Breach and Legacy as Core Game Mechanics

Slightly disappointed in this, mostly because it just feels good to know that all the gear and content of the game is accessible in SOME way. If Zana can be made to fill this function in a better way than previously, that's all well and good, but Legacy really captured it in a simple way, imo. For instance, there has still be no real implementation of Tailsman into Zana (maybe once??), and that is really just the tip of the iceberg. There are rich mechanics that should be available to players in some form. Hopefully something can be worked out that bridges the gap between the ease of Legacy and the relatively high-cost entry point to Zana, not to mention the random and limited nature of what she offers.

Now, from what I can tell, more casual players really loved Legacy, and more veteran/hardcore players weren't too enamored with it. That's all well and good. Path of Exile is a game that is almost initially intimidating by design. It's supposed to have complex and deep mechanics. I feel that the Legacy system is a far better way to get new players to check out old league content. The game is already awash in systems, items and choices of all kinds. Having a dozen or so Leaguestones isn't really changing the overwhelming nature of the game one way or another to a new player, and it certainly is more accessible than Zana, who many people many never even get to.

"

There were a few elements that worked less well with Legacy League. There was difficulty in properly communicating how to engage with the system, and after players had learned how, they had to put considerable effort into maintaining three Leaguestones and not accidentally using them where they did not mean to. Players also wanted to engage with the very rewarding Leaguestones that had mods, which needed to be reasonably rare.

Zana, the normal way players engage with past leagues, had too much overlap with Legacy League, and needed to be changed to not provide the same access. This left us with limited options, and what was implemented for Zana in 2.6.0 wasn't received well.

While we look forward to using Legacy again at some point in the future, we will not be adding it to the core game at this time.

We feel it provides too much overhead for newer players, and is something we'd like to reserve for special occasions.

I'll toss my hat in with the "disappointed" crowd. I've found Leaguestones fun and everything that's wrong with the current system aside from the overlap with Zana mods is a perfectly solvable UI problem, not some structural defect in the mechanic itself. Everything in the quote above just reduces to "The feature is great but needs QA work that we don't care to fund right now, so we're just tearing out the whole thing and calling it a day."

I'm not unsympathetic. I'm a software engineer myself and have been tasked with writing basically the exact same thing for various audiences any number of times, but it's still sad to see the abandonment of what for my money is the single largest and most interesting expansion of the game's core systems ever introduced.

Also, because it just needs to be said, the sudden deep concern for mitigating newbie confusion is absolutely hilarious. The entire game, from the skill tree to the chat interface to the crafting system to the basically mandatory but entirely unsupported 3rd party tools that prop up the game (poe.trade, poeplanner, etc.) is a blizzard of borderline hostility to new players. The idea that the addition of Leaguestones crosses some kind of meaningful accessibility boundary is just too funny not to have a laugh at.

"The Legacy league succeeded in being an excellent celebration of challenge leagues of the past. Players enjoyed the control over their experience of the game. Players were able to participate in old leagues, and in particular, play their past favourites."

And because this content was so wildly successful and popular we are, of course, taking it away.

Leaguestones were one of the major aspects of the game that made it stand out from all of the other D2-3 clones out there. It was these that got me to take the leap and decide to finally give PoE a go and start playing. If they are so popular, and already so successfully implemented, it really doesn't make sense to me to drop them just because.... why? Because you can?

You only want to make them available in end game maps? Fine. Make the Leaguestones function through the map device instead of a character tab. Then they would be a neat added form of treasure that only drop on maps. Haven't had a stone drop for you lately? Fine. Zana has the old fashioned currency way to back up the system when needed.

So, as can be guessed, I am more than a little disappointed by this; but not particularly surprised. Devs in ANY game now days seem to be stuck on the "take away" rather than the "add to and enrich".

I suppose we are still getting to keep breeches for free, on maps..... sometimes. Better than nothing I suppose.

Overall, have to rate this decision a 3 out of 10 for my personal tastes.

Peace all.

