Path of Exile

Chonky Battlecat Friend

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Good Morning Friends! This is going to be a bit of a mixed-topic post, and we are starting off with my chonky boi above. If you are an existing Guild Wars 2 player or have been considering starting it with Steam… then maybe you should log in and collect the item that is being given away currently. Essentially mount skins are almost always microtransactions found on the gem store. There are essentially three varieties: a specific skin on sale for a limited time, a scroll that gives you a random skin from several available on that scroll, and a scroll that allows you to select a mount of your choice. The last one tends to be the most expensive and I believe is somewhere in the neighborhood of $16-20.

What you are getting as part of the 10-year anniversary is a scroll that essentially lets you select a mount skin from many different pools of skins. This includes skins that are part of other bundle packs, as well as some that I have only ever seen sold individually. It was a hard choice for me but I have wanted a Warclaw skin for a while, and those seem to have a much slower rotation than other options. While the base warclaw probably looks more Battlecat-like, you can’t dye the actual tiger portion. So instead I went with this chonky unmasked sabertooth tiger and then dyed him up to look like a proper Battlecat. Sure I will stick out like a sore thumb on the WvW battlefield but it will make me happy doing so.

I spent most of last night swapping map runs with Ace in Path of Exile and I have to say… grouping is the biggest problem I have with that game. Everything about the process feels bad. Firstly you have the contra code problem, and for those who did not experience this, here comes an explanation. Back in the day you could input the Konami code (Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start) and it would give you 30 lives or if you were in two-player mode, you got 30 lives per player. However, when one player ran out of their allotted lives, it started bleeding lives from the other player so collectively you had a pool of 60 lives. When you open a map in Path of Exile it spawns six portals, each portal can only transport a single player… so the more players you have the fewer chances you have of getting through a map. It feels really freaking bad to be the person who dies on a map and has to consume another portal, and there is no mechanic for resurrecting a player.

On top of this, there is the constant frustration of loot. Unlike Diablo 3 or many modern ARPGs, Path of Exile has a single shared loot pool and there seems to be no rhyme or reason as to which items it flags for which players. We’ve watched a lockbox open and every single item is flagged for one player. We’ve seen the same item flagged to be lootable by BOTH players… even though we were running with “permanent allocation” turned on in the group settings. Then there are weird things like trying to pick up an item and not having inventory space seems to count it was looting it… then dropping it on the ground flagging that item as free for all looting. It just feels bad that you are constantly on the verge of ninja looting something because it is never really clear what belongs to you. There are other problems like “fog of war” exploration not being shared… that all lead to Path of Exile just being a game that feels bad to play with friends.

Contrast that with Diablo 3 which has always felt amazing to play with friends. It is super easy to drag someone along with you and the catch-up mechanics serve to quickly lower the gap in power. I mean the game also has its own problems, I love the ability to just trade any item to friends in Path of Exile whether or not they happened to be there at the time it dropped. I feel like I keep finding myself in a situation of really enjoying Path of Exile, but it is nowhere near the group dynamic replacement game that I was hoping it would be. Diablo 3 sadly still sits at the top of that heap and has yet to be dethroned, even though I keep desperately looking for a replacement. After needing a break from the frenzy of running maps together last night, I swapped over to D3 when I went downstairs and finished out the haedrig’s gift portion of my seasonal journey.

For anyone who has never really done the “proper” season start routine, the above video from Raxx outlines the process. Essentially you complete a challenge rift and then attempt to use the materials that you get through that process… to get some items that will give you a bit of a boost while leveling. This season I stuck out big time. I did my challenge rift on Sunday and then failed to hit anything useful. I stuck out completely on gambling and got zero legendaries, and then my upgraded weapon didn’t land on anything useful either. Still, I managed to level fast enough over the course of two days and then began my season’s journey properly. By the time I dinged 70 I had completed all of the achievements required to get my four-piece set.

At this point, I had only four set pieces and nothing else useful. I had managed to pull a set of Nemesis Bracers which I immediately threw on my Templar. I’ve been trained to feel like I need specific gear items and have used them as a crutch, so instead of going after some of the missing achievements directly, I did a round of bounties, as I would need the jewelry patterns contained in the bags in order to complete one of the achievements. My hope was that through this process I would ultimately get some gear… and I poured all of my deaths breath that I got into upgrading mighty weapons in the hope of getting an Ambo’s Pride. However I finished my round of bounties and was in no better state than I started, and I was shocked at just how easy it was for me to complete a level 20 Greater Rift.

