The problem with league-starters and a problem with POE in general.

I didn't review this after I wrote it, I don't know if it just around or is unclear.

I felt compelled to make this post because Archnemesis going core has exacerbated one of the biggest negatives in the game. I have been playing for a long time and I think POE has a lot to offer in large part because of the variety of options when creating a build and playing through the content available.

The current state of the game is constricted. It takes a lot of time to play a character up through most content at the start of a league... and most builds are not good for that process. Some only work with special uniques (some of which are insanely rare) some only work with difficult to acquire and expensive weapons (basically all melee builds) and some... basically faceroll the whole game.

The problem is that for some players the builds that can play the game are not fun builds. How many iterations of totem builds are viable? A lot. How many DOT builds are viable? A lot. How many ascendancies have good defense and/or good offense option? a couple. How many builds are playing totems that make dots?

The reason people are playing totem and/or dot builds are 3 fold.

1) Scaling, totem builds even with the small drawbacks to totems have a distinct advantage over non totem builds because every damage bonus is multiplied by the number of totems (they have this in common with general's cry, nice!) Most dot builds also get benefits to scaling because things like toxic rain or explosive arrow have high built in base damage which makes them less reliant on gear.

2) Uptime, builds that apply dots and/or use totems deal damage constantly. There is little to no downtime. Apply a DOT and run around for 5 seconds while damage happens or set up your totems and move on while damage happens. Compared with manually attacking builds that must be standing still, or in the case of cyclone/flicker constantly moving in the vicinity of an enemy to deal damage. Exert slam builds are even worse because in addition to standing still to attack they also must stand still repeatedly to buff themselves and they don't even get to leech during that time.

3) Defense, as most players know the best defense is movement. The freedom for dot and totem builds to move while their damage happens is a great first layer of defense. They also benefit from their damage scaling by having extra freedom to use defensive auras without significant drawbacks. You'll find, I'm quite sure, that very few of your successful players are using skills that require close proximity to a target.

Archnemesis has made the difference between mobile and ranged characters vs those that function otherwise even more dramatic. A melee build that needs to stand still to deal damage cannot, generally speaking, stand in a puddle of fire, chaos dot, chilled ground, or shocked ground and ... not die. Any character that relies on interaction at close range is more disadvantaged by ice prisons, temporal bubbles, or mods that retaliate. Any character who must function at a close range is significantly more likely to get fucked by a stupid mod like effigy.

There are plenty of other specific issues with archnemesis like how certain mods just ruin builds, queue a montage of all the folks insta killed by siphoner's lightning dot or my ill fated flicker build that suicides to vampiric, but I don't want to get angry so I'll stop for now.

The problem, at least for me: I like playing melee builds, I find them more engaging. I've been playing cyclone since it was called whirlwind in d2. I've been playing dual wield builds since it was called frenzy... in d2. I've been playing single hit skills since it was called smite... in d2. I like how it plays. Personal preference and all that. I have been playing boring as fuck DOT duelist builds because they allow me to play through the game's content at a reasonable pace. I played bleed bow gladiator, it's been nerfed. I played Toxic rain champion. It also got nerfed. I leagued started archnemesis with EA totems which... will probably get nerfed. I used to play these builds up with the intention of later changing to something more fun... But Honestly I don't give a shit. That's so much time invested for very little reward. What am I going to do with my mediocre melee build after I've done most content on my league starter?

I won't play another league where I feel it's necessary to play up a boring build and at this point I don't think anyone at GGG has the competence to balance POE with that thought in mind. Archnemesis going core was just another doubling down on the bad.

Lastly, if the plan is to nerf all the builds that are viable down to how fucking terrible most melee builds are I will absolutely never play again.

I'm not going to go back and edit this for flow or clarity. It was mostly a stream of thought. I hope you do better.

The problem as I see it is item level. We need to get to t16s to get crafting items, and its also the highest mapping content. There needs to be other ways to juice sideways, maybe a special alchemy orb that has lots of high risk reward mods, that gives you more quant / rarity, without raising the item level.

POE is basically a sandbox, where you can engage with whatever map tier you are comfortable with, but for crafting bases you have to be in t16s. It is better to run those maps and die 6 times than it is to run t14/15 with no deaths.

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dookleeto wrote:

The problem as I see it is item level. We need to get to t16s to get crafting items

This is not true. For most players and most items it is better to have a lower itemlevel than 86 because it limits the available stats quite a bit and makes it way easier to roll the stuff you actually need/want. In some cases it even removes the gambling-aspect and guarantees certain modifiers (spellcaster / coc bows for example).

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Scarletsword wrote:

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dookleeto wrote:

The problem as I see it is item level. We need to get to t16s to get crafting items

This is not true. For most players and most items it is better to have a lower itemlevel than 86 because it limits the available stats quite a bit and makes it way easier to roll the stuff you actually need/want. In some cases it even removes the gambling-aspect and guarantees certain modifiers (spellcaster / coc bows for example).

