General PvP Feedback and Leo Overhaul Idea

THIS IDEA IS FOCUSED AROUND THE PROBLEMS OF LLD

Current Problems :

First: Wealth

The requirements for participating competitively is far too expensive for the average player.

A fully constructed character on average can cost 10ex or more. This amount of currency isn't something everyone has, let alone it being "extra" that they can spend on PvP.

This creates a conflict of interest. The majority of average players would rather spend currency on improving their PvE character compared to a PvP character.

Master crafting can become extremely expensive. Being able to multimod multiple items can make someone extremely powerful. Not having the currency to multimod puts the player at a huge disadvantage.

One of the most powerful items someone could make is a weapon. Not having that powerful weapon for someone like melee makes it almost impossible to be successful.

Obtaining powerful items is very hard because the player has to either craft everything from scratch or hope to be able to buy something from people. There is the chance of having something good drop while farming mudflats or Dominus, but the likely hood of that is fairly low. Master crafting would probably still have to be done to the drop as well to make it better.

The advantages of Vaaling items is huge. Corruption mods can make a build go from average, to extraordinary. The amount of items a player has to go through in order to get a successful corruption can become very expensive.

Adding all these costs can add up quickly.

Quality gems - Corrupting gear/gems - Crafting gear - Master crafting gear

The average player just doesn't have enough extra currency to throw at PvP.

Second: Incentive

The incentive to play isn't all that high. The current rewards for playing PvP are an assortment of alternate art items. This is exactly the same system which races use and comparatively it is far easier to get those prizes.

I don't expect every season to have powerful items, but this current season seems to be very lack luster for being the first PvP event to take place in temp leagues. People should be getting hyped for having the chance to get cool uniques.

The top tier rewards don't seem like something worth aiming for because of how common of a drop they are . It is understandable that they don't have a lot of 3D art items because of how expensive they are to make. It just feels like there should be more options for rewards.

In order to even get any of these alt art items people would have to do very well in events. Compared to racing; PvP requires a far greater investment to do well in. This is yet another burden the average player has to find a way to get around. Not only do they have to get the currency to play in the events, they also have to perform fairly well in hopes to get anything out of it.

Third: Changing builds

The ability to change what build the player wants to do is very limited because of resources. If a player decides that melee is their path, it is the path they must follow unless they find another 10 exalts or so.

People who aren't used to the PvP scene won't be adjusted to how the game works compared to PvE. This will lead to many dead ends and many frustrating build changes that can cost them a lot. People who don't have the currency to successfully do this will just become burnt out and lose interest.

Some people may want to compare this to PvE for new players. The difference between these two situations is that new players won't be spending 10s of exalt on their built. It is much easier for a new player to change their mind because they aren't so invested.

One of the coolest aspects of PvP is trying new builds, yet it feels almost impossible to be able to do that because of the cost per character. Changing a build costs quality gems, entirely new armor(sometimes), and creating a new weapon. This can become extremely costly for someone who is on budget.

Leo's Current State :

Leo has the potential to become one of the most unique masters of Path of Exile.

Currently he offers mods that can be used for adding unique features to pieces of player gear. These mods are fairly effective for what they were designed for. Stun, knockback, and status alignment avoidance are very powerful mods in the battlefield.

For people who aren't PvP orientated these mods may not seem like obvious choices to incorporate in their build. The truth of the matter is many are very important for situational fights and can be the determining factor for who wins.

The only problem is that it isn't always easy to find room for these mods on gear. Master modding is widely used for things like resists and damage. Finding the room to place these mods can become a challenge in and of itself. Having the capability to multimod would make this very far easier to do. Again this is a huge advantage.

Potential Solution :

Overhaul of Leo :

Leo should be given a new point system that could be called something like "Valor" points.
(Technically the current reputation system could work. Seemed easier to understand when it had a different name)

These "Valor" points would be used for the purchase of master mods that can only be used in PvP.

These mods would be similar if not identical to the mods that are offered by the other masters. The only difference is that in order to gain "Valor" points you would have to play PvP matches instead of playing PvE.

For temp leagues Leo would be given a starting amount of points to allow players something to work off of. It is very important for players to have a good starting point.

