3.20 Balance Manifesto: Eldritch Altars

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but related to the choice of what type of influence you run on your maps, we are adding a chance for Maven-witnessed Map Bosses to drop an Awakened Gem

well that's a reason to run maven witness

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We are making a few numerical changes to Altar rewards so that choices that affect Boss Drops or Influenced Monster Drops are more comparably valuable, though Boss Drop rewards will be slightly better on average than Eldritch Minion rewards.

this is important: reason people are rushing to bosses isn't necessarily because they want to (though some are just farming guardians and whatever), it's because the boss choice altars were absolute hot garbage compared to minion ones

1. "too rewarding" Isn't that the whole point of the game? engage with optional mechanics for more rewards?
2. How about instance-pausing for the altars like we had for ultimatum so we have time to read? Even better an options on the altars so people can pick pause or no pause. (pause set by default obviously) Which would give both crowd a way to play how they want.

More options. Give options to the playerbase so everyone can pick his poison.
This whole year could be resumed in : Not giving options, forcing everything no matter what. Opt-in was always in the design now it's barely remembered.

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GreatGreed wrote:

I know that this may be crazy, but I think this moves this way for PoE2:
- nerf most basic mechanics and focus on low loot + poor crafting options
- adding a pack to increase the drop rate/exp to the shop
- adding "surprise packs" with random rewards to the shop
- adding "Old good fashion Harvest" or "More crafting options" into the store
- transform the game into P2W game
- if no pay - farm ~ 40-60 hours to farm t10 maps (if you are lucky enough)

I know that this may sound weird, but it rly looks like so. Previously the "Vision" was to make the game fun and make a character upgrade more visible. But for now, when all this "New Vision" and nerfs, I think that this may be the new "Genshin" because it looks logical. I rly want to believe that I'm terribly wrong nut to many nerfs with the "logical" solution

Actually, if D4 flop really hard, I wouldn't be surprised if those things are added to the game.

Sounds like good changes, even if its a nerf it kind off makes sense.

Also might be worth farming maven witness again.

Knowing GGG it we will be forced to run Heist and Expedition if we want any loot.
Why not buff other mechanics? Like the Blue Man group which was basically removed from the game by EX/Div swap?

So I don't think the team at GGG quite understand why players rushed the bosses. The boss options are more or less comparable.

The reason for rushing is that from then on you are only offered the two remaining reward types and stacking the same choice at every alter makes for cumulative improvements to the rewards and thus the rewards so much better.

Boss rushing will still exist. Three choices at each altar would achieve what they say they want but the labels would be hard to position to be readable.

GGG, we don't have time to read the altars when mapping. It was hard enough to interact with the mirror of kalandra mechanic for 2 seconds without dying to some overpowered AN rare.

Maybe a solution could be to have the altar selections as part of the map activation process. Load your map, scarabs and frags and hit the activate button. Before entering the map you would get select your altar choices and their modifications. If a map randomly generated four altars then you would have to read and select the four choices one at a time. When you are in the map all you have to do is click on the altar and keep mapping and the altar modifications would follow the order of your selections you made before entering the map. This type of mechanic would also allow you to prepare for the encounter before entering the map. This would take more time when activating a map but it would save a lot of time and hassle when you are actually in the map.

And a mechanic like this would open up other possibilities like currency that would allow you to reroll an altar choice. You could also add to the atlas skill tree the ability to make all your atlar choices either boss or minion or at least increase the chance of either option.

A mechanic like this would also open up a lot of strategy in how people approach maps. If your first altar option is an amazing boss modification then you would probably select it and then stack modifications on the boss and then making sure to activate all the altars before killing the boss.

Instead of viewing the act of rushing a boss as a negative you should really consider taking that idea and expanding on it. I just scratched the surface of what is possible but it could literally change how every player runs every map and would make each map a more unique experience.

This is one of those cases where the most efficient and rewarding gameplay strategy undermines the expected gameplay loop and encourages players to do things that aren't really fun.


So you're deciding what's fun or not?
Buff things instead of nerfing, it encourages diversity

Altars are an easy way to get yourself killed and extremely rewarding due to this. They're also fun.
Heist is extremely easy and not fun.
You nerf altars, but not heist?
Do you hate fun?
Do you hate players getting rewarded?
Is this live service trash where I need to open the cash shop and drop money if I want to feel "rewarded" in your game?

Stop nerfing rewards, this game is already obscenely unrewarding to play in general since Kalandra League..

If you're balancing around trade, well, stop doing that. No one cares about trade. An extreme minority trade, the majority only play on trade league so they can trade with their friends and play with their friends. They don't actually interact with the economy.

Nerf everything until nothing can be found. No loot=no problem... Smart