Featuring: Ammosart, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Thalen, and Tamrielo
Hey Folks! Grace has returned to Stardew Valley and we spent some time discussing some recent changes… including the mayo meme. From there we talk a bit about Balatro as folks have had a chance to dive into it. Tam talks about his experiences with Pacific Drive and its unique blend of Car Survival games. This week was the full reveal stream for Path of Exile Necropolis League and we spent a bit of time talking through some of the significant game system changes. Finally, we end the show talking about some Last Epoch and the experiences that folks are still having with the game including a bit of a dive down the rabbit hole that is Spellblade.
Good Morning Folks. I will give you some fair warning… this is going to be a bit of a bummer of a topic especially if you are a big fan of Diablo or more specifically Diablo IV. If so you might want to give this topic a hard pass. I consume a lot of gaming content, and in doing so I notice certain trends. I’ve been thinking about this topic since the beginning of Season 3, and I am not sure what shape it will take. For years there have been what I could only term “Blizzard Content Creators” or folks who are very dedicated to that company or dedicated to one particular gaming franchise within their portfolio. Diablo had one of the strongest communities of dedicated content creators for years. For example up until season 29… rain or shine… every single week Raxxanterax released a guide video on how to complete that week’s challenge dungeon (650 of them in fact… 1 each week for EU and one for NA).
The thing is… one by one the dedicated content creators have been giving up on Diablo, or at least deciding that they cannot continue to function by ONLY creating content for that game. Affliction League was the first time that Raxxanterax did some dedicated coverage of Path of Exile, and similarly, he has gone extremely hardcore on Last Epoch with its launch. Diablo Immortal and later Diablo IV were the games that really put Darth Microtransaction on the map… and he’s made the decision that he had to stop focusing on that game and instead pivoted to other titles. He is maybe one of the most savvy YouTubers I have seen and it is very clear that he is following the trends and the metrics… and Diablo 4 seems to be tanking in relevancy. The popularity of the game peaked in June 2023 and then has largely tanked since. When the game launched everyone that I had on my large Battle.net friends list was playing it… and by the time season one rolled around it was just my cousin that was consistently logged in.
Rhykker has been one of the most corporate message focused YouTubers when it comes to Diablo. I had stopped subscribing to his channel at one point because it always felt like he was following the company line on pretty much everything. Even his content has reached a point where it is mostly negative about Diablo IV and with the launch of Last Epoch I saw him releasing guide content for that game. While he has always covered lots of general ARPG news, this is probably the first time I can recall him making dedicated guide videos for a game that was not some sort of alpha/beta preview coverage. It feels like the creators that used to make up the core of Diablo… have largely given up on the game. The first season was bad… season two gave everyone a bit of hope… but season three and the poor reception of the heavily delayed gauntlet have caused interest to plummet into the sub-basement.
Of all of the above though… the one that shocked me the most was this video from Wudijo. Up until this point he has been quite possibly the most dedicated content creator for Diablo IV. He was the first solo hardcore player to hit level 100 at the launch of the game and has been entirely devoted to the game through all of the ups and downs. For him, it seemed like Last Epoch was the tipping point, and seeing how well a game from a much smaller team with a smaller budget was providing a much better gaming experience. In the above video, he outlines that he is going to be stepping away from Diablo IV and making content not only for Last Epoch but also diving back into Path of Exile and eventually Path of Exile II. I get that the average couch gamer does not give a shit about these content creators… but it certainly feels like a good number of folks who made their entire career focused on Diablo are now abandoning the franchise.
I feel like at least part of this is because Blizzard has become complacent. They spent two decades not really needing to properly compete with anyone in a number of niches. Diablo was the archetypal ARPG, World of Warcraft the genre-defining MMORPG, and Starcraft the game that largely spawned e-sports. In every single one of these verticals… the games stagnated allowing Last Epoch and Path of Exile to take the spotlight away from Diablo, Final Fantasy XIV to cause a mass migration away from World of Warcraft… and Starcraft to have limited relevancy in the modern e-sports landscape dominated by DOTA2, League of Legends, and Valorant. It feels like Blizzard is a company that long ago began feeding off its own hype cycle and now just isn’t creating games that are that great anymore. To be fair… World of Warcraft has seen a similar drain of formerly dedicated content creators over the last few years.
