The game feels horrible to play the 3.15 nerfs + the 3.16 nerfs have just killed this game

I agree with most people on this thread.

Something feels off with this league.

I've hit a wall at T13. I'm just not doing the damage for the mobs or bosses. I've started 5 characters. The first one was based on a guy I respect a lot and it looked real good. A poison occultist TS. But that started sucking because the dps just wasn't there because it was bow dependent. Oh, well, my fault for makeing an equipment dependent character as my league starter.

So then I tried an EoW miner based on another youtuber I respect. Started great. Good boss killer. not as gear dependent. However, it's defences were not that great and it sucked at killing dense mobs. OK, so still needed better gear to help with defense, a Band of Brotherhood to drop my chain support, better gear for defense. But it just wasn't coming.

So I went to something I had a lot of experience with, and changed that occultist to an ES/contagion/bane. Normally, I play that with a trickster, but Occultist is fine. Good single target for bosses, and good clear speed. I figured ES/cont would be ideal for Scourge mechanic. And it was good. Pop the skills, click withering step, and run through mobs as they die. The only problem is that if I stood still for more than 1 second, which is as long as it takes to cast, Odds are I'd die. Again, could do better with better gear. But just wasn't getting it.

So I gave in and started a champion, Toxic Rain. Great defence, good clear, not as good as occultist, but all around good. But again, gear dependent for damage with the bow.

Started another character, a FS build that blows everything away. Sucks at bossing.


The common theme here is that all my characters have hit a wall with gearing, or I just chose bad skills for the league content. With all my play time, I haven't gotten 1 exalt. I haven't gotten one item that's worth a lot that I sell for an exalt or more and gear a character. My characters have been cold/chaos based, but have barely gotten quality gems in order to craft +1 wands. I've had terrible luck with harvest. I have not gotten one cluster jewel I need and the ones I do need are at least 50 chaos (just the bases, I'll alt spam myself), which tells me they aren't dropping enough in game. I've gotten to the point where I can't kill champs cause their level is too high compared to my gear.

What does this all mean?

The game is completely imbalanced.

I should be balanced so that someone with average gear can kill Sirus, Shaper, Maven. Someone with average gear can progress through maps. Someone with average gear can do everything. THEN, when they feel they've gotten better gear, they can do more difficult content, like higher awakener levels, more juiced maps, higher delerium, more difficult excavations. One of the biggest reasons for this is that it's so damn punishing if you make a bad decision. Chose the wrong class/skill? Well, it's gonna take me 2 days to get it to maps and another 2 days to get it to 85+. Four fucking days of hard playing to see if it's any better.

This will allow people to have fun with other, non-meta skills.

But as it is now, They just want me to grind ad nauseum until I gather enough pennies to buy 1 piece of gear that will slightly improve my build.

The other thing that's bad about ALL this, is that the game makes me feel stupid, and a game should never do that. I have a high IQ, but have had some mental health issues, so things like this can get to me. This game makes things so damn difficult, that I feel like I'm the one doing something wrong, when I'm not, the game just doesn't let you progress.

Race with time.

While I am not going to say anything new here, the last two leagues have just sucked the enjoyment out of this game for me.

I know some people like the difficulty and the frustration but it's just not for me anymore. I am just too slow.

1) Ailments dropping my health so fast i can't figure out what it is.
2) Coming out a successful Scourge dead.

Just examples. Time for a couple of leagues off and try again.

I always used to get 1 char per league and max it out, but with last 2 leagues it is BS. Played my own build in expedition, which was kinda ok, lacked damage and survivability a bit. Made it again as league start this league too, now it has way less damage and survivability, also I saw way less loot in early white maps, like 1c in drops per map constantly. Overall game is not fun anymore, I want to play it and enjoy it, but I get very tired after few maps. I don't like to die with my char every 20 maps, but now I'm getting deaths almost every map. I hope next League some real changes are going to be made so you can have fun while progressing your character.

PoE is in decline.

That's all. Pick any measure. Quality. Retention. Build diversity. Fun. All trending the wrong way.

Of course, I have no idea why. POE2? GGG Burnout? Tencent pressure?

Very sad.

This is f'ing frustrating...

At this point, if PoE is on the way to PoE2 in multiple steps through expansions and new content additions, it feels like playing new minecraft modpack on latest version where nothing but basics are ported so the pack actually does not make sense and it is basically a dull kitchen sink with everything that is available.

If PoE2 should make sense, and PoE1 is basically a kitchen sink of what's available ... is it even worth playing right now?

To me it isn't.

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BigFrog49 wrote:

PoE is in decline.

That's all. Pick any measure. Quality. Retention. Build diversity. Fun. All trending the wrong way.

Of course, I have no idea why. POE2? GGG Burnout? Tencent pressure?

Very sad.

Though I wish you were wrong, I fear you may be right.

My hope is that there is a change in their leadership.

Agreed. Game feels HORRIBLE! Sad state this game is in.

"

BigFrog49 wrote:

PoE is in decline.

That's all. Pick any measure. Quality. Retention. Build diversity. Fun. All trending the wrong way.

Of course, I have no idea why. POE2? GGG Burnout? Tencent pressure?

Very sad.

The answer is simple, the game has been on a repetitive loop since the beginning with a primary goal of league cycles, this leaves zero time for reflection and improvements on content once it has been posted. Every new league is 95% repeated content(That most of us have now done hundreds of times) with 5% 'new stuff'.

The new stuff is what brings players in, until they get fed up that for the most part, it is untested/buggy or just outright broken/boring for 1-2/3 months of every league on top of requiring you to do that 95% of content... again.

*The last 3 times I've logged on, started a map, got 1 shot halfway through by some unknown entity across the screen... and logged off. There is no fun in that.