Path of Exile is a MAJESTIC incline

[Lyric Suite]

Yeah, the economy on Standard seems to be pretty much fucked by now. I wonder if gold sellers have anything to do with it or whether it's just the fact that most people probably play there, thus creating inflation.

Well, it is essentially the recycle bin league, but all characters from last year have been dumped there and i don't feel like abandoning them altogether.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

How much did they reduce the difficulty? I remember going into the Scepter of God on Normal shortly after it released, and sweating fair bit (was in HC though to be fair), and then cutting it a bit close against Dominus as well, and this was with a high-HP Marauder. I also remember the crazy whining on forums after people first reached Piety, and that unique on the first floor of Lunaris Temple twoshotting me on multiple occasions. Is it really much easier now?

 

[AMG]

I played at the start of new expansion and it seemed to be pretty much the same as always. Some thing were nerfed like Devourers/Shock stacks/Hailrake but overall it isn't really easier. Scepter of God is still a difficulty spike. Plus the monsters from Beyond League are/were very annoying and potentially dangerous.

 

[Shadenuat]

Loot

First week? I would say first 10-15 hours maybe to get to merciless

Well rares can be made by crafting too, and uniques, well, perhaps there's farming involved, but I've yet to get any. All my items are modified or crafted. My main weapon was made with chaos orb and got +135% dmg and I've been keeping it for many levels since nothing is better. I miss sets and I don't like the generalized random crafting.
It is a good system for people who want to larp godly smiths and are happy when scraps of items fall out instead of artifacts, but for an oldschool loot and exploration whore like me, who thought taking Arkaine's Valor in D1 from dusty rack in secret room was pinnacle of getting loot, it's not that fun. I don't find it that fun to only basically collect materials. In that sense even nice rare is one before you load a bunch of orbs into it.

Nobody gonna rush to higher difficulty without exploring all options first, unless you level up a twink. Although getting to merciless is easy, I agree. I played for 4 evenings and I am very slow and conciderate player; I am not psychotic anymore since I had enough of it when I played my last MMO in clan. But I'm already finishing Act 3 Cruel. And I even read dialogue and stories on stones. I also have a habit of clearing every map.
It wasn't a question of time to begin with though, but difficulty and options and "lol scrub you get to level 80, then we can decide for you if you are worthy of having fun or not". How about you fuck off. That is what Dark Souls finally did right, the moment you go into the game, it is difficult and interesting right away. You don't need to spend days grinding shit and going through candyland before you can have real fun. Let me start at Merciless right away, give me 30 skill gems, 5 4-slot items & 60 skill points. Why waste my time.

How much did they reduce the difficulty?

I dunno, maybe I scrub made a monster just by chance (although it's not that making melee is so hard in this game, hard choice between more damage and more damage, and hp, lol), but everything just explodes by itself. Bosses die in ~10 seconds, it's very annoying, because some of them have cool mechanics and I don't even see it (like Piety's additional forms).
Spikes of difficulty happen for me generally:
- On opening chests, when 3 groups spawn, if all uniques get magic attacks I have to Pull. But it's mostly due to my PC freezing and my Cyclone desyncing. It's like D2 when you start whirlwinding, lag, unlag and your HP is gone.
- Some unique monsters, but it's rare and random. Generally archers and stunlockers of various kind. There was one Orange in act 2 black forest with +50% damage taking curse + stun + rain of arrows. Hilarity. Was more difficult than final boss of same act.
- That OP Roguey rage hard counter Freeze effect. Total stunlock and if your frost resist sucks it's bad. Thankfully I got a pot that removes it.
- Master Haku or what is his Spirit-guy name quest where you can run out of time, while being bombarded by traps and hordes of mobs.
- Dominus feels stronger than other bosses. I enjoyed fighting him even on Normal, although it wasn't difficult. I expect him to be tough this time with all his elemental attacks.
I also like random corrupted Vaal areas. They often also have that multiple eastern virgins die while singing D2 Harem music.

