Path of Exile is a MAJESTIC incline

[Mark.L.Joy]

I've never read a single line of dialogue in this game.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I've never read a single line of dialogue in this game.

How's the voice acting?

 

[Mark.L.Joy]

Good enough to memorize boss names.

 

[Jaedar]

I've never read a single line of dialogue in this game.

How's the voice acting?

Why are you so in love with death?

The touch -= OF GOD =-

 

[Saark]

Just read all of this.

 

[Absinthe]

Yeah storywise it has the same problem as other PoE. They first build up myth and then you kill it leaving nothing unanswered. Imho the worst is act 5 and whole part2. It is just a slog and whole Sin quest chain is just meh.

The most annoying thing is that after act 3/4 basically all unique text and voice acting toward exikes is gone. It feels like you play wooden block than supposed character. If that was ultimate purpose then why no character creator ?

They were moving in the opposite direction with the voice lines of the newly introduced Scion in 2.0.0, but the voice-overs were hated for being a bit long-winded and because the voicework was fairly inconsistent and she could switch from calm and curious one moment to melodramatic and grating the next. The bitching was big enough that GGG caved and "learned their lesson" and basically moved in the opposite direction instead of trying to make characters fit into the storyworld. In fact, the bits where Scion seemed to make sense of wtf was going on and her place in the world were a good touch. The problem was the delivery and execution (and they should probably just make alternate shorter voice-overs for people who prefer that). But they nixed the whole thing and took it as a design direction afterwards that they should avoid making protagonist development a thing. But I think part of it also boiled down to "we're making too much shit in too little time so fuck individualizing content."

 

[Reinhardt]

Story was actually ok in act 1 with all those stones about maori/romans war and how everything went to shit. Sort of ok with gang wars in the ancient ruins in act 2. Allowing to fight and beat current MAIN VILLAIN in act 3 and next ones was their biggest mistake.

 

[Absinthe]

Those lore dump stones were added to the early acts much later. That whole audiolog shit was pretty bad imo. When System Shock did it, it made sense because those were scientists keeping careful logs of their activities, so it fit the environment, the story, and the setting. When others started copying it as a convenient way of infodumping story at people, it just became a shit vehicle for lazy story exposition. PoE was doing better with its storytelling when you were piecing together the story from hints and bits and pieces you saw in the environment. The diaries in crossroads were better because they weren't trying to infodump about the setting to you.

 

[Peachcurl]

I don't know why they're fooling with potion refilling. It seems like they're just randomly flailing at this point.

For all I care, they could just remove potions entirely, and replace those five buttons with additional skill slots. :p

 

[Baron Dupek]

 

[Perkel]

gimme that hard mode

 

[EruDaan]

Got just one simple question to all you guys who seem to love this game - what do you honestly think about the constant changes to gameplay, setting/story and balancing since the first official version of POE? By now vanilla must play and feel almost completely different from the current version - or should I rather use the word incarnation - of the game.

 

[Mark.L.Joy]

It doesn't change that much, the core gameplay of building up to speed meta has remained unchanged for a long while, they just add bloat and ways to increase player power then they turn a bunch of knobs trying to hit some sweet spot that doesn't exist people complain and forget about it 2 weeks later, it keeps things fresh I guess.

 

[T. Reich]

Compared to pre-Forsaken Masters (the sort of big breakpoint for me), the game has radically changed to the point that it's an entirely different game wearing the face of PoE.
Slow and deliberate challenging gameplay was replaced by speed demon meta with barely a challenge to a knowledgeable player.
And the feature bloat, oh gods, the feature bloat!

 

[Mark.L.Joy]

That was 7 tears ago.
This is just after your breaking point, looks like modern build missing some dmg.

 

[T. Reich]

That was 7 tears ago.
This is just after your breaking point, looks like modern build missing some dmg.

That video proves my point exactly.
It's a 10 min video of Mathil playing on a cookie-cutter build in a league.
Here's some questions for you:
1) How many maps did he clear in these 10 minutes?
2) How many maps would a pro player like Mathil would clear in current version of PoE on a cookie-cutter build in 10 minutes?
3) How many pieces of "content" did he interact with on top of just clearing a map?
4) How many pieces of "content" would he interact with in current version of PoE? How many would he SKIP in order not to waste his time?
5) How much time did he spend fiddling with Atlas OH RIGHT BITCH THERE WAS NO ATLAS OR INFLUENCE OR FUCKING MAVEN OR CONQUERORS.
6) How much visually cleaner the gameplay is compared to current version of PoE?

Also, consider that this is without loot filter because loot filters are a v2.0.0 (Awakening) thing.

Also also, then compare it to clearing a high tier map in 1.0 or high OB.

