POE: The Best of Games and the Worst of Games

Seems to me their needs to be two separate discussions on orbs because there are two distinct types of crafting:

1. Crafting that produces or tries to improve items

2. Crafting that makes an item usable in terms of sockets, color of sockets and links


Seems to me that much of the frustration from crafting could be alleviated by making it much easier to get the proper number, color and linkage of items especially for leveling type items of 4 sockets or less.

An example new system (quick strawman) could be:

Jewelers have 10-20% chance to give the maximum number of sockets depending on item level and character level. Jewelers never reduce the number of sockets in an item. 3 sockets requires level 30, 4 sockets requires level 40, 5 sockets 50 and 6 sockets level 65.

Chromatics work as currently, with new recipe for directed colors. 1 chromatic per directed color and gem of that color up to a maximum of 3 colors. So if you want RRB you would use 3 chromes, 2 red gems and a blue gem. Colors above 3 are rolled as they are now, but would give you some control over getting some specific colors. Possibly make the max 2 colors on this recipe,

Fusings: 100% chance for 2 link, 50% chance for 3 link, 25% chance for 4 link, 1-2% chance for 5 link and .25-.4% chance for 6 link. Fusings never lower the amount of links currently in an item.

Such a modification to these elements would still require a LOT of orbs to get a 6 link with proper colors and sockets, but make it relatively easy to get a leveling 3 or 4 link item. Don't think this wold create any imbalance and would remove a lot of the frustration of the orb system as it currently is.

Item creation orbs are a much more complicated matter.

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Chris wrote:

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Randomzx wrote:

But why does almost everything have to be RNG? How can it be called Hardcore when skill matter very little?

Skill matters in combat.

Except when facing lightning mages in the barracks that hit you instantly from near offscreen range, Merveils cold snap spam, 10k DPS rare Void Bearers or Imperator Stantinus Bitterblade and Draconarius Wilhelm Flamebrand which fuck melee but ranged just laugh at them and spam.

two things I like in this thread: the OP's well-summed-up feedback, and the fact a developer actually commented. Chris himself in this case.
first time I've seen that happen, and I've been here for almost a year.

in my opinion, the skill system and passive tree are a lot more awesome in theory, than they are in practice (balance issues, pseudo-complexity etc') - but the loot and crafting systems are the game's most severe problems. absolutely.
yes, more than desync, optimization and other technicalities.
yes, more than AI of most enemies (or rather, the lack thereof), which implies gear-check-based difficulty with a multitude of cheap one-shot mechanics.

I was complaining and providing feedback (and proposing solutions) about this, pretty much since the first month of Open Beta, and all of that feedback was ignored, to a point where I felt it's useless to post any more of it.

it is good to know the developer team actually don't ignore threads like this.
or this specific one, anyways.

Why is it always the people who have never experienced the full potential of the game that complain so hard.

1. The craft system is ment to be super end game, and it's 100% not even necessary to progress into the highest lvl maps. And it's in place to act as a currency sink so that the economy does not spiral out of control

2. I'm sorry but you need at least a level 80+ character to fully judge the loot drops of this game and you need an efficient killing speed. Yes the learning curve is massive, but once u have a good character with decent items. And a bit of item rarity/quantity, the amount of times you have to go back to town becomes quite annoying.

3. people often fail to realize that the "fun" of finding items is directly proportional to how hard they are to find. If every item dropped very easily, the feeling of reward would greatly lesson and the game would get dull much quicker.

I'm pretty glad GGG doesn't listen to posts like these too much. You have to remember that you know relatively very little about the game and there are mechanics and psychological factors in place that you are not even aware of.

Can the game be improved? of course. But making things so easy they quickly become meaningless is not the way to go.

Great topic, right to the heart of things, but to be fair, disappointing answers from Chris.

The fact is that there is NOTHING suggesting that crafting is being worked on.

It's litterally killing endgame. You're reduced to starting new leagues with some boring IIR/IIQ build to amass currency and drop some low lvl uniques to start trading.

RNG is not evil, but there should always be a way to "manipulate" RNG to reward farming.
the "Magic find" way is a real plague because it prevents a lot of builds from being used because they don't allow the space for stacking decent amounts of IIR/IIQ.

