Path of Exile

[shoju]

Marauder: Onisu
Ranger: Agetoka
Witch: Tacitya
Shadow: Rhonen
Scion: Anoxtik
Other Scion (and current hander outer of the pay it forward gear): Furenetik

[Lissa]

Witch: Tahapenes
Ranger: _Lissa_
Scion: _Zensha_

[MonTy]

Made a post about patch 1.0.1. Getting a bit burnt out on the game as I've played a lot since open beta. Feel free to post about updates if I don't within a day or two.

[Frag]

I'm leaving POE. The inability to pause caused another death of a character and I simply cannot do it any more. I have a minor fortune in currency and gear in Nemesis, Hardcore if anyone wants it.

Cheers.


Edit: Well, there is no reason to keep these to my self either; my custom specs. They all are very powerful, though Nemesis focused, with a nod to self-found progression, so bear that in mind.

Best thing ever, basically: Anger/Wrath Split Arrow CI Shadow: http://goo.gl/yCqx7N

Wipe Scion for fresh leagues: EK/Trap farming build. Added Fire/Hatred/Faster Projectile/Mana Leech EK. Added Fire/Culling Strike Bear/Increased Quality Bear Trap: http://goo.gl/0JHA5q

For when you need something 'different'. The single most fun spec I've ever crafted: Multistrike/Cast On Melee Kill/Detonate Dead Leap Slam: http://goo.gl/uxct6Y
WARNING: Spec causes desync, but it truly is the Michael Bay of POE specs :>

[shoju]

I'm terrilby sorry that you are leaving. If you want to toss stuff in the Guild Stash, that's fine, or we can meet up, and you can offload more expensive stuff to one of my mules, and I'll create a thread to make sure people get stuff.

[MonTy]

Frag, sorry to hear you'll be leaving POE. Your builds and discussions are fantastic and I hope you'll stick around for that. If GGG ever introduces a pause feature I will be rushing to tell you

[MonTy]

Updated the post. Is there anyone new playing that I can add their name to the play list? Anyone stop playing?

I've been playing Invasion quite a bit. Found a fun group to map with, and my Flameblast / Searing Bond character is doing quite well. I absolutely love the difficulty of the Invasion bosses. Very mechanic heavy and deadly. Easy to die quite fast. My end-goal is to get to 90 in this league, then I'll probably try Ambush (so eager to play a melee character!). I'm at 81 right now, so I've got a ways to go, but I'm confident it'll happen!

Anyway, hope everyone is still enjoying the game. The Vaal mini-expansion is truly incredible!

[LennyLen]

I haven't stopped playing, but the Minecraft group I play with recently moved to a new server and started a new world, so we've been quite active. With the amount I work, I can only play one game at a time.

[shoju]

Hey, I understand. My kids have the mobile minecraft for tablets, so I know a little about the game. It would be crazy to start over from scratch.

[shoju]

I'm not sure how much time I'm going to continue to commit to PoE. 1.1 was a massive letdown for me, and my frustration just continues to mount.

The RNG regarding loot
The Lack of a legitimate trading system only compounds this
The 4 month leagues bringing about items I'll only get by playing yet another new character
The RNG surrounding even getting the pieces to get to the new "ultimate" final boss
The lack of attention given to system problems within the game currently, while new content is churned out.
And, the lack of people playing in guild (I don't blame you, it's just lonely)

I could drone on about why each of these things bothers me, but I've done enough of that on the boards, trying to be articulate in giving feedback, in threads regarding most of my issues, but it's met with a chorus of boos from the hardcore RNG IS LIEF people, the people who can run 1-70 in Invasion in 2 days after they rip, and the staunch GGG can do no wrong people.

[MonTy]

I'm not sure how much time I'm going to continue to commit to PoE.

I'll definitely be sad to see you go! Even though we didn't get to team up much, I greatly enjoyed your posts on the Lounge. My interest is dwindling as well. I'm trying to make a push for 90 in Invasion, but the currency required to run high end maps is draining my desire to continue. Plus most of my guildmates have died, leaving me to mostly solo play.

If you do end up stopping, I hope you come back once in a while and post your thoughts on the updates.

[shoju]

I'll be honest, the biggest thing killing my desire to continue is the massive amount of RNG regarding loot in the game. I don't have any measurable control over it. And as some (like Frag) can attest to, That's a sticking point for me.

