Feedback and Suggestions - PoE for average players? - Forum - Path of Exile (2024)

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Elhazzared wrote:

No I don't got this from concurrent players data. This is number of players that played the game that day and to go further than that. Steam only care if you clicked the play button.

All the websites and Steam itself only show concurrent players data.

https://store.steampowered.com/charts/mostplayed - concurrent and peak concurrent

steamdb - “As a reminder, the concurrent player count comes directly from the Steam API” (from their FAQ)

STEAMCHARTS - “An ongoing analysis of Steam's concurrent player”

steambase - “ Concurrent Players Steam Chart”

Provide your source or your whole thread is just wrong.

In any case, if poe starts targeting stupid players, as many other games do, I quit immediately

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nutchman wrote:

I am so confused, Did you get no stats in the tree? Do you have no res on anything but rings, are you trying to use the tabula through maps? I have made a ton of spell totem builds that make it to endgame on 50c or less, typically my most expensive piece is the spirit shield with +1 totems, but I am at tier 13 to 16 before I get it.

You realise that on the tree, some stats are going to be relatively easy, others not so much. If you are a totem build, you'll get partially the str you need, more than enough int and practically no dex but you are likely to need more than 100, in fact probably 155 on all stats. Same is true for a minion build though possibly less a little bit less str.

And getting resistance everywhere you can is what you shot for, I'm just saying, it's expensive to get a piece that does bare minimum at all requirements.

A tabula or a corrupted 6L with the right colours is normally the go to for most builds unless you need a specific unique chest like say, Soul Mantle for totems in which case you make do with a 5L early on an get the 6L when you can. Chests that fulfil a role in DPS or survivabillity and are 6L are stupid expensive so it's not something you go after early on, it's not something you are likely to get before you are well into red maps.

And lastly, if you made a ton of spell totem builds then you are for sure using archmage which I already said before, I don't like and even then only a very limited amount of things are viable even having to use archmage not to mention they are spells that have some limitations in their use like ice spears that have bad clear unless you are at huge investment levels or shockwave which have limited range and limited damage.

@wkernel

That is because you don't know how to look at it. You have indeed a concurrent player overview but if you look at say, the number of players yesterday, it shows ALL players that clicked on the play button, not the concurrent players. All the informations is available there if you merely look for it. The fact that everyone else here knows how steamdb works and isn't even raising your point should suffice to show how this is just your innabillity to look it up.

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Coconutdoggy wrote:

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Marinxar wrote:

I been saying it for a decade already. PoE need a difficult setting. People like us who just want to kill stuff and loot stuff, and dont have the required 17 hrs a day to git gud.

The game wasn't made for people like yourself.

That's not entirely correct. That's originally how the game was back before "The Vision" rolled out.

The delta between casual hack and slash players and 6 man party MF was much smaller and the game far less complicated.

Crafting consisted of Chaos spam and Exalt slam (and for the uber rich, Eternals) and you farmed Dominus for unique drops.

At that time it felt very much like the spiritual successor to D2 that it was touted as.

While arguably the game does have a difficulty setting (Map rolls, scarabs, atlas tree, etc.) the way that loot has been balanced means that if you're at the top end of the exponential curve then you're doing pretty well, but the lower end is just barren. That reward curve is so skewed to the top that it makes the experience for a vast group of players miserly.

The changes this coming league to Quantity and MF are genuinely encouraging news to me. It feels like GG are maybe recognising that this gap is imbalanced and requires a correction. The same with increasing stats on gear while diminishing the impact of auras somewhat.

They really have needed to lift the base for players rather than just pushing the upper limit and then balancing the game around that.

Give it a rest with the the hyperbolic guardian SRS nonsense. I've played multiple Guardians since the rework. The "FREE" auras and Sentinel are nowhere near as powerful as they seem, especially in red maps. I know what your gameplay looks like with gear like that, No +skill levels, no minion damage, f***-all defenses. You walk until there is barely a monster on the edge of your stretched screen, then crouch there spamming SRS and watching them tickle the monsters down. I wouldn't be surprised if you're pretty much unable to roll any league mechanics, and each map takes over 20 minutes to clear. I applaud your tenacity and patience for playing such a marathon of a game, but, believe it or not, that is not what most players desire.

You are intentionally misrepresenting the experience to players who might not know any better, just to imply that you are not an "average" player, and therefore they have "skill" issues, not comprehending that whether or not such "skill" gaps should exist in the game is exactly the topic being debated right now.

