Ruthless: My new favorite mode and why I am quitting it anyway. (Hint: It's vaal orbs)

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nezoic wrote:

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I think you guys are missing the point. This is the mode GGG doesn't want people to be able to complete. That has not been a secret. It would make no sense for them to implement changes that help people complete it.

That doesn't make much sense to me, what's the point then? To laugh at peoples struggles? At this point for any semi casual, it should just be impossible mode. Or rename it "No-job-grind-20-hours-a-day-mode".

The problem is that the "Challenge" lies in RNG, 100%. That is NOT fun in any game. And I'm talking running literally 100+ white maps a day and never getting past T6. That's where I'm at now after weeks of grinding as much as I possibly could, thinking I could brute force it, but it didn't happen. Meanwhile some lucky dude gets established in yellows in a day or two.

This needs tuning.

People really seem to think Ruthless is supposed to be this big impossible challenge when in reality it's just the same as regular poe but slowed down a bit and requiring a little bit more engagement due to slightly harder gearing. Yes, it takes time and investment to get places, but the difference in drops/availability for Vaal Orbs is massive and even in trade league most people I talk to have never seen more than 1 or 2 let alone the 31 for progression plus an extra supply of them for gear, skill gems, and jewels. This would be the non-ruthless equivalent of requiring every red map to use a divine orb to progress (that also completely re-randomizes the map and could brick it for you) plus requiring that your skill gems and jewels be crafted with divines as well. All before you even get to bosses like Eater or Searing exarch.

In the end, my proposed solution is to just bring back vaal side areas but remove their guaranteed corrupted gems/equipment just like every other mechanic has been nerfed as this would give us something to invest in on the atlas as a way to increase our chances of corrupted items/gems that we can also sell for Vaal Orbs over time. They don't need to be super common nor do they need to give great loot, but giving us at least one source of increased vaal orb chances that isn't obscured behind 2-4% masters or randomly wandering around delve hoping for a random location that even after 5 hours of delving I haven't seen.

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DebuggerBear wrote:

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nezoic wrote:

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I think you guys are missing the point. This is the mode GGG doesn't want people to be able to complete. That has not been a secret. It would make no sense for them to implement changes that help people complete it.

That doesn't make much sense to me, what's the point then? To laugh at peoples struggles? At this point for any semi casual, it should just be impossible mode. Or rename it "No-job-grind-20-hours-a-day-mode".

The problem is that the "Challenge" lies in RNG, 100%. That is NOT fun in any game. And I'm talking running literally 100+ white maps a day and never getting past T6. That's where I'm at now after weeks of grinding as much as I possibly could, thinking I could brute force it, but it didn't happen. Meanwhile some lucky dude gets established in yellows in a day or two.

This needs tuning.

People really seem to think Ruthless is supposed to be this big impossible challenge when in reality it's just the same as regular poe but slowed down a bit and requiring a little bit more engagement due to slightly harder gearing. Yes, it takes time and investment to get places, but the difference in drops/availability for Vaal Orbs is massive and even in trade league most people I talk to have never seen more than 1 or 2 let alone the 31 for progression plus an extra supply of them for gear, skill gems, and jewels. This would be the non-ruthless equivalent of requiring every red map to use a divine orb to progress (that also completely re-randomizes the map and could brick it for you) plus requiring that your skill gems and jewels be crafted with divines as well. All before you even get to bosses like Eater or Searing exarch.

In the end, my proposed solution is to just bring back vaal side areas but remove their guaranteed corrupted gems/equipment just like every other mechanic has been nerfed as this would give us something to invest in on the atlas as a way to increase our chances of corrupted items/gems that we can also sell for Vaal Orbs over time. They don't need to be super common nor do they need to give great loot, but giving us at least one source of increased vaal orb chances that isn't obscured behind 2-4% masters or randomly wandering around delve hoping for a random location that even after 5 hours of delving I haven't seen.

Never said I believed it to be impossible. But that doesn't change the fact that GGG intends for it to be. There is not supposed to be a point where people find it enjoyable given it was a masochist mode made by a couple of senior devs originally for only those senior devs. And given that is their intention, they will not be looking to implement any changes to make it easier to complete.

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TemjinGold wrote:

Never said I believed it to be impossible. But that doesn't change the fact that GGG intends for it to be. There is not supposed to be a point where people find it enjoyable given it was a masochist mode made by a couple of senior devs originally for only those senior devs. And given that is their intention, they will not be looking to implement any changes to make it easier to complete.

Okay, let's put it this way then.

Since TemjinGold has informed me that GGG doesn't want us to enjoy Ruthless mode let me just say this. I think that GGG should want players to enjoy playing the game. Further I think that the Ruthless mode would be made more enjoyable if Kirac missions and corrupted side areas were made more common in the game for the reasons already mentioned.

