Some More Delve Improvements

Delving is probably the best content in years this game had.

Sadly you managed to ruin it, the league is dead whitin only 5 weeks, you did not hear your player base, delving costs are stupid, it takes hours mapping just to get about 30 minutes worth of delving. I'm already away from this league, sadly because I honestly enjoyed the first week and thought it would be the best one in years.

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katsuragi18 wrote:

If you're worried that Atlas content/mapping would be dead if you hand out Delve content freely to the players, then change Atlas mechanics to something even better that could match the fun Delve currently offers! Not barring the good and fun content Delve offers behind lifeless grinding.

They seem to be "doubling down" on Atlas, despite evidence it's boring/broken. Such a shame, Atlas is the sole source of why Delve isn't being very well received.

This is literally standard league except with a few yellow rocks you left click on once or twice per map (at least perandus chests had a little "encounter" to fight before it gave you the resources you needed).

Here's a solution for this "so-called" Delve content (the sulphite left-click rocks that do nothing and are super boring):

Have a "Delve Encounter" in maps, like a mineshaft in the map with an enter-able zone, that you see Niko out in front of and then accept a quest, then you can enter the "mineshaft" and complete ONE Delve (complete with "loot-explosions" and darkness-side paths) - just like a Haku mission - to receive a ton of sulphite (that you can then subsequently use to do "official" delves on your own later.

There, Delve league solved.

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Mukee wrote:

Delving is probably the best content in years this game had.

Sadly you managed to ruin it, the league is dead whitin only 5 weeks, you did not hear your player base, delving costs are stupid, it takes hours mapping just to get about 30 minutes worth of delving. I'm already away from this league, sadly because I honestly enjoyed the first week and thought it would be the best one in years.

that goes for me too, and i'm really sad about it. :(

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harter_morgoth wrote:

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Mukee wrote:

Delving is probably the best content in years this game had.

Sadly you managed to ruin it, the league is dead whitin only 5 weeks, you did not hear your player base, delving costs are stupid, it takes hours mapping just to get about 30 minutes worth of delving. I'm already away from this league, sadly because I honestly enjoyed the first week and thought it would be the best one in years.

that goes for me too, and i'm really sad about it. :(

+1

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Makillda wrote:

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harter_morgoth wrote:

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Mukee wrote:

Delving is probably the best content in years this game had.

Sadly you managed to ruin it, the league is dead whitin only 5 weeks, you did not hear your player base, delving costs are stupid, it takes hours mapping just to get about 30 minutes worth of delving. I'm already away from this league, sadly because I honestly enjoyed the first week and thought it would be the best one in years.

that goes for me too, and i'm really sad about it. :(

+1

+1

I'm now down to 2hrs of playtime this league. The time and effort required before I can play Delve is just tedious and plain boring.

Name of the league should be: POE 3.4, Standard League with a chance of Delving

First time posting. Love the game and appreciate everything the development team pours into this it. Great work on all the updates. Just finished playing through Fall of Oriath and loved it.

Reading a lot of the hate here, I wanted to post in this thread as well, that I really like Delve. However, I agree with the most popular critcism:

* Although in the early levels the influx of Voltaxic Sulphite is okay compared to the expense for delving further, it becomes more problematic the deeper you delve.
* I'd like to see the delve as an alternate to the Atlas instead of beeing tight synergically to it. I believe that given players disjunct alternative options is better than to tie everything together. It feels like the only reason it is tight together is because of the danger that the delve is simply superior to the Atlas and would render the latter useless. In this case a better solution would be, at least I think so, to improve the problems of the Atlas (map sustaining: reduce frustration of many people having trouble sustaining it)
* I really dislike the limit of Voltaxic Sulphite. I don't see any positive thing about this. I can understand the purpose of having to farm it and pay to delve, to limit the amount/depth of delves a player can run per hour. This might be a cheap way to solve the problem, but one that will work with the correct relation of influx vs expense. However, the limit on Voltaxic Sulphite only generates negative feelings from my side. Every time I hit the limit and loose Voltaxic Sulphite I could have gained because I am full, it feels like I lost opportunity to have fun, as delving is time I have fun with. I simply do not see any situation where this feels like a better game, than one without this limit.
* I also think the handling of the flares is annoying. I don't want them to be removed, as they have a wonderful purpose for short sprints away from the lighted areas with the feeling of a time constraint and darkness approaching. Flares excel at this. However, please also let me build lamps away from the the mine cart route. They would be worthless as long as you are pushing deeper down in the mine with the car, but with a account persistent mine I could bring light to dark areas I run later with another character. I am aware this is no small change as many darkness and delve related things would be required to change for such a system to make sense, but I really love how your mine in Terraria becomes cooler the longer you work on it, improve it, lighten it up. I want to see something into that direction for delve as well if it ever will be added permanently.
* I am not sure if other people share this view, but I really don't like to have to spent all my playtime in utter darkness. I really wished the delve would be much brighter and have much higher variety. So many games did that better before and I wished Path of Exile would take a look how other games implemented this: Terraria and Starbound (I can light something up for a longer time with torches, some deep biomes are not that dark at all, but lighted by lava, lighted ice biomes are pretty brigt), Ori and the blind Forest (the game is full of wonderful accents between bright elements on the screen and dark areas). I understand that this also is no easy change as the current system is built around the darkness both in terms of dangerous areas but also in terms of visibility. The bright node area events excel at this. They give a distinct highlight to the darkness. I'd like to have more bright spots in the delve which animate me to delve through utter dark areas to get to them.

Please fix the loading screen bug in Delve. 50% chance to bug the loading screen whenever I try to Delve. When I click on the Delve nodes from my HO or from the mine encampment, 50% chance that I wont go inside the Delve and there would just be a text at the top saying "entering delve mines" which disappears after 5 seconds or so. After that, I can't really click on the same Delve node again, as I need to warp to my HO or back again to the mine encampment to temporarily fix the bug. SG server btw.

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MNNoxMortem wrote:

* I'd like to see the delve as an alternate to the Atlas instead of beeing tight synergically to it.

I'd say it IS the 'alternate' to mapping - in the mean of 'alternating with it'. This kind of solution is (at least) mandatory for GGG to reach what they always aim with their leagues: push you/players through the game, force them to climb higher and higher in difficulty and risk. That's why we (now) have to pass act 10 before mapping, thats why more and more valuables/rewards get bound to higher content - and with the new mechanic of the sulphite it shifts this pressure to a new limit, ofcourse... I dont see a real reason to keep this pressure under core/permanent conditions, and I dont have issues with such alternating if balanced well.

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* I really dislike the limit of Voltaxic Sulphite. I don't see any positive thing about this. I can understand the purpose of having to farm it and pay to delve, to limit the amount/depth of delves a player can run per hour. This might be a cheap way to solve the problem

Its indeed a 'cheap' solution, and (still, hopefully) not needed that massive under core conditions, see above.

IMHO 'needed' improvements:
-indication of (at least) the 2 resistance values while delving (the info on the generator is not always refering to your actual depth)
-search function for delve 'map' (visible part, obviously)
-parameter to limit item filter code to only affect delve loot (and, still, a value to calculate with char level)

In general, I think the different upgrades on the generator 'offer' too many parameters to force decisions from us (especially flare radius and duration).
And I'm still wondering about some unexplained 'features' (handling cities...) and where the streak counter is gone to...

@Mr_Cee this is a very good point and I can agree!

Edit: Just saw Baeclast#27 where TarkeCat argues how important the lockout to delve is and thinking about it, I totally agree. I am super interested into seeing which choice GGG will make to improve this.