Petition to completely remove the sanctum as a mechanism of ascension.

Stop speaking for all members, I do not sign this petition. I enjoy Sekhema, even if they would make it even 50% longer than it is now. Is an easy way of ascension, especially if you compare to Ultimatum that can just gut your build if you end up with 3 debuffs that counters your build, in contrast with Sekhema which is far more forgivable.

Use movement speed relics if you are slow.

Agree Ascension is very bad for a lot of reason.

Long, punitive, boring, random, hard to do for a basic feature of your build and more...

Just make four classic quest with 4 nice bosses.

A bad casual player should be able to unlock basic feature in a resonable période of time.

I am not bad or good or casual or hardcore. I just whant to have fun. Like Diablo 4 is too easy and boring and PoE2 is just long and complexe for nothing. I understand hardcore no life player need content. I don't whant the best but to have fun and try things. Like you know of many perfect jeweler I find in more 300 hours ? Just 1. So make ascension for that king of currency for exemple but not for ultra basic feature.

+1 here too.

Sanctum and Ultimatum are fine side mechanics that can have their own chase rewards or currencies to polish off a build. They are actually in a very good place in PoE1. Visit them for something specific or if one wants a change of pace, risk, whatever it’s fine.

As part of character progression on the other hand, they are tedious, not well balanced and an absolute slog. I absolutely dread having to interact with them when creating a new character. To the point where I made it to Act 2 so far and haven’t logged back in because I know they are on the horizon.

The first 3 ascendencies are annoying, but doable after some build/gear tinkering for survivability and some farming for honor resistance/boosting relics.

The last one, however, between the RNG of the downsides and the nature of some of the boss fights are just awful. Nothing is more frustrating than doing Ultimatum and having to choose between 3 build bricking options after breezing through 9 rounds, basically wasting the whole time. Or being body blocked by some hitbox when rolling into the boss or a rock in round 10 only to get caught a one-shot mechanic. There goes another 15-20 mins with nothing to show for it.

Sekemas is just as bad on the 4th floor. Play three floors nearly perfect to run into crap downsides, or nothing but gauntlet rooms, which do not come even close to the definition of fun, that wipes out your hard curated honor even at full honor resist before you can say “still sane, Exile.” So now it’s been 30-40 mins of run time and wiping there just doesn’t feel good.

I’ve gotten 3 ascendencies on all of the characters I’ve played and there is a steep difference in how a melee versus a ranged feels. Regardless of build however the 4th ascendency is where I hit the wall each patch and can’t be bothered to log in after a few tries.

Also would hate to see ToTA added as a way to ascend. It is a really fun mechanic and I want it in the game, but it also had a steep climb to optimize for in PoE 1 and one needed to build very specifically to make it feel good.

Again don’t want these activities removed from the game, just decoupled from character progression.

Also, for the record I would uninstall the game before I paid for a carry for any content so that is not a solution to this issue.

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Gulch#5697 wrote:

Petitions are useless.
But I agree, Sanctum sucks.

everything challenging sucks...story of this forum

+1

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Ascendancy should feel earned, not withheld.

Savage line and completely agree

The existence of Trials means i will never play melee characters and need to go ES every time.

I almost always just drop the league when i need my third ascendancy cause the idea of wasting 30-40 minutes to attempt a hitless run of a mechanic i hate is just not fun

It's also been the barrier of entry for most of my friends when i try to introduce them to POE

They hit that first trial and drop the game

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brushmonkey#5301 wrote:

just did the 1st ascension after not playing the game for many months.

I now remember why I haven't played the game for many months (not just the ascendancies tbh, its the whole levelling process).

I would sign this petition, but its all fairly meaningless as the design is intentional and GGG are building the game for people who like this sort of thing, so there will be more of this flavour of content in the long run, not less.

GGG is designing this for themselves, it's pretty obvious some of the team started playing Elden Ring and got influenced by Fromsoft's design but only understood the surface level. If they had understood soulslike mechanics properly they would have understood how fundamentally incompatible soulslike design is in an ARPG.

I love Soulslikes and I love ARPGS but as seperate genres, this weird hybrid ARPG Soulslike doesn't work. It's too slow and boring for an ARPG and things like parry timing inconsistency and no i-frames during dodges creates a terrible Soulslike experience.