Discussion about offmeta League mechanics

[These are my thoughts and suggestions. I apologise if I offended you. My purpose is to ignite discussion on these mechanics, because I really want them to be good.]

I recently played Phrecia 2.0 and tried a few strategies. One of them was Beyond with these bonuses:
- 100% chance for your Maps to attract Beyond Demons,
- Beyond Demons in your Maps have 270% increased chance to be followers of Beidat,
- 200% more Basic Currency Items found from Beyond Demons in your Maps that are followers of Beidat,
- Beyond Portals in your Maps cannot spawn Unique Bosses,
- Beyond Portals in your Maps have 40% less Merging Radius,
- Monster Packs Influenced by The Searing Exarch in your Maps have 36% increased Pack Size,
- Eldritch Altars Influenced by The Searing Exarch which have an additional Upside have 80% increased Effect of Downsides,
- Eldritch Altars Influenced by The Searing Exarch have 60% chance to have an additional Upside,
- 57% increased effect of Explicit Modifiers on your Maps (max is 72%).

I planned to add "80% increased Pack Size of your Maps affected by Fortune Favours the Brave", but after I tested how good it is in current setup I decided to discontinue the project.

With 200% more currency mods in 16.5 and pack size scarabs I got NOTHING. In first map with Wildwood I got 1 sacred orb, but after that best drops were 4 transmutes stacks (I tried around 10 maps and gave up, because all currency came from Exarch's altars).

Drop was comparable to scour-and-go (I used white map to get "Soul of Abberath" and loot was comparable - because of Exarch's altars).

In the regular Leagues I did not think much about it, but now it is crystal clear to me, Beyond is bad. It is used only to increase density of other League mechanics. If you planned to farm Beyond exclusively I have a bad news for you.

(I know when I encounter Beidat's faction)
It is frightening that even with 200% more currency multiplier you do not get fraction of loot from the other mechanics like Strongboxes (The Atlas have only 30% increase, soo "Pale Clarion" node is basically useless).

What is more you cannot guarantee for demons to be Beidat's followers, because with 270% increase you have only 65% chance to encounter Beidat's faction (The Atlas passives give you only 120% increase).

Even if you win 2/3 lottery, there is possibility you will summon Beidat in the beginnig of the map. That makes this strategy horrible. You are forced to use "Endless Tide" which reduces spawn rate of Beyond demons and locks rewards from the bosses.

After that, I thought about other "abandoned" mechanic and I came with ideas what could be done for them to not be as bad as they are right now.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Beyond:
Reasons why I suggest these changes are described above.

[Demon Lord] Follower Chance: multiply times 5 (or even more).
30% more [Unique/Basic Currency/Divination Cards] -> 200% more (or even more).

Endless Tide:
- Beyond Portals in your Maps cannot spawn Unique Bosses -> Beyond Portals and Demons do not stop spawning after a Unique Beyond Boss is spawned,
- Beyond Portals in your Maps have 50% less Merging Radius -> after a Unique Beyond Boss is spawned Beyond Monsters become enraged.

Beyond Portal Merging Radius (remove) -> Beyond Portal Chance.

Fiendish Opulence: 25% -> 100%.

Torn Veil: 30% -> 50%.

Scarabs:
- Beyond Scarab of Haemophilia: Beyond Portals in Area have 50% increased Merging Radius -> Slaying Enemies in your Maps has 30% increased chance to spawn Beyond Portal.

Remove "Merging Radius", because it does not add any benefit to the mechanic (set it to 1-2 screens or something like that).

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Vaal Side Area:
I think it is cool idea to have map in the map, but current implementation is unrewarding and it is waste of time. Scour-and-Chance strategy with "Lucid Dreams" is probably the worst in the game - it can make you net-negative which is worse than scour-and-go. Vaal side areas do not even have dedicated buttons for that (unlike Strongboxes).

But when you finally get to one of Unique Vaal Side Areas you will get almost nothing, because "Endless Nightmare" is just bad alch-and-go, "Grand Dreams" may give you fractured item that is not bad, but currently Fracturing orbs are not expensive, so you probably will not get anything for farming them and the rarest "Bane of Chaos" have 100% chance to drop "The Adorned", but if roll is bad you will not sell it.

