3.27 Some feedback and suggestions

Wrapped up my challenges. I meant to only do 36, but the build was fun enough to go on. Here are some compiled thoughts regarding the league.

The new breach

I liked the new models and lore aspects, but overall, I have to say I much prefer the old breach.

The new breach has no scaling potential, delayed rewards and poor “spam the red dots”-gameplay.

The new boss battle has bad rewards, too much waiting and doesn’t compensate for it with interesting enough mechanics. The old breachstones are among the most atmospheric and fun content PoE has, although they need some more scaling potential (allow us to expand the breach faster?). Losing the maven invite was also a downgrade.

The expanding breach was decent, but still inferior to what we already had (bad drops from monsters, waiting, limited to one and forced to return to the center).

The boss fight looked cool but was a step back from the five different and often multiple bosses we used to have.

The tree was an interesting concept but had mostly adverse effect on the game. It gave way too powerful rare items, which made regular drops just awful. Getting some random currency was just a delayed reward that provided nothing new. The mysterious wombgifts were mostly for getting more ancient ones (you could get other stuff like a tiny amount of stacked decks or some gems, but those added nothing new either). Mysterious wombgifts allowed for some slight customisability in what uniques you want, but not enough the warrant the system altogether.

Foulborned uniques were a great addition, but they should just drop from regular breaches.

The hands were mostly ok and sometimes great for some builds, but mostly of niche value. I’m guessing they will not be with us for long, but I hope they will find some use later on.

Hive fortresses had a pretty nice atmosphere, but having to run around killing non-rewarding mobs to open chests and the go through the slog of all those waves was mostly just bothersome. They could be much nicer if the whole defend-mechanic was removed and you instead had to go through a gauntlet of mobs to get those chests (which should drop better stuff in general).

The main problem was that I genuinely felt a sense of disappointment each time I saw one of the defend-breaches. That is not good for a new mechanic. I feel like you need more time on drawing table on this. For now, you could just add the graphical updates and foulborne uniques and work from there.

Other changes

The major problem with this patch (apart from the tree), was overnerfing many farming strategies. Titanic exiles, for example, provided too much, but they were also among the hardest farms you could run. Now they are not even worth running. For the next patch you should make sure that the hardest farms also provide the best rewards (and not be super clunky).

Roaming ghosts suck. They have always sucked. There is no way for them not to suck. Could they finally just be reworked into being possession only or something?

Asynchronous trade has been a massive win. Most likely the #1 reason many players kept playing despite the lackluster league.

Divination cards still way very skewed drop rates. A single cloister map gives 40-100 cards, while a heist reward room gives 4-6, blight gives 1 per pod, putrid cloister gives around 3. A shipment of verisium also gives a ton of cards but at least takes a lot of time to assemble.

I also have to say, the new more restricted system of div-card drops is much less fun than the old one. Sure, there were maps that were just much better due to their specific div-cards, but overall, there was way more variety in cards you could find. It made ground loot more interesting. I think it would be better if most (non-boss specific) cards could drop in any map, but each map would have one special rare card that has a higher chance to drop there (which you could then scry to other maps). Most cards drop from influenced mobs now anyways.

Many mechanics need their rewards slightly adjusted. Delve has some really lackluster nodes and poor darkness rewards later on. Heist has very bad balance between room rewards and final rewards. Gwennen was overnerfed to irrelevance. Sentinels were a great addition (in the league) but are now mostly whatever. Incursion temples have many irrelevant rooms, and the incursion mods still need to be updated to the new values. Ideally, the Temple should be worth running even if it doesn’t have one of the two good rooms.

I’m kind of thinking that maybe we should not have Gianna with the reduced reveal costs? It kind of skews the value of all contracts. Marked values could just be adjusted accordingly.

Sanctum was overnerfed to the point where the tomes are not even worth selling anymore (they used to be a nice 10c before).

Beasts need more QoL. Maybe instead of having the actual bests, Einhar could just instill their “beastliness”, which could then be used to summon a similar beast on the altar? We should also get some tooltip on what beast we captured (the recipes it can be used).

Gold is also a bit problematic in that it has such a wide spread between different farming strategies. Some strategies give 10k, some strategies over 300k per map. It would be better if gold was just an added loot (instead of converting from other gear) and would scale based on quant like other loot. Maybe then add some option on the atlas tree for getting more gold for players wanting to invest in gold farming?

The disenchanting mechanic provides value for most rarer uniques, but the way gold costs scale makes them mostly useful for self-disenchanting. Also, the gold trading costs for certain unique items (especially maps) are just too high for their value.

We would also really appreciate longer support after league launch. A lot more could have been done to elevate the league.

Anyways, I think that is all for now. Waiting to see what 3.28 brings (Tier 17 mods seriously need a rework as they are the most unfun part of the game at present).

"

Cipp#2915 wrote:

The new breach has no scaling potential

All 3 of the breach options scale quite well. The fortress and defense hive were the source of quite a few of my divines and div cards farming T16.5 Dunes w/ risk-bloodlines-wisp juice.

"

Cipp#2915 wrote:

The hands were mostly ok and sometimes great for some builds, but mostly of niche value. I’m guessing they will not be with us for long, but I hope they will find some use later on.

Several of the grafts were insane, but agree they are probably not going core.

"

Cipp#2915 wrote:

The major problem with this patch (apart from the tree), was overnerfing many farming strategies.

Yup, poverty league has been boring as shit in the end-league end-game.

"

Cipp#2915 wrote:

Beasts need more QoL.

What?! They killed it on beast QoL this league. Say thank you and let them move on to the next project, nothing can be perfect for everyone.

"

Cipp#2915 wrote:

Gold is also a bit problematic in that it has such a wide spread between different farming strategies.

Not sure this is a problem. Gold is a resource. If you want gold, you do a farm that generates lots of gold, when you dont need gold, you do something else if you want to. Unlike most resources in POE, buying gold isnt available directly, but you can buy a gold carry if you want.

"

Cipp#2915 wrote:

We would also really appreciate longer support after league launch. A lot more could have been done to elevate the league.

Wouldn't we all, but wouldn't hold your breath. We are on an unstoppable train headings towards a split track. POE1 or POE2 is destined to fall to the way side, I'll let you guess which one itll be.

personally i am not a fan of timed events because they tend to shoehorn build into clearspeed but overall i like the league specialty foulborn uniques to theorycraft new build. well at least the few good ones, foulborn uniques like whispering ice makes me wonder if devs even know their own game.


some crazy idea but i would like to see the loot tree applied to the core loot of the game so instead of having wombgift turning into items/currency we get points from campaign side quest to customize that character loot. Of course these would imply that base loot quantity will be drastically reduced but i rather have few but better drops over the current massive loot explosions that requires a filter because 99% of dropped items are trash.

"

Cipp#2915 wrote:

. Incursion temples have many irrelevant rooms, and the incursion mods still need to be updated to the new values. Ideally, the Temple should be worth running even if it doesn’t have one of the two good rooms.

if only "has a valuable item" was actually valuable. String of servitude could use a little buff too.