Crucible is Fundamentally Flawed - Especially at endgame

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AcrylicHercules wrote:

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GunHammers wrote:

From a game programming standpoint it would make more sense for the alter to be the one that checks the item level, base type , unique or not. and then assign it a skill tree.

Otherwise you are adding pointless data to trillions of items that drop on the ground

Take care.

Items don't drop with a skill tree. There aren't trillions of items that drop on the ground with pointless stats. That's not how it works.

Items drop like they always have. You pick a small subset of the items you find, equip them, and then you can *add* a skill tree to them at the altar. They don't have a tree until you add one (or as GGG puts it, "imbue" them with one).

The way mod-ing items works in Poe, is huge pre-compiled lists exist for items based on parameters set into a generator. Nothing in Poe's mod-ing system is ad hoc/on-the-fly.

When you ID an item, GGG's item servers have your mods ready to go

I have a feeling bow users (and others that use 6 socket weapons) will like the Crucible at first, but then somewhere, probably around yellow maps, will start to hate it with a passion.
What are bow players going to do about trying to 6 link/socket these things? It takes a lot of crafting to get the particular kind of bow you want anyhow. Gonna do that every time you have a skill tree you like? How much better of a skill tree will it take for you to bother with it? More importantly, WTF will you do if you find a great bow, waste all your sockets/fusings, and then a bow with a better skill tree is identified?
I've already resigned myself to using a Tabby, getting the 15 percent life skill, and just using whatever bow that drops with a better skill tree. I'll four link/socket it, and call it a day.
Crafting a weapon is just going to be pointless, IMO, with the mechanic, and just cause untold frustration.

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DarthSki44 wrote:

The truth is every weapon that drops has the potential for interesting powerful passives

Going by the datamined stuff we've seen, this generally isn't true, and the league mechanic looks completely skippable. Having an unsupported level 20 ice nova spawn off your glacial cascade cast, an extra unsupported tornado from TS, chance for stuff to ignite with skills that you won't be scaling ignites on, etc. I'm wrong all the time, particularly when making assumptions about systems I haven't interacted with yet, but a lot of this stuff looks like trash, and I can't imagine wasting a lot of time and energy trying to hunt for specific passives such as these.

This could really foul up the meta with unique weapons. Good luck to anyone trying to run EB or Cospri or Annhilating light lol. anything like that is going to be SSF rare, or many divines expensive with even a moderately useful tree on it until last weeks of league.

Also if you have to level a weapon / shield up 5-6 times to see the whole tree, this will dramatically change how POE is played, this is not really ARPG gameplay, more slowburn MMORPG game play. That type of gameplay, which I actually really like, has no business on a mmorpg that lasts like 4 months start to finish.

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Soleus7 wrote:

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DarthSki44 wrote:

The truth is every weapon that drops has the potential for interesting powerful passives

Going by the datamined stuff we've seen, this generally isn't true, and the league mechanic looks completely skippable. Having an unsupported level 20 ice nova spawn off your glacial cascade cast, an extra unsupported tornado from TS, chance for stuff to ignite with skills that you won't be scaling ignites on, etc. I'm wrong all the time, particularly when making assumptions about systems I haven't interacted with yet, but a lot of this stuff looks like trash, and I can't imagine wasting a lot of time and energy trying to hunt for specific passives such as these.

In fairness I had posted that before the datamined stuff came out.

That said there are some powerful nodes, but also plenty of meh, and disappointing ones too. Perhaps that's intentional, you make some look really good by making others not so much. But in PoE that's less effective because of how many builds there are. If your particular skill hasn't got an interesting node, that feels bad, and plenty of folks are feeling bad after reviewing the lists.

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DarthSki44 wrote:

If your particular skill hasn't got an interesting node, that feels bad, and plenty of folks are feeling bad after reviewing the lists.

I does feel bad and it seems like some of the nodes are a little bit out of touch, at least comparably. But we also have to remember that the Crucible skill trees are a little bit bigger than just the skill specific nodes. And I think the replayability this league will be a little bit more interesting.

But yeah, having ignite themed skill nodes for Ice Shot, Lightning Arrow and Frost Blades, or mana regen on RF (to mention some) is just boring. I'm not saying it's bad, and it can absolutely be taken advantage of. But it's not something that enhances a build without building towards it from the get-go.

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Phrazz wrote:

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DarthSki44 wrote:

If your particular skill hasn't got an interesting node, that feels bad, and plenty of folks are feeling bad after reviewing the lists.

I does feel bad and it seems like some of the nodes are a little bit out of touch, at least comparably. But we also have to remember that the Crucible skill trees are a little bit bigger than just the skill specific nodes. And I think the replayability this league will be a little bit more interesting.

But yeah, having ignite themed skill nodes for Ice Shot, Lightning Arrow and Frost Blades, or mana regen on RF (to mention some) is just boring. I'm not saying it's bad, and it can absolutely be taken advantage of. But it's not something that enhances a build without building towards it from the get-go.

Yeah it's disappointing because having even small utility for specific skills would have been easy.

Like enemies burning cannot regenerate life (for RF), or enemies hit by a shattered enemy, also freeze (for ice shot / FBlades). At least it wouldn't feel bad to allocate those, even if it wasn't build defining.

Edit: now that I think of it that burning thing might be a mastery option already lol

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DarthSki44 wrote:

Yeah it's disappointing because having even small utility for specific skills would have been easy.

Like enemies burning cannot regenerate life (for RF), or enemies hit by a shattered enemy, also freeze (for ice shot / FBlades). At least it wouldn't feel bad to allocate those, even if it wasn't build defining.

Edit: now that I think of it that burning thing might be a mastery option already lol

Yeah. For "regular builds" these nodes do very little, but for people willing to think and theory craft around them ("willing"? Or "having the time"?), they can actually be very interesting. I remember seeing Jungroan showcasing a MoM+EB RF Elementalist (before the leak), and that build might actually benefit A LOT from the RF node.

We'll see. I think there may be enough power from the rest of the Crucible skill tree for regular Joe's to feel a little bit more powerful too.

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Phrazz wrote:

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DarthSki44 wrote:

Yeah it's disappointing because having even small utility for specific skills would have been easy.

Like enemies burning cannot regenerate life (for RF), or enemies hit by a shattered enemy, also freeze (for ice shot / FBlades). At least it wouldn't feel bad to allocate those, even if it wasn't build defining.

Edit: now that I think of it that burning thing might be a mastery option already lol

Yeah. For "regular builds" these nodes do very little, but for people willing to think and theory craft around them ("willing"? Or "having the time"?), they can actually be very interesting. I remember seeing Jungroan showcasing a MoM+EB RF Elementalist (before the leak), and that build might actually benefit A LOT from the RF node.

We'll see. I think there may be enough power from the rest of the Crucible skill tree for regular Joe's to feel a little bit more powerful too.

For sure, don't get me wrong, there will be some min/max shenanigans going on like there always is in PoE. I'm positive folks using RF to supplement their spell damage and not using it as a main skill would welcome the mana buff. Which is fine, just provide another option then. It's not like GGG doesn't know a ton of people main RF (just an easy example), so it does come off a bit poorly in general.

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DarthSki44 wrote:

Which is fine, just provide another option then. It's not like GGG doesn't know a ton of people main RF (just an easy example), so it does come off a bit poorly in general.

Agreed.