This solves a few issues that I brought up.

For starters, the player would no longer have to spend hundreds of their own PvE currency to progress their PvP characters. It would create another form of currency that isn't reliant on PvE.

Players would still have to farm for base items, but the crafting process becomes much easier. This takes the burden off of crafting and the player can focus on quality gems and corrupting.

This means players don't have to choose which aspect of the game they want to participate in. They can be flexible and play in both.

Players would have an incentive to continue playing matches because it will help progress their character. Just by participating in PvP it will continue their progression.

Players would be rewarded for spending time playing in PvP.

One of the core aspects of Path of Exile is the feeling of progression. Throughout the player's journey through Wraeclast they are faced with many situations where their gear needs to be improved. This would basically become the same situation for players who would PvP.

A slow but steady progression is important. Brick walls are not good.

Many of the solutions people want for PvP are for everyone to have the same gear. This isn't really a solution for a game like Path of Exile because the core of the game is about build diversity and creativity. This should be one of the focuses of PvP too. Imagination is king.

Potential Problems :

In order for this idea to work the mods would have to be PvP only. According to Greendude this may not be possible. This brings up the question to find another way to make the mods only available to PvP players. The core idea is there, but finding another solution to PvP only mods is extremely important.

Obviously this is a lot to ask for from GGG. I don't expect this to be done soon or at all. I wanted to give an option for helping people with the wealth gap and add a cool feature to Leo.

There needs to be easier ways for people to craft items. Hopefully adding something like this could be the key.

Please discuss the Pros and Cons of the idea. I'm interested to see what people think of it.

wow man thats a ton of work in your post. Its nicely constructed too. I can see you put alot of time into it. I agree with some of it like the leo pvp only mods but I dont think that requires reworking with valor points, just the mods available on bench. Also tbh the incentive to pvp is among the best out of anything in the game atm. You get to be on live stream shoutcasted invitationals, you get alternate art uniques, also karma koin and alienware consoles... I think the social aspect is what needs to be reworked. There is far too much segregation between the leagues. Especially with seasons alternating leagues.

Tbh I like ur idea. Making decent preconstructed characters and something like this for easier master crafting would definetly b a step in the right direction to get more ppl interested in pvp. Pretty much a must I would dare to say. What pvp really needs is an easier accesibility for casuals to b somewhat competitive.

Speaking as a PvE player, I agree with much of your analysis of PvP in regards to wealth. I would like to play PvP sometimes but the amount of investment (not only in currency but time) needed puts me off. I'm not that bothered by this though since PvP isn't really my thing.

In regards to Leo, IMO the entire way he levels up is poorly done. Unlike other masters you only have the opportunity to get exp once a day. However even this can't be done as a very high rate of CTF dailies are required. Since no one really does anything other than 1v1 you must coordinate groups on your own and getting 12 people or even 6 is pretty much impossible for a normal player.

There's not enough incentive to do group PvP and there's not enough incentive to level Leo. This is either because the dailies are too difficult or his crafting/hideout/item options aren't worth the trouble.

Right now it seems that Leo and PvP in general is leaning a lot towards LLD. There's little to no incentive for players that do HLD or PvE to do LLD other than competition. It feels like two entirely different games. IMO Leo, and PvP rewards (if we get any other than rank rewards) should have options that benefit all aspects of the game i.e. items that are viable for LLD, HLD, and PvE.

Great feedback. I agree. The barrier to entry needs to be cheaper/easier. Sure, if one plays and trades a ton, 10 exalts isn't too much of a problem.

However, if GGG wants more than 100 people entering events for the foreseeable future, making reasonably competitive builds needs to be easier. Otherwise, pvp will always be an extreme niche aspect of POE.

I agree that the wealth problem is huge in pvp. However that solution is too complicated.

A much better solution:

All PvE items are disallowed in PVP.

Instead, Everybody in a PVP tournament gets a random stash tab with 3 of each type of item and a bunch of gems. They have to then figure out how to use them, on the spot. Then you pvp.

Simple and effectively eliminates the wealth gap, leaving only skill.

