Loot in Path of Exile 3.19
Perhaps the biggest problem players are having with Path of Exile 3.19 boils down to loot, the single biggest part of the Path of Exile experience. In short, players are complaining about not getting currency drops, and they’re unhappy with running content for comparatively bad rewards, especially in comparison to what was possible in 3.18. Now, this problem is affecting a good number of players, for sure, but it’s currently unclear to what extent there is a bug or issue and to what extent these changes were intended by GGG. Before 3.19 dropped, GGG announced that, in general, we’d be seeing and fighting fewer rare monsters but those that we did fight would drop better rewards. Changes extended to unique items, too, with them supposed to be becoming much rarer but also more valuable. In general, it definitely seems like there’s less loot dropping, which does help fight PoE’s perpetual problem with useless items filling up your screen, but it doesn’t seem like there is a commensurate increase to the rarity, value, or quality of items that do drop.
Archnemesis Mobs Are Way Too Strong in Path of Exile 3.19
A big part of the changes to loot come down to changes to Archnemesis mobs. Now, there are fewer of them, but the ones that do spawn tend to be incredibly strong. Again, there aren’t exactly hard numbers on what’s going on here, but the experiences of players are remarkably similar. In general, most mobs on a map will be easy to take down, while the boss will have considerably more health and do more damage, which makes sense. But in each area, particularly at later parts of the game, there are likely to be a couple of monsters that have 10x the health of other monsters and do significantly more damage, too. You’ll suddenly go from one-shotting enemies to taking five or ten minutes to take down a particular enemy, at the most extreme. This, of course, is no fun, and it’s an insult on top of the injury when you realize that oftentimes what these especially tough mobs drop if you do kill them isn’t particularly valuable, either.
Harvest Crafting = Dead For Path of Exile 3.19?
Harvest crafting is a weird place in Path of Exile 3.19. Now, when you do a Harvest, you’ll earn tradeable currency that you can spend at a Harvest crafting station. That’s how crafts work now, and this system in general is generally liked by players. As a direction, it makes crafting easier and the whole process a bit more flexible without necessarily making it too powerful. However, the big problem with Harvest crafting at the moment comes down to pricing. How much Harvest currency each craft costs is just, in a word, silly. It’s too expensive, making Harvest a useless mechanic in the early game. You just won’t earn as much currency as you’ll need without a tedious amount of grinding, while there are better options elsewhere. While in some ways the problems with Harvest, now, are some of the most devastating around, rendering the mechanic kind of not worth doing in general, this is also one of the easiest fixes GGG has in front of them: simply buffing how much currency you get per Harvest.
Path of Exile 3.1.9 Kalandra Mirror Mechanic
In general, the new League mechanic in Path of Exile is enjoying a rather mixed reception. On one hand, the art direction is generally appreciated, people like how it folds in other League mechanics, and if you play your cards (or tiles, rather) right you can get some silly drops from Lakes. However, on the other hand, Lakes are long, they’re kind of tedious to navigate without a map, and it’s quite difficult to set up mirrors to give you consistently worthwhile loot, while oftentimes, enemies inside Lakes will be extremely powerful but still won’t give you loot that makes their fights worth it. The system itself, too, is rather obtuse. It’s not clear which tiles you should be running, because some tiles are just so much better than other tiles, so it becomes a game of cat and mouse where you’re forever chasing good loot through trials and errors over Lake after Lake with terrible loot.
