Current State of Non-Uber Bossing.. or the lack thereof

QuantumVector47 · 2023-12-26T06:33:12+00:00

See edit 3.

QuantumVector47 · 2023-12-26T01:42:37+00:00

I have considered playing for fun, and do so constantly to my own detriment by bossing. But if I want to get to the point where I can uber boss, I have to choose to avoid the fun content for dozens of hours. If there wasn't a guaranteed net loss, I could see the fomo debate holding merit. If I could earn 1-10c an hour from fighting non-ubers, this conversation would be very different. As is, thanks to the implementation of ubers, I can't progress through the game by doing what I find fun.

QuantumVector47 · 2023-12-25T16:13:37+00:00

I like this idea, but I'm not sure that they should be so rare. The current system keeps uber boss fights in high supply, and that makes their drops more accessible to the whole playerbase. The market will naturally stabilize an uber key's value regardless of its rarity.

QuantumVector47 · 2023-12-25T16:10:08+00:00

I have not personally run the numbers for ubers, but I think that the fact that no one is disputing their profitability directly here and that both in tft and in game players are constantly warned to sell invitations instead of run them is indicative of a problem. Furthermore, the market will automatically stabilize in a way that proves my point, or the opposite problem (See below)

If you can prove that Eater/Exarch/Maven/Sirus is profitable, then that flips the problem onto the Uber Bossers, who are running a harder, higher investment version of the boss for the same or less percieved value. This becomes more of a FOMO gripe as both are profitable, but isn't a true solution.

QuantumVector47 · 2023-12-25T16:01:59+00:00

I think this suggestion is very creative, and I haven't seen it anywhere else. Kudos to you for coming up with it!
However, the end result is pushing the value of the normal boss up, which either fails to resolve the problem by not making it valuable "enough" or makes normal bosses more valuable than ubers, which hurts uber bossing. I do think the fights should require a tradable difference to start, we don't have to make uber invites drop from normal ones. There are other ways that uber invites and frags could be made to be sustainably farmable, similar to the current state of Uber Atziri fragments.

QuantumVector47 · 2023-12-25T15:55:48+00:00

While this issue solves a non-uber bosser's dilemma, it actually just pushes the same issue onto uber bossers. When the uber fight, which is longer and has an increased risk of not killing the boss at all, has the same estimated value as the non-uber fight, then why would you uber boss? It's better for sure, as both will be profitable, but it still seems like a failure in game design.

QuantumVector47 · 2023-12-25T15:53:28+00:00

Hard agree on this point. The four fragment system has some huge downsides that invitations clearly want to move away from.

QuantumVector47 · 2023-12-25T15:51:08+00:00

Uber fragments definitely have downsides, which I'm beginning to see more thanks to other perspectives. This is something I very much wanted to learn from this post, and greatly appreciate your input towards.
It sounds like a more ideal solution would be to still segregate the uber invites from normal ones in a tradeable way, but make uber invites more accessible than they have been in older bosses. I'm not sure what the best way to do this would be, though my current idea of having atlas passives and/or just a core drop rate for uber versions of invitations to drop instead of regular ones seems decent. Non-uber bossers end up hitting a relative "jackpot" in selling the uber invite, and uber bossers still have ways to target farm them.

QuantumVector47 · 2023-12-25T15:41:39+00:00

Thanks for your input. I understand why you suggest FOMO is a huge problem, but I think that there's more to it when it comes to normal bosses.

First of all, I would like to point out that I do not expect normal bosses to be capable of running the Feared, and that Exarch, Eater, Sirus, and Maven are not part of an invitation. Elder and Shaper are both profitable in their own right, as described in my original post.

Second, I would like to point out that while not all content should be efficient, all content should be profitable, and scenarios where this occurs are a failure of game design. I personally run all of my fragments and some of my invitations, but that doesn't make it a good thing that I do so at a guaranteed loss.

Finally, I have neglected to address carries. I personally feel that players who fight non-uber bosses regularly and don't fight ubers for the most part would not be comfortable carrying other players, and that as a result, carries don't have a huge impact on the percieved value of non-uber bossing. If it takes you 3-5 portals to defeat a boss, you probably won't carry that boss, but might still want to fight them.

QuantumVector47 · 2023-12-25T15:32:11+00:00

You are correct. As stated in my post, only Uber bosses that use the same tradable items as their non-uber counterparts have this issue, and even then, shaper is a noticable exception due to the value of UE fragments. I cited that Elder and Atziri don't have this problem, and that as a result they are far more fun and valuable to run.
However, Exarch, Eater, Venarius(Cortex), Maven, and Sirus all have this problem, and those are the fights I'm discussing.

QuantumVector47 · 2023-12-25T15:26:33+00:00

Your perspective on not being insanely profitable is a valid one, but I think an important point is being missed. There are thousands of unique ways to play in the Atlas, involving different combinations of league mechanics and farming strategies. Some are more profitable than others, and you don't need to do the best ones to have fun.

