A Case Against Itemized Juicing + Some Feedback

To start off, what am I even talking about? The main problem I have is specifically to do with map mods and tablets, but has wider implications, which technically applies to all forms of itemized juicing.
I first started thinking about this when scarabs became a thing in PoE1. They weren't widely available at first which meant that a lot of farming strats became less economical at later points in the league. I remember quitting a league because I simply couldn't buy the juice necessary to run my strat. While that is not a thing anymore in PoE1, it has since rubbed me the wrong way that one can exhaust the market for items required to run certain strats. This exact thing can now be seen in PoE2 except with tablets and maps.

Seeing how 0.4 is set to run a total of 5+ months, I have strongly felt the urge to play again. However, if I wanted to get back to playing now, I'm sure I would very quickly exhaust the supply of tablets running more niche strats, nevermind the absolute state of the economy. Most players quit the league and that's fine, but I believe that fact should never really impact ones ability to just keep playing. I guess it extra sucks for players who join a league half way through, maybe to check out the game for the first time.

This also reveals a second problem and that is map mods. I believe map mods in their current state do not belong in PoE2. They're fine in PoE1 because you can roll over map mods you don't like for very cheap, but the moment you can't (the addition of T17's initially), people throw a fit. PoE2 doesn't have the option to roll over map mods to begin with, besides the three silly ritual omens and those aren't meant to be used just to roll over stuff, they're meant to create very specific kinds of maps + they're expensive. So what do people do? They simply toss out the maps they can't run. Map mods are supposed to make the content both more challenging and rewarding, fair enough, but not a single soul will design their build specifically to deal with annoying map mods better. And why would they? Maps themselves are too easily sustained for such considerations to matter. I started tossing out temp chains and ground chill maps because I simply didn't like them. The whole gameplay loop has way too much friction and there is no reason for that. The edge any given build has at dealing with specific map mods better is something you should lean into. Currently, even if maps were more scarce and therefore forced people to run more maps they didn't like (hence giving them a reason to design their builds around that fact), would still feel worse because people don't have enough control over being able to explicitly run the map mods they can deal with best. My idea for a fundamental change to the system aims to deal with all that.

Simply put, "build your own map". Let me paint you the picture.
Maps are now normal rarity only. The map device now "energizes" maps with whatever mods you see fit. This energy is not a resource you have to acquire, it puts out X amount of energy for every map. Maximum energy the map device is capable of outputting can be increased by advancing through map tiers. The mods you can put on the map can be unlocked in a similar way to crafting recipes in PoE1 except endgame only. League specific mods can be unlocked by doing that content.
This system could have extreme depth, should you so choose. It could be just a replacement for map mods currently, it could also merge everything into one system (tablets, atlas tree, map mods). It would also allow you to bring back the terribly deadly or build bricking mods since players would now always have the choice to put them on their maps, hence rewarding builds designed to deal with difficult mods. Mind you that giving people the option to put phys reflect on their map would be a nobrainer for anyone not doing physical damage. The pool of mods would have to be reimagined, at least somewhat.
Picture if you will, "John Mercenary". He recently discovered that putting monster crit chance on his maps would be quite rewarding. He decides to pick up "Battle-hardened" and "Blade catcher", both of which he paths by on his passive tree to better deal with that. Is this not ultimately what map mods should motivate players to do? Except now it makes sense to think about that.

I would streamline the "upside" to mapping in general by coining a new term such as "potential" or whatever. Putting increased monster damage on a map also adds X amount of "potential" which would be clearly defined as 1 potential giving you Y amount of quantity and Z amount of rarity. A personal pet peeve of mine is citadel bosses dropping more fragments with higher waystone dropchance and anomaly bosses dropping their big lineage gems at the same rate no matter the difficulty, both of which are frankly silly. All of this should be tied to "potential" which itself is tied to difficulty.

