handling of Phrecia schedule looks like deliberate mismanagement

TL;DR: it would have been much better for everyone (except POE2) to actually NOT do anything and just keep Phrecia alive till 3.26


Phrecia event IS fun. Idols have their cons, starting in Settlers (aka unbelievable slog of upgrading the city) is awful - but once you settle in, it is a blast. The fresh ascendancies were cool addition and the event reached and surpassed the sustainability threshold (POE is heavily, HEAVILY reliant on trade for smoothness of progression given how damn RARE some items are to get)

league died because a) no FIRM plans for it long term b) POE2 c) and now LE. league without a critical mass required for trading - dies instantly. it is not fun when basic scarabs are just not available and you need 3 per map


so we had a self-augmented circle of 'no players -> dead league -> no players' with no effort from GGG to break it (single line of 'we will extend it, have fun for next 2 months' would have brought scores of players back)

today Phrecia ends and we get (not today, 'soon') some templates to fill the void.

these will 100% completely flop and are designed that way

a) fragmentation -> no critical mass for sustaining trade economy
b) fragmentation -> no critical interest for streamers to create 'buzz'
c) replacing good with worse (starting in Settlers for the 4th time? no! no! no!)
d) hunting for idols for the 2nd time? recombing them requires MOUNTAINS of gold and dust (look 'c')
e) that 'added twist' of harder difficulty nobody asked for will repulse, not attract

and suddenly POE2 doesnt look that bad after all. i cannot stop thinking that it has been done on purpose

Seeing gauntlet mods got me excited for a minute, until I realized it can only really be applied to Settlers. Exciting as the gauntlet was, it's not enough. I hope they revisit to allow it to layer on top of Sentinel.

It was a bit strange that it initially got announced for a month, when there was much more to interact with than settlers which has been running for a year.

It was good that they ended up extending it and also good that they made it not voided, but you are right that just one month would of caused some poeple not to get invested in playing it.

The decision of ending it when June has not been locked in for the next league is also not great. Having a big gap up until then is already bad, but it puts further pressure on if 3.26 for some reason gets further delay, which has been happening frequently of recent. Given there hasn't been a proper league launch in almost a year, why then would they not keep Phrecia running, incase this happens. They have a lot of problems they seem to be dealing with currently, POE2, DDOS, etc. Closing an event that people are generally happy with and not replacing it with anything does not seem logically beneficial for POE1.

The way they've been doing things lately does not bode well for the furture.

I'm not really sure why they didn't just let everything run the way it is until the expansion either.

I also have little faith this expansion will be worth the wait. Considering how bad POE2 has been.

I often ask myself, did POE2 need to exist in the first place.

Some of the ideas look REALLY cool as long as you don't care about doing Settlers again....which I don't. Never put any time or effort into it anyway, hated it right from the get-go.

BUT

Exactly as you said, because they are private leagues it is going to be pretty much SSF for me which kills any interest I have in even trying it. I am far too impatient after 13 years of playing this game to shoot myself in the foot like that for ANY reason. Nor do I have anywhere near the time to even devote to SSF in freaking May/June, arguably some of the busiest work months of the entire year for nearly every profession.

Even in its currently (mostly) dead state, I was still able to trade and progress in Phrecia. And I likely could have continued making new characters for the next few months.

When i saw i was hoping we could do gauntlet with the atlas invasion mod. but they dont looks stackable.

That would be fun with around 5-6 people.

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Lonnie455Rich#2087 wrote:

When i saw i was hoping we could do gauntlet with the atlas invasion mod. but they dont looks stackable.

That would be fun with around 5-6 people.

Most likely a futile effort, but maybe call that out in the announcement thread? I asked for something similar. Being able to add gauntlet to any of the "5 below" templates would give a fresh experience.

is that the thread where people just say the same stupid stuff they say in twitch chat? ill pass.

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