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

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NastyExile wrote:

i still don't think gameplay is dependant on 5 or 6 link items, you can succeed without them.

Thanks for saying that, i was starting to think that it was all about equipment on higher levels, which would greatly disappoint me.

In analogies having a wall refers to something being obtainable on the other side of said wall, a wall is not a finish line a wall is merely an obstacle on the way to further progress.

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Vold316 wrote:

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NastyExile wrote:

i still don't think gameplay is dependant on 5 or 6 link items, you can succeed without them.

Thanks for saying that, i was starting to think that it was all about equipment on higher levels, which would greatly disappoint me.

No worries I've gotten to almost 70 before ever getting a 4L item, gear is almost never an issue in this game aside from a few resist rings to be safe.

You can beat maps in whites. My 66 Shadow can run maps in 4L armor and two 3L 1 handers. You don't need 6L or even 5L to perform adequately. Even in PVP, it will be possible to win with substandard gear, which includes low socket count.

Granted, some crazy builds do require 5 or 6 sockets to function, but this is more a result of poor build design and execution, rather than the fault of the game.

I can sympathize with your frustration, but I scarcely think this is worth quitting the game over. Though, if you hate this game after having done all that grinding, that too is understandable. Maybe this game isn't for you.

Oh, and if it's taking you 20+ fusings to get 4L on your gear... then something is really off with your luck :P

To be perfectly honest, you should never use fusings to get 4L. It's just wasteful. It's much, much easier to find 4L in the wild or to take a 4L white and make it into a snazzy rare.

What I envision to be the case: Play the game. After playing the game for a year or so, you will eventually find that sweet 6L you've always wanted in the wild. It will drop for you eventually. And if it's slightly bad, you can use currency items to make it perfect.

If you're impatient and you want "6L now" -- you're just being too greedy. Power takes time to accumulate. You shouldn't rush to 6L because you don't need it. You will eventually find /that item/ and even if /that item/ cannot be used by you, you can trade it for currency items that can be used to acquire the item you really want.

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Chris wrote:

If there was a vendor recipe to guarantee six linked sockets if you traded in 1500 fusings, would you use it?

Edit: I'm not saying it takes 1500 fusings to get six linked sockets :P

For what it's worth I would like a reciple/system that could gurantee an outcome. Both with socket colour and sockets/links. It kind of fits in with the POE philosphy of being able to randomise your character in ways that other games don't allow for and use currency to slowly over time improve your character (e.g creating an additional form of end-game). Guranteed results (particularly something like a 6L) would have to be really, really expensive so as to not diminsh the value of 6L's,but I like the idea.

I guess it also adds an additional layer of choice ... no one forces you to use 1500 fusings (or whatever it might be), you can always go for the random chance and maybe get lucky.

I think a good compromise or addition to any changes that would be made is to introduce more uniques that have 6L slots. Just being uniques would have its own disadvantages that come with it (including the fact that you don't get to choose the colors), but would make it easier to ever get a 6L in some way.

In general I think fusing orbs are too weak. It's far easier to find four linked equipment and enchant it than it is to find good rare items and get four linked sockets on them. Considering four links are easy enough to get in the wild and fusing orbs are not I think it should be much easier to get four links with fusing orbs.

Also I entirely agree with the idea that fusing orbs should never be able to lower the number of links you already have in an item. As it is, if you have a great rare item with six sockets and four links, would you ever use fusing orbs on it? I wouldn't. In most cases you just kissed your four link goodbye if you try to use fusing orbs on it. This is a paralyzing force that makes you not want to ever try to use your acquired wealth on equipment you are actually using. Chaos orbs to some extent also have this problem, but since they don't do linear changes like link changes, that's a harder case fix.

Getting an extra link on an item is a huge potential power increase so I see why getting past the seemingly "standard" four linked item is currently extremely difficult. However, there are some psychological problems with the current system. First, sockets are how you get and modify skills in this game, so it's far more disappointing not to have your valued skills be as powerful as they could be or not be able to customize them in the way you want than not finding the best gear of other sorts. Even though magic properties on gear also can help your skills greatly, people never feel nearly as invested in that as they are in actual skills since gear is "impersonal" and mutable. The solution for this? I'm not really sure; perhaps it's simply a limitation of this skill system that can't be reconciled easily.

