Feedback - "Bubblegum Effect"

TLDR - Long rant, hopefully somehow useful

I have been playing this game for a very long time and it has changed a lot over the years and unfortunately it has changed for worse, with every league introducing new items and currencies that can be gained through various mechanics.
The biggest issue that I have is something I would call here a "Bubblegum Effect", what I mean by this is almost all the items and currencies that are introduced by a new league are added to the drop tables of other league mechanics that are there when such league goes core.
This creates a big problem for all the players that are solely focusing on one league mechanic and would like to have fun, make profit and simply feel rewarded when completing X mechanic, but other mechanics simply reward more of them than the original one.
Let's jump into some examples so it better highlights the issues, please bear in mind I don't talk about SSF, as POE is an online game and if you want to play single player the game should not be catered towards that mode.


Let's start with all the mechanics:

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Delve - currently delving is absolutely not rewarding at all, you waste hours trying to get to the 300+ depths where all the nodes along the way drop nothing useful and it takes a lot of time upgrading and sustaining sulphite. List of the issues & solutions:

- main culprit here is Mining Byproducts node on the Atlas Tree that allows everyone to gain Azurite and buy Resonators, this has to go away to reward players that are actually delving and only they should be able to get Azurite from the nodes. So they can profit from Resonators. In order to fix the issue the removal of the node simply won't do I would change the node to have a 20% chance to grant a stack of "Enchanted Pickaxe" buff that would be saved on the "Delve Upgrade" just like Flares & Dynamite with a max number of 50. This buff would grant a player 2x Azurite from the nodes within Delve itself and remove one stack on completion of the node.
- Fossils everywhere, because they are literally dropping left and right in every single mechanics they are cheap and worthless, I got more fossils from Tujen than from actual delving. This should not be the case, it should be a resource that you can only aquire from Delve with a few exceptions. Remove fossils drops from other mechanics.
- Nodes with Items etc. 99% of the nodes are dropping nothing usefull and are literally road blocks to get to Aul, because other bosses are a joke. Enhance the droprates of delve specific items and mods, the deeper you go the higher chance to drop something useful with double delve mods etc. Also revamp the uniques from the bosses, other than Aul's amulet there is nothing.

Settlers Core Suggestion: Add the ores nodes to Delve as it makes sense thematically


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Betrayal(Syndicate) - the removal of all the actual rewards from upgrading the board and adding scarabs as rewards is literally a joke and the whole thing is dead, other than Veiled Orbs there is nothing to look for there.

- Rework the rewards, scarabs are dropping everywhere, why they are a main reward for most upgrades, the final reward for max tier 4 should be an Imbued Map Device option for all various mechanics not just Breach. Give us more imbued options as final rewards.
- Veiled items drops from Syndicate memebers, change the Atlas tree that grants rarity of those to also include higher mods chance, most of those items are picked up just to uncover recipes nothing more than that. If drop high rarity veiled items it should have a chance to have all the mods to be T1 + veiled mod this way they might be worth picking up
- Revamp uniques from Katarina, most are garbage


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Heist - This is the biggest gamba of all of the mechanics, everyone just does the deception and rushes blueprints:

- Revamp unique replicas 99% are useless, I should not be able to see the same replica item in the end room, and this happens a lot, there should be no duplicates of the same item in the final reward room
- Add some heist specific reward chests with new trinkets, e.g. 5% chance for all the doors to be open within the Contract/Blueprint, more variety other than dupe items and chance to convert
- Mods on the Contracts/Blueprints do absolutely nothing other than making you rush to the last room slower, incorporate the mods into the final rewards drops so we skip running the scoured ones all the time
- Add new Mods that say: Rewards in Curio's room have a chance to be double corrupted

Settlers Core Suggestion: It is called Heist for a reason but the amount of gold you get from it is nothing, add big gold rewards upon completion of Contracts/Blueprints based on the mods or as an extra mod


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Expedition - currently both Logbooks & in Maps it is just a random bubble with artifacts that are solely for the purpose of Tujen Gamba, surely in the early days you can do crafting with Rog but that's about it. Gwennen nerfed to the ground that you mostly get magic items that serve no purpose.

