Big Ducks killing it on whats wrong with the game and how to fix it.

Sorry I can't take seriously a thread starting with "Big Ducks killing it".

"

grybranix wrote:

"

TemjinGold wrote:

it doesn't matter how balanced the skills are--there will never be build diversity because most people aren't making builds, they are just copying

Before I stopped using chat (because it's not safe, the mods will ban you from the game for talking in chat and there are users who have mass-report bots they will use on you for fun. Try it and find out the hard way. Or take my advice and don't)

anyway before I stopped using chat, I saw a couple new users there. They were saying the game was really complex and asked for advice.

I gave them the advice that got me into ARPGs in the first place, way back in the day with Diablo and Diablo 2. I said, play your dude and pick the skills that look strong to you. Do your best. When your build fails, you will have learned a lot! And you can play again, with a new build.

Many people in chat laughed at me and said this is not how to play Path of Exile. They told the new users to go to a site on the internet and copy a streamer's build. They made fun of me for making my own build and said my character was trash.

Those two new players have quit the game.

The problem I have with this advice is that trying to make your own build is a gamble, especially if you're not the kind of person who can make a mirror in a day. If the two new players don't quit because of the game's complexity, they'll have likely ended up quitting after wasting (what they consider to be) untold amounts of currency trying to make one build after the other and getting it to aspirational bosses only to keep failing.

With how complex the game is, how expensive "crafting" is, and how terrible the quality of dropped loot is, the idea of telling people to figure shit out on their own is going to wind up making them leave, because they have better things to do.

"

Pizzarugi wrote:

The problem I have with this advice is that trying to make your own build is a gamble, especially if you're not the kind of person who can make a mirror in a day.

a new player is not going to find a mirror. What game are you playing? JFC, you need to stop playing streamer builds

ya new gen players can't handle the idea of losing or being bad at a game. So the standard for playing POE is to go copy-paste a build from a full-time professional who's career in life is playing POE - now new players can also "win", be elite and troll anyone else that chooses not to use google to "play" the game.

:/

Worse still, this is the vast majority of players and GGG balance the game around it.. Median XL for D2, when Laz developed it on LAN with friends was the pinnacle of ARPG.

"

grybranix wrote:

"

Pizzarugi wrote:

The problem I have with this advice is that trying to make your own build is a gamble, especially if you're not the kind of person who can make a mirror in a day.

a new player is not going to find a mirror. What game are you playing? JFC, you need to stop playing streamer builds

In general: calm down.

Pizzarugi said MAKE not FIND. He meant it in a purposefully exaggerated way that any half experienced player would understand - making/trying to make poor builds work costs dearly.

The best way to learn is in the vast majority of cases to copy from someone/something who/that has proven to be successful. That can be a teacher or a handbook for example, or a build guide in our path-of-exile-case. Progress made in understanding the game is greater when following whatever "guide/teacher" you can get. That's why people in real life also follow guides, teachers, coaches, etc.
The "do-it-yourself" approach (without any guides at all) is valid, but in the majority of cases yields much, much less.

"

Antigegner wrote:

"

grybranix wrote:

"

Pizzarugi wrote:

The problem I have with this advice is that trying to make your own build is a gamble, especially if you're not the kind of person who can make a mirror in a day.

a new player is not going to find a mirror. What game are you playing? JFC, you need to stop playing streamer builds

In general: calm down.

Pizzarugi said MAKE not FIND. He meant it in a purposefully exaggerated way that any half experienced player would understand - making/trying to make poor builds work costs dearly.

The best way to learn is in the vast majority of cases to copy from someone/something who/that has proven to be successful. That can be a teacher or a handbook for example, or a build guide in our path-of-exile-case. Progress made in understanding the game is greater when following whatever "guide/teacher" you can get. That's why people in real life also follow guides, teachers, coaches, etc.
The "do-it-yourself" approach (without any guides at all) is valid, but in the majority of cases yields much, much less.

This.