The second psychological problem is that off loss, specifically you use your precious fusing orbs and get nothing back, making you feel like your time spent getting them was a waste. These sorts of games can already make a player feel like their time was wasted if they play and find nothing of interest or gain no experience (see the posts of people angry about dying a bunch of times and losing their level up). The death penalty is mostly unavoidable, since without an incentive not to lose there isn't a game, but the fusing orb problem is one that should be avoided. I don't know the best way to accomplish this though; my only real idea is to give people a "karmic bonus" when they use a fusing orb on an item that gives a very small bonus to the chance to get higher numbers of links on subsequent tries. This would hopefully make players feel like failed orbs weren't really wasted.

As for the "end game" problem in general, I'm not really sure what people are looking for as an end game to be honest. D2 had no end game at all, an no one seemed to care, but now everyone seems to be consumed with the idea of an end game in ARPG's without ever saying exactly what it is they are looking for. Personally I want the ability to throw any power level of character into fights that are challenging, which of course is a difficult situation to design. The maps do this to some extent, but the way they are set up forces you to gimp your characters for magic find and use up your orbs trying to find fun map properties, which simply isn't fun. To the original poster I would ask, if you got a six link item, then what? What would you do with it? Why is grinding for fusing orbs/getting a six link item the "end game" for you?

For those of you who said tl;dr and maybe looked at this last line I would say you need to include discussions of player fun and motivations in any discussion of percentages and power levels, or you're probably just talking around the problem and not really about it.

I dont see a problem with it at this stage, its not like anyone is forcing you to fuse your items. 6l is meant to be what everyone strives for, but you should never make a build that REQUIRES a 6l item to succeed.

I have never tried to fuse a 6l, but I found a 6l on the ground in less than 2 weeks. PoE is meant to last a hell of a lot longer than 2 weeks, and if you extrapolate everyones luck in PoE 6l items will eventually be traded, and I would certainly consider trading one for 50 GCP or 50 Blessed orbs

(Ill trade you mine 2h for 100 blessed orbs during Closed Beta if you want)



EDIT: I noticed most people that posted in this thread seem to have forgotten that trading with actual 'people' is a possibility that means that a recipie isnt absolutely required. There still is an alternative for people (like me) who dont really enjoy spending all that effort crafting for a 6l, and that is to just trade with someone else from the playerbase. Its a given that people will likely ask you for 'your soul' for the item, but that is just reflection of how rare they actually are, and the price will be just a fair as a vendor recipie will end up being (since the price changes with their relative rarity)

About recipes for guaranteed results, what about these ones ?

- Changing the colors of the slots in order to get slots 1-3 blue, slot 4 green, slot 5 red and slot 6 blue:
Item + 6 chromatic orbs + blue gem, blue gem, blue gem, green gem, red gem and blue gem (in that order).
(Order of slots :
1 2
3 4
5 6)

- Getting a guaranteed x-links on an item :
Item + 3^(x-1) orbs of fusing
(3 orbs for 2 links, 9 for 3L, 27 for 4L, 81 for 5L and 243 for 6L)


Just an idea, numbers would have to be adjusted. It has to cost enough to prefer grinding over merchant trading, but it has still to be doable without spending 4 months to grind.
The chromatic orbs needed for recipe #1 can be based on the amount of slots to change (3^(x-1) again, maybe :p)

I'm not sure it is safe to extrapolate everyone finding a six link in two weeks; I know I haven't found one in in that span...or at all. While the topic in this thread has varied a bit off the original poster's displeasure at having to grind so much for fusing orbs, if I can return to that topic you must see that trading other players for very rare six link items isn't really changing anything. How are you going to buy six linked items from those players? With enormous amounts of rare orbs. How are you going to get enormous amounts of rare orbs? With enormous amounts of grinding. Even worse in the realm of trading, if you aren't the one grinding the most some other player will offer a better price for the six link and you still don't have one. Before anyone says again "not everyone needs a six link" I will say I agree with that, but if you're treating the subject of grinding for fusing orbs as needing a solution trading barely rates.

Also, speaking as a person who despises haggling with "real people", if I'm not alone and there are many other players that feel the same, having a solution to a problem that might make us unhappy be one that forces us to do something we hate isn't a solution at all. I realize that trading is something that simply "is" and casts a shadow over even people that don't engage in it, but telling people they need to stop hating something isn't really a good way to approach making a game fun.