Basically, I had this moment where I realized… that I am much better at Diablo III than I used to be. I mean that is to be expected considering just how many hours I have played this game over the last several years, but it never really sunk in until last night. Early on when I did the seasonal grind, I would have floundered on a 4 piece set trying to get my 6-piece, but instead I made the best of what I had available to me and cobbled together a custom load out of abilities that would accentuate my strengths. Essentially I used Leap and Whirlwind to gather up packs of mobs and then Rend to do the killing, and managed to finish the Rift with eight minutes to spare. I hope maybe one day I can have this same moment with Path of Exile because I still feel completely overwhelmed most of the time I am playing it.

I am hoping beyond hope that either Diablo 4 or Path of Exile 2 ends up being the best of both worlds. What I want is a game with some of the nuance and complexity of Path of Exile, but the fun drop-in non-punitive gameplay of Diablo III. After the debacle that has been the Lake of Kalandra league, I am starting to lose hope that we are going to find that from Grinding Gear Games. I think there are some aspects of “the vision” that are directly at odds with what I consider to be the optimal grouping experience. Maybe the Microsoft buyout of Blizzard will go through… cause some significant changes in the structure of that company and once again make me feel okay about supporting their games. I am hoping that Diablo IV ends up being a great game, in spite of the conditions it was developed under. Even though they have come out with public statements to the contrary… the experience we all had with Diablo Immortal still gives me some significant concerns about what we will get.

Sniping a Six Link

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Good Morning Friends! Yesterday was a bit of a departure and now I return you to your regularly scheduled ARPG nonsense. Of all of the games that I play on the regular, I think I have the biggest soft spot for Diablo-style games. I remember getting into the test phases of the first Diablo game in college and it represented pretty much everything I had ever wanted in a game up until that point. When Diablo 2 came out, I made the difficult decision of choosing to buy it over Icewind Dale as they released the same week… and I had limited funds to buy a game with. I remember playing countless hours of “also ran” titles like Fate, Sacred, Titans Quest, and Dungeon Siege. Basically, I am a junkie for the pattern of clicking on baddies and getting a shower of loot as a result. I am surprised on one level that it took me this long to get into Path of Exile, and on other levels… not surprised at all because it can be a deeply frustrating game.

In order to move my Storm Brand into the next phase of its evolution, I really needed a six-link chest piece. The base that is most highly suggested for the build I am running is the Sadist Garb, and holy crap have prices been all over the place. I’ve been trying to craft my own and have legitimately used probably close to 200 orbs of fusing so far trying to get the links correct. When I first started shopping the trade league these were going for somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 chaos for the right colors and right links. At that time I did not have the funds and by the time I did have some money… they had jumped up to somewhere between 1.5 divines and 4 divines. Basically, the loot changes have thrown the trade economy into a state of chaos where no one seems to know how to price anything.

This morning before sitting down to write this post, I decided to check prices so I could snag a screenshot, and sitting there amongst the expensive options… was this Sadist Garb. It is not the best-itemized thing I have ever seen and is corrupted… which limits my ability to do much of anything to change that, but it was only 10 chaos… which seems like an extreme bargain at the moment. Basically, I decided to jump on the opportunity to get six links, so I could start settling my build in a bit more and shift from my 4 links main spell chain to the 6 links version. The only problem here is that I essentially need to shift around all of my gear to make this work because I am not using my body armor for my main spell chain. I’ve been rat-holing some gear but none of it is quite ready for prime time. However, it is much much easier to get some 4 links as opposed to a single 6 link.

As far as atlas progress goes I am sitting at 45/155 nodes. I’ve been weirdly obsessed with filling out the early rungs of the ladder. I’ve completed the first three tiers and have a map each in tiers 4 and 5, and then 3 in tiers 6 and 7. I suppose I should really check in with the rest of the guild to see what they need because they might be able to plug the holes in my progress and the same with my spare maps. As far as unique maps I have managed to catch 3 available so far from Kirac and have knocked out Coward’s Trial, The Twilight Temple, and Whakawairua Tuaha. Whenever I see one of those I try to complete it just because I am uncertain when I will see it again.

