A genuine question for SoftCore players

Hi,

I like PoE 2 but I quickly got bored of the game because of the poverty of content offered in the end-game (EA so it's normal, 220 hours on the clock, I can farm T16 over and over again, “veteran” player of PoE 1).

I went back to Titan Quest for a few hours and realized something that may seem obvious to many gamers:
I enjoy Hack'n'Slash for the pleasure of getting stronger and finding valuable items.

Until then, nothing surprising HOWEVER, I found myself realizing that on TQ I never took into account the “financial value” of an item.
At the slightest blue drop, I just wanted to put it in a chest and use it on another character.

In fact, I realized that on PoE I only play through the prism of the “value” of what I get.
After a certain threshold, I only play to accumulate currencies, even if I'm not going to use them.

My question is this, and it's addressed to SC players:
Do you play for “fun” or to “get rich”?
Personally, I've played 3000h+ to get rich and I realize that I'm missing out on what really counts.

What gets me hooked on PoE 1/2 is this ability to get “rich”, but when I compare my experience to TQ I get the impression that something is wrong.

What's your opinion on the subject?

im playing for currency to test new builds & find bugs. as a main support the declining player base and overload of bot trades / currency bot manipulation sorts me out to quit the game until new content arrives.

poe2 has a huge balancing issue i think thats the biggest reason most people just leave. either play that one stupid annoying shitty build a known streamer posted once or you cant compete in any way. you cut out of the market so you basically play ssf. theres little to no multiplayer but 5 leechers and that one stupid build or the other stupid build. its like 2 classes all use the same items / skills bs. im talking about 300 hours of main support with one single build as carry in any public game or with friends. the annoying shitty one that disturbes you from moving or the other that gives you eye crabs. the one that clears 3-5 screens in 1 second fun god mode cheat code build. i started playing support as i figured my totem build takes longer to set up one totem in the time a map is cleared by the god mode carries & basically stopped as i noticed that at no point any of those hardcore one shot the game professionals even need a support to carry 6 people. it went so far that i had to rechoice basically 50% of my items to move speed and respec 20 skill points+ to move speed + throw away my 1 divine each jewels for 2% movespeed jewels + adorned & blink on cooldown swap to be able to keep up while heavily breathing. i hope ggg fixes those issues or the game is doomed as a bot irl $$$ market place.

tltr thats what im playing for:
https://maxroll.gg/poe2/planner/qxif01r9

I always play for fun.

My biggest problem with POE is the emphasis on trade. The whole game is designed with trade in mind, and this will always limit the fun of "fun inclined players".
While I still enjoy the game, while giving myself a handicap by not trading, it still ends up feeling like something is missing. You're always reminded that you're missing out if you refuse to trade, and the drops will always reinforce that reminder.

I play for fun. I just hit mapping for the first time and have been playing since launch, that’s how casual I am XD. So I’m never going to be rich. And I’m perfectly ok with that. My build will never compete with the HOWA Herald stat stacking meta. But it’s *my* build, and it’s gotten me this far, and most importantly it’s a blast to play. I have thoughts on several other builds I want to do already, none of them are meta builds, none prioritize efficiency of farming. All are focused singularly on one goal - having fun. I have limited leisure time, obviously, I’m not looking to spend it doing anything which doesn’t further that goal.

For fun.

I play on trade just for the currency exchange but I've no interest in accumulating wealth or buying/selling gear. As long as i have the orbs i need I'm happy. Finding/crafting upgrades for myself is part of what keeps me playing.

My generally pattern in a league is get a functional build to endgame and then make 1-2 alt characters with dumb builds inspired by the gear that's dropped.

At the momemnt my 'Doryani's Prototype Flicker-strike Low-life Infernalist' is working better than i thought it would...

I like adventures. What I'm doing is mostly just wondering around.
Sometimes I need to grind to go further but as far as there is an adventure, I just have fun staying there. "I think I'm done here. Good stuff" then I go wondering again.

From my perspective, PoE was brutal and it was good enough for me. I understand the "story mode" and I like it. "Acts" has been getting better and better in that sense. "Chaotic endgame" is also cool.

If I don't like the league mechanic or "flavour of the month", I just pick a melee weapon in SSF and dig my own holes. Ruthless is supposed to be a perfect situation for me but I haven't had chance to try after the league. (too many things to explore!)

At the end of the day, I really like this "random map generation", the endless paths, holes and caves, tricks, dead-ends and loops, RNG and sudden death.
Still I can find the "good" farming spot here and there.

What I didn't mention are "not good" things and you guessed it. :)



Edit
I'm not sure if I could describe properly but current PoE2 is like "endless lab" mode. I kind of liking it as long as I could stay away from "not this" mindset :P

"

Kaewis#5884 wrote:

Personally, I've played 3000h+ to get rich and I realize that I'm missing out on what really counts.

