Not that excited about the next league, from what we know. I played pretty extensively this league and was not a fan of farmville and how it could create perfect items. If the game was SSF, I would support it. But I feel there are already too many crafting methods in the game. I think the change made to the multi-craft mod back about a year ago was a good change. You can find something like 2 or so T1 prefixes that you want and add a couple of crafted mods.
That said, I had a *LOT* of catching up to do. I had not played since Bestiary and had to relearn almost everything about the game. After relearning everything, I firmly believe the game suffers some waaaaaay too much bloat. I don't know how a casual could possibly learn the game properly. The game needs to get back to the core and that is: Dropped Loot. The *only* thing Heist looks interesting for is that high level items may have a chance for better rolls. Right now, the higher the level the item raises the affixes it can roll, but usually all that means is you just have a higher chance to get crappy affix. It isn't that I think good loot should drop all the time, it is that a loot filter is MANDETORY and even a Super Strict filter still drops 99.9% crap. The loot bloat is stupid in this game, so much that you are forced to use a loot filter. I can't imagine a single person running even a low level delve not using a loot filter. The amount of worthless items that drop are insane. It is literally a noob trap, along with the chaos recipe, UNLESS, of course, you are SSF. Even then, you would be better off just running content faster and ignoring the chaos recipe.
All that said, POE is still the best AARPG on the market. I just wish they could introduce the casual player more easily and I think consolidating some of their league add-ons could/would do that. From everything that was added in the last three years, I only truly like Delve (although they can get pretty bland quickly, my complaint there is just lack of variety, and blue/dark color pallet) as a side game. Metamorph is neat, and blight is neat.
I have a theory, however, and I think that they purposely add new content to sell new stash tabs. Specifically "Currency" stash tabs for the new shards they constantly introduce. I have made many MTX and stash purchases, but it seems to me that this is a sly way to turn a FTP game into a "PTHF" (Pay to Have Fun). I'd like to see more effort and focus on MTX, and less on adding new currencies as a way to force new stash tab purchases that might become ultimately useless.
All that said, I might actually migrate over to standard. The leagues from what I can tell on previous patch notes have been a bit too "beta" for me. The people who learn and share the exploits found in the first few days before they are patched into the league make bank and get a such a huge head start on the market that the whole sales pitch of a fresh new economy is a bit of a stretch. What it is, is a new unstable economy. At least standard is stable. These are just my personal gripes, and I am sure others can counter point, no doubt. Just my-opinion.
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