[outdated] Caustic Arrow Solo Map MFer (20/300+)

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I really do not like the approach POE has taken this league at all.

To improve online player participation, POE decided to make the challenges this league much more time intensive - double, or more, as compared to the past few leagues.

So, endless repetition of the same content - over and over again - to achieve challenges is the new design.

Is this good? Desirable?

I think not at all.

Why can't GGG attract continued participation by offering new content/races/prizes?

Instead, the forumla is to make 40/40 about 2 times more difficult in terms of time commitment.
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Don't get me wrong - I'm enjoying the league - and, after a fashion, I think I'm enjoying the leveling process for my first ever level 95 toon.

But is the time I spend achieving these ends really worthwhile?
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And there's further impact on the game.

Previously you could roll CA/magic-fnd and leisurely progress towards 40/40 without a huge time commitment - fairly confident of success.

Now... it takes so much time to get to 40/40 that you need to rapidly clear maps with extremely high DPS - not just for maps, but for killing bosses.

Which makes a ton of builds completely unsuitable - unless you group or unless you're willing to play 8 hours/day for the entire league - this includes CA/magic find.

And I for one, was hoping to play the terrible Blight skill - I like the way it works, and it's a unique playstyle - but getting 10,000 map levels on a Blight toon - no thanks. I'm now playing the most powerful reasonably affordable toon in the game (CI/HoWA) IMO - and it's taking me way too long.

And I've had to completely alter my playstyle to give me a chance at 10K map levels (don't pick up anything at all unless it's totally worthwhile, re-jig your Atlas so that it drops linear or otherwise quick-to-run maps... skip everything in a map (for me this includes Essences) unless it's fast - and if you don't care about leveling.... skip everything that's not fast and won't drop maps. Essences here are a waste of time for sure - Breaches probably make the cut because so many mobs spawn that map drops increase enough to make Breaches worth while.

Side note - probably these same mechanics and map drop rates continue into next league - but without Breaches or some high mob spawn mechanism - next league could easily be extremely difficult until GGG rebalances things; for me, Breaches make all the difference between sustaining Shaped Mesa/Strands (or nearly so) and having to spend all your currency on maps or sextants or Zana/mods to sustain a map ppol.
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Once more... I think GGG will be better served by trying to make the game fresh/new/technically challenging - as opposed to making it time-consuming/tedious.

But I may be wrong...

Perhaps striving for a goal is more rewarding than actually fulfilling a goal.

According to GGG their player-participation numbers have never been higher.

So, in spite of my desire... I think time-intensive, monotonous grinds are the new norm.

Expect next league's 40/40 to take at least as much time as this league's.

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hankinsohl wrote:

And I for one, was hoping to play the terrible Blight skill - I like the way it works, and it's a unique playstyle - but getting 10,000 map levels on a Blight toon - no thanks. I'm now playing the most powerful reasonably affordable toon in the game (CI/HoWA) IMO - and it's taking me way too long.

a) Only about 0.6% of the playerbase pushes for 40/40. These are the only individuals which will be affected by super time-intensive grinds, of which there are only two (10k tiers, Chayula splinters (grindy on the basis of RNG, and it's unpurchasable)). Everyone else, only ~3-5% of which actually get 36/40 or higher, will be ENTIRELY unaffected by this.

EDIT: Note, I'm discluding end-game grinds from this because the format hasn't really changed that much since it was introduced.

In other words, having one, or two, grindy AF challenges, impacts an insignificant enough amount of the playerbase that "According to GGG their player-participation numbers have never been higher," definitely has almost nothing to do with the way the challenges have been orchestrated this league.

It's MUCH more likely that it has to do with the mechanics of Breach itself, the fact that power creep is (apparently?) fun (I disagree) and keeps players around longer, and just a general climb in new players. And probably other factors.

b) If you can clear a map in even 5 minutes (which is slow-ish, and which the CA toon can easily do, as long as you only pick up good bases), and you're running T11 maps, that's 132 tiers per hour, or ~78 hours playtime. Accounting for more proper MFing (8 minutes), that's ~121 hours playtime.