Diablo will always have a special place in my heart, and there is no theme that “means” ARPG more than the Tristram theme. However, I am just not sure Blizzard is going to pull out of this spiral. Last Epoch for years has been a game with an amazing core but one that needed a lot of polish and window dressing… and more than anything just more content. Diablo IV however is a game with a flawed core… that is going to need to have almost a top-down rework of several systems to bring it in line with what the players are expecting. It is a game that looks gorgeous… but is made up of duct tape and paper mache once you punch through that lovely facade. I am just not sure that Blizzard is the sort of company that is willing to commit to an “A Realm Reborn” or “No Mans Sky” level of reinvention to make the game what it needs to be. So yeah… in writing this I have wound up bumming myself out.
I hope your week is going well and if you have made it to this point in the post… sorry for being a downer.
Good Morning Folks! I’m in a bit of a holding pattern waiting on the Path of Exile Trial of the Ancestors league’s start tomorrow. In this downtime I find myself doing a ton of research designed to help make my start a bit smoother. Currently, my intention is to attempt to solve my own problems in a very solo-self-found manner, without actually flagging myself as part of that challenge league. This means there will be several phases that my build will go through… namely finding my first five-link gear, attempting to solve my resistance, and eventually finding comfortable six-link items to help with that process. The challenge is that it is very hard to brute force your way into a six-link weapon or piece of armor, and it will be a long time before I find 1500 Bindings Orbs which is what the guaranteed recipe requires.
White Tier Maps
As you migrate out of the campaign, you will find yourself moving into what is colloquially referred to as “White Maps” largely because the border of the icon has a white color, as compared to the later yellow, and red versions. Essentially this pool of 36 “white” maps is divided up into difficulty tiers one through five and are realistically not that far from the general difficulty level of the campaigns. Recently we got a big information dump for the Item Filter creators to update their filters, and with it came a full list of which maps are associated with which tiers. For the sake of this exercise, we are only going to focus on those first five tiers of maps because you should be getting quite a few of these as you progress through the Atlas of Worlds.
Tier 1
Bone Crypt
Arena
Barrows
Plateau
Tier 2
Dunes
Stagnation
Primordial Blocks
Estuary
Grave Trough
Beach
Wasteland
Mineral Pools
Tier 3
Overgrown Shrine
Strand
Cold River
Lookout
Residence
Bog
Forking River
Mesa
Tier 4
Cemetery
Moon Temple
Vaal Pyramid
Primordial Pool
Malformation
Iceberg
Graveyard
Cage
Tier 5
Atoll
Courtyard
Volcano
Bazaar
Cells
Tropical Island
Leyline
Alleyways
Divination Cards
It is extremely difficult to predict what maps might drop what pieces of gear, because for the most part armor drops are a complete crapshoot. However, there is a thing in Path of Exile called a Divination Card, and these drop from specific zones. If you collect a full set of a given card, you can turn them in for a specific item or pool of items. So as a result one of the most “deterministic” ways of farming six-linked gear is to set your focus on a specific zone that drops a specific set of cards. This morning I thought I would talk a bit about what is available in the white tier of maps. Quite frankly… there is a heck of a lot of useful cards available.
Six-Link Body Armor
[EDIT] – My fact-checker-in-chief Ashgar, pointed out that some of these cards namely Imperial Legacy, Dapper Prodigy, and Bowyer’s Dream cannot drop in the minimum tier versions of these maps. Item level 100 drops have a minimum drop level of 80. This means you will be able to run these maps once you get some void stones… but sadly not before that.
