Prophecy League feedback - my first temp league ever

As the league is slowly closing to an end it is time to write some feedback on it

Summary: Prophecy is a very engaging and badly needed piece of POE experience - both early and end game. It is a perfect mix of 'in your face' and 'optional' content that does not get old.

Details:
3 characters in 85+ (4th is around 40 right now), in chronological order:
1) SRS, almost entirely self found. Enjoyed prophecies so much that got to Merciless overleveled by a lot. Geared for IIR (but only via IIR on rares + IIR Support)
2) Melee abyssal cry, groundslam, Breath of the Concil Berserker. Amazing fun. Got it to 90. Extremely pleased with this character
3) OPOPOPOP Reach of the Council TS/Barrage.
4) Whispering ice (started but somehow got bored after few levels, I'm enjoying my melee guy way too much to shelve him)

2 premium tabs for sales, some exalts (just few) in bank. Got lucky with Void Battery drop, started from there and right now I feel 'secure' with my currency.

League - meta comment
Temp league is a bit weird concept. It is VERY similar to Standard after day 5 economy-wise. The same oversaturation, the same scammers, the same trade chat lies. People looking for fresh experience wont find it there - at least not after the initial few days. These few days are cool and were enjoyable - however I've skipped it all due to chasing prophecies.

Economy problems people report are not Standard-exclusive. These are simply inherent qualities of POE. You can escape them for few days but it happens only every few months.

Getting wealth is EXTREMELY easy right now. By wealth I do not mean 100s of exalts. By that I mean 'being able to gear a char to safely approach T10 maps without using a cookie cutter lame build'. Getting there was a breeze despite me not being very lucky with drops/trades at the beginning.

Challenges

Nice casual set of challenges. Most of these completed 'themselves'. Few require deliberate hunt (Cruel Sewers or Some Bosses) others require luck (1000 rampage is really a tough one to get). But getting 24 for a weapon was pretty easy. Getting 36 requires grind and I wont get there. Challenges DID NOT require trading! Amazing decision as it made us free from 1alch-item-sells-for-10ex-due-to-rare-challenge. Do not ever do that type of horrid 'challenges' again. These are not fun and make game deplorable for people that couldnt care less but happen to need a certain unique. Never again.

'Maps from bosses' challenge had a nice effect of exposing just how bad the map drops from bosses are. Im at 130+ right now. Not that many to be honest.

Pale Council

Tough and ALMOST fair fight. The Spark Book is sick and it is still a mystery for me. IT lacks 'time to death'. And 1shots trough 5k hp. The rewards are nice (the broken bow, normal mace and 2 'also ran' items noone will remember the day this league ends) but for a main fight of an expansion and climax of 4 prophecy chains - bit limited in scope. One room?..

Prophecies and prophecy mechanic

Extremely well done 'spice'. It does add flavour to otherwise repetitve game. Gives a substance to leveling (yes, some might still skip it - but right now the leveling process is just fun). Is quite intuitive to newcommers. Coins drop rate is PERFECT!

It is also a good way of making less-visited places more memorable. This is also main 'drawback' speedrunners have - the backtracking they 'have to' do to complete these prophecies. For me it is a fresh air - chaining maps is similar to slowly dying.. taking breaks from it does help.

1) prophecy chains.
Deadly Rivalry is uber fun. My first exile was Xandro + Soul Eater + my SRS.. Ive asked 820 for help and few volounteers died on the spot despite being 90+ and the Xandro from Dried Lake. One of the most memorable moments in my POE experience. Just sick.
Other chains were cool as well - some are somewhat 'annoying' as looking for that one last fated animal in Dried Lake is tedious - but the general outlook is very nice.
Chain rewards are also very nice - strong and interesting but not broken AF.