A lot of it is about melees getting short end of stick in these games though. With ranged/magic/minions you have options, but melees always relied on high hp&resists to stay alive.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Maybe GGG simply overnerfed things? They seem to have a pattern of releasing difficult new content and then toning it down to appease the crying masses. Even Act 2 used to have a serious HC-killer moment in the Weaver's Chambers, it was legitimately possible to die to Hailrake on Normal, the official forum was full of Piety-whine threads after the initial release of Act 3, and so on. Last time I played the game, Dominus was the new content, and was quite difficult, while Piety felt much easier.

Try and see if it takes Merciless Brutus more than 2 hits to kill you. If so, game is casual trash now.

 

[Lyric Suite]

They can't make the game impossibly hard because hardcore leagues wouldn't be viable, but if they dumped down the game i'd be very pissed. Back when i used to play i felt the game was sufficiently challenging, and bosses were also a WTF fest, especially Dominus.

Please say that it isn't so.

 

[Shadenuat]

Try and see if it takes Merciless Brutus more than 2 hits to kill you. If so, game is casual trash now.

The damage is sometimes OK, if you're an idiot to get hit by telegraphed attacks more than once. But I think bosses could use 50% hp increase.

 

[Lyric Suite]

HP bloat on bosses sucks though. That's a very lazy way to make them more difficult. Also, this isn't a MMORPG. The gameplay should flow a lot faster, like it did in Diablo 2. Making Diablo 3 closer to WoW is probably one of the dumbest things Blizzard did.

In fact i think the only proper way to play those games is in hardcore. Characters should be more disposable than in a MMORPG, but at the same time everything should move a lot faster. Where MMORPGs seem to be about dragging that carrot as much and as long as they can, Diablo clones should be more about experiencing the journey over and over. This is why there are leagues, hardcore modes, and the like.

There are some who seem to think MMORPGs have superseded the Diablo formula now, but it is the rogue-like aspects of Diablo clones that make those games fun, not purely their carrot on a stick elements, which they share with MMORPGs. Try to force one to be like the other just doesn't work. Diablo clones and MMORPGs are two separate type of games and the people who made Path of Exile were very smart to retain the same old formula, just improving on what they felt was wrong with Diablo 2. In fact, i'd almost feel like referring to Path of Exile as Diablo 2.5, which i'm very happy with.

 

[Aothan]

GGG made the starting Act easier about 8 or so months ago, it was a surprising move but apparently what they thought would be best for the new playerbase. A more obvious compromise (in my estimation) is how they changed the visual aspect of the tree because it was previously a much more daunting array of pathways. The skill 'tree' we now have is considerably more homogensied both visually and how different pathways are accessed.

challenge varies between players and characters, I can say that luck mostly ensured my character transitions from Cruel (Dominus) into Merciless, and likewise with a few encounters since. But in part this is a consequence of dividing health between Energy Shield and Life, where flasks will now only provide use for about 40% of my character's total health.

traded for a Hyaon's legion sword earlier, not really the increase anticipated but still an interesting selection since it is practically a single-elemental source of generation, which makes me wonder whether I should even use Increased Melee among other traditional skill gems and gem combinations. Also should probably see to increasing my Lightning Resist..

 

[set]

I haven't had time to play, but races were more than sufficiently challenging last I played. If you're a "hardcore" player I'd say you get the maximum challenge out of them - and they are very fun and not too time-consuming (well, the 1-3 hour ones) to play. Mastering content - killing the optimal amount of monsters in a fixed period - it's very tricky and tests your skill for sure, because you are often very underleveled in critical spots. Then again, races are also hugely luck based.

 

[Shadenuat]

HP bloat on bosses sucks though.

Bosses dying before you can blink also sucks.

As for leagues and hardcore, I'm not sure netcode in PoE is sufficient for that. At least not for me. I sometimes even get "servers unavaible" before I click a few times. Also got at least one crash and a DC during normal play.
Really feels like I'm playing D2 on 56k again sometimes, with all the hilarious teleports between Cyclones and random health drops.

