Why the Settlers mechanic currently feels mandatory + easy solution

Currently Settlers feels mandatory for basically everyone because it's the only mechanic that passively generates currency without needing to invest any atlas points.

All the ways to invest into this mechanic, such as atlas nodes and scarabs, involve ores, yet the most efficient ways to get currency from it only involve crops and dust, which are obtained passively with no real investment.

My solution: Make it so that shipments and mappers require ores farmed in maps in order to run. This way players have to choose to invest in the mechanic if they want to profit (like with every other league mechanic in the game) and it would make the settlers atlas nodes actually useful.
Also the crops should be removed or be added as a reward for doing something active in maps.

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Foozenberg#2833 wrote:

Currently Settlers feels mandatory for basically everyone because it's the only mechanic that passively generates currency without needing to invest any atlas points.

All the ways to invest into this mechanic, such as atlas nodes and scarabs, involve ores, yet the most efficient ways to get currency from it only involve crops and dust, which are obtained passively with no real investment.

My solution: Make it so that shipments and mappers require ores farmed in maps in order to run. This way players have to choose to invest in the mechanic if they want to profit (like with every other league mechanic in the game) and it would make the settlers atlas nodes actually useful.
Also the crops should be removed or be added as a reward for doing something active in maps.

I think they should swap Ores and Crops, so Ores give currency and Crops gives Items.

i posted this as a reply on a different thread.

my solution

1. for the casuals

everything except map runners have their gold costs reduced drastically.

basic gold upkeep costs should be 100-200k gold PER DAY.

rerolling hires should be much cheaper. maybe 8k gold per roll and not 16k. hires rolled this way never have map running capabilities.

2. for the goldsinks

anything related to map running costs more gold to balance out. players can choose to roll map runners directly as theyre expected to die.

also give assurance to players that you can get t0 uniques from gambling using gold. or let players gamble gold to get random scarabs.

my reasoning

weak/casual players never have enough gold. their gold income is estimated 10-20 gold per map. it takes a lot of maps for them to cover 1 days worth. if not mistaken it currently costs 200-400k gold for 1 day of fulluptime WITHOUT mappers.

stronger players usually run juiced content and get 100k ish gold PER MAP. thats a huge difference in experience. where 4-5 juiced up maps can cover a whole day's worth of salaries. while weaker players need to run 10 times that amount? i dont know the math. but i do know even back in settlers casuals and better players were on opposite ends on this.

based on my analysis. most casuals would usually want their farm to be always running. and to make sure to convert stuff to bars. they barely can use maprunners. while its totally a NON ISSUE for better players.

thus the key difference to balance is non map runner costs. this way casuals can enjoy settlers content sufficiently without feeling like theyre short on gold.

also gold is now intrinsic to poe1. settlers is required as a reliable goldsink.

bro I dont touch settlers and made 180 divines so far this league :)

Settlers feel mandatory this league because for casuals loot from map is zero. Mappers generate more loot then running maps. Easy solution is just buff loot from killing monsters and running strats.

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ampdecay#1924 wrote:

bro I dont touch settlers and made 180 divines so far this league :)

bro, what?


1. You would have made more if you also ran mappers/farmers.

2. 180d on week 4 is not a number I would brag about.

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mikemm#7171 wrote:

Settlers feel mandatory this league because for casuals loot from map is zero. Mappers generate more loot then running maps. Easy solution is just buff loot from killing monsters and running strats.

Correct.

"Alch and go" style kingsmarch mapping will consistently and significantly exceed the return from you doing "alch and go" on the same map.

Investing scarabs do juice the map yourself will more often leave you a net currency/wealth deficit.

Kingsmarch mapping results are a good benchmark for "is endgame loot really that bad?" and the answer in 3.2.7 is an obvious YES.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that kingsmarch mappers will often surprise you with rare item loot that is worthwhile (except to streamers). I'm talking about something like armor boots with double armor prefix, life prefix, and double resistance suffix. Yes, even the kingsmarch mappers are allowed to find useful rare items OFF THE GROUND but you are not.

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ampdecay#1924 wrote:

bro I dont touch settlers and made 180 divines so far this league :)

Lol you thought that total of 180d for 4x weeks in league is a lot?

I get 2x wine of the prophet yeasterday from Incarnation of Dread + Feared,also several Awakeners Orb, Hunters Exalted Orbs, maven Writs , Bottled Faith and other stuff.


In terms of Divines thats a total like 80-90x Divines in a day, and im not counting usual maps/heists/Market flips and so on.