[outdated] Caustic Arrow Solo Map MFer (20/300+)

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Piros wrote:

Reading this I started thinking... why not just pick up 2 breach rings with 34-35% chaos resistance and swap them in before you do any breach hands?
Part lazy, part I had not looked into it. Also the Gold ring I am running is 70 Life and 26 Chaos res. I am fine with running it over an Andy at the moment. Besides getting Chaos to 0% or as close as I can (That is where Chaos damage is balanced) is good enough for me in normal mapping.
"
do the Breachlord map zones count as Breach all the time?
Yes they do. Also this is where I would want the Breach rings when I get ready to run the Chayula Zone. However given the damage output of that boss, I don't think I am going to try on the MF character.


I'm not sure where I fall on the 40 challenges this league. I will try for them as best I can, but I don't have a dedicated mapping group, so there will need to be a lot of time spent, or maps bought. It will be what ever I can find/buy on my own, or what my friends are working on that I can leech/split costs.

I'm more bothered by the rare RNG challenges (Vaal only jewels, Chayula in temporary breach, Unique Strong box, Coffers) than I am the grinds. The obvious can be bought (frags, maps, cards) and time sinks for some reason bother me less.

(Yes I know the strong box and coffers can be purchased, but they are not a 'tangible' good and there is more a chance for dishonesty, so I am more weary as a result. I've not had any bad experiences myself, but healthy skepticism on Wraeclast might be a good thing.)


Edit - Ninja'd by Zombie Serleth. I think you should go to bed.
RE 40/40 Breach Discussion
Spoiler

Ah... I didn't know that the devs were, by design, making 40/40 much more challenging with the goal of retaining players. Will that actually work though - or might it prove demotivational and actually reduce participation? We'll see.

My prediction is that 1/5th or so players will make 40/40 this league as compared to previous leagues.

Regarding trading - I did not discount that possibility. But in previous leagues you could buy a map and then group with 5 others for grinds. Maybe that sort of thing will happen later on this league - but so far I've seen no groups for Breach Lord kills or Guardian kills.

Regarding the map grind - I timed a Tier 10 map the other day - I looted all drops and vendored them. Took me about 4-1/2 min or so, but a lot of that was vendoring.

If I were to tackle 10000 map levels solo without going bonkers, I'd change my mapping style - pick up nothing except jewelry, maps and obviously good stuff and maybe some good bases - goal is no vendoring except once every 2 to 3 maps. I could probably get clears down to 3 min or so.

Edit - forgot about Breaches... if you do all Breaches you find in maps, I don't think you're going to be finishing them in 3 min.

But, meh...

There's a point where something transitions from challenging but kind of fun to a job - and I think challenges this league have reached that point.

So I'm probably going to go ultra casual (see my point above about possible player loss due to demotivation) - for fun, I'll just do my own challenges. Kill Shaper; kill all the Breach Lords; kill Uber; somehow get a pure Blight build to be fun and end-game viable.
Last edited by hankinsohl on Dec 20, 2016, 6:10:23 PM
@Hank/Serleth: Yeah... pushing unfun challenges probably pushes people away from the game even more than not pushing them... I think that was part of the reason I quit within a week of reaching 40/40 in Perandus instead of sticking around and trying more dps-focused builds that can try all the end-content

Versus Talisman (which I returned at with only 1 month left, and reached 28/32 the day before the league ended)...

@Chrono: If all that is true, all the better for me... I can just lug around the ring I got with 14% IIR and 31% chaos resist and some other semi-useful stats, and only lose 50 IIR temporarily to reach +2% chaos resistance... I'm already in better shape since I picked up my 6L bow yesterday and equipped the IIR gem anyway
"
hankinsohl wrote:
RE 40/40 Breach Discussion

Spoiler

"
Ah... I didn't know that the devs were, by design, making 40/40 much more challenging with the goal of retaining players. Will that actually work though - or might it prove demotivational and actually reduce participation? We'll see.


