Trials of Chaos: What if it was more like Super Smash TV with the Trial Master as the announcer ?

The other day I was farming the Trials of chaos for Soul cores and after a few runs I was feeling completely Jaded. The whole thing felt like a tedious chore. I did not get the same dopamine rush that I get from mapping and the only reason I was putting up with it was to get cores. I adore PoE 2 so far but Trials of Chaos are a low point.

Fast Forward to yesterday and someone in global chat was complaining about how boring they thought Trials of chaos was. And so in a moment on enlightenment I spewed in the chat "They should make the trials of Chaos more like Super Smash TV with the Trial master as the Announcer " To which I received a very enthousiastic response from folks who were obviously Familiar with the Cult Classic Arcade game Smash TV ( Super Smash TV on the SNES )



Smash TV Twin stick shooter. You participate in some devious Game show where contestants have to murder waves of enemies while collecting money and powerups. Once a room is cleared, move on to the next. Simple and effective but relentless and addictive.

If you do not know the game : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRys76HnA18&t=164s


Somehow I feel like the Trials of Chaos are begging to be something similar. A relentless dopamine fest with Power ups, points, prizes and a roaring crowd that cheers or boos. The trialmaster of course is presiding over the event as the ever witty and cynical announcer. Daresso's Dream in PoE 1 had a bit of that vibe.

That whole concept is nothing new but it is not wrong to use a good recipe and make a good implementation of it. At least one other arpg did something similar. I am talking about the Crucible in Grim dawn. I played the Crucible quite a lot and it is very fun; good loot and you get good rewards for taking risks, complete with an announcer (albeit a sporadic one), a point system and game modifiers. Ultimately it feels a bit repetivive as there is not much to it beside kill stuff as fast as possible but in the right dose it is a lot of fun.



When I play the Trials of Chaos there are things nagging at me and I feel like most of them could be fixed with that kind of "Arcade game show setup"

-Too much walking : Between the trial rooms it is especially bad. Just open up a portal or something and send me right into the action instead of having me walk 30 seconds in corridors. Looking for the last missing monsters in the first room is also not fun and very anticlimatic.

-Bad rewards/predictible rewards: The corrupted items are almost universally vendor trash, you only go there for your ascendency and Soul cores. There are no juicy surprises or anticipation, no dopamine. What if instead you had to put on a show and scored points for feats of badassery in the various games ? You can then use these points in between rooms to purchase power ups or keep them until the end of the run where you can trade them for prizes, kind of like ritual points.

-Depressing difficulty curve: It is always the same: Keep piling up difficulty modifiers. The only thing to look forward to is for the RNG to not force you into run bricking choices. Maybe instead have some good or bad modifiers, or trade offs. Make the run more roguelite with lots of uniques modifier piling up, but not only bad mods. Add powers ups, buffs, things that change the rules or layout. Trials of Sekhemas is already doing this to an extent.

-Repetitive : I understand PoE 2 is early access and maybe improvements are already planned for the Trials of Chaos, but as it is, every runs feel more or less the same. The little bit of RNG in the boss order and types of trials does next to nothing to alleviate this. In the end I also tend to always take the same modifiers as I know how to deal with them. Some I always avoid. The whole concept of "trials" should lend itself to a lot of creativity and variety. I feel like this is how it was intended but at the same time the Current implementation feels stuck. Like a legacy of the POE 1 system where you have 10 rounds, one gift and one nasty mod each round and that's it. Just make the whole thing a crazy unpredictible (but not unfair) adventure, put the Chaos back into the trials of Chaos !

lol this is a fantastic idea. It absolutely loved that game and it's a crime that it has never been remade or reimagined.