Temple Feedback – Centralizing the Payoff, Improving Clarity, and Preserving Temple Identity

Hello!
First, I want to say that I genuinely like the direction of the Temple system in 0.4. The room planning, tier upgrades, Vaal theme, and Atziri as a capstone all feel like the foundation of a strong long-term system for PoE2.

This post isn’t meant as “this is how it should be designed,” but rather as player perspective feedback on where the system currently feels awkward to engage with, and a possible direction that might solve some of those friction points while preserving the intended difficulty and identity.

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Why I started thinking about this

While running Temple, I noticed a few consistent feelings:

• Many rooms feel irrelevant unless they rolled the exact reward I’m chasing
• Benches feel awkward because I’m encouraged to carry items around “just in case”
• The optimal strategy quickly becomes solving layout patterns (like snake layouts) instead of engaging with room variety
• Crafting interaction often feels disconnected from the Temple run itself
• The Temple feels like several small mechanics rather than one cohesive loop

That led me to ask:

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What if the Temple felt less like separate rooms, and more like a single system building toward a clear payoff?

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Core idea: Rooms shouldn’t be the reward — they should power the reward

Instead of each room acting like an isolated slot machine, the Temple could feel more cohesive if:

• Clearing rooms contributes power to the Architect
• Higher tier rooms contribute more
• Room types influence the kinds of options the Architect offers
• The main reward moment happens intentionally at the end, rather than randomly during the run

This is inspired by the feeling of PoE1 Betrayal benches (like Guff/Tiny’s Trial): not the mechanics themselves, but the idea that the league mechanic gives you a focused, meaningful crafting window.

The goal here isn’t to add power, but to improve clarity of payoff and reduce the feeling of “dead rooms.”

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The Architect’s Workbench (bench + stash as a cohesive interaction point)

Part of what makes the current Temple benches feel awkward is that they’re scattered throughout the run and encourage carrying items around “just in case.”

Instead of treating stash access as separate QoL, this could be framed as a cohesive concept:

The Architect’s final area could contain:

• The Architect’s Workbench (where powered options appear based on your run)
• A small stash chest directly beside it

This reframes the experience as:

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“I place an item at the Workbench, then empower the Temple to enhance what the Architect can do with it.”

Rather than:

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“I need to carry items through the Temple in case I happen to find the right bench.”

This doesn’t make the system easier or more powerful. It simply makes the loop clearer and removes friction that doesn’t meaningfully add challenge, while making the Architect feel like a true end-of-run focal point.

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Currency rooms: cap stacking, reward investment through quality instead of quantity

Rather than allowing infinite stacking of the same reward type, room investment could work more like:

• Repeating the same currency room stacks that currency up to a fixed cap (e.g. 5 uses)
• Further completions of that room type instead upgrade the quality of those uses (Normal → Greater → rare Perfect, etc.)

This still rewards specialization, but avoids degenerate stacking strategies while keeping room choices meaningful.

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Chance Room idea (keeping it separate from the Architect)

Chance Orbs don’t feel like they naturally belong on the Architect menu, but they’re still useful for progression.

A possible approach:

• Add a dedicated Chance Room
• Clearing it still contributes power to the Architect
• The room itself contains a limited-use Chance bench

This keeps system identity clean while giving early/mid progression players an additional incentive.

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Armouries should still just drop gear

Not everything needs to feed into crafting. Armoury rooms continuing to focus on gear drops feels healthy for the system and supports players who prefer to engage with Temple primarily for loot rather than crafting.

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New Tier 3 room + Temple-exclusive currency: Orb of Erasure

This idea comes from a specific pain point:
PoE2 crafting can cause bases to feel disposable very quickly, but infinite rerolling is also clearly something the game wants to avoid.

A Temple-exclusive currency could explore a middle ground:

Orb of Erasure (Temple-only currency idea):

• Use on an item → either
[list]
• Deletes the item entirely, OR
• Removes all modifiers and returns it to a clean base

[/list]

This keeps it:

• Risky
• Thematically Vaal
• Not something players can safely spam
• Valuable for trade-focused players as a Tier 3 drop
• Helpful for players who want to invest emotionally in a base without removing consequences entirely

This isn’t meant as “we need this exact orb,” but more as an example of how Temple-exclusive currencies could address crafting friction while preserving risk.

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Crystal itemization (making Temple progress feel more tangible)

Currently, Temple progress (crystals / charges) feels mostly abstract.

One possible improvement could be:

• Allow Temple crystals to exist as tangible items rather than only UI counters
• Different tiers of crystals representing progression strength
• This could make planning, upgrading, and investment feel more readable
• Players could more clearly understand how much power they’re actually building toward the final payoff

This doesn’t necessarily imply tradeability — it’s more about making Temple progression feel concrete rather than invisible.

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Tier 3 rooms should remain the main cash-out for non-crafters

This feels extremely important for the health of the system.

Tier 3 rooms should continue to be where players earn:

• Cultivation Orbs
• Destabilizing Orbs
• Other Temple-exclusive currencies
• Orb of Erasure (if something like that existed)
• Pristine / take-home style rewards

That way:

• Players who like crafting get a meaningful in-system payoff
• Players who don’t like crafting can still profit purely through Temple drops
• Nobody feels forced to engage with crafting to get value

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Atziri as the true capstone: risk tied to reward

Atziri feels like the perfect place for the highest investment payoff.

A possible direction:

• Clearing the Temple powers the Architect
• That accumulated power also feeds into Atziri’s room
• More Temple power = harder Atziri fight
• But in exchange, Atziri unlocks stronger (still limited-use) options

Examples (conceptual, not prescriptive):

• Protect one side (prefixes or suffixes) for a single craft
• Remove the lowest-tier modifier
• Remove a random modifier
• Reforge while keeping one modifier
• Upgrade one modifier tier if possible

The key idea isn’t “add PoE1 meta-crafting,” but rather:

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A difficult boss encounter becomes the gateway to a rare, earned crafting moment.

That feels thematically appropriate and reinforces risk/reward.

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How this interacts with layout optimization (“snake” meta)

Players will always optimize — that’s healthy.
The goal isn’t to eliminate metas, but to avoid one solved layout dominating everything.

If rewards scale more with:

• Total completion
• Tier investment
• Some degree of room variety

Then the optimal strategy becomes “build a good Temple” rather than “solve one layout and repeat forever.”

Small incentives like diminishing returns for heavy repetition or minor bonuses for variety could support that direction without punishing player creativity.

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TL;DR

• Temple feels strong conceptually but fragmented in payoff
• Rooms could contribute power toward the Architect instead of acting as isolated rewards
• The Architect’s Workbench (bench + stash together) could serve as the cohesive end-of-run interaction point
• Currency rooms could cap quantity and upgrade quality instead of stacking infinitely
• A Chance Room could exist separately with its own bench
• Armouries should continue to drop gear normally
• Temple-exclusive currencies (like a conceptual Orb of Erasure) could solve crafting pain points while preserving risk
• Tier 3 rooms should remain the primary tradable reward path
• Atziri could become the true capstone: harder fight = stronger but limited payoff
• Crystal progress could feel more tangible through itemization

The overall goal isn’t to make Temple more powerful, but to make it feel more cohesive, intentional, and satisfying to engage with.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for all the work that’s already gone into the system.

Benches feel awkward because I’m encouraged to carry items around “just in case”

You can just take the orb

The problem is ITS SHIT content.

Streamers took advantage of the shit untested content to stream and make videos for theyr channels and that was it.

Its garbage. I dont want to play it and i dont want to see it.

The only coorect action here is remove it from this game and trow it into the trashbin.