Why T18 Maps Are Necessary for the Future of Endgame PoE

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Pizzarugi#6258 wrote:

Essence, Delirium, Ritual, Bestiary, Betrayal, and a whole ton of others simply can't compete with the likes of T17 Blight, Ambush, or Incursion.

Nobody runs Blight nor Incursion on T17s because of the layout and Ambush is very mediocre. Meanwhile Deli (5x paranoia or 100% currency/fossils) and Essences easily outperform Ambush. T17s were already quite bad last league. Why would they suddenly be better now?

You haven't touched them at all since at least Settlers, have you?

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Bosscannon#3325 wrote:

No. If you would shave item power or do any carpet nerf fest then all it would achieve is make current t16 feel like t17 and current t17 feel like t18.

Its not what you want, unless you want the same thing as the bored elites and not realise this?

If the end result is GGG getting rid of T17 maps and uber bosses, I think that's acceptable.

Nerfs have to happen. T17 maps and uber bosses literally wouldn't exist in the first place if these people weren't given power and access to immense wealth required to achieve it. Gear is, by and large, the greatest contributor to player power.

Unless you have a better idea where nerfs need to be done, hitting the peak potential of gear, which most people will never obtain due to said wealth requirement, would go a long way in fixing the problem.

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Scarletsword#4354 wrote:

Nobody runs Blight nor Incursion on T17s because of the layout and Ambush is very mediocre.

You've clearly never played Blight if you think T17 maps and their long narrow corridor layouts are bad for it. Blight shines the brightest in maps that prevent the lanes from spreading out in a chaotic spider web, because then you can stack empowering towers more easily.

I'll give you that Incursion was a bad example.

Well in my personal opinion if anything needs to get nuked its the stackers.
I dont see many conventional builds that scale multiple vectors instead of single one for everything having fun in t17+ content without astronomical investment or adhering to some very rigid build requirements (like bens uber event zerker build that needed to stack both max res and suppression).

Once again the difficulty already heavily impacts build diversity in t16. If you blanket nerf player power now you will feel the exact same build diversity impact that you hate in t17 but sooner in t16. This is not an improvement to your experience.

Why dont you agree that simply removing t17+ reward exclusivity and leaving it in as pure challenge for the bored and ignore those who are bored with even that is enough? Its the least disruptive option.

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Bosscannon#3325 wrote:

Why dont you agree that simply removing t17+ reward exclusivity and leaving it in as pure challenge for the bored and ignore those who are bored with even that is enough? Its the least disruptive option.

I do agree. Hollow out T17 and make them flex content. This would let GGG go crazy with enemy scaling in that.

However, what you want is to address the symptom, not the cause. Like I said before, T17 and uber bosses wouldn't need to exist in the first place if GGG did something about letting the upper end of player power spiral out of control.

I don't want them to address the symptoms.

People, including me, already got used to them as the current normal.

No need to mess with it again. Just instead of constantly adding to the top finally call it a day and introduce a soft ceiling that we discussed and instead focus on just making more cool stuff for everyone to enjoy cause achieving perfect balance that will make sense both in terms of player power and market impact is way too ambitious for a studio that works on two separate games simultenously and it would be absolute hubris to mess with the game pretending they can handle it all.

I don't want to see things get even worse in search for a better solution and a solution that pleases everyone doesnt exist. If you set out to please everyone you please no one.

I am completely fine with broken builds existing if they also dont break the economy. Decouple or at least minimise their power from their impact on economy and we are good for many years to come.

Or decouple individual players from having to rely on the the economy...

How about T18 getting locked mod/requirement:

Maximum number of Players in Area is one

This would prevent abusing it by groups and partially prevent trivialization of the content. I would even consider getting less amount of portals upon opening.

Just a though - what if T18 as "solo only" would drop untradeable altered voidstones with something like locked 1-2 mods (corrupted) with downsides and upsides (like monsters fire an additional projectile, 2% more juice from harvest), or similar to something we had years ago?

