Why the removal of Prophecies makes me less likely to pick up PoE again

(Fair warning - long wall of text following, but might be worthwhile, hopefully. ;) )

I don't think I ever made a thread here on these forums, but I wanted to provide a perspective from a part of the player base that isn't referenced much here, but might be worth thinking about for the developers. I don't want to start any sort of drama, but would like to calmly explain why exactly I'm having a strongly negative reaction to the announced removal of Prophecies content.

I play PoE in the same way I played Diablo II back in the days, and many other ARPGs since then: in very intense bouts that last 2-3 months (in which I barely play anything else), but with breaks in between that may last 1-3 years. Even despite these breaks, PoE has over time become the one game out of many thousands that I spent the most money on (which, to be clear, I don't regret at all ;) ).

I had planned to start another of these intense bouts in December, but while curiously researching what new content had been added in the meantime (I am kind of insatiable for new content), I stumbled across the announcement that Prophecy content will be removed from the game. I had a perhaps surprisingly drastic response to this - I canceled my plans for another PoE bout and looked up prices for other ARPGs I might be interested in. It actually surprised me how negative I felt about this news, because while I did enjoy the Prophecies content, I never considered it fundamental to the game, or particularly important to my PoE experience. So I wondered, why did I react so strongly?

The reason lies not in the Prophecies content itself, but in the way how I play. The long breaks (and the fact that I play SSF) mean that I progress relatively slowly - even though I've been playing PoE since before its official release, there are still endgame things that I haven't done yet, long-term goals that I keep working towards but haven't reached so far. But that has never been a problem. Because even if I don't reach a goal in one of my playing bouts, I can always pick up where I left, the next time I return.

And that's really important for my enjoyment of the game. I need to be sure that the progress I'm achieving, the "work" I've invested into getting halfway to a goal, won't suddenly be nullified due to the goal becoming unattainable before I can get there.

This is why the announcement of Prophecies' removal kind of pulled the carpet from under my feet. If PoE starts removing content from Standard, then I obviously cannot anymore rely on being able to reach any goals at a later date. This is a precedent that, unfortunately, plays havoc with my motivation to spend time with PoE. I would have to treat PoE Standard like a game with FOMO mechanics, where I have to achieve things as fast as possible because they _might_ be gone the next time I want to try getting them. And I don't like this approach. In fact, that's the exact reason why I ultimately decided to stay away from Destiny 2, even though I had various of its products in my shopping carts multiple times.

While I didn't regard the Prophecies content as terribly important ("just" nice to have), the problem is - I cannot know how this goes on. Who knows if content that I enjoy a lot, like Incursion, Delve, or Betrayal, suddenly gets axed? It may seem unlikely now, but ... up until today, I would also have said the same thing about Prophecies. So I can clearly not rely on any perceived "safety" here. And hence, from my perspective, spending that time with a different game instead - one where I can be reasonably sure that content won't be removed - suddenly looks like the better option.

That's what I wanted to explain. If you read that far, many thanks. If you have comments, please share. But let's keep it civil, okay? :)

Well, while I consider Prophecy a thing that I'm done with, everyone has their own goals. And I will agree that GGG is ruthless on strategic goals in standard.

Mirror worthy items can just be turned into dumpster trash over a league transition. Same with builds.

However, I think it is unlikely that Incursion, Delve or Betrayal will get axed. This content has been regularly updated / tuned and are part of the continuous cycle of changes.

Then again it is GGG so all bets are off.

Good luck.

It isn't the first thing that got removed, is it? I've always wanted to play a Mjolnir rainbownuke character, but the build just got removed from the game, as far as I can see - along with lots of others.

I find it sad how something that's somewhat interactive and not zoom zoom based like prophecy is getting removed.

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Raudram wrote:

I find it sad how something that's somewhat interactive and not zoom zoom based like prophecy is getting removed.

I'm assuming the removal is based on how many players are engaging with it, but there's really no way to know what those exact numbers are. I certainly don't engage with prophecy at all and haven't since... before Heist definitely, honestly couldn't tell you. There are just too many junk prophecies to combat how BORING a system is which requires constant out-of-map fiddling. Maybe if there were some way of dumping like 10 thousand silver coins in Nevali and having her constantly adding new prophecies automatically as I ran content, maybe I'd care about it more. But as is... meh. Just can't be bothered, why would I spent 10 minutes activating and sealing prophecies to find one or two good ones when I could be mapping or delving instead? I don't even care if it's profitable, it's BORING. Same reason I don't sit around currency flipping, even though it's objectively the best moneymaking strat in the entire game.

I don't play Path of Exile to stand around in my hideout.

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ARealLifeCaribbeanPirate wrote:

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Raudram wrote:

I find it sad how something that's somewhat interactive and not zoom zoom based like prophecy is getting removed.

I'm assuming the removal is based on how many players are engaging with it, but there's really no way to know what those exact numbers are. I certainly don't engage with prophecy at all and haven't since... before Heist definitely, honestly couldn't tell you. There are just too many junk prophecies to combat how BORING a system is which requires constant out-of-map fiddling. Maybe if there were some way of dumping like 10 thousand silver coins in Nevali and having her constantly adding new prophecies automatically as I ran content, maybe I'd care about it more. But as is... meh. Just can't be bothered, why would I spent 10 minutes activating and sealing prophecies to find one or two good ones when I could be mapping or delving instead? I don't even care if it's profitable, it's BORING. Same reason I don't sit around currency flipping, even though it's objectively the best moneymaking strat in the entire game.

I don't play Path of Exile to stand around in my hideout.

They could just improve it then. What I find boring is all the "click something/walk next to something to kill even more mobs" content you find on maps.

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Raudram wrote:

They could just improve it then. What I find boring is all the "click something/walk next to something to kill even more mobs" content you find on maps.

Well, I'm always in favor of improving/upgrading a system instead of removing it entirely, at least in a purely theoretical sense. But in the real world, at some point a decision has to be made about whether or not something is worth the dev time and man hours it would take to "fix."

And like Perandus, Prophecy didn't make the cut, because it's completely being ignored by some unknown massive majority of players. I've got no clue what that number is, because it's so large I can't even get a sample out of the people I know: literally not one person on my friends list has actively engaged with this mechanic in the last 8 leagues. So while I know the player engagement rate can't actually be zero percent, it seems safe to say that it's pretty damn close to zero percent.

It's weird that you say you find killing mobs boring, though. That's literally the game? Actually, it's literally the entire genre.

I do like killing monsters, I just think that filling maps with buttons to toggle even more monster spawns is the very definition of lazy, uninspired "content" design. Prophecy had something unique and more interactive going for it, the issue was the wild RNG.

For some time I was mostly hoping they'd add quests that would go cross atlas cross content. Some clear a region quest while the quest gives all maps some sort of troubling mod or whatever. Find a new rogue NPC in Heist somewhere and follow some chain that leads to some portion in Delve. Stuff like that.

Suppose Prophecy like that stood in the way of the vision. Oh well :-)

Many OP build got deleted before. You should find some decent build that not much popular to play in std.