The huge divide between "good" players and "normies"

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ARealLifeCaribbeanPirate wrote:

I have long since lost track of how many times I've seen someone complaining about "OP ONESHOTS" and then you look at their build and they have under 130% tree life and an Abyssus equipped. And you can't even reason with these people 99% of the time, because they've convinced themselves that they know things because they watched half of a Zizaran video once. I have literally had more than one person argue with me when I pointed out that he/she was using an Atziri flask on a Brutality build.

Preach! You are describing the Dunning-Kruger effect to a T. The amount of times I have seen such people attack way better players has me so jaded it's not even funny anymore.

To the point OP makes: there has to be a gap between casuals and the 0.01% of players. Equality of outcome would ruin the game faster than I can snip my fingers.

There's a lot to unpack in Exsea's post, but here are a few things that are incorrect:

- Good players don't "love AN mobs"; most of us take issue with the same mods such as Overwhelming, Crit Resistant and Cycling Damage Reduction. We can mention build-limiting mods like Leech Resistant and such in the same breath because they feel absolutely awful for certain builds that rely on mechanics that are 100% denied by them. A lot of the complaints about AN modifiers by the casual community have been mods that are mechanical in nature and can be completely avoided such as Caustic Orbs, Lightning Spires, Lightning Mirages and such. Those are only problematic if you don't avoid them / don't build appropriate defences like Stun Immunity, Chaos Resistancec etc.

- The game doesn't have to become more 'weak player friendly', it needs to teach new players better. If you are bothered that you cannot run the same content good players can, take that as motivation to improve your character and your ability to pilot it. The long and short still is 'git gud' but there definitely is criticism that can be levied with GGG

- There will always be antagonizing between the 2 sides because each side has interests polar from one another and some people simply cannot express themselves respectfully. I would personally hold veteran players to a higher standard in regards to that but that's just me. I'm also quite jaded with how ignorant some players are and how unreceptive to new information. It's tiring to see the same complaints that wouldn't even exist if the players just knew better

- Steam achievements mean nothing for F2P games. Anyone who ever installed the game is included and as you have no stake in it unless you buy something, many will give it a glance, see that it's not for them and uninstall. If people paid 20 dollars and only 50% got past the 1st mini boss it'd be noteworthy, but as a F2P game you cannot arrive at any conclusions just from that number alone without contextualizing it (or if you did, it would be highly dishonest)

That is not to say that there isn't valid criticism in what you wrote, but there are also many inconsistencies and things you get wrong. Hope I could at least shed some light on some things

I mean, all it takes for you to become a "good player" is download pob community fork and copy a meta build then farm some easy currency from something like Sanctum to pour it all into the build and become a god. I do that every league yet I'm not a good player lol, I have to buy carries for my voidstones(the only fights I do myself are quest exarch and eater) and then if there's a challenge this league for killing uber bosses or any of the other uber content like wave 30 simulacrum or blight-ravaged map I buy carries for all of that too. I've done 5 of the 7 uber bosses before but I'm just too lazy and can't be bothered dying 4-5 times and being annoyed by them. And the only reason I hate the maven fight and that I always buy a carry for it is because of the memory game. If it didn't have that I'd gladly do it solo.


I have over 5000 hours yet I've never made a build myself, how much time I've played or what I've done doesn't matter. My 237 mil dps doesn't matter because I still suck at a lot of skill-based parts of the game. Having a good build just lets me enjoy the game how I like to enjoy it. And the only goal I have every league is to do challenges then I just quit. Unless I really wanna level a 2nd char for a meme build.

And I don't even do any of the super tryhard stuff like selling all your misc smaller currency on 3rd party websites or on tft, I never juice maps or prepare them before running, I just roll them one by one in my stash lol. I never use sextants or deli orbs. I spam random scarabs with Growing Hordes for packsize mostly. I never have a specific atlas strategy like in all those youtube videos you see, I just farm alch&go maps and do master missions and shit just drops anyway. Whether its a random fractured item that sells for 15 div or some rare div card from an altar mod. And I always sell all my Maven's Writs(which have gotten stupidly expensive this league). I run my atlas with all the guardian map drop nodes so I randomly maven them and do their invitations, then I sell all my fragments from those guardians for some more currency. Usually I do all my elders myself just for the chance at a nice watcher's eye then sell the uber elder fragments. And all of that is more than enough to keep getting some nice currency while farming 28 map rotations with influence for invitations for even more currency. I've never used Wandering Path or Grand Design on the atlas tree.

