POE 2 has a loot problem
Notes up front:
- No, I do not "Just want the game to be like D4"
- No, I do not want BIS by week 2.
- Yes, I love POE 2, I play it passionately, far more hours than perhaps I ought to.
- I've only made a mild suggestion below, but the main crux of this post shouldn't be dragged down because you might disagree with my casual suggestion.
What do I mean by: "problem"
Well, once you've run that juiced T16 map, turn off you loot filter and have a wander around.
Yeah, even at the highest level of content, with improved rarity, with T4/5 gear dropping, your map will be littered with thousands of items that have no chance to be useful but fall anyway.
Lesser Jewellers, gear with T10+ affixes, regal shards, all littering the terrain like a beach after a storm.
The existence of the loot filter has allowed for a certain...sloppiness when it comes to what falls and when, very much: "Don't worry about the map level, they'll sort it all out with a filter"
Even with the filter, even with an understanding that you can take an item that isn't quite 'there' and make it into something better, 99.9% of the loot that does fall is useless.
Instead, players focus on currency, rare white bases, and pretty much nothing else.
I know that the absolute, mirror-worthy items are always going to be crafted, but even the "Yeah, pretty good" gear, or indeed the gear you need to achieve the DPS and survivability to run end-game content is all crafted. Yeah, even in SSF,
When I say crafted, I don't mean you found a 4-tier item and carefully added the last two, I mean you pretty much start from scratch, or a single good mod.
The problem stems from the fact that items have a RIDICULOUS amount of affix bloat.
And, this is deliberate, items specifically have so many affixes, with so many tiers, with such large ranges, weighted towards the 'lesser' mods that getting 6 Tier 1/2 with high rolls randomly is astronomically unlikely.
Heck! getting 4 Tier 1/2 with high rolls randomly is atill astronomically unlikely.
I mean, look at Jewels, only 4 mods, should be easier, right, nope, let's add an absolute fuckton of useless mods to dilute the pool.
IMHO, and the point of this post is, that as a classic ARPG fan, I feel that more than currency drops should be exciting.
Something like (mere suggestions guys!) lower tiers being unable to roll on gear that falls in high level maps (Sort of like only using Greater and Perfect versions, with an obvious weight towards Greater).
If the current loot drop had a higher base roll, we'd need less crafting, and more finding to get BIS.
I know crafting exists, I know tiered currency exists, and yet, even in this league of higher drops, every crafted item was created painfully and slowly in a hideout.
TL;DR
Loot that drops on the ground should be more likely to be able to be perfected in the hidout, rather than having to pretty much start from a Blue. A T5 Rare should be an "Oh WOW!" moment, not a shrug and "Guess I'll vendor that"