The goal isn't player retention, although that might be a side effect. The goal is to give something more challenging / grindy for veteran players to work towards. But at it's core, it's just a way to please the hardcore players of the game.

For my money, 40/40's been super easy. I'm glad for the change.

Guardian kills are fine solo, I don't think a group is required at all. The sheer amount of high tier map drops you get will fund your next kill.

"
There's a point where something transitions from challenging but kind of fun to a job - and I think challenges this league have reached that point.


I get what you're saying, that it feels more like work, and I respect that but, for me personally with the Essence challenges:

* Two twinned runs (Core, Dark Forest) @ 15 maps apiece = 30 runs.
* 100 Atziri's
* 12 Vaal Temple bosses (4 maps)
* 60 Izaros

To get three done at the higher skill thresholds is only 34 maps. That's a day's worth of playing,and a bit of a currency investment. And like you say, grouping practically negates the cost.

I don't really feel this league is that much harder, just more time-sinky but you can accomplish a lot of it sort of just as you're playing. If you're playing high tier maps anyway, you'll eventually get 40 guardian kills, you'll get 300 Prophecies complete as part of just playing, that realistically only leaves Uber as the one you kinda have to go out of your way to get done.

I disagree that it's more work-intensive this league. I think it's just pushing you to play higher maps, and that's about it.

I think where you're getting the "job"yness of it is twofold: a) You actually have to invest in the challenges more intensively (at least unless groups pop up to ease the cost) and b) The psychological impact of seeing "10,000" map tiers.

Or perhaps you're just inherently a group player? That could be it. Playing in groups exhausts me, I have to play solo to enjoy the game.

I'm playing pretty consistently at the moment, but not really going super hard and I've got 4934 map tiers complete, 10 Guardians down and 3 Guardian maps ready to go. Currently about 75 hours in.

Only real difference I made is just I'm playing in reds.

Anyway, regardless, I think you hit the point at the end of it: having fun is more important, and if pushing 40/40 is going to burn you out, then probably a good idea to skip that.

=)

Jul 27, 2011 - Sept 30, 2018.
Yea, I prefer solo to group play because a) I've yet to play one of them builds that melts things with 6 player HP values yet, so b) my experiences in group play tend to involve chaining quicksilver flasks to keep up with the group and loot some things, while being unable to contribute much to the actual killing

This is probably why the only time I group is for master rep (which I still like to do, even as its less important this league challenge-wise)... its much faster once you get all the masters in your hideout at Elreon 7 and can just do 1 super rotations... 42 master missions in a row in 45 minutes to an hour...
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Serleth wrote:
Challenges
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hankinsohl wrote:
40/40 in Breach League

IMO, I think that Breach League is insanely more challenging than previous leagues. 10,000 maps as a solo player is insane, IMO. Yeah, I could do that, but would I have fun doing so? Absolutely not.

Endgame grinds? Equally stupid, IMO.

40 Guardian kills? Maybe. If there was a group for this. Haven't seen any though. Solo.... 40?... maybe... but not if you have a job/family/other interests... and not fun even then.

10 uber kills?... WTF?... 100 regular Atziri kills was a pain in the butt... those generated about 6 to 8 complete uber sets... assuming 100% success in uber kills, you'd need to work regular Atziri maybe 20 to 40 percent more times just to get the full Uber sets.... which, meanwhile, a bunch of other players are after, making this challenge ridiculous

100 Uber Izaro kills... just great. That'll cost between 400 to 500 chaos for the Goddess Sacrifices assuming 100% success... not to mention how long that will take you just to do the runs... oh, and how long will it take you to generate 400 chaos?

100 Breachlord kills... not happening unless you group... check out global 820... I've never, ever seen anyone post a Breachlord kill group

Fulfill 300 Prophecies in a Map - this one is OK, I think - a pain in the butt, but doable.


Alright, so, a couple things here.

Carl touched on this in Lioneye's Watch podcast. There needs to be a subset of challenges, aka four challenges for the push to 40/40, that are intentionally geared towards the hardcore player who really wants that extra thing to do and that prestige of having done the thing.

