The future of POE's speed farm Meta

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鬼殺し написал:

Ugh, I have like, 40k posts by now. I can only recall a few threads that actually went anywhere. One is directly about PoE's struggle with AoE/ranged vs single target/melee, the other is about a rogue-lite version of PoE that existed briefly in the form of a race event. I can't in all honesty say that one is about what a hardcore ARPG would look like because it's a bit of a genre-bender, but it's still what I'd like to see someday, especially from TencentGGG and/or the GGG founders. Sadly I discussed it with Chris and while I could definitely fund it myself, they just don't have the time or resources. Also, to be fair, it'd probably just be a vanity project and crash and burn. :)

Interesting reading...
could you name ARPG which is you think is an example of "one with nothing" archetype?

Grim Dawn probably?

Because in Diablo 1 you eventually will get Chain Lightning, which is basically auto-aim projectile spell which clear everything not immune to lightning. (Fun thing, but the ES meta was in Diablo 1 too, in form of Mana Shield, because you can get much more Mana than Life and it's easier to sustain with Mana flasks only, so it was obvious choice).

Diablo 2 have huge amount of AoE spells for clearing "trash mobs" too, sorcs or javazons doesn't matter.

PoE is inherits Diablo 1-2 character development, I'd say.

Because drop rates for worthwhile items are well below 1% chance, it only makes sense that speed clearing was the norm.

Even in D2, I remember farming to no avail to just try and see a tal plate drop, but from solo ubers and other stuff I still managed to complete 1 or 2 sets through trade.


I still can't tell you what most of the enemies are in PoE. Some are more annoying than others but none have made me care enough to see them as anything more than nameless waves of something.

On the other hand, to this day I still remember the evils of burning souls and stygian dolls. I did have to look up the burning souls since they did have several variants - but I still remember seeing bot-led baal runs end so quick as a logout macro kicked in - and even feel entertained when said bot died. Pindleskin and Act 4 Diablo, mindless Baal runs, even teleporting and hitting mephisto... over and over again.

But the fact that I don't know the names of most of the baddies in game does have a positive. It tells me that unlike D2, there's more variety and I'm not forced into farming a very select handful of areas.

When sheer body count overall has more meaning than emphasizing boss drops it's no wonder speed is the norm. But I don't think PoE is fully committed to incursion levels of speed clearing as the usual drop off before league end still took place despite the league's appeal to particular people.

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鬼殺し написал:

I dunno, wasn't Chain Lightning in D1 more like a spread of lightning rather than a jump-from-target-to-target deal?

It was more like pre-nerf Vaal Power Siphon.
A projectile created for every monster around, and it could offscreen.
Ultimate AoE unless the target is lightning immune.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXU_MFfpcVw

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鬼殺し написал:

Ugh, I have like, 40k posts by now. I can only recall a few threads that actually went anywhere. One is directly about PoE's struggle with AoE/ranged vs single target/melee, the other is about a rogue-lite version of PoE that existed briefly in the form of a race event. I can't in all honesty say that one is about what a hardcore ARPG would look like because it's a bit of a genre-bender, but it's still what I'd like to see someday, especially from TencentGGG and/or the GGG founders. Sadly I discussed it with Chris and while I could definitely fund it myself, they just don't have the time or resources. Also, to be fair, it'd probably just be a vanity project and crash and burn. :)

Thank you. Very interesting reads. Must say I agree with a lot of it. And I'd argue a good deal of what you have written there is observations and analysis rather than 'views'.

Like I wrote somewhere else, it often feels like I'm not really playing a game, but playing a bot. 99% of enemies are such pushovers that there is zero challenge in defeating them. Then you have the bosses with sometimes absurd power spikes that, at least for me, can still be a challenge. I wish it more equalised, more 'normal'. So that regular enemies in the areas and maps were tougher, so that the bosses didn't feel like such a gigantic difficulty spike. This would also slow things down a bit, particularly if GGG managed to rein in some of the very powerful AoE spells/attacks. I though the Cleave Juggernaut was pretty solid, but then I tried a (self-cast) Arc and DAMN. Stuff just outright dies two screens away with a click of a button.

Since you touch upon the RPG vs ARPG aspect, I can say I'm more from an RPG background, although I kind of started late. Played Baldur's Gate way after they came out, and had an absolute blast. However, I'm one of seemingly few who tend to prefer the first game over the second. I think part of that is due to low-level campaigns, where the protagonist doesn't have god-like powers (literally in this case). Admittedly the very start can be frustrating because one bad 'roll' and you're dead. But it's also really exciting to go up against a puny wolf or two and be in very real danger.

There is some of that in the very first levels of Path of Exile, but it quickly transitions into something else.

I only started playing POE two months ago (time sure does fly!) so don't have the perspective of you or most others. Really don't like incursion though, the timer is stressful as feck and only promotes speed and AOE even more than the rest of the game already does. I really hope it won't make it into 'core' as that speedtrain will just keep running out of control.

Sadly it's difficult to see these developments being reined in at this stage. There would have to be deep and profound changes to the gameplay and skills, and I suppose the 'elites' would cause havoc again. Just criticising incursions usually leads to much namecalling and ridicule (an aspect of the forum I don't care much for at all).

The game is still fun, I can't say anything else after spending so much time on it these two months, there is always some other target you can set for yourself and keep going - although I really don't like its grindy nature. But it's a little sad that the best way to achieve that is to jump on the runaway train and embrace its evils.

