New patch looks awesome in just about every way. But ...

Nothing to address the horror that is the Ascendancy Trials. There's nothing quite as frustrating as building a great build that can survive hits and deal out damage, only to find that all those hits that you can survive through are still using up your Honour and you fail. The Honour system is just an unnecessary annoyance.

I'm not asking for trials to be easier, I would be ok even making them harder fights, but regular fights without cascading, accumulating debuffs that cause your build, that works perfectly in every other situation, to fall apart when it counts in the Trials. These should test your overall combat ability, not your willingness to endure suffering and still prevail.

All you need know about the state of the trials is to watch global 1 for a few minutes and see how many people are begging for ascendancy carries. An entire industry has developed around it. Some of them just need to get gud, sure, but a lot of them are just tired of beating their heads against the brick wall of punishment, while they are making their way just fine through the rest of the game.

Like I said, the rest of the patch looks awesome, I am very happy to see virtually everything listed in the announcement and I'm very encouraged to see GGG's mindset changing to accommodate what players really want. But please, take a look at trials next.

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Winterfury#4666 wrote:

All you need know about the state of the trials is to watch global 1 for a few minutes and see how many people are begging for ascendancy carries.

If you're in trade league, why do you have a problem buying a carry for a trial if you don't want the do the trial? People trade for gear they don't want to farm up/craft themselves, so just buy the carry if you don't like the trial. Some people like doing them and like providing a service, so it seems like a win/win situation. Also, they said a 3rd way to do ascendencies is on the way. They can only do so much at once.

I thought you can also theoretically just do Chaos and ignore Sekhemas completely if you don't like the honour system?

I guess I don't like the thought of paying to get content done that I can't do myself. I mean, I wouldn't pay to have an Arbiter carry, I would want to do that myself. There's a big difference in buying gear and paying for content carries, because people don't typically buy gear to avoid having to earn it themselves (although for some rare boss drops they do, it's true), usually they buy gear because they get can get very exact and specific traits on gear that would take them forever to farm on their own.

I don't have a problem with people who choose to pay for an ascendancy carry, that's their choice and I totally support anyone playing the game the way they want to, I just have a problem imposing this system on ME as a barrier to necessary progression. The Lab in PoE1 didn't do that, it was more equitable in imposing a hard core style challenge that was largely difficulty based, it didn't make your existing build more or less likely to survive. I can't believe I'm saying this now, but I miss the lab lol.

Chaos is not as harsh, but it does its own punishment by stacking a growing list of debuffs that can really cripple you if you're unlucky enough to get a whole series of bad ones that really hurt survivability. I have fewer complaints about Chaos, but still don't like it. It's not a difficulty challenge with harder fights, which I would be ok with, it's a test of survivability through a series of randomly escalating debuffs that you can't control, unlike mapping where you have a huge amount of control over which debuffs you have to make it through.

I wasn't aware that they were adding a new trial mechanic, that's good news, thanks.

The intent, in full release, is for the first three Ascendancy points to be gained via story trials - Maraketh, Vaal, Karui - with the final point coming from any of the three at sufficient level. All three campaign trials will work like the quest-item trials for Maraketh and Vaal - they aren't consumed until you win. That will get people their first three points, even if they have to overlevel by a chunk. The final point has always been semi-negotiable, at least in the original game.

OP has a point, that has been shared here and on reddit. POE1 ascendancy trials could be done solo with challenge and not too much headache.

POE2 trials....yea....no....headache.

The point of Sekhema is that its focused on the player dodging as good as he can. You are not supposed to be tanking damage. You might not enjoy this particular playstyle, but thats basically the essence of what Sekhema is: clear telegraphs and few monsters, so its possible to dodge everything with skill.

POE2 is really for hardcore players who plays the game 24 hours per day, 7 days a week.

Irony is, the devs don't even play the game probably not more than 5 minutes and just watch these harcore players and base their vision on them.

GGG expects everyone else to play like these hardcore players.

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Winterfury#4666 wrote:

Nothing to address the horror that is the Ascendancy Trials. There's nothing quite as frustrating as building a great build that can survive hits and deal out damage, only to find that all those hits that you can survive through are still using up your Honour and you fail. The Honour system is just an unnecessary annoyance.

I'm not asking for trials to be easier, I would be ok even making them harder fights, but regular fights without cascading, accumulating debuffs that cause your build, that works perfectly in every other situation, to fall apart when it counts in the Trials. These should test your overall combat ability, not your willingness to endure suffering and still prevail.

All you need know about the state of the trials is to watch global 1 for a few minutes and see how many people are begging for ascendancy carries. An entire industry has developed around it. Some of them just need to get gud, sure, but a lot of them are just tired of beating their heads against the brick wall of punishment, while they are making their way just fine through the rest of the game.

Like I said, the rest of the patch looks awesome, I am very happy to see virtually everything listed in the announcement and I'm very encouraged to see GGG's mindset changing to accommodate what players really want. But please, take a look at trials next.

tbh Honor system per se is not bad. but it does not work on a game/scenario where you are swarmed by dozens of enemies at same time. It becomes impossible to avoid unnecessary damage. IT would need far less enemies at screen at all times to make sense.

Just go trial of chaos?

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plz#2115 wrote:

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Winterfury#4666 wrote:

All you need know about the state of the trials is to watch global 1 for a few minutes and see how many people are begging for ascendancy carries.

If you're in trade league, why do you have a problem buying a carry for a trial if you don't want the do the trial? People trade for gear they don't want to farm up/craft themselves, so just buy the carry if you don't like the trial. Some people like doing them and like providing a service, so it seems like a win/win situation. Also, they said a 3rd way to do ascendencies is on the way. They can only do so much at once.

I thought you can also theoretically just do Chaos and ignore Sekhemas completely if you don't like the honour system?

Hey look Pay to Win culture is already here.
How is the weather in China ?

Get that credit card ready, i hear you can buy a blue pony next patch .
Not only that move speed was increased by 15% and Map size was increased by 15% that should be awesome!!