I can go run Piety or Merveil, and walk out with a rare/unique worth quite a lot. I sold a dagger from a merveil merc run for 3 ex.
I can go run those, and get 2 alts worth of vendor crap.
I can go alch up a 71+ map, and get nothing.
Or, I can go alch it up, and get tons of ex in gear.

I can run a map, and the boss drop nothing but blues. I ran a blue lvl70 map, with 50% qual (temp chains + something else not fun). I saw two rares from the entire map. Both junk. All the blues were junk. Nothing even remotely worth tossing a regal at.
Or, I can walk into Merc. Pyramid, and within 10 monsters, I get a unique, worth a lot. I actually had this happen in Ambush. Hit the Waypoint, go in, in the first room, I get a VERY NICELY ROLLED Belly of the Beast.
I can run a merc boss / map boss, and get a pair of rare wool gloves as loot. I have. I have them in my stash still.

I'm gated from certain uniques in game, because they have to drop from level X or higher, even if the base can drop from something lower. I.E. Koam's, or Voltaxic. But I'm not protected from getting rare wool gloves, or Corroded Blade, or Tribal Maul. I can get a 5L to drop in a map, and it can be a level 28 base. Yes. I've had this happen too.

I can't even control things when I craft. I could (and have) spent multiple exalts worth of orbs trying to roll / alt / regal / et / ex / jewel / fuse a piece of gear only to end up with absolutely nothing to show for my efforts.

I spent 15 chaos on an ilvl78 vaal regalia (6S). About 8 Ex worth of crafting later, I deleted it. I never got it to even 5L. I never got any rolls on it that were even remotely worth keeping, and I dropped over 1K alterations on it, and then when I finally had a pair of "mediocre" rolls, I regaled it, and got thorns. That was the last straw really. about 20 chaos orbs later, trying to turn it into something to sort of salvage my investment on, and nothing.

I'm new to the aRPG genre. From what I understand, RNG is the spice of life on gear. And, to an extent, I can live with it. The problem for me, comes in when I can't even control the quality of drops I see.

And this is all compounded, by the abysmal state of trading in the game. Trade Chat is a joke, and I don't see it ever really improving. It's almost impossible to improve upon it. You can keep gating how fast people can post, but that's not going to improve the absolute dearth of posts from people. You can't have an Auction House, because apparently, the RMT AH in D3 proved that all AH systems in aRPG's are bad. I never played with that system in place, so I can't tell you if it was AH in general, or the presence of an RMT AH alone.

You can put up a trade thread, and keep it maintained, but the only way that this is even remotely lucrative to do, is to design it in a way that makes it advantageous for people to use a third party site to cruise your stuff.

And then? God Forbid you are actually playing the game when someone logs in and finds you online. They don't want to wait for you to finish, or to get to a good port spot in a map. They want it now. RIGHT THE F*** NOW. I've all but sworn off trading in Ambush, because it was such a drain on my playtime, and enjoyment of Domination.

If I do end up leaving, I will keep tabs on it. I love a lot of things about the game.
I love the passive tree. But then, I'm the kind of masochist that liked the sprawling talent trees in WoW.
I love the idea of the Skill Gem / Support Gem system.
I love that I can (if I decide) start a templar, and make him some crazy bow wielding ranger.
I love the idea that I can make my character what I want my character to be.

But I don't like that it's all gated by gear, that I have no control over. The whole game is gated by gear. My ST Scion is 83. Do you know what keeps me from running things higher than level 71 on a consistent basis?

Gear.
My gear on my scion is pretty good. But I'm lacking the HP to pull it all together. I need an upgrade to my amulet and Helm as priorities, and then from there, Boots, Gloves, and Rings.

About the only thing that I'm completely set on, is my 6s 5l Belly of the Beast. It's amazing. I love it. I wouldn't trade it for anything.
Even my weapon could be upgraded, I just don't have the ~20+ Ex to upgrade to something better. There is a 5L Mace that would be a pretty nice upgrade on the indexer for 19 Ex, but it would probably take closer to 1 ex more in Chromes to get the colors I need GGGRR isn't that easy on a mace.