It is true. The higher the base, better the chance you'll get usable tier of affix. For example resistances ilvl 72 vs 84.
Also influenced mods are minimum ilvl 80+.

What you're talking about are specific cases.

yeah those are niche cases, for most pieces you want highest ilvl you can get.

That's because players are imposing this "rule" on themselves.
Expensive crafting methods require high item level, but low-tier or mid-tier ones do not. You can craft yourself a decent item with delve resonators or essences and fix it with bench. Or with Rog who is also a good source of high ilvl items. Which kinda defeats your argument that you HAVE TO FARM T16 to get high ilvl bases. You don't have to - you just need to be level 90-ish and Rog will offer you ilvl 83-85 bases. Level 90 is reachable in yellow map content without major problems. You actually level up faster because you are not dying so much.

Current POE tries to push players into high tier mapping too fast. Even quests to pursue exarch influences push you through tiers extremely rapidly. And our characters are simply not ready to comfortably do tier 14-16 maps at that point. Doing high reds on a tabula or a corrupted random 6L is 6-portaling almost every map and being hard stuck level 88-90.

They need to revamp map tiering system because we have 16 tiers, and first 13 are tossed away 2 days after hitting mapping.

I would like white maps to jump 2 area levels per tier - so tier 1 map is 68, then 70, 72, 74 and 76. Then starting from tier 6 we go up by 1 level up to area level 83 (which would be tier 13). And tier 13 is the highest natural tier possible, even with 4 voidstones socketed. You cannot boost a map past tier 13 with harbinger orb either.

Then, tiers 14-16 are "uber maps" with area level 84, 85 and 86 respectively. These are rare and valuable drops with significant boost to difficulty and rewards. All ubermaps are influenced by default. You can spec into "maps have X% chance to drop 1 tier higher" to get more of those valuable maps. Some unique maps are uber maps too (these are all off-atlas, not required to get your points or challenges).

I agree on having to do t16 for bases also now one need to do 14+ for progression bosses. I am playing ssf and I feel like I have to do t16. on trade I probably wont care and/or be able to buy crap so I can do t16s fine

what gets me is in this patch a lot of monsters/mods/mechanics/on death effects/etc its just too much bullshit.
crap chasing you forever. enter harves/boss exit get crap dropped on you/blow up
monsters spawn right on top of you and do crazy dmg. those exarch/eater mobs. they also off screen their dmg ... why?!
the new sentinel mobs good god wtf as well as other mods
all old league mechanics still feel like crap
expedition mobs are just bullshit too with multiple screens attacks
there is now ward in the game. without any explanation. had to go to 3rd party to look that up after encountering immortal mobs
new map mod pool is horrid. life as es wtf?!
maven boss regen wtf

there is just so much really annoying bullshit in this game and this patch just pinnacle of that design

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Esubane wrote:

That's because players are imposing this "rule" on themselves.
Expensive crafting methods require high item level, but low-tier or mid-tier ones do not. You can craft yourself a decent item with delve resonators or essences and fix it with bench. Or with Rog who is also a good source of high ilvl items. Which kinda defeats your argument that you HAVE TO FARM T16 to get high ilvl bases. You don't have to - you just need to be level 90-ish and Rog will offer you ilvl 83-85 bases. Level 90 is reachable in yellow map content without major problems. You actually level up faster because you are not dying so much.

Current POE tries to push players into high tier mapping too fast.

True but players push themselves as well. There is a fixation to get to T16 where the best bases are because all the money is in crafting. Not much cash to be made by pure grinding compared to crafting. Although crafting is still somewhat a lottery, it has become *easier* to make certain items with all new crafting mechanics. This causes item drops to be relatively worthless.

GGG should design the mapping system in such a way that it is worthwile to play white/yellow maps as well, of course not as rewarding as red maps but near on par with them. Like there is a boss system in red maps, there should be one in lower maps as well.

I also think the old conqueror system was better than the one we have now.

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Reinhart wrote:

GGG should design the mapping system in such a way that it is worthwile to play white/yellow maps as well, of course not as rewarding as red maps but near on par with them. Like there is a boss system in red maps, there should be one in lower maps as well.

We had that before when Doctor dropped in yellow or even white tier maps.

The replies in this thread seem, to me, tangentially related at best.

Crafting and map tiers really aren't the problem... At all from my perspective. In fact, I generally avoid crafting as much as possible because I think those systems are unfun.

The issue is that certain builds, which all share some characteristics, can play through the content in the game at what I consider to be a reasonable pace while the builds I find engaging and enjoyable to play... cannot.

I'm very confused as to how item level became relevant to this, Ilvl doesn't change the significant problems with balance and increased problems with area denial that monsters have due to archnemesis mods.