Path of Exile

Seen other people mention it and I can see it being true. The crafting in harvest league is a try out to see how it flies so they can do it that way in PoE2. Makes you wonder what they are going to use players as an alpha test next.

I'm not a big lore person. I followed it the first time I played it until it became clear that it was all just an add on going back through the same maps. Then I did what everyone complains about. Just skipped it all.

This conversation reminded me of what Chris Wilson said about SSF and Trade at Exilecon last year. Just a short snippet of ~ 2 mins in the video below.


After a 3 year break and having put another ~70 hours into Standard (had no interest in Harvest/starting broke/too much to learn) the game hasn't fundamentally evolved at all in my mind. Even with all the currency and gear I had stored up previously, and stripping multiple 80s for their best items, I've managed to grind/trade my way to complete mediocrity, again.

Given also that all my old characters had had their points reset, I didn't even need to level a new one to get back in and test multiple builds. The game is still at it's core a currency farming and trade/economy simulator, with an ARPG bolted on top. Even with the Crafting changes since I left, and all the new League Mechanics, the core is still the same.

In those 70 hours, I haven't found a single piece of loot that was remotely interesting or powerful, and I get it, I really do. It's been a successful model for Chris and Co.

I'm (still) just not the target audience, and from what I heard from Chris more recently, likely PoE2 won't fit either. Oh well, wish there was another ARPG worth playing, heh.

Keep in mind that the "Path of Exile 2" name is just a marketing gimmick to cause more hype. It's not a different game, just an especially large patch for PoE.

Can anyone recommend a fun build just for storyline and mapping? I was trying a Creeping Frost witch, but it's not really my bag of chips. Say like, 5 ex budget?

Argarth said:

...the game hasn't fundamentally evolved at all in my mind...

...In those 70 hours, I haven't found a single piece of loot that was remotely interesting or powerful...

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Just felt like adressing these points.

1) Yes thats true. But you can say that about pretty much anything can't you? for example Fortnite is fundamentally the same as quake (fps).

2) That totally depends on your starting position and is the reason people play leagues and even ssf.

Aamry said:

Can anyone recommend a fun build just for storyline and mapping? I was trying a Creeping Frost witch, but it's not really my bag of chips. Say like, 5 ex budget?

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chaos spellslinger? Supposed to be fast early game/maps but can't really do high tier maps whitout dropping the spellslinger part. I haven't played it though

Aamry said:

Can anyone recommend a fun build just for storyline and mapping? I was trying a Creeping Frost witch, but it's not really my bag of chips. Say like, 5 ex budget?

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Ball Lightning miner. Destroys everything/very fast story and super strong versus bosses, not sure how much it costs to play this league but it's normally cheap if you play a life version. It's fun in the sense that everything is dead in seconds if that's the sort of fun you want.

You can use a macro to detonate if you're feeling especially lazy.

I wouldn’t say I’ve loved the league more than delirium or legion, but I have felt like I could at least make progress in crafting. Traditional meta crafting is too much for me. I don’t play enough or flip enough to have the capital to invest multiple exalts annulling and blocking and slamming. Rest is just RNG garbage.

Fossils I’m good with and have done a lot of crafting using, but they were so accessible they nerfed them into the ground-ish. I expect Harvest will be the same way. It’s a shame, I’m enjoying it, but on one project I’m at the point I want to finish so now comes player interaction and trust to get some remove/aug life’s done. I did a lot of conqueror orb and awakener orb crafting last league. Still a fucking gamble, but I felt I had at least some control. Same with beasts. All those combined WITH harvest has me more interested in fewer builds per league but more time on a build perfecting it. Previously I’d hit that point where I’m looking at 20+ex to craft something that’s a modest upgrade. I’d rather re-roll. Here I feel I can hit the 18ex version in my own time at a fraction the cost.

also, I’ve made a few influence items by alt regal for particular mods, beast add/remove to set it up, and then harvest to make the final product. Sold some, used some. That was a rewarding process for me. There’s RNG but the investment was swallowable. But typically I feel if I deleted bosses or made something cool easy on my playtime, it’s gonna get nerfed into oblivion. So long Harvest!

