Suggestions on how to improve Beyond.

I would like to express my opinion which I believe could provide good ground for constructive improvement. I sincerely hope my post gets read, and helps us work this thing out!
(this post also on reddit)

Let's examine some possibilities:

1. Beyond mechanic is meant to PUNISH you (worst case?)

Right now killing Beyond mobs and bosses them seems like the game is PUNISHING you for stacking a portal and spawning them. Was that the intended mechanic? I don't understand why you'd do that. Are we supposed to AVOID opening these portals and spread the mobs all the time? If so, then it's been successfully implemented alright, but I think (and I don't think I'm alone in this) that this is a very poor idea to begin with.

SOLUTION: Say no to this idea, it's been poorly received and deservedly so.

2. Beyond mechanic is meant to REWARD you (best case!)

OK, great! This is the most sensible scenario I think, because it sounds the most fun. High risk high reward, right? Fantastic.
Let's look at those clockwork boxes things - everyone loves them. They spawn a huge pack upon you, you rip through it, you get mad loot, the whole screen is in covered in items, and boxes drop like 10 skill gems, bunch of orbs, etc, as a reward. WOW! Excellent. You really rip through these mobs, too, they're not more difficult that normal ones, but rewards are great because of the sudden spawn.
Keeping this success in mind, let's talk beyond pack. It spawns out of nowhere with no way to see them (practically) come at you swinging with mad auras, improportionate damage, and take like 4 TIMES LONGER to kill with HIGHER risk of dying at all times.
What's the reward? Almost nothing, we can all agree. Bottom line: we'd rather skip them cause we can find similar rewards in the next blue pack around the corner, let alone something like a clockwork box, or, oh my god, a rogue exile which showers me with rares for proportionate effort! I feel lucky when I find that guy! Fun fight, lots of loot, no drag, no slag, no instagib. Mmm!

SOLUTION: If pack has 4 times the HP, 4 times the damage, 16 times (imaginary math :D) the risk attached to it, can you guess what rewards it must bring? Yeah, BIG rewards. Special loot, huge drops, massive XP, insane gems, orbs! Bring it! Are proportionate rewards feasible? Should they drop 16 times (or whatever big number :D) the loot? I think that's overkill, maybe tune them down to twice the damage, twice the exp, twice+ the loot. On bosses, three times, three times exp, n+ times the loot, etc. This brings everything in balance, it will reward us all for stacking the portals and speed up the gameplay while adding risks and fun!

3. Beyond mechanic is not supposed to disrupt the gameplay, but rater be smooth and flowing. It nether rewards nor punishes(sounds boring at first, but it can be great, hear me out!)

OK, to start with, obviously it doesn't work right now as intended, so it needs a fix.

SOLUTION: Instead of beyond packs that are OP, spawn normal packs of mobs (they can look like beyond mobs if you insist)! Give it some thought! Look: you find a blue pack, murder it, loot. See another around the corner, pull them back a little maybe, stack portals, kill em, open a portal, get a THIRD pack (in line with the rest in terms of strength, maybe 10-20% stronger with similar bonus to loot), kill them, loot. That's the reward! The third pack. You don't have to run looking for it, it's nothing out of ordinary, it just speeds your gameplay up by the time you need to quicksilver to another pack. Isn't that great? Then you find another pack maybe, bring it to the same portal, stack, get another pack, maybe a boss (that's in line with the CURVE, not some insane regen (1.2b fixed? Ty!), extra fast, chaos degen x4 ARBITRARY beast). I think it would be very fun. Maybe not too new of an idea, but so what? Fun things don't need to be new, they just need to be implemented well.

Conclusion: So there we go, a few of my ideas. I really hope someone reads this and gives this some thought. PoE is in a great place right now, so let's all come together and help GGG fix our league to make it more fun and attract even more people to play this great game! It's a shame to see a HC league bleeding because of its namesake mechanic.


TL;DR dude ffs
OMG beyond is annoying amirite? That hp/dmg WTF? We just want to SKIP them, god. Who has time to kill that shit for no reward? What fun is that? My post has some ideas on how to fix this.

