely not required to do well in this game. I have never fully understood betrayal, I've done like 3 or 4 random safehouse missions total since it was introduced and never finished a "cycle" and killed the boss, I just don't care enough to. These things aren't necessary. Once again the game has made this even more ignorable, you don't need to understand scarabs or how to get them anymore, scarabs have been moved out of safehouses and into altars and common league mechanic drops, and there's now an atlas passive to basically replace the need for scarabs entirely if you don't want to deal with them.

The game isn't adding bloat and endless complexity, most new leagues add optional lateral content and the point is you can pick what you enjoy and do that more. The more options they add the more likely you will find something that really clicks with you, or the less likely you are to fully burn out as you can mix things up from time to time. Do these leagues have powerful tools to help with progress? Yes. Can you combine one tiny thing from each league in an overly complex formula to create some god tier item? Sure. You don't need to though. A basic competent build using alched/dropped rares can get you into red maps and through the first stages of most of the bosses.

I think the core problem a lot of people have, and the problem they will always have and will likely never go away until those people do something about it, is not even attempting to understand the basic game mechanics and relying fully on build guides. All you really need to understand is you need some defenses, 75+ res, and a reasonable health pool to get through content. That is really all you need unless your goal is the uber uber bosses, but the uber uber bosses are not content for you or me to tackle, those are for people who devote their life to min-maxing the game so they can have something to challenge their perfectcraft builds. Personally I don't understand how anyone could ever truly enjoy a game like this while following a build guide, it's a RPG, creating your character and making these build decisions as you level and seeing your character bloom is the heart of what games like this are about. The experience is always going to feel hollow until you actually start playing instead of watching step by step instructions and going through the motions. Then you will also understand why you are struggling and how to fix it if some build leaves you hanging while expecting some nonsense item to make it function.

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Izrakhan wrote:

You play curse occultist with grace + deter. It almost invalidates your retort. The people complaining are not using this build. They're getting one shot with grace + deter + def banner and some leech.

It's not apples to apples really.