I gambled and lost. My views on PoE and its randomness

Just a bit of background first. I've been working in Statistics, mathematical models and economical analyses for all of my working life after my multiple masters, I get the concepts behind PoE and that the studio is actually called "Grinding Gear Games". But there are some things that really grind my gears about PoE that I cannot help but give feedback on.

Since the inital closed Beta, I played a fair share of PoE. Since release, I've been trying to for the first time, really play it well and build a successful character. I now can establish that once again, I failed. Analyzing things is something I cannot turn off in my head, and naturally, I want some insights in my performance, so I logged a lot of data from my gameplay. Through this thread I want to share this with you all and mostly GGG to provide some feedback.

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Right now, with 6 days, 20 hours, my best characters is a lvl 85 Duelist, with Facebreakers, Dominating blow, Lioneyes Remorse and a Bringer of Rain on Domination. I am fully aware there are people that have played half of the time I did and have reached levels in the 90's. And I wondered why really. The advice all of these people have given me was "play higher maps". I'll get back to that later.

Now this char is not my only one on Domination. In the 4 months of this league, I played near 13 full days or 309 full hours of PoE. That basically means a good 10% of the time I was awake during the 4 months.

And sadly during that time, I only managed to acquire:
- 15 Exalts worth of gear.
- 2.5 Exalts worth left over in my stash
- A stash tab and a half of Uniques, most not even worth 1 Chaos orb

In fact the noteworthy drops this league have been for me (prices at that time):
1 Exalted orb (!!!)
3 Divine orbs
Maligaro's Gloves (worth 1 Ex)
Tabula Rasa (worth 1.5 Ex)
Lioneyes Remorse (worth 1 Ex)

During the 2nd month of the league, I had a bunch of items that where back then worth selling, which gotten me about 2 Exalt worth in Chaos orbs. All of the other higher currency I've gotten came from sellings Alts, Jewellers, Fusing orbs, etc etc.

As such, I've been bankrupt twice to buy the gear I needed. A Bringer of Rain simply is crazy expensive if you need to safe up for it throught the 2 Chaos recipe. And oh how many times did I use that... Countless hours into farming Piety at Merciless, both Solo and in high IIQ / IIR culling groups. I must have slain Piety a good 500 times. (something I didn't log)

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Well then, why the Title of this thread? For one, simply because the RNG seems to not have been on my side with the drops. Others in both my guild and friendslist, that have played as much or less, have reported more worthy currency drops for one. "Just" 7 days in and dropped 4-6 Exalted orbs. Found a Kaoms, or incredibly rolled body armours and 6-Linked them, selling for 30 Exalted orbs.

Every mob you slay is a chance to get something nice, something of value. I was simply out of luck. But that is not all, I've spend 534 Chance orbs without any luck. Now I've seen the community stats on this, it was to be expected that I got nothing in return. I should just have sold those, like I did with my Jewellers and Alts. Those are after all worth 66 Chaos orbs.
Same goes for my Fusings and Jewellers. I used 678 Jewellers trying to get 6 sockets on a body armour that really worked well for my character. Never got it. I didn't even get to the 6-linking process. I'm not sure I wanted to get into that with my luck. But I did find a fairly nice armour with 6S, tried my luck with 212 Fusing on it. I know, the chance of 6 Linking it were slim, 22% if the community data I've seen was accurate and the math behind it wasn't too far off.

But it does leave me with a bad taste in my mouth to consider how little luck I've had with currency items and the fact that I could have been 30% "richer" than I am and that I got nothing in return. I get it, a gamble, but to be honest, I cannot ever recommend anyone to use their currency, better to trade with it. I've be cautious with it and still I've trown away a good 6 Exalth worth!

And then the whole point of "why I am only lvl 85". While some players claim my character is a little "overpowered", it really isn't able to handle the endgame bosses. At least not solo. Getting killed is a HEAVY penalty really in time spend to get that 10% experience.

But the thing is, and many people know this, high level experience costs currency, since you NEED high level maps (74-78 preferably). Those sell for 4 Chaos up to 2 or 3 Exalted orbs. I couldn't even buy a lvl 76 one with what I currently own. Now you could progress from low level maps to higher ones, but here I also failed miserably.