The second function of this, which he sorta touched on indirectly, is that by having the difficult / grindy things in the challenge pool, it also provides a goal, inspiration, motivation, however you want to call it, for players to push themselves to become better in order to achieve those things.

So there can't be a full set of 40 challenges that are completable (sic) for the average-skilled, solo player. Although I will note all the challenges can definitely be DONE solo, and aren't anywhere near as group intensive as you seem to be considering.

You also seem to be neglecting the notion of trading, and given you haven't specifically said SSF, I'm guessing you're making your remarks in the light of trade being open.

* Guardian Kills - I have 10/40 and I haven't even been actively farming T15s yet for T16 drops. You can also buy these maps if you need to. Guardians take about four hours to complete if you have a reasonably fast build to do it. And the map drops from running these alone will go a long way to funding Breachstones or Offerings.
* Uber kills - Definitely the go-to option if you want to save the time-intensive nature of doing Izaro or Breachlords. Also the most profitable to fund literally anything else. It's a skill-check though, to be sure.
* Izaro - Boring as hell, but you should be able to farm up at least 50 Offerings yourself if you're also pushing the 10,000 map tiers challenge.
* Breachlords - You'll probably get ~25-50 yourself here as well otw to 10,000 tiers.
* Prophecies - Again, something you'll get a lot of done just pushing map tiers.

Which brings me to:

* 10,000 map tiers. Assuming 10 minute maps, two hours a day (12 maps a day), which is a SUPER casual pace, running T9 maps will get you 8,964 tiers done, accounting for 83 days spent mapping out of the league. Now throw in an extra two hours each weekend-day, averaging out to 2.5 hours per day, per week, or 15 maps per day, that's 11,205 tiers done in 83 days of mapping T9 maps exclusively.

Now of course you'd have to compensate for having to build up to T9s in the first place and run some T10-12s probably to make that compensation, but you get the drift.

The real key here, casual or not, comes down more to skill level. You can very reasonably farm 40 Guardians, 100 Breachlords and 300 Prophecies putting in 2-4 hours per day. Guardians will contribute 640 map tiers on their own.

Also, I think you misconstrued this challenge. It's map TIERS, not maps. Hence 40 Guardian runs = 640 tiers towards the challenge (T16 * 40).

The issue is affording to buy the Breachstones, Guardian maps, Offerings, Silver coins, etc., which does require knowledge-mastery and planning in order to come up with one build that can do all that content, with reasonable speed, particularly farming the gated content and/or exclusively high-tier maps in order to be able to afford buying the missing pieces you need.

But, it is doable. Completely solo.

I typically finish 40/40 in a league with about 14 days /played, or 336 hours, or an average of 3.73 hours spent per day across a 90 day league period, but that's not accounting for the fact that I'm afk or alt-tabbed or whatever in my hideout for an hour out of every eight hours.

So you have to chop off at least 42 of those hours. So call it 294h, or 3.25 hours per day of 90 days required to 40/40 at a reasonable pace.

Am I a skilled player? Sure. Not the best, but good enough. And I guarantee you I'll hit 40/40 solo, if I decide to go for it. Which I probably will since I'll be trying to do Shaper myself for the first time, which requires Guardian kills and as such will net me 2/3rds of end-game grinds (Prophecies accounted for here).

But now I'll draw your attention back to the start of this reply:

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There needs to be a subset of challenges, aka four challenges for the push to 40/40, that are intentionally geared towards the hardcore player who really wants that extra thing to do and that prestige of having done the thing.


In other words, 40/40 is meant to be quite a bit less reasonable than 36/40.

It is not intended for casual players to be able to complete, but rather crosses the threshold into the serious / hardcore section of the player base.

And I don't think there's anything ridiculous about that.


Jesus man, do you stream? I have never seen another dude 1) so knowledgable and 2) so willing to answer every damn forum post except for maybe that summoner guy lmao. I'd be curious to listen to you on twitch
I do not.