Thanks for reading! :)

PS: I hated invasion bosses lot more than this league! thanks for that, really :) (no sarcasm)
PSS: make portals more visible pls :)
PSSS: GGG, don't be afraid to make big changes to the league post-launch! I think it's much better to fix mistakes than drag them on, even if that means radical change.

+1, I agree with everything you said here.

The worst thing with beyond is something most people dont even experience yet. Just wait until you all hit mercieless and get owned by chaos damage from those demons like crazy. Those Hasted guys chase you so crazy fast - impossible to kite or escape without TP'ing out or logging out. If you try to fight their crazy defense you get wrecked by chaos degen damage.

I remember a time where chaos damage on enemies used to be a rare but dangerous thing (as intended). But right now you face it in every second pack of those shitmobs. And it is stupid design to force people to max out chaos resistance for the start of mercieless (nearly impossible task).

I agree with the OP.

There's one more suggestion I'd like to add ...

Require five or six small red portals in close proximity before a spawn comes out, rather than four.

Invasion boss packs showed up once per zone. Exiles showed up at a spawn rate of less than once per zone, on anarchy. Beyond has by far the highest rate of unusual spawns and the spawn rate is way, way too high for me to believe that any more than a very small number of players will still be enjoying the "Beyond" mechanic 88 days from now.

My suggestin to fix Beyond would be to make the portal spawning optional via a macguffin a player keeps in his inventory. No magic thing? No portal spawn.

Short of that, make only special mobs spred-out over the maps able to spawn the portals, and a player would have to relly gather them together.

I hate the curent mechanic. It's awful.

Strongboxes really hit the spot with how the mechanic works.
You get a rather big reward even though the monsters arent that much harder.
Some strongboxes are much harder than others, but you can choose to avoid them.
You have control over the process, because you can choose WHEN to open the strongbox.

With beyond demons, the exact opposite is true.
You shoot an aoe attack into a room full of monsters, beyond demons spawn on top of you and immediately try to instagib you. Therefore we are looking at lack of proper control over the process.
The demons are much harder and take way longer to kill than regular mobs, but the reward is non existant.

I was looking forward to beyond demons, but right now we are trying to avoid creating beyond portals because the monsters spawned are absurd and the reward is non existant.
GGG completely missed the mark with beyond demons. I dont think im the only one that is trying to avoid creating the portals, which speaks volumes about how unrewarding and frustrating they are.

They either need to increase the reward quite significantly (so that all the pain of killing them is worth the time)(and im not just talking about loot here, experience aswell), or they need to tone them down to be in line with other mobs in the area.

"

My suggestin to fix Beyond would be to make the portal spawning optional via a macguffin a player keeps in his inventory. No magic thing? No portal spawn.

"

There's one more suggestion I'd like to add ...

Require five or six small red portals in close proximity before a spawn comes out, rather than four.

Both of those things would be a step foward, but it would leave the key problem of the mechanic not being any fun for the majority of players unresolved. But a small step is still better than no movement, so I agree with any proposition to move in that direction.

"

I was looking forward to beyond demons, but right now we are trying to avoid creating beyond portals because the monsters spawned are absurd and the reward is non existant.
GGG completely missed the mark with beyond demons. I dont think im the only one that is trying to avoid creating the portals, which speaks volumes about how unrewarding and frustrating they are.

This is exactly how I feel about it too! Glad we agree!
I think in a way, all we really need to say is that the reaction to spawning a beyond pack for most players is "ahh shit that again", instead of "ohh yeah! here we go!". This speaks volumes indeed, if you'd rather not spawn them at all, and if by accident do, just skip them. That is all we need to say, that is all the developers need to see to understand change is due, and the sooner the better.

Also, there was an idea I read somewhere on the forum earlier that we must have one week races with the rules of new leagues before the those leagues start. This way we can give feedback on where the devs screw it up, and they can fix it before the leagues hit, or at least know that we'll hate it if they don't. Otherwise they keep coming up with arbitrary messed up leagues that end up making people wish those new ideas never came to be in the first place.