Same for socketing/linking: why the hell couldn't we have the chance of 5/6 socketing/linking slowly increase with each attempt, as a reward for sinking hundreds of orbs into ONE item ?

And the fact that players can be rewarded low level items for farming in Merciless/maps is another complete nonsense. I've been farming Merciless Dominus to be rewarded with fifteen lv10-30 uniques and ONE lv54 unique. Is this the reward for farming high level content?
Farming maps hasn't been more successfull and you still can't really farm them as much as you'd like.


While PoE base concepts are just awesome, the game fails in endgame due to the artificial RNG wall. Find me a build which is successfull for playing above lv60 without at least a pair of well chosen uniques and a 5-linked piece of equipment. I can think of only 2 builds meeting this criteria. This is the ONLY hardcore thing about this otherwise great game right now.

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BldSwtTrs wrote:

Why is it always the people who have never experienced the full potential of the game that complain so hard.

OP has been here longer than you.

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1. The craft system is meant to be super end game, and it's 100% not even necessary to progress into the highest level maps. And it's in place to act as a currency sink so that the economy does not spiral out of control

super-hard =/= random, it is necessary unless you trade, play for stupid amounts of hours (like thousands from the start of Open Beta), or trade.
and "economy" should not be a factor in considering a crafting system in an ARPG, or any system in an ARPG for that matter.

EDIT: and if crafting is "end-game", that's a huge fucking problem.
crafting should be end-game, and mid-game, and early-game, and every-other-part-game.
different crafting, for different stages.

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2. I'm sorry but you need at least a level 80+ character to fully judge the loot drops of this game

no. that's an utterly ridiculous claim.
I bet I played this game as much as you did, experienced the same content you did (if not more), and my highest level character is 77.
and many people started playing back when both you and I didn't know what Path Of Exile is, know every nook and cranny, and yet don't have characters higher than level 60.

and you know what? even people who started playing 5 minutes ago and have a main character at level 2, still have the right to provide feedback.

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3. people often fail to realize that the "fun" of finding items is directly proportional to how hard they are to find. If every item dropped very easily, the feeling of reward would greatly lesson and the game would get dull much quicker.

again, "random" isn't "hard".
"hard" is "beat a boss that kicks your ass unless you are uber-skilled", not "RNG can give you crap from Mr. kick-your-ass boss, or a Mirror from a random zombie, because it's RNG".
there is a huge difference between using an RNG, and being dominated by one.
GGG clearly went for the latter option.

though I do agree, the game can lose some momentum when you do all there is to do.
but that's normal. every game does.
nothing is infinite, except maybe the Universe - and that's a huge "maybe".
and there's probably more than one Universe.

WARNING - Wall of text!!!

I've followed this thread for some time now. I didn't see an opinion that shares my exact view, so.....here it goes.

The current loot/craft/RNG/trading system seems to be bad for the enjoyment of the game. Let's not argue about that. I felt very very frustrated and I've put the game off a couple of times because of that. I've never complained even tho i saw my entire fortune go down the drain a couple of times. Don't get me wrong, I'll not rage quit this amazing game, but like me, many others feel frustrated and disappointed of the reword system.

From my point of view, the question should be if the current system is good or bad for the game in the long run.

Answer 1
- The RNG system is good for the game. The bad RNG makes you even more addicted to the next potential good drop. The next exalt spent in vain will make you even more motivated. It's a proven fact that random reword is better than any other kind of reword.
- Bad loot 99.99% of the time will make you value more the 0.01% of good loot. The idea of Jackpot drop can keep you motivated to invest more time into the game.
- The heavy RNG crafting is good for creating the ultimate item. It's a high risk / high reword system. Of course the RNG gods will favor the rich, but this is how you gain fame.
- Trading is made by players, for players. The community built the current trading system and the rules are changing all the time. The economy is flexible and there is a lot of profit to be made for the smart and patient people.

