What is the point of Mirror of Kalandra being so rare in leagues..

If you can't use it what's the point of it??

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Ivanovv83 wrote:

If you can't use it what's the point of it??

The point is, that items go to standard after a league, where it still has value - as would mirrored items.
Still, the Mirror is a meme these days, IMO.
I'd like to have one to complete my Currency tab, but I have no actual use for it.

There is obvsly use for some ppl. Just cuz something is rare it doesnt mean its pricy, it also has to be useful. You can replicate items with no effort, items that costs much more than a mirror (and takes a lot of time) to craft a single one. A mirror cut all that process and serves as a shortcut to that BiS item.

Of course those kinda of items aren't proportionally that much better than way cheaper ones, so u are only gonna use it when u have that much money. But even if u are not the kinda of player that is gonna use the mirror for its purpose it still have uses for you. It increases in value as the leagues goes on (by a lot), so u can buy one and it will passively generates money to u, much like a legalized bot xD.

i think from the wider game design perspective the mirror has actually been one of the most important, meaningful items in the game. that its still so rare and desirable as an item after 10 years, that theres always that carrot, that ultimate jackpot? its stupidly expensive in game, but as a design feature in a arpg looter its been absolutely priceless. its carried the integrity of the item systems sense of value so hard in the face of immense loot drop creep.

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Ivanovv83 wrote:

If you can't use it what's the point of it??

You want it. That's the point.

And let me tell you, it's a fantastic feeling when you drop one - and the freedom it gives you, can make the worst league seem good. Every game need its carrot(s). I find this thread very weird. I find it very weird that an adult person need this to be explained, playing an RNG based game.

Some historical context: duping in both Diablo and Diablo II were considered the most common form of cheating, a widespread taboo that a loooot of people quietly and not-so-quietly broke. Anyone who has spent time in Tristram walking between piles of exactly 1 gold coin will know what I'm talking about. It was obviously harder with DII given the introduction of closed Battle.net characters (online-only), but of course people found a way.

So part of GGG's very early strategy to make Path of Exile stand out was to show how their game was different (because at first blush, it sure as hell looked like a Diablo II mod or something). They stressed how flexible the skill system was (even though at the time Diablo III was planning something very similar via dropped skill runes -- something that lasted through even part of their own Closed Beta). They pointed out how grimdark it was, since DIII at that point was going full ham on the cartoony look.

And they embraced the madness of DII's hacked item power.

They did this in two ways. The first was to mimic and exaggerate another Diablo staple of OPness: a Godly Plate of the Whale style unique -- a ridiculous amount of life on a chest piece with plenty of armour. Kaom's Heart was a featured unique on the PoE Closed Beta website, under the simple heading: A THOUSAND LIFE!? Yes, folks, where the GPOW would provide maybe a few hundred life, Kaom's Heart did a whole thousand. The drawback, of course, wasn't immediately clear to newcomers who didn't yet understand the significance of sockets on items.

The second was of course the Mirror of Kalandra. You had to cheat to dupe in Diablo II? We're going to give you an item that does it legitimately.

And so, early on, those two items embodied GGG's mission statement. They were here to break the rules, to show the old ceilings no longer mattered. The old rules -- no duping, for example -- were now null and void.

Kaom's Heart was meta for a bit but its lack of sockets and lack of utility beyond hard life pushed it aside for the almighty 6L and even more audacious uniques such as Shavronne's Wrappings, which broke not DII's rules but PoE's own 'chaos damage is the one damage type everyone should fear' rule -- the first of so many times GGG compromised the game's stability for cheap points.

And the Mirror still does that one thing so many of us remember being a staple of DII. Is it practical? Hell no, not unless you've the resources to make it really go hard. And that's why for most, it's probably a better trade item than a usable one. The very definition of a currency unit. As I said elsewhere, GGG knew this and that's why they made the Mirror a guaranteed quest reward in their rogue-lite mode Descent. It was far less powerful there than an orb of alchemy.

I never found a Mirror and I knew if I did, I'd probably just give it to someone. I played self-enforced SSF (pre SSF league, so I could dump shit in the guild stash) almost all the time, so what would I dupe? But still, the conditioning was there: my heart would have skipped a beat or two if one ever dropped for me. Not because I'd use it, but because when the odds of it dropping are that low, you can't but help feel it's a huge win.

The whole point to playing PoE back then was knowing the next item that dropped might be a Mirror. Would it be? Almost certainly not. But it has always been a simulated casino and everyone playing knew that. Whether they wanted to admit it to themselves or not. And when it comes to gambling in a casual 'wheel of fortune' kind of way (arguably how most people approach ARPGs -- magic find tweaking was not how average people played DII), WHAT you win is so often secondary to HOW IT FEELS when you do. And the less tweaking you have to do beforehand, the more amazing the win feels. Spin an impossibly huge wheel and somehow get the top prize? Fucking incredible. Spin that same wheel a thousand times with the top prize slot significantly enlarged? Eh, two or three wins, no bigs.

For MTG players, it's the difference between cracking a single booster and getting a Lotus, or buying several boxes of unopened UL/Beta/Alpha boosters. Sunk cost fallacy and all that.

It actually takes willpower not to tip the odds in your favour and so make the chance of winning lower but the feeling of it much higher.

But only someone who doesn't want for anything, to whom the prize itself doesn't really matter, can really gamble that way; for everyone else, winning matters because the prize matters, and it's silly, almost self-sabotaging, not to do what you can to improve those odds. And that's how the game starts to become work, and I'd argue it's the beginning of the end for that game as a game.

So I guess GGG weren't ready for everyone to start playing their RNG-driven wheel of fortune game like poker...or worse, the stock exchange. I think they genuinely expected the Mirror to be as valued as level 100 characters...or vice versa.

At least people haven't figured out a way to dupe it, I guess.

...Or have they?

is it really that rare? the same people (streamers) have at least one every league....

So weird when someone posts a question I've already answered right above them.

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

So weird when someone posts a question I've already answered right above them.

sorry, i dont read long posts unless its a direct reply to me...i will read it now

Sorry as well -- as a recovering academic, I tend to make sure I'm not just saying something someone else has already gone to the effort to say. I shouldn't assume others approach a mere forum thread the same way. :)