Not another ExSea is quitting POE thread - TLDR I'm loving LE

thanks for your response, and i appreciate how you talk about the sense of exploration in other medias such as books etc.

from my perspective, my issue with poe and modern d-likes comes mainly from expectations.

having played games like ff tactics, i really love it when games give players tons of options on how to build their character.

to me building your character is actually a large part of the game. its a mini "puzzle" game where you figure out what you should fine important OR interesting to what you want to achieve.

its also part of the fantasy of your character learning to adapt to the environment and challenges thrown at them.

this is actually done well in last epoch. the crafting system is easy to understand/straight forward and the crafting materials are generous enough that you are busy crafting even while doing the campaign.

its a stark contrast than in poe where i usually just rough it out wearing shitty gear just because they have good sockets/colours. it feels like the growth is organic.

and in LE you really do not need to follow a build guide. the end game is just somewhat endless scaling with the idea that players are expected to hit corruption 100.

to me the "end game" dictates where players are expected to aim for. and with LE c100 is quite lenient. with a low expectation/barrier, you do not need to hyper optimize. you may be weak but you dont feel that you're underperforming. you still can clear content.

if you play LE you'd be wondering wtf i m talking about. because what i m talking about was how LE used to be. back before season 1. back then players never felt the need to go past c100. and to me that was the golden age of LE. some builds were OP, some were just broken that people were doing C900-1000. but its fine. we didnt need to give a damn.

in S1, LE took a page from poe and introduced harder content. theres a new pinnacle boss that pushed the content's difficulty from c100 to c300.

if your build was weak it didnt matter when players could enjoy the game at c100. but now, you're expected to clear c300 content. suddenly theres a penalty for failure.

if you cant clear c300 your build doesnt work. this is the entire build diversity/build viability issue all over again. in POE forums whenever people say the game lacks build diversity or something kills build diversity. many would shoot down the person pointing out that POE has a gazillion viable builds. which IS a fact. theres tons of build diversity in POE right now that ARE VIABLE. you can clear all content with a gazillion different builds.

and the people who complain about build diversity KNOW that. the issue is that the ones defending build diversity are conveniently ignoring the fact that there could be MORE diversity if there was less difficult content. players could make more interesting/whacky builds if the bar for viability wasnt so high.

and this is perfectly illustrated with LE. at C100 i would argue any build that is not intentionally made bad, can work and can clear content.

but at c300, suddenly so many builds dont work. you're forced to optimize as much as possible.

in S2 it became worse, they introduced uber pinnacles. which pushed the bar to c500. as if c300 wasnt bad enough.

based on data released, over 50% of people who cleared the uber was of a certain class. and for some other specialized masteries the clear rate was abysmally small in number.

the gap was really bad. where some random guy could just follow a build guide and just clear uber without breaking a sweat, more or less facetanking everything. while other builds might have to dance with death and take a longer time. and for most others, they simply could not clear the encounter.

this definitely is a balance issue. but beyond the balance issue, i feel that the real issue is pushing the bar higher. if the devs set the pinnacle boss at c100 difficulty i think most players wont feel the need to use builds.

to me you are right in the context that our experience should not be affected by how others enjoy the game.

that is the ideal.

the reality is, the game experience is set by the devs, and the devs tend to make decisions based on other players. and because of that, like it or not, your experience is really dictated by other players.

why is it that in 10 years of playing i have not dropped a mirror? no HH, no MB? i remember a guy dropped a mirror in the campaign. i've rolled many characters, i have thousands of hours. but i dont drop any of these items.

the answer is because the game's droprate is adjusted with the consideration that players are expected to trade. if this game was purely SSF with no trade, the devs would definitely make the droprates much more generous.

as for the builds. its the same thing. when poe first released, the end game content used to be mapping. before mapping players were doing dominus/peity/dock/felshrine runs. 500k dps was considered HUGE and unthinkable back in the day. and i would argue that was around the peak of POE's diversity. you could literally make anything work as content was not too difficult.

players found interesting builds and ways to multiply damage. the devs loved the marketing they got whenever players did does sort of things. we had tons of build of the weeks featured on this site. which to be honest was one thing i loved seeing too. the devs then decided that since players had become stronger, they would introduce harder content, lest the good players get bored and stop playing. they were trivializing content to begin with.

this trend kept repeating. to me, the peak of POE's balance/content was back when the hardest content was doable at t14. for example lycia's true form could be fought at t14. einhar unique beasts started appearing at t14. many things let weaker players experience them at t14. while the ideal was to challenge them at t16. i would even argue that the pinnacle bosses by themselves are actually mostly balanced and players should be expected to clear pinnacles.

but ggg didnt stop there. the trend continued. blight has ravaged versions. everything has harder versions. we have t17s, we have ubers.

there is an argument to be had where you have content to suit all players. if you are weak you can do easier content but if you're stronger than you can do harder content. depending on games i agree to this. like for god of war, if youre a better player you can choose a harder difficulty.

but i would argue its different for POE. the real barrier for entry is actually if you're willing to follow a build guide.

since theres so much difficult content in the game, playing organically will have players easily finding themselves making mistakes.

