I am going to be very honest; I despise this game's lack of respect for self-determination.

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DeathorGlory wrote:

Player Agency: The right of a player to determine his or her own choices to their actions and choices made, relying on their own skill to overcome their obstacles.

I've been playing since 2016. I haven't bothered to make a post about it before until now, because I feel it's about time I ranted about this. I don't think anyone will care what I have to say, but I want to be heard regardless.

I have tried, for years and years, to play the game the way I want to, and try to implement my own personal playstyle since Incursion came out, only to constantly fail again, and again. I am very sick of it. I have lost friends over this who've tried to help me, and it crushes me because they think I do not understand nor care what they think. That's not it. I am someone who likes to figure things out on his own, take the advice given to me and work with it.

And yet, despite that, it's never good enough. I have never been able to reach Elder as a end-game boss for instance. Not until this league, with someone's help. I have tried using builds that I worked on and developed myself, and it's always ended in failure in one way or another, sooner or later. Now I am using a build someone dropped into my hands, and perhaps I am beginning to make some kind of strange headway. But it doesn't sit right with me at all regardless.

I don't understand why people think this is normal, or people think this shouldn't be addressed as an issue. There's a fine line between a challenge, and then being forced to play a game to someone else's specifications because, in the end, it's literal meta-power-creep-abuse.

It's honestly discouraging to say the least.

I started this game in Hardcore. I never looked at a build guide ever. I went into the end game bosses blind. Died the first few times. Look it, the game is not impossible, and you don't need to worry about what anyone else is doing. You say u want to play it your way? Than do it. That's the beauty of POE you can make a cyclone spell caster, a witch that uses slams if you want. You don't need to copy and paste builds. You need to understand the many mechanics in this game and that takes time. You need to accept the fact only so many skills/builds will take you into the end game comfortably without a ton of investment with currency. The game is absolutely massive, I have 3000+ hours and counting and still learn everyday.

You get what you put into POE, if you don't like it move on. If you can't make sense of the skill tree ask for help there are many players In the community like myself who are quite helpful and would gladly tell you what's wrong with your builds.

I never understand why people overcomplicate the game. It's the same as any arpg.
Defenses - Armor/Evasion/block/spell suppression/ resistances
Offense - attack rating, % flat damage, multipliers etc etc etc.
Is your build doing enough damage? If not add damage. Is your build getting one shot? Add defenses. What is it getting one shot by? Spells? Phys? Dot? Add defense accordingly.
It makes me cringe when I see new players trying to copy some mirror tier build from some streamer who can dodge every attack in the game. These new players will be running around with zero Armour, evasion life, regen or chaos res and while standing in a pile of shit or exploding bodies say " why am I dying I followed a guide" ....

Good luck!

You don't need to be good at math or clear challenges in multiple leagues to observe with your own two eyes that POE is convoluted, poorly explained, even more poorly balanced, and overdesigns mechanics to keep people engaged when they've been playing for a decade straight

GGG is also trying to keep a hold on player economy as well as halfheartedly attempting to keep the system abusing builds at a realistic level at the same time

That's why "beginner guides" on path of exile are often exceedingly long youtube videos with spreadsheets and links to multiple other videos explaining more things

The amount of outside content you have to consume and internalize just to "get started" in POE is staggering and I think unreasonable. We're not talking about tweaking out a character or gear to increase efficiency. Newer players have to consume guides and build templates on third party websites just for their character to function to the point they're able to complete campaign and start doing maps because if you don't know what you're doing you will get dumpstered at what's considered baby content.

I argue that's not challenge. POE is not challenging or hard. You can outbuild and outgear the entire game. You just have to slog through guides and a lot of tedium at the start where you have no resources or power

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Zrevnur wrote:

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DeathorGlory wrote:

I don't understand why people think this is normal, or people think this shouldn't be addressed as an issue. There's a fine line between a challenge, and then being forced to play a game to someone else's specifications because, in the end, it's literal meta-power-creep-abuse.

It's honestly discouraging to say the least.

You are not alone in believing that "this" should be addressed. Im not sure however if you properly understand what "this" is. You dont have to play meta or copy someone elses build. "The problem" is that the game is too complicated/convoluted for a normal human to make their own build - at least without copying and learning from others. If you have good math understanding and good game knowledge you can leverage these to make your own builds. But otherwise kind of no-go. Large part of the reason is that the game design seems to be intentionally going into the direction of convoluted/complicated. Simple fluff based builds basically dont work. And I dont see any good reason for designing it like that. This kind of thing has been brought up many times also. But the ones complaining usually dont properly understand why they (or their builds) fail so they word "the problem" in various different manners.

Also, the game is ruled by "more" multipliers. Due to that min-maxing is critically important. If you dont squeeze out everything on every spot you in the end lose so much that it becomes easily the difference between a working and a failed build. Edit: This is also something which is questionable game design. But unlike the "convoluted"/"complicated" part it does have a clear benefit.

To me "this" would be the ability to reset the entire skill tree for cheap till level 70 or 80 at least. Why? It would allow to players to experiment, to rebuilt, to actually find out, not in some weird theorycrafting site, but in practice how some things play. I do use path of building, but it does not tell me how a built will feel, when playing, or how it will be with what gear. I think players would experiment a lot more, if it wasn't so punishing to reset or change your tree. Right now it is best to follow an established built, once you know what skills are fun to play. It works, but it could be better