I wiped out of my lvl 70-71 maps twice. I had 5 lvl71's and 12 lvl70's, 8 lvl69's as "backup", I chiselled all the 71's and rolled them till they hit at least 100%. And guess what, lvl 66-69 drops only. Did the lvl 70's, just put an Alchemy orb on them and go. I got NOTHING in return. I only ever gotten 5 lvl 72 maps so far, I just cannot get any maps to drop on them for some reason. In the end, I spend 78 Alchemy orbs, 112 Chisels, 34 Chaos (crafting) and 23 Chaos (buying) maps, and other than a hand full of Alchs, Chisels, Chaos 1 Exalt and 1 Lioneyes Remorse, I got nothing from them really. Basically, I spend twice as much as I got back from doing maps.

It honestly seems to me, maps with 50-60% IIQ drop more high level maps than >80% ones for some reason. Yes, I got 3 new maps back, but they aren't doing me any good if they are 66-68. Maps can only drop 2 level higher than the map you are in, but why can you get lvl66 map drops on lvl 72 maps?!

Playing solo (mainly) or with 1-2 friends really doesn't seem to get you into the higher level maps. The only option to level is to not even build your own map pool and join parties with "fees" and just pay 1-2 chaos for ever lvl 75 map they host. That way, you at least get about 1 level in the 80's range for every 1 or so Exalted orb spent.

And in that regard, party play is just simply too beneficial really. I don't see any downsides. More loot, less damage since there are more targets for the mobs, and the additional HP usually is not an issue.

I've been contemplating to upgrade my point bundles into supporter packs, but in the current state, I'm not even sure whether I'm looking forward to the next Leagues.

The game is good, the desyncs break a lot of the fun for me though. (On hefty to extremely hefty systems and internet connections too!!!) The currency system and the item modification is great, but the randomness cuts on both sides - some people just seem to only lose. It has nothing to do with player skill (sure builds fail, but even on well developed builds) because whether you get into the endgame mostly depends on whether you have gotten lucky and rich. Either a 6L on a nice item for a few Fusing Orbs, a 10+ Exalt item from Chance orbs, a single drop that makes you wealth, or the higher currency drops that are just not as frequent for all players.

Spending time early on selling higher level drops also greatly increases your chances in the endgame. Hanging around town selling stuff in spam-chat or through the forums is not really my idea of fun though. But if you want to get somewhere, you kind of have to.

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tl;dr?

I put in a lot of time. I know how to play, my build doesn't suck, and yes, in the end I got some end-game worthy gear. But "bad luck" in drops, map drops (after spending a lot on them), with crafting / chancing and not wanting to stick around to spam trade, frustrated me and make me want to stop playing all together. The game is good, but this 4 months spell of bad luck is just too much.

So am I doing it wrong? Is it just a gamble and did I lose? Either way, please tell me I'm in the bad luck extreme side of the curve...

I agree that the map system still needs some refining and that applying the 2map level difference rule in both directions would be a logical step.


However I should point out the benefit of group play is absolutely a function of how powerful your build is. group builds tend to do only two things better over solo: they are safer , they can get a dedicated culler.


but outside of maps the drops in groups on a per person basis are decidedly inferior to the drops each person could get playing solo. the only reason why this does not hold true in maps is because of how map quantity stacks with party and personal quantity.


For the really good builds , groups can be a large liability especially builds designed around killing enemies in a specific amount of time.

Take my summoner , I can solo level 78 maps all day no problem , and i can do that at a decent pace with little risk to my self.

and the main reason i can do this is because the mobs and even the boss dont have a stupid hp pool that drags out the fight . My minions can face tank dominus easily , but nothing can really stand up to an off chance double domi fist slam or the spamming of a dangerous attack at one point and long battles dramatically increase the chances of that happening.

The difference between having 1 person and 6 people is roughly 50 - 150% increased time on a map. that is ALOT of efficiency lost.


Another thing to consider is your approach to trade . It is wrong. spamming trade chat is about the worst way to play the game. Sure you will make more money but the art of trade is to find a healthy balance. You should set up a shop , that way all the work is in like an hour of set up. After that you just sell items to people as they whisper you.

1 -2 min spent trading and then back to fun

Hey, I hear you on your woes. I'm sorry to hear you have "luck" like I do. I think a lot of it has to do with the current risk reward system, in which I'm hoping they address in the expansion, but I'm not holding breath. I think loot tables would help significantly, as it would break up just killing piety for currency. It also makes it so you explore more content. But ultimately you should play if you enjoy the game, I think hardcore and nemesis add a lot to it because it gives you more of an obstacle to get where the game relies very heavily on RNG. I personally have been playing other games but will happily try the expansion.

