Why Ruthless is the best game for strange people like me (tl;dr at bot)

I agree again.

To repeat myself, I really like all the other tweaks, no pantheons, flasks are short duration, no movement skills, all that is fun and the right type of stuff.

But to me (unless I am highly statistically unlucky) I need more access to higher maps. The "Shaping the Mountains/Skies" nodes are a good way of doing it perhaps, but for me it's like they make no difference since I allocated them. Idno. Game mode was great up til here, just a tweak here and we good I think.

I asked a couple of top tier 24/7 pro streamers in chat who play ruthless SSF and have reached red maps by now for detailed advice, they pretty much said they got stuck the same way for days as well.. so idno, maybe I just need to keep going.

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oopmah wrote:

I asked a couple of top tier 24/7 pro streamers in chat who play ruthless SSF and have reached red maps by now for detailed advice, they pretty much said they got stuck the same way for days as well.. so idno, maybe I just need to keep going.

It feels like you need to be lucky to hit these streaks of "get a +1 tier map and also some other map returns, then on the next map get another +1 tier, and then again". In normal mode they are almost garanteed these days, but in Ruthless, they are very rare.

You will drop back eventually, but you establish a foothold a tier higher, and can start to 3:1 the lower tier maps.

Alva and Nico are also helpful, but they are so crazy rare... ^^

Ya tell me about it, I ran into Niko for the first time in maps at lvl 80. Never seen him since. Never met Alva in game but got her once as an atlas mission.

Down to t2s again now. Kirac only has t1s left to sell. Got any good Netflix series to recommend? Best of luck to you with the grind, stay sane exile.

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Peterlerock wrote:

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Turtledove wrote:

What could be done to make it better for endgame?

I really like the Notables that are like "Maps have 10% chance to drop 1 tier higher, but all monsters gain 15% of phys as cold". There's 4 of them on the tree, but they are not enough in this non-drop environment.

Give us more of that.

They could try to add this stuff to the basic atlas points, but make them more rewarding. Like instead of "+1% map drop chance", make them "+x% map drop chance / pack size / chance to drop neighbour map, monsters gain x% increased damage/life/resists".

Would give me access to content, and make it harder at the same time.

That sounds good as a general idea. I don't see that it is really Ruthless oriented though. It is difficult for me to think of ways to improve Ruthless mapping. Although you're ahead of me. I'm only level 54 and trying to improve my character enough to get through act 5. :-)

Ok, after a hard grind, I think I finally established myself in yellow maps.
Had a lucky enough streak to get a dozen completions up to tier 10, and most importantly didn't drop out of yellows long enough that finally Alva and Kirac showed up in yellows, so I now have a yellow temple map room and yellow Kirac completion mission(s).

Gameplay is challenging enough now, I actually died (after what feels like an eternity), and my damage output is feeling lackluster again (which is a good thing).

Also the atlas passives, as horrible as they are, kind of work when you have like 50+ points. At least it feels sustainable now.

Up to the next grind, build a solid tier 8+ map pool. ;)