Also, even if there was one magic viable budget build (which is often the case, e.g. seismic traps the past few years, and current guardian SRS is nowhere near that level of discrepancy), that does not invalidate the entire discussion. For example, people do get really sick of playing one thing over and over, and what was the point of games, again?

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Coconutdoggy wrote:

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Marinxar wrote:

I been saying it for a decade already. PoE need a difficult setting. People like us who just want to kill stuff and loot stuff, and dont have the required 17 hrs a day to git gud.

The game wasn't made for people like yourself.

aaaand there's the toxic elitism.

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Elhazzared wrote:

That is because you don't know how to look at it. You have indeed a concurrent player overview but if you look at say, the number of players yesterday, it shows ALL players that clicked on the play button, not the concurrent players.

Lol. No, it’s not all players. It’s the peak concurrent players from yesterday. Steam doesn’t provide amount of daily players.

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Elhazzared wrote:

All the informations is available there if you merely look for it. The fact that everyone else here knows how steamdb works and isn't even raising your point should suffice to show how this is just your innabillity to look it up.

I asked you to provide your source and you failed.
I even read Steam API docs and there’s no function to get total amount of daily players.

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Elhazzared wrote:

this is just your innabillity to look it up.

Your inability to read and understand what you’ve read illustrates why you have difficulty progressing red maps.

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Firedrops wrote:

Give it a rest with the the hyperbolic guardian SRS nonsense. I've played multiple Guardians since the rework. The "FREE" auras and Sentinel are nowhere near as powerful as they seem, especially in red maps. I know what your gameplay looks like with gear like that, No +skill levels, no minion damage, f***-all defenses. You walk until there is barely a monster on the edge of your stretched screen, then crouch there spamming SRS and watching them tickle the monsters down. I wouldn't be surprised if you're pretty much unable to roll any league mechanics, and each map takes over 20 minutes to clear. I applaud your tenacity and patience for playing such a marathon of a game, but, believe it or not, that is not what most players desire.

You are intentionally misrepresenting the experience to players who might not know any better, just to imply that you are not an "average" player, and therefore they have "skill" issues, not comprehending that whether or not such "skill" gaps should exist in the game is exactly the topic being debated right now.

Also, even if there was one magic viable budget build (which is often the case, e.g. seismic traps the past few years, and current guardian SRS is nowhere near that level of discrepancy), that does not invalidate the entire discussion. For example, people do get really sick of playing one thing over and over, and what was the point of games, again?

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Coconutdoggy wrote:

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Marinxar wrote:

I been saying it for a decade already. PoE need a difficult setting. People like us who just want to kill stuff and loot stuff, and dont have the required 17 hrs a day to git gud.

The game wasn't made for people like yourself.

aaaand there's the toxic elitism.

That's not elitism.

That's fact.

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Firedrops wrote:

Give it a rest with the the hyperbolic guardian SRS nonsense. I've played multiple Guardians since the rework. The "FREE" auras and Sentinel are nowhere near as powerful as they seem, especially in red maps. I know what your gameplay looks like with gear like that, No +skill levels, no minion damage, f***-all defenses. You walk until there is barely a monster on the edge of your stretched screen, then crouch there spamming SRS and watching them tickle the monsters down. I wouldn't be surprised if you're pretty much unable to roll any league mechanics, and each map takes over 20 minutes to clear.

You are intentionally misrepresenting the experience to players who might not know any better, just to imply that you are not an "average" player, and therefore they have "skill" issues, not comprehending that whether or not such "skill" gaps should exist in the game is exactly the topic being debated right now.

Also, even if there was one magic viable budget build (which is often the case, e.g. seismic traps the past few years, and current guardian SRS is nowhere near that level of discrepancy), that does not invalidate the entire discussion. For example, people do get really sick of playing one thing over and over, and what was the point of games, again?

Lmao... okay.

First: Of course the gear is bad. That's kind of my entire point? OP is claiming that you need several to dozens of divines to start red maps. THESE ITEMS cleared early red maps in hardcore. Ergo...?

Second: I'm recommending ONE build which is so completely beginner friendly that people with literally zero game knowledge can use it to reach (and beat) pinnacle bosses. There are many, many more zero budget options, some of which are almost certainty much better than this one. But I don't recommend builds I haven't personally tested.

