Feedback Request: Tempest League

Im Agree what this is the worst league ever.

Im just farm zones without tempests , becose it much more fun .

Trying to run maps ... wnen im done clear Tropical Island with 43 minutes - just ... just ... fk that league.

Open Warbands HC league and transfer all to it - all HC players say "THANK YOU" !

Now that I've played a bit more I have a full opinion.

Are the Tempests impactful?
Yes. I do often find myself changing how I fight based on what tempests are around.

Are they scary?
Situationally. Buff tempests mean I'm just not going to play areas with big bosses. Other things like the freeze tempest mean I'm going to be very careful. Buff tempests mostly affect enemies instead of me, as standing still for 2+ seconds to get the buff is not a worthwhile use of my time.

Do the ones that affect items feel rewarding?
No.

Are they better at higher or lower levels?
They are not particularly fun at any level.

Do people share information about what Tempests are running right now?
No.

Did you play Tempest because you thought it was more interesting than Warbands?
No. I play Tempest because it's hardcore.

Did you play Warbands when you normally would have played Tempest?
I strongly considered it, event started a Warbands character. But then after a bit of playing Warbands I found that the extra mobs were just damage sponges with the standard crap drops. I started avoiding them, then just abandoned the league.

Gotta say, this has been the least fun set of leagues to come in a while. Rather disappointing that it comes with the release of act 4 as well.

OK, I've run some of the first few tiers of maps, and I have some idea of how this is impacting endgame. Let me say that I do enjoy the core tempest concept of neutral zone effects that you can use to your advantage with positioning. Running a map with the extra shielding mod, or lightning damage buff, or random fire spells going off definitely changes the way I play. But there are some pretty big implementation problems.

For one, I'm not so sure that tempest suffixes should exist at all. What's the motivation to add that at the same time you're pushing really hard for people to run more heavily modded maps, while also increasing the power of some of those mods at the endgame? I ran a rare map today with twelve lines in its description, and that isn't counting the basic Tempest prefix because for whatever reason, that's not showing up when I press tab. (Surely this is a bug, since pressing tab shows the current tempest in leveling zones.) Though the overall changes to the map system are certainly in the right direction, I really think that this is too much of an upset all at once. And since the Tempests aren't being shown, basically making this the Unidentified Map League, how am I supposed to tell between the 2.0.0d change where some of the elemental ground suffixes add monster damage of that element, and some don't?

This ties into the problem with not just telling us what Tempests are where in endgame maps. I don't agree with the obscurantism here--to be honest, it just sounds like an excuse not to have to make a separate UI. I really don't care if it's a chat command where we type /tempest while the map is on the cursor, but we need this information. poe.tempest is a hack solution, and even if it worked perfectly, it's unfair to the guys who had to risk getting a brick tempest like Abyssal on a high map to get the information to everyone else.

The concept is solid, but like a lot of Bloodlines, it has a tendency to veer too far from optimal conditions.

"

Uvne wrote:

What's the motivation to add that at the same time you're pushing really hard for people to run more heavily modded maps, while also increasing the power of some of those mods at the endgame?

This is a huge issue with Tempest league that I don't see a way around without completely changing how tempests work. Either the tempests are going to make the game very unbalanced on the "easy to die" side, or the game was way unbalanced on the "hard to die" side in the first place.

When I alch a rare map and get some damage mods that look really dangerous, as GGG clearly intend us to do with the new map mechanics, am I actually rolling a super easy, underpowered map that'll be cake to survive? I don't think so.

Now take that scary map you just rolled, which is the kind GGG intends us to roll or we'll fall down to 71s again, and add mods to it like "monsters instantly kill you with chaos damage" and "bosses in this zone have infinite regen if you can't kill them in 10 seconds." The game becomes so massively unbalanced at that point that it's not worth playing, especially in HC, which is the only place you can play it for some reason. Portal into map, portal out of map, close program. Fun and exciting.

I love cool new content to play with or against, like masters, exiles, invasion bosses, warbands, and so on (once they're eventually balanced to not instakill players). I don't like random mods pooped onto monsters that already exist that just make them kill you more easily. Can we get more of the former and less (or none, as the sole content of a league) of the latter? Tempest is not a league. It's, at best, a map mod.