I’ve long thought trade made the game easier in some ways than even alts in d3. Its easy to just buy your key pieces and bank. Instant gratification almost. I guess you do that in d3 too but it doesn’t feel that much difference. The hardest part is suffering BA for 10-13 levels again. There’s not a good answer. It’s the MMO problem. The internet shrunk the world and everything is described before you get there. Players are too good and chew content up too fast. I still wish SSF has a different drop rate and that rares in SSF would drop with better affixes im harder content, but that SSF characters couldn’t move to trade league and had their own “stash.” Probably a shit design, but I’d like it.

Caeden said:

I still wish SSF has a different drop rate and that rares in SSF would drop with better affixes im harder content, but that SSF characters couldn’t move to trade league and had their own “stash.” Probably a shit design, but I’d like it.

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Way back in the Open Beta/Release (2013) there was a SSF League Thread in General Discussion asking for almost exactly that (among other things). It was the most popular thread on the forums by orders of magnitude, and was completely ignored by GGG staff. It went on for nearly a year without a single GGG post (I presume by instruction), until one day Chris Wilson finally chimed in. (thread died soon after that)

Can't remember his exact words but it was close to "There is no interest in a Self Found League here at GGG. Trading is fundamental to the game."

Of course, the SSF League we have now is just the core game, walled off. It's a pipe dream, given that Chris hasn't budged an inch after all these years. But you get my vote!

There's been pages of crafting talk, I don't really understand any of it and I don't want to learn because it sounds really tedious.

There's so many shitty currency items from years of leagues too.

Why can't they just have 1 set of currency that directly replaces the mod you want gone with the mod you want there? Something like the whispering essences where there's multiple levels for each mod so you have the rare high level ones to chase.

Crafting is almost like playing a different game. My buddy is struggling this league somewhat. He’s a grinder, and in lootsplosion leagues he makes more than enough to fund most builds. He considers himself casual but has killed all content in the game. Mention crafting to him and it’s like a blank stare comes over. He’s had to learn some this league, but it’s maddening explaining the little I know. Then go watch Path of Matth craft a dumb wand using a level 2 base and essences and shit and realize I don’t know shit.

The best way to learn crafting is to go play ssf for a few weeks. You'll learn more in that time than playing a year on the normal league. You don't have to craft as such on ssf, but you end up using nearly every currency item that drops to craft with so you pick it up pretty fast.

Even if you do it for a couple of weeks it'll improve your normal league as you can craft simple shit for profit pretty easily once you move back. You can make a few hundred ex a league just crafting foils, shields etc here and there.

Theyre thinking about replacing item quant with item luck to make drops better. Which will fail if they dont address the godawful weighting of mods. Dropped items need to be rolled with damn near even weightings on mods since even a 4xT1 item can be total shit if there's no good synergy.

Chris was on a podcast a couple of weeks ago talking about that yea. They definitely are aware of the "dropped items are all shit" problem, but from the way he talked about it trying to massage the rates/rolls/quantity/etc in to something better has been a pretty huge task to get right. It's a pretty interesting podcast if you're curious about what they want to do and are trying to do with the loot system for 3.12 and poe2 etc.

They should expand item types rolling specific things, like wands always having spell damage or blue armor always having energy shield.

Like have blue armor always roll resists and intelligence in addition to energy shield, then crafting can remove a mod of your choice for a mod you have a currency item for.

They could lessen the rate of T1 rolls and add more synergy on base types and most people would be happy. There's way to many useless affixes on items, if you want resists on a wand, you should be able to craft that shit, it should not roll naturally on a weapon.

I do like the idea of just removing influence mods from harvest pools, up amount of seeds, and leave as is with a 20% chance of finding garden in map. Removing the Influence specific mods means you gotta do some pre-work before you’re ready to go.

So when is the next lootsplosion league since those are the only fun ones?