Feedback Request: Tempest League

The only real tempest I have a problem with is Arctic. As mentioned by someone else previously, it has the potential to one-shot you simply for existing in the zone with minions. No monsters, standing away from the tempest, just hanging out with minions. The video linked is actually of my friend sitting around in front of Voricii waiting for me to join him in Cruel Mines.

https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/3cz6tl

http://gfycat.com/CriminalOrderlyAttwatersprairiechicken

We had capped resists and the first time I saw that chain effect early on in Normal, I told him that we should expect to avoid that because it will probably one-shot us in later levels. Sure enough, we forgot about the warning / didn't realize it would happen so early.

The problem with the mechanic is that the only way to avoid it is to avoid the zone entirely. In the case of a map affix, ok, great. But in the case of a required leveling zone, what do we do? Wait it out?

Tempests that do damage aren't worthwhile to use against enemies.
The duration of positive tempests is less than the duration you spend waiting to get it, overall clearspeed is even worse if you wait for them.
Tempests that give bonuses/ground effects (especially desecrated ground) are a nice idea, but makes playing vs act bosses really hard.

Make positive tempests interact with the player as soon as he steps on them, make negative tempests have a countdown above them so we know when they activate.

Also make desecrated ground rarer, that mechanic is broken vs boss scenarios.

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ancine wrote:

Make positive tempests interact with the player as soon as he steps on them, make negative tempests have a countdown above them so we know when they activate.

I think I really like that idea but the huge downside is that it would make positive effects very difficult because we would want the same interactions for enemies. I'm not entirely against making it harder, but I might be the minority.

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Are the Tempests impactful?

Not really, no. They generally just happen and it doesn't really change anything. Sometimes you have to worry if the monster got like an elemental buff, but besides that, they're just annoying. Random spell effects causing lag or more things you have to just walk around.

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Are they scary?

Not really, no, just annoying. If at any point they look dangerous, you just walk away or wait for it to go away. The spell effects just kinda happen at random, and are EXTREMELY obvious (in 5 seconds this spot is gonna get an ice nova, oh no okay you didn't stand there).

The monster buffs are just "don't get hit by this monster", which you already didn't want to do anyways.

The tempests are just annoying. If they were made more dangerous, I wouldn't want to play it anymore just because they're not fun. It's a pointless waste of time to try to fight a boss with a tempest going on because it just makes it harder with zero reward, which means you just go farm or afk for a while hoping it will go away or change to something else.

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Do the ones that affect items feel rewarding?

I've only encountered transmogrifying, and while I thought it was funny, everyone else in my party hated it. I didn't think it was rewarding or good, but I thought it was funny.

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Are they better at higher or lower levels?

Makes very little difference. You start getting suffixes in cruel, but so far it's just "oh no the tempests are bigger now" or "the weapons animate to fight you." I also got the global elemental effects, but dodging burning ground is not fun or interesting, nor realizing you're a fire build and suddenly all the monsters resist fire.

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Do people share information about what Tempests are running right now?

No. The only information shared is "there's a tempest in Daresso/Kaom/Malachai right now, let's wait it out." There's no reason to bother fighting them under such strict difficult conditions, when some of the bosses (Malachai) are overtuned as is.

There is no reward, and as someone else put it, some of the boss fights are "boss fight in a phonebooth" because the areas are so small. Tempests against Kaom, Piety, or Malachai are just shooting yourself in the foot, and it honestly felt like they occurred even more often in the boss room than elsewhere.

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Did you play Tempest because you thought it was more interesting than Warbands?

No, Warbands sounds much more fun and interesting. Tempests sounded boring, and it appears I was not wrong.

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Did you play Warbands when you normally would have played Tempest?

I'm still considering switching. Part of the reason is that none of my friends can get past Piety or Malachai in hardcore because they are too hard, so I can't play with my friends. The rest is just that Tempests are a boring, annoying mechanic. This is honestly the worst part about it; there's very few people past normal in hardcore right now, so there aren't many public parties. I feel like I'm playing by myself, and the public parties I do join are all people using Flame Totem/Poison Arrow/Fire Trap (which is what people used to get past Act 4 in the beta).

This is, in my opinion, the worst hardcore league yet. Beyond was annoying, but the mobs were still interesting and my friends liked to fight them for the challenge and we messed around a lot trying to spawn beyond bosses. Tempests are just boring, and now I can't even play with other people.

I chose Tempest with my group because we noticed all the great HC leagues in past.