In other words, two months in, if you've been playing T11+ maps for most of it at 2 hours per day, even semi-casual, you should have, or be really close, to 10k map tiers.

And if you're not, it's because you're simply not pushing high level maps.

Which, again, for those who aren't pushing 40/40, they won't care.

So this:

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To improve online player participation, POE decided to make the challenges this league much more time intensive - double, or more, as compared to the past few leagues.

Is straight up wrong. The amount of people that will be impacted by the very few time-intensive challenges (less than 5%, probably less than 1%) would not be significant enough to see a drastic spike in player retention.

In short, you're one of the few 40/40 people that will actually be affected by the grindy challenges, because you do only put in a few hours per day. I think what's going on here, more than anything, is that you're simply frustrated that your semi-casual approach is no longer 40/40 viable inside of a month.

Which, I think is... kind of the point.

GGG recognized that it was way too easy for people to people to just buy their way to 40/40 inside of a few weeks.

And as much as I agree with this:

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I think GGG will be better served by trying to make the game fresh/new/technically challenging - as opposed to making it time-consuming/tedious.

The problem is it doesn't MATTER what kind of new, skill-cap challenge they introduce into the game, because you'll be able to buy it anyway.

Shaper. Prime example.

Uber Atziri 10/10. Prime example.

Unless they really rein in on power creep, which seems unlikely, the only way that they can slow players down from maxing out on challenges is to add time-intensive ones.

Because I don't think introducing a skill-cap challenge that you can't buy (say, no party, one portal) will go well with the playerbase that can only put in 1-2 hours a day and *needs* to buy a few challenges in order to hit 24 or 36/40.

Which circles me back to 40/40 being < 1%.

The time-intensity was designed to give this small portion of the playerbase that enjoys maxing out on challenges something that they have to work toward personally, instead of buying it.

So this:

"

Perhaps striving for a goal is more rewarding than actually fulfilling a goal.

Is a bit of a misconception. Now, there's a goal you actually have no choice BUT to fulfill yourself. Which is more rewarding, I think, to most people, than fulfilling a goal by buying it.

Certainly was the case for me.

Good discussion.

And I think I agree with some of your points.

As stated in my previous post - player participation in this league - for whatever reason - has never been higher.

Is this due to the extreme difficulty of 40/40 as compared to last league?

Beats me.

If only 0.5% or so of players previously completed 40/40, whatever is done this league will have virtually no impact on player participation numbers with regard to 40/40.

So, making challenges far more time intensive for the 40/40 players is pointless- maybe they'll knuckle-down and pursue the challenges, maybe not... but how does this affect overall player participation one way or the other? Answer, 0.5% maximum downside. Who knows how this might inspire new 40/40 players to take up the mantle - likely far less than existing 40/40 players - so this increased difficulty is again pointless.

So the only reason for upping time commitment is to build reputation - 40/40 is really hard. Up to the challenge? Then play POE.

Is this actually a selling point?

Answer - obviously not - only 0.5% or less of participants get 40/40. So if it's really difficult versus nearly impossible has no effect on player participation.
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So why the higher player participation numbers?

My guess - this league is actually better/more exciting than previous leagues and POE is gaining momemtem from new players, switching from games such as D3.

If this is the case... requiring that challenges be much more time consuming to complete has zero effect on player participation.

Based on Serleth's comments, we're in agreement on this point.
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RE - making challenges more time consuming.

Here we disagree.

If there's no upside to this, why did GGG do this?

IMO, I think it was a play for longer/higher player participation - and with the goal to be recognized as a challenging game - a skillful game. Not a D3 snooze-fest.

RE - Challenging and making 40/40 actually more difficult

Simple fix - require that hard content be completed solo. Bingo. Huge win on all accounts - reputation as a technically challenging game soars - because, well it's actually technically challenging.

Concrete fixes:

E.g., Shaper must be killed... solo.

10 Uber Atziri kills - must be solo.

It's trivially simple to up the technical difficulty requirement without substantially increasing time commitment - ideally this would of course be balanced.

The best players, the most skillful players, could get 40/40 rather quickly.

The rest of us would require longer... needing time to level and likely needing better gear.