2) fated uniques.
Elegant way of fixing 'these items are SO BAD that noone uses them even for leveling' problem. Some new uniques are VERY interesting (Deidbellow), some are VERY strong (Opus, Voidheart, Dirge), some are still niche (Chalice of Horrors variant that i do not understand) but in general it is a very nice dynamic. Good reuse of old content that does not look 'cheap'

3) kill-rare-to-get-goodies
Mixed bag. The main problem is the spawn rate. I got burned with Brittle Poacher and avoided these for some time. In normal the rare mobs are very , VERY rare. Having to spawn a rare monster AND to spawn a CORRECT rare monster is a very freak occurrence. These could be fixed (for normal/cruel) by accepting 'any' type of given type (there are like 3 types of necromancers in crypts - but only one counts for a prophecy - make ALL 3 count). For Merciless - make the map variants count as well (i think some do already but it is difficult to test as these prophecies almost do not spawn lvl75+)

4) random one-of

Nice however there are not too many of them. Getting 'corrupt' or 'rebirth' 2 times out of 5 is not cool. Adding like 20 more prophecies of this type might help a little. Stuff like 'transmute is a small alchemy orb' should still spawn in end-game. My maps would love that.

2.3.1 prophecy changes feedback:
This helped on one hand but made game worse on other one. Getting fated prophecies as and end game character is pretty much 1-in-100 chance. Same with drop-an-unique prophecies. It is true that these flooded the prophecy pool but right now these almost do not exist for end-game characters. There are also some low-lvl prophecies that are completely gone from end-game. Some of these are dearly missed.

Varia
Prophecies had an interesting economy impact. Some items with fixed prophecies (like Pledge of Hands) were 1c items. Cheaper than more rare yet weaker alternatives. IT tells something about economy in POE/playerbase but as I have no idea what it does tell ill leave it at that.



I've enjoyed my league experience but not because of 'fresh economy' that i couldnt care less (that is just as bad as standard one week into) but because of the prophecy content. Previous leagues - esp the free stuff for everybody! league - were not compelling enough.

Do you have me ignored, something makes me think you do but I don't know.

If you don't, was interesting to see your feedback.



You claim its in your face and optional, it really isn't in your face at all, unless you opt-in. So by that logic its all optional.


As for the economy of standard and the temp league being the same after 5 days, you are simply wrong. The behaviors may be similar after 5 days in terms of what people try to do with manipluation, flipping, ect. But I can't go play standard and sell items out of 10-15c tab all the time which are just in general "ok" starting items.

1) because people in standard want THE piece to be the only one they buy for that slot on that character

2) no one needs random gear just to really get min res or whatever in standard, those that due just grab the cheapest of the cheapest shit and don't spend 10-15c on stuff like this:



This plays a huge affect in temp leagues for me because I don't even list items under 2c, simply isn't worth the effort to leave whatever I'm doing to sell it.

"

By that I mean 'being able to gear a char to safely approach T10 maps without using a cookie cutter lame build'.

I mean if you equip any skill, support it with gems that actually work with that skill and make it so you don't get 1 shot any build can do T10 maps.

This is part of the problem with the game now is pushing a character in terms of gearing isn't necessary, getting the most out of the skill tree isn't necessary because AC classes either give you a massive offense or defense or a mix of both.

The game had this massive increase in power and no content to challenge it with. Yes I know that GGG is doing something in this next expansion, but in the future they should IMO always introduce the new challenge before the additional power, otherwise its essentially like we are playing D3.

"

sidtherat wrote:

League - meta comment
Temp league is a bit weird concept. It is VERY similar to Standard after day 5 economy-wise. The same oversaturation, the same scammers, the same trade chat lies. People looking for fresh experience wont find it there - at least not after the initial few days. These few days are cool and were enjoyable - however I've skipped it all due to chasing prophecies.

haha yea first time i pkayed temp league after 2 years of std i was same: WTF economy is same why the lie?

Well the lie is because streamers said so, so everyone believe it.

Truth the ecomomy is even worth with exalt at 100 chaos.

"

Head_Less wrote:

"

sidtherat wrote:

League - meta comment
Temp league is a bit weird concept. It is VERY similar to Standard after day 5 economy-wise. The same oversaturation, the same scammers, the same trade chat lies. People looking for fresh experience wont find it there - at least not after the initial few days. These few days are cool and were enjoyable - however I've skipped it all due to chasing prophecies.

haha yea first time i pkayed temp league after 2 years of std i was same: WTF economy is same why the lie?

Well the lie is because streamers said so, so everyone believe it.

Truth the ecomomy is even worth with exalt at 100 chaos.

Lol

Chaos>exalt is 81-82 buy it right now on poe.trade currency site. Which means you can get it for that if you hope into game and do it right this second, far off from your 100:1 claim.

In addition go ahead and try to sell those good, but not great items in standard like I listed above, go ahead and sell them for those prices, I bet you cant.

