The only Interesting thing about the update for me is the new boss and new uniques. I guess I expected more?
5 months of development time and we only get one boss and a dodge roll that isn’t necessary at all for gameplay? I was expecting at least three similar to Maven, Searing Exarch, etc. (just as examples not actually identical) that lead you up to the final big boy. Don’t get me wrong I’m excited and will be playing but it feels like dev time is spent doing non priority things and making more progress bars via factions when what the game really lacks is actual content to run.
Maybe I’m being too critical and will be surprised but I almost guarantee this cycle will feel and play exactly the same as last cycle with the exception of using evade to get around. Let me know what yall think.
EDIT: Be careful scrolling down. A full blown war in the comments… XD I want to say that the statement I made was based solely on the fact that we weren’t getting any actual seasonal content and this updates sole purpose was to make pinnacle boss content. THAT is what I am underwhelmed with. I am not saying EHG is bad and I know they are a smaller team that mostly works remote so I don’t expect crazy content. It just didn’t really hit a home run with me. I am excited for the new cycle and this is by far the best ARPG and my personal favorite game of the last 5 years.
I am very confused about the direction of this game. Don’t they want to get money from cosmetics? Why not make it available for offline players to purchase and use? I love the loot filter system and being able to purchase stashes. But when I look back at many of the builds that players have made, I find that they are forced to use very similar items and I don’t see anyone using set items. This means that the game is having issues with item variety and balance. Including servers that may crash at the start of the season. Don’t get me wrong, I love this game, and I’d love to see it rise to the top. But the way I see it, if 1.1 doesn’t succeed in bringing players back that will put the game in a dire situation.
I would wait till next week to complain about items. From what I’ve read there will be a lot of changes to items that could fix useless set items. I was mostly speaking on new content for the game.
I think our definitions of bosses might differ. From what I read Harbingers aren’t actual enclosed bosses? More like a mini boss similar to the scientist that drops experimental items. I hope I’m wrong.
They have also stated that harbingers will gain abilities from a timeline’s boss, so I guess it depends on whether you consider the monoliths’ final bosses to be a “boss” or not.
If they have their own instanced arena and are a proper fight with their own moveset for sure I would consider them a boss. The wording on it makes them sound like they will randomly be placed into a monolith. Also want to point out that the line you mentioned “Abilities from a timelines boss” is worrying because it implies they didn’t have the resources or make time to design them with a unique moveset. So while “10 bosses” looks good on paper, it looks like it will be the same “boss” 10 times with maybe a different colored skin and a copy pasted move from an existing asset. Which is even lazier than just making three fully fleshed out pinnacle bosses.
I am not underwhelmed, but I think we’re a little early still to be expecting pure seasonal additions. There are still so many core features to be added/adjusted. Balance was all over the place in 1.0 and they’re trying to rein that in. I consider this more important than the addition of a few bosses and the dodge roll.
Balancing classes like Forge Guard or Spellblade could open up dozens of hours. But I guess this is type-dependant, so let’s start a short survey here regarding your player-type. Anyone else feel free to answer those as well:
how many chars do you play in a cycle?
will you start fresh or tackle the new content with an existing char?
do you always play the same type of character?
at which point do you consider a character done (answer could be charlvl X or corruption lvl Y, maybe pinnacle boss beaten, but feel free to provide your own definition)
Depending on those answers, your playtime for 1.1 could range from 6 to 600+ hours
It should be noted, however, that with the nemesis bosses and the pinnacle boss comes along a whole new faction. We don’t know yet the details of it, but it’s more than just “kill these bosses 10 times and you get the uber fight”.
I really do think people under-estimate the importance of this. They now have all classes in play and ‘most’ skills. This will allow them to begin strategically adjusting balance which will make everything about each coming season better because more and more choices will be relevant which means more and more build applications and a healthier environment all around.
Don’t worry about me, I’m fine with those additions. But I suppose, I could just take one existing character and kill the pinnacle boss within 6 hours. A certain type of player would feel completed at that point. I am not that type of player.
This makes me think, how and how hard things will get nerfed. I think, Explosive Trap will get the axe as it’s way too good at triggering other skills - maybe something like a 10% chance to trigger instead of always.
Ward in general is supposed to come down to the levels of health as per Mike’s latest stream, so that will be funny.
But despie that, characters with mostly legendaries will probably just waltz over the pinnacle boss and that’s how it should be.
True, but you do have a new faction to rank up and that will likely take more than 6h.
Likewise, there will be many changes to CoF/MG, including new extra ranks past level 10, if I understood Mike correctly.
We should know soon when they release the next blog post.
No need to wait, just visit the Harbingers of Ruin page and you’ll see this (it also has an image showing each faction with 12 ranks):
Item faction updates
Circle of Fortune and the Merchant’s Guild have not only received updates to rewards, smoother progression and balance - but two new ranks for each faction for you to ascend to without additional grind. Participate in Trade and complete Prophecies to rank up and receive your faction’s rewards.
I think maybe that’s where I saw that and Mike didn’t even say anything about that. I just had the feeling of having heard/read something about that. Thanks.
Did you watch the 1.1 Trailer?
You can see a few Harbinger fights in the boss arenas of the regular Monolith bosses.
You can also see them using copied or slightly adapted versions of Monolith bosses.
But you can also see a couple of new unique attacks.
My first impression was a amalgination fight with 50/50 new and existing mechanics
You seem to think what you’re getting after 5 months of development isn’t good enough, but the examples of what you’re expecting (Maven, Searing Exarch) were endgame bosses added in 2021 and 2022 respectively, which is to say 9 years after POE’s 1.0 release.
Why are you expecting similar content in less than 5 months after LE’s 1.0 release?
In a similar fashion, POE’s campaign wasn’t finished until 2017. Four years after POE’s 1.0 release. Why are you expecting it done in LE after 5 months?