Ah yes, that is true, for some builds, the increased HP of mobs is a bad thing.

Then again, most people that have reached endgame to say lvl 75 maps "I won't bother with lower", have no troubles soloing Dominus from start till the end even if the other guys are not camping out on the bottom balcony.

Yes, map efficiency is reduced in the time you spend on the maps clearing it, which is especially bothersome for some ranged builds. For most Melee builds, where 10K dps is "low" and defences are through the roof, I don't think it matters that much. Unless indeed you run into the bosses that you just need slay quickly because of their incredible attacks.

I had a shop open, but honestly, even with tools like Procurement, they are a hassle to keep actual. For some reason, I also never could sell that one helmet with 400 defences, tri resists over 35% and 80+ HP. (Should be worth about 1 Exalted - people wouldn't in the end buy it for 18 Chaos)

But then I decided to go do some races in the last month of the league to get some starting uniques for the new char. Yeh, and that broke my shop links. Might as well vendor even the decent stuff I have left...

And on that issue: I NOW JUST BLIND VENDOR EVERYTHING FROM PIETY RUNS. There is no point in keeping "alright" items. People that would pay 5-10 Chaos for them are no longer around it seems. I cannot use the forums-shop because of the race rewards, I don't want to bother spamming a not-very-special 11% Crit wand or 380 dps two-hander(just as example), because you are not getting the even 3 Chaos for them anymore.

Just save up rings / belts and then go get the rest of the unid stuff to get the 2 Chaos.

Then after a good hour or so, you got your 6 Chaos, dump it into maps, get 5% XP and perhaps 1 Chaos back.

The problem with your wealth gain is that you spent a large amount of time leveling multiple characters and getting them to efficient levels of farming and then blowing your currency "gambling" for massive boosts in power (trying for a 6-link) then consistently farming faster at a much higher efficiency. If you actually want to be wealthy I recommended running at least a basic MF char (all basic MF legendaries, at least once source on mf on rings/amulet and maybe in the helm/extra slots)

I'll send you some map data of 70-73 maps and my wealth gain only using 4 links and cheap less then 1 exalt apiece gear. I never bought a single map and just worked my way up getting a large map base of 66-67-68-69-70 and so on, with 70+ starting to get alchs and the rest blows.

For example some player who has like 10 level 70 characters at 200 hours might think that they'll be richer because they spent so much time in the game. But literally most of it was 1-70 10 times over at the lowest efficiency possible in farming the game, then giving up when the character hits the critical point in reaching the ability to farm at a efficient rate.

Issue right now is the massive lack of content is that maps is still just extra end game content, unless you have money to burn to level. There is literal no point in expecting progress as a wealthy person through maps if you weren't wealthy to begin with. It was economically smarter (but not as a fun) to spam dom/piety runs for every single map run you did instead and wait until you had a massive pool of 66 maps and large amounts of money and blue your way up to 70 from 66.

Unless your completely face-rolling the lower end maps with high speed clears/friends and mf your basically throwing away time and opportunity.

"

jaxxxson a écrit :

Hey, I hear you on your woes. I'm sorry to hear you have "luck" like I do. I think a lot of it has to do with the current risk reward system, in which I'm hoping they address in the expansion, but I'm not holding breath. I think loot tables would help significantly, as it would break up just killing piety for currency. It also makes it so you explore more content. But ultimately you should play if you enjoy the game, I think hardcore and nemesis add a lot to it because it gives you more of an obstacle to get where the game relies very heavily on RNG. I personally have been playing other games but will happily try the expansion.

Well, first my "condolences" on your luck too I guess...

Risk reward; I'm ALL for that. But the maps don't bring that IMO. Too many guys just have to stop playing maps, because they are out of the Currency to pour into it. Or they cannot handle the risks involved with the harder bosses, because they haven't gotten lucky enough to afford end-game gear.

I tried the HC gameplay modes. But the dangers of even low bosses (Orchard, Villa, Ghetto) and the occasional randomness just makes it not an enjoyable concept for me.

I don't think "Skill" matters enough in this game. You simply cannot make a Ranged char that relies on positioning and Dex / Evasion only. You'll die. 1 Desync and it is over. Cookie Cutter Tanks builds is what works best in that regard.