Third, I tested this build in HCSSF. If you've never reached red maps in HCSSF, you really have no idea what this gameplay looks like. But for what it's worth, I certainly wasn't taking 20 minutes to clear maps and I was using scarabs to add extra content to every map I ran.

Fourth, radiant sentinels are EXACTLY as strong as I'm saying they are because that's how math works. I don't know how you can say I'm being hyperbolic when I say 28% less damage taken; it literally is 28% less damage taken.

Finally, I'm only posting in this thread at all because "misrepresenting the experience to players who might not know any better" is exactly what OP is doing, intentionally or not. I'm pretty sure it's "not" but a lack of malicious intent doesn't make misinformation any less harmful to new players.

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Elhazzared wrote:

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nutchman wrote:

I am so confused, Did you get no stats in the tree? Do you have no res on anything but rings, are you trying to use the tabula through maps? I have made a ton of spell totem builds that make it to endgame on 50c or less, typically my most expensive piece is the spirit shield with +1 totems, but I am at tier 13 to 16 before I get it.

You realise that on the tree, some stats are going to be relatively easy, others not so much. If you are a totem build, you'll get partially the str you need, more than enough int and practically no dex but you are likely to need more than 100, in fact probably 155 on all stats. Same is true for a minion build though possibly less a little bit less str.

And getting resistance everywhere you can is what you shot for, I'm just saying, it's expensive to get a piece that does bare minimum at all requirements.

A tabula or a corrupted 6L with the right colours is normally the go to for most builds unless you need a specific unique chest like say, Soul Mantle for totems in which case you make do with a 5L early on an get the 6L when you can. Chests that fulfil a role in DPS or survivabillity and are 6L are stupid expensive so it's not something you go after early on, it's not something you are likely to get before you are well into red maps.

And lastly, if you made a ton of spell totem builds then you are for sure using archmage which I already said before, I don't like and even then only a very limited amount of things are viable even having to use archmage not to mention they are spells that have some limitations in their use like ice spears that have bad clear unless you are at huge investment levels or shockwave which have limited range and limited damage.

1st why do you think you need 155 on all stats, thanks to the +30 nodes in the tree you really shouldn't need much on gear if at all. Second if you are using archmage on totems you are wrong it specifically says it doesn't work with spell totems. 3rd the argument is not "should you map with a tabula or a corrupted 6L", it is "do you start maps with a corrupted 6L, or 5 link or even 4 link." If you are wearing a tabula past tier 1 maps you are either asking to die, don't understand the game, or you are doing it to troll. Defense is always your first priority, one of the sayings that runs around my friend group is, "You do no damage when you are dead."

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wkernel wrote:

Snip.

You are right. I took a look at it again today and I couldn't find the way to access a chart by just number of players. I am fairly sure this used to be available a couple years ago when I took a look at the health of the playerbase of PoE but I couldn't find it anymore. It could be that i am just misremembering or that they removed the feature. Regardless you are correct that now at least you can only see concurrent players.

Yes I can recognise when I'm wrong. Shocker!

That being said, I wouldn't dismiss just peak players as not being a measure of playerbase size. If you take a look at it on one day of the week and again on the same day of the week on the next week, if you are not losing players then the numbers should look fairly the same. Sure there is always going to be a margin of error for varion, usually around 10% but when you see the difference between the first day on a friday (which means we are on the weekend and no one works tomorrow) and the second friday a week later and the difference in concurrent players is 40% to 60%, clearly there is a huge player loss in the first week. To disregard that as just being a different day is illogical. More over, if you look at the following weeks, it keeps getting lower week after week, it is a trend and of course as a league gets older more and more players leave, that is to be expected. But if you compare prior to delve leagues and the last 4 years, the percentage loss on concurrent players is much higher now than before, As I said, roughly 50% in the first week now vs roughly 50% in the first month before.

Of course, I will accept if you tell me you don't believe the cause is due to the gear wall required to progress. I will accept that is your opinion, but I won't agree with you and the reasons are.

First, that is exactly why I am quiting PoE so fast these days and even skipping one or two leagues in a row sometimes.

Second, all of my friends who played PoE don't play it anymore precisely because the gear wall exists. They still play Grim Dawn, they still play Last Epoch but PoE they just don't even care to try it anymore because of the gear wall.