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Pangaearocks написал:

Скрытый текст

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鬼殺し написал:

Ugh, I have like, 40k posts by now. I can only recall a few threads that actually went anywhere. One is directly about PoE's struggle with AoE/ranged vs single target/melee, the other is about a rogue-lite version of PoE that existed briefly in the form of a race event. I can't in all honesty say that one is about what a hardcore ARPG would look like because it's a bit of a genre-bender, but it's still what I'd like to see someday, especially from TencentGGG and/or the GGG founders. Sadly I discussed it with Chris and while I could definitely fund it myself, they just don't have the time or resources. Also, to be fair, it'd probably just be a vanity project and crash and burn. :)

Thank you. Very interesting reads. Must say I agree with a lot of it. And I'd argue a good deal of what you have written there is observations and analysis rather than 'views'.

Like I wrote somewhere else, it often feels like I'm not really playing a game, but playing a bot. 99% of enemies are such pushovers that there is zero challenge in defeating them. Then you have the bosses with sometimes absurd power spikes that, at least for me, can still be a challenge. I wish it more equalised, more 'normal'. So that regular enemies in the areas and maps were tougher, so that the bosses didn't feel like such a gigantic difficulty spike. This would also slow things down a bit, particularly if GGG managed to rein in some of the very powerful AoE spells/attacks. I though the Cleave Juggernaut was pretty solid, but then I tried a (self-cast) Arc and DAMN. Stuff just outright dies two screens away with a click of a button.

Since you touch upon the RPG vs ARPG aspect, I can say I'm more from an RPG background, although I kind of started late. Played Baldur's Gate way after they came out, and had an absolute blast. However, I'm one of seemingly few who tend to prefer the first game over the second. I think part of that is due to low-level campaigns, where the protagonist doesn't have god-like powers (literally in this case). Admittedly the very start can be frustrating because one bad 'roll' and you're dead. But it's also really exciting to go up against a puny wolf or two and be in very real danger.

There is some of that in the very first levels of Path of Exile, but it quickly transitions into something else.

I only started playing POE two months ago (time sure does fly!) so don't have the perspective of you or most others. Really don't like incursion though, the timer is stressful as feck and only promotes speed and AOE even more than the rest of the game already does. I really hope it won't make it into 'core' as that speedtrain will just keep running out of control.

Sadly it's difficult to see these developments being reined in at this stage. There would have to be deep and profound changes to the gameplay and skills, and I suppose the 'elites' would cause havoc again. Just criticising incursions usually leads to much namecalling and ridicule (an aspect of the forum I don't care much for at all).

The game is still fun, I can't say anything else after spending so much time on it these two months, there is always some other target you can set for yourself and keep going - although I really don't like its grindy nature. But it's a little sad that the best way to achieve that is to jump on the runaway train and embrace its evils.

Excellent post. I too am not a fan of the "speed meta" (out or control freight train) that PoE has become. Maybe that's why even with the crazy speed running of the temple incursions I still take time to slow down by running the Twilight Strand Beach. In the last two weeks I have farmed 2 Oni-Goroshi swords (hmm... both uber Hillocks came out to play with me on a Saturday... I still have 2 beach farmers left at level 8.5) so maybe tomorrow I'll get to play with uber Hillock again. The contrast of speed running the temple, mashing my right mouse botton to throw arc traps plus frequent Flamethrowers, curses, and much flasks drunk to stay healthy, with the slow repetitive beach combing shows just how much the speed of PoE is way out of balance (wildly out of control) at the top end. Sadly, I don't think GGG can do anything about this even if they desired to (and I believe Chris wants to slow down the endgame pace of play too). Now that Tencent has the largest financial stake here and they have many first person shooter games in their portfolio, they probably already know that the majority of players are young males that love the high speed twitch shooter type of games so following the money trail down the speed path is (sadly) probably here to stay.

The point of all ARPG's so far has been to become god like , in power and speed . Good ARPG's seem to know this and do evreything they can to slow this down . Once you become god like the game is over for most people , only sadists think grinding from level 95 - 100 in diablo 2 or old PoE was fun .

However i feel that PoE has made it much to easy to get to this place , i mean 6 links use to be a luxury that few managed to get , now they drop like candy ( or the currency to craft one dose at least ) and are considered mandatory for most builds . Players skill / knowledge of the game has increases exponentially , anything but BiS gear is redundant and often not even worth the time it takes to pick it up

You are god like at level 80 with so-so gear in PoE now , this is a problem . How GGG fix it im not sure .

P.S. Just a friendly head up that GGG is now owned by one of the most horrid company in the world , that run out of a communist country .

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SeCKSEgai написал:

Because drop rates for worthwhile items are well below 1% chance, it only makes sense that speed clearing was the norm.

Huh, and here I thought having 40+ enemies on the screen simultaneously was the reason behind being able to clear fast.
Shows how much I know.

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SirSid написал:

The point of all ARPG's so far has been to become god like , in power and speed . Good ARPG's seem to know this and do evreything they can to slow this down . Once you become god like the game is over for most people , only sadists think grinding from level 95 - 100 in diablo 2 or old PoE was fun .

However i feel that PoE has made it much to easy to get to this place , i mean 6 links use to be a luxury that few managed to get , now they drop like candy ( or the currency to craft one dose at least ) and are considered mandatory for most builds . Players skill / knowledge of the game has increases exponentially , anything but BiS gear is redundant and often not even worth the time it takes to pick it up

You are god like at level 80 with so-so gear in PoE now , this is a problem . How GGG fix it im not sure .

P.S. Just a friendly head up that GGG is now owned by one of the most horrid company in the world , that run out of a communist country .

yep, that does sum up a huge problem with the game right now.

How long until GGG removes the speed cripple from this league too and then poe is just the OP video?