PvP popularity and other random thoughts

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jcostello1 wrote:

As the leader of a pvp guild, the place is like a ghost town a lot of the time nowadays. People got hyped on lld, then got disappointed. It's even worse in season 2 where we have people who sold alt art items cross league for dozens of exalts. We have streamers who have PVE and currency flipping gurus sponsoring them to their perfectly crafted dual 6l builds with multi crafted and self crafted everything. It took me months to get the level of gear that I have on standard, and the few people with insane currency surpassed that level on the temp leagues within a week with no pve chars at all.

It's nothing but a dick measuring contest now, it's not lld anymore at all.
I can't wait for them to stop supporting so we can go back to having fun again.
But that's just my opinion, not representing anyone but myself.

Yeah this sounds like a lot of misinformation and a lot of salt. If you have trouble gearing out LLD characters, then perhaps you need better method's of making currency.

I played 4 high level characters on bloodlines. I achieved 8/8 (clearly I have put a lot of time into the league). I have made over 75ex from raw currency in bloodlines alone even with the character deaths. I've owned a fully geared windripper character, 3 geared trappers, etc.

Going into season 2, i assumed it was going to be like season 1 when considering the disparity in qty of HLD and LLD events. I also went with the assumption that it would be split Torment/BL leagues, but GGG dropped the 5 day bomb on us. I had at this point already spent 45exalts on a bloodlines pvp character. AND 40 exalts on a torment character.

How did I go about getting the 40 ex on torment? From opening day of the league, I had an agreement with KG that if he sponsored me with a maximum of 40ex on torment for MY LLD character, that he was going to reap all my alternate art rewards from EU season 2. He was interested in this offer because he had faith that I could put up good numbers, and at least hit the former 500pt reward. It was cost effective by a long shot because he'd be able to sell those alt art items for big currencies. He now has an atziri foible in his name. His payout for the future is enormous. (KG learned currency earning from my videos and watching my stream btw. I earned half a stash tab of exalts by the end of anarchy, 1 mirror, 30 eternals, and much more).

This deal would have never been made if GGG had announced that the leagues were going to be merged in the beginning. I felt to hit 8/8 and have 2 max geared LLD characters on torment and Bloodlines was spreading myself way too thin. So I had to make time constraints.

GGG announced the merger, then i started xferring my currency from bloodlines to torment to polish off the ranger. I have now invested 15ex (of my own) more into the character totaling 55-58ex range. And by the end, i probably will spend 6-8ex more. We'll see. I've earned 15 exalts myself on torment just from leveling up a ranger to 88.

I'm sorry your guild is not active as you hoped it would be, but it may have to deal with your attitude towards this game. Btw I could have easily have sold my ungils for 50ex each in torment had I not made the agreement with KG. I still have both of mine. I never took freebies from the viewers. Don't believe me? Come in my chat and ask my regular viewers. They've seen it all.

Hard work goes a long way. Btw, I've never had problems earning currency in temp leagues. I've achieved 8/8 in every league except one. If you want some advice, I stream all the time and you can come ask me or check out my youtube vods. But pointing fingers at others and using that as an excuse to not participate is a bit rubbish in my book.

going back to what wild captain was saying.

I do worry about it, pvp is what drives me to continue playing this game as hard as I do.

But I'm such a small minority of players in the scope of things.

I do think its hard to justify sponsorships with gaming companies with our participation numbers of late.

Streamers don't help the scene to be honest.

We have Willy and Myself who promote pvp all the time.
HvR participates in it and preaches that "this is a joke"
Helman does play quite a bit, and he is having fun doing it, but I do get the feeling that he doesn't want to deal with the PvP QQ in chat either.
Nugi does stream some pvp and he says that he has a lot of fun doing so.

Lots of people preach hate on PvP without even trying it. You'd be amazed to hear the thoughts and strong opinions of influential streamers who just constantly talk trash about it.

I have people come into my chat and say "i thought pvp was a joke in this game." and then they stick around a bit and say "wow this actually looks pretty cool!" but most are quick to judge and then mock and then leave. It's the "cool" thing to do these days. Log into twitch and bash streams that hype Path of Exile PvP. Hopefully this fad will die.

This season for me has been a bit meh for me. While I do enjoy blitz events, there are just so many of them. The prizes are very very lackluster compared to season 1 in both swiss and alternate arts. And for the obvious reason the last minute notice for merging the two leagues was quite annoying and exhausting.

As far as balance goes, I feel like most of everything is in a pretty good balance state. HLD on the other hand, still needs to have the trigger gems and molten shell/temp shield adjusted.

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jcostello1 wrote:

As the leader of a pvp guild, the place is like a ghost town a lot of the time nowadays. People got hyped on lld, then got disappointed. It's even worse in season 2 where we have people who sold alt art items cross league for dozens of exalts. We have streamers who have PVE and currency flipping gurus sponsoring them to their perfectly crafted dual 6l builds with multi crafted and self crafted everything. It took me months to get the level of gear that I have on standard, and the few people with insane currency surpassed that level on the temp leagues within a week with no pve chars at all.

