The fundamental issue with Trial of the Sekhema

Let me preface this post (it's going to be a long one) by saying that I am loving Path of Exile 2 on so many levels. For early access it is honestly one of the best gaming experiences I have had to date.
GGG has laid the foundation for something outstanding. From a gameplay, and story perspective the game has been a joy to engage with. Throughout the campaign I found myself quite moved by major, and minor characters alike (the Geonor fight is such a beautiful marriage of mechanics, and atmosphere), and the accessibility of information in regards to the passive tree is well explained that I've been able to execute on build ideas that just felt too daunting in PoE 1.

I am enjoying the mapping system as well (minus the one death limit). I enjoy the more tangible presentation of areas and biomes, and their relative places to one another, and the mystery around what parts of the atlas I'm going to uncover. There are several small things that make me feel more connected to the game, and more motivated to want to experiment in it.
And PoE 2 does this beautifully, in my opinion.
There is a rich bed of systems and mechanics to play around with and arrange in a myriad of interesting ways, even considering the early access state and the lack of content like the remaining ascendancies, classes, skill gems, and item types.

This richness and depth of character customization, and the clarity, and accessibility of mechanical information, and the expression of that through character builds forms the pillar of what makes PoE 2 so damn fun to engage with.
However, the way that unlocking ascendancies is set up is fundamentally at odds with those core aspects of the game.
Path of Exile is a game that centers around player power, and expression, but the path to unlock Ascendancies negates that entirely.

Ascendancies are meant to be a core part of your character's power progression. In PoE 1 you would craft a build with the full 8 ascendancy points in mind to prepare yourself to tackle pinnacle content. Instead, now you're having to tackle pinnacle content to unlock your character's power.
Not only that, but the type of content you need to do in order to unlock these ascendancy points is structured in such a way that it diminishes, or outright negates that build expression.
Ultimatum maybe slightly less so as you're still able to head into it and play around whatever layers of defense, or offense you've constructed. Don't get me wrong, some of the modifiers in Ultimatum are brutal, and run killing, but I think it functions at least on some level closer to modifiers you'd avoid, or play around in maps.
Trial of the Sekhema, however, is the most egregious case of negation of build expression, and player creativity.



Trial of the Sekhema forces you to play around a completely separate resource, Honour, that is admittedly tied to your defenses to an extent. Regardless of this link, though, it negates any other kind of methods of sustaining your character through combat.
If you've built around life leech, or life regeneration, that doesn't matter; you are now wholly focused around maintaining your Honour bar, and it is only replenishable through shrines, or relics.
On top of this, there is another defensive layer solely tied to Honour which is Honour Resistance, and that is, also, only acquired through relics. It doesn't matter how many buffs, through relics or patches, we as players get to mitigate incoming Honour damage as it still fundamentally undermines the premise of crafting a build.

The process of unlocking meta progression in the form of these relics, and relic slots is also backwards, I believe. You have relic slots you're able to fill with relics to give yourself advantages in future runs. However, just like the issue of unlocking player power after beating endgame content, these relic slots also become active after you complete the content that you arguably need the relic slots for in the first place.
Even so, having access to relics, and relic slots earlier would not fix the fundamental issue of Sekhema, which is still the fact that it revolves around Honour.

This negation of defensive layers and playstyle under the Honour resource is further compounded by Afflictions. Afflictions as they function in the current state of Sekhema, and the permanent effects they inflict can be so overwhelmingly negative that the focus on getting through this game mode is, in a much larger part, focused on accruing as few negative effects as you can, so as not to bring your character power below where it starts; this is already below base level due to Honour.
It's rare to find a boon that doesn't come with some minor affliction attached to its acquisition, and many of the boons are underwhelming in terms of what positive effects they bestow; it's simply not fun to acquire a boon that restores X amount of honour when venerating a Maraketh shrine, to at the same time receive a "minor" affliction that removes an entire defensive layer like evasion, armour, or energy shield.

Which leads into my next point. Some of these minor afflictions are not minor at all.
Removing an entire defensive layer is not a minor effect. You might be able to argue that if you're playing an evasion character, for example, and you come to a room which grants you an affliction that removes all your armour, that it's a fairly minor inconvenience. But at this point it's not a "minor" affliction at all, it's no affliction, which circles back to the initial point, that the entirety of the focus of Trial of the Sekhema is on avoiding negative effects.
There are several other afflictions which are categorized as minor that can, in many cases, prematurely end an entire run. 25% reduced movement speed is not minor, it makes you far more susceptible to all threats, and in the case of the Floor 4 boss it's almost certainly a death sentence.
Similarly, some of the positive effects the boons bestow pale in comparison to the magnitude that the negative effects inflict. Who cares that I just got a "major" boon that doubles my keys picked up if I'm dealing 40% less damage to monsters with 50% increased life?
It's confusing as to why an effect like this is categorized as a "major" boon when something like Ornate Dagger, which grants 50% increased damage dealt by you, is a "minor" boon.

