The "whys" of TotA

1) Why do we need to left click channel/not attack to kill towers? This is the reverse of what it should be.

2) Why do we need to walk through this enormous area just to get to the arena, and why is there no indicator for the first time we do this?

3) Similar to #2, why is the NPC area so large? There is nothing in it and not enough npcs to warrant such a size.

4) Why does the waypoint not take us directly to the NPC area? Why do we have to click the fountain every time?

5) Why are our NPCs so significantly inferior to enemy NPCs?

6) Why do Silver Coins start dropping immediately in Act 1, when it is next to impossible to clear at that time?

7) Addendum to #6, Why do you not incentivize players to engage in the new mechanics anymore, but instead actively deter people?

8) Why is there no user interface for ANYTHING? WHere are my allies? What is their respawn timer? What is MY respawn timer? Where are ANY instructions?

9) Why, once an arena battle is over, do we not instantly teleport out...but instead have to walk all the way back to the entrance every single time.

10) Why do we need to WAIT when we die and sit there doing nothing for extended periods of gameplay? Let the player instantly respawn but have it damage our tower or something.

11) Why is everything designed to waste so much time? The walking...the extra screens...the walking....the awful number of npcs....the walking...the waiting...the CHANNELLING omg.

12) Why is there no way to recover flasks in the arena? Why do so many enemies have flask draining attacks when its already impossible to refill them mid-battle...

13) To go along with this stupid channelling/not attacking mechanic, why do we get stunned for SO LONG if we get hit? We are already forced to stand still, is that not punishment enough?


I can't express enough how much I dislike this mechanic. It is designed almost with another game in mind, not PoE. And its designed so poorly. It's a MOBA, yet your own personal damage means nothing because you can't attack the towers...I truly feel that this might be the single worst league mechanic I have ever experienced in this game, since the beta. It is so bad that, within two acts, I don't even want to play the entire game anymore.


If I were to sum up this mechanic: Take the worst parts of Betrayal (Overcomplicated, no instructions), Heist (too many npcs), and Crucible (stand still and channel) and combine them together, while adding a couple extra layers of time sinks to round out the experience. Oh and btw, your skill power is basically meaningless. No matter how strong you get, you'll never clear the towers any faster.

+1

This is so off I am confused how it made it to live launch... I will refuse to even participate in this league trial event until it has a major overhaul where it is more balanced. Literally no more for me, it is very obvious this mechanic is not working as intended.

I feel like the skeleton crew put all priority in designing the NPC voicelines and models while ignoring basic QoL:

Like a surrender button after you die
Team stats/status of your totems and warriors
Channeling time that's not that obnoxiously long or proness to get stunned near it since most enemies have AOE attacks that get you.

Also for some reason you cant buy like half the items from ancestor NPCs even though you have enough favour.

ggg hire this guy plz

agree with every single point of the OP. did someone actually play test this shit

+1

I feel like this is the same song and dance every league start. Very much no testing went into this shit.

Exactly, this league mechanic is so off-putting that I just roll my eyes yet once again and move on. I'll just skip it again. Geesh :(

Why are so many of the mobs so durable?

Why do some mobs just ignore your attacks and destroy your totems despite clearly hitting them which should stun them?

Why are our units so terrible compared to opponents?

I'm enjoying the mechanic a quite a bit.

There are definitely quality-of-life improvements in your list that I'd support, such as not having to click the well every time after I enter via way-point.

Every league has a polish phase shortly after launch -- **every** league. Remember all the complaints about picking up the currency at the start of Expedition?

I hope the failure to stun enemy NPC channeling on your totems is a defect -- which would mean it'll be fixed soon. Maybe that specific NPC has some kind of stun immunity?

Regardless, every league has mechanics that some players love, and some players hate. I couldn't stand Sanctum. I tried quite a few times to make it work, and just avoided it afterwards. This league on the other hand, I just love so far.

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jsuslak313 wrote:

1) Why do we need to left click channel/not attack to kill towers? This is the reverse of what it should be.