- Add more Ward oriented items, uniques or move some of the mods from uniques to the crafting pool of course reasonably adjusted

Settlers Core Suggestion: Add runes to the Expedition Logbooks, power runes only on boss kills


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Breach - It is quite niche mechanics to be fair, mostly used for XP and leveling up:

- Breach rings have a mod that properites are doubled in breach, add to the drop pool very rare rings with simply "Properties are doubled" without being limited to breach, should be rare enough but would a very cool reward instead of collecting the rings and getting an armour, nobody is using those rings.


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Legion - bubblegum, bubblegum, bubblegum and Incubators:

- A lot of bubblegum, that's about it, it drops everything and nothing, add new Enhanced Incubators that require less mosters to be killed and offer better rewards
- Add some uniques other than timeless jewels to the pool
- Currently it is just 5-ways and nothing more, add some spice to it


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Ritual, Blight, Sanctum, Harvest - these 4 mechanics are currently the most rewarding ones in terms of consistent profit and are good as they are.


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Scarabs the worst of them all, I do not know what has to change, but those little things are currently the only item that matters, everyone just farms scarabs, every single video is strongboxes and scarabs. This is what this game has become after all the reworks, next league we will run out of room in the Scarab Tab and you will have to add a new one. I understand you want to give the players the choice how to play the game, but that's what atlas tree is for in most cases, now it is both. Please consider reworking this with a better solution.


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Kirac Missions - Nothing to do, open one talk to Kirac, buy chisels, rinse and repeat, there is absolutely no purpose of them other than early league to complete your atlas. Needs more thought to it and rewards, maybe imbued map device options as rewards?


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After adding new base types, you rendered 99% of the unique items in the game worthless defence/life wise as you can no longer pass on the Life or Def Mods on those bases. Please make the uniques up to par with new bases.


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Currency exchange fees - buying one divine for chaos cheap vs buying chaos for 1 divine expensive - fix this logic makes no sense and make it cheaper regardless which way you trade, same fee.


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I guess that would be most of the things I could think about, sorry about the chaotic format, but first time posting something like this. Please share your thoughts on the subject so we can have a civilized discussion. Thanks

EDIT: "Bubblegum Effect" - drop currency/items from one league mechanic in another one, rendering the original mechanic useless and such currency slightly devalued as you can get it anywhere. E.g. Tujen Gamba, I got more fossils from Tujen than from delving for a week.

Nice Feedback, Easy to read.

I agree the bubblegum is a bit much sometimes and detracts from the experience and makes some mechanics not worthwhile to invest into becasue most if not all of the drops can be obtained elsewhere.

At the same time i also appreciate that drops from other mechanics are in separate mechanics such as ritual/etc.

where to draw the line? Its a toughie but i don't think its unachievable to get the content back into a balanced state where each mechanic is always worth running over something else where you can obtain the thing you want at a reduced rate.

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SilentSymphony wrote:

Nice Feedback, Easy to read.

I agree the bubblegum is a bit much sometimes and detracts from the experience and makes some mechanics not worthwhile to invest into becasue most if not all of the drops can be obtained elsewhere.

At the same time i also appreciate that drops from other mechanics are in separate mechanics such as ritual/etc.

where to draw the line? Its a toughie but i don't think its unachievable to get the content back into a balanced state where each mechanic is always worth running over something else where you can obtain the thing you want at a reduced rate.

I think the easiest way to draw the line is:

If the given league mechanics require a separate instance e.g. Delve/Heist such currencies/items should be locked in within the boundary of that mechanic and not available elsewhere. This way you are rewarded for doing it and other people who do not engage with it should not benefit from it or gain those items in other mechanics at all.

Also when you implement it this way, you can actually see how other mechanics fail at rewarding the players with its own content. Look at Expedition, without it rewarding you with Essence, Fossils, Incubators etc. This mechanic has nothing to offer other than random currency.

If you remove the azurite from clicking sulphite then delve would be immediately in an even more unrewarding state (assuming it is unrewarding, which i dunno). Why would someone play Delve, if part of the consistent income would jsut be gone suddenly and you can only upgrade stuff with azurite, which you might not even need?

