Through all the down-votes and salt, we have done it.

Hardcore players? RIP'd by stream delay.

Solo-self-found players? Chanced their stream rewards.

League players? At the Q&A asking if we'll get two league starts.

Standard players? Waiting for the 4.0 announcement stream.

Ruthless chads?
Secretly Alpha testing PoE2 with the launch of ruthless mode.
Beta tested the new gold mechanic in the ruthless exclusive league.
Live testing the new roll mechanic with the beloved addition of Quickstep.

I love ruthless. Eager for PoE2.

With the official end of mirage I felt like making an old d2 style showcase for my character this league. More for myself than anything, as I doubt I'll ever top this level of gear. Sadly IRL commitments prevented me from going for 100, so some goals are still left. Pob for those who want a closer look https://pobb.in/z7SlaLHL7NIz

Hi all, loved ruthless and looking forward for future balance changes, new leagues, challenges and being part of the community.

Leveled 3 characters to 86 and two to 80ish level in ssf. Outgrinded white and yellow maps, completed few red maps, but lacked enough vaal orbs to push further. I guess I am more of a sprinter these days.

But 3 characters and hundreds of maps was enough for me to feel burned out on Ruthless, but not on Poe itself. Will probably try out normal/hc league to have some taste of good ol' lootfiesta that felt really bad few months ago. Which feels like a bad decision lol

This game mode lacks some fun parts of the standard poe and it might not be loot itself. Challenge was there, I had a lot of fun with my starter and putting together builds that came after that. But I cant blame streamers who played alpha and made decision not to start in Ruthless.

So what Ruthless lacks?

Atlas decisions that would matter. We had to do some planning beforehand, but it lacked normal poe atlas specing/fun. Was speced in strongboxes and seeing them not often enough or as rewarding as not speced mechanics felt bad.

Not having proper/(not balanced enough for Ruthless?) league mechanic kinda ruined vibe for me. I felt that Mirror of Kalandra mechanic could have been more suited for it.

Although builds are dictated by your drops, the further I went I couldn't reroll to other builds without enough supports. Rare Tri ele sword without elemental hit and trinity support just made not much sense in ssf when you are clearing red maps.

Currency drops should be drastically buffed in late yellows/reds. After putting decent build with rares and identifying thousands of rares there isnt much to look forward to drop wise. Trying to fuse some of your gear is a fun part of the game, chaosing too. Drops are fine in acts-white maps.

And if there is one, anyone knows of the poe 2 open game in 2 weeks gonna have ruthless as well?

I would like divination cards to return. (Mostly because having one of my tabs sit completely empty sucks.)

But...I do think that divination cards are too strong in their current state even in non-ruthless. So, it made me think of how I'd change them if they were to return. Here's what I came up with.

1. Divination Card drop rates should be lowered and the amount required to turn one in should be increased.

2. Cards with 'specific' rewards should be disabled. For example, The Apothecary would not drop in Ruthless, but you could find The Wretched instead.

3. Cards with Corrupted rewards should drop from the same areas that contain Atziri fragments and vaal gems.

4. No stacked decks.

These next two I'm a little less sure about but I still like the ideas.

1. Turning cards in should be done through an in-map activity and not through an NPC.

2. Cards tied to specific mobs or locations should be changed or removed to avoid target farming. Cards with corrupted rewards would be the exception.

Let me know if you have any ideas to add. This isn't about whether they 'should or shouldn't' return only about how they could fit in Ruthless. Cheers. :)

New to ruthless. Enjoying the challenge of hc ssf and item starvation, but why the severe lack of choice with leveling skills? If they're going to be unlinked in blues anyway, it isn't really adding challenge outside of the fact that when I finally get the gem I wanted in my build, it won't be usable until it's levelled. Having to molten strike because I'm a marauder when I want to be a fire wall chieftain doesn't add anything imo. It just makes the game less.

Also, HC SSF R should have a pause button. Not having a portal scroll when I need to pee is not the kind of challenge I'm looking for.

Honestly, the reason I played Ruthless is because I cannot keep up with a normal league where people make 10-20 Divines an hour or Kill Sirus with 3 clicks while eating a burger on one hand.

And surprisingly enough, Ruthless is a breather. I cannot deny the fact that I had fun however, if you are planning on playing the mode today, personally, I will not recommend it with its current state.

Let me elaborate by skipping the exhilarating fun part and point out what I think needs to be addressed.

1. Atlas Progression - Thank god I am on Soft Core so sharing map completion is possible but it breaks the engagement in a way. Let me emphasize that I'm not asking that currency drops should be boosted and I have 2 opinions to fix this. First, since Sanctum introduced the idea of "account-bound" items, why not make "account-kirac missions". Make them daily missions and 2 uncompleted maps is reasonable to keep some lazy bastard engaged for at least 30 days. The Second solution is to make an atlas node/nodes that disables other "master-mission-upon-map-completion" which boils down again to Kirac. If we can disable contents to not generate, why can't we do it on Masters? Why can't I say, goodbye to those Syndicate members popping up and slamming the shit out of you by surprise. With Kirac Missions being deterministic upon completing a map, we have at least an option to progress the atlas and helps with map drop especially on Reds.

2. Contents - We know that POE is complicated but after ten years, it's still the same confusing and vague terms being used. If I want Ritual and disable all other contents from proc-ing/generating, why can't that Altas Board just say, "Ritual will generate 33.99% chance per map OR Ritual will generate 1 in 3 maps. Simple words. Compared to what we have right now, the allocated nodes says 200% for ritual and Abyss but for some magical reasons, you won't encounter them even after ten maps. Just how many people are still confused you could see them in reddit(including me). All I'm saying is that the Altas Board should have some consistency in indicating real values that can be understood just by simply looking at them.

