HOT TAKE. I am probably the only person in the community who is not excited for 3.26

Oh trust me, I'm not excited whatsoever, and I've been playing every single PoE league since I started back in Breach.

I don't like Kingsmarch at all, it's too mobile game, sending people and boats on missions, and recombinators are objectively broken in their current state.

I also hated Sentinel, as having to circle around monster packs in other to gather them before pressing a button for more loot... isn't good game design imo. And you're basically forced to do it or you're missing out hard. Somehow they brought it back because the masses liked it...

I also hate that the balance changes were so minimal. Nothing changed, it's basically the same meta, with a very very few exceptions. The broken skills are still broken. Needed more skill reworks, ascendancy reworks, skill nerfs, etc. Seems like ChatGPT wrote the patch notes... And people saying the meta has been shaken-up are wrong, it hasn't. Most streamers say it has because they're either dumb, or because they want to make views. Tytykiller and DSLily are objective and smart, they say it themselves, nothing has changed basically.

And jeez... they said this league will be the most loot we ever seen... Why ?! I hate that, Necropolis and Affliction were already way too much. Chase uniques devalued as hell, not even worth anything anymore. Not fun. A loot based game is about chasing items, the carrot and the stick principle. Give people what they want too fast and they lose the will to play, it's basic psychology. Terrible game design once again. I remember when I looted a Headhunter on the ground and didn't even feel happiness, no joke I logged out at the very moment and quit the league on the spot.

But it's 2025, people want everything fast or they complain, which in turn leads to bad game design. People don't know what they want nor what's good for a game in the vast majority of cases, and it's the developer's duty not to listen to them.

It's laughable that some useless skills or archetypes are completely useless, stuck at 7M dps, when on the other hand you still have Lightning Strike, Archmage, Molten Strike of the Zenith, Volcanic Fissure of Snaking, etc etc, doing 500M dps with investment even post nerf...
Like, it makes NO SENSE, NONE. There is no logical explanation other than the devs being either out of touch, or incompetent. OMG WOW you buffed Soulrend and Essence Drain by 20% OMG yeah... come on what a joke.

The PoE meta has been stale for 3-4 years now, ever since they basically stopped doing true meaningful balance changes.

This patch is one of the worst I have ever seen over the past 13 years, and GGG will not see a penny from me until they TRULY change/nerf the meta. How hard can it be to nerf things, jeez.

Just gonna stop here before I completely tilt off the face of the planet and start insulting people...

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Aynix#7757 wrote:

Ritual was easily one of TOP leagues

Meh, Ritual was basic, but I may be dragging it down by the idiotic iron hand Harvest held over the whole game, dictating your every move, where running anything else than Harvest made you a twat.

Yeah, ritual league's level of player power was great. Harvest being a black hole that sucked up the entire game was not.

The challenge league seems very lackluster to me. One npc per zone that you can fight to hire or loot? That's it? Nothing else? The npc must be very good/worthwhile then... Might as well play in Standard.

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superdreddie#9796 wrote:

The challenge league seems very lackluster to me. One npc per zone that you can fight to hire or loot? That's it? Nothing else? The npc must be very good/worthwhile then... Might as well play in Standard.

Yep. Honestly considering kingsmarch is still in the game, it will feel more like Settlers 5.0 with extra dude in each map.

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Aynix#7757 wrote:

Ritual was easily one of TOP leagues.

The real hot take here.

You are never the only one, anywhere, ever.

I'm cautiously optimistic, but if i'll see another boss with invulnerability while you should dodge some unblockable crawling cubes spawning in the arena... And there are three of them.

Honestly, the only interesting thing is the storyline. D2 Mercs/PoE 2 Exiles are whatever unless they are butt-clenching hard and then actually adding in Kingsmarch to the Core game is SUPER CRINGE after an entire year of it.

Personally, it guarantees im not spending any $$$ on this after adding in Kingsmarch - feels like a slap to the face.

ToTA would have been a great comeback instead as it has real gameplay whereas Kingsmarch is just get gold and maintain... like, cmon, its so boring and trash.

Heres hoping the new Pinnacles and some of the New Trans Gems from the Mercs are interesting enough.

Like what Aynix said it def feels more like Setllers 8.0

the last good league was crucible, also the last time Chris Wilson appeared on a league announcement video.