For guaranteed Six-Link body armor, we have four different cards to choose from. It should be noted, that all of these will reward a normal quality item, meaning you are going to need to craft it into something useable usually by throwing some essences at it. However, you can usually brute force your way into something that will work for your build. Of these probably the worst one is Emperor of Purty, which gives you an Item Level 60 Holy Chainmail which has fairly low stats but would be easier to get green sockets on for example if you needed that in an Armor/Energy Shield base. The best option is probably The Dapper Prodigy which will drop item level 100 armor, which makes it easier to get higher-tier crafting rolls on it. Celestial Justicar is specifically good for anyone needing a pure armor base as Astral Plate has extremely high armor and comes with an implicit bonus to all elemental resistances. The Chains that Bind is fairly commonly farmed though because it drops fairly frequently and can realistically be farmed while doing the campaign as it can drop off level 38 content, and all of the maps associated with Shavron’s Tower in Act 6.
[EDIT] – My fact-checker-in-chief Ashgar, pointed out that some of these cards namely Imperial Legacy, Dapper Prodigy, and Bowyer’s Dream cannot drop in the minimum tier versions of these maps. Item level 100 drops have a minimum drop level of 80. This means you will be able to run these maps once you get some void stones… but sadly not before that.
Weapons are largely only a concern for folks needing to use two-handers. Unfortunately for anyone needing a two-handed melee weapon that is not a staff… you are sorta screwed with the white maps this time. However, if you are a bow user… life is pretty peachy. The Porcupine is infamous because it is the most common crafting base for anyone trying to build a bow for Toxic Rain or Explosive Arrow, both of which want fast attack speed. I however will be going for Imperial Legacy for my Lightning Arrow build, which while not the best base is at least item level 100. I threw Bowyer’s Dream in mostly because it exists, but this only drops from the boss of that map so it is likely out of reach unless you boss rush Leyline. For staves, your best option would be The Dark Mage or if you can survive from a 5-Link the lesser Flora’s Gift also exists.
One of my favorite videos on the subject of the “easiest way to get a six-link” basically just comes out and says that trade… trade is the easiest way. A lot of the suggestions here are for folks wanting to avoid trade, but even then… if you want to buy a six-link you are going to need some trade currency. That means Chaos Orbs, Exalted Orbs, and Divine Orbs. While there are still some weirdos trying to run the Awakened Sextant scam, for the most part, you need to have the three most common liquid currencies in order to buy anything. A lot of early league strategies for money-making involve farming a bunch of bulk items and then trading those on The Forbidden Trove, which is a bit too far for me personally. If we look at the maps that are available to us, for the purpose of farming Div Cards that reward raw currency… the clear winner is Brother’s Stash and Brother’s Gift as they both drop from the same locations. Alternatively, if you need Vaal Orbs, then The Inventor is well worth your time, and if you need Exalted Orbs then maybe The Scout is worth chasing. What we really benefit from this league is three separate locations within White Maps where we can farm the brother’s cards.
So say you have a lot of expenses… and you need to target much bigger prey when it comes to farming currency cards. I guess at this point let’s talk a bit about some of the chase rare cards that are available in this league’s White Maps. Please note… you may go all-league and NEVER see one of these drops, but if you want to chase some “big game” there are some options. The biggest fish is definitely Unrequited Love, which is essentially a fraction of a fraction of a Mirror of Kalandra. At the time of writing this card is going for 42 Divine Orbs, and the price fluctuates wildly through the league. Next up you The Nurse which is a fraction of a fraction of a Headhunter belt and this usually goes for around a Divine Orb. Similarly priced is The Sephirot, but it is much harder to farm given that it only drops from a boss. Lastly, you have Divine Beauty which only goes for around half a Divine Orb, so you would probably be better off just farming the entire set of 12 and turning in for 7 Divine Orbs.
