League Exclusive Items

Having items drop exclusively in limited time leagues is a poor feature that only punishes new players and forces the hand of current players.

With the Forsaken Masters update coming next week along with new challenge leagues and new exclusive uniques it seems like a good time to have this discussion again.

League exclusive items have so far been limited to unique items that can only be obtained within their associated challenge league as a reward for those who successfully take on the challenge that the league provides. This, however, results in players being excluded from game content for not participating in the event.

It makes sense to reward players for participating in challenging gameplay but it seems needlessly demanding to force players to abandon old characters and struggle to obtain items within a window of a few months or be at the mercy of other players' prices once the league has ended. New players don't even get a chance to obtain the items on their own.

Past league exclusives have demonstrated this issue. Voll's Devotion for example was an exclusive item that only dropped during the Anarchy/Onslaught leagues and has unique properties that provide the potential to create some very interesting builds. Unfortunately, the item can no longer be obtained and the market value of the item has been drastically increasing ever since the leagues ended and shows no sign of stopping. Eventually this item will become so scarce as the finite number of players who own the item either quit or settle on keeping it that the market value will have skyrocketed to a ridiculous amount. New players will never be able to collect enough currency to afford the item, and by the time they do they might not be able to find a seller.

Path of Exile is praised as not being a "pay-to-win" game but it shouldn't remain a "be-there-to-win" game either.

This issue can easily be solved in many ways. For example, the items could remain exclusive for the duration of the challenge leagues and for a sizable period after the leagues have ended as long as the items are in some way permanently added to all leagues eventually. This would ensure that players are rewarded for participating in challenge leagues and are given the market advantage to sell to players who want to pay a premium price to get the items early while not excluding the players who didn't share the same interest for the new leagues.

Game is not intended to be balanced around permanent leagues, only around temporary leagues.

New players will always be behind old players, especially in Standard. If a new player REALLY wants the unique, he can grind it. Imo league exclusive uniques are a nice incentive to play the temporary leagues.

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mazul wrote:

Game is not intended to be balanced around permanent leagues, only around temporary leagues.

It's not about balance. It's a matter of retaining content. Remember that new temporary leagues also don't have exclusives from past temporary leagues.

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Xavderion wrote:

New players will always be behind old players, especially in Standard. If a new player REALLY wants the unique, he can grind it. Imo league exclusive uniques are a nice incentive to play the temporary leagues.

DATS RIGHT

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Xavderion wrote:

New players will always be behind old players, especially in Standard. If a new player REALLY wants the unique, he can grind it. Imo league exclusive uniques are a nice incentive to play the temporary leagues.

We can have both. There can be an incentive to play challenge leagues and obtain the uniques AND have a permanent way of keeping the items alive by the way I described.

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Xavderion wrote:

New players will always be behind old players, especially in Standard. If a new player REALLY wants the unique, he can grind it. Imo league exclusive uniques are a nice incentive to play the temporary leagues.

I don't see why we need league exclusive uniques as incentive for players to play in the challenge leagues, that's what the new economy and new league mods are for, right?
Making these uniques legacy also has the flipside that they are unnecessary expensive in the challenge leagues, because our beloved item flippers start hoarding them for later legacy-profit...

Not to mention the wasted developer work, we had some fine league uniques so far that would still be great to have in the game...unlike Atziri's Acuity, which never should've made it into the game after the Vaal Pact nerf.

Feature of STD: Legacy
Feature of Temp: New uniques

All it is.

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The no drop method GGG has implemented rewards long term players that have purchased stash tabs. Stick around and you too will have items that no longer drop in game. Save 2 or 3 of everything you ever get cause they might actually be super sweet legacy items next league. I won't bother listing every nerf cause it probably won't fit.

Example: Volls Devotion used to drop like redbeaks...so many that probably over 1/2 of them just ended up as vendor food. But now it doesn't drop and most power dischargers pay crazy prices for them.

Now where did I put those Volls Devotion ammy's.........

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/991927/page/4

I really agree with OP and this league exclusive as well as legacy items bullshit should really stop. All it does is severely punish new players and reward the long term player.

For all I know GGG doesn't want to put new players on a level playing field with the veterans so I'll stop typing now.

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Chundadragon wrote:

Feature of STD: Legacy
Feature of Temp: New uniques

All it is.

In a game like this legacy items should never be a feature. The only thing it accomplishes is locking people out of parts of the game. On the other hand, the limited time alternate art rewards from race seasons are perfectly fine because they have all the intended benefits of an exclusive item without affecting gameplay.