Besides removing Prophecy, how about COMBINING similar league mechanics in 3.17?

If you want to reduce content bloat without taking away popular parts of the game, how about just combining the leagues whose mechanics are similar enough that they're effectively redundant.

For instance, there's a lot of expectation that Ultimatum is going to come back soon. But even during Ultimatum itself, in fact even before it launched, people were complaining about how similar the concept was to Ritual. But then that obviously leads to the idea of...

Personally, I'd like to see Ultimatum back, AND combined with Ritual. I think Rituals' combat mechanics are weak, while Ultimatums' rewards are underwhelming. But the two league mechanics are similar enough that I'd like it if GGG just joined them at the hip - Ultimatums' combat encounter leading to Rituals' rewards. So you'd have one Ultimatum per zone, but instead of getting random items as a reward, the more waves you complete, the more tribute you build up and rewards you reveal. Which you can buy when you tap out (having earned and unlocked as much as you want) or finish the full thing. Ritual doesn't even have an endgame encounter, so they can just add Ultimatums' Inscribed Ultimatums to the combined reward pool and that's that. It would require some re-engineering, but the assets are there. Then they can retire not just Prophecy in 3.17, but Ritual too.

Another league combination that could be done is Breach and Legion. Both involve tapping some object and having an huge enemy army appear all around you. So just make the two armies be one of the Legion forces against one of the Breachlords' forces (let's admit it - neither league ever developed their story much, and the idea of Wraeclasts' greatest forces locked in battle against demons from another realm makes more sense than them fighting each other across completely different time periods). Don't need to change much else about their respective endgame encounters, and now you'll be able to collect both Timeless Emblems and Breachstones from a single league encounter.

And obviously it goes without saying that their respective Atlas passives will have to be modified as well, to suit the new mechanic. Also these are just two ideas, I'm sure there's more possibilities.

Basically I feel that some leagues have far more distinct concepts (Blight lets you play tower defense, Synthesis had its memory map, etc.) while others seem almost like reskins of existing content. And in the latter case, instead of removing them outright, GGG could consider putting them together instead.

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Edit:- Some suggestions by others:-

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Combine rampage with beyond gain rampage stacks while killing monsters from beyond

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Get rid of Harvest and then add the more interesting crafts to Bestiary

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Integrating Torment ghosts into Abyss. The nice thing about this is that Abyss spawns a bunch of tough rares for the ghosts to possess from the holes.

I disagree on behalf of Breach/Legion. Those might look kind of similar when it comes to the league-mechanic itself, but when it comes to the actual content u try to open with the splinters you drop from the maps, they are VERY different.

1. Legion gives chances for 4- and 5-way-encounters, that offer chances to drop legion jewels, one of the in my humble opinion most interesting items to alter the tree / optimize builds for.
2. Breach on the other hand plays a bigger part when it comes to the whole maven-situation, being able to constantly clear breach-lords and following that the hidden-encounter nets huge profits and is way more boss-focussed compared to legion, which is more clear- and mapping-oriented.

Both of those mechanics have a lot of individual identity, I dont see them being combined.

That being said, I totally agree on the Ritual/Ultimatum situation.

I can't think of one single reason why we 'need' both Ritual and Ultimatum in the game. Them being joined into one mechanic should go without saying.

That said, I don't see enough similarities between Breach and Legion to join them. The art style, color pallet, mechanics and the fact that they lead to two very different endgame encounters, just make them seem too different for them to be joined at the hip. Not saying your suggestion wouldn't work, but there are MANY fans of both those mechanics that would be upset, especially the Breach crowd.

As a principle, I still think more player agency over what content to experience (and what content not to experience) is a much better solution that to remove/join content.

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Phrazz wrote:

I can't think of one single reason why we 'need' both Ritual and Ultimatum in the game.

I would go a step further and say we don't "need" either.

Also 3.17 is launching at a terrible time. LA and Elden Ring are really going to butcher what is an important league for PoE. (Not to mention Horizon, Dying light 2, and Destiny'z Expansion. February is going to be packed with options)

I think they should start teasing, and talking development strategy / changes asap.

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DarthSki44 wrote:

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Phrazz wrote:

I can't think of one single reason why we 'need' both Ritual and Ultimatum in the game.

I would go a step further and say we don't "need" either.

Also 3.17 is launching at a terrible time. LA and Elden Ring are really going to butcher what is an important league for PoE. (Not to mention Horizon, Dying light 2, and Destiny'z Expansion. February is going to be packed with options)

I think they should start teasing, and talking development strategy / changes asap.

We all know LA and ER will create some problems, and most likely make a dent or two in the 3.17 player numbers, but I don't really see the need of bringing this shit up in every thread? Isn't it kind of off topic in a thread about combining league mechanics?

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Phrazz wrote:

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DarthSki44 wrote:

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Phrazz wrote:

I can't think of one single reason why we 'need' both Ritual and Ultimatum in the game.

I would go a step further and say we don't "need" either.

Also 3.17 is launching at a terrible time. LA and Elden Ring are really going to butcher what is an important league for PoE. (Not to mention Horizon, Dying light 2, and Destiny'z Expansion. February is going to be packed with options)

I think they should start teasing, and talking development strategy / changes asap.

We all know LA and ER will create some problems, and most likely make a dent or two in the 3.17 player numbers, but I don't really see the need of bringing this shit up in every thread? Isn't it kind of off topic in a thread about combining league mechanics?

I've made 5 posts in last 5 days, none of which even mention "this shit". Do better. (Even more if you take into account a specific thread this was the topic)

I addressed that we dont need two bloated league mechanics which is totally on-topic. Then I said GGG needs to talk about the new league & mechanic soon because there are a ton of options in February.

I think you dudes are projecting wayyyy too much here.

Preferred Ritual to Ultimatum. It really helped out the progression in SSF play. Ultimatum was just gambling. The synergy of Ritual and Prophecy is going away though. There were quite a few choice prophecies I pulled out of Ritual rather than spent silver coins on.

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DarthSki44 wrote:

I think you dudes are projecting wayyyy too much here.

Yeah, has to be it.

Generally sounds like a good idea, though it requires putting more work into previous content.

I'd be ok if they dropped Ult, Ritual, Expedition entirely, in fact I probably wouldn't notice it if we had a decent league mechanic.

100% behind combining content instead of removal from the game where possible but... to be properly combined it does need to make some sense.