While I am spending all of this time talking about Divination Cards, I would be remiss if I did not at least mention Kirac farming. As you unlock your atlas you are likely to be leaning on missions from Kirac to help uncover new maps. One of the reward types that Kirac offers is a map that will drop a full stack of Divination cards. Most of the time these will be junk cards that give basic crafting currency, but there is always the rare chance of you getting a full stack of one of the most sought-after cards. When I farm Kirac missions for cards I rely heavily on Divcards.io, which allows you to input a map and it brings back quickly a list of cards that could drop.
So in this example, Kirac is offering me a Div Card mission for Defiled Cathedral. When I search on Divcards.io it returns the following results for that map. In this case… there is an exceedingly rare potential for dropping one of the most sought-after cards in the entire game… The Apothecary. Even though I know I am more likely to get a stack of a trash card like Her Mask, I am absolutely going to run this on the off chance that I get lucky. If there is absolutely nothing worth getting, then you can always use a Scouting Report to reroll Kirac’s Inventory. Getting a full stack of The Apothecary and then turning in for a Mageblood represents a potential 200+ Divine Orb payday. For me… if I ever got a Mageblood I would just use the damned thing.
Final Thoughts
For a league start, I feel like we have a shockingly good number of gear-farming maps available in those first five tiers. I think Div cards are fun because they give you a reason to farm a specific zone, and while doing that… you are going to be seeing a lot of other interesting things along the way. So if you set your mind on a set of Dapper Prodigy cards to get a six-link, you might actually see a raw six-link drop in the process. Not to mention getting likely several chaos orbs or higher crafting currency in the process of farming. Having farmed full sets of cards up many times, they don’t exactly drop quickly. What I like however is they set my focus on doing a specific thing that is going to likely improve my character, rather than just mindless random farming. In a game with an overwhelming wealth of options… having specific goals in mind can be extremely important. Even when I was spending hundreds of hours down in Delve, I had the specific goal of finding cities and more specifically Delve bosses.
Anyways, I hope this actually helps someone out there. I’m looking forward to the league starting on Friday, and I am hoping that I have a bit of luck when it comes to drops. I am not opposed to fixing problems through the trade market, but I am going to see how far I can get on my own.
Good Morning Friends! We are going to go on a bit of a journey. I’m very much in Path of Exile mode with the new league starting some 16 days from now. I have been playing around with various build ideas and trying out new things. This also means I am consuming a lot of content which in turn causes the YouTube algorithm to dredge up even more of it for me to watch. Trade is an extremely important part of Path of Exile, whether or not you want to admit it. If you are playing without access to the trade market, you are absolutely playing on the hardest difficulty settings. Solo-Self-Found is absolutely a game mode, but it is also one that expects you to know quite a bit about the even more obtuse crafting system in order to fix your resistances and craft your own gear. I feel strongly enough about this that I took the time to cobble together a rather detailed dissection of a trade encounter in an attempt to demystify the process.
Then I stumbled onto this video from All-Trades Jack who has been going on his own journey through this game much like I have over the last few years. He has an excellent video talking about the merits of following a guide which I highly recommend watching. Essentially he reached the point that I did two leagues ago, where I finally was willing to engage with the Trade system. He honestly talks about many of the very sane and reasonable objections that I also had. Trade in Path of Exile is needlessly cumbersome and it requires a human element to the trades that I have not dealt with since Everquest and setting up a trader in the Nexus. It should be as simple as putting items in a publicly flagged trade stash tab and then allowing players to purchase those items through an in-game auction house. However two leagues into wrapping my head around the trade economy… it works the way it works for a reason.
One of the core problems with an Auction House system is that it often allows for arbitrage, or essentially buying cheap goods and then selling for a profit margin. This is ultimately how the real-world stock market works, so it makes sense that players will figure out ways to carry over this same logic into a video game. In World of Warcraft, this has led to an arms race over the years of Auction House tools and changes to the way that the Auction House worked, in order to try and throttle the equivalent of “fast trading”. Essentially in an Arbitrage system, there is essentially an invisible broker sitting in the middle of a trade always making sure that prices trend upwards. This is an oversimplification because I don’t tend to engage in “economic pvp” as some call it. I know it works and I have a mount in Classic WoW entirely thanks to the fact that my friend Stargrace is extremely skilled at playing a market and looking for opportunities.
