Why I'm quitting PoE and no longer recommending it to friends

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Charan wrote:

I consider 6L to be the Philosopher's Stone of the game build-wise. Get one of those and you can suddenly do so much more with what you already have.

And people used to devote their lives to obtaining that stone.

Any hints on its location? :P

Actually the philosopher's stone was said to turn stone into gold and technically a 6l does something similar (although the 5l is a much less powerful variant, like turning stone into iron). But if you compare a 6l with the average 4l it is way over the top.

If you just think of the possibilities, I guess you want a 6l for ground-slam. Faster Attacks, more physical damage and added fire damage, life on hit and life-leech are only some of the things that come to my mind. A 6l is propably the last thing you will ever aquire in PoE exspecially a 6l unique.

Actually I consider a 6l to be one of the things I will most likely never posses. It was the same with the windforce in D2 and funny enough it just dropped out of nowhere.

And actually you got really lucky, since you have 6 sockets in your unique maul...

I do not think that the problem lies in the rarity of 6-linked items, but in how you get to it. People get frustrated because they need to devote half a storage-screen to items to even have a chance of getting there. I think the problem lies in how easy it is to see that you are gambling and how many you need of said item. Cover the gambling a bit more with another layer of complexity, either through an endgame mirror-rate drop, through lowering of droprates, through needing a combination of items to get a chance or hightened complexity as opposed to I/O (Either it is there or it is not. Nothing to think about. It is "easy" to shift some of the value towards chromatic orbs by introducing 1 or 2 new colours for items and making Jeweler's less in demand. It has to be more complex for Fusings like oneway links - disallowing one connection if another is made - and halfway links - only working if the linked sockets have the same colour etc.).
The biggest problem in the function of Fusings and Jeweler's is how easy it is to see that you have to collect so many to win the lottery. I can only imagine the frustration when you use 300 orbs and do not get what you want.

Having to farm more than a hundred of something seems completely unobtainable for the human mind when you set your course for it, while only needing 10 of a 300 times more rare drop seems a lot more doable. It is pure psychology: Anything needing more than 100 items is just extremely hard for the mind to grasp (It is more than just about age when someone says: "In a hundred years all is forgotten") and the frustration from the obvious gambling is multiplied by several decades when it fails and you have to look foreward to having to grind an inconcievable amount of this item again to buy another ticket.

With the same logic you would leave D2, just because you couldn't find Zod rune, or complete Immortal Set etc etc.

Hilarious thread, just quit.

I think one of the problems to get that 6-linked in the first place is the fact that there is only one possibility in the way the sockets have to be linked. It's always like this:


o-o
...|
o-o
|...
o-o

There are a couple more ways to get the 6 sockets linked, but they never do:

o-o
|
o-o
|
o-o

or

o o
| |
o o
| |
o-o

Five/four linked share the same "problem", it's always the same sockets that get linked. While allowing for more link possibilities would be a way to increase the chance for a 6-linked, I'm not sure it would be a good thing (getting all sockets linked should be damned hard).

In all my time in the beta (close to a year now) I never got a 6-linked through fusings (I found two tho a oouple patches back) and guess what...I'm still here and don't really care.

While it would be nice to have that 6th socket linked it's not a must have to get through the game.

I will agree with the original poster on this...

The idea is not that you cannot get that 6L...the problem is the effort you put behind it and get "nothing" out of it..

I am a casual player, I get to play about 5 ~ 6 hours a week, at best. With that, I finally reached the level 60+ range, and started doing a few maps... and now I am currently trying to get my shield, helm, boots, gloves from a 1 socket, to a decent 4 linked.

Essentially... I traded for gloves (so no hassle)
Helm, After wasting a good 15 ~ 20 jewlers, I finally got 4 sockets
Then, another 10 or so chromatics to get my color scheme (I find that resaonnable, but first time it happened that fast)
I was able to get my shield up to 3 sockets with about another 20 jewelers... and afraid to keep trying, because many times, I go back down to 2 or even 1...

Again, got a good color scheme with a decent amount of chromatics...

now for both the helm, and shield (remember 4 socket helm, 3 socket shield) and I must have burned close to 50 fusings total... and the best I got so far, is a 3l helm, and 2l shield.

Now... I have read many posts where people burn 100+ fusings, and never get 6L... heck I'm trying to get 3 ~ 4 and feeling the same frustration...

I started a diff. char just because.. well.. The "progress" feeling that the game used to deliever, is just not there anymore...

How much time, would it take me to get that mythical 6L... ? I would probably never reach it... where's the motivation for me to keep playing.. I feel I will reach the same level as the original poster, and quit sooner on this game, then other games...

