[Ruthless] The good and the bad

This is my feedback based on my experience with Ruthless. I've had a great time with it but have hit a point where I probably wont play further until changes are made so I thought it a good time to provide feedback.



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The Good (what worked for me)
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1. Limited crafting is liberating. I'm not a fan of crafting in most games but feel forced into it in PoE due to its power. Removing the bench and most Harvest crafts allows me to focus on the gameplay.

2. Fewer drops makes itemization feel less like a broken system. You still get occasional screens filled to the corners with garbage items, but this is the exception rather than the rule.
* It feels good pick up and examine all rare drops, and rewarding enough to justify the time spent.
* Getting any uniques drop is a big deal, and feels great.

3. Less content per map feels great. Going a map or two without seeing any league mechanics makes you really appreciate and engage when they appear, rather than feeling like you're being interrupted. When they do turn up, it's only one or two, rather than the crowded themepark you can expect in the regular game.

4. The campaign is nicely tuned. My experience was a struggle, with small but constant progress throughout. The drip feed of passive points and actually progressing to new areas makes every play session feel like you got somewhere (those don't apply when we get to maps).

5. No movement skills makes you learn mechanics. This wasn't as bad as I expected, and I think helped me be a better player. I'm open to adding them back in with severe limitations (long CD or disabling them if you e.g. dealt damage recently).

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The Bad (what didn't work for me)
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1. Map sustain is a bit undertuned. Going up a tier is quite hard, and I think should be difficult, but I feel that you should be able to sustain maps once you have 10 or so in a given tier. Dropping back down after developing such a broad base feels like a massive setback that isn't due to bad choices or bad play.
* An ideal buff keeps progression hard but makes sustain easier.

2. It's too difficult to roll hard maps. Not being able to roll maps to be harder for greater reward feels bad, leading to tedious gameplay focused on easy grinding. Low drop rates for Chaos Orbs has positioned chance & alchemy orbs as the default trade currency, applying extreme pressure on the only tools for making content harder. In white/yellow maps, the payoff for using these doesn't justify their use (you could buy another whole map for 1 alch!), so running blue maps is common even if they are trivial.

3. Failing timed or DPS-gated mechanics in easy maps is weird. Failing hard content makes sense, but it feels odd to routinely fail specific mechanics (e.g. Blight/Legion/Alva) even if I can comfortably run the maps they are found in. I think this comes from a large disparity in health between normal monsters and league content, partially due to the high density of rares.
* This would be far less frustrating if normal monsters were beffier, since you'd know right away that your DPS was barely enough for a map when your clear speed slows down - making the failed league mechanics much less of a surprise.

4. Incremental item upgrades are too infrequent. I know slow progression is expected for Ruthless, but hear me out. My hope here was that we would continue getting gear upgrades at the same rate as before, but that the power boost from each would be much smaller - thus having an extended time spent gearing up while still feeling progression throughout. But the lack of socket currency means that you continue using inferior gear for a very long time because you don't have the ability to 2L or 3L your upgrades when you get them. The result is more incremental upgrades than usual, that also occur far less frequently. This extends the time spent gearing, but doesn't feel satisfying throughout.

5. Defensive gem rarity is rough. At time of writing I can get a good gear upgrade for 2 Alch, and Determination is going for 45 Alch. This is prohibitively expensive that building around them is necessary into the very late game. This is a very large power boost, which is often build-defining, that is being held off for too long into the late game.
* I remember seeing a manifesto a while ago around a similar issue when the 4th ascendency trial was changed to allow it after finding only one trial. IIRC the reasoning was that gating such a large amount of power behind that much grind and RNG was a recipe for bad experiences, so it was changed.
* I'm assuming that that Determination/Grace are far rarer than offensive auras given the difference in price on trade, but it occurs to me that they might actually have the same drop rates and the prices are driven by such high demand. If this is the case, I'd take this as an indication that these auras are overtuned - it might be time to buff offensive auras or nerf these and move some of their defensive power to the passive tree or item bases and mods (even in the normal game).

6. Watchstones are too good. As above, these represent a huge power jump gated far into endgame. I'd like to see the map tier boost reduced or removed and folded into the base drop rates or the atlas tree.
* This is also a problem in SC trade, buying boss carries for all 4 is a standard strategy for players in the early league.

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That's all. This is just feedback from one person based on my own experiences. I hope it helps, and thanks for reading!

Amazing summary and I'm going to be lazy and say "yeah, me too" :D

EXCELLENT OP!

My summary is that I had great fun through the storyline. The endgame though is tedious and needs work as described in the opening post.

All of the things that you listed as "bad" are not bad for the game mode.

I love all those. It makes reaching end-game that much more rewarding.

It has been such a blast this game mode, and now I have two voidstones and I felt that all that hard work rewarded my efforts.

Keep at it, you'll get there and it will feel glorious.

"

All of the things that you listed as "bad" are not bad for the game mode.

+1. Now sell me that ming heart's you're wearing because that thing is rarer than pope shit

agree on basically all accounts. I have an 85, 84, and 82 characters on Ruthless. I like a lot about this mode over the regular league but these are a good account of some of the problems.