Conclusion - Even tho the system seems broken and frustrating, on the long run, will make you want to play more and spent more time Exiled :D

Answer 2
- The system is broken. GGG is not god and they didn't foreseen the implications of they'r original concept.
- With the help of community feedback and experience gathered from the current iteration of the game GGG will improve the game. I only hope the community will see farther than they'r nerfed skill/item/drop rate and thrust that GGG only wants what's best for the game and the people playing it.

Conclusion - Be patient and always provide good feedback like the OP did. Things will change for the best, even if on the short run it will not seem this way.

Answer 3
- The system is not broken and is not good for the game. The system is set in place to artificially extend the playtime. The system is not for the players. The system is in place to exploit you. This is the smallest carrot on the longest stick I've ever seen.

Conclusion - I thrust you GGG when you say you want to make a game for gamers. I really really hope you don't screw us up just for profit. If you do this you will have a worse fate than D3. I've trusted Blizz to make the ultimate D2 follow up. I'll never play any Blizz game again...

My feedback
This game is amazing. I'll play it for a long time. I liked GGG's vision, and i try to enjoy the ride.

The thing that i don't understand is why can't we enjoy the full potential of the game? For me mainly the build diversity lets me down. Let us craft powerful items, re roll sockets , endlessly improve gear, test new skills ,play new style. There are so many potential options that i don't think i can get bored.

Why do I only have to dream of reaching my goals? Why can't i have cheap OP builds? Why can't we all have OP gear ?

I don't think people will break the game and then quit. By the contrary, I think that after you did everything you could do with one character, you will gladly re-roll another one just to see new and new possibilities.

I can't re-roll another character when i didn't finished with my current one. It's weak, and poor and i can only hope to make it as i want.

I know the game has the Hard Core label, but it's still a game. Now for me it looks more and more like real life. ( i want items that i'll never have, i want to try new things but i can't , and I have to be lucky to succeed )


I fought a lot about the subject, that's why the wall of text....Sry...

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Chris wrote:

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Randomzx wrote:

But why does almost everything have to be RNG? How can it be called Hardcore when skill matter very little?

The experience we are designing Path of Exile around is the experience we had playing Action RPGs when we were younger - the thrill of the next item being potentially the best one you've ever seen.

You sure missed something then in putting that philosophy to practice, because believe me, when you were younger and playing ARPGs, you wouldn't have had the patience to put up with the insane amount of time you have to grind in PoE before you find anything that even comes close to an upgrade.

Next to that, even if you do find a good item, chances are you can basically throw it away because it doesn't have the right links that you want to use for your skill build. And crafting is way too expensive except if you are some high PoE roller with no life. How do you expect an average player to ever put up with your ridiculous RnG supergrind crafting system?

Finding a good item and having to throw it away because you know you will never be able to afford crafting. Having to walk around with a low level blue for 90% your whole characters lifespan as a replacement, just cause it has the skill slots you need. How is that fun, how is that the classic ARPG experience you, and we all love?

Path of Pain the ass is what it is. Open your eyes man.

+1000 to everything the OP said. Only thing I would add is the desync issue that does really need to be addressed in a serious manner. I got it GGG, desync is hard, will take a lot of man hours to fix and again it is ..... HARD. Personally, so what. Fix the problem or at least improve on the abysmal nature of the desync issue.

If GGG can improve on the crafting and looting issues AND mostly fix desync then I will likely be playing PoE 5-6 years down the road. If not....well time will tell. Likely if no significant improvements come along then I will be moving on to the next decent MMORPG or ARPG.

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ConanTheGamebarian wrote:

Then you never played d3 at launch.

Honestly if you compare PoE's current system to D3, it just makes apparent how much of a sideline gamer you are.

Well actually I played D3 from the very begining so your argument is invalid. I wasn't comparing "system". I was comparing crappy loot. Basically that's why I see no difference. Also - I'm saying it as a "sideline gamer" who've put more than 1000 hours into POE (not to mention I've spend more cash on POE than on D3)

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Chris wrote:

The experience we are designing Path of Exile around is the experience we had playing Action RPGs when we were younger - the thrill of the next item being potentially the best one you've ever seen.

I disagree. I’m sorry but there is no thrill at all. Basically before picking up an item you already know that it’s gonna be vendor trash 99% of the time.