The current state of "Crafting" Is killing my enjoyment in this otherwise amazing game that I love

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Akedomo#3573 wrote:

PoE 1's reliance on the Economy to balance the game made the entire thing unenjoyable for me.

I have no issue with there being trade, or crafting in the game. But it's done in such a way that it intentionally makes loot drops awful. And huge chunks of the game are heavily balanced around it.

I don't think GGG knows how damaging this is to an ARPG either, where the focus should be on the loot and gameplay loop. The game has terrible player retention because outside of the unique builds and passive tree, most players don't derive satisfaction from most of the other systems. It's made specifically for a small percentage of players.

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grepman#2451 wrote:

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Akedomo#3573 wrote:

PoE 1's reliance on the Economy to balance the game made the entire thing unenjoyable for me.

I have no issue with there being trade, or crafting in the game. But it's done in such a way that it intentionally makes loot drops awful. And huge chunks of the game are heavily balanced around it.

I don't think GGG knows how damaging this is to an ARPG either, where the focus should be on the loot and gameplay loop. The game has terrible player retention because outside of the unique builds and passive tree, most players don't derive satisfaction from most of the other systems. It's made specifically for a small percentage of players.

how does the game have "terrible player retention" ?

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smokesnugsYT#7752 wrote:

LvL 92 Witch Hunter Merc

LvL 91 Infernalist Witch

244 hours playtime on STEAM

Please GGG, I beg of you!!

Literally 90% of my items get bricked

Awesome chest piece with massive +ES% and flat +ES??? SWEET!!

Add spirit to it?

Best I can do is stun threshold or life regen..

This is by FAR the worst aspect of the game for me,

The punishing nature of the game in different aspects I can just about swallow, But the non stop bricking of awesome items and feeling like it will be a year before I find even a "Good item" let's not even consider a perfect item, is just frustrating and daunting... It's already hard enough to find some of these items with good base stats, why make it nearly impossible to make them into what your seeking after you manage to actually find it?

Please change the system and make it more rewarding and POSSIBLE to actually "CRAFT"

Other than this I fucking love the game, I just can't handle this endless search for items that end up bricked 99% of the time

And just for context,

I've spent the brunt of my playtime in maps leveling and grinding for gear, and have been spending hundreds of exalts and other currencies on trying to make good gear... I have honestly only made 1 item worth mentioning and it's a high phys dmg xbow on my merc.

Every thing else I have thats decent I had to buy on trade... I've spent probably 100 hours crafting and have nothing to show for it on my infernalist


I am currently in a state of limbo where I want / need better gear , but my only option is to grind tirelessly in maps non-stop, juicing towers and juicing maps in hopes of high value drops that I can simply sell and re-purpose the currency into better gear. It feels as if there is no other path for me other than buying super inflated gear from the trade site.

Now keep in mind, I am currently doing this... I play everyday and spend countless hours juicing maps, juicing towers, and grinding t16-t18 lvl 82 maps NON-STOP, I pick up every single item base that is of gear I am looking for and spend all my currency on trying to craft / upgrade it into a usable item.

Unfortunately this is NOT working, I have well over 250 hours into POE2, and I have still only crafted ONE item of consequence... This is insanity!!

I absolutely cannot comprehend how players on SSF are managing to gear their characters, If I only had the options to play SSF I would have quit Poe2 about 200 hours ago.


Please GGG, Fix something about this system... I just want to be able to upgrade my gear without having to grind for 60 hours selling items on the trade site for raw currency in order to buy super inflated items that 9/10 times don't even have the exact stats I'm looking for anyways!


P.S I Just spent 35 chaos on 1 item attempting to get some of the stats I was looking for and not even once in those 35 chaos did it even come CLOSE to being the stats I was looking for... This is insane, this is going to kill the game for me.

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Akedomo#3573 wrote:

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grepman#2451 wrote:

"

Akedomo#3573 wrote:

PoE 1's reliance on the Economy to balance the game made the entire thing unenjoyable for me.

I have no issue with there being trade, or crafting in the game. But it's done in such a way that it intentionally makes loot drops awful. And huge chunks of the game are heavily balanced around it.

I don't think GGG knows how damaging this is to an ARPG either, where the focus should be on the loot and gameplay loop. The game has terrible player retention because outside of the unique builds and passive tree, most players don't derive satisfaction from most of the other systems. It's made specifically for a small percentage of players.

how does the game have "terrible player retention" ?

Has something to do with the vast majority of players never leaving the first few acts. Or the low amount of time they play before quitting. Since PoE is a live service game, that's a bit of an issue.

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grepman#2451 wrote:

are you talking about poe2 or poe1 here ?

I would argue the player retention are some of the best in both games, settlers league in poe1 was a huge success and poe2 still has like 300k concurrent players in steam alone


players who end up quitting the game in acts, are usually not the target audience anyway, neither in poe1 or poe2

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SoujiroSeta#2390 wrote:

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Karr285#4892 wrote:

I proved your point by ending my statement with I'll just buy the item off the trade site???

That's an odd conclusion.

You proved my point when you said

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Pick up base, toss xmute and Aug, nothing hit toss loot. If good regal it, no hit toss.

Then you repeat that same process on another base YOU PICKED UP FROM THE GROUND. That's called making people look at and pick up loot on the ground.

You never ever do this in PoE 1. Ever. You get 1 base and thats it.

You didn't answer my question:

Do you want people to pick up ground loot? Yes or No?

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Tristavel#6889 wrote:

Eh, I don't think I've ever played an ARPG where 99% of ground loot wasn't more or less irrelevant by the endgame. Maybe the first Diablo? By endgame I'd typically hunt only for very specific items, because let's face it, looking up hundreds of junk pieces in hope of seeing some theoretically possible minor upgrade is exhausting and boring. I think it's natural at that point.

PoE1 is a bit of an extreme case due to sheer amount of junk dropped and because special (fractured/influenced/etc) bases exist, but the principle is the same. No one picks up anything because chances for it being good are just too slim for the effort (especially with unidentified items being a thing).

Trying to drastically change that feels like "reinventing the wheel" - we DO care about ground loot in PoE2 (well, more than in PoE1 at least), but if the price for that is tedious, frustrating and ultimately inefficient system we got, give me PoE1 crafting any day.

And obviously there's no need to bring back PoE system as a whole. Essences (old style), fossils, harvest, good old bench - just one of these would make overall experience feel much better than it is now. And if they really want people to pick up floor loot, they can always add something akin to Last Epoch's "forge potential", so infinite tinkering with one base is no longer possible.