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

I mean this in a nice way, but why do you focus so much on what you could've had so much? Meaning had, especially through the chance orbs.

Chance orbs I personally never sell. Odds are good when chancing for unique maps too. And say you did sell them, would 66 chaos really have made a difference?

Honestly curious, because I am one of those who plays for fun, and not for getting rich in a game.

Oh yes, I perhaps should state that, primarily, I just want to have fun.

I wouldn't care too much how full my stash was with currency, if it wasn't for the fact that PoE can just level or gear block you for hours and days...
If you have the level and passives tuned to perfection, and have good items, you run into a bad RNG map drop streak. If you have the higher maps, right passives, but lack one or two resistances / other mods, you cannot safely attempt them.

For this char I started, I figured while playing my first character, "well I have facebreakers and good rings / jewels for it, it seems fun, let's build". I steamrolled my way to lvl 65, bought a Meginords, all was fine. I actually found 2 upgrades myself. I crafted one item that helped. But then it was just meaningless grinding to get an Lioneyes to counteract the effect of my Abyssus. Then when I was all out of 6L-currency, I decided to just go with BoR. Saved up for that for a month, gaining just ONE level, because of the map situation.

Tried doing a few other builds, because I had amazing items for them, but in the end couldn't get the char right with the passives early on. Another block. And PoE really, REALLY sucks during those periods. It is the single ARPG where you can invest time into your Character and instead of making progress, you keep losing out.

I WANT to spend the Chance orbs, they are an innocent but fun gamble. But one that really didn't yield anything for me, except perhaps the occasional rare that wasn't half bad for a char I didn't want to bother create. I would actually like to go and just USE an Exalt or two. But the feeling that you are trowing away what you saved up for so long just kills the fun for me.

Grinding away to get better gear, extra levels in gems or your char is all fine. But PoE has you grinding for ages only to stop give you access to content (maps) or for currency that gives you minutely small chances to progress.

To answer the question, I'm not sure if the 66 Chaos would have made a difference, but instead of having absolutely nothing for the long hours of grinding, yes, it would have enabled me to buy 10 level 74-75 maps.

I don't want to think about the Economy in PoE this much, but I'm sort of professionally inclined to do so. And if PoE trows you such a scarcity curveball, yes, it makes me want to analyze what the best choice would be (or would have been), because it does directly correlate to the amount of fun you can have.

The whole thing about this thread is that the current balance of it all in the game, is pushing me to leave because I'm occasionally having a hard time to have fun and progress through the game. While I love the game and it's mechanics. But for me, like a lot of other players, it is actually hard to really play PoE well without spreadsheets in the background, calculating chances and the best ways to move forward. Nothing is as hearth breaking as putting in a lot of time into a hobby project, only to find that you are actually damaging instead of improving. And that is exactly what PoE frequently feels like to me.

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RagnarokChu a écrit :

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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."

Interesting setup. I'm curious how much life you have, though. How many times did you die in those 40 maps? That might be a viable strategy for Standard, but I highly doubt I could put on that gear and just map all day on HC without a random death. Especially on Nemesis.

That said, I suppose I could at least make the attempt. Getting good rarity jewelry is a good start. Considering that quantity affixes are gonna be legacy here soon, I should probably roll some quantity jewelry before I no longer can.

I'm sure even 40-50% quantity will make a huge difference.

i like how people say "anything less than 7X don't bother chiseling". my 70-71 pool has been obliterated twice after using chisels so i'd be even more down the drain without using them. there's simply no choice if your objective is more maps; you right click chisels, then chaos and it's still RNG whether you get a map drop of the same level or not.

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soulpoetry a écrit :

i like how people say "anything less than 7X don't bother chiseling". my 70-71 pool has been obliterated twice after using chisels so i'd be even more down the drain without using them. there's simply no choice if your objective is more maps; you right click chisels, then chaos and it's still RNG whether you get a map drop of the same level or not.

