DIscovering the AFFLICTION League in Path of Exile For The First Time

Hold ctrl(or alt, I forgot the default) while hovering on map item. It will tell you if you've completed it or not.

The thing is, at the start of each league ggg releases a trailer for the new league in which they explain the new league mechanic. Besides from that i think ggg likes to go with: the ui tooltips and npc dialogues should explain things instead of a bland tutorial banner. But i agree that even just giving you the option to watch the explanation video once you first encounter that mechanic would help here.
On the other hand not explaining every detail of a mechanic to me is a good thing. Because it leaves room for discovery, which often makes games better. I personally like having to either discover things myself or read through hundreds of wiki pages. If that isn't there i feel like i care less about a game overall or it at least strengthens the bond with the game. But that might just be me.

Watching you play it seems so fun, but then I go into maps and struggle to even do tier 1 maps 💀

The reason why GGG does not explain new leagues is because we as a player base want something new to discover. It's part of the hype of a new league finding out what the new league mechanic is all about and learning along the way. If it was figured out from the start it would get boring real fast hence the quest to discover what the new league mechanic is all about apart from what they teased in the announcement.

For the love of all that is good and holy... please READ. Just stop, and read. Properly, slowly.

80% of what you say you don't understand, is actually explained in the game, if you actually took the time to read properly. Entertaining videos but very frustrating seeing you make the same mistakes over and over because you are not reading properly. You read half of what is shown and skip over keys words.


The Affliction mechanic of empowering map mobs may not seem that impactful now (in lower tier maps). In higher tier maps with higher map quantity bonuses, you will definitely see a distinct improvement in rewards when 'juicing' your maps with the Affliction mechanic, along with a spike in difficulty.

PS. You need to increase your Chaos resistance

about cons: They always do a trailer for a new league where they explain core mechanics of the league and possible rewards, so its not like you are completely blind or that they dont provide any informations and rely on 3rd party detailed guides (and they give a tons of ads and countdowns towards those trailers too, to the point you have to work hard towards going into league without knowing how it works or what to expect).
Also expectations about the leagues are that you experience those mechanics, story (and connection to the rest of the world) since act 1 when stuff is really easy and forgiving. Explore it as you go and by the time you hit the endgame you already know what you are doing from simply engaging with that mechanics for 10 acts of campaign.

Please use your hideout, i get triggered tf out seeing you use the map device in the karui shores 😂

tbh, poe should implement a brief 5-15sec video explanation for each mechanic. new people understand video examples more rather than reading a whole essay.

Everyone loves "backpack lady." lol

I don't think PoE should be handhelding in any way.
Sure, the game is a bit too obscure, but when it comes to league mechanics, the announcement they do is plenty. But I agree, they should do a better job at covering the core mechanics.

The reason league content should be quite obscure is for community the have something to discover. Every new league provides a sense of wonder, like, what will it be good for this time? what cool interaction can the players discover? what new items it brings to the game?

For example, this league people were researching how to best navigate the wildwood. It was discovered that the vendors and events are in the south/north and east/west corners of the wildwood. It would have been really boring if GGG just told us "hey, search the corners, get the goodies".

I understand that someone may not want to look up information, but that is a challenge you impose on yourself, after all, this is an MMO game and the community with its collective effort to "crack" the game is a huge part of it. "But the game is supposed to be understandable!" "I should not have to read entire encyclopedias to understand the game!" will yell some people, and look, the game is easy to understand - you get in and kill monster. You can't hope to become world chess champion if you don't read anything about chess, right? Same with PoE.

Just for the record you know you can place a map device in your hideout?

Try using a hideout it makes mapping more enjoyable and you also have your own place which you can decorate!

This video shows the main reason why I would never play Poe. I don't want to play a game that forces me to pause and google, ask a friend or watch a video. otherwise I don't understand what's going on and why.
Is it laziness, disinterest or arrogance?
And just to be clear: It's not just about GGG or Poe. It's about the way some games are made.
2 examples outside of GGG: I don't play Bethesda games either because I think they rely too much on the modding community, and that's equally lazy, disinterested and/or arrogant, and I've never played Wow because I firmly believe the game's story can be fully told in-game.
Anyway, back to topic. I experienced good game design differently, and if my hobby ever switches to “reading about games,” Poe might be fun.

No matter what I think of a game, I enjoy watching Nyx's videos and will also watch each of his upcoming POE videos.

You can use alchemy orbs on white strongboxes to improve the loot

"The help page needs its own help page" lmao

Recommend just watching the League announcement video. It goes over the league mechanic and also somewhat the philosophy that GGG holds with leagues (let players find the fine details themselves).

Skipped this leauge to pretty much learn the game, managed to farm around 2 mirrors in standard, no guides used on any toons, got an 270% aurabot, 100q 350r mf, some random bossers. First league was mid crucible.

Interesting thing that might blow your mind: Current PoE is NOT "Every single idea that GGG has ever had," though your point was still a good one. But, we have had leagues that haven't gone core and leagues that have been retired. So, there is content that played for a league but was then abandoned, content that played for a league-- was kept on,- and then eventually removed. Metamorph League, "build a boss monster," for instance. Even content that was used for a league, revamped THE ENTIRE GAME, and then was "removed" in a way without removing all of it. There is a lot of stuff for this game 'on the cutting room floor' as it were.

My ADHD brain loves this game: all the random things going on in the maps, logging on to do some mapping, but ending up down some rabbit hole of build tweaking and the dopamine rushes from the drops.

You need to try Delve. It is refreshing and if you like different mecanics like Affliction, Delve is different in all possible ways. Same go for Blight but not everyone enjoy them as much.