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VoidWhisperer42#5989 wrote:

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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.

i get you. i get where you're coming from. but that is why i say theres many ways to interpret what "optional" means.

for some getting to 100 is optional. but how optional is it when the benefits are great?

its similar to ascendancies. i could even argue, you DONT need ascendancies. some people can kill ubers without ascendancies. does that make ascendancies optional?

a lot of things have rewards that simply are too great to feel optional.

when you say the game is designed around player choice.

try and think of it this way. if your work place says "put on this red button on your uniform when you work, we'll give you 1 dollar every day that you do".

who in their right mind would not put on the red button? assuming 21 working days a month, that 21 dollars for doing practically nothing.

i do agree to a certain extent, you get to choose your experience. but at the same time the rewards simply make it too good to miss. the fact that people rely on carry services say a huge lot. why does global 820 exist? its because people want to clear "optional" content but need help to do so.

in the forums i see a lot of people saying stuff like, "you dont need to x" or "you dont need y". definitely not wrong but at the same time i find it slightly disingenuous. i dont need fast food and in fact fast food is bad for me. but do i WANT fast food? lmao yes. i do. people want a lot of things.

sometimes when people realize they simply cant have what they want. they stop trying. similarly, i've long stopped trying to give a butt ton of suggestions to ggg. ggg has actually listened and implemented a lot of what i want. but there are more that i want but i've accepted that it wont go my way.

heck i really should get off these forums too since i m not even playing poe anymore. but i still have some nostalgia and i still would prefer the game to grow in directions that give players a more enjoyable experience.

a lot of people are passionate about how they prefer the game to be, because they want to play the game more. i always feel theres a middle ground that should be made so that more players can be kept happy. else, they'll end up like me. leaving the game. at my peak, i had maybe 15 or so IRL friends playing poe in my guild. in the past 5 years the peak concurrent number was what? 3 persons? 2 persons? then nowadays its mostly 0 persons.

alot of things are "optional" in poe. but as gamers mature and realize what they actually want in a game and find that poe does not deliver, poe does indeed become entirely optional.

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Pizzarugi#6258 wrote:

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Scarletsword#4354 wrote:

Nobody runs Blight nor Incursion on T17s because of the layout and Ambush is very mediocre.

You've clearly never played Blight if you think T17 maps and their long narrow corridor layouts are bad for it. Blight shines the brightest in maps that prevent the lanes from spreading out in a chaotic spider web, because then you can stack empowering towers more easily.

I'll give you that Incursion was a bad example.

Blight literally spawns less lanes and monsters in T17s but I guess all the top-end players including people like Sebk and Empy's group are doing it wrong then since they play it in T16.5s.

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I dont see many conventional builds that scale multiple vectors instead of single one for everything having fun in t17+ content without astronomical investment

Well all the stacking is currently focused on int stacking and that sure seems to require "astronomical investment" for anything useful in endgame mapping. Like I tried a COC int stacking inquisitor and some "decent" 12s lightning attribute + ES jewel cost me 80 div? For that sum alone I could get several good pieces for a generic *insert your melee skill of choice here* build.

For players who measure "decent wealth" in the low hundreds of divines, int stacking certainly seems like a prohibitive investment.

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exsea#1724 wrote:

for some getting to 100 is optional. but how optional is it when the benefits are great?

its similar to ascendancies. i could even argue, you DONT need ascendancies. some people can kill ubers without ascendancies. does that make ascendancies optional?

There is no content unlocked at level 100, and no items exist with a level 100 requirement. Most builds are effectively complete by the early 90s, a point you naturally reach simply by progressing your Atlas. The few levels beyond that offer nothing of real value beyond a modest increase in player power, and even that power is entirely optional. It is not required to engage with any content in the game. In that sense, pushing to level 100 can reasonably be viewed as optional side content, much like extreme min maxing your character to its absolute limits.

After all, if someone is willing to play the game as an unascended class and still succeed, there is no reason they should not. Ascendancies in this context are simply another layer of optional player power. You are free to choose whichever one you prefer, and the game does not force you into a fixed choice, or even into choosing one at all.

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exsea#1724 wrote:

alot of things are "optional" in poe. but as gamers mature and realize what they actually want in a game and find that poe does not deliver, poe does indeed become entirely optional.

This is something even a small child intuitively understands without needing maturity or prolonged deliberation. If they enjoy playing with Lego bricks more than coloring with crayons, they will simply choose the Lego bricks and not overthink what they dislike about crayons.

The same principle tends to apply to those often described as mature gamers. If they enjoy Path of Exile, they play it. If they do not, they move on to something else. There is little reason to fixate on a game they do not enjoy, or to become emotionally invested in arguing that its design should be reshaped to align with their personal expectations.