Economically you can just use the chisels you have in the 70-71 bracket and just use them to buy more 70-71 maps which increases your chances of more map drops then just chiseling them itself.

Also using chaos orbs maps are not worth it under 73+ maps either, your literally wasting money and profit if your not using build that can handle all or most affixs at the lower end range.

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Interesting setup. I'm curious how much life you have, though. How many times did you die in those 40 maps? That might be a viable strategy for Standard, but I highly doubt I could put on that gear and just map all day on HC without a random death. Especially on Nemesis.

That said, I suppose I could at least make the attempt. Getting good rarity jewelry is a good start. Considering that quantity affixes are gonna be legacy here soon, I should probably roll some quantity jewelry before I no longer can.

I'm sure even 40-50% quantity will make a huge difference.

I mean it's pretty hard to die randomly in those bracket of maps as long as you have decent gear. I have 3.5k hp and prob can get more as a level up or decide to craft my chest into a mirror rare with 100hp, as well as other upgrades as 6 links. But the character currently is a 66-73 low end piety/map farmer, which works perfect for the small budget and gains I have for the character. I can literally roll any other character I want from the gear drops and currency. I can even boost my shit to ungodly levels of MF with a potion which'll allow me to hit 250/250+ in both sectors.

To give you an idea on how important MF is.

Base chance to drop (These numbers are made up)

Magic - 10%
Rare - 5%
Unique - 0.1%
Orbs - 1%


Scenario 1: 100% Rarity - 0% Items (1000 mobs killed, dropping 1 item each)

Magic - 20% - 200 drops
Rare - 10% - 100 drops
Unique - 0.2% - 2 drops
Orbs - 1% - 10 drops

Scenario 2: 0% Rarity - 100% Items (1000 mobs kill, dropping 2 items each)

Magic - 10% - 200 drops
Rare - 5% - 100 drops
Unique - 0.1% - 2 drops
Orbs - 1% - 20 drops

Scenario 3: 100% Rarity - 100% Items (1000 mobs kill, dropping 2 items each with higher quality)

Magic - 20% - 400 drops
Rare - 10% - 200 drops
Unique - 0.2% - 4 drops
Orbs - 2% - 40 drops

This does not even count party bonus + Map IIQ because they also stack multiplicative with your natural IIQ

Now factor in my 200 + 200 mf + map bonus and if I party with any friends, and literally I can be so much richer then you slaying the exact same monsters or doing the same amount of hours.

I full well understand how much the IIR and IIQ stats might help with gathering items. But it does seem GGG is doing away with the IIQ entirely now, given how it has been a "must have" stat do keep profiting from maps and to drastically improve the currency drops previously.

Sadly, IIR does NOT improve map drops or currency drops. GGG staff has confirmed this over and over.

On the topic of Chiselling maps - Yes, I too have wiped my maps all the way down to 68s while chiselling 72-70's only, Alching them and only scour-alching if they where completely impossble for my build and I had nothing left.

I've run 105% (20% chisel) maps with min ele resist, ele weakness AND temporal chains (sucks and makes it extra boring, but with such IIQ, something MUST drop right? Nope!!!)

In reply to the economic setup presented above. You have 3.5K? No noteworthy defences, no shield? And no random deaths?!?

I have 5.5K hp, 69% block chance, decent armour and evasion, and yet I do get random deaths. Shock & Awe had me locked in between totems, firing the ligtning-laser twice at me within 10 seconds.

I've been crit one-shot by Carnage on Colonade. (Low probability, but still, it can happen - 68% Shield block, 13k armour (68% reduction) and the 2 15% lower crit dmg received nodes- over 5K dmg so I died), I've been storm heralded to death (75% resist) and even on occasions been teleport-stun-locked in the totem beams during Dominus runs (you kill him 50 times without taking hazardous levels of damage, still manages to kill you just once due to bad luck).

Not saying my build is a lot better per se, but honestly the stats look better to me at first glance, yet I feel blocked more or less...
Cheap setups can take to throught lvl 70 maps for sure, but I want to finally get to 75-78.