 

[Lyric Suite]

A more obvious compromise (in my estimation) is how they changed the visual aspect of the tree because it was previously a much more daunting array of pathways. The skill 'tree' we now have is considerably more homogensied both visually and how different pathways are accessed.

That doesn't sound good.

I'll try to level a new character just because the new leagues are still fresh. But i will rage if they fucked with the skill tree.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Bosses dying before you can blink also sucks.

Except they don't die before you blink. They last just the right amount of time. If you can survive them for any amount of time there's no reason to drag the fight beyond a certain point. You have essentially already won.

 

[Shadenuat]

Except they don't die before you blink. They last just the right amount of time. If you can survive them for any amount of time there's no reason to drag the fight beyond a certain point. You have essentially already won.

Maybe on Merc they don't.
And who says anything about any amount of time? I want enough time to at least understand and appreciate their mechanics and idea behind the boss.
Actually, I'd say on Cruel bosses die easier than on Normal, because you get more powerful abilities and combos but they don't scale that well. Both Sirine and that wrecking ball felt more difficult before I got Cyclone. Piety felt same as she was.
Not thay they die faster, rather everything is safer with hp&mana leech and 70%+ resists than on Normal when you did not yet find proper equipment and have to eat death rays with 0-20% resists.

Oranges scale better through Normal to Cruel than bosses.

 

[Orma]

Lost my 85 level Shockwave totem witch today, like 10 minutes after killing the most dangerous beyond unique, abaxoth.

Guess i felt really stronk and underestimated things.

 

[Shadenuat]

Really happy to get out of candyland and Cruel Dominus felt good, oneshot was strong in that one. Had to resort to Ornstein&Smoug tactic burrowed into my brain for my life - hump the pillar.
Strange that his second form is so much stupidier than regular casting one.

Normal Merc feels ok, almost got rekked in first quest by freezing idiot near medicine chest and got destroyed in one of Vaal nodes by some giants. Then game decided it's enough for me and dropped +physical damage gem. Almost doubled my DPS, now I once again feel like a wrecking ball in a world made of cardboard. Sadly I am not made of steel but also cardboard, 2000 hp not enough, although I took quite an amount of HP links. Guess I'll go for moar.

Try and see if it takes Merciless Brutus more than 2 hits to kill you. If so, game is casual trash now.

It's the Butcher-like in Act 1? Was he hard? I checked some video from 2013 where guy kited him with totem to not get hit, but I just cycloned fucker into black pile of goo in seconds. He seemed to have some nice dmg but nearly not enough as say Cruel Dominus's death rays and aoe's that just one-shotted me. I have 50% phys resist, maybe that helped.

 

[Aothan]

Lyric Suite: by memory the skill tree design was revised before you started playing, or at least before I recall many of your earlier comments in this thread. I may, as often the case, be mistaken. Google probably has some images of the original style of the tree compared to present forms. However having said that, the latest revision whilst not as aesthetically intriguing as the original has introduced a number of interesting skill choices. For one the Essence Influx notable completely changed how my character's defences typically operate, but that development (for a Templar) required about fifty levels before becoming a practical option.

 

[Shadenuat]

motherfucking Terminator

Spoiler

toughest enemy I've met in game so far, shield restored faster than I gulp mana potions

whole area was Dark Souls catacombs - giant skeletons who kill you in 2 hits.
really being melee sucks, having to eat these sort of attacks and kill mobs who can 2-shot you
But what am I bitching about, I wanted more difficulty lol, starting to get it at Merc act 2.

