rarity is killing build diversity and will drive new players away

Hello guys,

i'm an old Poe 1 player (3000 hrs), and i feel the need to give my feedback after playing for 20 days.

I played trough the campaign and mostly enjoyed it, i was wearing 2 rings with a little rarity on them (the only ones i dropped that fitted my build), not knowing that GGG had changed the rule affecting currency drop with rarity compare to Poe 1, but as the loot was still feeling rare before the first patch, i didn't realize it was affecting currency. I didn't even try to craft or alch in the campaign because i had too few crafting item and i was waiting to use them to not waste them on low lev items.

I didn't drop any gear to improve my build since act 2 normal and it almost make the game unfun because i did every boss with so little dps, and i had so few currencies to buy things on market, it was very frustrating. Thus i went to the campaign slowly as i was struggling with the dps, i did a bit of exploration, but was in endgame after 5 days nolifing. I changed my build around end of act 2 cruel to be more effective, so my gold went down a bit too, so no gambling.

As my dps was too low for maps and new challenges, i invested in gear to improve it, i also had to improve my defenses, but was still oneshot fairly often before the last patch. I bought all my upgraded gear on market, just before it went crazy and i could continue playing in a ok state. But i didn't wear any rarity for almost 2 weeks since... so less drop, less currencies, less crafting as i wasn't knowing rarity was so important, Poe 1 did ban rarity affecting currencies for good reasons and GGG didn't talk about that change at all for Poe 2, it unbalance a lot the game between builds, because some builds can manage dsp loss more easily and other can't, it affect also a lot the market, so new players that will reach maps will not be able to buy good upgrades for their builds as easily, so will feel stuck and will probably leave as they can't not improve their dps, and def, without feeling broke.

I'm now lev 93, gear is ok to do content but i can't improve it anymore with current market state, so atm i'm wearing crappiest gear with as much rarity to cacht back 2 weeks of low currencies drops ... not fun, feeling like i played baddly from the start and feeling i'm force to drop def and attack for currencies, just to be able to improve my build further to do better pinnacles.

Everyone is running rarity on their gear now, and only a few builds can afford +200-300 rarity so yeah it is bad for build diversity overall, it will affect everyone, streamers, old players and mainly new players.

So pls GGG fix that Asap before it ends ruining everyone experience with endgame.

About endgame some suggestions :

I'm getting lost often with my endgame map because i ran a lot of nodes to find citadels, pls add a zoom out, i take me 2-3 minutes to search for a node sometimes, also map don't load occasionnaly so more confusion. Ziggurat encampment area is the only zone in the game that is problematic for my CPU, so that zone have a problem. Backtracking in maps is horrendous, just add a marker on rares when you damage them, so you see them better when mapping and you still have to search for others in the map, but will avoid a lot of current frustration and time lost. I have been stuck 1 time in t16 arena boss after beating it, couln't complete map. Also i'm sitting on 5 million gold and can't gamble it because it have limited use.

Game is in EA, and have potential, just a few improvments will make people love it more, make it more balance and you will have less complains and more people will want to try it.

i would add some feedback for endgame :

The venom draught should be able to be changed late game because the choices we need to pick in campaign when levelling are different than when we arrive at mapping, those +5 attributes were indeed + 3 lev when offered but now in endgame, with how costly high lev gem are regarding mana, or chaos resist is relevant, being stuck with your previous choice when you couldn't know where your build was going after launch is a bit nonsense.

I hate hearing my filter ping for a map T1 when mapping in 15+

I can't invest in rarity if i need so much mana in endgame, i can shoot 10 times when having 1000 mana atm, long fight pinacles boss are always problematic regarding mana with high lev gems. And i don't want to be/feel forced to play stormreaver or playing the game without looting in a looting game ...

I can't do arbiter boss fight because it is atm bugged, lot of streams confirm this, and thus farming citadels is not incentived right now for build that don't insta kill it and can't skip mechanics.

Delirium splinters are so few when completing delirium content that you have to invest a lot in delirium tablets to see that new boss (and get insta killed) and unlock further content, when you already need your tablet to drop waystone early in maps, and/or rarity if you don't want to run endless maps without looting a thing.

Because of rarity issue, most of player base can't sell shit on the market anymore, without lot of rarity on it all stuff is crap now, even the best gear we used to seek for in Poe 1 and were grinding for. We can't sell and we can't loot if we can't buy stuff with rarity, so we are really F.if we don't luckily find some good gear with a bit of rarity. And divine price are still raising.