That is why I came with these changes:

Lucid Dreams:
- Vaal Side Areas in your Maps are no longer Corrupted -> Your Maps have chance to encounter Unique Vaal Side Area,
- Endless Nightmare: 30% chance to occur, Portal closes on death, inherits Your Map base modifiers (non Atlas) and adds 1 modifier to next Nightmare, 100% chance for end portal to take you to another Nightmare (after all modifiers are used, next Nightmare will increase Explicit Modifiers values by 10%),
- Grand Dreams: 10% chance to occur,
- Bane of Chaos: 1% chance to occur.

Unimaginable Horrors:
- Vaal Side Areas in your Maps have 20% chance for Rewards from Vaal Vessels to be Duplicated
-> Rewards from Vaal Vessels in Vaal Side Areas are Duplicated (same as the Strongboxes nodes),
- downsides unchanged.

For Love of the Queen:
- Vaal Side Areas in your Maps have 20% chance to be an Alluring Vaal Side Area -> Non-Unique Vaal Side Areas have 50% chance to be an Alluring Vaal Side Area,
- Your Maps have +4% chance to contain a Vaal Side Area -> remove.

Vaal Side Area Chance: +2% -> +20%, remove 1 node.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Labyrinth:
Currenty you cannot target-farm labyrinth's offerings. You must invest 4 points to get +10% chance to encounter trial, then you have 20% chance to be improved offering and finally you have 33,(3)% chance that offering will be "Gift to the Goddess". Then you can sell it for 1d max. Time and The Atlas investment is not compensated.

What is more, mechanic is borring. You rush in, turn a few levers, hope you will get Gift and repeat.

I think these changes would make it more exciting and rewarding:

- Labyrinth Trial Chance: +2% -> +20%, add 1 node (gives total of 80%),
- Trial of Glory: +4% -> +6% and 20% -> 30%,
- (new node):
- Labyrinth Tiral have 30% chance to be Argus boss fight (awards offering to Goddess and 1-4 Treasure Keys depending on map tier: T1-5 1, T6-10 2, T11-16 3, T17 4),
- Labyrinth Tiral have 15% chance to be Izaro boss fight (awards offering to Goddess and 1-4 Silver Keys depending on map tier: T1-5 1, T6-10 2, T11-16 3, T17 4),
- Labyrinth Tiral have 5% chance to be the Goddess boss fight (awards offering to Goddess and 1-4 Golden Keys depending on map tier: T1-5 1, T6-10 2, T11-16 3, T17 4),
- Your Maps have +6% chance to contain a Trial of Ascendancy.
(These keys could be used in any Labyrinth trial).

Base chance is around 8% + 6% from Trial of Glory + 6% from new key passive + 4 * 20% from small passives = 100%.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Torment:
Torment is not entirely bad. Ghosted mobs sometimes give better loot. The problem is that too little mobs are possesed/touched. That is why, I think developers should try increasing chance for monsters to be haunted.

- Tormented Spirit Duration & Tormented Spirit Chance -> Your Maps have 12.5% chance to be haunted by many Tormented Spirits (100% if all small Passives are allocated),
- Paranormal Meeting -> Tormented Spirits in Area are set free when Possessed Monsters are slain,
- Seance -> Rare Monsters in your Maps have 50% chance to be possesed and their Minions are Touched,
- Speaker of the Dead: 20s -> 1min (or remove time limit).

Scarabs:
- Torment Scarab: limit 2 -> 4, additional Tormented Spirits 3 -> 5, remove "Tormented Spirits in Area have a 50% chance to be set free when Possessed Monsters are slain",
- Torment Scarab of Possession: limit 3 -> 2, quarter chance -> 50% (1 Scarab + Seance would give 100% chance).

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Heist:
Currenty you do not need to allocate "The Dutiful Soldier", "Secret Stash" and "Friends in High Places" clusters to benefit from blueprint farming (you just need use Map Crafting Option and "No Honour Among Thieves" with "Casting the Joint" clusters).

Points which are not spent on these clusters are used mostly for more maps/shrines (because blueprint farming is often added to maps farming strategies).

The Atlas clusters cannot compete with Heist Map Crafting Option. You do not even get 100% chance to have Smuggler's Cache. That is why I suggest changes.

The Dutiful Soldier -> Huck gives 10-20% Item Quantity and Rarity buff.