But corrupted Bosses allways drop a vaal orb O_O
just currupt any map.
If you get "map contains 2 bosses" you even get 2 vaal orbs :D

Ruthless = a mode of extreme scarcity (as per GGG)
Ruthless = a mode designed to NOT be completed (as per GGG)
Ruthless = hard mode PoE (as per GGG)

all of these statements have been used BY GGG to describe Ruthless.

1) extreme scarcity: if any changes are made, it would be to make items MORE scarce, not less. The fact that you and other people are in red maps within 1 league is already a problem in GGG's eyes. They wanted people to struggle to complete the STORY, and that simply never happened. Predictable issue, most likely will be balanced to be HARDER in the future.

2) not completed: again GGG seriously underestimated those who would choose Ruthless and their ability to troll through content. Due to the overall issues with the PoE game fundamentals, Ruthless was never ever going to be "harder" to complete, it would just take slightly longer.

3) GGG confuses hard with time-consuming at every turn. Whenever they introduce "hard" content, its just either a dps check or a time sink. It's never actually "hard". Ruthless is a clear example of this. It really isn't any harder.

Basically....I agree with Temjin. Ruthless was described very very well by GGG prior to it being released, and yet there are still posts like this one and many many others with people having problems with SCARCITY. In a mode specifically designed around scarcity. Stop thinking about Ruthless mode on the scale of a normal 3-month league...it was not designed to be completed in 3 months and STILL people are getting dangerously close. If they ever make things less rare in Ruthless, they will have already doomed their own reason for the mode to exist.

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nezoic wrote:

The problem is that the "Challenge" lies in RNG, 100%. That is NOT fun in any game. And I'm talking running literally 100+ white maps a day and never getting past T6. That's where I'm at now after weeks of grinding as much as I possibly could, thinking I could brute force it, but it didn't happen. Meanwhile some lucky dude gets established in yellows in a day or two.

This needs tuning.

Its not just luck. If you know how to 'game' the system and do it then its easy to progress. To get maps you can do, roughly in that order, I probably missed something:

1. Atlas passives: Invest in Alva and build low-low-highest temples and run them.
2. Atlas passives: Invest in Kirac, buy his maps. Get Singular Scouting reports passive.
3. Atlas passives: Invest in Jun, similar to Alva. Rin in Fortification is particularly good.
4. Atlas passives: Invest in chance to drop higher tier.
5. Atlas passives: Invest in chance to drop maps.
6. Alch your high maps. Do not waste alchs on lower tiers.

There is also Niko but Im not sure how to rank him. There are Harbinger nodes (these are much better then the ones in maps/Kirac, Map nodes and cities. And some random map drops too.

Not taking any sides on the change/don't change front here, both sides make good points, but will say that I also found ruthless the most fun POE had ever been by far, until I found myself running maps I was over levelled by like 20 (or more) levels for. Couldn't die, couldn't progress. Plan to try again next league with a different focus and see what happens (I spent all my toon's efforts on heist thinking running a good blueprint or two would solve my poverty issues, but never ended up seeing one drop :)

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DebuggerBear wrote:

To complete the atlas we need 31 vaal orbs minimum assuming we don't fail a single insanely juiced corrupted map. The only way to get vaal orbs at all is through the most difficult and rare methods:

Not in your list: Most of my Vaals were random drops.
Not in your list: Corrupting tempest in Alva temple gets you corrupted maps. This also works on the map room if you open the charts while under corrupted Tempest buff. (I got this from some reddit post.)

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DebuggerBear wrote:

tier 3 alva boxes,

Cant you corrupt maps with corruption chamber? Or is that what you mean?

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DebuggerBear wrote:

and corrupted Kirac missions.

You can directly get corrupted map completions through Kirac missions. And for T11 you only need yellow Kirac missions.

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DebuggerBear wrote:

I have no idea how you even get a tier 3 room in the temple reliably

Reliable is not possible.

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DebuggerBear wrote:

(and running 15 incursions plus an entire temple for a single orb is ridiculous),

Its 12.

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DebuggerBear wrote:

and to date I have run tons of white and yellow maps and even with Kirac's upgraded mission chance I have only ever received two missions.

This may be your biggest issue here. I did a lot of boss rushing for master missions. Its likely ~17 maps or so per Kirac mission - not sure what the base chance is.

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Mezbanine wrote:

(I spent all my toon's efforts on heist thinking running a good blueprint or two would solve my poverty issues, but never ended up seeing one drop :)

There was a bug that caused blueprints to (basically) not drop. Probably fixed now.

Oh, interesting, maybe I'll go in next league with the same plan then. Cheers :)