And for me, that's where the time commitment becomes fun/challenging, rather than monotonous/boring.

And this dovetails into your point about needing to personally achieve goals as opposed to buying them.
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So making the game more time consuming...

Obviously... this is driven by some sort of profit motive. Increase reputation. Or increase player participation for transaction shop sales or... something... it's obviously profit motive driven.

My guess.... it's a reputation thing. Coupled with profit.

Releasing fresh content very regularly - after about 1-1/2 months, is beyond GGG - they simply do not have the resources for this.

So, the leagues must be more exiting from end-to-end over 3 months, or reputation of difficulty must increase or something else.... or more likely a combination of these things.
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Finally 40/40 Itself

Humans are funny things.

They want stuff that they don't have. The more difficult it is to have missing stuff, the more valuable it is.

Only once whatever it is that's desired is actually attained... there's a sense of letdown.

It's not the destination that's important... it's the journey.

And for me, this is why GGG is likely more successful this league.
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Finally, I'll leave you with an anecdote from my first manager at Microsoft.

When I was interviewing for Microsoft, my soon-to-be manager said that the reason he joined Microsoft was to make the world a better place - to help drive innovation to improve humanity.

This really stuck with me - make the world better.

On this note.... why can't GGG do the same. Make our entertainment better - not more tedious/time consuming - but simply better - for me, that means more challenging., more fun, newer.. not more time consuming.

Though 10K map tiers takes way too long (see rants above, LOL) IMO, it is much more doable than I thought a few weeks ago, now that I'm using speed mapping techniques.

In order to generate maps though, you'll need to kill all the mobs that spawn (but I skip essence mobs since this takes more time than it's worth for me). Unless you can afford to purchase a bunch of maps, boss rushing isn't a sustainable strategy.

If you do pursue 10K map levels, it's not necessary to rework your entire Atlas. I've removed all T10s (except Shaped Mesa), Tier 11s (except Shaped Strands) and T12s. I chisel my Strands, alch and go if I get any packsize at all - I'll reroll if I don't get packsize. I put "no leech" and "elemental reflect" maps off to the side and run those with another toon.

I'm almost able to maintain T11s using this approach - but not quite. When I run out of Strands, I'll have quite a few Mesas saved up. For Mesas, I don't chisel - I just alch and go, running all maps other than "no leech" and "elemental reflect." The Mesas last quite awhile as well and when I'm out of these, I find that I've restocked my Strands once more.

Ping-ponging back and forth between Strands/Mesa is possibly sustainable. I haven't run out of maps yet.
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If you plan to kill 40 Guardians, you'll possibly want to do some further Atlas pruning. I intend to switch to farming a Shaped T14 map (not sure which one yet) and will remove all other T14s and all T15s except Shaped Courtyard. This way I can farm for T16 maps.
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Probably reply to your other challenge post tomorrow.

Note - I'm copying this question I posed in the Gameplay Help and Discussion Session. Not much response over there - maybe one of you knows about this.
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After using a chaos orb on an item, the item is rerolled. Sometimes the resultant item has 4 affixes, sometimes 5 but usually 6.

Has GGG released any information about how likely each of the possible outcomes are?

On a related note, is it possible to chaos an item and end up with fewer than 4 affixes?

In the case of 4 affixes, is it possible to end up with 3 prefixes and 1 suffix or vice versa? Or do 4 affix items always roll with 2 prefixes and 2 suffixes?

If 3-1, 2-2, and 1-3 prefix-suffix distributions for 4 affix items are all possible, is each outcome equally likely?
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I've decided to write a monte-carlo chaos orb spam outcome analyzer in order to figure out how hard it is to chaos spam gear with certain attribute requirements.

For example, if you chaos spam an iLevel 84 Vaal Regalia and want 800 ES and say 60 total elemental resist, just how much chaos can you expect to use? And what about if you want that same chest, but this time with 40+ int as well?

The above information on affix distribution is certainly necessary to make the program accurate - but I'll guesstimate if needs must.

The trouble with a rigorous mathematical calculation for figuring out chaos spam odds is that there's so many combinations of affixes which might yield satisfactory results that it quickly becomes pretty intractable.