Secret Stash -> remove chance for Cache, Smuggler's Caches have 30% increased chance to drop Blueprint OR Smuggler's Caches have 30% chance for Items to be duplicated.

Heist Smuggler's Cache Chance: 4% -> 20%, remove 1 node (would give 100% chance).

Heist Contract Job Level Three -> Heist Contract are 100% more likely to require Agility, Trap disarmament, Lockpicking.

Heist Contract Job Level Four -> Heist Contract are 100% more likely to require Brute force, Demolition, Engineering.

Heist Contract Job Level Five -> Heist Contract are 100% more likely to require Deception, Perception, Counter-thaumaturgy.

Friends in High Places -> add "Heist Contracts found in your Maps cannot require level 1 and 2 Jobs",

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Pack size nodes for Guardian/Conqueror are useless. Synthesis nodes do not even work (because these maps are unique). They are used only as required travel nodes to map drop chance. Guardian/Conqueror/Synthesis maps are not even played with pack size in mind, because most of the times they are used for Maven's invitations.

Synthesis Monsters Pack Size -> Items found in your Maps have 0.01% chance to be Synthesised (that may be too good)
OR +0.1% chance for Synthesis Map to drop form Final Map Boss in each Map (Tier 14+).
Shaper/Elder Influenced Pack Size -> Items found in your Maps have 0.1% chance to be Influenced by The Shaper/The Elder
OR Final Map Boss in each Map has +0.25% chance to drop an Shaper/Elder Guardian Map (Tier 14+).
Conqueror Influenced Pack Size -> Items found in your Maps have 0.1% chance to be Influenced by random Conqueror
OR Map Bosses have 10% increased chance to drop a Conqueror Map.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
In the other hand, we have item drop chance for Eater/Exarch. Noone check these items. These nodes are another travel nodes without purpose.

Etched by Acid: 10% -> 20% (even with that increase I doubt many will invest in this node)
Eater of Worlds Item Chance -> Your Maps have 2% chance to award double progress towards encountering The Eater of Worlds.

Baptised by Fire: 10% -> 20% (even with that increase I doubt many will invest in this node)
Searing Exarch Item Chance -> Your Maps have 2% chance to award double progress towards encountering The Searing Exarch.

The Most Toys: 10% -> 25%. (even with that increase I doubt many will invest in this node)
Maven Witness Additional Boss: 1% -> 3%.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Many players waste a ton of points just to turn off things they do not like, such as Betrayal or Bestiary.
Why do not just turn off everything and let player decide what they want to play?

Your Maps have no chance to contain..., Your Maps have +2% chance to contain other Extra Content that can be turned off through Atlas Passives
-> Your Maps have no chance to contain any Extra Content that is not turned on through Atlas Passives (merging 10 passives to 1).

I think, noone is using these nodes. Upsides and downsides do not make loot better or maps to be easier.

Dance of Destruction:
- Monsters in your Maps deal 25% more Damage -> Monsters in your Maps deal 5% more Damage per Explicit Modifier,
- Monsters in your Maps have 25% less Life -> +1% increased Monsters Pack Size per Explicit Modifier.

Wellspring of Creation:
- Monsters in you Maps deal 25% less Damage -> +1% increased Quantity of Items found in your Maps per Explicit Modifier,
- Monsters in your Maps have 50% more Life -> Monsters in your Maps have 10% more Life per Explicit Modifier.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
I think, this node is interesting, but because your map is random most of the players do not even consider it.

Twist of Fate -> rerolls Map modifiers, Map is choosen from Favoured Maps pool (or random if no Map is Favoured),
for each 4 different Maps you have Favoured adds 1 additional Map Modifier (does not roll Map mods count, only adds).

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Newbie baits:
Through Exploration -> just buff this node, because it gives nothing right now (probably bugged).

Meticulous Appraiser -> Modifiers to Rarity of Items found in your Maps instead apply to Quantity of Times found in your Maps at 50% of their value.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Noone is using these nodes (Bold Undertaking is sometimes taken as travel node for other maps nodes)
Overloaded Circuits -> remove 100% more cost of Map Crafting Options OR add upside (for example: effects of League mechanic are improved - adds little bonus).

Bold Undertakings -> remove 100% more cost of Map Crafting Options OR add upside (for example: Pack Size Maps affected by Fortune Favours the Brave).

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Gateway -> only 1 side should be allocated (reduce 1 point investment).