Lastly, let's remember that the only purpose of being punished in a game, is to ENJOY the punishment. I think some forget that sometimes, especially in reference to "hardcore" and "unforgiving Wraeclast". Frustration, artificial difficulty, bad design, or lack of testing never add anything positive to the gameplay.

"

elkforce wrote:

"

My suggestin to fix Beyond would be to make the portal spawning optional via a macguffin a player keeps in his inventory. No magic thing? No portal spawn.

"

There's one more suggestion I'd like to add ...

Require five or six small red portals in close proximity before a spawn comes out, rather than four.

Both of those things would be a step foward, but it would leave the key problem of the mechanic not being any fun for the majority of players unresolved. But a small step is still better than no movement, so I agree with any proposition to move in that direction.

"

I was looking forward to beyond demons, but right now we are trying to avoid creating beyond portals because the monsters spawned are absurd and the reward is non existant.
GGG completely missed the mark with beyond demons. I dont think im the only one that is trying to avoid creating the portals, which speaks volumes about how unrewarding and frustrating they are.

This is exactly how I feel about it too! Glad we agree!
I think in a way, all we really need to say is that the reaction to spawning a beyond pack for most players is "ahh shit that again", instead of "ohh yeah! here we go!".

Thats exactly my problem with beyond demons.
When i see strongboxes or corrupted areas i have a "hell yeah" moment.
With beyond demons, just as you describe, its a "not that shit again, now ill have to skip another pack" moment and it summarizes very well how i feel about beyond demons.

I don't think one should compare softcore challenge leagues with hardcore challenge leagues.

Looking at hardcore challenge leagues we have:
Onslaught (+20% bonus to move speed and attack/cast speed)
Nemesis (Rare monster had one additional mod)
Invasion (Invading monsters with a boss)

If I recall correctly none of those leagues offered increased drops and their main purpose was to "kill" players. Beyond seems quite similar.

"

almostdead wrote:

I don't think one should compare softcore challenge leagues with hardcore challenge leagues.

Looking at hardcore challenge leagues we have:
Onslaught (+20% bonus to move speed and attack/cast speed)
Nemesis (Rare monster had one additional mod)
Invasion (Invading monsters with a boss)

If I recall correctly none of those leagues offered increased drops and their main purpose was to "kill" players. Beyond seems quite similar.

Right! I see your point.

But I think an important thing to weigh would be the enjoyment of the game by players. The biggest problem isn't that mobs spawn with x4 stats, that they chaos damage, that they have this, that they have that. It's that the majority of hardcore players don't seem to really ENJOY the way it works.
Would you be annoyed by 20% movespeed/cast speed? Not likely. It gave pace, it gave danger, it gave tension. Good design.
Would extra mod annoy you? No, again, you didn't log out at every rare with words "god fuck this" under your breath. You didn't skip anything, it gave danger, it gave new possibilities to die in LEGIT ways. Good design.
Let's not talk invasion, it was trash, all agree. You just had to have the script ready to log out at instagib out of the curve mobs or skip them. Bad design. Really bad.
Here we skip and logout as well, bad design again.
It's not the numbers per se that are the issue, it's the impact they make on the player. Which I think comes down to design and application.
So I disagree that beyond is "similar". It is similar to invasion, in that it sucks and ENCOURAGES us to make unhardcorelike and unsportmanlike decisions, you know what I mean? Skip or logout, instead of plan, quickly look at mob mods, or be x% more alert at all times.

God I wish we had those first two back, or one in line with them! I'm sure we'd have almost no negative feedback if we just played Nemesis or Onslaught again. Or a combo of both!

I kinda feel bad cause I think it may come across like I'm just all negativity with no upside. I wanna go on the record saying I really love the game and enjoy it very much, that's really why I spend my time trying to maybe give my 50 cents in hopes my input may make the already best ARPG on the market even better :) So I'm fighting for something I love.