Tempests aren't that fun. Players get bored of waiting for the countdown to go off to receive a buff. Most people don't bother. Act 4 content is awesome though by the way. Especially Kaom's Stronghold.

Are the Tempests impactful?
- they feel kind of peripheral at the moment, except for a few fringe cases where they're totally imbalanced (chaos ones)
- the elemental spell ones (glacial, molten, electrocuting i think are their names) are not impactful at all, they are easily avoided and do little damage. perhaps in high maps when running a large amount of map mods is needed to maintain your pool then they are scary, but i haven't reached that far yet
- divine just slows clear speed. both you and the monsters become immune and you just end up sitting there not being able to do anything at all. might as well just run straight to the next zone/roll another map
- freezing forces freeze immunity on a flask, it's good in theory but in merciless it freezes you so quickly and for such a long duration that you are forced to have the flask immunity. boring solution
- morbid, with the excess amount of vaal summon skeletons is extremely annoying, doesn't really pose much of a threat just puts a whole lot of monsters in your way that don't drop loot or give xp
- vaal haste and energising are probably my favourite ones, they're both fun to get on your character and threatening on certain monsters
- the 'added damage as element' ones have a good balance of difficulty and reward, not too strong with some monsters but scary with others so you have to pay attention to who gets the buff and who doesn't, that's a nice gameplay experience
- some of the suffixes are unknown to the player as to what they actually do (eg. influence, intensity, etc) - their effects should be listed in the zone effects
- most of the other suffixes feel like an extra map mod which is quite boring and feels like a bit of an overused mechanic at this point (corrupted areas, maps), especially if you are someone that has mapped an extensive amount

Are they scary?
- full chaos conversion one is completely imbalanced beyond repair and should be removed immediately no question
- poison on hit was awful prior to 2.0.0d but haven't encountered it since. the patch notes were kind of confusing so i'm not even sure if that one was changed, but its damage was way too high before
- veiling tempest (all resists are zero) is one i hope i never run into in a map because it means the map is pretty much bricked and not runnable

Do the ones that affect items feel rewarding?
- no.
- the one that makes them drop the items for their vendor reward is completely awful and is worse than not having it
- quality one will only be good for gems or maps but at that point it's such a short duration and small aoe that you have to be extremely lucky to get something useful out of it

Are they better at higher or lower levels?
- some make progression completely unfair, like ones that affect bosses negatively that halt your progression and force you to wait an hour. e.g. restorative, damages ones, curse one if you don't have curse immunity (which you almost never do prior to maps or late merciless)

Do people share information about what Tempests are running right now?
- i've only played solo so far and only have stream viewing or stream chats to rely on really
- there's http://poetempest.com/ but i feel like they change so regularly that there's no point in keeping this maintained on an individual level, that's so much effort. so really informal methods like guild/stream chats are the only viable way of sharing. though for instance even with those methods i only found out that the Pit (68) map had 20 exiles yesterday 40 minutes after it had started.. meh

Did you play Tempest because you thought it was more interesting than Warbands?
- it sounded more interesting (Warbands sounded like another flavour of rogue exile-type characters which isn't that interesting to me), and some of the mechanics fulfill that interest: vaal haste, energising, the elemental ones. these are rewarding to the player and threatening on the monsters. the others are either imbalanced, not impactful, uninteresting, or detrimental when they are intended to be beneficial

Did you play Warbands when you normally would have played Tempest?
- strongly considering switching to the SC league for the first time in poe history and i've played every HC league and open beta. but tempest's issues only plays a relatively small role in this, i'm weighing this decision mostly because of the absolutely horrible late act4 (non-beta tested) content which makes progression an absolute nightmare if you aren't playing flame totem or melee, which feel like the only two viable specs if you want to actually get to maps. used to really love progression and rolling alts is more fun in HC because twinking is harder (you can't keep a set of twink gear forever like in SC) and because you have to pay attention, hit certain gearing thresholds to stay alive, etc. but now progression is just not fun because of the build and act4 monster imbalance.