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unicron a écrit :

I full well understand how much the IIR and IIQ stats might help with gathering items. But it does seem GGG is doing away with the IIQ entirely now, given how it has been a "must have" stat do keep profiting from maps and to drastically improve the currency drops previously.

Sadly, IIR does NOT improve map drops or currency drops. GGG staff has confirmed this over and over.

On the topic of Chiselling maps - Yes, I too have wiped my maps all the way down to 68s while chiselling 72-70's only, Alching them and only scour-alching if they where completely impossble for my build and I had nothing left.

I've run 105% (20% chisel) maps with min ele resist, ele weakness AND temporal chains (sucks and makes it extra boring, but with such IIQ, something MUST drop right? Nope!!!)

In reply to the economic setup presented above. You have 3.5K? No noteworthy defences, no shield? And no random deaths?!?

I have 5.5K hp, 69% block chance, decent armour and evasion, and yet I do get random deaths. Shock & Awe had me locked in between totems, firing the ligtning-laser twice at me within 10 seconds.

I've been crit one-shot by Carnage on Colonade. (Low probability, but still, it can happen - 68% Shield block, 13k armour (68% reduction) and the 2 15% lower crit dmg received nodes- over 5K dmg so I died), I've been storm heralded to death (75% resist) and even on occasions been teleport-stun-locked in the totem beams during Dominus runs (you kill him 50 times without taking hazardous levels of damage, still manages to kill you just once due to bad luck).

Not saying my build is a lot better per se, but honestly the stats look better to me at first glance, yet I feel blocked more or less...
Cheap setups can take to throught lvl 70 maps for sure, but I want to finally get to 75-78.

Yeah, don't worry, you're not the only one with the issue, the balancing, RNG elements and risk-reward factors are off on the game. I enjoy it, but there's no reason why a level 66 map boss hits like a level 70 boss (devourer), not to mention the act 3 difficulty in general, there's no real reason to put up with the difficulty increase with no reward. It's just off.

Just as a note, I'm not really here to argue with anyone.

And I want to properly thank those that have replied, mentioned what they experienced or tell me what they do and I probably should do.
I am taking every bit of advice into consideration. Even if I express my doubts.

I just really wanted to tell you guys and most of all the Developers at GGG how I experience this game. I like PoE an aweful lot. I also WANT to like it and to keep playing it.
But as I pointed out a little earlier, PoE can be hard to like at times.

The thing the last Domination race thought me about the game:

- If your character sucks, it'll keep on sucking - you'll be at a disadvantage, because you'll die a lot, because you clear areas slowly and get less items and xp.
- If your character plays well, you'll go through content quickly, you'll get more drops, more xp and progress well.
-But the real goal is to find something that is soo good it is borderline broken. You'll stomp the content to the point there is no real challenge save one or two Achilles hiels. Farming is a breeze, you'll get rich fast from drops, you'll be ahead of the curve and gather a lot of currency from farming. You'll be able to pay for the first uniques that are found, and get ahead even further.

The first type of characters make you straight out want to quit the game.
The second type is what makes PoE enjoyable. But the caveat, the third category of experienced meta-gameplay-crackers are what wrecks the economy. They are the ones you'll never catch up with. The guys that reach lvl 90+ in the first few days of the league. I get it there has to be some form of competition, but I feel PoE needs a bit more balance to really excel.

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But most of all I just hope my message reaches GGG developers. That they take the comments somewhere. Would you guys please leave a reply if you read this (either here or in a private message) I don't even expect anything other than "seen your thread, bye".

I have passed this thread on to the appropriate development team members :)

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Samantha a écrit :

I have passed this thread on to the appropriate development team members :)

Big time yay!

I hear your concerns Unicron, I love this game, donated a lot to it even! But I have had no will to play it because of your discussed reasons.

I would be so happy if I could get back to this game like I was, before I explored the issues that I'm currently struggling with. I know the staff is constantly working with the players instead of against them, so I'm really hoping some of the issues get ironed out.