3.20 Balance Manifesto: Eldritch Altars

Noicee

Not surprised to see altars getting nerfed. Although I'm a bit disappointed, I'm happy it's not nearly as heavy-handed as I feared. It probably slows down my mid-league divine grind a bit, but it will be nice to not feel like I need both altar notables to be efficient.

I like that Maven's influence is being improved. My initial impression is that running Eldritch altars will be a more consistent source of rewards while Maven influence is the more high-variance (ie. fun) approach. I imagine the drop rate will be pretty low (and many awakened gems are not worth much) but a lucky multistrike or similar gem could kickstart my build/budget in a huge way.

Overall, I continue to be impressed with the nuanced nature of these changes and the explicit explanation of their intended effects. Probably the natural result of having multiple manifestos, but getting more information on the reasons for each change helps 'the feels' leading up to this patch a lot, at least for me. Kudos to you guys for continuing to evolve your approach to communication.

But we still have to read and click tiny altar text while mapping?

These are good changes and the stacking keystones was always weird to me but it's good that it now matches the theme. I think a great change to make it so Maven comes into line would be so that the Maven witnessed bosses could also drop with a filled set of her invitations for fragment farms. Most people only want to to 2-5 maps a league on farm and I think this would make it so she is even more of a competitive pick. Leagues looking good so far Hereshopin

With 3.17 GGG established a new good way of farming and killing stuff that was hard but also rewarding and fun, the new Altar System, which many of us relied on.

After introducing Altars 3 leagues ago or 9 MONTHS(!!!) ago GGG now thinks they are "too rewarding"? Since you (GGG) point it out JUST NOW that they are "too rewarding" how "too rewarding" can they really be? IF Altars are really "too rewarding" then why didn't you nerf them into the ground 2 leagues ago with 3.18?

You didn't. Your reasoning that Altars are too rewarding is fallacious and you would have gutted them leagues ago. If it was a big deal you would NOT have done nothing for the last 2 leagues doing nothing.

There aren't many good (whatever this means) and fun systems left in PoE. In short time if you continue your fallacious reasoning you will kill your game (it's already half dead tbh).

I don't know what kind of "Vision" you have GGG but if fallacious reasoning and taking stuff and fun away from your game is part of it then keep it up and see how many players will be left when your so called "Vision" finally kicks in.

Maven let's go!Q

Even if this is small nerf (GGG's own words), it is still a nerf. Even small nerf is bad when the game is not rewarding enough or risk vs reward ratio is broken.

One wish for influence pack changes is GGG removing those delayed spawns of Eater of Worlds packs. Searing Exarch does not have any packs with delayed spawn, which makes it a lot smoother to map under his influence.

The Rusted scarab to the core drop pool and the Added incentive to run Maven witnessed maps with the Posibility of Woke gems drops are nice bonuses.
As well as the scarab 3:1 trade up is huge!

But the overall altar rework seems like such a huge nerf and hit to people like me that just like to passivly spam alch and go speed maps for my currency pr. hour.

When reducing the Pack size of Influenced monsters per map from a steady 60 to a 20-60 buffer, you should buff the loot, in mind of the other nerf to packsize but insted you also took away from that spot.

Secondly i hope that the Ichor/Ember market isnt gonna be totally ruined next league, and the duplicate and extra chance for embers from the wrath of the cosmos keystone isnt removed.
Influenced implicits give so many builds a big part of their identity, so by hitting the market to hard, it would delay those big time or remove the identity as a whole for the larger orb of conflict necessary implicits.


Last but not least, i would love for GGG to insted first buff the Maven map influence and the incentive to run this and then take the other influences down for being to rewarding.

Why dont just buff one up, so its just as good as the other ones? You keep doing the same with skills and i hate it and i know many big streamers feel the same way.

Like Steelmage said at some part during the Mayhem event recently, that he feels that seismic is now in a good spot, after it took the huge nerf hit it took. Its still good yes - but insted of further nerfing it into the ground, take some of the other underused skills and buff them up to that level to make more of an incentive to play those, and so theyre just as fun.

Dont take fun away from something, to make other stuff seem less boring. Make the other stuff fun as well. No one want lack of fun and enjoyment.

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Why is everyone going crazy because of the announced nerfs to Altars? I know the last thing we need right now is even more nerfs to the game but we don't even have patch notes yet and the archnem manifesto looked really promising (did people forget about that?). Just be a little bit more patient and wait till patch notes to see how 3.20 is actually going to be :)