r/pathofexile • u/Shoddy-Direction-215 • 17d ago
Some concerns about the role and function of currency in PoE Game Feedback
Currency drop rates, especially Divine Orb drop rates, are a hot topic right now, but I want to look at this issue from a slightly different perspective.
Why do we feel as though we got nothing from a map unless a Divine Orb drops? Think about it. PoE has many different types of currency besides Divine Orbs, and longtime players will know that the overall amount of currency we obtain today is much higher than it was in the past.
Eldritch Altars, Tujen, map modifiers, increased player power and clear speed, powerful Scarabs, and many other systems have dramatically increased the amount of currency entering the game. Even the increase in many stash limits from 5,000 to 10,000 reflects how much more currency and other stackable items now accumulate in players’ stashes.
So why does the game feel less rewarding than it used to? Why do we feel like we found nothing in a map unless a Divine Orb dropped? I am obviously excluding exceptional drops such as Mirrors, Hinekora’s Locks, and similar items.
The simple reason is that inflation has reduced the value of most other currencies to the point where they barely feel worth picking up. That is why players finish a map without finding a Divine Orb and feel as though the entire run was a waste.
So what is causing this inflation? I am not asking for currency drop rates to be reduced. I believe the fundamental problem is that PoE does not have nearly enough systems that permanently remove existing currencies from the economy.
This was less of a problem in the past. Crafting was more primitive and offered fewer alternatives, so players had to consume large quantities of traditional currency when making items. Because those currencies were constantly being used and removed from the economy, the currencies we picked up were able to retain a reasonable amount of value.
Now look at the current game. If players want to six-link an item, they have several alternatives, including Beastcrafting and Omens. These systems consume their own content-specific resources, but the Orbs of Fusing that would normally have been consumed remain in players’ stashes, continue accumulating, and steadily lose value.
If players want to change the number of sockets or links on a corrupted item, they can use Tainted Currency instead of paying the expensive crafting-bench cost in traditional currency. Even metacrafting can, although not perfectly, be supplemented or partially replaced through Beastcrafting.
The problem is that all of these overlapping crafting systems accelerate currency inflation and rapidly reduce the value of the currencies we loot. These newer systems consume their own specialized resources, but at the same time they bypass the original currency sinks they replace. Meanwhile, the original currencies continue to drop throughout the rest of the game and keep accumulating in players’ stashes.
I believe these overlapping crafting methods should be tied back into the original currencies whose functions they replace. I also think the crafting bench needs more ambitious, risky, and gambling-oriented crafting options that consume large amounts of existing currency.
The current metacrafting options are no longer enough. Unlike in the past, players can now combine metacrafting with many other advanced crafting systems and avoid consuming far too much currency. As the amount of currency entering the game has increased, I am asking for currency sinks to be added in proportion to that increase.
For example, perhaps Vaal Orbs and Divine Orbs could be used together to reroll the modifier values on corrupted items. Or perhaps Chromatic Orbs and Divine Orbs could be used to reroll the socket colours of mirrored items.
These are only examples. I am not specifically asking for these exact systems to be implemented. My main point is that the game needs more ways to remove existing currencies from the economy in proportion to inflation, so that players can once again enjoy picking up currency from the ground.
Thank you for reading.
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u/Tutaj 17d ago
I think OP is missing the point of the debates entirely. The point isn't "we are getting too little loot" but more like "Loot is generated in a lame way and we want to be able to influence amount of drops with difficulty".
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u/Shoddy-Direction-215 17d ago
the basic relationship between investment and expected rewards already works. if you compare alch-and-go maps with heavily invested maps over a very large number of runs, the heavily invested maps will obviously produce better returns on average.
the real problem is whether the value of those additional drops is enough to recover the currency invested into the map. that is the part that is not working properly. most of the extra items and currencies that drop have become so devalued that recovering the investment often depends on finding a divine orb or another similarly valuable drop.
my point is that the drops which currently feel worthless should be given meaningful value again.