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Toforto wrote:

I mean, all it takes for you to become a "good player" is download pob community fork and copy a meta build

Still takes some knowledge to put that stuff together, know how the game and the economy works etc - those are things you learn as you progress. A lot of trade league players play exactly like you and there's nothing wrong with that as long as you are happy with your experience. Other people look for a different experience and the game has that in store for them too, otherwise you wouldn't have uber carries and whatnot.

*whistles in ssf*

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jsuslak313 wrote:

PoE gaming society, as a collective, seems to have forgotten how games work and how REAL learning can occur. Following a step-by-step guide that does all the thinking for you, or watching random youtube videos of players with YEARS of added experience and power gives a false sense of what SHOULD be possible on the first playthrough of the game. This game is and never has been designed to be a 3-month game....it is designed to be a long-term learning curve and infinitely replayable rpg that folks just seem to be unwilling to admit.

Yeah Ruthless is what you want. All the ascendencies are different so build guides don't work, and attempting to do something with your tree that isn't applicable to Ruthless' item scarcity is punished hard. You can argue that it isn't "harder" just more restrictive and slower -- but you also normally have to use more buttons.

Just recently someone created a topic in feedback, how he can’t kill stuff while playing TS Deadeye. When poined out, he could get help in “help” subforum, author declared that this is his feedback, he is NOT interested in moving it anywhere (or getting help). Some of lower end players are not interested in learning, be it game basics or fixing/improving/knowing their build (or build they copied).

I 100% agree with what ARealLifeCaribbeanPirate wrote

This is no longterm solution, but when it comes to leveling AN was never a problem. All you had to do is get rid of the voice in your head that tells you it's your duty to kill every rare enemy in the game. If it doesn't go down fast = skip and progress faster.

The problems start with stuff like farming Expedition, Essences or Delve especially where you have to kill them.

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Strickl3r wrote:

The problems start with stuff like farming Expedition, Essences or Delve especially where you have to kill them.

I guess the mindset even then could be to just use some form of Taunt and run away, then resolve to not expect as reliable a return from that content in future. After all, you don't have to kill something just because you're trying to farm it. RNG is still involved in what mods roll, so you can just take the hit on your investment and view it as a strategic consideration about that the value of that content. (This is the most Ruthless-logic argument, of course)

Since when was it an expectation you should win at everything you do?

I also find PoE quite casual friendly. It's a lot of information, but with all the power and speed creep (and the insane strength of trade), it's more about learning than it is about being good.

However, I think the game very much needs a hideout target dummy and death damage reports. I didn't think it needed it back in the earlier days, but now it's quite necessary.

I can usually figure where my tankiness is deficient after a death, but that comes with intuition and experience. Having the information more readily available would lessen reliance on outside tools.

Same goes with a target dummy. I don't really use PoB, but if I wanted to know X vs. Y, I'd rather just be able to smack a target dummy than pop open a sirus or maven or simulacrum to test. (Which is what I presently do)

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Obyrith wrote:

Yeah Ruthless is what you want. All the ascendencies are different so build guides don't work, and attempting to do something with your tree that isn't applicable to Ruthless' item scarcity is punished hard. You can argue that it isn't "harder" just more restrictive and slower -- but you also normally have to use more buttons.

Sorry...you missed the point I was trying to make lol. I am not looking for higher difficulty, nor SSF, nor HC, nor Ruthless, or anything like that. I was not making any sort of comment on the "state" of the game, but rather the "state" of the PLAYER.

I was merely commenting on how players approach this game in GENERAL, and how unhelpful it can be if you were really trying to LEARN the game. Whether that is at a most basic level, or at an extremely high level, doesn't matter.

The rest of the post was purely a CAMPAIGN comment and responding to the OPs comments about people asking for a harder campaign, not ME asking for a harder campaign.

i appreciate the amount of feedback and civility you guys have genuinely posted. i do respect all players regardless of skill level. and yeah there are times there are in fact whiny posts from weaker players because they cant kill x thus x is bad.

there definitely is no way to make all players happy and yeah i agree that it can get annoying to see people whine. even me myself. sometimes when a person whines on something thats dues to their gear being bad or their build vastly unefficient, i too dislike them because they actually take away legitimacy of criticism towards the content the person is talking about. i too can be guilty for ridiculing these people.

that said, all criticism comes from passion. i am very passionate about the game and most of us here are too.