Supporting GGG and PoE, but not necessarily Bestiary Leaguespansion

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...Pretty much says it all. I like the support packs, the mtxes are about as great as ever, and I'm compulsively collecting those to this day. Less compulsive about collecting monsters to ritually sacrifice them for power or to ever face the Uber version of a monster I've never faced in its normal mode.

Everyone and their rhoa is making a Bestiary thread so here's mine. Two of the major additions to the game I've already done: I made the first Wraeclastian zoo (at ridiculous self-expense) where no animals are ever ritually sacrificed, I'm proud to say; and I was playing a 'phantasm reaper' style a while ago by mixing Cast on Melee Kill with Cleave and Summon Spectre using The Blood Reaper. Pretty inefficient but it looked amazing with Shadow Spectres.

Ascendancy rework was inevitable and frankly overdue.

Fated Uniques are more useful for non-SSF players. For me Navali's usefulness sort of starts and ends with The Jeweller's Touch.

Finally, I think GGG are implicitly siding with the 'Standard is dead' camp -- both Abyss and this league/expansion add so much power that it seems almost pointless to stay on Standard now. At least one of my guildies finally made the move and I doubt he'll look back. This is fine and well but it seems GGG are incapable of doing anything these days without hammering another nail into the Standard coffin. A pity they already used the name 'Legacy' for a throwaway league (...what a waste) because Standard really should be called 'Legacy league' with no option to make new characters there, just play migrated ones.

Anyway, of course I bought support packs. And while I do not dictate where that money goes (nor would I want to), I want to stipulate this is because I still love PoE and GGG overall. Bestiary might surprise me, but the very base premise of it rubs me the wrong way. It's one thing to hunt monsters in the wild. It's another altogether to cage them and then slaughter them after very likely maltreating them...and to get significant rewards for slaughtering them. I'll kill all the demons and miscreants you throw at me, but murdering captive rhoas and crabs? No thanks.

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I don't understand that last sentence, sorry. :(

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I don't understand that last sentence, sorry. :(

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Bestiary had potential as a concept. A lot of potential. I just think how it's being done was not as well thought-out as it could have been, in terms of being true and sincere to the setting and the evolution of Wraeclast as a game world epitomising the idea that those who don't eat are eaten; those who don't kill get killed. The stronger the foe, the greater the reward. This has always seemed a fairly concrete concept not just in POE but in most (A)RPGs, to the point where a lot of DMs and GMs will often make player-characters' lives difficult if they try to metagame to get rich/farm xp outside of campaigns and adventures that drive this core message home. And while some captured beasts might be super powerful, there's no way they'd be as powerful in a cage or a pit as they would be in their natural environs**. In this way, Bestiary contradicts some pretty core ideas of PoE. I think gleaning knowledge from captured enemies is an excellent concept, and within Wraeclast that might be a pretty grisly process (give or take Chinese censorship, lol -- oh, the irony). But what is there to gain from fighting them after keeping them locked up? I think that's where Bestiary falls down. The sacrifice struck me as out of character, but even beyond that, this petty pit-fighting gimmick is...cheap.

And I also think GGG know the vast majority of their playerbase don't think about this stuff at all. I also know at least one dev was suspecting *someone* would call them out on this dubious addition to Wraeclast, and I wouldn't be surprised if they had me on a hypothetical short list. I DO think about this stuff, openly a lot of the time. And if I didn't think GGG were typically VERY good at adding to Wraeclast and to the Exile's overall experience, I wouldn't be here doing this.

They can do far better than what Bestiary offers, and I'm happy to call them out on that.

I'm just jumping the gun here for when most of you realise how boring and tedious Bestiary will be in practice. You're all used to the speed and efficiency of killing hordes of enemies instantly. What makes you think delaying that in any way is going to be any fun?