⭐ Your Scourge Final Impressions? ⭐ ⋆Updated⋆

Once the next patch hits and I've had some time to play it, I'll more than likely update my review for a third (and last) time.

Final for me, already deleting game again after trying a few white maps. I already feel the usual month 2 burnout after a week of the new league. White maps feel like the old red maps but not enough reward to put up with it and scourge is really bad. Way too rippy and can't find the motivation to try to get all the meta gear I need this early in the atlas. Seems like maybe the desire to prolong the player experience went a little too far and became prohibitive, but that is just me. Obviously, a lot of people are liking the game still. We'll see what the next league looks like. Peace out.

Think we should move on from "first" to "final" impressions.

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Shagsbeard wrote:

Think we should move on from "first" to "final" impressions.

Yep.

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Shagsbeard wrote:

Think we should move on from "first" to "final" impressions.

I concur. However, a more appropriate term I'd use would be to 'segue' to final impressions, especially in regards to those of us who have already given early league feedback, rather than to 'move on' from first impressions. There are still many individuals who might've gotten a late start into the league, yet they still may wish to give their first impressions (of which are just as important as the impressions of those of us who dove right in at the start, pre-patch). I still believe that quite a bit of the 'non homogeneous' feedback gathered in this thread from various players (condensed in one place) served (and continues to serve) as a useful resource for 'GGG' to analyze the core 'positives and negatives' reflective in the overall player experience.

I'll update the thread accordingly (to reflect final impressions). Though personally, I'd still like to get more experience playing 'scourged maps' before I draw anymore conclusions on the league. I've only done one T1 map (with maxed out 10 scourge levels) to give it a test-run, and I was taking flat 6,000 physical damage (not counting physical resistance damage mitigation) on 'entry/exit' 'into and out of' the nightmare realm. That usually left me with around 3%'ish hp each time if I had full hp at the moment the 'shifting' occurred. I was capped out on my physical resist at 90% with flasks. Interesting stuff.

I've developed a few more 'positive/neutral/negative' opinions on the league, but like I said, I'm not really ready to discuss those opinions just yet until I've had more time to tinker around with the late game mechanics. I try my best to be fair-minded in my initial and final assessments of game mechanics and leagues. I also recognize that each and every individual's experience differs based on their own innate game knowledge, the time they have available to play, the strength of their builds, and their personal overarching goals for each league.

1. I like how they updated Atlas
2. I like tree rework
3. Scourge soso, but it’s optional for me; scourge maps quite fun and sometimes profitable
4. Feel a small lack of dps
5. Strange one shot kills is still an issue (80% block, all ress capped, 68% chaos res, 5 endurance charges, pantheon leveled, 2,5% life leech, glancing blows, cwdt, ES, etc etc etc = Die!!!!!! No matter all this crap - die!!!)

My final impression:

I am done already. My motivation with the league is gone, probably with the game, we'll see. It feels too much of work and the league mechanic is really bad, which is also not helpful.

There are already too many mechanics in the game to pimp up maps so that in non-pimped maps and during campaign only sh*t drops. Scourge is just another layer of RNG. Beause everything is balanced around maximum juiced maps and GGG wants perfect items to exist only in theory and not in praxis. The whole fun is in the endgame when your character is already very strong. But getting there has become significantly harder. That would not be so dramatic if loot on white and yellow maps wasn't exponentially worse than on red maps. GGG's concept in making the endgame less accessible, doesn't work for me, it demotivates me.

Leveling a character through he campaign should be VERY rewarding, not a necessary evil as it is now for (guessed) 99% of all players.

I also don't like these timers. Mr. Wilson said that they intentionally put Scourge on a timer because they want to force players to a certain playstyle he thinks the game should be played. Also I heard that he said, that they want to slow the game down. To me that is a contradiction.

I for myself want to have a relaxed time when playing a game. POE as it is now just gives me the constant feeling that I suck. Maybe I am getting too old for this game.

Final impressions: The league mechanic itself is the worst one I've ever played. Unless you're getting 200+ stacks with minimal time spent you should never, ever touch the scourge mechanic. That makes 95% of builds useless.

Scourging items is completely useless except for niche cases like with Doryani's Prototype. If I could start the league over I'd transition to a Doryani's Prototype howa raider so I could actually maybe scourge a useful item.

There are no exciting builds in the game to build towards because the all rounders are boring. Toxic Rain is lame and it's being removed in 3.17 anyways. Lightning Strike feels clunky to me even though it's the best "melee" skill. Smite Aura stacker and having to hit 4 aura buttons every 17 seconds...no thank you. Building around Soulthirst with the new increased duration flasks is interesting to me, but to get any tankiness requires you to skip temp chains and stick to ~45 second Soul Eater which just makes it another zhp zoom build. Or just play Toxic Rain with Soulthirst meh.

I was recommended CoC Forbidden Rite after I finished league and it was actually pretty fun and strong, but would've been way too much hassle to get fully online. Eye of Winter is another skill that seems fun and underrated but will probably get nerfed in 3.17 so there's no reason to think about it.

It says something that one of the most popular builds right now is a plain old 3 million DPS Replica Alberon's occultist. It's literally nothing more than cyclone+explode yet it feels better to play than practically every other build in the game. It's sad.

The QoL changes for this league were really great. Going through a node in delve and then having 17 portal scrolls drop in one stack feels good. Delve rewards in general feel better and it's easier to get going. I was getting 4x common fossils from nodes and I wasn't even in ilvl83 zones. Not having to think about doing maps in the "wrong" region anymore feels good. Hopefully the changes in 3.17 offer meaningful buffs to players and opens up build options.

The QOL changes are mostly for the best though hitting flasks every 8-10 seconds instead of every 3-4 is still not a huge improvement to the flask gameplay. The amount of options we have on crafting flasks to automate or just be something we don't have to deal with more than a few times a map is heavily limited due to power creep yet Mageblood has no problem just running 4 flasks 24/7 so again some weird power creep contradictions.

Same contradiction with Scourge where we now have to invest way more into getting our dps and defensive layering and movement because GGG thinks we're all too strong and too fast but then they combine it with some of the highest damage output from a league mechanic ever and a timer. It brings me back to the beginning of Meta when you could have 10k HP and not even understand what killed you. Theres really just two routes to go either stack layering to the max (20+s/perma flasks, Grace + Determination, 90% resists, etc) or just accept that you will RIP when you phase and all the sudden the stun decides not to work or an enemy hits you before it goes off....

Scourge isn't worth participating in. It does nothing but slow down all your other progressions for every other mechanic especially the Atlas. Its a trap that will get you killed for a bunch of low currency, maps, and contracts. The scourged items are so beyond random they may as well not exist. I would have preferred more QOL updates and no league mechanic because I'm not touching it once the challenge is done.

Just hitting yellow maps last night, definitely getting better at handling Scourge mobs, getting some good drops, can't wait for a longer session this weekend.
Start was rough, but I am enjoying the league now.