It's nothing but a dick measuring contest now, it's not lld anymore at all.
I can't wait for them to stop supporting so we can go back to having fun again.
But that's just my opinion, not representing anyone but myself.

I sold some of my rewards for few reasons:
- I wanted to participate season 2
- I didnt have time to play at start of bl//torment when its fastest to earn gg items//currency
- Season 1 was my first real pvp expirience and I decided to spend time into that(again no time for farming bl/torment)
- I wanted to try meele char and since i didnt have any expirience with it it req a lot of gear and testing(if i would decide to do caster it would be much cheaper and i wouldnt have to spend that much currency into it)
Everyone got their own reason to sell rewards//make agreements and if you dont like that you should try post in general forum about disabling trade pvp//race rewards in temp leagues.

Also if it comes about perfect gear complain you made - its affected by adding prismveave into game so crafting weapons is much easier now.

And I agree with hege that pointing fingers on others(cos we all know that "dual 6L streamers" is about Hegemony) is pretty weak.

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jcostello1 wrote:

As the leader of a pvp guild, the place is like a ghost town a lot of the time nowadays. People got hyped on lld, then got disappointed. It's even worse in season 2 where we have people who sold alt art items cross league for dozens of exalts. We have streamers who have PVE and currency flipping gurus sponsoring them to their perfectly crafted dual 6l builds with multi crafted and self crafted everything. It took me months to get the level of gear that I have on standard, and the few people with insane currency surpassed that level on the temp leagues within a week with no pve chars at all.

It's nothing but a dick measuring contest now, it's not lld anymore at all.
I can't wait for them to stop supporting so we can go back to having fun again.
But that's just my opinion, not representing anyone but myself.

Sorry ad but I have to disagree with this. I didn't get sponsored, nor did I sell any of my season 1 alt arts in torment, yet I believe I can match hege's double 6l in a match, to a comfortable enough degree, with just one 5L. I also have to point out that for awhile now, you've been a very casual player (perfectly understandable, RL > Gaming after all) and the fact that recently, the availability of top end LLD gear in the temp league market is at an all time high compared to standard pre1.3 days, making it easier to acquire in a few days what took several weeks of stalking in perm leagues. I've shown you my pieces, and the prices that I bought them with, and I believe it is attainable with the time it took us to prepare for the season. Sorry for saying this, but saying it took you months what others have surpassed in a week shouldn't mean we should balance around you, or others on the slower pace, since like what greendude said before, balancing around the middle of the playing field will leave the people at the top severely overpowered. People have already proven, one way or the other that this gear level is attainable, and I'm afraid that won't change.

E: Oh and at this point, I've already spent 18ex on my guy, but 6 of those was after the season had started, and after I sold some season 2 rewards. I could've easily made due with what I had and kept the rewards, but I saw the upgrades and made them. In retrospect the upgrades were'nt much due to diminishing returns but we take what we can get to try and have an edge.

I wasn't talking about hege specifically, I was talking about the scene as a whole. And I apologize if that came off like a personal attack, it wasn't meant to be, I really don't know you hege or have much time to watch your stream.

Prettyboy - I'd never ask pvp to be balanced around me, I know I only have the time to be a casual player lately. I voiced my personal opinion on what I liked about lld, and stated that it was purely my opinion and I didn't represent anyone else with it. Didn't ask for a thing.

The only things that weren't my opinion were the fact that people got sponsors, more than just you hege, so don't feel targeted again. That a large portion of the guild is no longer active in pvp season two, which is true. And that people had insane capped gear within a week of their start on the league, some without a single pve char.

It was ironic though, hege, for you to tell me all those elite stats and blow up your P.O.Ego and tell me I should learn a thing or two from you after I called it a dick measuring contest hahaha.

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jcostello1 wrote:

It was ironic though, hege, for you to tell me all those elite stats and blow up your P.O.Ego and tell me I should learn a thing or two from you after I called it a dick measuring contest hahaha.

I'm actually a humble guy. I appreciate everything and don't take things for granted. I never claimed to be the best poe player ever.

However, I also strongly believe in providing credentials or some kind of proof to provide a valid argument. Instead of just blowing smoke up ppl's ass with no credentials.

think what you want, its the internet after all.

i started participating in pvp with the start of season 2(would have done in s1 but holidays etc).
i agree that there aren't a lot of people playing LLD at the moment, the queue is so empty. This is the biggest threat. Due to the empty queue new ppl get matched against top 10 players, die 4 times within 20 seconds and quit pvp frustated. Due to the lack of players, not many games happen where players got equal skill levels/gear.