My immediate impression is that standing in the Tempest Cells (the AoEs) before it strikes should absolutely do something.

This could be anything from accumulating effects (+%IIR per second), to a flat effect related to the Tempest (Freezing Tempest has Cells that Chill you, and Freeze you once they Strike) while you're in a Cell.

Personally, I think the ideal improvement to be made is to have lesser, accumulating effects (stacking Chill duration, Crit Chance, IIR, etc) with caps to the effects. Once you (or a mob) reach the cap, the Cell automatically Strikes that location. If nothing enters a Cell for long enough, it Strikes identical to the current implementation. There would likely need to be some visual indicator of how close to Striking the Cell is, which is something I feel should be added even if the mechanics remain as is.

So for example, the Tempest that increases IIR would have Cells that grant increasing IIR while standing in them (+8 IIR/s to a cap of 32, at which point a Strike hits the Cell, granting whatever that bonus is (I haven't encountered one yet)).

Another example, the Tempest that currently grants Charges could have Cells that give you one of each Charge per second you're in them, with a strike that increases you Max Charges by two and adds two of each Charge.

Basically there needs to be a reason for the fast paced players to invest their time in the Tempests, rather than ignoring or avoiding them. Accumulating effects would allow players more choice in how involved to be, as well as making kiting monsters through them much more interesting and immediately impactful. This change would better incentivize "chaining" the Cells, either by just running straight through them or standing in them for the Strike, then running to the next Cell to get hit again.

Just my thoughts.

I understand this is intended but at low level (normal difficulty) tempests are very limited and there are at most one at a time. Result is: extremely mundane and may put off new players.

It is also not immediately obvious to players familiar with the game that is it possible to have a prefix and suffix tempest together, making things even more interesting (and it never occurs in normal difficulty).

The removal of damage mods from creatures in certain tempests have made them feel much less impactful: they used to feel like a very toned down map mod, yet very relevant as when leveling one often has next to no resists, sometimes even negative, making it feel just as impactful (difficult) as a map mod.

Transmogrification is really something different, but stupid. In no instance do I ever want that tempest on players or monsters, not even at level 1 as iron rings or driftwood maul/corroded blade/rustic sash etc are more useful than a wisdom scrap. At best you carry a few more more wisdom scraps than you could have otherwise in random trash when in desperate need of wisdoms and get one or two more wisdom scrolls to buy those said items with...

also I played tempest just because its hardcore.
I find that the softcore counterpart features are often just as interesting but like many of replies i sort of defaulted to tempest just because it is HC.

"

biyte wrote:

I understand this is intended but at low level (normal difficulty) tempests are very limited and there are at most one at a time. Result is: extremely mundane and may put off new players.

It is also not immediately obvious to players familiar with the game that is it possible to have a prefix and suffix tempest together, making things even more interesting (and it never occurs in normal difficulty).

The removal of damage mods from creatures in certain tempests have made them feel much less impactful: they used to feel like a very toned down map mod, yet very relevant as when leveling one often has next to no resists, sometimes even negative, making it feel just as impactful (difficult) as a map mod.

Transmogrification is really something different, but stupid. In no instance do I ever want that tempest on players or monsters, not even at level 1 as iron rings or driftwood maul/corroded blade/rustic sash etc are more useful than a wisdom scrap. At best you carry a few more more wisdom scraps than you could have otherwise in random trash when in desperate need of wisdoms and get one or two more wisdom scrolls to buy those said items with...

also I played tempest just because its hardcore.
I find that the softcore counterpart features are often just as interesting but like many of replies i sort of defaulted to tempest just because it is HC.

How do you even survive levelling in cruel / merciless with negative resists? Jump into a pack of lightning skellies with negative resist and you go from 100%-0% extremely quickly.

Its not hard getting 75/75/75 while levelling just get some resist talents in the tree (which you can later relocate once your gear gets better) and use purity of elements (or a purity of the element you lack resistance of). Doing this, even with mediocre gear you get 75/75/75 pretty easily.

Also I don't really think new players should go and play a hardcore league in the first place, they'll rather stick to standard / warbands because you need experience to not die to one shot mechanics and some of the other almost unfair stuff the game has.