Feedback on Mirage and future leagues

Hi GGG,

Goes without saying: one of my favourite games, been playing them since Pong.

In some ways I've enjoyed this league the most since Settlers. It's been great for exploring builds, and ground loot has felt a lot more rewarding. But I've had some major niggles as well and I think the next league or two would have to have some major differences to bring me back again.

New league, the old leagues twice

Fighting inside a mirage has very lacklustre rewards. The main advantage to it seems to be the ability to maximise old content twice over. This feels deliberate since mirages routinely appear near old league mechanics e.g. abysses, blights, breaches. To be honest, I was pretty disappointed. RNG gem imbuing is also one of the most frustrating things I can remember ever happening. I spent most of the time ignoring the league mechanic and playing with new builds.

Mapping duller than ever

Never genuinely enjoyed mapping to be honest - feels like developer mode, with every RNG knob and lever in the game engine openly on display. At first I was excited by the replacement of named maps with map tiers, but quickly discovered the flipside: there's now almost no reason not to grind away at the same favoured map over and over, chasing those last few skill points. I often lose interest in a character around level 80-90 but this league it kicked in around level 70, almost immediately after act 10.

Abrupt cliffhangers

Both Keepers and Mirage have the same narrative problem: hinting at some lurking antagonist who never actually arrives. NPCs and bosses alike made a big deal about Xesht, but you never meet it. Later I find out it's a boss from POE2. The story ends with a crashing anticlimax about the real identity of an NPC and then just ... stops. Mirage is similar: Varashta makes cryptic remarks about Zarokh all the time, but when you eventually find the Black Barya, the opponent is ... something else. The stories never resolve: it just fades into the mess that is mapping.

Everything everywhere all the same

Both Mirage and Keepers take over large chunks of every campaign area, filling them with the same mobs everywhere you go. That was a big annoyance in Keepers but in Mirage it's compounded: you can have an overlapping Mirage area and a Keepers breach or hive in the same place. You could be anywhere: it's the same fight every time, whether you're in a temple, in a jungle, on a snowy mountain. League mechanics shouldn't dominate the campaign like that. Arguably the same holds true for maps, but at least I can turn off breaches there if I want.

This is multiplied exponentially by Archnemesis mods on rares, where you're not fighting any particular monster, you're fighting (or usually just dodging) a mod. I never liked Archnemesis but now I'm truly tired of it. I'm bored beyond belief now by the homing orbs, the electric ghosts, the unexplained voodoo totems and mana auras that toss a coin as to whether they do literally nothing or one-hit you, all the varieties of ground degen that are functionally the same and impossible to spot if there is literally anything else happening. Don't get me started on those electric totems. Archnemesis mods are responsible for maybe four out of five of my deaths - in the campaign, more like nine out of ten. Doesn't matter where you are or what the monster is, you're fighting the same mods over and over. I shouldn't be meeting a rare monster in Act 5 that has Soul Eater and Extra Stuns, who could probably solo Act 10 Kitava if it wanted. It makes most of the side quests that involve taking out a miniboss seem ludicrously easy (see Utula). Also, why are they called "rare" when I might have four on my screen at once in the middle of Act 3?

Suggestion: reworks mods so that rare monsters are more like team leaders. Give them more life and harder hits, sure, but always keep their identity as a monster. Focus on them buffing their pack with auras or banners so that there is some tactical advantage involved in taking them out before anything else.

What does "rare" even mean any more

When aliens visit Wraeclast a million years from now and indulge in a spot of archaeology, six inches under the crust they will hit a layer of rare and "unique" items several kilometers thick. What is the point of this shower of 99% useless items when the Keeper's tree and the Settlers shipments exist?

I'd personally love a Ruthless-lite, where gem availability isn't maddening, and ascendancy skills aren't nerfed to within an inch of their lives, but the loot rarity does apply.

Party options

I avoid multiplayer now because once the league is a few days old, creating a public party will inevitably summon a level 99 player who assumes everyone else is on the same endorphin rush as them and that I want to skip the campaign as fast as possible. With zero communication, they will teleport to my map and obliterate it, ruining all my fun. The elapsed time to spot this happening can be on the order of seconds.

Please, please, please, give us an option to restrict parties to within a few levels of the party leader. Just a tickbox. Please.

Cheers big ears.