Pros and Cons of Ruthless (from #1 HC Slayer)

It's been a crazy fun week. Let's get into it:

PROS

Loot feels GREAT. Every rare, gem or piece of jewelry that drops is so exciting. It might be just the thing you need to survive the next encounter, or have the resists you can store in a stash for that specific boss fight down the road. Even whetstones and armor scraps feel good to find. (20% physical damage boost?? OP!)

Trading feels fantastic. Items you find have value because there are so few on the market. Also, when buying, other people are so eager to sell that they are very responsive and friendly.

Global chat is fun. Everyone is posting their finds and stories. Very positive community.

The screen clutter is reduced (though could still be improved ) the lower pack size and slower pace and lack of movement Let's you see what monsters you're approaching, and I've been able to read (or see the visual effects) most rares before engaging with them. You can make moment to moment decisions about how you're going to take on each pack.

The lack of DPS makes fights much more exciting. Monsters live long enough to fight back. Battles are intense, especially boss battles. I've learned a ton about how boss abilities work, how rare abilities work and how to handle them. Much more engaging gameplay.

Mixing several skills for maximum effect pays off and is fun. Placing a frost shield, a firewall, a curse, a frost wall etc isn't worth it in the normal game when you can just 1-click screen explode, but in ruthless you really gotta combine skills in meaningful ways depending on the pack or boss.

Tldr: it's challenging, engaging and rewarding with a great community.

CONS

Skill Balance. The game is balanced around non ruthless of course, and certain abilities work much better without gear or supports than others. As a heavy strike slayer, I especially suffer from the lack of leap-slam to engage and stun packs. Ranged monsters are extra difficult for true melee to deal with.

Creative builds aren't really makable due to the lack of links, supports and uniques. This is a shame because theory crafting fun crazy builds and testing them is where PoE really shines.

Ascendancies aren't balanced around 6 points and certain gutted mechanics (for example raider and onlaught). The power decrease is fine, but the balance is not there.

The rate of power gain during the campaign feels nearly perfect, but it slows down dramatically, perhaps too much, once you get into maps.

Removing things like the God powers removes some depth and customization. Again, I'm okay with the loss of power, but the pantheon is another way to fine tune your build and make it unique.

Instant logout feels awful, but I have to use it to stay competitive both on the ladder and in the marketplace. I rely on it as a crutch. I jump into fights I shouldn't because I know I can bail instantly if needed. It's lame. A 3 second logout timer NEEDS to be added to prevent such cheese for all players.


TLDR: It's really good, better than I expected, but there is still so much potential for improvement.

The one main "con" that I have is that I really can't go back to the regular mode without feeling like I'm cheating. That means it's a one-way trip. If they decide to pull Ruthless out of the game, which is a real possibility, I don't think I can enjoy the regular play anymore.

I feel the same way. It's kinda like when you first try out hardcore, you can't go back. Ruthless HC feels like the "real" game, and everything else feels like a sandbox practice cheat mode.

On the plus side this also makes items in ruthless feel super valuable and satisfying to find. They are the "real" items.

The one thing about Ruthless that might bug me the most is no movement skills. It is just boring to me that I have to take the long way around through an area because I don't have any movement skills.

There's lots of "boring". It's worth it.

"

Shagsbeard wrote:

There's lots of "boring". It's worth it.

Yup, +1 to that.
I agree with the 'return-to-regular-PoE?' sentiment as well

I think somehow ruthless in Poe 1 is a test and preparation for Poe 2 actual difficulty. As far as I've seen test runs it pretty much can be compared to ruthless. Of course it was only test runs on a non finished game, it just felt that way for me and I wish it was true.
And with ruthless devs actually hit the nail on its head. It's first league out and feel so much better than poe normal gameplay balancing last 5 years. If they remove ruthless I feel they will remove alot of players that feel the same way we do. I hated normal gameplay for so long and I was wishing for this for such a long time I just cannot go back to normal power creep non brain gameplay.
The farming through campaign is back in ruthless. The excitement of every item, every orb. And you will still come back even after several weeks, maybe months because there will be always something better to farm for. Not like in normal league where you can make 20 full power builds in a league length.

I didn't mean that Ruthless wasn't worth it. I meant to say that I don't see any challenges I have to deal with because movement skills are not available. All I see is the lack of movement skills just makes the game less fun.

Dude - dont use instant logout. There's no shame in competing with yourself. Who cares what all the cheaters do.

Would you mind if I went through that and posed some questions?