What is ruthless?

I have been away for awhile... honestly no clue when my last post was but has to be over 5 or 6 years.

Obviously lots has changed, I think y'all have 10 acts now, while we had 3 back in the day :P.

What is ruthless? Community seems to hate it.

Lots to unpack, but yeah, can't figure this out based on my own study.

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Daggermaniac wrote:

I have been away for awhile... honestly no clue when my last post was but has to be over 5 or 6 years.

Obviously lots has changed, I think y'all have 10 acts now, while we had 3 back in the day :P.

What is ruthless? Community seems to hate it.

Lots to unpack, but yeah, can't figure this out based on my own study.

do you have way too much time? find poe not grindy enough? tired of finding items? bored of having access to gems? 4 ascendancy points too much? Try ruthless! where nothing drops anything and everything takes 10x as long to complete the same content as the regular game! Where punishment is fun and your time is the casualty.

enjoy!

True.

Some say new players think Ruthless is "easier" than normal PoE.

I can imagine thats true because you dont see many mechanics/items which make you think in normal:
"What the heck is this? What can i do with that?"
And you get an answer with Wiki only - if u understand what you read there as a new player.

For me it was a nightmare with missing gems and other items and (nearly) no movement skills.
When u know what exists and how much easier ... no faster the game can be.
I played till L10 only.

"

Jerexil wrote:

True.

Some say new players think Ruthless is "easier" than normal PoE.

I can imagine thats true because you dont see many mechanics/items which make you think in normal:
"What the heck is this? What can i do with that?"
And you get an answer with Wiki only - if u understand what you read there as a new player.

For me it was a nightmare with missing gems and other items and (nearly) no movement skills.
When u know what exists and how much easier ... no faster the game can be.
I played till L10 only.

easier isnt what they mean, it just means they dont have to understand much cus the game is a void of nothing

"

Daggermaniac wrote:

I have been away for awhile... honestly no clue when my last post was but has to be over 5 or 6 years.

Obviously lots has changed, I think y'all have 10 acts now, while we had 3 back in the day :P.

What is ruthless? Community seems to hate it.

Lots to unpack, but yeah, can't figure this out based on my own study.

Ruthless is a game mode you can add to your normal/ hardcore characters.

In ruthless, you have no easy access to skill and support gems.
There is only one movement skill, and that is severely limited.
Quest rewards are tuned down.
Drops (currency and items) are tuned down.

It's a bit like PoE used to be around 10 years ago, although not quite.
Although I like ruthless, some design decisions are questionable (imo):

Having to find skill gems just like in the old days is good, IMO.
However, coupled with the reduced drops, this can mean you won't find a skill gem or (useful) support until you're in Act VI or even later.

Limiting movement skills in order to counter the zoom-zoom-gameplay.
However, removing attack/move combos like all of the old skills used to be (lightning warp, leap slam, flicker strike), feels bad.
Add to that that you sometimes have to walk quite a distance in PoE AND the duration of Quicksilver flasks was reduced to 2s, and it sometimes feels really like you're not getting anywhere.

Point 1 isn't as bad if you don't also play solo self found.
Point 2 means that it's even more important to get move speed on your gear.

Thanks for the clarification! I thought it just replaced Hardcore, but I now get it.

Mikrotherion has a pretty good short version, Ruthless is more or less a paired down PoE, attempting to meet in the middle the massive additions to the game and the spirit of the original 3 act game (doubling down on the brutality of hunting items, and trying to crank down the gameplay speed somewhat).

While I enjoy it a lot, it's not all sunshine, and it's for sure for fewer people than normal PoE. If you love screen clearning and burning a map a minute, I'd give Ruthless a pass, as it's trying to get away from that, and more into the cludgier slow play, so you can feel a little join when litterally any skill gem drops, rather than just filtering them out because they have no value (aside from Vaal / three E's / Awakened and other things you can't just buy from a vender). Just finding rare jewelery is a motherlode sometimes.

It's also a bit easier to learn, since the rarity of items means you're not seeing a dozen complex skills every 5 minutes, and the side content is rare enough that you're lucky to see it, so you don't need to really know the fifteen different sub mechanics and how they interconnect, or the wierd way PoE crafting works (as a lot of those just flat don't exist in Ruthless, for better or worse).

So if you feel you know the basics, and know you like to go fast, I'd stick to standard. If you like walking some, a bit more Diablo 1 or Diablo 2 speeds, and wish PoE just didn't throw a new keyword at you every 15 seconds, give it a shot, see if you like it. If you want a full list of differences, shoot a reply back I can be more long winded, but that stuffs out here and I'm insomina rambling enough as it is.

"

RitualMurder wrote:

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Daggermaniac wrote:

I have been away for awhile... honestly no clue when my last post was but has to be over 5 or 6 years.

Obviously lots has changed, I think y'all have 10 acts now, while we had 3 back in the day :P.

What is ruthless? Community seems to hate it.

Lots to unpack, but yeah, can't figure this out based on my own study.

do you have way too much time? find poe not grindy enough? tired of finding items? bored of having access to gems? 4 ascendancy points too much? Try ruthless! where nothing drops anything and everything takes 10x as long to complete the same content as the regular game! Where punishment is fun and your time is the casualty.

enjoy!

Additional details if you're not sold already:

-Maintaining red maps is hard (Think maintaining level 78 maps in 2013)
-Red maps with a 4-link unless you get super lucky
-Active skill gem supported by junk supports unless you get lucky
-Needless in town actions to refill flasks to waste time
-Might as well pretend end game is mostly white maps since end game bosses are not reachable in a reasonable amount of time
-Level progression purposely stunted to a snail's pace

"

What is ruthless?

Aka Poeablo 2.0

its a side project.