Path of Exile

[shoju]

I'll be honest, the biggest thing killing my desire to continue is the massive amount of RNG regarding loot in the game. I don't have any measurable control over it. And as some (like Frag) can attest to, That's a sticking point for me.

I can go run Piety or Merveil, and walk out with a rare/unique worth quite a lot. I sold a dagger from a merveil merc run for 3 ex.
I can go run those, and get 2 alts worth of vendor crap.
I can go alch up a 71+ map, and get nothing.
Or, I can go alch it up, and get tons of ex in gear.

I can run a map, and the boss drop nothing but blues. I ran a blue lvl70 map, with 50% qual (temp chains + something else not fun). I saw two rares from the entire map. Both junk. All the blues were junk. Nothing even remotely worth tossing a regal at.
Or, I can walk into Merc. Pyramid, and within 10 monsters, I get a unique, worth a lot. I actually had this happen in Ambush. Hit the Waypoint, go in, in the first room, I get a VERY NICELY ROLLED Belly of the Beast.
I can run a merc boss / map boss, and get a pair of rare wool gloves as loot. I have. I have them in my stash still.

I'm gated from certain uniques in game, because they have to drop from level X or higher, even if the base can drop from something lower. I.E. Koam's, or Voltaxic. But I'm not protected from getting rare wool gloves, or Corroded Blade, or Tribal Maul. I can get a 5L to drop in a map, and it can be a level 28 base. Yes. I've had this happen too.

I can't even control things when I craft. I could (and have) spent multiple exalts worth of orbs trying to roll / alt / regal / et / ex / jewel / fuse a piece of gear only to end up with absolutely nothing to show for my efforts.

I spent 15 chaos on an ilvl78 vaal regalia (6S). About 8 Ex worth of crafting later, I deleted it. I never got it to even 5L. I never got any rolls on it that were even remotely worth keeping, and I dropped over 1K alterations on it, and then when I finally had a pair of "mediocre" rolls, I regaled it, and got thorns. That was the last straw really. about 20 chaos orbs later, trying to turn it into something to sort of salvage my investment on, and nothing.

I'm new to the aRPG genre. From what I understand, RNG is the spice of life on gear. And, to an extent, I can live with it. The problem for me, comes in when I can't even control the quality of drops I see.

And this is all compounded, by the abysmal state of trading in the game. Trade Chat is a joke, and I don't see it ever really improving. It's almost impossible to improve upon it. You can keep gating how fast people can post, but that's not going to improve the absolute dearth of posts from people. You can't have an Auction House, because apparently, the RMT AH in D3 proved that all AH systems in aRPG's are bad. I never played with that system in place, so I can't tell you if it was AH in general, or the presence of an RMT AH alone.

You can put up a trade thread, and keep it maintained, but the only way that this is even remotely lucrative to do, is to design it in a way that makes it advantageous for people to use a third party site to cruise your stuff.

And then? God Forbid you are actually playing the game when someone logs in and finds you online. They don't want to wait for you to finish, or to get to a good port spot in a map. They want it now. RIGHT THE F*** NOW. I've all but sworn off trading in Ambush, because it was such a drain on my playtime, and enjoyment of Domination.

If I do end up leaving, I will keep tabs on it. I love a lot of things about the game.
I love the passive tree. But then, I'm the kind of masochist that liked the sprawling talent trees in WoW.
I love the idea of the Skill Gem / Support Gem system.
I love that I can (if I decide) start a templar, and make him some crazy bow wielding ranger.
I love the idea that I can make my character what I want my character to be.

But I don't like that it's all gated by gear, that I have no control over. The whole game is gated by gear. My ST Scion is 83. Do you know what keeps me from running things higher than level 71 on a consistent basis?

Gear.
My gear on my scion is pretty good. But I'm lacking the HP to pull it all together. I need an upgrade to my amulet and Helm as priorities, and then from there, Boots, Gloves, and Rings.

About the only thing that I'm completely set on, is my 6s 5l Belly of the Beast. It's amazing. I love it. I wouldn't trade it for anything.
Even my weapon could be upgraded, I just don't have the ~20+ Ex to upgrade to something better. There is a 5L Mace that would be a pretty nice upgrade on the indexer for 19 Ex, but it would probably take closer to 1 ex more in Chromes to get the colors I need GGGRR isn't that easy on a mace.