"Get a Good PC and internet connection". Just for the completeness:
my game box:
i5 3570K @ 4.2Ghz, 24GB ddr3 (I use it for server tests occasionally), 2x GTX 760 2GB, SSD for PoE / OS.
Hooked up to a 120/10Mbit connection.

My workstation system has a i7 3930K and 32GB of ram, Q K4000 3GB, RAID5 SSD's. Either the same connection or the occasional reallocation of this machine to where I have "gigabit internet" or rather 500/500 (in daily practice). (Yes, 56MB/s up and down)

I HAVE F-ING LAG AND DESYNC ISSUES ON THOSE MACHINES!!! An SLI GTX 760 setup drops to 30fps (!?!!) if I open up Excel and drag it to another monitor.

I don't mind dying on Hardcore due to player error. But so far, of all my deaths, 50% has been dying to stuff I have no control over. Now surely, playing PoE through TeamViewer like I occasionally do on a laptop over Wifi is not ideal.

Being Desynced through a door that I didn't open into a room full of mobs I did not want to face is ridiculous though.

"

RagnarokChu a écrit :

The problem with your wealth gain is that you spent a large amount of time leveling multiple characters and getting them to efficient levels of farming and then blowing your currency "gambling" for massive boosts in power (trying for a 6-link) then consistently farming faster at a much higher efficiency. If you actually want to be wealthy I recommended running at least a basic MF char (all basic MF legendaries, at least once source on mf on rings/amulet and maybe in the helm/extra slots)

I'll send you some map data of 70-73 maps and my wealth gain only using 4 links and cheap less then 1 exalt apiece gear. I never bought a single map and just worked my way up getting a large map base of 66-67-68-69-70 and so on, with 70+ starting to get alchs and the rest blows.

For example some player who has like 10 level 70 characters at 200 hours might think that they'll be richer because they spent so much time in the game. But literally most of it was 1-70 10 times over at the lowest efficiency possible in farming the game, then giving up when the character hits the critical point in reaching the ability to farm at a efficient rate.

Issue right now is the massive lack of content is that maps is still just extra end game content, unless you have money to burn to level. There is literal no point in expecting progress as a wealthy person through maps if you weren't wealthy to begin with. It was economically smarter (but not as a fun) to spam dom/piety runs for every single map run you did instead and wait until you had a massive pool of 66 maps and large amounts of money and blue your way up to 70 from 66.

Unless your completely face-rolling the lower end maps with high speed clears/friends and mf your basically throwing away time and opportunity.

I guess that holds a lot of truth. My lvl 85 has NO MF-worht mentioning, because in order for it to "faceroll" it has to use the uniques I have on. The Amulet and rings are only real "free" slots, but to get my resists / damage up, I already am in 1Ex territory, I wouldn't be able to buy perfect ones. (too many fixed high rolls)

So perhaps this char is bad after all? Perhaps I still cannot build a decent char?

But I am at the point where I completely faceroll Piety and lower maps. Lvl 66-69 maps hold very little challenges, all lvl 66s that are linear are cleared in about 3 minutes. I actually take Multistrike out of my BoR to only hit them once, because the concecutive blows are wasted time.

I know I am gambling to get huge power boosts. Or currency boosts. But simply because it is the only way forward really.

I guess IF I am to play the next league and really try to get anywhere, I'll have to do a MF-char... At least it'll be really easy to organize Split-Piety runs and to get people to join your maps.

So, a Cookie Cutter and a MF-er are the only chars I'll be attempting next league.

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unicron a écrit :

I guess that holds a lot of truth. My lvl 85 has NO MF-worht mentioning, because in order for it to "faceroll" it has to use the uniques I have on. The Amulet and rings are only real "free" slots, but to get my resists / damage up, I already am in 1Ex territory, I wouldn't be able to buy perfect ones. (too many fixed high rolls)

So perhaps this char is bad after all? Perhaps I still cannot build a decent char?

But I am at the point where I completely faceroll Piety and lower maps. Lvl 66-69 maps hold very little challenges, all lvl 66s that are linear are cleared in about 3 minutes. I actually take Multistrike out of my BoR to only hit them once, because the concecutive blows are wasted time.

I know I am gambling to get huge power boosts. Or currency boosts. But simply because it is the only way forward really.