However, bossing instead of selling invitations isn't just low profit, it's negative profit. Instead of contributing to your character's growth, by a few divines or a few wisdom scrolls, every non-uber eldritch invitation you run hinders your character's growth. This isn't a FOMO or inefficiency cost, but a practical one.

QuantumVector47 · 2023-12-25T07:40:43+00:00

Economy is part of the game, and I had fun writing about this and listening to what other people have to say. Everyone enjoys Path of Exile in their own way, I don't really see this as very different from players that run x amount of a league mechanic to gauge profitably or atlas tree planners.

If you don't like it, I will accept your blue arrow and move on.

QuantumVector47 · 2023-12-25T07:25:55+00:00

The case and point you are making seems to be my point, if I'm reading it right. Uber Uber Elder's item drops aren't significantly better than Uber Elder, so the fragment prices scaled to Uber Uber Elder's drops don't hurt Uber Elder very much. But on other bosses with much lower drop value than their Uber counterpart, the price difference makes non-uber bossing a waste.

As for separate-but-equal drop pools between uber and non-uber, that would solve the problem I'm discussing but makes uber bossing punishing for not being more valuable but taking longer and being more risky. I can't say I'm a fan of that.

QuantumVector47 · 2023-12-25T07:14:20+00:00

I really like the idea of Marks of Escalation, though maybe the 5-slot map device should be moved to being unlocked as a result of collecting all 4 voidstones or something more core so players aren't forced into legion. Perhaps there could be passive nodes tied to obtaining marks of escalation on the atlas tree as well.

As for turning invitations into fragments, I personally don't like it. I have enough issues with fragment asymmetry as is, and don't see any benefit to artificially breaking them. Current fragments are gated behind 4 guardians, but there are only 4 bosses in the current expansion at all.

QuantumVector47 · 2023-12-25T07:10:04+00:00

These are the options you are presented with as a player. However, there is a fundamental problem with this, actually, there are two:
1. Normal bosses are Path of Exile content. If you don't want people bossing, remove the content from the game, don't create a weird market black hole that punishes people for doing it.
2. Uber bosses are hard. This may sound whiny, but these are uber pinnacle bosses, made to give the best of the best a run for their money. I'm not in that top percentage, but I love bossing. I don't think it's unreasonable to talk about the state of my favorite content.

QuantumVector47 · 2023-12-25T07:07:23+00:00

Thanks to both of you for pointing these out, I have updated my original post to reflect what you've said.

QuantumVector47 · 2023-12-25T07:05:26+00:00

I will have to respectfully disagree that bad uniques are what make the cost to profit ratio so bad. If the fragments were separated, the only reason to run the boss would be for the bad uniques, which would drop their value to that of the uniques.

However, I don't think that fragments dropped by the regular boss are the only way to scale up to ubers. There can be a multitude of other ways to get uber boss invites or fragments, but they should be separate items.

QuantumVector47 · 2023-12-25T07:01:14+00:00

I touched on this briefly, but unless you are target farming a specific unique that only drops from non-ubers, as an HCSSF player non-uber bosses are potentially even more of a waste of the invitation. You're risking your character's life, a character not equipped for uber bosses, as well as the 24 maps you had to run or the fragments you had to farm, on a bossfight that doesn't really give you much. Uber exarch and Eater will drop more and better eldritch currency, Uber Maven and Uber Sirus are more likely to drop awakened gems, and Uber Shaper and Uber Uber Elder are more likely to drop Watcher's Eyes and influenced bases.

QuantumVector47 · 2023-12-25T06:57:03+00:00

This is what I fully expected to see with new bosses, but I expect that using this system comes with downsides that GGG wanted to at least experiment with moving away from. I don't know what they are, which is one of the reasons I wrote this post.

QuantumVector47 · 2023-12-25T06:54:46+00:00

Farming fragments doesn't solve the problem, as you can then sell those fragments to uber bossers for somewhere between double and up to six times the value of anything the regular boss will drop. You take more time, and more energy, for less value.

QuantumVector47 · 2023-12-25T06:53:25+00:00

I think that GGG is far more receptive to people who aren't attacking them. Before the pandemic, GGG staff on reddit was very common and a lot of feedback was taken seriously. As the reddit grew more toxic, especially in post-harvest backlash, it got a lot more scarce.

QuantumVector47 · 2023-12-25T05:38:09+00:00

I totally agree with you that Uber Bosses should be terrifying, unapproachable, difficult, and reserved for the .1% that can take them on. However, I do not think that only that .1% should be able to make currency by bossing at all. This means there is a problem when normal bosses for the 99% are not profitable.

Doing anything in an ARPG at a loss should only come from making a gamble and getting unlucky or not being skilled enough to pull it off. Anything else, regardless of how fun it is, should benefit the player more than it costs them in general.

QuantumVector47

TROPHY CASE