Controversial AF. Crafting negatively impacts this game.

Out of all the systems in PoE 1 that we don't need. I believe crafting and trading(at least in it's current form) to be at the very top of the list.

This forced idea that this game needs an economy, and currency, and trading. IMO, is not bringing the value to the game that people seem to think it does.

These systems all exist, because the loot in this game is abysmal. And the game is designed around needing to max out certain stats just to play. The very fact that people need to download a loot filter to have a good experience in the game is a sign that there's something wrong with the way they do loot.

The way trading works in this game is awful. 99% of my interactions on it are clicking a button to whisper someone after searching for items for 20+ minutes, on a secondary website, being ignored by 17 people before 1 invites me to a party, and then trading an item. There's no interaction outside of that. It interrupts gameplay, and Stashtabs need to be bought to post stuff. The over-all experience is just awful.

The same goes for currency. Everyone in PoE 2 is just now realizing, how bad the loot system is in PoE because we're back to square one. With nothing in the game. You're essentially forced to craft, or trade to progress, because your chances of getting good gear is incredibly low. And it's done this way on purpose.. To force you to buy stash tabs, and 'interact' with other players.

I have many reasons that I say it doesn't bring value too. Aside from this.

New players in PoE 1, largely don't continue playing once they realize that they need to use these systems to continue, and people just simply don't want to spend hours farming currency, or searching a website for an upgrade. You can see this reflected in the reviews that the game gets. People give the game a good review, and then completely stop playing after 20, 40, 60 hours. People who give the game a negative review, frequently point to these as the issues that they have with the game. Aka, I played till I finished all the Act's, then realized my build sucked, and I needed to craft/trade.

This system only brings value to the top 5% of players, and is otherwise, a detriment to your average player, a layer of friction that has new, and even old players alike, quitting the game over. I've personally seen a ton of friends love the gameplay, the skills, the world. And then when met with the reality of what this game really is, later on when they get stuck due to poor loot. They quit. I've been playing this game for years, and everytime I get to 80. I realize I'm spending hours looking for items on the trade website, and just stop playing.


I think players, and GGG need to both admit, that this system isn't going to add the value that they think it will in PoE 2. And it's going to cost them a lot of players because of it. This game is amazing because of it's spells, and world, and the passive skill tree, unique builds. We really need to be focusing on that. PoE 2 is a chance to rid this game of the systems holding it back from more mainstream appeal. Focus on bosses, focus on the feel of combat, focus on improving the skills, the passive tree, the uniques, fix the loot, and we'll have an amazing game.

I know many people here are going to immediately disagree with this. But I want you to ask yourself something. When was the last time you were truly excited about loot? Which is the main draw point of an ARPG. You get more excited for currency, and that just feels wrong.

I guarantee most players would rather dope items drop off enemies and bosses, rather than being forced to pick up whites and blues to craft them. And being unable to progress without resorting to crafting/trading, just feels awful from a gameplay experience.

The crafting and trading system also impacts significant amounts of the game balance, but there's also another big issue that people don't consider, and that's that Crafting is also essentially dice rolling, a gambling mechanic that hooks players with addictive tendencies. It's an unhealthy game mechanic that I believe GGG knows helps retain players, and the game being balanced around the economy, promotes it. The amount of gametime some players have, is quite insane..

I don't think there's anything wrong with having items in game that help enhance gear, or make up for RNG in some ways, but the reliance on crafting, and trading to progress is what the main issue is. It shouldn't be required, and it needs to go. Or the future of this game will be just like PoE 1 is. Everyone complaining about not getting items, and more and more and more crafting items being added in, to compensate. And in 2-3 years, we're going to be right back to the same issue PoE 1 has. Bloat.

I completely agree.

After some discussions on other threads ( since PoE2 is my first serious interaction with GGG ) where people kindly pointed to me that PoE is more of a trading game in general, I made my own loot filter and I just hide all gear apart from uniques... yup everything I don't care anymore about yellows or this or that.

My 80 lvl monk is happily close to finishing the T8+ maps quest at the moment while only picking up currency, which isn't that much as well ( even with 106% rarity on my gear, which is also silly ) so I can trade things instead of losing everything into the most random crafting that I've ever seen in my life.

Is the experience awesome? No, but definitely better than sorting through 100s of items that are absolutely useless.