Yeah. I never played PoE1 and hopped now on the PoE2 train. And this is one of my biggest gripes with the game. After a certain point in endgame it is nothing more than a currency grind to then go and buy items on the trade site.

The best feeling of getting an item for me was: Using 4 orbs of chance on white azure amulets I collected along the way to get my everlasting gaze azure amulet. Bad roll tho. So let's go again. Took me another three tries with orbs of chance to get one with a good roll. Then I could use my distilled emotions to annoint it deterministically with a useful modifier that I wanted. Then took the risk of vaaling it, using an omen of corruption I got in a ritual, giving me a nice 7% increased elemental resitances.

This felt amazing. I could use all types of stuff I collected through gameplay - white azure amulets, orbs of chance, distilled emotions, vaal orb, omen of corruption - to get an item that I wanted with a reasonable mixture of determinism and rng.

Farming 5 days to get 20 divine orbs so you can buy a staff on the trade site that gives you 20% more overall damage just doesn't even remotely hit like that.

i play for fun in campaign, early to mid end game farming to get rich, once I have enough currency I buy the gear I need I play to try and get to level 100. Then around 93 I realize the grind and cheesy deaths that take away 3 hours of grinding away isnt fun enough to try and hit 100.

Haven't hit 100 yet, been playing POE2 since day 1 of EA and POE1 since 2012 to 2024 (off and on).

"

Slart1bartfast#0332 wrote:

Yeah. I never played PoE1 and hopped now on the PoE2 train. And this is one of my biggest gripes with the game. After a certain point in endgame it is nothing more than a currency grind to then go and buy items on the trade site.

The best feeling of getting an item for me was: Using 4 orbs of chance on white azure amulets I collected along the way to get my everlasting gaze azure amulet. Bad roll tho. So let's go again. Took me another three tries with orbs of chance to get one with a good roll. Then I could use my distilled emotions to annoint it deterministically with a useful modifier that I wanted. Then took the risk of vaaling it, using an omen of corruption I got in a ritual, giving me a nice 7% increased elemental resitances.

This felt amazing. I could use all types of stuff I collected through gameplay - white azure amulets, orbs of chance, distilled emotions, vaal orb, omen of corruption - to get an item that I wanted with a reasonable mixture of determinism and rng.

Farming 5 days to get 20 divine orbs so you can buy a staff on the trade site that gives you 20% more overall damage just doesn't even remotely hit like that.

now just "imagine" if instead of doing that you could

1. take that base item you wanted and upgrade its bonus to specific multipliers you want (physical, attack, defensive, elemental etc) by up to another 20% with catalysts

2. get bunch of essences which will roll one guaranteed specific stat turning the item to rare until you roll good stuff, if you dont just slap another essence on it to reroll the whole thing or use scouring orb to turn it back into a white and go at it with something else

3. once you get good "base" for either prefixes or suffixes go to crafting bench and craft lock prefix/suffix on it to lock the part you want so you can reroll just the half you want to change

4. go to horticrafting station and reroll with specific set of modifiers on the locked item massively increasing chance of getting the right mod you are going for

5. if all went well and you end up with open prefix/suffix you can either exalt a random OR go to a crafting bench and craft one tier lower than maximum mod of ANYTHING that could be rolled on that slot for few chaos/exalt/divine

6. wait thats not all now you go get Eldritch essences and slap two new implicit modifiers on it if eligible


7. now you can gamble it all with Vaal orb ...


and thats just pretty BASIC crafting method in PoE1 there are far more complex ones that real crafters use to get even better results (and whole gameplay modes to support those methods of crafting like Delve...)


THAT is real crafting not rng casino that is in PoE2 with ONE try per item ...

"

kryadan#1199 wrote:

Then around 93 I realize the grind and cheesy deaths that take away 3 hours of grinding away isnt fun enough to try and hit 100.

Haven't hit 100 yet, been playing POE2 since day 1 of EA and POE1 since 2012 to 2024 (off and on).

PoE's randomness in difficulty is like rolling 3(easy-norm-hard) x 3(easy-norm-hard) dice.

"easy x easy" is like like sitting still in a chair inside a cube with nothing but a flat plastic surface.
"hard x hard" is like inside a cube with boiling metal surface.

It's easy to limit the lower rolls so that there will be higher chance of "cheesy" situations happening.

Our brain is very fickle so that we find out differences and patterns from nowhere, suddenly.
Our brain cannot stop this because no reasons so quickly begin to doze off when we get bored in a safe situation and really hate to be disturbed.

What if "cheesy deaths that take away 3 hours of grinding away" is this situation ?

We need to provide a work environment for our brain to 96~100 with the right amount of retention. :)