Ultimatum feels dated and obsolete, and needs to be brought up to modern POE's design standards

Ultimatum is in a terrible state, and the main reason for this is that it hasn't changed in any way since it introduction nearly 3 years ago. The teams design skills have improved so much that bringing it back unchanged has really digressed the game. At the time it was unique and challenging, but it feels dated and wrong.

Lackluster Rewards that are propped up by Challenges:
- Monster XP is awful Scarabs help with this, but we shouldn't need scarabs and even with them, the mobs give less than normal amounts of XP.

- Monsters don't drop items. This makes Ultimatum not interact with the league mechanic in any meaningful way. It has anti-synergy with the main and most exciting part of this league.

- Ultimatum can be a decent way to make currency but it's just artificially inflated. Catalyst prices are very high and Inscribed ultimatums are in high demand. But this is a consequence of very few people wanting to interact with mechanic, thus very low supply. Inscribes Ultimatums are also needed in bulk for challenges (5 to sell to vendor, and 10 to run).


Difficulty is way off
- The modifiers are all the same as 3 years ago, this is very sad to see. The design team could do so much more now with their 3 extra years of experience and proven track record with recent leagues.

- Ultimatum League was during a time before the great defensive nerf, before the enemy HP increase, and before the Archnemesis Rare monster rework. All these stacked together make it an extremely dangerous mechanic with LOTS of completely unavoidable mechanics and rewards/xp that do not even come close to matching it level of danger.

The Trialmaster is FAR TOO RARE:
- Since Ultimatum, boss encounters have become predictable, farmable, and reliable. Most are also tradeable. The Trialmaster used to be tradeable, but now isn't. It is also absurdly rare. The boss has become LESS ACCESIBLE since the reintroduction of Ultimatum, which is baffling and honestly kinda dumb.

Instead of the Trialmaster randomly appearing during Round 10, the Round 10 reward should be The Tower of Ordeals Inscribed Ultimatum.


There is no meaningful agency when interacting with the mechanic:
- No sextants to modify Ultimatum in any way
- Can't reroll modifiers/rewards
- can't banish modifiers
- Can't get more modifiers slots to choose from
- No way to make modifiers less impactful/easier at the cost of Atlas points
- No way to block certain types of Ultimatums in the Altas Tree, only make some slightly less common
- No real choice in rewards given, just a few nodes that make some types slightly more common.

In Conclusion, the mechanic is too hard, gives too few rewards, and has no meaningful ways to alter how to you interact with it.

Ultimatum is currently in a state of rose-tinted nostalgia and needs to be brought up to the standards of modern POE.

you know Harvest and ritual released before that , right?

Also, Act 1 is 10 years ago.

3 years is not that old for most of the stuff of POE 1

Agree especially on the risk vs reward part. I quit the mechanic early on because the rewards were pathetic for the risk I had to take every time. I switched to Ritual, which in comparison has zero risk (I never died to one) and much better rewards too, with frequent mortal fragments, which are all valuable, unlike catalysts.

I am currently trying out Ultimatum, I do like the mechanic for the most part. It can be challenging but the rewards are just... so different from the league itself.

I invested into increased chance of uniques, I haven't seen 1 since allocating that node. Ummm what....?

90% of the time I see rare items. Ultimatum is an endgame mechanic, not a story one. If you're going to offer rares as a way to entice me to risk it all it needs to be something good. A random corruption on a terrible base with bad rolls is so pointless when we have access to Ember/Ichor currency to give mods to rares. If this was ruthless, I'd understand but normal or even SSF... not very good at all.

In Ultimatum, you'd get offered weapons and armor with 5-6 links. More uniques with corruptions are fine but rares are just meh.

Hell maybe you offer 3 rewards to choose from... pick reward, pick mod and then go. I think the mechanic is largely okay it's just not very rewarding even if you invest into compared to other mechanics.

Compared to league version, they've intentionally upped threat of traps and ground hazards, while simultaneously reducing amount of monsters, which is why new ultimatum sucks compared to ritual if you are a glass cannon with aggressive recovery (leech, life on hit and such).

You cannot destroy or suppress those hazards, and have to facetank it all without monsters around, so even refilling flasks may be an issue. I guess it is good having a niche mechanic specifically for regen tanks with little dps, if the rewards weren't trash at the same time. Double corruption is the only nice reward, and as it is, I won't touch this new ultimatum even for the trialmaster voice lines :)