Ruthless is the easiest game mode, even more so than standard.

I actually fell out completely last night, 0 maps left. Had to farm kitava for 30 minutes and started from scratch again. I've crawled back to low yellows almost again. Finding items and upgrades still feels great, but like I said the content I'm running isn't really changing (transmuted whites/yellows), but I'm getting significantly stronger by the day, and the progress at which I'm getting better gear, better sockets, better gems etc. is significantly outpacing the rate at which I'm getting access to harder content.

I can't just simply do higher tier maps without them dropping, I cant alch my maps because I've found about 3 this league at lvl 81 now.

I love the league I love the progression it's giving, but putting hard content behind a wall is archaic and disrupts the gameplay loop in a way that's not fun simply because its too easy, and its not going to be many more days before my gear might resemble something I'd be doing rare red maps in regular SSF.

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Frostride wrote:

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Terzian wrote:

This was their ideal design from the addition of maps. You had to pay for the privilege of getting to even play a map. It's always been stupid.

Coming back to 3.19, the map sustain was actually fine. I've never been able to sustain t16 just by alching, in 3.19 (and in standard before the league dropped) I had no problem doing that.

So just running maps was pretty good, no idea when they made this so good. Definitely wasn't like this a few years ago.

I can tell you exactly when it happened: Metamorph league, when GGG reworked the atlas for the Conquerors of the Atlas expansion. Since then, it's possible for anyone to self-sustain mapping progression. I've been grateful for this change, because for the longest time prior to this update, I've been stuck in yellow maps as it was nearly impossible to self-sustain reds. I don't believe you should have to trade to advance in the core game loop.

EDIT:
Found my thread expressing gratitude for this change: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2763227

I remember one of the first high-tier maps after 3.0 hit (I think it was around that time), it was a Palace map back then, was going for around 3ex at the time I dropped it. I felt it was extremely dumb for content to require that much grind to even access. I still feel like that.

So yeah, when map sustain was made easier, it significantly increased my enjoyment of the game. When Ruthless was announced with again extreme content scarcity, I wondered whether that was a good idea.

I find the gear progression pretty satifying so far, it is alch droprate that is killing it for me right now, they are too core to gameplay to be so rare. And the result is exactly as OP says, even with 40 each res, game feels extremely easy, simply because I have to run transmuted maps that pose no danger.

yeah i remember back in 2013 i nearly just quit playing this game entirely because i was i think lvl90, which was high for back then, and i could absolutely faceroll a lvl77 shipyard, which was the highest map back then...

and i was dropping back down to lvl67 maps constantly, it would take literally 50-100 hours farming maps for me to find a single lvl75 map which you would be required to spend 30 chaos rolling area is a maze on, and then it dropped nothing and u were back to playing a lvl68 map on your lvl90 char who just facerolls that content.




it just felt idiotic, we told them that so many times and made a case for actually letting us play challenging fun content. felt like we made that case weekly for the whole of 2013 and they didnt listen.

i was so close to just writing poe off, and it was so frustrating with so many good things about it that they would just not allow us to play the game, you have this amazing game we want to play and ur not letting us play the game, wt actual f?

absurd really. the mapping situation got a lot better. but i do think theres something to be said for having content that you only are allowed to play sometimes and feels special, im not saying thats a bad idea because its not i fully support that. but you cant use that to excuse a system where people are stuck being totally overlevelled and geared for the lowball content they have access to.

Funny how those old discussions are coming back.

Are you at least able to access Atziri / Uber Atziri in Ruthless? If my memory serves me right (which I am not at all sure it is), that content was some of the more deterministically accessible hard content back in the day.

I still own those old OG maps in one of my standard stashes. It's funny looking at them and seeing how low the count was. Like a full year of playing and I had maybe 25 maps total.

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The_Impeacher wrote:

Softcore is always going to be easy.

your sig and private profile :^)


I'd say playing regular SSF is harder than running easy maps forever in HC to be #6309 on the ladder.

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Char1983 wrote:

Funny how those old discussions are coming back.

Are you at least able to access Atziri / Uber Atziri in Ruthless? If my memory serves me right (which I am not at all sure it is), that content was some of the more deterministically accessible hard content back in the day.

You only get Atziri fragments in Alva temple, in the non-special rooms, that are upgraded enough to have reward chests (they replace the temple mod items you usually get there).

So you can get to Atziri kind of "deterministically", but even with Alva passives, you need a lot of maps to see a temple, then need the right rooms, then probably need Harvest to get 4 different ones...
Alva shows up in like 1% of maps, and you get missions in like 7% of maps when you spec into her. So it's really grindy.

I think Manni2 was the first to enter Atziri's domain in SSF Ruthless, and that was yesterday, 8(?) days into the league.

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BossOfThisGym wrote:

I love this game mode, it's the most fun I've had in years in this game and the only reason I even came back before PoE 2 launches.

The best part of your feedback.

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BossOfThisGym wrote:

I read that a handful of people worked on it over 18 months, but did they even play test it?

I participated in the alpha test, and yes, they played this mode, in HCSSF mode.

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BossOfThisGym wrote:

I'm not trying to be mean here but ruthless endgame is shaping up to be running transmuted yellow maps and occasionally breaking into reds, using the very few alchemy orbs you do get to actually do atlas completion.

The idea and philosophy of this mode is that the whole game is an endgame. It has become commonplace in the normal mode to think that acts, white and yellow mappings are not a game, but a rudiment, an annoying and boring phase of the game, which so obtrusively does not allow to play in the "true" PoE, on t17 under 6 orbs. Does not give an hour into the start of the league to oneshoting the bosses, whose fights were designed for a few minutes.

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BossOfThisGym wrote:

Yes I realize I'm playing SSF and its going to be even more fucked than trade league, but that still means only the top echelon of players in trade are going to be able to afford to sustain red maps.

Why this makes ruthless a complete joke should be obvious to anyone that has more than a few hundred hours in the game. Im currently blasting through yellow maps on a ZERO link spectre (according to every that plays the regular game dps spectres are dogshit) and 2 link zombies. Turns out you can run complete shit builds and clear blue yellow and red maps who would have thought? I'm just never going to get to any challenging content anymore. Im stuck endlessly running joke maps that have virtually no challenge while also getting stronger every day making it more and more easy.

I will remind you that the mode is called Ruthless, not Sandbox. You can't take absolutely any build and expect to beat everything with it.
There is a category of builds, starters, that can easily grind resources in adverse conditions. And only then, you can begin to think about the desired build.

About sustain maps. You have several different league mechanics besides maps. You have Kirak selling maps and offering missions. You have an atlas tree.
If you're left without maps, it's probably your fault, because it's a resource that needs to be spent wisely.

And also remind you that the mode is in Beta, which means that ADEQUATE and detailed feedback will help the mode to become better.