If you happen to get a match with equal opponents, it's so much fun though! Especially in swiss events, after doing 2-3 rounds the pvp experience gets so much better.I know a lot of people who are really good at all forms of pvp and i know that they will come back to POE when act 4 is released. I do believe that with the increase of players with act 4 release, pvp will be in a much better place than it is now. The balance is quiet good too. I hope GGG advertises PVP when people return to POE.

Gearing up for PVP can cost dozen of exalts, but with some theorycrafting and good flasks you can build up a cheap pvp char that can win matches in ladder and events.
I have the most fun in PoE with theorycrafting builds, gearing a character up, finding uniques that enable some crazy ideas. Once you reach a certain level and gear, it gets boring playing the same char on and on.

PVP, especially LLD offers the best of these things too. Theorycraft a build, theorycraft another build that counters current FOTM, find uniques that make your build even better, corrupt stuff, farm items with good rolls, alt/regal/mastercraft them(this has not to cost exalts). It's pretty much the same like gearing a PvE char up, with the difference that you have a ladder that is actually not about reaching level 100 fast, but about how good you can handle your character, how good you can theorycraft builds, how good your skill is.
You can spend so much time having fun in POE LLD. It will get awesome with the new expansion/more players coming up. this is just the start of pvp in poe.

WoW some things here i didnt even thought of them (ignorant me). If there are other guild leaders/owners as jcostello1, share what you know, are your guilds empty nowdays?

About what hege told for other streamer/popular guyz, that surprized me big time, prestigious players "preaching" pvp is a joke and trash talking about is a new low, and can only do harm to the scene. I wander what they get by doing that, since their "flock" will do exactly the same even if they actually find pvp fun enought to try. Thank you for that information hege (yes i didnt know that since im not following any streamer)

I want to stand a bit on Sacr0's post though.

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Sacr0 wrote:

This is the biggest threat. Due to the empty queue new ppl get matched against top 10 players, die 4 times within 20 seconds and quit pvp frustated. Due to the lack of players, not many games happen where players got equal skill levels/gear.

This is so true and i personally know people who were totally hyped about pvp but due to totally random/unlucky match ups they left.

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Sacr0 wrote:

If you happen to get a match with equal opponents, it's so much fun though! Especially in swiss events, after doing 2-3 rounds the pvp experience gets so much better.

If you win easy then you think that the opponent wasnt good enough or wasnt geared well enough. If you lose easy then its obvious that the opposite from the previous sentence applies. The adrenaline rush is huge in close matches where the victory can go either way. Its by far the best way for someone to get addicted to pvp, match them up with similar kind of skill/gear players in a best of seven match and thats it, they are hooked.


Gearing for pvp is very similar with gearing high level characters for doing 78maps. PvP is an alternate endgame option, and its only natural that if you want to be rewarded you will have to invest hard on it. You can still though spend max 4-5 ex and still be top 20 constantly (i know from personal experience, and most costly items are the quality gem nontheless, so even with 2 ex its possible). But if you are chasing the victor's talismans then you should invest heavily on that pvp char of yours (and i mean 20+ex or over-the-top-super-ultra-no-life-24/7-pvp farming), and you can actually see the invisible gear line at the events.

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Gearing for pvp is very similar with gearing high level characters for doing 78maps. PvP is an alternate endgame option, and its only natural that if you want to be rewarded you will have to invest hard on it. You can still though spend max 4-5 ex and still be top 20 constantly (i know from personal experience, and most costly items are the quality gem nontheless, so even with 2 ex its possible). But if you are chasing the victor's talismans then you should invest heavily on that pvp char of yours (and i mean 20+ex or over-the-top-super-ultra-no-life-24/7-pvp farming), and you can actually see the invisible gear line at the events.

Hege said something about 50+ exalts... It just blows my mind.

A few questions to Hege:

1) How many exalts did you invest in your char in the previous league?

and

2) Why don't you ask the people of your chat that don't pvp why they don't and tell us. I would be delighted to know, since they are interested enough to watch you do it.

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Pyrokar wrote:

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Gearing for pvp is very similar with gearing high level characters for doing 78maps. PvP is an alternate endgame option, and its only natural that if you want to be rewarded you will have to invest hard on it. You can still though spend max 4-5 ex and still be top 20 constantly (i know from personal experience, and most costly items are the quality gem nontheless, so even with 2 ex its possible). But if you are chasing the victor's talismans then you should invest heavily on that pvp char of yours (and i mean 20+ex or over-the-top-super-ultra-no-life-24/7-pvp farming), and you can actually see the invisible gear line at the events.

Hege said something about 50+ exalts... It just blows my mind.

A few questions to Hege:

1) How many exalts did you invest in your char in the previous league?

and

2) Why don't you ask the people of your chat that don't pvp why they don't and tell us. I would be delighted to know, since they are interested enough to watch you do it.

1. 50-55 exalts. most expensive things were pillar 6L (12ex) and 6L foxshade (25ex)

2. I have asked. The ones that don't pvp say they don't think they'll be able to compete because they're poor. But they do enjoy watching is as a spectator.