[Kurosu]

Seems like a lot of PoE players have many of the same issues you mentioned above. What it really boils down to is that everything is simply too random and there is often no reward for attempting high-risk or high-effort scenarios.
That's exactly the kind of thing that makes people quit, when there is no carrot the mule won't run. I have no idea why the makers insist on being so stingy in almost every aspect of the game. It's basic human nature to want to avoid failures and seek success, but currently the game is set up for a majority of people to fail.
If people regularly got rewarded for their efforts or see a plan pan out properly, that's the kind of thing that keeps them hooked or makes them even more active.

This game has always been on the unrewarding side, but lately they seem to be even harsher. The difficulty keeps going up in various ways through added game mechanics, weakened player statistics, added filler nodes on the tree without accompanying extra skill point quests, weakened unique items/modifiers, and so on.
IMHO, what the game needs are more rewarding scenarios, and less unfair bullshit. Things like the strongboxes are an example of a good feature, and the new rogue exiles' abilities are not.

Take the archer who uses that Vaal Burning Arrow for example. She can use it without souls and spams it over and over, it's undodgeable and does upwards of 3000 damage even with a normally capped Fire resistance. Or the new rogue that uses Flameblast and other fire skills, his skill does similar damage and he uses it pretty much continuously.
Even on well-built characters these two are huge threats, on average ones they are outright one-hit-kills.
It's like they wanted to give non-Invasion players a taste of what that league is like, but it's exactly things like this that makes people go "What just happened and how is this even fair?".
I'm seeing a lot of things that don't seem to be well thought out or tested at all, and I don't think it's a good direction.

What they don't seem to grasp or are unwilling to, is that rewarding the player properly for their efforts is not synonymous to making the game easy or "casual", which they seem to have an aversion towards.
On one hand this game really appeals to me with the gem skill system and the various ways you can optimize your build through the passive tree, but on the other hand I get really put off by the bullshit that you constantly have to face. Bullshit is really the word for it, I'm sorry to say.


@Shoju: I don't post here much but I'm a long time lurker and I enjoy reading the threads here. You are basically this entire forum so if you do quit you will be missed.

[MonTy]

Hit my goal of level 90 in Invasion today, so I'm going to be taking a break for a while. I posted my gear and my brief thoughts on the official forums: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/875152

I truly loved Invasion league. The bosses were brutal, but doable if you prepared and played smart. I just got lonely due to all my guildmates and friends dying, so it was a long last two levels to 90. But I can say it was one of the most fun ARPG moments I've had, leveling in Invasion. If anyone else is playing in the league and needs some items or maps, don't hesitate to let me know.

[whyBish]

And this is all compounded, by the abysmal state of trading in the game.
.. gated by gear ..

The two things I find the most annoying are the trading system. It is pretty terrible.
The other is the one hit kill unique mosters. With +200% life (~3000k) 79% all resist (except chaos) I can still get OHKed.

[MonTy]

Updated a bit. Anyone still playing?

I started a solo self-found account that I've been tinkering with over the past few months. Had a lot of fun with a blood magic arc build that I got to 70s maps. Forgot how hard it is to get a 5L until I played SF. Got lucky with finding a 5L ES piece in docks farming. Ran 68-70 maps for a while (sooo much easier to keep a map base now), and found some nice melee uniques (lightning coil, wings of entropy, and abyssus), so trying out a dual strike melee splash build. I converted all of my alts to jeweller's, then fusings, but no luck getting a 5L on my lightning coil. I think with those uniques the build will do fine with just a 4L, though.

Also trying out the new race season. I like the shorter duration races, so I've been giving those a try and placing around top 20 with melee or freeze pulse.

[LennyLen]

I've been playing a lot the last month or two, trying out various things. I did just buy SC2 parts 1 and 2 a couple of days ago though, so I'll probably be devoting a fair bit of time to that.

[whyBish]

Updated a bit. Anyone still playing?

Forgot how hard it is to get a 5L until I played SF.

I have pretty good luck 5-linking carca jackss. It ussually cossts more to get the 5 or 6 sockets. Apparently the chance should be the opposite.

[shoju_dos]

I have not logged in to POE in QUITE some time.

I miss the gameplay. But I still don't miss the ridiculousness of the gear. I keep thinking that I should update the game, slog through the load, and dump everything in the Gbank, and pass off leader if anyone is still playing.

[LennyLen]

I haven't been on much in the last couple of weeks, as I went on holiday and then had a few 70+ hour work weeks, but apart from that I'm still playing several times a week. I don't see many of the other LL guild members on very often though