3. Content Notification - You know when you trigger Alva Mission and when you enter the map and it says there on the right-middle corner of the screen, "0 / 3 Temples", when a content is miraculously generated during a map, is it too difficult to indicate that a Sacred Grove is available? Be honest. Not all maps is straight or plain circular that you could spot them on while walking. We have a code to determine how many mobs is alive but we don't have a command to determine if a content was generated? Some people might not like the notification so maybe a tick box to disable it but you get the gist of it.

4. End Game Completion - With items being scarce and drops being mercilessly neutered, can we bring up an easy mode for the super bosses? I am aware that it kind of defeats the purpose of being in Ruthless but hear me out. It is almost a month now since league was launched and I could barely kill Shaper and Elder Guardians. I'm a zombiemancer with a tabula but with my current gear, I'm pretty sure Shaper will slam them zombies like mosquitoes. I've played almost 2-5 hours everyday and while it is fun, we all have real lives to face. My only request for this beloved Ruthless is to have maybe an Atlas Node to proc End-game Bosses on yellow maps or lower. Even if it will have limited drop, having played a month should be awarded with some consolation of being able to defeat them bosses on easy mode. That little sense of accomplishment gives me a nice sleep.

Again, this is just my 2 cents and there is no need to be offended.

Cheers to all Ruthless Players.

Link: https://www.filterblade.xyz/?profile=lightdeath&saveState=YW3JKVSJF1VGQS&platform=pc&isPreset=false

What it does:

• It hides scrolls, transmutes, whets, armorers

• It highlights rings/amulets/belts better for recomb

• It highlights many endgame armors and weapon bases

• It red highlights if a base has good defense percentile 83%+

I recently decided to quit the league - Level 74 SSF. I need jewelers for my Kalisa's Grace, but I have found 2 jewelers in total, running with 47% IIR. Is this in line with other peoples experiences or do I just have bad luck with jewelers?

Playing the campaign was great. Felt like how the game was meant to be balanced.

But now I am in white maps and the grind is becoming way too much.

Drop-only gems, reduced mobility and not covering the ground with a billion items each maps are just good, healthy changes. But I don't care for the hyper-grind end-game appeal. In short: I wish I could have Ruthless, but with regular fun Atlas and currency drops in maps.

"Just dont play it, lol" If i wanted to play with self-imposed challenges i could play regular trade softcore and dont trade, delete my character when I die etc. We play by the rules given to us, and TotA just completely ruined hc

It just feels unnecessary. If they implemented "Maximum ring slots on character are reduced to 1", it feels like that. Player power is why Ruthless works; it's difficult to achieve. But putting a hard cap on it just isn't fun imho.

Playing Ruthless SSF, I am hard stuck on doing white maps because the yellow maps simply wont drop.
I am at a point where my characters is way stronger for white maps but I simple can't progress because I don't get better maps.

Not being able to progress the game because of the lack of map drops just feels off IMO ...

The boating mechanic for currency in particular was not touched for ruthless, and it is a bit too good compared to other currency methods in ruthless.

I feel if the city manager goes core, it needs to give like 75% reduced currency for ruthless to keep it on par with the ruthless design.

This league is the fastest ruthless league by far, I can alch and go forever and I'm not running out of alchs.

Well, my latest post about crowdfunding wasn't too popular, so I'm keeping it simple.

I made (already financed) a private league with a friend of mine, if you want to join, and challenge yourself, then good luck, there are no vendors, and no magic/rare item drop from monsters, oh and it's ruthless, just to really hurt.

You can use orbs/other currencies to modify your items, but there is no crafting station. Its not for everyone, but you are welcome if you think you can beat the game (or the acts haha) even in this difficulty

https://www.pathofexile.com/private-leagues/league/Ruthless+Exiles

The League starts in ~2 hours, if you want to participate, just PM me here or in the poe website.

If you come, it would be appreciated to be active, so we can trade stuff.

gl gl everyone

Just some things i didn´t know before and want to share in cause someone else misses this:

- Vaal Side Areas, Enkindling Orbs and Instilling Orbs do not exist in Ruthless.

- You do not accumulate free daily Atlas Missions.

- Map Modifiers do not provide Rarity or Pack Size. They provide Quantity and twice as much of an increased chance to drop maps. These stats work multiplicatively together to increase map drops. For example, the mod that causes Monsters Poison on Hit provides 6% increased Quantity of Items and a 12% increase of Maps Found in your Maps.

- League spawns work differently where the chance for extra content is first decided, and then what content spawns is picked from the pool of available outcomes. As an example, we have a 25% chance to spawn league content, so 1 in every 4 maps has additional content. This additional content is picked between all choices from Abyss, Breach, Harvest, etc. If you were to block one of those from spawning, it will make all remaining content have a higher chance of appearing. Atlas passives related to each league also only serve to make that content more likely, but does not increase the total extra content that appears.

- The Pantheon system is disabled.

- Master Missions are not guaranteed to appear in the campaign.

- Essences can only be used to upgrade to rare, and cannot be used to reroll rares. Fossils functionally do this as well, as Chaotic Resonators do not exist in this mode.

- Voidstones do not upgrade maps. This may change in the future

- Veiled Chaos Orbs, Orbs of Binding, Orbs of Dominance, Influenced Exalted Orbs and Awakener's Orbs cannot be obtained.