3.24 - The League of Unintended Consequences

Usually after such a big overhaul to so many systems, grumbling about unfamiliar changes and unpopular nerfs turns to adjustment and acceptance. But it seems like the opposite is happening.

1. Scarabs -- I've wanted scarabs to drop from the core pool and more frequently going back pretty much since they were introduced. I even made that suggestion in a thread years ago that quite a few people in that thread seemed to latch onto. Maybe more of the tiered scarabs of 3.5-3.23 dropping would have been beneficial, but this overhaul seems to be backfiring. Instead of players using the scarabs to focus on specific league content, players are using scarabs to focus on farming more scarabs. Those scarabs are then used to farm more scarabs. And it's turned into a feedback loop. I *like* scarabs and I like dropping more scarabs. I don't like that *what the scarabs actually do* is taking a back seat to the drop themselves.

The other problem is their variations feed into the mental overhead that had been mitigated by the Atlas tree. Now it's compounded by scarabs. If players aren't fully specced into a league mechanic *and* fully juicing their map, it feels like a waste of time and resources.

And, of course, there's the whole obliterating the economy and bogging down the servers thing.

2. The league mechanic on the Atlas skill tree -- I've also wanted GGG to reserve space on the Atlas skill tree for the current league mechanic. But, again, it turns out I'm wrong and that's a bad idea. And again, if I'm not fully specced into the mechanic, it feels like a waste of effort.

3. Veiled Orbs, obliterating Aisling and the drop rate -- I really don't know what the hell went on here. This was a mistake. Veiled Orbs were a good and balanced bridge items and helped teach intermediate crafting. They were rare enough that they were coveted and common enough that they were readily available and that players wanted to use them. Now they're so rare and hard to access that it's not even really worth the effort. Again, I don't know what the goal was here, especially when it was introduced alongside a league mechanic that prints perfect items. And obliterating the drop rate and sequestering it behind Catarina (one of the worst boss fights in PoE, imo) feels malicious.

4a. T17s -- Valdo's Puzzle Boxes were great. They were optional side content that challenged players. Now you've gated Uber content behind Valdo's Puzzle Boxes. It's now no longer challenging side content but another (seemingly) mandatory hurdle in the endgame.
4b. 5th Map Slot -- I thought this was a good idea at the time - it never made sense that a core game mechanic was locked behind side league content - but that was before I realized T17s would be so fucked.
4c. Separating the loot tables -- So. The goal here was that *not* doing Ubers in 3.23 felt like a waste. So. You separated the loot tables. And put all of the chase items behind the Uber fights. So. *Not* doing Ubers feels like even more of a waste than it did in 3.23.

Gamer psychology is weird. In Diablo 3, I loved Rifts and Greater Rifts but couldn't stand doing those cache quests. Even in PoE, I love maps but I would rather tear my fingernails out than do the Labyrinth, Heist, and Sanctum. In every activity in both games, you're doing the same actions and pressing the same buttons, but the feel is wildly different. I've never had any interest in Valdo's Puzzle Boxes or Uber bosses, but now with T17s, the map slot, the fragments, and the loot tables, I feel compelled to do them. They feel mandatory. It makes the game feel like a chore. *Not* doing them constantly hangs over my head. And I hate that feeling.

Outside of the Archnemesis debacle, you've done an awful lot recently to mitigate the mental overhead of PoE -- the sheer weight of countless systems and mechanics accumulating over the past ten years that had been bogging down the game. But so much of that hard work has been undone with 3.24.

Outside of multiple Atlas trees, this whole patch feels like a mistake. It's an extreme solution and I doubt you'll do it, but I sincerely hope that rolling back to 3.23 is on the table.

Sorry, I'm not doing a BINGO card. It feels lazy, and if I did, I would say something pointedly snarky and probably get banned.

[EDIT] - Holy shit, I forgot about all of the bugs! Why are there so many bugs?! I've had bosses randomly teleporting, running away, and getting stuck in walls. I've killed one single rat and had the number of enemies left in a map drop by *13*. I've had league mechanic completely brick. Nameless Seer didn't spawn multiple times. I've had more bugs in the past two weeks than I've had in past 10 years combined![/EDIT]