Onslaught: This was just straight up scary because of the mods for attack speed and damage. This was really great the entire game was just insanity. 6/10

Nemesis: Introduced so many unique monster mods that are still in the game today they were so interesting, remember how scary it was for corrupting blood and everyone having their flask? 10/10

Invasion: Holy crap you don't know how many times I had Caliga,Spinesnap,Kole and many others appear with me saying " NOPE " taking a moment running back to evaluate the situation. 10/10

Beyond: I wanted to play this league honestly but I was starting a job and it was really intense, scary as HELL and I still see new things from old RIP videos. 8/10

Bloodlines: Nemesis creatures had babys so now they run in packs, volition blood packs were always something to look out for quick hovering monsters to inspect mods.

Now we finally get back to Tempest, iv yet to it past normal honestly. I have tried with 2 summoners ( Zombies, Specs ) And they just get destroyed by Mala. Saying this iv ran across all of the tempest types in normal mode. Energizing being one that I would only wait for. I feel the delay of these things hitting the ground is annoying. I feel if you would enter the buff circle it SHOULD consume the tempest or deal its damage, or if not consumed a persistent buff like Elreon missions. This is a really " Lets go slow guys " ARPGs are suppose to be fast and action paced.


I really regret wasting my time on this league. Piety corrupting blood at such a low level? You know at least I could say in Nemesis you would start to encounter this in cruel. I hardly even have the currency to craft a flask to remove bleeding. We really need a basic recipe to craft bleeding remove if its gonna be this necessary, NERF life leech then introduce this? Can we get a restricted style of craft to get bleeding removal if we are gonna get punished early on in normal from now on?

I love the tempests but they seem a bit useless since it requires you to stand in for a longer time and then they only last for such a short time which slows down you killing speed!

Imo you should significantly increase the duration of their buffs (30 sec + )

Given A4 as it is, I'm not going to even try hardcore...

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Chris wrote:

I worked closely on the Tempest League (with our designer Dan) and have been looking for feedback!

Are the Tempests impactful?
Are they scary?
Do the ones that affect items feel rewarding?
Are they better at higher or lower levels?
Do people share information about what Tempests are running right now?
Did you play Tempest because you thought it was more interesting than Warbands?
Did you play Warbands when you normally would have played Tempest?

Tempests are not impactful at all in normal difficulty, but later on they become completely defining for what you can do and not.
Tempests are not scary in normal, very very scary late game.
Yes, the ones that affect items feel very rewarding indeed.
Tempests are imo too weak (and none of the fun ones seem to apear) in normal. They probably should be toned down late game, although I have not got very far yet, so I may change my mind.
I don't know if people share info, I have not looked for or shared any.
No, I play Tempest because I am incapable of having fun in a normal league.
No.

Some general feedback: I like Tempest league a lot. I've played since Nemesis, and Tempest league is my favorite so far (it is still early, though). I had a lot of fun farming quality gems from the "items have quality" tempest, so much so that I forgot what level I was and ended up overleveling the content.

Two negatives so far: I got no fun tempests in normal at all. They seemed to be ultra-boring. In cruel it is much better. Maybe allow for fun tempests in normal too? Not too much harm in letting people get good low lvl items, I would think? I also would like there to be a pole or something in the centre of the tempest marker, and if you touch it you get the buff. It is boring to wait for 5 sec to get a buff that lasts for ten.

8/10

Honestly, I feel the reason that people haven't been enjoying Tempest (pretty much at all) is that not only are Tempests pretty much entirely uninteractive while also being incredibly easy to avoid, but they offer risk with pretty much entirely no prospect of reward. Not only that, but because of the more subtle nature of what Tempests are and do, they don't offer nearly the same sort of epic, heart-pounding challenge and fantasy fulfillment as a challenge league that spawns more, harder monsters (as every other challenge league so far has), preferably with more or better loot drops (again, as most other HC leagues have). Those things coupled with the boring behavior of Tempests in general (insanely long telegraph followed by a single point of change which is rarely very impactful) are making this League definitely a failure so far in terms of both enjoyment and design in general.

As for whether I think Warbands looks better, and whether I might play it? Definitely looks better, but I'd rather not play it simply because I know if I do I'll just get bored because it's softcore and stop playing PoE altogether.

Hey Chris seems like the areas or "clouds" of tempest league are too long. Like I'm off screen before they even trigger me or mobs. But I haul ass I liek 25 move speed or better YMMV