The Trialmaster is way too rare.

I have been farming exclusively on AW9 for the past few days and still haven't seen the encounter.

I have been clearing all Ultimatum encounters, failing only two times, yet I usually do not reach anything higher than wave seven. I can count the times I had nine waves on one hand.

At this rate, I have the expectation that the encounter will never appear for me before I finish the league. This is quite frustrating since I play the league specifically to engage with the new content but I cannot do it since it is entirely gated by RNG.

It appears that it does not matter how well I play and what I try changes nothing about the outcome which is a design I cannot get behind at all.

Why make the league content so rare to interact with? It's not like I can buy a key for the encounter either. I simply have no good chance to ever find it, much less train to be good at the encounter thereafter.

I wish there was some determinism tied to this. During Harvest league we knew that completing 100 high tier maps let us fight the boss eventually. Why not do something similar here? Why gate league content behind RNG? Why make it frustrating to play the new content in this way?

I didn't even know that there is a wave 9

I've already made an own post on this, and I cannot stress out how frustrating it is to me, especially after you, GGG, have gated a challenge behind a 1/500maps rng encounter.

The fact that I've finished my endgame grind and all of the other challenges before getting this one should show you how stupidly rare it is.

Not having any kind of an increasingly higher chance, e.g. for every prior ultimatum finished, is just plain stupid. There is no other word for this.

I have absolutely no problem with grinding for content when you know you've got to finish an amount of x for something.
Or the chance is at least on an approximate level where you do not need longer than the literal "endgame GRIND" for it.

But as it is, you could also put in a challenge "Drop a Mirror of Kalandra" next league. It's equally ridiculous.


In hope someone over in NZ is at least reading this...

Imagine how aggravating it will be if the league goes core in 3 months with an 8-10% encounter chance.

I ran thousands of heists and grand heists in Heist league and never got Death to Darnaw to drop.

I played almost every day in Delve league, as it is still my favorite POE mechanic, and never found Aul in my own mine.

I got 36/40 in Bestiary without seeing Fenemus or Craicinn, and in Abyss without finding Ulaiman. I'm not defending GGG's policy here, just pointing out that it shouldn't be a surprise anymore because every time a new league adds an endgame boss encounter, it's one of three things:

1 - "Collect a bunch of splinters to combine for a fight" (Legion, Breach, Delirium, etc). These league systems have reward balanced by grind.
2 - Incredibly rare (Bestiary, Delve, etc). These systems have reward balanced by chance.
3 - Commonly available, but with little to no chance of dropping significant reward (Betrayal, Incursion). These mechanics have their rewards balanced by reward, or by inherently costing you something even on success.

I personally agree with you that Option 1 is the lesser evil here, but tons of people complain about having to pick up splinters every time GGG makes an Type-1 league so that's certainly not a universal opinion.

"Well, okay, but what about Option 3?" Option 3 describes league mechanics which are incredibly common with BAD rewards 99% of the time, which doesn't fit very well into modern POE league design, even though GGG has made extensive use of it in the past: Strongboxes, rogue exiles, beyond, tormented spirits, essences, and Atziri herself fall into this category. Players have come to expect more than this from new leagues, which means that GGG's hands are kind of tied into Options 1 and 2 lest players dismiss the league as being "not any different from standard" and play another game for 3 months.

So, back to Trialmaster. The alternative to the current system would be "enemies slain in trials have a small chance to drop splinters, collect 500 splinters for a unique inscribed ultimatum containing the Trialmaster boss fight." And while this is the option I'd greatly prefer, I'm certain many people would disagree with me.

Wouldn't be a problem if splinters would drop in single stack after an Ultimatum, and would be much better as the boss would be tradeable.

Conditional challenges on top of chance based encounter which cannot be traded are stupid. It's "Find Ritual bases" again.

"

ARealLifeCaribbeanPirate wrote:

... just pointing out that it shouldn't be a surprise anymore because every time a new league adds an endgame boss encounter, it's one of three things:

1 - "Collect a bunch of splinters to combine for a fight" (Legion, Breach, Delirium, etc). These league systems have reward balanced by grind.
2 - Incredibly rare (Bestiary, Delve, etc). These systems have reward balanced by chance.
3 - Commonly available, but with little to no chance of dropping significant reward (Betrayal, Incursion). These mechanics have their rewards balanced by reward, or by inherently costing you something even on success.

Honestly, I'm not really surprised. I expect this to be happening by now. It's still not good and I will definitely complain about this kind of RNG every league when it happens.

This is a clear insult to summoners who want to complete 40/40: super rare encounter and... Conditional kill challenges.

RNG just sucks in this game in general. I'm not holding my breath at all if I never see this boss encounter bc you know, having fun engaging in a new League boss fight under the current league mechanic is just too much fun and OP right GGG?

Trialmaster: I am being made a fool am I?
Trialmaster: Am I being punished?

ME: Yes, indeed. Now come out and fight me if you want your revenge.