This is not me passing judgment on the system, but just saying that it isn’t really my jam. World of Warcraft specifically has systems in place to help limit the impact of runaway arbitrage. When you use an item, it often binds to your character meaning that you cannot then turn around and sell it after using it. When the game launched bags were not bound to the character, and as a result the bag cartel became one of the most rampant marketplaces. I remember getting very threatening messages when I crafted my first Mooncloth Bag and dared to price it cheaper than all of the other bags on the market. From Burning Crusade and beyond, all bags were set to bind to the character on equipment. BOE as a system is likely largely a result of the trade economy that WoW Devs were all too familiar with in Everquest where all of the gear was tradeable effectively forever. Nothing was ever truly removing gear from the economy because I could use the same Lamentation for 50 levels, and then trade it off to the next person when I got an upgrade.
Path of Exile is similar to the original days of Everquest in that almost everything in the game is freely tradeable between your characters or any other player in the game. This allows for some really interesting decisions where I can take maps with modifiers that I cannot personally run, but sell them to players who have builds capable of running them. I can also take every piece of gear that I find and sell it to any other player, or even when I decide I am done with a character use those items to fund my next character. It is an economy begging to be set ablaze by arbitrage, and there are in fact discords devoted to buying items in bulk for the purpose of flipping them. However, this is not something that the game itself supports, and by default, trade seems to be purposefully cumbersome and requires several human touchpoints in order to stop rampant flipping.
It might be Stockholm syndrome, but I have reached a place of acceptance that All-Trades Jack has yet to arrive at. I accept that the cumbersome nature of trade, and the inconvenience of needing to stop what I am doing in order to sell an item… is a fair tradeoff for having the ability to find reasonably priced items for the vast majority of the league life span. We are currently at the end of a league and the trade market is a bit tight, but my reasonably priced items are going like hotcakes as a result. I will say that the inconvenience factor has changed what I am willing to sell. I am no longer going to personally list 1 Chaos items because frankly, it isn’t worth my time to stop doing whatever I happen to be doing to pop into my hideout to complete that trade. In Sanctum my bulk bin was 1 Chaos, in Crucible my cheapest sell price was 5 Chaos… and going into the next league I fully expect the lowest price I am willing to sell at will be 10 Chaos.
While my personal price point has trickled up, it is not that I am charging more for individual items… it is just that I am only selling better quality items. There are enough dedicated traders out there who are more than happy to take on smaller trades to make sure those 1 Chaos uniques are in plentiful supply. I’ve basically figured out a way that I can live with the system. Would I like it all to be automated and require zero human interaction? Absolutely. However, I am not sure if I would like the ramifications of that system. I get the impression that Grinding Gear Games does not want their trade economy to devolve into a flippers paradise. I feel like they would like to reward players for going out and doing content and then selling the items that they find in the wild. Much of why I never really engaged with the Auction House market in World of Warcraft, is that it felt like it was stacked against the folks going out and doing the content.
Anyways I’ve made my peace with the system. I’ve tried to release content both in written and video form in an attempt to demystify it. There will still be folks who want nothing to do with the system, and at least among my circle of friends I am always willing to interact with trade for them when they are looking for something specific. Last league, I had a bag slot that had currency belonging to Thalen for example, and when he wanted something he would just send me the trade site link and I would snatch it up for him. I’ve reached the point where I am comfortable enough navigating the system that I don’t mind doing it for others. I’ve yet to touch the bulk trading options like TFT, but at some point, I could see myself dipping my toes into that market for no reason other than to get rid of some of my vault clutter. That said I keep buying new tabs in the guild bank so I can start sharing excess things like maps, because after a point I am generating them faster than I can run them.
Anyways! I doubt All-Trades Jack will ever read this… but I figured I would at least share my thoughts on the matter.