In other news, I’ve also started a character in the new Diablo III season 27. I have some awesome friends who offered me a boost since I did not start until Sunday… but ultimately I thanked them and turned them down. Diablo III has been my “chill” game for when I need a break from the stressful pace of mapping in Path of Exile. Basically, my survival is not amazing so I have to be on point… and lag-free… in order to finish most of the higher-tier maps. I’ve been hesitant to grind through the lower-tier maps for fear that someone in my crew might need them. So essentially I opted to chill out downstairs playing Diablo III the last two nights.

Last night I hit 70 and am slowly chipping away at Haedrig’s Gift. The first three chapters were a cakewalk, but I can basically only reliably do T1 right now with the current state of my gear. I am in mostly yellows minus the four pieces of set gear, so I figure I will do a round of bounties for jewelry patterns to knock that one out, and see how much gear I manage to get them. Hopefully by the time I finish that I will be able to bump things up to T4 and knock out the rest of Chapter IV. Once I have a full set of gear and some viable pieces to go with it, I will be able to escalate quickly through the ranks. I’ve done the “whirlrend” barb thing so many times that it is just a matter of devoting the time to farming in order to get there. Once I am up and running I should be able to knock the rest of the achievements out quickly and get my sword doggo.

Slow But Steady Mapping

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Good Morning Friends! I am still on my Path of Exile nonsense. We got another update as to what events led to the cascade of issues at the start of Lake of Kalandra. I think it largely makes sense, especially as a software developer myself… there is always room for the law of unintended consequences. The truth is that I feel like I am honestly in a better state this expansion than I was the last. I have way more raw currency than I had during the entirety of the last league, and I am slowly starting to catch up on the total unique count. So when the post talks about the average playing not being impacted… I believe it. In fact, it feels like the average player is probably in a better state now than they have been in the past.

We got another patch yesterday, but the ArchNemesis changes did not make it into it. What did however was a general rebalancing of some of the harvest changes as well as some buffs to the Lake of Kalandra. I think the truth is that the folks who have been most impacted are the currency farmers, who are looking for the most efficient “chaos per hour” farming rates. They are the loudest voices in the room, but also don’t necessarily represent my play style. I’ve never engaged with the trade mechanics other than the dump gear in our shared guild vault. I mostly like killing things until I get something interesting and then maybe tweaking it a bit with the crafting system. That said at some point I am probably going to have to buy some gear, but seem to have a reasonable amount of currency to do this.

Last night I spent a good deal of time running around and doing maps with my friend Ace. I am trying to purposefully swap things up… yall know them as Grace but over time they have shifted more and more to using Ace so I am going to try and do the mental swap as well. All told we ran a bunch of maps and an expedition that I had laying around. The expedition was really interesting but also stressful because I had to route so many charges around the map. All told other than one map that seemed to have modifiers from hell, we had no issues completing them and got pretty solid rewards. On the bad modifier map, it was yellow and seemed to have some crazy poison dot that would just shred me. Ace managed to save the day and finish the final boss which gave us both credit… even though I was dead with no portals back into the map.

It may not look like much but I feel like we had a very successful night of knocking out maps. All told we both now have all of the Tier 1 maps and all of the Tier 2 maps finished, with a few tier 3… and then I have a random tier 5 over there in the corner thanks to Kirac. One of my long-range goals for this season is to complete my atlas which means I am currently sitting on 18 maps completed out of 115 total. That is a long way to go but still feels like progress. On the achievements front, I have finished collecting a full set of rewards, but only the Tier 1 versions of them. I will need to be able to run level 81 maps to qualify for working on a lot of the later rewards. As I am currently sitting at level 78, I have a ways to go before I get there.

In other random news, I’ve been working on a new section for the blog where I track where I am in the games I regularly play. If you have read this blog for any length of time, you will notice that there are specific games that I tend to haunt over and over. For years I had the regularly playing section in my sidebar, but once I remove a game there was no place to store that information permanently. I am still not sure what I will do with this section once I am finished building it out and where I will integrate it into the existing menu structure, but you can check out a sneak peek of it in progress. There are a few more games that I want to add and I also intend to create a section for tracking my accounts on different platforms. Think of it as a social media link page, but for games.