Chaos trial (lev) 10 loot is mostly crap compare to lev 4 sekhema, some soulcore take too long to obtain compare to others. That physical aoe circle that expand is a auto kill if you get the survival trial because it cover the whole area. Also it is weird that you can fight sekhema boss first time but have to complete several chaos trial to see the boss if unlucky.

Hope to see a patch coming soon.

Rarity on gear isnt the problem
Rarity scaling down as you level up, then forcing the player to stack rarity to get back to a baseline is the problem.

They did this in poe1 also. High level characters have reduced drops and rarity of drops from "low level" monsters.

Unfortunately for everyone in endgame, the max level map is 79 without rng pushing it higher. So every character thats level 90+ is getting reduced drop rates.

Level an alt and just see how much better the drop rates are when you are at or below the area level, and as your character level raises above the area level, drops slow down to nothing.

This is the real issue causing rarity to reduce diversity.
Once a character hits near level 90 THEN they need rarity to continue farming effectively.

If characters kept their baseline drops instead of having them reduced to near nothing they wouldnt be forced to trade power for rarity.

Currently level 90 characters farming t15s the drops without rarity are just bad. That shouldnt be the case. The baseline drops need to be more consistent for rarity to not be oppressive.

I personally cant see any benefit to the game or players from punishing a character for leveling up.

"

iadapt#7831 wrote:

Rarity on gear isnt the problem
Rarity scaling down as you level up, then forcing the player to stack rarity to get back to a baseline is the problem.

They did this in poe1 also. High level characters have reduced drops and rarity of drops from "low level" monsters.

Unfortunately for everyone in endgame, the max level map is 79 without rng pushing it higher. So every character thats level 90+ is getting reduced drop rates.

Level an alt and just see how much better the drop rates are when you are at or below the area level, and as your character level raises above the area level, drops slow down to nothing.

This is the real issue causing rarity to reduce diversity.
Once a character hits near level 90 THEN they need rarity to continue farming effectively.

If characters kept their baseline drops instead of having them reduced to near nothing they wouldnt be forced to trade power for rarity.

Currently level 90 characters farming t15s the drops without rarity are just bad. That shouldnt be the case. The baseline drops need to be more consistent for rarity to not be oppressive.

I personally cant see any benefit to the game or players from punishing a character for leveling up.

If that's true, that's insane.

Ironically, though, it then does mean rarity on gear IS a problem. This is because if they fixed the problem you mentioned, then suddenly people will have exponentially higher drop rates with all of their rarity gear and too much will drop, instead.

If they insist on rarity staying on gear, they need to add a cap at the very least.

"

If that's true, that's insane.

Ironically, though, it then does mean rarity on gear IS a problem. This is because if they fixed the problem you mentioned, then suddenly people will have exponentially higher drop rates with all of their rarity gear and too much will drop, instead.

If they insist on rarity staying on gear, they need to add a cap at the very least.

I think that could be remedied much easier by increasing the diminishing returns at higher %increased rarity numbers.
Just maintain a baseline, then deal with how rarity scales.
A changing baseline makes balancing the top end too difficult.

But more importantly, punishing a player for leveling up is just stupid.

Also i should add disclaimer -I dont have enough hours of data to fully confirm this hypothesis, i'd need to level a character and spam die on it between maps to properly test that it's not just bad rng.
However with this already being a precedent from GGG's design choices in poe1, i dont think its a farfetched assumption.

Nope
Magic find is fine.
Just use it to find builds that are overpower and can stack magic find.

Then take said builds to the wood shed and nerf them to the ground.

Spork is the problem, not magic find

"

Wormabutter#4288 wrote:

Spork is the problem, not magic find

Spork is fine, just Warrior needs nerf ASAP

how about improving the drops so rarity isnt an issue

Honestly I'd like to find a happy middle ground:

1. Devs should go back to the drawing board and equalize the opportunity cost of MF as much as possible.

2. Steep diminishing returns should be in place so while MF [for OP] builds is still good to invest in it won't dominate the meta by itself.


NOTE: In my world the rich would still be mega-rich. At a certain point if a build clears "fast" that's one multiplier ... if the build has some MF that's another multiplier ... if the character engages in some of the most rewarding mechanics that's another multiplier.

And unlike "normies" like me someone good at the game will NEVER miss a loot multiplier .. and that's OK. I just want to get a taste of the good life every now and then :)

Magic find didn't kill builds in d2.