Finding a sword in a yellowpile, the miserable experience of iteracting with yellows

I would love to know the average player opinion on the gameplay loop of maps, here is mine:

You do maps for:
* [High reward] Completing the quest for atlas points, ends eventually
* [High Reward] Levels up to 100, ends eventually
* [Moderate reward] Breaches
* [Moderate reward] Currency, Jewels, lv20 skill gems
* [Low reward] Delirium, Expeditions
* [Almost no reward] Ritual
* [Almost no reward] Items

HOWEVER. Out of all of these, the one you HAVE to spend the most time on is Items

Each time you kill a rare, 2~3 yellows drop, there are 5~15 on a map
Kill a boss? yellows
Do a breach? LOTS of yellows

What's the gameplay experience with interacting with yellows?

[Inventory is full alert] -> Town portal -> Loading Screen -> X+Triangle+Square (talk to npc, identify, sell) -> Hover over each of the yellows and in less than 2 seconds decide it's garbage and sell -> store currency -> Loading screen -> Back to playing the game

None of that is fun, none of that is interesting, there is absolutely ZERO excitement in checking the yellows because you are conditioned to expect unusable garbage, yet it is OVER 50% OF YOUR PLAYTIME

Why is over 50% of your playtime spent on something absolutely miserable?

What are the chances of any item ever being even remotely good? At least enough to sell for more exalts than it took for you to set up it for sale and sell it?
I'd wager it has to be at least top 50~70% out of all possible versions of the item.
What's the chance of that happening? Less than 1%

I am taking my numbers off my ass, yes, but the chances of any one item in your full inventory being worth anything, even a (Rank 5) item, is extremely low. When was the last time you were excited to identify a yellow? The first time you saw a T6 only for it to be worthless?

What I propose as a solution is (hopefully) simple.
Make all equipment 100x as rare but 100x as good. That would reduce the time spent checking unusable yellows by 100x. Each time you get ANY yellow you know that it is going to be at least interesting to check. You will be HAPPY to see an yellow.

I don't follow development diaries, so I don't know if this miserable experience is intended or what, hopefully it's not.

So... what's everyone's opinion on the subject? Please ignore the other jabs I did, like the one at Rituals :3

I think people use endgame filters and don't even see most of the yellows. They are only identifying ones that might be exceptional.

and this is why i wasn't fond of the loot buffs, we are back to filtering majority of items which is what OP needs to be doing

If you don't want to deal with it, just filter them out and play trade league do the div/h part time job.

Hide
Class "wand" "staff" "shield" "bow" "quiver" "mace" "sceptre" "body" "helmet" "boot" "glove"
Rarity <= Rare

what did I miss, add them yourself

//--

for people that want to deal with the item system, it goes something like:
- (optional) create filter to highlight specific basetype needed by the build
- pickup white, trans, aug, regal -> no good then reforge, if good then ex slam
- pickup blue, ID -> if no good vendor, if good then aug regal
- pickup yellow, ID -> if good then ex slam, if no sell / disenchant

you had to do this in SSF obviously, you will almost never find anything good straight off the ground.

usually I go in an out 2 or 3 times per map to do the cycle of ID, slam a couple orbs, store the good stuff and disenchant the bad stuff

you probably think that is a massive chore, that's fine. I enjoy it, some people enjoy engaging with the RNG slot machine... To some of us, turning any game into $/h is where the fun starts to diminish. I had enough of that back in the MMO days, literally played it like a job.

//--

honestly I find it a bit sad that people want games to just devolve into $/h grinding, and don't want to engage with items
this isn't just POE problem, this is gaming as a whole - item systems are often so simplified it's boring - heck dare I say even the highly successful Baldurs Gate 3 have the same problem, their items are SO BORING.

I agree with the TLDR. Game has way too much loot and it’s all garbage. The game would be SIGNIFICANTLY more fun if there was LESS, MORE IMPACTFUL loot.

This whole, “here’s a million base items, good luck RNG orb slamming” system is lazy as fuck. The devs should be responsible for making the loot. Not the players. As is, the only exciting loot drops in the game are orbs. Items are basically worthless. Feels bad.

The game degenerates into resource/hour because it is optimal to play like that
If items were extremely rare but very often at least good, it would be all about getting more rares instead.

I would even argue that maximizing divines/hour to use in the trade website is actually a direct consequence of how miserable dealing with yellows is. People wouldn't do that if there existed a non miserable alternative.

Orb crafting is miserable, excursion crafting is miserable, checking yellows is miserable. It's just loss after loss after loss with the extremely low chance of a win. It takes a special kind of mindset to enjoy it.

I'd rather be able to spend 250 exalts and pick a max tier mod and then 1250 exalts to add another one than subject myself to any of that.
Especially when I can just buy something overwhelmingly better for 30 exalts.

"

xonedl#1873 wrote:

usually I go in an out 2 or 3 times per map to do the cycle of ID, slam a couple orbs, store the good stuff and disenchant the bad stuff

This is the biggest issue the game has. Gameplay loop is so choppy and disjointed because we have to leave maps constantly. Who wants to leave every map 3 times to go see an NPC in town? It’s so, so bad.

If the game had far less, more impactful loot then we could at least make it through a single map before needing to go visit our NPC overlords.

"

xonedl#1873 wrote:

honestly I find it a bit sad that people want games to just devolve into $/h grinding, and don't want to engage with items
this isn't just POE problem, this is gaming as a whole - item systems are often so simplified it's boring - heck dare I say even the highly successful Baldurs Gate 3 have the same problem, their items are SO BORING.

items are boring because there is so many of them. people always push for 'i want more loot!' probably because they just need to see shiny lights and ding ding, like those casino machines where you constantly hit 30c jackpots for every $1 spin.

try playing d2 vanilla with /players 1 for a while, and then install one of the many 'loot buff' mods. you will see how quickly all items become trash

"

Blasphemous84#2190 wrote:

f the game had far less, more impactful loot

it's practically impossible to quantify that becuase different people expect different things & define that differently.

as long as GGG stick to the massive laundry list of item modifier, you will never get such "impactful" loot thing happens. The massive amount of RNG will always stand in your way.

if one day suddenly pig learnt to fly and they decide to trim down half of the tiers, let say life roll always starts from minimum 50, and not 5... Then maybe something will happens. But understandably changing things at such fundamental level will bring on unforseen consequences.

"

items are boring because there is so many of them.

no no no, they are boring because they are 100% predictable & farmable. It's not because the amount of them.

"

xonedl#1873 wrote:

"

items are boring because there is so many of them.

no no no, they are boring because they are 100% predictable & farmable. It's not because the amount of them.

rriight, and at what point items become predictable? scarcity gives value, its not some wild fkn concept man