The entire system of Sekhema starts you in a severely disadvantaged position by forcing Honour as a defensive layer onto the player, and through doing runs you're put in situations where you can pick bad, worse, marginally okay, and very rarely good. The run actively becomes more difficult the further you progress, unless you're lucky enough to avoid as many afflictions that would put your character in a weaker position than they are at the start of the trial.
It's a system that is entirely focused around RNG and you are, in large part, at the mercy of however the trial has randomized itself. Because of this structure, a great deal of player agency, and build creativity is removed.

Not only is this structure antithetical to player skill mattering in combat encounters, as it alters your character power with factors outside of your control that can completely destroy an attempt, it is also antithetical to the premise of creating a character build around a new defensive layer, a new skill, or a playstyle because of the rigid focus around Honour.
I love this game, I really do, but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that the thought of starting a new character to execute on a build idea is a deflating prospect because I won't even get to experience the full scope of my ascendancy without tremendous difficulty, and frustration.
I understand powerful items being gated behind these bosses, but ascendancy points should not fall into that same category.

The “Upcoming Changes” post that came out just recently stated that you'll take less damage, up to 35%, the closer you are to an enemy in Sekhema, but this is a band-aid fix at best. Honour needs to go, or be completely reworked, and the same with afflictions.
RNG to this debilitating degree should not dictate your ability to acquire ascendancy points, nor should ascendancy points be locked behind difficulty of this intensity.
As stated at the beginning of this post, in PoE 1 you get ascendancy points to take on pinnacle bosses, but in PoE 2 you take on pinnacle bosses to get ascendancy points.

Overall, it needs to be repeated that outside of these issues, I think GGG has for the most part established an excellent foundation from which to build an even more excellent game.
So, thank you, GGG. I truly am excited to see how PoE 2 continues to evolve.

Here's the kicker.

It's not fun. In fact in my opinion it's Lame. In poe1 the 2 leagues mechanics that i disabled right away were Ultimation and Sanctum

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Darny_Nashon#1779 wrote:

Here's the kicker.

It's not fun. In fact in my opinion it's Lame. In poe1 the 2 leagues mechanics that i disabled right away were Ultimation and Sanctum

But it could be fun, if they'd do it right. Get rid of the honour system, but make the mobs more difficult in return and have more room variety.

+1

Very well put.

Nicely said and clear.
I can't agree more.

I will also point out that the whole Slay-the-Spire roguelike mandatory Trials is not something I expected nor wanted in a ARPG. Especially that early during character progression.

It's nice to have some variety in endgame, and Trials could be a decent (if not fun) endgame activity. It shouldn't be mandatory right after ACT I while a lot of people are still learning and enjoying the great story building and character progression.

The whole relics shenanigan is also proof this is an endgame activity and not something you had to pause your main campaign to unlock.

"

C4Guy#0918 wrote:

"

Darny_Nashon#1779 wrote:

Here's the kicker.

It's not fun. In fact in my opinion it's Lame. In poe1 the 2 leagues mechanics that i disabled right away were Ultimation and Sanctum

But it could be fun, if they'd do it right. Get rid of the honour system, but make the mobs more difficult in return and have more room variety.

I agree: remove crap honour!!!!
We prefer even outrages difficulty than this system.

Sorry but no. Harder mobs aren't a thing. Should i make a short video of me doing sekhema.. lets say hourglass trial in ~10 secs with 50% more mob hp and 40% less dmg? yes its a thing. Oneshotting any boss outside the last (and even him) is a thing. To actually pose a challenge to players like me (and believe I'm nowhere near the top) the mobs would need to be so hard randoms would never get their ascendancy. never.

Honour is easy. I failed my first run but got 2 relics, increased my resistance and finished the second run to get ascendancy. then for the third ascendancy it took my another run and wipe at the third boss. But after that run i was honor resist capped. Which is actually that easy. And does not interfere with your build, its separate. And then everything but the last boss was freeloot. That guy took dps and a little bit of knowledge to beat. I still killed it on my own on the 4th run.

And yes, I'm purely lifebased, no ES, a smidge of armor and no eva or MoM.

