Hey everybody,



I just want to share my thoughts on Ascendancy and the Perandus Hardcore league. I’m going to try to be as objective as I can, but ultimately it does come down to a lot of personal likes and dislikes, so I apologize if I assert too much personal taste into what I have to say.



I’m going to break this down into 4 categories; good and bad about Ascendancy and good and bad about the league.



Good – Ascendancy



1) Ascendancy classes are fantastic. They strike a good balance between being open enough to get crazy, but also grounded enough to where they have very serious decisions to make per class. I love the fact that you can create truly unique characters in a game that already boasts about its build variety.



2) The Labyrinth provides a unique challenge not seen anywhere else in Path of Exile, nor other ARPGs for that matter. It’s unrelenting, it’s brutal, it’s as long as an act if you want to explore. It’s a substantial amount of content that is there to provide an alternate end game approach as well as a way to optimize items in a unique way.



3) Enchants are another welcomed edition, Path of Exile is good about giving player’s power in a unique way, rather than just releasing uniques with 20% more stats, we get mechanical ways to update gear that affects every league, not just temporary leagues. This offers more gearing choices as well as more real decisions you have to make if you want something that upgrades your skills but is less than optimal for your character.



4) Izaro fight is a unique encounter that has a nice approach. You fight him 3 times within the labyrinth under different conditions. This makes the fight more interesting every time, as well as a rush when you finally defeat him at the end. More to this, you can find items within the labyrinth to reduce his power. It’s cool to see a more dynamic boss; bosses in Path of Exile have been getting better and better, more mechanically driven and easily make the game shine. This is no exception.



5) Labyrinth being unique per day is another thing I would praise. It promotes teamwork of players to learn from each other and also helps them farm the labyrinth over and over while still maintaining enough difference between runs not to be the same thing. It’s great seeing a community help each other through difficulty content.



6) Trading. I can’t begin to say thank you enough for these improvements. Being able to right click items to sell them is great and will make the market more approachable. It feels more available than ever to be able to find gear upgrades and buy them at a good price. Not to mention it’s fast…like really fast, you can just right click, set buyout and continue on playing the game as opposed to waiting for a program to load all tabs and slowly set buyouts. This is all without mentioning the improved API which makes the item posting instant, it’s a huge boon to the game and my favorite addition.



7) The art and music will be collected into one, but I just wanted to say they are fantastic. I feel even those who don’t like the new content would have a hard time picking apart both of these fantastic additions. The aesthetics of the labyrinth and sound design make it come together like Path has never seen. You’ve hired very talented people and I’m glad they’re working on such a wonderful game.



Bad – Ascendancy



1) Classes being gated behind the labyrinth is not a good idea, with how drastically different it is from the regular game. Anyone who doesn’t like the labyrinth is going to hate that they need to go through it to get mandatory class points. This is especially jarring when the current last boss Malachai, doesn’t even give a reward upon completion.



2) The new things the labyrinth provides is a double-edged sword and one that will split the community up. Because it’s as different as it is, some people hate it, and others will love it. This creates a negative energy between the two groups, and hurts player retention that love Path of Exile for being a more standard ARPG.



3) On top of this, the labyrinth isn’t very rewarding. Considering it’s supposed to be an alternative to end game, it gives out too much challenge for what it gives you. It rewards you in a more direct and unique way, but not a consistent one, as well as one that takes a lot of time. This hurts the above positive about trading, as if you’re in a labyrinth and you need to make a sale…you need to choose between the two, there is no middle ground.



4) Enchants are varied and great but too hard to get the ones you’ll want. The statistically probability of you ever finding one that will benefit you is so against you that it would be easy for anyone to get upset after spending any amount of time in the labyrinth.



5) Izaro fight is too strong for the suggested level. I would be very surprise to see anyone be able to actually complete the normal labyrinth at level 35. He has far too much hp, making the fight range from 7 – 10 minutes as well as mechanics that selectively difficult to counter.



a. A popular one is when gains charges and will eventually be able to kill you in one shot. This is great on paper because you touch the poles around his arena to take the charges away. However, if the fight is taking too long and you’ve already used all of them, you’re GOING to die, no matter what. What became a fair fight just turned into a hopeful DPS race, which is not healthy game design.



b. Traps. Seriously, fighting him with traps that do PERCENT health and he has the ability to teleport you if you’re within range of him is insane. The game has never been able to hold a melee player’s hand, it’s just the opposite in fact, but this makes their viability even lower than it has been. If your movement skill isn’t fast enough when you get teleported you’re probably going to die. This is cheap and only works against the player.



6) Labyrinth ranging in difficulty per day is a very real issue. Some days your progress will be blocked off because the random seed decided that the traps are against your character. This will block your progress towards ascension as well as fun if you wanted to labyrinth runs. This concept is also a double-edged sword.



a. Movement skills are also very hit or miss. Lightning warp is probably the safest and best one to use, while Flame Dash can get you killed due to its limited charge usage. This creates a big gap in how a character can proceed with the labyrinth.



7) Optimization. I know, it’s supposed to be incoming, but going from 300 fps average to 0 is not acceptable. It’s an ongoing issue so I’m not going to dwell on it, but it needs further addressing.



Good – Perandus Hardcore League



1) Box encounters are frequent and fun. Path really shines at killing mobs of enemies like no other arpg does, these boxes promote this to the fullest, having a lot of monsters guard an actual rewarding box full of goodies.



2) Speaking of goodies, this is the most rewarding league to date, at any level; you can find and truly make a fantastic deal with Carido Perandus. Coins are given at a good amount to where you can take risks with buying things and not feel flattened when you don’t get something good, or get very lucky and find some insane unique item that will help you progress.



a. Generally speaking this is my favorite currency in the sense that you can get legitimate results by using it, as opposed to feeling the need to horde it to buy something from other players.



3) Lore is well written and executed in this league. It’s presented in a way that works with Path of Exile and it’s something I will be unhappy with if they decide to take it out. Take pride in how good and rewarding this league is!



Bad – Perandus Hardcore League



1) Some box monsters are insane with what they attack with. When you’re getting spammed with pure physical skills and spells and there’s 20+ monsters using it all at the same time, it’s bound to cause some instant deaths or near instant deaths. On top of this, they can spawn anywhere, sometimes blocking your progress. This is a potential issue that I think people will have, but I have not experienced it personally.



2) Like with any RNG based mechanic, getting multiple Carido Perandus that offers you nothing you want for long periods of time is a little disheartening. It’s something that’s provided as an additional excitement though, so I don’t feel it weighs as a big negative.



At any rate, that’s my feelings towards the league and the patch, I’m mostly enjoying myself, but I also dread the eventual death of my melee character in hardcore. I choose that as I felt it would be the most difficult way to experience the new content. I’ve yet to die with this character, but I’ll keep trying daily haha. Thanks for reading.

Guide - How To Get Started in Path of Exile - https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1297390

My Feedback Analysis Thread - https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1270724 Last edited by Jaxxxson on Mar 7, 2016, 9:38:53 AM Last bumped on Sep 27, 2016, 8:56:57 AM