Kudos for trying something different this league, but...

...so much of it just seems pointless.

The whole system of crafting recipes, mob types needed, and mod types needed is way, way too bloated. I can make much better use of my playing time by simply playing through the game and ignoring beastcrafting altogether. The rare crafting recipes should be much more condensed, and many of them should just be ditched altogether. Having a separate recipe for nearly every different kind of mod for nearly every different kind of item is just silly.

I mean, if I really want a belt with max life mod or cold resistance or a totally random dex gloves or str boots, RNG and/or a couple alchs will already give me those things soon enough. All I need to do is go to zones of the appropriate lvl for the ilvl I want and kill stuff. If I'm not SSF, trading is even better for those kinds of things. The vast majority of lvling items are an alt to an alch. If I'm not having any luck getting drops I want, I can pay a low price and get exactly what I want.

Or...I could waste time figuring out if I have enough of the right beasts with the right mods, and do I have one of an appropriate lvl that will work for the upper left slot so that I can get something of a suitable ilvl. And after going through the trouble of getting it all ready, I get an item that's no better than what RNG and existing mechanics would have already given me with a lot less hassle.

It's like brining back all of the micromanaging hassle of Talisman league without the unusual and otherwise unobtainable rewards that went along with it. Much of what this league offers can already be accomplished via normal lvling, essences, prophecies, divination cards, existing/removed currency, etc. Much of what little it offers that can't already be done via those means could have just been added to the core game mechanics.

Re-roll a unique into a completely random unique with a very high chance to be one of the hundreds of extremely common and/or useless uniques? Bring back Ancient Orb instead. Automatic four-link? Just bring back Orb of Binding and/or add a prophecy to go with the five and six. And so on...

And all of that doesn't even touch on the issues with capturing mobs such as targeting, visibility, etc...some of which have already been improved, and others which still need to be.

Maybe it's a good league for SSF players, or maybe it gets better at endgame? I don't know, and I'm not sure yet if I care enough to find out. I've gotten as far as act 8 and there just doesn't seem to be much purpose in continuing.

I do like the idea of beastcrafting, and I hope it can be improved on and streamlined into a more meaningful and intuitive system to be added to the core game. It's always good to see content added to the core game in some form. As it exists now though, it just feels like way too much work for a system that has way too little to offer.

You made it further than many of us did before giving this feedback. They know they've screwed Fido on this league and are working on making it better. I hope they can. It's not a wretched idea.

The beast crafting is convoluted. If they made it only catch the yellow/red mobs and go from there with interesting crafts, you don't end up with players a week in realizing they aren't actually catching anything because they filled the menagerie. I would suggest a tutorial except the whole thing is so convoluted you would need to devote a league to writing the tutorial.

I am at a point where I can't face worrying about the menagerie despite filling it because I dread the hours needed to figure out how to un clutter the damn thing. And I'm sure I'm missing out on gg crafts and making $$$ but I don't care because it's boring.

They really should have known by halfway through the development process that something was wrong, or in this case a lot of things.

Someone Very Important should have been able to stop everything and say "OK guys, what are we really trying to accomplish with this league? It seems like we're designing an overly complicated and excessively flawed system. Is it something that we can expect most of our players will enjoy? Will most of our players be able to find it rewarding in some way? If yes, then carry on. If not, and I'm thinking not, then how can we fix it? Are we so far along that it's unfixable in time for our launch target? If we need more time to really figure this thing out, we can delay the launch and run a short-term temp league to fill in the gap as we've done in the past. A lot of people would be happy enough if we brought back Legacy for a month or so, or we could run a Race League. Ideas?"

Something like that apparently did not happen...