Ascendancy Trials Feedback: Understanding Player Concerns

100% this, I did the sekhma once! at act2 then said, nope, i am in the tail end of act2 in cruel now and haven't touched it again, can't force myself to do it. hope GGG read what has been said by the players, instead of just trying to force everyone to do something which is not good.

I can't agree with this post more. They just patched it to make it seem more "fair" but whatever they changed wasn't much and my most recent attempt was still a nightmare. I got fairly close to finishing the third trial, but lost a 2 hour careful run to bullshit and was thrown all the way back to the start.

I'm at my limit and probably won't be back until the start of 2025 or a new patch that addresses and fixes these issues comes out.

Seeing as how I'm going to be AFK for the next week, I hope that everybody has a Happy start to the new year

The patch notes from when GGG "listened" to the playerbase has me worried that this will stay in the game...

The only saving point I see now is that the third system they add later on makes it bearable and then these two will be empty. If not I don´t think the game will stay very popular.

In PoE1 I did multiple characters per league. PoE2 in it´s current state is "maybe" one character, maybe none. Having to deal with this system on alts is a big fat no.

the patch didn't help. the honor system is still awful.

I hope we can get 1 ascendary point in each act with a small basic campagne quest and maybe the last 2 points with trials but with a way better ratio difficulty / time to do it / rewards.

Bump

Just tried Ascendancy 3 (Sekhema) after the patch on my warrior. Still feels horrible.
The highlight of the run was fighting a yellow rare for 5 minutes who had:

-inc. armor
-periodical invul
-life regen
-freezing circles appearing on the ground

How are you supposed to deal with that as melee? Got tired and went in close and lost the majority of my honor.

After getting my hopes up from the patch notes and hoping to maybe finally get my 3rd ascendancy, it just feels so fkin frustrating to have it gated behind some BS that was O-P-T-I-O-N-A-L in the last game but for some reason someone decided that it is now M-A-N-D-A-T-O-R-Y

Yes, i'm pissed

Honour is a bad system for three reasons.

First, it never starts maxed out.

Second, any defenses are ignored.

Third, replenishing it is incredibly difficult.

Why does GGG hate us, and the Melee classes, so much?

The current ascension trial experience is still punishing even without the constant game crashes and freezes I'm still constantly experiencing even after the December 17th patch. I've still not been able to complete my 3rd ascension trial yet despite being level 78 and geared. Just eliminate the trials completely, and make ascendancies class specific quests. I understand the intent to make ascendancies something your character has to earn, but it feels far too punishing for the average player - something most will never finish. This reeks of catering to the catering only to the hardcore player base.

Recommendations to improve the overall experience (this is feedback after attempting the trials after the December 17th patch):

1. Remove the honor system. Why would you introduce some of the most universally hated/despised mechanics from POE1 as a requirement for ascending?

2. Make each floor of Sekhema a separate trial. Do the same for Chaos for each. There is no reason to start floors/trials all over again you have completed successfully previously unless the player actually wants to. ADD CHECKPOINTS!!!!!!!!!!!!

3. Reduce the trap damage by ~20%

4. Eliminate the randomness of the trials and the tokens required to access them.

5. Too many enemy on ground effects you cannot see depending on your build covering the ground in your spell/skill effects. Either remove these from the trials, reduce the damage they cause by ~50% or make them stand out better.

"

Delzeed#4069 wrote:

The patch notes from when GGG "listened" to the playerbase has me worried that this will stay in the game...

If they'd "listened" rather than "followed the Vision", they'd have realized how utterly despised Sanctum and Ultimatum were for a large proportion of the PoE1 player base - something they never wanted to engage with ever, under any circumstances.

Making them core progression requirements is frankly insane, and I'd bet good money they walk back on that before full release, if not sooner.