New league idea: Feral

I doubt the suggestion will ever get looked at, much less used, but I've been playing enough PoE for the past few days that I started dreaming about it so this is just to get it out of my head so I can get back to sleep. =P


Concept: New league mechanic focused on lycanthropy (werewolves etc.) as a concept.

At the very start of the game you normally wake up, the guy giving you the introduction is bitten by a zombie and killed right next to you. A slight change happens this time - when you first wake up, you get a bitten animation as well, but this time it's by an animal that runs off. You find your blood's corrupted, and you have a burning desire to kill things.

Core mechanic: Lycanthropic Corruption

Each kill grants a bit of blood similar to how vaal skills collect souls on kills. There's a minimum amount needed before you can use a transformation ability to do your lycanthrope thing and wreak havoc, and a maximum you can hold onto for blood at a time. As you use your abilities, you burn through the blood faster than you gain it. Also by default, you basically just have onslaught permanently in this form.

Individual area events: Rampages, Traps & Hunters, Primal Hunts

Each individual area would have some events you can take part in to further make use of the league, and have some extra benefits and rewards based on doing so.

Rampages are basically a small side area, similar to a vaal zone, except they're usually like a town. Think of something like a bunch of cannibals in a burned out town, you go on a bloody rampage through them and start with maximum blood, and see how much butchery you can manage before you run out. Different parts of the town side area can have enemies that are stronger, such as town guards, or various minibosses to defeat. Kill enough fast enough to draw out a boss though, like a cannibal queen or something along those lines for a chance at some more unique loot. This section is a fairly standard "kill fast, get reward" kind of area, which also grants basic points for your lycan tree, so nothing too special, though it plays into the other mechanics.

After you've done a few zones and maybe towards the end of act 1, you start finding traps laid out for you. Yeah, you're not going to fall for the stereotypical big juicy steak on a plate with a cardboard box propped up with a stick over it, but the hunters are something else. You choose to take the bait to lure them out, weakening yourself in some way that's specified by mousing over the trap (chills you for the duration, ignites you, cursed with temporal chains, etc.) which gives you some sort of penalty and then a pack of say 4-5 hunters which are geared up kinda like rogue exiles. Defeat them and the trap wears off, and you get whatever gear they were wearing for lycan-hunting, and get some points with a lycan faction later on, and a piece of a map for a feral hunt.

Primal Hunts are when you get enough feral hunt pieces from the hunters to use a map device with them. Mix and match pieces together, opening a map with a semi-randomized lycanthrope within it. The type of lycanthrope boss inside needs to be tracked down using your newly enhanced senses. As you kill enemies in the area, you strengthen your sense of smell, sight, and start building up the ability to see tracks on the ground, a wispy particle effect pointing in a direction of where to go next. If you follow the hunt, you eventually get to the boss of the area and get to fight them. If you can defeat the lycanthrope, you do the highlander kind of thing where you steal their power, and get some specific point types for your lycan tree. The combination of map parts you use let you gradually dictate the kind of lycan you fight, and the type of reward points. Use 4 of the same type of map, guaranteed boss of that type, but use only 1 map part and it's random what you'll get.

Upgrades to Lycanthropy: Mini-tree similar to ascension

Essentially a miniature skill tree, but which branches off in a few different directions. Each of the little nodes just use the standard points you get from doing your rampages, so you can pick up some generalized stuff as you desire, but larger nodes are based on the type of lycans you've successfully hunted. Been hunting avians? You can use them to purchase speed-like abilities, more emphasis on manipulating frenzy charges, onslaught, stuff like that. Hunting shaggy monstrosities? Endurance charges, fortify and so on. These also alter the appearance of your lycan form to match what you have the most of.

The regular points allow you to transform to your lycan form sooner with less blood, or to be able to hold more total, allowing for longer rampage events and more use in the general world. Eventually, you might even be able to choose to have it on permanently instead of in short bursts, but that would depend on which paths you choose to water with blood for your lycan tree.

Ideally though, a lot of the mechanics that don't get a ton of use as much any longer outside of specific builds will get a bit more of a comeback. Being able to have max frenzy charges while transformed would allow for more variety of builds with such when you can predictably have them, especially endgame when you could potentially remain transformed 100% of the time instead of only occasionally.

Lycan faction: The Feral

A small colony of lycanthropes who have been infected and a mixture of NPCs who embrace the concept, who are looking for a cure, and information about the mechanics of the league to help teach you how everything works and to direct you to primal hunts and such.

The first time you exit your first rampage, you get contacted by someone from The Feral who gives you a basic rundown about what's going on and gives you directions to their colony (can just teleport there immediately, or go to it from talking to them in town, or from the waypoint system).

A shop here allows for purchasing gear with lycanthrope-specific modifiers on them, or currency to add these modifiers to other items. Naturally, they love claw-based weapons, with some caster variants as well for those who want a melee-caster hybrid. All those hunters you took out are a handy currency to spend on these, after all.

Endgame

Basically more of the same, though the primal hunts give specific map piece drops as well, so that you're trying to track down the apex predator of each type to unlock the final abilities. This would take you fairly deep into the higher end content, but only about as far as the eternal labyrinth does, so you wouldn't need to keep hunting indefinitely forever.

An exponential increase for cost for each point purchased on the skill tree for paths outside of the one you're pursuing lets you have a little of each, but not filling out the whole tree. This encourages players to trade their map parts with each other for their primal hunts, and means you wouldn't even necessarily have to do anything like map running endgame.

Final thoughts

This is pretty clearly only a very, extremely rough layout for a half done idea. As stated, it woke me up and I mostly just need to get it out of my head so I can get back to sleep. It'd be an interesting idea to see previous concepts like elusive, charges and so on being utilized in this way, and would offer a lot of extra cosmetic possibilities.

Again though, I doubt it'll ever get used and I doubt anyone really cares. I'm sure some people would absolutely hate the concept of "obviously this is just furry content" or something as well despite it's kinda clearly not, but whatever, don't care.

This has eaten up about 45 minutes of my life to write this out and somewhat refine the concept to a point where it'd be usable, but now I can actually get back to sleep probably without it bothering me with constant new mechanics concepts, so it has served its purpose. Maybe someone else will find it entertaining to read through as a concept, maybe the devs will find it useful as inspiration for a league vaguely similar to it, or just a skin you can buy in the shop someday, but probably not. The important part is I'm going back to bed because I can now.