But thank you so much for your kind words <3 =D
Jul 27, 2011 - Sept 30, 2018.
Last edited by Serleth on Dec 21, 2016, 3:12:33 AM
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Piros wrote:
This is probably why the only time I group is for master rep (which I still like to do, even as its less important this league challenge-wise)... its much faster once you get all the masters in your hideout at Elreon 7 and can just do 1 super rotations... 42 master missions in a row in 45 minutes to an hour...


I got bored of doing master rotations a long time ago. I don't do meta crafts so all I really need is level 7 each.

Only master I'd probably rotate is Zana, now. But I'd rather just crush the dailies then keep playing.
Jul 27, 2011 - Sept 30, 2018.
Maybe if I stuck around every league I would be less inclined to do Masters as much, but so far I've only been around for 0.9-0.10... 1.1 into 1.2... 2.1 into 2.2... and now

1.2 I might of gotten my masters up to 6... 2.2 I got my masters maxed enough for the challenges and the +3 bow self-crafted... and this league its even easier...

Realistically, all I need is high Zana for map mods for challenges/etc... Elreon 7 for all masters in hideout... Elreon/Vorici 6 for their daily alt -> jew -> fuse... Cata 8 etc is nice if I want to make the bow myself, and the 7s I see for removing crafts... but I generally don't fiddle with mastercrafting much... I don't want to spend more than a few alts on an item that might not sell due to a flooded market...
The continuing 40/40 discussion :-)
Spoiler

I think we both agree that, for whatever reason, GGG has decided that it's necessary to make 40/40 completion more challenging this league than in recent past leagues.

What have they done to achieve this... well, they increased time commitment this league, by maybe 20-30 percent. For example, 100 Atziri kills is now 10 Uber Atziri kills.

Meanwhile they've somewhat nerfed existing top tier skills (Ancestral Warchief, at least for Facebreaker, dual-totem, for example is about 10% less effective as it was last league).

So challenges are roughly 20% or so more difficult... and DPS is roughly 10% or more reduced than in previous leagues. You're not going to complete 40/40 this league nearly as easily as in past leagues.

What does this mean...

If I played as much as I wanted to without becoming bored or feeling that I was doing a job - i.e., if I played so long as I was having fun - in past leagues I'd be 40/40 about 1/3rd through the league. At that point I'd somewhat reduce participation but would roll some experimental toons. Later on I'd participate in races.

This league... grinds are just no fun. Yeah, I could just do red map, red map, after red map, after red map, and do all the breaches, taking deaths as they'll inevitably result, and by spending 6 to 8 hours a day at this, I'd eventually hit 10,000 map levels... but then what?

Kill 100 Breach Lords - doubtful that I can do this solo sans buying splinters.

10 uber kills? - another grind to begin.

And so forth.
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Bottom line:

GGG sees dwindling participation in the user base as leagues wane.

Their solution - make league 40/40 much more time consuming.

As I've previously postulated - this is a lazy, "solution" - which, ultimately will backfire.

Why? Because the purpose of a game is to make it fun to play.

It's not to make it tedious/time consuming/turn it into a job.

If GGG wants to maintain/increase its player base as leagues age, well... it's not a viable solution to force players to repeat stale content, over and over and over again until the new league is released.

And, IMO, that's the approach that GGG has taken this league.

IMO, it will backfire. My metric... at this league's end, how many players will be at 40/40.

Metric 2 - and in fact much more important - how many players will still be playing the game (Steam player participation is an insight into this). IMO, no better than previous leagues, and, IMO, likely somewhat less.

Metric 3 - the most important - and which we will not have insight into - how much money/month is GGG earning this league as opposed to last leagues.

IMO... earnings/month will decline.

Why? Because they've forgotten the ultimate purpose of gaming - make gaming fun/enticing/an escape from the real world.
Last edited by hankinsohl on Dec 21, 2016, 7:41:00 AM

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