I admit I was disappointed by the news. As a player who leans more towards self found with the occasional trade "usually items I can't possibly obtain on my own via drop or league specific"...I can't spend my chaos like someone that clears multiple trades a day, to them 75+ chaos a day on zana mods is just a penny in a jar, which if you do 25+ maps a day thats what its going to cost! Not to mention I work 9+ hrs a day, my career isn't streaming! Thus I rarely use zana mods.

...Stones fixed this for the less wealthy, because they dropped instead of having to be bought! And it allowed for a more "risky" way to play, and the "risk" translated to a form of "difficulty" which ultimately brings a greater sense of enjoyment "alc'ing" doesn't bring to the table! Cause idk about anyone else, but I find "alc'd" maps a cake-walk! Only mods I roll over are mods that are impossible for my build to do "no regen, reflect, etc" OR annoying things I can't bare to run like "temp chains".

If they didn't want the leveling experience to be "alter'd" why not just make them drop only in maps, and remove the tab, and put 3 map spots on the map device...

If they felt it was to "rewarding" or too "cumbersome" on the servers, then drop it to 2 OR even 1 league stone at a time instead of 3!...

BUT I feel the real reason they took their stance is they want to use it in the future for end of league filler and special occasions, cause it will be hard to top! And although I understand this, it still makes me sad as shit...guess its back to mindless grinding, with next to no risk of dying! Something stones brought to the table!

Everyone here that is happy with leaguestones being removed has a collection in standard that they never use and just didn't want other players to get them. GG it would've made standard fun to farm on.

Lower drop chance and limit to one leaguestone per zone. Poor standard players will remain bored and... well bored.

Hell, maybe even make it standard-only.

From what I've seen Legacy is best and worst league. It is best because it makes things happen, each instance somewhat different, or can be different keeping gameplay fresh. But It is also worst.
Bad
Perandus league stone. Well there are tons of coins and you can meet vendor rarely, from what I've seen. MAybe you can store league stone for times you need to spend coins.
Essence - Lots of drops which ugrade to rare item, yes you get guaranteed prefix, but it is sorta so so. At least with legacy amount of those you get you mostly skip, and it seems leveling upgrades.

Good
Prophesy Stone - I think it is part of main game, from what I've seen, pretty good addition. One of best.

So-so
Rogue exiles, ambush - part of game
Bloodlines is sorta same as rogue exiles.

There are sorta fun leagues, but that is it. So my thought it is mostly more fun this way.

----

What I think after all 10 acts complete, it would be interesting to see events or alternative instances. So new players could see how things change and each new leveled character wasn't as boring. You know like first diablo. You see blooded person lying in D2 who discloses something about horrible monster lurking nearby.

To get stakes higher, why not make let's say Lunaris temple lower floors attracted, creatures from beyond, because there are lots of sucrifices, . And the area is a bit different you still need to get to piety, you still need to fight her, but she might throw different words, maybe even NPC in Sarn encampment while instance is open say something different or can tell more about what is happening. Such small things to make feel players that things are not scripted, things may go differently.There is no necessity in rewards imo, even the fact you play slightly different map is reward itself, it might look small and unnoticable yet it keeps things fresh.

Even such small thing like Fire dog from act one getting lost in jungle act 2 might start chain of events(Not really good idea because too much development over meager events that few might see if any, but still as example)


Or another what if there was modification of location starting normally, and you can prevent chain of events like altar desacration, and map would continue fairly normally, but if you wouldn't find it in time the location start changing little by little, or at once.

Sometimes stumbling on big evil might feel fun. Sometimes might feel fun to realise there were things happening you haven't know or were lucky/unlucky to be late. Again there is no necessity in any sort of reward as unexpected or unusual events are happening.

Maybe limited to most visited maps/areas at first.

It is just my idea. But I hope at least most of those Zana mods wouldn't be out of realm costs.

Great call GGG!!! Glad to hear that breaches will be staying in the game, like the idea of adding them to maps, cleaver. (will make even Dried Lake farmers want to map more)

Also totally agree with not adding leaguestones to the core of the game...as much as I enjoyed using them to increase the drops of shaped strands, (ran 100's of them) I will not miss the constant checking and re-checking to see if the leaguestones expired or not. They were meant to be nostalgic, a throw back experience of yesteryear, and we did just that. Great to go back and experience the old leagues once again. I saw them as a send off, from all the great years of POE.