I skipped this league. I hate "make mobs tanky" mechanic.

New mechanics are always not fully explained and its meant for the players to discover. And at the start of the league people discovering stuff that they can use to their advantage has huge benefits when the majority are still in the dark.

Hello, some tips you may appreciate :
- You can see if a map and its atlas bonus were completed by holding `alt` on it
- You can launch maps in your hideout's map device, and can custom your personnal hideout :)


Keep up!

These videos are great to watch and just go to show how much the game has to learn and how little they tend to explain most things. Its definitely a fascinating game in general. Random example, I saw someone mention a site called wealthy exile in global chat and went to look at it myself, found an entire rabbit hole where you can bulk sell items easily, the site can access your in game stash and add up all the value you currently have and help you sell items on the trade sites too.

This game is the definition of the "ooh a piece of candy" trail, but somehow one trail leads you to the new york stock exchange while another leads you to some random board game style mechanic. I look forward to seeing where PoE goes from here and trying PoE2 when it drops. Also keep up the great entertaining videos Nyx!

Sad you didn't stay in harvest, it has fresh juice to offer !

forr fun he says...he dont know that wisp can make him rich and stronger

you should watch the affliction announcement it explains the mechanic entirely

running into incarnation of agony on your first affliction 🤣🤣

I personally wouldn't put no hand holding in cons. I enjoy figuring it out myself when a new league comes out, it's enough with the hints that are given to figure it out. After a while you check what the community has found out and together everyone fills in the gaps.

You right out to lunch sometimes 😂

You should have followed the blue wisps. Those are for your Black Morrigan Mission. In the atlas map tree there is an passive which can show you rare or higher enemies on the map this will help you find the Morrigan. It can be rewarding if you know how to collect the wisps. It is interesting content for the POE comunity. So yea have fun. And there are some charms which give you for example imunity for reflected elemental / physical damage so on some builds you would be safe of the reflected monster damage. That fixes a lot of older builds and make it more viable.
As for the map device 4 big circles on the top site it makes the map have the encounter of either dvelve, syndicate, temple or einhar. As for the 3 little circles of white, yellow and red it marks the number of uses you can use it on the different map difficulties. White maps 1-5; yellow 6-10; red 10-16. Your mods should have already explained this little info to you.

It's so sad seeing you try to follow a guide for endgame farming and then getting owned by the empowered monsters. "Collect as many whisps as you can" misses the critical "and survive" part.

Your critic on the barrier of entry is spot on. PoE is a game of constant learning, you are always improving something or figuring out how to do something better, but a seasonal mechanic should be a little more straight forward, one for new players its still more confusing and second its because it may be over sooner than what many people will realize how to exploit.

I love this season, specially having a secondary small skill tree. But many mechanics are poorly explained (ex. how to progress wildwood quests).

Instead of using the town map device, you can go to your Hideout from any portal. In there you can have your very own personalized map device that you can put your maps in along with your many stashes and interactable vendors.

Now that you dipped your toes into wildwood, I would recommend watching the official extended affliction trailer produced by GGG. As it contains the info about the mechanic given to poe returning players.

Great vid btw nyx 😊

The white, yellow and red number represent the number of time you can force spawn a master in your map. The map are separated into three different color. White meaning the starting map, yellow then red wich have the high lvl monster. Example, you put a red map and choose niko to appear. With what you have right now is 2 white and 2 yellow for niko. Meaning you cannot make him appear and will need to use a white or yellow map. You gain mission at random when you finish a map and can put poin in the atlas passive tree in the master you would like to get more.

lol when you hit a random gold lvl standard mob who is more tanky than the map boss

loving it, great that the first mob you killed after getting some juice gave a huge scarab drop... welcome to affliction league

btw, dominus boss (sinks into the ground and returns as big bug demon thing) That big ritual style circle on the floor you have to stand in so you don't take damage.

I'm not sure if you know this yet, but you can roll strongboxes with currency.

Basically every league released becomes a joint effort for the community to figure out the mechanics and secrets. Guides like the one you read in this video gets created based on that effort because it often is too much to ask for a single person to figure out everything and it is nice to have somewhere to look up things for answers. You can try to explore things yourself and it is often considered part of the new league hype to do so but eventually it boils down to these guides for most players. :) If you think this exploring process is not for you you use the guides. If you love exploring and figuring things out by trial and error you go with doing everything yourself. Everything can be figured out by playing. It just takes a lot of time in some of the leagues. I fail to see how that is a con though. In fact I think it is what keep players coming back. It is something new and hidden every 3 months. If the mechanics is well received there is a chance they add it to the core game. If it is a miss they often skip adding it or redesign it to better fit the permanent game.

If you don't have 8 ascendancy points, consider doing the Eternal Labyrinth.

Anybody else cringing when he's throwing away some many Chaos Orbs for map mechanics that aren't worth the cost?

Try gauntlet and see how it is

First foray into the league mechanic and you "luckily" stumble into the Herald of Agony lol

FYI, the colored wisps empower the monsters in the map where you got the wisps. Wisp-empowered monsters drop additional/better loot. The goal is to do the Wildwood and then complete the map. Empowered enemies will have a line on their health bar saying which wisp is empowering them but not all the enemies in the map will be empowered in this way.

The numbers on the map device for the Masters represent how many times you can use them for that tier of map. The white numbers are for how many times you can use them on white maps, the yellow is for yellow maps, and red for red maps. Since you haven't unlocked red maps yet, they are all still 0.

Completing maps gives you a chance to gain a mission. You can also affect your chances with the Atlas tree if you prefer one master over another.