Also, there is actually almost no RNG in Sekhema. The only times you need to take an affliction outside your choice is, when you path wrong or have an affliction denying information. These both cases can be also mitigated with relics.
And really, thats all about endgame anyway.
The only!!!! time you need to run sekhema you can actually beat without relics at all. So sorry, but in reality like all other guys here you want the loot of this content without actually investing time and knowledge into it. Because if you did even as as normal gamer 30 min clear runs are easy.

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tsunamikun#0433 wrote:

Sorry but no. Harder mobs aren't a thing. Should i make a short video of me doing sekhema.. lets say hourglass trial in ~10 secs with 50% more mob hp and 40% less dmg? yes its a thing. Oneshotting any boss outside the last (and even him) is a thing. To actually pose a challenge to players like me (and believe I'm nowhere near the top) the mobs would need to be so hard randoms would never get their ascendancy. never.

Honour is easy. I failed my first run but got 2 relics, increased my resistance and finished the second run to get ascendancy. then for the third ascendancy it took my another run and wipe at the third boss. But after that run i was honor resist capped. Which is actually that easy. And does not interfere with your build, its separate. And then everything but the last boss was freeloot. That guy took dps and a little bit of knowledge to beat. I still killed it on my own on the 4th run.

And yes, I'm purely lifebased, no ES, a smidge of armor and no eva or MoM.

Also, there is actually almost no RNG in Sekhema. The only times you need to take an affliction outside your choice is, when you path wrong or have an affliction denying information. These both cases can be also mitigated with relics.
And really, thats all about endgame anyway.
The only!!!! time you need to run sekhema you can actually beat without relics at all. So sorry, but in reality like all other guys here you want the loot of this content without actually investing time and knowledge into it. Because if you did even as as normal gamer 30 min clear runs are easy.

yeah also the boon are way stronger than the malus so ok you can complain about the 25% speed debuff but what about the 40% speed buff ? and you can get the boons, any one you wish consistently, with some cheap merchant relic while you avoid pretty much all malus with ease (unless extremly rare briked 3 node choice that mays happen once every 20/30 trial and i'm being generous)

"

tsunamikun#0433 wrote:

Sorry but no. Harder mobs aren't a thing. Should i make a short video of me doing sekhema.. lets say hourglass trial in ~10 secs with 50% more mob hp and 40% less dmg? yes its a thing. Oneshotting any boss outside the last (and even him) is a thing. To actually pose a challenge to players like me (and believe I'm nowhere near the top) the mobs would need to be so hard randoms would never get their ascendancy. never.

Honour is easy. I failed my first run but got 2 relics, increased my resistance and finished the second run to get ascendancy. then for the third ascendancy it took my another run and wipe at the third boss. But after that run i was honor resist capped. Which is actually that easy. And does not interfere with your build, its separate. And then everything but the last boss was freeloot. That guy took dps and a little bit of knowledge to beat. I still killed it on my own on the 4th run.

And yes, I'm purely lifebased, no ES, a smidge of armor and no eva or MoM.

Also, there is actually almost no RNG in Sekhema. The only times you need to take an affliction outside your choice is, when you path wrong or have an affliction denying information. These both cases can be also mitigated with relics.
And really, thats all about endgame anyway.
The only!!!! time you need to run sekhema you can actually beat without relics at all. So sorry, but in reality like all other guys here you want the loot of this content without actually investing time and knowledge into it. Because if you did even as as normal gamer 30 min clear runs are easy.

It was also my experience, on my first character with a self made build I died the first time only to the final boss, it was before they reduced the spawn of its volcanoes. The 2nd time I got it down.

3rd ascendancy I died to the last boss but a bit of relic gathering and crafting did the trick and I got it on 2dn or 3rd time.

4th ascendancy was something else, easy road to the final boss but lost due to a mix of bad selection on my part of affliction, the -40% dps and I wasn't expecting the boss to have such a big HP pool. Next re-run with better pathing and getting a relic with +damage to bosses it was an easy clear.

I'm not going to say it's my favorite content but Trial of the Sekhemas grew on me. While of course there is a part of rng it does reward knowledge and preparation and we have the tools to minimize the impact of the rng.

the fact the merchant appears at the end of each floor basically makes trial pretty free, I realise some players struggle probably because they don't just push through until they have 75% honour resist but its hard to overstate just how easy free access to the merchant makes a run.

By the end of floor 1 almost every run I will have mobs have 30% less life, 50% more damage, 15% less enemy action speed and/or 60% movement speed.

Any run where you have those is pretty free unless you are drastically unprepared it really is far easier than Sanctum in PoE1 and sanctum itself is pretty easy already.