There's nothing wrong with making your own build. Trouble is, this is a game that is far too complex and far too punishing to try that, unless of course you're the kind of person who only plays just to tinker and theorycraft.

For most players, trying out a homebrew build will mean spending a lot of currency buying gear trying to mix and match until something works or otherwise having to sell it back for a fraction of what you paid for. Considering how expensive items have become since the nerfs this league relative to the difficulty of the game, how many people can honestly scrounge up the currency needed to do this reliably? There's a reason a lot of build guides are made by streamers and rich players.

And if you do manage to make your own build that works, it would only take one indirect nerf to ruin it. Boom, all of that hard work and currency was just flushed down the drain. Bet that must feel very motivating.

In games like Diablo 2, Grim Dawn, or Last Epoch, you can very easily make your own build from scratch and do very well for yourself. I literally did that in Diablo 2 classic when I was a kid and I had no clue about proper build design beyond minmaxing armor and weapon damage despite being a skelly necro. The same can't be said for Path of Exile, where you have to spend tons of Divine Orbs to get essential gear, figuring out how to get said Divine Orbs, and making a build that is remotely capable of acquiring it within a reasonable timeframe, all so you can reach T16 maps, complete timed league content, and/or fight aspirational bosses. No other games expect this much from you while burying everything under a mountain of complexity and high difficulty that you have to figure out by looking at third-party apps and websites.

I honestly can't fault anyone who looks at PoE and straight up nopes out, whether by just discovering the game or dipping their toes into it. And if they do manage to stay in purely because some good samaritan told them how to make a build that works which they enjoy and not cost them untold hours and divines figuring out on their own, who cares? People shitting on others for using guides need to stop acting like a boomer trying to gatekeep the game. It's bad enough a lot of people quit this league over GGG's decisions as of late.

"

TemjinGold wrote:

"

grybranix wrote:

"

auspexa wrote:

I killed multiple ubers this league on explosive concoction scion and lightning trap elementalist

you have standard trap gear and ashes with spell suppress and evasion and your build is entirely unremarkable. Every build has either your exact defensive setup or an Aegis Aurora for max block or a Squire and glancing blows unless it's a ward build. You have the same build everyone else has my dude.

Sounds like my Hiero this league is what you are looking for then. I have no defenses. I have very little eHP for someone with no defenses. Pretty much no one is playing my build and you'd be hard pressed to show how my build is the same build as everyone else's. But my guy rarely dies and I have over 40MM udps (not sdps). I've killed every uber on it. The upside to all of this? My build even in final form is laughably cheap since no one plays it.

Last league when I went and made a build like this (with a different skill) I pushed to 100. Didn't feel like it this league and stopped at 98 cuz I wanted to try other builds. Build diversity is there, you just need to know how to make builds that work for your own playstyle.

How come you char is not on poe.ninja?

It probably is unless the ladders full already which is quite possible, its a projectile stack creeping frost build nicely developed which is why you can get away with no ehp fairly reliably.

Nice build, but fundamentally a glass cannon the most reliable strat in PoE

Probably really fun to play though and as they said, bet its really cheap.

"

InsiderTradingX wrote:

How come you char is not on poe.ninja?

Because I decided to stop pushing past 98 this league? If you use the "Time Machine" function, you can see me on ninja as late as Week 4.

Here's me at Week 2:

https://poe.ninja/challenge/builds/char/TemjinGold/CreepyTouchyGuy?time-machine=week-2&i=1&search=time-machine%3Dweek-2%26name%3Dcreepy

"

AmpegV4 wrote:

ya new gen players can't handle the idea of losing or being bad at a game. So the standard for playing POE is to go copy-paste a build from a full-time professional who's career in life is playing POE - now new players can also "win", be elite and troll anyone else that chooses not to use google to "play" the game.

:/

Worse still, this is the vast majority of players and GGG balance the game around it.. Median XL for D2, when Laz developed it on LAN with friends was the pinnacle of ARPG.

I like eastern sun better but i think the creator died.