I guess IF I am to play the next league and really try to get anywhere, I'll have to do a MF-char... At least it'll be really easy to organize Split-Piety runs and to get people to join your maps.

So, a Cookie Cutter and a MF-er are the only chars I'll be attempting next league.

Here is example my currency character, cheapo as hell with 1ex or less apiece gear. Hell you might even say 2 ex or less if you want to rush buying anything, with next ladder you don't have to worry about IIQ so just swap the affix to IIR instead on gears that have it.

I can literally run from 66 to 72-73 maps with this character, faceroll piety and cull for myself. (100 IIQ, 150 IIR and then 150+ IIQ and 200+ IIR with cull swap)

I ran 40ish maps in the past 2 weeks (couple a day or alot on a weekend, small time investment) from 70-73 and obtained 6 exalts worth in pure currency, metric shit ton of crap unique and other possible items (pretty decent or good) I will use for alternative characters.

You want character to make you all of your money to fund your other characters to faceroll the 75+ maps that your money character can't do unless you make a expensive type of money character that can run those maps.

Also chisel anything under 73+ maps is a complete waste of money.

If you want to play maps, it's a long term business investment that requires a economical bussiness plan. You can't just "play maps" and expect always to "win."

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unicron a écrit :

Now this char is not my only one on Domination. In the 4 months of this league, I played near 13 full days or 309 full hours of PoE. That basically means a good 10% of the time I was awake during the 4 months.

And sadly during that time, I only managed to acquire:
- 15 Exalts worth of gear.
- 2.5 Exalts worth left over in my stash
- A stash tab and a half of Uniques, most not even worth 1 Chaos orb

In fact the noteworthy drops this league have been for me (prices at that time):
1 Exalted orb (!!!)
3 Divine orbs
Maligaro's Gloves (worth 1 Ex)
Tabula Rasa (worth 1.5 Ex)
Lioneyes Remorse (worth 1 Ex)

GZ, that's much more I achived within half a year of playing PoE. ^^" And I play only in standard where I basicly have a nice pool of "starter" Items to make life easier in PoE. I tried Domination league but it sucked to start from 0 so I skiped this.

If you are into statistics you should know some tricks to beat the evil PoE RNG by the way. I only had statistics and Probability theory for a short time in math education, but it was actualy fun (we rolled dices! XD )
In PoE however, I just try to have workarounds to the RNG and surprisingly it can work. :) I only play solo and mostly selffound so it's hard enough to have progress in PoE. But you still can maximize your fun. The basic trick is actualy, never spent more currency than you have earned, that's it. ;) Forget fusing items or Alching/chaos maps. Run cheap blue, easy maps with maybe ~20-40% Quantitiy if possible, collect every small crap on the floor to vendor it for shards, scroll fragments or whatever, play a summoner so you can perma-fight enemies with your minions while you self collecting items etc.
Use Vendor recipes to get your daily Chaos orbs for example and again, never fuse about 4l! Buy, find a cehap 5 or 6l white item if possible, it's muchcheaper to alch/chaos it than fuse it!

Yes. This game is RNG heavy. And sometimes, that sucks. Other times, it rocks.

I usually stop mapping once I have some bad luck going. Superstition, but if I keep it up, I only lose more and more. So I just do something else. Farm Dominus, Piety, level up another char, or hey, even take a break from the game. Few hours later, everything usually turns out better, and I find one map after another.

I've been selffound in Anarchy, build an epic non crit Flicker Striker, able to clear maps within mere minutes, or created a summoner using some of the more expensive gears out there just for the heck of it, found plenty more gear during that period, among two glares, two bringers, etc etc.
Same in Dominion. I've made some pretty damn awesome characters out there, able to solo almost anything, found godly gears, even did seven out of the eight challenges while being self found - without the help of others, and still manage to have several 78 maps to spare.

Why I am saying this? Because I too had bad RNG. Ran out of maps, didn't get anything for ages. but I didn't give up, I didn't stop on the forums, and decided to complain about bad luck. If it really frustrates you, just take a break for a week or so. It might be superstition, but whenever I feel shit, and play the game, I don't find anything good etc.

Also, don't try to find items for your build. Ever thought about doing it the other way? Make builds with the items you find?

I always start of the new leagues with a summoner. One of the few classes out there that really doesn't need any gear(I don't snapshot, too much of a bother). From the gears I find with that guy, I just start building other classes.

Try it. It really kept the game fun, and challenging for me!