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Zaorish_9 wrote:

I agree that the wealth problem is huge in pvp. However that solution is too complicated.

A much better solution:

All PvE items are disallowed in PVP.

Instead, Everybody in a PVP tournament gets a random stash tab with 3 of each type of item and a bunch of gems. They have to then figure out how to use them, on the spot. Then you pvp.

Simple and effectively eliminates the wealth gap, leaving only skill.

I feel this "solution" gets thrown out a lot. The thing with it is, it basically invalidates the PoE part of PvP, and tries to get an arena-based feature out of an ARPG, designed with gearing being a factor in mind with regards to all aspects. Removing gear entirely is NOT a solution, especially if you want life out of PvP and not just make it a minigame. Without the factor of a gear upgrade/change to make in your build, it'll be reduced entirely to a short term thing.

PvE and racing are also both affected by gear, yet somehow only in PvP does gearing suddenly become a problem instead of a feature, and what's worse is, PvP is inherently gear + build + skill, yet people fail to take account how they are building their characters, what gems to use and what setups to run, or how they play.

Suddenly people just think that if person A uses 50 ex, and person B uses 20, then person B automatically loses each time. Funny how when people lose they always blame the thing that doesn't pertain to their own skill.

I'm supporting the general idea of a pvp centric master, no matter what form it take at the end. Pvp shouldn't be a money pit, especially LLD, it's kind of killing it's original purpose.

Well thought out post IMO. I've had private discussions with several people where I thought a similar idea would be good for the state of PvP. However in my version of valor points it worked similar to the way WOW PvP gearing system works. You gain Valor Points and can then spend them with Leo for pieces of gear. There would be a need for him to have his crafting table overhauled as well,so that you could use orbs to re-roll the stats on the pieces of gear you acquired from Valor Points.

Just a thought,and idea I've had to go along with this. It might help relieve some of the stress players are going through trying to re-gear characters over and over in leagues to PvP now. I think it will also help with balance and skill,when you know everyone is pooling from the same gear sets. It then comes down to player creativity with builds,play-style,gems,and re-rolls of gear(as mentioned above). Until something major like this happens to balance out PvP once and for all,I think I will just stick to the regular game,which by the way,is still the best ARPG by far (ACT 4 HYPEEEEEE!!!)

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A222 wrote:

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Zaorish_9 wrote:

I agree that the wealth problem is huge in pvp. However that solution is too complicated.

A much better solution:

All PvE items are disallowed in PVP.

Instead, Everybody in a PVP tournament gets a random stash tab with 3 of each type of item and a bunch of gems. They have to then figure out how to use them, on the spot. Then you pvp.

Simple and effectively eliminates the wealth gap, leaving only skill.

I feel this "solution" gets thrown out a lot. The thing with it is, it basically invalidates the PoE part of PvP, and tries to get an arena-based feature out of an ARPG, designed with gearing being a factor in mind with regards to all aspects. Removing gear entirely is NOT a solution, especially if you want life out of PvP and not just make it a minigame. Without the factor of a gear upgrade/change to make in your build, it'll be reduced entirely to a short term thing.

PvE and racing are also both affected by gear, yet somehow only in PvP does gearing suddenly become a problem instead of a feature, and what's worse is, PvP is inherently gear + build + skill, yet people fail to take account how they are building their characters, what gems to use and what setups to run, or how they play.

Suddenly people just think that if person A uses 50 ex, and person B uses 20, then person B automatically loses each time. Funny how when people lose they always blame the thing that doesn't pertain to their own skill.

It's not a matter of 50ex vs 20ex. It's a matter of 20ex vs 2ex. A player with currency to burn can pick up an armor and weapon base of 28 or lower but with high-enough item level to six-link it. I imagine an enormous percentage of the players in this game can't afford even one six-linked item. And, yes, I'm aware that two-handers might not be the meta right now, but it was meant to illustrate my point. Perhaps instead multimod crafting is used to make every item the character wears near-perfect, which is a couple exalts a pop, and more than most players can afford to do to two items, much less all of them.

Yes, skill matters. Yes, rock-paper-scissors in builds matters. Gear matters a bunch, too.