As much as I said this system could just replace map mods, I believe it wouldn't do it justice. Players should have the choice to use their "energy" on things that only provide upsides, such as adding more rare monsters, or adding additional breaches, packsize, whatever really. Although "potential" should only ever be a result of greater difficulty.
Naturally, a system like this requires a lot of balance. But the depth is truly limitless. You like breach? Put a breach on your map. You really like breach? Put even more breaches on your map, of course at escalating energy costs. After all, it destabilizes the map device.
In spite of how hard this system would be to nail down, at least you could do so more actively post release. None of this is itemized so people can't just exhaust the market and abuse an oversight. You can adjust the energy cost, the reward, every single number. As long as you test for gamebreaking combinations of mods, such as ones that could let you reroll ritual perpetually, etc. The moment you make changes, it affects everyone equally from there on.

You could let people simply select existing map mods or turn the whole system into a "coding-puzzle" (which is not gonna happen, but anyway). Picking monsters gain % damage as extra fire could reward X amount of "potential", but picking the option that goes "randomly selects one of either of those gain as extra ele mods" rewards you with 1.5 times X. You could let people run their favorite tileset over and over, of course, at an energy cost, or maybe let them select only the biome at a lower cost, or neither and it's random, but you don't spend energy either. Maybe someone wants to spend their entire energy on ritual stuff. They wouldn't have any energy left to juice the map itself, but that's their call. Maybe adding more than six map mods would cost extra energy. Maybe you'd add a cap to the amount of mods, maybe not, either way it all comes down to energy. Truly the world is your oyster with a system like this.

This system would serve as a foundation. By itself, things would become very same-y very quickly. Your goal past this point would be to design every other system to be complimentary. However, you should not infringe on peoples agency.

Consider currency sinks though. Not having to exalt your maps anymore would lead to an even worse economy. This could be solved by adding map device crafts like we had them in PoE1 for the longest time (maybe they add max energy) or by reducing the amount of exalts. That would require you to change the leveling exalts to maybe lesser exalts, functionally like abyss currency. You'd figure something out.

I believe this system to be a lot healthier for the game, although assuredly a nightmare to find a good UI solution for.

-After having played a life based character in 0.4 I will conclusively say that rarity on gear has to go. It's tough enough to get a tolerable lifepool going, having to ditch either strength or rarity sucks. If "tradeoff" is the argument for rarity, I believe it can only exist in its current state if hardcore was the only gamemode. As it stands I don't see a reason to not simply tie rewards to difficulty of content. My gear should only ever make me stronger. Don't mistake my writing only a few sentences on this as it being unimportant. Rarity on gear actually HAS to go.


-People really seem to gravitate towards playing shapeshift builds as exclusively one shapeshift, or at least they wish they could. The third druid ascendency should be one that lets you hone in on one. Maybe it disables the other two and gives you a choice for a new ability for whatever shape you chose, seeing how the druid skill page is busy as is, but somehow not enough.


-As pointed out above, I can't stand the fact that certain boss rewards aren't tied to difficulty of any kind. That has to change no matter what. I don't intend to gatekeep or anything, upping the difficulty simply has to up the chance of desirable loot, too.
In line with that, I think the actual term of "boss difficulty" should be turned into a binary of either regular boss or powerful boss. It could do more than just adjust the numbers. As long as players have ample agency in turning say citadel bosses into powerful ones (therefore enabling the better fragments to drop) as opposed to that being limited to tablets.


-I played shield wall this league and I don't even want to bring too much attention to the skill because I like the numbers on it, but man alive, using it in corridors, or rather being unable to, is a nightmare. Maybe force the ability to spawn at least one wall section no matter what.
I don't even know how many times I've stood too close to an abyss pit not realizing my shit's not spawning in because there's too much action on my screen.


-The abyss monster mod that disbles your life recovery completely is maybe a bit too much. It's fine when arbiter does it, but some shitter mob? 80% or so reduced recovery would still kick peoples gears into action.


-I'm quite indiffirent towards the temple as long as you adjust it to where it isn't the de facto only way of generating currency. Crafting by slamming things with perfect exalted orbs willy nilly was interesting though.