And while I don't enjoy spending 30 minutes on a website to find a pair of boots, I do enjoy the actual gameplay so much so for the time being I just bear with it. For how long? No idea, pretty sure it'll get tiresome after a while.

Fundamentally I think this is where the souls like and ARPG aspects clash the hardest. I mean souls games do have builds but nowhere near the fluctation as ARPGs do. So player skill only account for so much, gear check is a much bigger deal.

All this ties back to crafting and the issues you raise.

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mrxkon#5764 wrote:

I completely agree.

After some discussions on other threads ( since PoE2 is my first serious interaction with GGG ) where people kindly pointed to me that PoE is more of a trading game in general, I made my own loot filter and I just hide all gear apart from uniques... yup everything I don't care anymore about yellows or this or that.

My 80 lvl monk is happily close to finishing the T8+ maps quest at the moment while only picking up currency, which isn't that much as well ( even with 106% rarity on my gear, which is also silly ) so I can trade things instead of losing everything into the most random crafting that I've ever seen in my life.

Is the experience awesome? No, but definitely better than sorting through 100s of items that are absolutely useless.

And while I don't enjoy spending 30 minutes on a website to find a pair of boots, I do enjoy the actual gameplay so much so for the time being I just bear with it. For how long? No idea, pretty sure it'll get tiresome after a while.

Been playing this game since 2011. And I've only ever used orbs to buy stuff from other people, and only because I had to. Occasionally I'd use an alch orb.


The main reason I'm not enjoying PoE 2 right now, is because I hit a point on my Monk where I need a new staff, and everything on the trade site that's good is like 40 exalts. I kill huge bosses that take me 2-4 minutes, sometimes longer, and I'm rewarded with 2 blues, a few whites, a yellow, and a currency orb for my effort.

It just feels bad. And it doesn't matter if they increase item drops. The base loot is just bad. And adding in currency is just going to lead the game down the exact same path as poe 1.

And as far as I know, the point of separating the games, was to figure out how to improve it. What systems we do, and don't need.

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masskillers#5403 wrote:

Fundamentally I think this is where the souls like and ARPG aspects clash the hardest. I mean souls games do have builds but nowhere near the fluctation as ARPGs do. So player skill only account for so much, gear check is a much bigger deal.

All this ties back to crafting and the issues you raise.

I don't think they clash at all honestly. I think that it could be an amazing experience if they put effort into it. I actually believe a lot of games would be better with arpg loot. It adds a lot of interest and fun to a game.

The issue is that I see so many games do it badly. And PoE is one of them.

People want interesting, unique, and fun loot to drop. That is the main draw of an ARPG.

PoE has instead opted for more benign loot, and then you can make up for it with crafting/trading. And in addition to that, to force an economy in this game. They've drastically lowered drop chances, and increased RNG. Making it near impossible to get anything good unless it's a unique drop.

There's also the issue that there's so many different affixes that make it near impossible to get what you need/want.

I really do think it could be amazing. But the loot in this game is largely shaped by a forced economy/trading/crafting system, and trying to balance it as some sort of competitive game because of it. They nerf builds because they impact the economy. Who really cares if a build is op if a game is single player and you're having fun? But nope, economy! -Nerf.

Trading has always been bad and the fact that somehow rolling dice has come to be called "crafting" is hilarious. There's nothing "crafting" about PoE's "crafting".

PoE 2 had the chance to get rid of all that cruft, and they didn't take it. I wish it wasn't but it's probably too late now to do it.

[I]Bad[/I] crafting negatively impacts this game.

It could be not bad but devs decided to make it actively worse than PoE 1 for some damn reason.

Bearing in mind the added note that currently this game does not, in fact, have a crafting system at all.

It has two types of gambling.
Gold gambling and orb gambling. Neither is crafting.

Crafting is more deterministic, allowing you to give your item the modifier you want instead of rolling for it.

Bearing in mind the added note that currently this game does not, in fact, have a crafting system at all.

It has two types of gambling.
Gold gambling and orb gambling. Neither is crafting.

Crafting is more deterministic, allowing you to give your item the modifier you want instead of rolling for it.

"

The_Song#4903 wrote:

Bearing in mind the added note that currently this game does not, in fact, have a crafting system at all.

It has two types of gambling.
Gold gambling and orb gambling. Neither is crafting.

Crafting is more deterministic, allowing you to give your item the modifier you want instead of rolling for it.

Crafting is just glorified identification.