the game is not balanced around players learning to organically improve their characters. the game is balanced around hyper optimized builds, which tend to find ways to multiply damage as efficiently as possible. i am aware that metas are inevitable. but i m careful to avoid using the term meta. in fact to me i find off meta builds not too different from meta builds. i usually use the term hyper optimization instead. because it captures the essence of meta/off meta builds better. actual viable builds in poe requires hyper optimization. this is very different from many older games.

in d2 if you hyper optimized, you could clear entire screens fast and easy. but the difference between d2 and poe is that being hyper optimized in d2 back then made the game easier BUT you did not NEED to hyper optimize. you could run a shitty ass build and try to get it to work and you could eventually clear off content. hyper optimization in d2 REWARDED you for hyper optimization. this is the difference to how modern diablo likes are now.

in LE/D4/POE, these games make it feel like hyper optimization is the bare minimum that players are required to have to begin challenging higher tiered content. clearing fast does not feel like a reward. it is the requirement. if you dont clear fast, you will put yourself in danger as any single enemy left alive can pose a threat. you do want to kill everything asap. this is especially apparent in content like sanctum or maven invites.

on one hand this level of hyper optimization can have a positive effect where players can experience the thrill of blasting screens and melting bosses down to a pulp.

but on the other hand players may feel the need to follow a build guide. in fact, i feel punished for playing the game organically.

a poe league lasts for 3-4 months. how far can a new player expect to go and organically play poe in 3-4 months? typically by the time i finish the campaign, i have barely enough alterations to make a "perfect" magic item with 2 high tier mods.

once in a while i bitch about it to a friend even going as far as to say how much i dislike people who follow builds. but my friend knocks sense into me. not everyone has the time to play the game for 10 years and still fail. most people do not want to spend hours farming gear only to realize their build sucks so bad that they might as well reroll. as if getting gear was not tedious to begin with. its been a long time since i changed my views on build followers. i do not look down on them. but i will say that i feel sad that following builds is still the best way to play modern d-likes.

and its simply inescapable for poe at this point. the game is simply not catered for organic growth.

i have managed my expectations a huge lot with poe. poe simply does not provide the experience that i want. and thats.... fine. if ggg gave me everything i wanted. i bet most of the playerbase would leave. poe is good how it is for its player base. and i still got to admit, poe is the best modern d-like.

i loved LE but LE turned into another poe. and if i m comparing LE to POE, LE fails by a long shot. in fact, in case you didnt know i think LE is dead now. LE was not profitable, got sold off to krafton, and krafton now announced its going AI. i m not an AI hater per se, but i feel that openly relying on AI shows the level of commitment the company has towards the playerbase. many LE lovers has expressed disappointment. i do not blame the devs tho. it simply could not compete and was not profitable enough. if im being honest, the devs succeeded in making a POPULAR game. and to me that is a great achievement.

currently the nearest game i m playing is titan quest 2. for sure, if i check reddit/yt i can find tons of super OP builds. but in tq's case, the big difference is i never feel like i actually need to use a build. i clear all content myself with my own shitty ass build. and i really love this experience. i never once feel like i m being punished for enjoying the game organically.

this experience is something i will never feel in poe. for sure one can be quick to point out that maybe my build sucks ass and i would agree. but i would say i have many IRL friends who play POE like me, where we go in blind. the results usually fall a few ways.

1. keep having a bad time (which goes to either 1 of the next 2)
2. finally manage to improve their build
3. give up and follow a build guide.
4. ragequit

most of my friends end up just leaving the game. it demands too much time and they really prefer it if they can just make the build that they want.

never has any of us actually organically made a build that works ourselves.

in fact the only reason why my own homebrew build "kinda works" is because i have legacy gear and due to some rebalances made by ggg. i can clear most of the games content except ubers. and if im being honest, i m fucking proud that that my build can go that far. it took forever and it still cant kill ubers but its mine. i made it. but how many people can afford to get this same experience? i would argue, anyone who followed a build guide even once, has their experience tainted. you no longer make builds organically as you now have a template to guide you. in fact, once you use a proper build, playing anything thats inefficient can feel so... weak that you just end up going back to following guides.

to digress a little. i remember a friend back before covid happened, trying the game out. he made a mistake, the very same mistake i did. he went melee. and he used 3 melee skills. one for "bossing", one for clearing, one for ranged/kiting (harder bosses).

i laughed at him at his stupidity, the same naive mistakes that i did. the exact same mistakes. he should have done this, he should have done that.

but in retrospect, i've matured as a gamer. i've refined my tastes. i come back to question. WHY is what he did wrong? in fact GGG addressed this exact issue with poe2. they got rid of the old socketing system. now players have so many options. we can do exactly that. one ability for sustained damage/single target, one for clearing, one for kiting/nuking.

POE has so many traits, that i realize are traits that are now part of POE. asking for them to be removed.... its way too late. and as i said. if i got what i wanted, most of the player base would revolt. so yeah. its more of me finally accepting that POE is simply POE. and i have to accept it or not.

and for the most part, i've chosen to not accept poe. tho i will admit i feel tempted to just come back and play the game just for fun. if i feel its not fun.. well.. back to being uninstalled. very likely this could happen.

its gone from being a game that i main to being relegated to a game i play YOLO. IF i ever play at all. i do play diablo 2 once in a super rare while. poe is now in that same state to me.

See you tomorrow?

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DoubleU#7266 wrote:

See you tomorrow?

LMAO yes maybe