Third, build guides wherever you go you see budget builds usually being 1 div at the lowest and sometimes the "low" budget builds you see them asking for like, 10 divs which is more than the average player will ever see in an entire league even if they are the kind of players to keep playing despite not being able to overcome the gear wall. Now on this point, compared to before a budget build didn't go higher than 10c and some were like, 1 or 2c budget builds capable of clearing nearly all content except things like elder or uber lab confortably.

@ARealLifeCaribbeanPirate

While I am willing to give the benefict of the doubt that I am wrong in that there are actually budget builds capable of taking you to red and through t15/16 maps, I don't agree that I am misrepresenting the experience of average players. I am very sure that a large portion of them feel exactly like I do. Again I will give it to you that we may possibly lack some critical knowledge despite know quite a bit of PoE mechanics, but I don't think it is fair to dismiss what I am saying as misrespresentation of the issues an average players feels. At best it is a small misrespresentation of what a budget build can archive but I'll also say that the amount of builds that can reach these levels of efficiency are low in the absolute extreme.

Also you are for sure, a very good player so what you can archive with certain gear and what an average can are leagues apart. For starters, an average player will NEVER be able to play in hardcore, the average player will always have a moment of distraction, not expect something to be able to kill or simply not be able to react fast enough to something and no matter how tanky the build is, they will die, even if this is a very rare occurence, in hardcore, dying once means you're no longer in hardcore. The fact that you can be successful in hardcore already puts you leagues ahead. Solo self found is also not for average players, the gear wall is so high for average players that they will just quit. It's for people with a lot of knowledge of the game, a lot of skill and more importantly, very good crafting knowledge. When you add those 2 together you need someone that is well well above the 1%, we're talking someone in the 0.1% or even 0.01% of the playerbase.

You can of course say there are a lot of players better than you and generally speaking, there is always someone better, that doesn't means you aren't already so good that you can barely see those who are significantly less skilled.

To put things into perspective I used to play WoT (past tense thank god!) and I was a good player according to my statistics. I always kept thinking I was average and that there was so much people who sucked at the game. Why were they not doing A, why were they not doing B. And then my father started playing and I almost had an aneurism watching him play so badly. Thing is, when i went to look him up he was actually average. That was a wake up call for me. To a skilled player, average seem like absolute dogsh*t who don't even know how to play even though that is not the case at all.

Now, if you could give me a PoB for that build so I could have at least a look at it, I'd appreciate it. Preferably one that has different stages of gear, since I need to know not just what to look for at the start but what are the better things to go for after.

One thing I noticed too however is that this league I may end up doing a gladiator if there are no changes to it. Determined Survivor + More Than Skilled and Versatile Combatent means that you have a ridiculous block chance and it's possible to reach 96% block chance going after the right things on the tree which is absolutely insane. I think it's 87% with just the 3 things I said earlier. Whether I do Gladiator will depend on whether I can find anything cool to play with that ascendency.

@nutchman

A lot of the times you use a gem that requires 155 str or 155 dex and that creates the requirement.

The +30 nodes are not enough. Generally speaking, you have easy access to maybe 1, possibly 2 and that still leaves you far from what you need not to mention it is creating pressure on the build by taking away many points in the tree. Now don't get me wrong, if i need to I will allocate that temporarely to solve an issue but that is something that should 100% be solved by gear, not by the tree or you are making your build significantly weaker.

Archmage works on totems builds, go look up any spell totem build on youtube and you will be hard pressed to find one that doesn't uses it and those have damage issues. More than that, grab the PoB link, go into the build and deactivate the archmage and you will see the insane amount of damage you lose. If archmage doesn't works on totems, PoB would take that into consideration.

Your argument is moot over the tabula/corrupted 6L. This is something that has been debated to hell and back and the fact of the matter is. The kind of power these chests give you is so high that using a more tanky approuch is pointless. In fact I made similar arguments to you in the past, without defenses you are dead and dead players have 0 DPS. Everyone laughed at how stupid I was and said you can have enough survivabillity even without a chest piece providing anything for it. The difference is, they have the DPS to clear and I was taking forever to clear maps. Once I gave it a try I had to give them reason. But let me go one further. If you are playing a spell totem build, your mandatory chest is a Soul Mantle which technically gives you 7L and in a build where damage is so hard to come by, that is not a skippable option. It also means you can have a pseudo 6L by having a 5L early on. Soul Mantle has no defenses. It has a bit of energy shield but nothing mentioning.