 

[Mark.L.Joy]

The question was how much it changes, how many years did it take for all those things to happen? That video still smells bit like beta, 7 year timeframe of constantly updated game will have differences of course, more bloat to navigate trough, or drown in rather, map would go 5x faster, but that video is already very different from beta builds and looks like what we do today. Even big updates like atlas or clusters don't really change what you are doing the big difference is beta to modern so it changed once with time buffer of viable beta-like gameplay I guess.

1 year later, 6 years ago


If you take out league mechanics that's exactly what players are doing today.

 

[Baron Dupek]

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3174380

Additionally, we'll review less valuable single-square items like Wisdom Scrolls or Orbs of Transmutation and make it so that they drop less frequently but in higher stacks. For example, in maps you might see Wisdom Scrolls five times less often but they'll drop in average stack sizes of five or so. It could also mean for example, that in a Breach, that instead of several splinters you're getting a larger stack of them every few Breaches. Ultimately, you'd be getting the same amount of these overall, but will have fewer clicks overall to pick them up.

here's some hope

Purity of Elements giving immunity to ailements, nice
also some boosts to pantheon, like Cannot be Frozen

 

[Sykar]

PoEs biggest problems are the bloated skill tree and the explosive power creep leading to degenerate 1 button builds that can brainlessly one shot or near one shot everything while moving at the speed of a coked up weasel.

 

[Reinhardt]

near one shot everything

That's how you know your build is shit.

 

[didntdemon]

degenerate 1 button builds that can brainlessly one shot or near one shot everything while moving at the speed of a coked up weasel.

This is a feature not a bug.

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

PoEs biggest problems are the bloated skill tree and the explosive power creep leading to degenerate 1 button builds that can brainlessly one shot or near one shot everything while moving at the speed of a coked up weasel.

Yeah, the very idea of someone playing the game in a way I don't like ruins it for me too. Damned other people! If only their clear speed was lower I'd have more fun!

The real problem is the game being balanced around those explosive power builds, and everything else needing to be tuned up to be as explosive, rather than toning down the top build ingredients. But honestly they do a decent enough job curbing the worst offenders.

 

[Sykar]

PoEs biggest problems are the bloated skill tree and the explosive power creep leading to degenerate 1 button builds that can brainlessly one shot or near one shot everything while moving at the speed of a coked up weasel.

Yeah, the very idea of someone playing the game in a way I don't like ruins it for me too. Damned other people! If only their clear speed was lower I'd have more fun!

The real problem is the game being balanced around those explosive power builds, and everything else needing to be tuned up to be as explosive, rather than toning down the top build ingredients. But honestly they do a decent enough job curbing the worst offenders.

Pure and utter

 

[Lone Wolf]

PoEs biggest problems are the bloated skill tree and the explosive power creep leading to degenerate 1 button builds that can brainlessly one shot or near one shot everything while moving at the speed of a coked up weasel.

Much of this issue is resolved via the expedient of SSF. Even more so: HC-SSF.

With SSF, double-influenced meta crafting that fuels so much of the speed clear and insane single target scaling disappears. With HC, the game slows down as builds emphasize defenses to a far greater extent. The truth is that the nerfs are aimed at slowing down a section of the community (trade league elites) that make a joke of the game by the third day of any given league. Unfortunately, who they affect disproportionately is Joe Schmoe with thirty Chaos to his name.

For example, 3.15 saw some of the fastest builds ever (see Palsteron's Chainbreaker Cyclone w/ Fulcrum) as well as the highest single target damage builds (Ele Hit topped out at 250m or so and even the humble Flicker Strike had 110m+ Raider versions), because there are players out there who can get multiple perfectly crafted +Frenzy charge rings; double influenced Tailwind/Onslaught/Elusive boots, +2 Strike gloves with a Frenzy charge etc. etc. within a week. Triple crit multi jewels with life are no problem: numerous players are sporting 5-6 of them by Week 3. Perfectly rolled Cluster Jewels with the correct implicits? Easy. How about a 700dps one-hander? Doable for the people who rule this game.

The overall meta shifted this league, but the Raider SST, Forbidden Rite totems and - perhaps most of all - Seismic Traps can make an absolute mockery of anything in the game. Path of Math did a +quant Feared with a 70c budget Sab. Possibly the most difficult fight in the entire game required a Tabula and two Cold Iron Points to completely eviscerate. Once it became clear that there were still go-fuck-yourself builds, a lot of the crying over the nerfs went the way of the dodo.

Unfortunately, that means the core issue is still present, despite the nerfs. And - as I suspected - their answer will ultimately be to lift the ceiling, not lower the floor. So, Uber Blight, Uber Breach Stones, Uber Bosses etc that will hopefully pose a challenge to even the best builds. That + aura bot defanging + double influenced crafting nerfs will bring the game to a place where most players will be able to do 95% of the content, but only the most committed will have the last 5% open to them.

Hopefully.

 

[Gerrard]

Maybe you should stop watching streamers.