Breach and Legacy as Core Game Mechanics

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Qarl wrote:

Breach

At the end of Breach League, we discussed that we didn't need to work out what we were doing with Breach immediately, due to the nature of the next league, Legacy.

In Legacy, players had access to past leagues and Breach was one of the most popular options. Breach offers a change in gameplay and its rewards add a lot to the Path of Exile play experience.

While we know Breach resonates with our players, it is one of the more intrusive leagues we've run. This was an intentional part of the design, but it makes it problematic for us to add freely into the levelling process on a permanent basis. From 3.0.0 onwards, we will not have difficulties, so we have to carefully consider whether mechanics like Breach are worth the disruption they cause to the levelling experience.

We will therefore add Breach to maps, but not to main levelling content. Breaches will have a 10% chance to occur in maps by default.

We will also add a Sextant mod, available at all tiers, that guarantees at least one Breach will occur.

Breach comes with a number of unique items that fill various roles in builds. We are happy with most of these, though we will be making some adjustments to the Hand of Wisdom and Action, and the Hand of Thought and Motion that leads to it. The added lightning damage of these weapons will no longer be global, and will instead only apply to each specific weapon.

The values of the flat lightning damage will also be increased given their new restriction, to "1-5 lightning damage added to attacks per 10 intelligence with this weapon" on Hand of Thought and Motion, and to "1-10 lightning damage added to attacks per 10 intelligence with this weapon" on Hand of Wisdom and Action.

Breach has been a significant element of the last challenge leagues, so we are happy to be able to add the system to maps.

Legacy

The Legacy league succeeded in being an excellent celebration of challenge leagues of the past. Players enjoyed the control over their experience of the game. Players were able to participate in old leagues, and in particular, play their past favourites.

This also gave players much easier access to league-specific uniques.

There were a few elements that worked less well with Legacy League. There was difficulty in properly communicating how to engage with the system, and after players had learned how, they had to put considerable effort into maintaining three Leaguestones and not accidentally using them where they did not mean to. Players also wanted to engage with the very rewarding Leaguestones that had mods, which needed to be reasonably rare.

Zana, the normal way players engage with past leagues, had too much overlap with Legacy League, and needed to be changed to not provide the same access. This left us with limited options, and what was implemented for Zana in 2.6.0 wasn't received well.

While we look forward to using Legacy again at some point in the future, we will not be adding it to the core game at this time.

We feel it provides too much overhead for newer players, and is something we'd like to reserve for special occasions.

Leaguestones will therefore not function in normal leagues and will no longer drop. At the beginning of 3.0.0, Zana will once again provide access to past leagues.

Reliquary Keys, which provide access to the Legacy unique items, will continue to function after they transfer to Standard and Hardcore but will no longer drop. We were happy to be able to provide access to these items as a last hurrah in a nostalgia-based league, but in 3.0.0 we will be looking forward, and will not be offering these legacy items again. We may make use of the foiling effect or a Reliquary Key-like system that drops different uniques in the future.

We are glad our players enjoyed Legacy League, and in greater numbers than ever before.

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TheLastZica wrote:

This literally kills my plans to buy supporter packs. No leaguestones going forward? Ugh... the best league they've ever made and they drop the ball. Legacy NEEDED to be core.