As for the cheesy comparison to D2... I played just about the same amount of time then this game.. and eventually, I did get a Zod, a few SOJ and a complete immortal set... I got pretty much all the nice stuff at least once... even if it took a while, I had a feeling that it was not impossible.

for this game... upgrading the gear seems impossible.. flaming the original poster just means that you missed the message he was trying to convey to the developpers. Ideally, if you don't have any suggesstion to help the devs/posters... why even bother posting.

The system for current items is brilliant, I love the randomness, the fact that sockets drive your skills, etc etc. All that's missing is a better progress system.

i.e. make it a max of 5 fusings to reach a 2l, 20 to reach 3, etc etc.

Make the scale go up with the player level, as well as item level so that way lower level players can still use them without fear and at least get some basic progress. Keep the randomness there as well... even if for a 6L item level 70, you would need 200 fusings, maybe on fusing #62, the user could get lucky and get his item.

Other proposals were to never allow the item to get "worse" i.e. if it's a 2L, never allow it to go down back to 0 links, again, maybe make a level scale to make sure this cannot be easily attained too early in the game.

Random is good, but removes the potential illusion of progress. this is the balance that needs to be fixed

I would pay 1500 fusings for a 6L.

Yes, I grasp what a long, tedious, grueling grind that would be. But at least then I would KNOW, absolutely, that my time -- MY time -- was guaranteed not to be utterly wasted. I would have a reason, a motivation, to make that effort, however long it took. There would be light at the end of the tunnel. I could manage that. I could accept that. I would even welcome it.

In such an environment, players could still merrily toss their fusings into the deep, dark pit of the Lottery Monster™. And some would still win. Just as many as before, in fact. Whereas, for those of us who would rather not rely on wildly long odds just in order to be capable at all of progressing our characters, we can take the long road. The very, VERY long road. Yes. I'd be fine with that. Please do that.

Over the course of earning those fusings -- via drop, via grind, via vendor purchase, via trade, via any means possible -- we may even get "lucky" and stumble upon a 6L, or a mirror, or an item of sufficient value that someone else might be willing to give up their 1500-fusing-valued 6L item. Or not. Either way, WE STILL WIN. Either way, we can KNOW that our time is well spent. That knowledge would fuel me. That knowledge would empower me. That knowledge would encourage me to keep on going.

Without that knowledge, without that guarantee, it's merely time wasted. And while I for one have tremendously enjoyed playing this game, I will not waste my time on it.

I completely understand the OP here. Trolling him isn't useful at all.

Te fact that it's all or nothing is a problem.

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lagwin1980 wrote:

You could alleviate the problem slightly by doing what Tera has done...if you gain a link it cannot be removed..the RNG is still there but at least you are gradualy getting there...but i would like to see a limit on the amount needed to gain the link... some rng but you will get the link by the time you spend 100/125 fusings...so by the end the max you could spend is 600/725

I find that actually brilliant, we could imagine a new type of link, a "diamond link" or something that couldn't be removed. Obviously you'll need to balance that, but it may solve the issue.

Well, changing fusing's description to "attempts to forge a new link" and making it so it never has a chance to remove links would be perfect. Chances to get 6l would still be the same, but at the same time guaranteeing that the item never gets worse.
This however, still doesn't solve OP's problem, which I think has to exist. It artificially extends game longevity which keeps people playing and paying - and as harsh as it sounds, most people are fine (albeit mildly annoyed) with it. The very nature of RNG will screw some people.

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indczn wrote:

awww... the strongest item attribute, 6link, is hard to get... how awful... so very very awful. Such a shame it takes a bit of effort to get. :(

I can understand him. The thing is that gems in this game are not just an extra bonus, they pretty much make or break your char. If you have a 6 linked chest for example you will pretty much never upgrade it. You need to drop a better gear and then manage to 6 link it, that will happen once every 6 months if you are lucky, therefore there is a point where there will be nothing else to farm because you are stuck with your sockets.

This is an inherent flaw of the Skill Gem system. Skills are the most important thing in any RPG and they are tied directly to an item mod. You can't upgrade your gear if you won't be able to use your skills on the new piece.

There should be an orb, a bit rare that requires some farm to craft, that allows you to swap the sockets from Item A to Item B. That way if you find an update you are not stuck in your old gear because of sockets.

You know in D3 when you drop a legendary and you ID it and it's crap, a big let down? Here you drop a legendary and it has no sockets so you can't use it, it's an amazing piece of gear but since you have a 6 linked you will pretty much never wear that unique.

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soze wrote:

Well, changing fusing's description to "attempts to forge a new link" and making it so it never has a chance to remove links would be perfect. Chances to get 6l would still be the same, but at the same time guaranteeing that the item never gets worse.
This however, still doesn't solve OP's problem, which I think has to exist. It artificially extends game longevity which keeps people playing and paying - and as harsh as it sounds, most people are fine (albeit mildly annoyed) with it. The very nature of RNG will screw some people.

I actually like the randomization. That you can't really work on your main weapon, but rather have to have one in stash that you are messing with between runs.