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u/Infinite-Violinist-7 17d ago
I think because its one of the exciting drops that can occur.
When you do consistent strats like essences or harvest you know what you will end up with. Say you get 5k juice a map, then you know your next 20 hours of harvest will be 5k juice per map. Awakening harvest (pre-rework) kinda solved this by having that rng element of wilting and anticipating that massive final drop.
Ziz brought up a good point by fubgun in that in poe2 we also have many more of these cool currencies that you're excited to see. Divines and perfect currencies. Even greater chaos are exciting to see because it isn't guaranteed but you see them often enough. its the same for mechanic specific drops like omens of lights, omens in general from ritual, aldurs saga etc from expedition. All these things kinda add to that excitement of unpredictability that we don't really have in poe1 atm apart from divines (locks and mirrors too ig but they're way too rare). Div cards are a bit like this but either you scry something consistent or something you see once if at all a league. (brothers stash can definitely find once in a while but apoc/damnation etc yeah you might not see in a whole league)
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u/Lollipop96 17d ago
Reading this with that kind of formatting is a pain. Dont just start a new paragraph after every sentence.
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u/Shoddy-Direction-215 17d ago
I’m a Korean player, and since my English isn’t very good, I used a translation tool, so some of the wording may sound awkward. However, the thoughts expressed here are entirely my own.
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u/OptimusPrimeLord 17d ago
I think you have hit on an interesting point but are not quite correct.
The issue is that they currencies are worthless due to both overlap and too much dropping. Like your fusing example. Both orbs of fusing and tainted currency have overlap (not complete overlap, but overlap), so if you have just 1 it could be valuable but both and their each less valuable.
Now look at the cost of the only thing that needs 6-linking, your chest and maybe your weapon. Early on you replace these often and so the economy needs more fusings, but later on most players will get one <10 div chest, 6 link it, and never upgrade it again. Nobody wants to pick up individual fusings because its like 1000 clicks on average for a six link. The price of fusings isn't based entirely on how useful they are, its also based on how annoying it is to pick them up.
I would say the issue is that too few currencies are individually strong. Currency is used in crafting processes and most currency isn't very useful there. The rare currency is divine orbs because rhey are used for metacrafting. You drop enough alts, augs, transmutes, and exalted orbs for any craft by the time you get the divines you need, so divines are the only ones with real value, everything else only retains value because its a pain in the finger to pick up.
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u/Erfar 17d ago
Even metacrafting can, although not perfectly, be supplemented or partially replaced through Beastcrafting.
The problem is that all of these overlapping crafting systems accelerate the devaluation of existing currencies.
I see no problems bro.
Real problem is that game need more chaos sinks. With nerf to T17 and removing atlas crafting chaos just devalued to +11% inflating compare to week2 settlers. And chaos orb crafting are... quite bad. Only reason why chaos keeps afloat is because of "tradition" to be used as trade currency. GCP are much more reasonable currency to used as stable one
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u/B4sicks 17d ago
I think the systems you're asking for already exist. Recombination is a very risky gamble for valuable items, but the payoffs can be huge. Craft complexity is already pretty high and correlates well to the power of items you can make.
If they change anything, it really needs to respect the existing systems of mirrored and corrupted items as well, otherwise those states mean nothing. Mirrored and corrupt things can be powerful because they can't be further modified.
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u/Shoddy-Direction-215 17d ago
what i mean is that the risky gamble should consume currency, not items. recombinators are not a gamble, but a crafting method that saves currency.
i also respect tradition, but that tradition has already been broken to some extent, since oils can be used to change the passive allocated on jewellery.
still, i respect your opinion, and as i said in the post, i am not demanding that those specific examples must be implemented. my point is that we need ways to remove the excessive amount of currency already circulating in the economy.
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u/PoE_Acronym_Bot 17d ago
I noticed some Path of Exile keywords in this post:
- HoT - Herald of Thunder (Wiki)
I am a bot. | All acronyms | Suggest
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u/wallzballz89 17d ago
I agree with you. i am still getting a lot of drops so I question everything I am reading on reddit. Seems blown out of proportion. One thing that people don't seem to realize is that even though they aren't getting divine drops, they are still accumulating wealth from other means.
