3.20 Balance Manifesto: Monster Mods and Archnemesis

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yessir now just buff loot or give back crafting power and the game gud again

Well never saw that one coming, I guess the red flags were so huge and everywhere there was no other choice than to basically remove them. Might save their game, at least until PoE 2.

This manifesto is weird. Their change to remove ArchNem and replace it with a new and hopefully better approach is good, but the sarcasm in the "Mods do one specific thing" paragraph shows that they understand what the issue are, but why didn't they see those issues when they designed those mods? Why did they think those mods were fine and suitable to replace the old mod system after they had the ArchNem league and actual player feedback?

So those planned changes sound good, I also wouldn't be surprised when they write for 3.21: Game too easy, rare mobs now have up to 30 mods. Good luck reading all of them during the fight.

Archnemesis was the start of a downward spire of my enjoyment honestly as a long time player of poe and it is good to see that that is finally gone. The use of "thematic" was so bad because of the obfuscation of information and overtime my builds since that league has became not as experimental since because of the required amount of damage or defenses. Good riddance.

Positive about this manifesto, it really should have been the first one released though.

Obvious questions:
- headhunter??
- number of AN types
- magnitudes of modifiers (they probably have to have increased to be impactful)
- atlas passive to add one mod coming back?

My biggest gripe about AN was the mod combinations (AN, Essence, Beast, etc) that created absolute world-crushing rares that should never have existed in maps in the first place. I came across a few that were literally tankier and harder-hitting than a juiced up Feared Invitation. This was utterly ridiculous and demonstrated a lack of forethought on the part of developers.

I want my deaths in PoE to be my fault, and I want to learn from mistakes in order to die less often in the future. Getting one-shot by a seemingly common rare monster in a map is all but unforeseeable, and does not feel like my fault. (You can't know they are dangerous until you are dead, and no, I'm not going to stop and read mods on every monster).

Truly challenging content should be optional (endgame bosses, etc). Mapping is supposed to be cerebral, it can't be enjoyed for hours on end unless we are allowed to maintain a flow state most of the time. Please do not introduce mechanics that require activating the higher functioning parts of our brains very often, it is exhausting.

All that being said, I felt that the modified AN mods toward the end of Kalandra league were actually pretty fair. I thought that it was enough to keep you on your toes, but not in a state where you have to worry about getting one shot every 10 seconds. Loot goblins on the other hand were not in a good state, I'm also hoping that the changes get rid of the ridiculous aspects (50 Divs from 1 monster).

I wonder how archnemesis even became a thing...

But great change atleast!
I just don't like the "throw some garbage at people, then clean it up and take credit for cleaning it up, even though you threw the garbage in the first place"

But atleast you listen to two seasons of complaints! :)

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Fallbringer wrote:

Please address the removed historical quantity bonus. No more loot goblin is good but it still overall brings down loot quantity than before.

The manifesto didn't say it got rid of loot goblins. It just said you don't know it's a loot goblin until after you kill it.

Can we just revert to the league mechanic version till you sort this out. Was way easier to just walk by them.