This ensures that massive DPS disparities don't auto win the battles by facerolling over all mechanics (AKA exactly whats wrong with the base game).

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jsuslak313 wrote:

2) Why do we need to walk through this enormous area just to get to the arena, and why is there no indicator for the first time we do this?

Opportunity cost and decision pain. So when games soften every edge, compact everything, fast travel every area and make plinths and Kiosks like some shopping mall, to pander to impatient people they lose all sense of weight, pacing and authenticity, this is the shallow "floaty feeling" in games like Lost Ark. Things don't actually FEEL as authentic as they could feel and you end up with a weightless Amusement park game that feel made for 8 year old kids that has no opportunity cost or pacing. Trashy, pandering, light weight and shallow is not what POE is trying for. They ofc don't always execute this as well as everyone might wish.

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jsuslak313 wrote:

3) Similar to #2, why is the NPC area so large? There is nothing in it and not enough npcs to warrant such a size.

same answer opportunity cost and avoiding a weightless feeling gameplay loop. Do you want to use the coin now or later or not at all (thats an okay answer too for a lot of people). If something is both rewarding and the easiest thing to do then there's no reason to do anything else.

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jsuslak313 wrote:

4) Why does the waypoint not take us directly to the NPC area? Why do we have to click the fountain every time?

GGG doesn't seem to have a very good head for UX/UI historically... but also weight.

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jsuslak313 wrote:

5) Why are our NPCs so significantly inferior to enemy NPCs?

Because its been literally 1 full day since the start and people with day one gear probably shouldn't be steamrolling a league mechanic meant to keep people busy for weeks?

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jsuslak313 wrote:

6) Why do Silver Coins start dropping immediately in Act 1, when it is next to impossible to clear at that time?

My first coin was used at lvl 6 and I won my match mostly because I guessed correctly that I would not be able to DPS the enemy totems and would instead need to interact with them because any other design would have trivialized the mini game with meta builds.

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jsuslak313 wrote:

7) Addendum to #6, Why do you not incentivize players to engage in the new mechanics anymore, but instead actively deter people?

Usually they want a balance, also they have expressed that forcing people to play things they don't enjoy is not their aim and sometimes putting a little barriar to entry in accomplishes this discouragement of those people.

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jsuslak313 wrote:

8) Why is there no user interface for ANYTHING? WHere are my allies? What is their respawn timer? What is MY respawn timer? Where are ANY instructions?

agreed they are definitely way too willing to just ignore UX or repeat the same mistakes league after league.

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jsuslak313 wrote:

9) Why, once an arena battle is over, do we not instantly teleport out...but instead have to walk all the way back to the entrance every single time.

the rewards have to be spent, you can lose them if you wait too long, walking back past the NPC's reminds you and is actually good UX. Also weight/oppotunity/pacing.

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jsuslak313 wrote:

10) Why do we need to WAIT when we die and sit there doing nothing for extended periods of gameplay? Let the player instantly respawn but have it damage our tower or something.

This gives a punishment for lazy/poor play and mistakes, basic game design, if there's no punishment the game is less of a game and more of predictable process.

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jsuslak313 wrote:

11) Why is everything designed to waste so much time? The walking...the extra screens...the walking....the awful number of npcs....the walking...the waiting...the CHANNELLING omg.

Pacing, weight and oppotunity cost. There are plenty of MMO's you can play if you want paper thin, weightless and insignificant feeling games that instantly yeet loot at you for clicking the little red indicator lights.

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jsuslak313 wrote:

12) Why is there no way to recover flasks in the arena? Why do so many enemies have flask draining attacks when its already impossible to refill them mid-battle...

I'm guessing several flasks trivialized the mini game by allowing you to channel without danger for 3-4 seconds.

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jsuslak313 wrote:

13) To go along with this stupid channelling/not attacking mechanic, why do we get stunned for SO LONG if we get hit? We are already forced to stand still, is that not punishment enough?

Punishment for mistakes, see death timer. Without consequences for mistakes games aren't actually games. Having stuns allowed them to do more than just kill your character to punish trying to facetank while channeling a totem.