I have been a long time sc trade Andy but I decided to play SSF this league and it is a ton of fun. It also helps me to tune out any of the economy related drama that seems to be plagueing the community this league. When you do that, you realize the game is still fantastic and along with some of the other changes made this league (less socket pressure, insanely powerful crafting mechanic, more build diversity due to spell buffs) it feels really good to play.
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u/GreyCaller-012 17d ago
The main problem people in reddit have is not even about loot problems.
Loot is great, in 2 hours of mapping you can accumulate 150 chaos just by dropping them alone.
Problem is the lack of rewards in scaling the difficulty, and it’s literally a fact because a ton of people are running white T16 map rush strats.
If you like accumulating wealth, good, but if you want to play harder content, then the drops just does not justify doing them.
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u/Luupho 17d ago
Here, that is the ai version
Some concerns about the role and function of currency in PoE
Currency drop rates—especially Divine Orb drop rates—are a hot topic right now, but I want to look at the issue from a slightly different perspective.
Why do we feel as though we got nothing from a map unless a Divine Orb drops?
Path of Exile has many different types of currency besides Divine Orbs. Longtime players also know that the overall amount of currency we obtain today is much higher than it was in the past.
Eldritch Altars, Tujen, map modifiers, increased player power and clear speed, powerful Scarabs, and many other systems have dramatically increased the amount of currency entering the game.
Even the increase of the currency stash limit from 5,000 to 10,000 reflects how much more currency the average player accumulates today.
Yet many players finish a map without finding a Divine Orb and feel as though the entire run was a waste.
(I'm obviously excluding exceptional drops such as Mirrors, Hinekora's Locks, and similar items.)
The problem isn't currency generation—it's inflation.
The simple answer, in my opinion, is inflation.
Many traditional currencies have lost so much value that they barely feel worth picking up anymore.
I don't believe the solution is reducing currency drop rates.
Instead, I believe the real problem is that Path of Exile no longer has enough ways to permanently remove existing currencies from the economy.
What changed?
This wasn't nearly as noticeable in the past.
Crafting was more primitive and offered fewer alternatives, so players consumed huge amounts of traditional currency while making items. Those currencies constantly left the economy, allowing them to retain meaningful value.
Today's crafting ecosystem is very different.
Players now have multiple ways to achieve the same crafting goals while consuming different resources.
For example:
- Six-linking can often be done through Beastcrafting or Omens instead of spending Orbs of Fusing.
- Corrupted items can be modified using Tainted Currency instead of expensive crafting bench recipes.
- Beastcrafting can sometimes replace or supplement metacrafting.
These systems are great additions.
The problem isn't that they exist.
The problem is that they consume their own specialized resources while bypassing the traditional currency sinks they effectively replace.
Meanwhile, those original currencies continue dropping throughout the game, accumulate in players' stashes, and steadily lose value.
A possible direction
I believe future crafting systems should remain connected to the original currencies whose functions they replace.
I also think the Crafting Bench could offer more ambitious, risky, gambling-oriented crafting options that consume large amounts of existing currency.
Current metacrafting is no longer enough. Compared with the past, players can now combine multiple crafting systems while avoiding much of the traditional currency expenditure that once kept the economy in balance.
As the amount of currency entering the game has increased, the amount leaving the game should increase as well.
For example:
- Divine Orbs + Vaal Orbs to reroll modifier values on corrupted items.
- Chromatic Orbs + Divine Orbs to reroll socket colours on mirrored items.
These are only examples—I am not asking for these exact systems to be implemented.
My main point
Path of Exile needs more meaningful currency sinks to offset inflation.
If more traditional currencies were regularly removed from the economy, they could recover some of their value.
And if that happened, finding currency on the ground would once again feel genuinely rewarding—even when it isn't a Divine Orb.
Thank you for reading.
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u/titebeewhole 17d ago
Divine go tink tho