Thank you GGG for all the great years!!!!

Now bring on 3.0!!!!!!!!! :)

"

cchan0535 wrote:

"

There were a few elements that worked less well with Legacy League. There was difficulty in properly communicating how to engage with the system, and after players had learned how, they had to put considerable effort into maintaining three Leaguestones and not accidentally using them where they did not mean to. Players also wanted to engage with the very rewarding Leaguestones that had mods, which needed to be reasonably rare.

Zana, the normal way players engage with past leagues, had too much overlap with Legacy League, and needed to be changed to not provide the same access. This left us with limited options, and what was implemented for Zana in 2.6.0 wasn't received well.

While we look forward to using Legacy again at some point in the future, we will not be adding it to the core game at this time.

We feel it provides too much overhead for newer players, and is something we'd like to reserve for special occasions.

I'll toss my hat in with the "disappointed" crowd. I've found Leaguestones fun and everything that's wrong with the current system aside from the overlap with Zana mods is a perfectly solvable UI problem, not some structural defect in the mechanic itself. Everything in the quote above just reduces to "The feature is great but needs QA work that we don't care to fund right now, so we're just tearing out the whole thing and calling it a day."

I'm not unsympathetic. I'm a software engineer myself and have been tasked with writing basically the exact same thing for various audiences any number of times, but it's still sad to see the abandonment of what for my money is the single largest and most interesting expansion of the game's core systems ever introduced.

Also, because it just needs to be said, the sudden deep concern for mitigating newbie confusion is absolutely hilarious. The entire game, from the skill tree to the chat interface to the crafting system to the basically mandatory but entirely unsupported 3rd party tools that prop up the game (poe.trade, poeplanner, etc.) is a blizzard of borderline hostility to new players. The idea that the addition of Leaguestones crosses some kind of meaningful accessibility boundary is just too funny not to have a laugh at.

This a hundred times over! As a software developer myself, this guy hit the nail on the head. There is SO much unexplained content in this game that using the "its hard for newbies" argument falls pretty flat. Yes the leaguestone ui was absolutely terrible to deal with but that's a design problem that can be iterated upon.

Running through basic zones again with no control over the types of content that I'll be seeing while leveling just sounds extremely boring at this point. The legacy league was the best piece of content that you could've added to the game. Now you're tossing it out in favor of what? A few new acts that most of us will never pay attention to beyond passing through to get back to maps? This is a very unfortunate decision imo.

"

jjstraka34 wrote:

For instance, there has still be no real implementation of Tailsman into Zana (maybe once??), and that is really just the tip of the iceberg. There are rich mechanics that should be available to players in some form. Hopefully something can be worked out that bridges the gap between the ease of Legacy and the relatively high-cost entry point to Zana, not to mention the random and limited nature of what she offers.

This. I play casualy and I'm okay with content like guardians and shaper being behind play-16h-per-day-and-git-gud wall which is simply out of my reach. But relatively high-cost (it is high for me) and/or limited access to simple game mechanics is... well, let's say "disappointing" doesn't really cut it.

"

cchan0535 wrote:

Everything just reduces to "The feature is great but needs QA work that we don't care to fund right now, so we're just tearing out the whole thing and calling it a day."

Also, because it just needs to be said, the sudden deep concern for mitigating newbie confusion is absolutely hilarious. The entire game, from the skill tree to the chat interface to the crafting system to the basically mandatory but entirely unsupported 3rd party tools that prop up the game (poe.trade, poeplanner, etc.) is a blizzard of borderline hostility to new players. The idea that the addition of Leaguestones crosses some kind of meaningful accessibility boundary is just too funny not to have a laugh at.

Also, this. It's not like new players try to min-max everything from start with Zana, sextants and leaguestones like pros. Newbie-pros can handle it, newbie-casuals don't care.

Removal of leaguestones is bitterly disappointing for me personally.