Why T18 Maps Are Necessary for the Future of Endgame PoE

Valdo maps exist specifically for the multi-mirror tier builds to test themselves against. You can always go do those, and they even got harder this league because Sirus is in the feared now. So there's even more challenge and prestige to be had in Valdo's maps. Those maps are the true pinnacle of endgame.

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Toforto#2372 wrote:

You can always go do those, and they even got harder this league because Sirus is in the feared now.

Wrong.

Valdos are easier this league because Sirus and especially Dread do fuck all while Atziri's firepen flameblast is gone and you don't have to deal with her moving like a headless chicken when ghosted anymore.

As a result, the only profitable Valdos are ones that contain a failure state like void, fatal or ultimatum's ruin which is why we see people running Gladiator over Trickster.

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Toforto#2372 wrote:

Valdo maps exist specifically for the multi-mirror tier builds to test themselves against. You can always go do those, and they even got harder this league because Sirus is in the feared now. So there's even more challenge and prestige to be had in Valdo's maps. Those maps are the true pinnacle of endgame.

I disagree. Valdo maps are completely separate, optional content and they aren't balanced in a traditional sense. They have no place in this discussion.

+1

T18 could fix the endgame and be the start for GGG to expand to t19 maps whenever t18 maps start to feel like t16 mapsall over again

Yeah then we can add greater woke gems and elevated unique items.

Or we can just fix the existing unique items so 99%+ of them aren't an embarassment for 99%+ of endgame builds. And don't mention mageblood.

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ArtCrusade#4438 wrote:

So the way I see it there are 2 paths forward:

1) nerf player power
2) add challenging content

tho i disagree with making more challenging content. we all know that ggg is more likely to just slap on more harder content rather than rebalancing the game.

i would disagree with OP tho on t18s being optional.

ggg has never made content that actually felt optional.

fomo is real. there are ways to reduce fomo and to make things mandatory. the biggest way is to make content without exclusive rewards.

but a lot of people would retort "if we dont have exclusive content, then people wont be enticed to run em!"

and ggg listens to these people. so all content feels mandatory. voidstones are mandatory. completing your atlas bonuses are mandatory. if you dont do uber bosses you might miss out on powerful uber only exclusives.

if you dont run ravaged blighted maps you might not find corrupted oil thingy. if you cant kill ubers u cant get league challenge rewards.

the definition of "should feel optional" varies greatly from person to person.

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exsea#1724 wrote:

i would disagree with OP tho on t18s being optional.

ggg has never made content that actually felt optional.

I think a lot of people fundamentally misunderstand what “optional” actually means in this context. Outside of the campaign, almost no content in Path of Exile is truly mandatory. The game is designed around player choice, allowing you to tailor your experience to whatever you enjoy most.

You could, for example, run Heist all day and completely ignore the rest of the game, and still generate plenty of currency while having fun. The same applies to Delve, mapping, bosses, or any other system. You can spend all day delving and not miss out on anything meaningful, especially since characters do not gain passive skill points from side content the way they do during the campaign. Once you reach endgame, progression is no longer tied to engaging with specific mechanics.

You can also focus exclusively on mapping without missing anything essential of things like delve, heist or sanctu, because the game never forcibly funnels you into content you do not want to engage with. Nothing grabs you by the hand and drags you into specific mechanics. Even if GGG were to introduce T18 maps, they would still be entirely optional. Their existence alone would not compel anyone to run them.

That said, FOMO can become an issue if new content ends up being significantly more rewarding than T17 maps or alternative strategies. But that is simply the nature of PoE, rewards scale with difficulty and investment. You could just as easily farm Ubers all day and make serious currency, despite claims that they are “not profitable.” Running a single Uber fight will not suddenly make you rich, just as running one T16 map will not shower you in hundreds of divines. Profit comes from consistency and specialization, not from isolated runs.

In short, outside of the campaign, opting out of certain content does not mean you are falling behind. It simply means you are choosing how you want to play.

This was never a problem until they decided to make it a problem.

T17s were the worst addition to the game because they further stratified balancing for rewards. For almost a decade, it didn't matter if you were a multi-mirror or in some wacky homebrew build with double the investment to be half as fast. You all ended up in the same place, farming the same thing.

If you wanted something more challenging, you went and did Uber and later Valdos.


That is all there ever needed to be. It worked for almost a decade, and player numbers rose steadily throughout that time. Now they are on the decline because T17s killed the ground loot, aka killed the game, per Chris Wilson's statement. I can do them on any character I make, but I won't. I don't like buying them, I don't like rolling them, I don't like juicing them, and I hate running them because of the mods and layouts. The same goes for most of the playerbase that stays in T16s.

Not everyone is a sperg that thinks opening 100 maps an hour, clicking heist contract caches, is good gameplay, and the game should not be balanced around that level of asperger's.


Design a game for less than 10% of the player base, then don't be shocked when you end up with only 10% of your players. Games are hobbies, you should get bored at some point if you put in 100 hours in the first week and a half of a league.

Nothing is truly optional when newly added content carries exclusive drops that are stronger/more interesting than older items.