A League Enjoyer

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Last night I tuned into a stream for the person who designed the build that I am currently running and encountered something that I found interesting. She stated a few times that “this is a league enjoyed” stream, as in someone who is actually enjoying Lake of Kalandra and isn’t going to be doom and gloom about the game. I feel like, after the last few days of posts, it might be important for me to reiterate that I also am a “League Enjoyer”. I am having a lot of fun playing Lake of Kalandra and while I am very far behind the curve of everyone “quitting” the game, I think my own personal play style will have very little impact on the problems that folks are running into. There are times I explore topics on my blog because it interests me, almost from a sociological standpoint. The situation that is currently happening with Path of Exile is one of those, and while I am firmly enjoying the experience of running around with sparklers and making mobs explode around me… I still like to keep a pulse on what is happening in the larger community.

Yesterday I started running maps for the first time. I had been holding off on killing Kitava for the final time until I could get through the third phase of the labyrinth and get my ascension. I had a good run that went south on the final boss and did not feel like fighting my way through the labyrinth again. However, I did manage to get a successful run over lunch yesterday and spent the first bit of the evening knocking out some of the early maps. Thankfully I have a stack of strand maps and am hoping to get the last tier 1 map that I have not completed as a drop in one of those. I keep checking Kirac but so far he has yet to sell the map that I need so that I can finish out that first row. I am well into knocking things out on the second row however and even have some banked maps for the third and fourth rows. All told that I have been having quite a bit of fun running around maps and I feel like I have much better survival than I did last season.

There is still a large amount of what I would consider “kooky” loot. For example apparently yesterday the game thought I needed 80 Armourer’s Scraps to drop from the same mob. That said the quantity and quality of loot seem to have improved considerably. So far every single map boss that I have killed has dropped at a minimum a unique. Granted most of the uniques that I am now finding are not what I would consider good, but getting them regardless is “interesting”. I have noticed the “higher bases” on the drops that I am getting as well which does make them something maybe to build into. I got my first six-link, but sadly it was a weird GRRBBB two-handed axe…. that was corrupted so not much we can do about the gem colors.

The other day I posted a screenshot of the currency tab of my stash as an indicator of the “currency drought”. This morning I took a similar screenshot and sandwiched them together. I’ve not really done much differently than I was doing before, and already I have doubled my scouring orbs, and chaos orbs, and picked up a few currencies that I was missing entirely. I have quite a bit more fluid currency for crafting in general, and this is not even taking into account the crafts that I have spent currency on. I know I made a modification to an item the other night that cost 4 chaos for example. Basically, we have arrived at “this seems fine” territory for me at least. Granted I am not “juicing” maps and probably never will to the extent that the folks who are complaining were doing. I am also never going to be a currency trader and if I engage at all with the market, it will be to strategically buy a handful of items needed to finish out a build. Even though I have trade stash tabs… I am not certain I would ever mess with selling anything.

Last night I spent a while working on my hideout, to arrange it in a better manner for running maps since that is ultimately the mode I am going to be in for a while. I moved back to the graveyard and have set up a little corner surrounding the mapping device so that all of the mapping-related NPCs are there as well as the crafting bench, horticulture bench, and my stashes. The only thing that I really wish I could change… is so that the game returns me to my hideout rather than dumping me out in the Act 11 hub when I log back into the game. In theory, the only reason why I ever want to go back to Act 11 is if I am shopping for something from one of the vendors there. Other than that my hideout offers pretty much everything else that I could want.

I also spent a bit of time yesterday with Delve. This is a system that I greatly enjoy and it is a little bit more lag friendly as I have been struggling a bit with parsec and lag spikes that can easily kill me in a map. This morning there is a new thread on the Path of Exile forums talking about nerfing down ArchNemesis and I look forward to seeing how that changes things up tonight. I fought a MetaMorph last night in a Lake of Kalandra map… and it absolutely took me a good five minutes to kill so I can see the frustrations. However as I said at the start of the post, even though I might talk about some of the things happening in the larger community, I am very much still enjoying my time in the game. So if there is a spectrum from “League Enjoyer” to “League Hater”, throw me in the “Enjoyer” column. I still really enjoy the Lake mechanic and since I am not playing this game for profit… I think that is what makes the difference.