 

[made]

Much of the difficulty stems from randomness. Otherwise easy map mods coupled with a nasty rare ability or surprise rogue exile that benefits hugely from them can get you killed in an instant. You either build for all these eventualities or say fuck it and take the occasional XP hit if you play softcore. I'm currently running a DW eva/dodge crit Reave build with Bloodseeker, borrowing the BOR and ST from my duelist because I can't afford a decent 6L chest and the ST lets me reserve all my mana and never worry about regen. Enjoying the speed and the new charge steal ability from claws, clearing 78s surprisingly safely despite uncapped res and 3.5k hp.

 

[Carceri]

Lost my 85 level Shockwave totem witch today, like 10 minutes after killing the most dangerous beyond unique, abaxoth.

Guess i felt really stronk and underestimated things.

What killed you? Just curious.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Really happy to get out of candyland and Cruel Dominus felt good, oneshot was strong in that one. Had to resort to Ornstein&Smoug tactic burrowed into my brain for my life - hump the pillar.
Strange that his second form is so much stupidier than regular casting one.

Second stage Dominus is easier if you are melee, and vice versa. At least that's how i remember it.

2000hp in merc is way too low. You are going to get one shotted by a lot of things.

 

[Minttunator]

Maybe GGG simply overnerfed things? They seem to have a pattern of releasing difficult new content and then toning it down to appease the crying masses. Even Act 2 used to have a serious HC-killer moment in the Weaver's Chambers, it was legitimately possible to die to Hailrake on Normal, the official forum was full of Piety-whine threads after the initial release of Act 3, and so on. Last time I played the game, Dominus was the new content, and was quite difficult, while Piety felt much easier.

Maybe you're just a better player by now and/or have better gear? Personally I feel Dominus is just as difficult now as he was some months ago - however I haven't died to him recently because I'm a better player than I was back then and, more importantly, my characters have better gear since I started trading.

 

[Shadenuat]

2000hp in merc is way too low. You are going to get one shotted by a lot of things.

I don't know what is it with me and dps&hp. Probably because I played glasscannons in MMOs all my life it turned me into dps junkie. When I found another 4 slot and Blood Rage&Increased duration even with my low hp I could't help myself but get that into my rotation too so now I often run with 3/4 hp cycloning through shit a bit faster, 20% speed increase not much... BUT DPS
NUMBERS
I also linked Herald of Ash with Elemental Proliferation so now every time I hit a monkey in the forest all 20 monkeys around her get caught on fire not much damage increase (numbers lie probably) but much

I'm climbing pyramid to kick Vaal ass now.

As for HP eh I'm working on it. I planned another 40% increase with thick skin and athleticism but my hand always tries to pick some other random shit
like more damage or damage

 

[Zdzisiu]

2000hp in merc is way too low. You are going to get one shotted by a lot of things.

I don't know what is it with me and dps&hp. Probably because I played glasscannons in MMOs all my life it turned me into dps junkie. When I found another 4 slot and Blood Rage&Increased duration even with my low hp I could't help myself but get that into my rotation too so now I often run with 3/4 hp cycloning through shit a bit faster, 20% speed increase not much... BUT DPS
NUMBERS
I also linked Herald of Ash with Elemental Proliferation so now every time I hit a monkey in the forest all 20 monkeys around her get caught on fire not much damage increase (numbers lie probably) but much

I'm climbing pyramid to kick Vaal ass now.

As for HP eh I'm working on it. I planned another 40% increase with thick skin and athleticism but my hand always tries to pick some other random shit
like more damage or damage

That is the curse of softcore. People tend to go for more damage and not give to much of a fuck about not dying in two hits. Not that Im not guilty of this too, many times I had to fight a very strong urge to pick a more dps passive than health/armor/evasion one. And I still have only 2.8k hp but with Mind over Matter it is a bit better, but still squishy as fuck agains some mobs.

 

[Carceri]

When I found another 4 slot and Blood Rage&Increased duration even with my low hp I could't help myself but get that into my rotation too so now I often run with 3/4 hp cycloning through shit a bit faster, 20% speed increase not much... BUT DPS
NUMBERS

How do you manage the desync with that constant life drain on you? GG chaos res?