But surely you know more about the economy with your well informed 100:1 idea then people that actually play the game.

pretty much spot-on on most counts

I do disagree with 1)economy being the same 2)rampage 1k being hard (I know you arent a part of the meta, thank god, but all that it requires is wyrmsign + mountain ledge alted to have pack size + quickslivers) and 3)map bosses drops being bad- theyre just as advertised

"

goetzjam wrote:

Lol

Chaos>exalt is 81-82 buy it right now on poe.trade currency site. Which means you can get it for that if you hope into game and do it right this second, far off from your 100:1 claim.

In addition go ahead and try to sell those good, but not great items in standard like I listed above, go ahead and sell them for those prices, I bet you cant.

But surely you know more about the economy with your well informed 100:1 idea then people that actually play the game.

muhuuu stop lying we all know 1:100 been seen in past leagues. Just because it is not this league doesn t mean it never been, seeing exalt was 73 chaos 5 days ago i sayy 100 chaos end of league easy. It is anyway more than in standard and for the price of an ex in std you get much better item (kaom is 1ex in std)

Yea i can t sell shit items for expensive price in std you are right, but is it right to sell shit item for high price anyway? Muhhh economy, right if only currency was dropping maybe, i have been playing melee this league and dropped only 5 chaos.

With 5chaos in temp league you buy nothing, thks.

"

grepman wrote:

pretty much spot-on on most counts

I do disagree with 1)economy being the same 2)rampage 1k being hard (I know you arent a part of the meta, thank god, but all that it requires is wyrmsign + mountain ledge alted to have pack size + quickslivers) and 3)map bosses drops being bad- theyre just as advertised

well. it is not EXACTLY identical but it is very shallow nonetheless. there are item families that wont sell no matter what (rare bows.. quivers.. staves, rare daggers worse than BInos, rare 2h worse than Primacy/Doomsower/Marohi etc etc). this leaves very limited selection of sellable items. Uniques just dominate most of the slots. what moves around are pre-fated bases and some meta leveling uniques.

same with rare items like belts or gloves - uniques are very strong in these slots (Meginrod's, Atziri's step etc) and these make most rares auto-vendor. for players aiming for rares the lower part of the spectrum is irrelevant and if one wants to buy something 'good' the price does not matter and instead of aiming for 5c or 15c or 25c items you aim higher. the mid-range is just as dead as in standard.

also the gem market is dead (uber lab drops). loot filter creators killed some markets by marking some items as thrash (and the sheeple followed suit). try to buy a good rare AR/EV shield. there are some in Standard, there are exactly 0 in PSC. why? because the popular loot filters mark them as thrash -> people do not ask questions and ignore them.

list of items that sell are also pretty much identical: sac pieces, offerings, mispriced top-tier items (you WILL sell a 5c Cospri's Will.. no doubt), meta uniques, good corruptions. rare items - amulets, good rolls on boots, belts, maybe helmets (but only with good enchant). and ofc the currency flip + auction bots


the rampage.. lets say that 950 is my lucky number :) ive got it eventually without even aiming for it in Canyon but had A LOT of 'almost there' maps previously when trying for it. it is mostly luck - getting a shrine or two in an open, pack-size map -> +50 mobs, same with strongboxes. was like 5 short in Dried Lake + fated animals. itfeltbad..


ive never said the map drops were nerfed or worse than ever. but seeing that the only way of getting +2 in the game produced 130 returns (including several unique maps) after 2 months is pretty disheartening. im glad that i could count that live thanks to this challenge

Interesting feedback, I only ever play temp leagues and this has been, for me, the most boring. I almost just went back to standard to mess with my old temp league characters because I didn't feel like I would be missing much. I'm fairly casual, just a few hours at a time, few days a week so it's just leveling and mapping for me. Got way too annoyed at having to go back to town all the time to mess with prophecies then go to all these other low level zones to complete them.

"

sidtherat wrote:

As the league is slowly closing to an end it is time to write some feedback on it

I thought it will run one more month?

"

666lol666 wrote:

"

sidtherat wrote:

As the league is slowly closing to an end it is time to write some feedback on it

I thought it will run one more month?

the last month of a league normally is race season and most people are burnt out by then. It's a time to consolidate currency and clean your stash for the transition to standard bank vault.