Technically, it would be cool lore if Heist gives a lot gold, but Heist can be played in a very tryhard and fast way. If you get a lot of gold in the end that would be overkill and people would have farmed contracts/blueprints in this league like crazy and that is probably why they removed that possibility entirely by reducing the gold amount so much in this areas that only real Heist connaisseurs played it this league at the cost of getting very little gold...

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Strickl3r wrote:

If you remove the azurite from clicking sulphite then delve would be immediately in an even more unrewarding state (assuming it is unrewarding, which i dunno). Why would someone play Delve if part of the consistent income woudl jsut be gone suddenly and oyu can only upgrade stuff with azurite, which you might not even need?

Technically, it would be cool lore if Heist gives a lot gold, but Heist can be played in a very tryhard and fast way. If you get a lot of gold in the end that would be overkill and people would have farmed contracts/blueprints in this league like crazy and that is probably why they removed that possibility entirely by reducing the gold amount so much in this areas that only real Heist connaisseurs played it this league at the cost of getting very little gold...

That's the thing about Azurite and that node, it causes all the players who do not engage with Delve to gain passive benefit of Delve which should never happened. Delve is in a very bad shape for a long time and it has to be buffed and rebalanced.
People would play Delve to get Azurite for which you can upgrade the mine and buy resonators and currently everyone can buy them as they are awarded Azurite passively.

As for the Gold gains within Heist having the Mods on the Contract/Blueprints that would award gold for the completion would partially solve the issue, as most run it white without any mods for the efficiency sake, but also I understand that gold is new and this league it was not feasible as the whole Kingsmarch would have to be balanced around it as well. But gold is here to stay supposedly so it should be reworked as it will be a main currency to use Currency Exchange.

They should just get rid of azurite upgrades as an overhaul and use azurite as a general delve currency to buy something else, maybe area buffs or cart bonuses to help you customise your specific target for loot.

They also should move most league specific rewards to their own league IMO, you should get fossils from ritual/tujen etc but the #1 area for fossils should be delve by a substantial margin.

Synth items are the worst for this, you get like no synth items from synth maps they almost all come from ritual - now I know ritual has to have some rewards for it to be viable so in this circumstance it'd just be good to have synth maps actually drop synth items anyway.

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Draegnarrr wrote:

Synth items are the worst for this, you get like no synth items from synth maps they almost all come from ritual - now I know ritual has to have some rewards for it to be viable so in this circumstance it'd just be good to have synth maps actually drop synth items anyway.

Now you exactly see the issue, the league that introduced to reward you with specific items does not even do that anymore, because they decided that it should be also available somewhere else, escalating the problem even further. Why have synth maps anymore then?

Synth maps occasionally drop something else useful but the reason we still have them is why not?

It costs nothing to keep them so its just extra content.

I'd like to see them have more of a targeted roll though, I really enjoy content where i can be like i'm gonna railroad this to see what exciting results i get this time.

Works for Rog, doesn't really work for delve anymore probably hasn't worked for delve since they removed most of the fossil specific crafting mods.

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Draegnarrr wrote:

Synth maps occasionally drop something else useful but the reason we still have them is why not?

It costs nothing to keep them so its just extra content.

I'd like to see them have more of a targeted roll though, I really enjoy content where i can be like i'm gonna railroad this to see what exciting results i get this time.

Works for Rog, doesn't really work for delve anymore probably hasn't worked for delve since they removed most of the fossil specific crafting mods.

That is all true and the issue is leagues that introduced a lot of gamba mechanics offering items that were exclusive to other content and slowly stealing their viability.
Take Ritual, it offers nothing on its own right now, except for Omens and King in the Mist which was taken away from Affliction and that is fine coz we don't have Affliction core as it used to be, but it should not take away all the loot tables of other leagues and give it to you. It lacks valuable items that strictly belong to that mechanics.

1) Delve



2) Betrayal


3) Heist


4) Expedition


5) Breach


6) Legion


7) Blight, Ritual, Sanctum, Harvest


8) Scarabs


9) Kirac Missions


10) Uniques and Base Types


11) Currency exchange fees


12) Bubblegum premise