On November 17, Grinding Gear Games, the development team of Path of Exile, announced the second balance manifesto with the theme of Monster Mods and Archnemesis. This balance manifesto heralds the controversial Archnemesis system will be replaced by the new monster mods in Path of Exile 3.20 expansion, The Forbidden Sanctum.
The Reasons Why Archnemesis Is Controversial
Ever since Archnemesis system was introduced to Path of Exile, Grinding Gear Games has been receiving constant complaints from players. So, what is it that makes this system so disgusting to players? Grinding Gear Games summarized the problems of Archnemesis into the following four points based on the feedback from players:
- Each mod has very complicated and elusive effects.
- Each mod contains multiple effects, causing players to not understand its specific effects.
- Many rare monster encounters are made more complicated due to the very high number of effects included in a single mod.
- Archnemesis rewards are set up in such a way that many players feel they can’t just kill one monster, they have to consider whether to bring a magic find character to maximize the reward.
Features Of The New System
In order to bring players a better gaming experience, Grinding Gear Games has taken measures to address the above problems and created a brand new system. The system mainly has the following characteristics. (Note: At this time, you can buy POE Currency a lot to be fully prepared for the new expansion coming in December)
1. Each Mod Has Only One Effect
Let’s take The Magma Barrier here as an example. In the previous Archnemesis system, this kind of mod had many effects. When you use this mod, it will add a magma barrier to the mob, and convert some of the mob’s physical damage to fire damage. In addition, it can also provide you with additional additional fire damage and fire resistance and help you reduce certain physical damage. And these are more than that, it will also create volatile flamebloods chasing you to blow up. However, the equivalent modifier of the new system only offers the effect of a magma barrier, nothing else.
2. Each Mod Clearly Describes What It Does
Each mod in the new system will be more direct and easy to understand when naming. The main purpose of this adjustment is to allow you to see the effect of each mod at a glance. For example, the previous mod “Incendiary” will no longer appear, replaced by “Ignites or “Fire and Ignite Resistant”, which is more clear and easy to understand. “Deadeye” will also not appear, replaced by “Applies Random Mark” or “Extra Crits” or “Accurate” as separate unrelated mods.
3. Rare Monster Encounters Are Simplified But Still Interesting
Since many straightforward and simple mods have been added to the new system, the proportion of spawning volatiles and ground effects on death has also been reduced accordingly. The odds of encountering complex rare monster encounters are also greatly reduced. But interesting and challenging emergent behavior from overlapping mods can still happen, just less often.
4. No Need To A Magic-find Culling Character
The rewards in the Archnemesis system are linked to individual mods. So, you know what the reward is when you encounter a certain mod. This will make many players feel that they can’t just kill a monster, they have to consider whether to bring a magic-find culling character to maximize the value of the monster mod that they had found. But there is a premise here, if you want a very powerful magic-find culling character, you would better POE Currency Buy to equip him with excellent gear.
At the same time, this also leads to another problem. For example, when you know that the monsters you encounter will only drop low-value PoE Items like Flasks, you may selectively skip because the rewards of this mod are of no value to you.
In the new system, many new rewards have been added to most rare monsters, but the rewards are not linked to a certain mod. So, when you meet a rare monster you don’t know what it will drop. You won’t know what it drops until you defeat it. Also, rare monsters with multiple rare mods have a correspondingly higher chance of having these special hidden reward mods. In general, this new reward system will make the rewards more balanced.
All in all, the new system is more modern and interesting than the old monster mod, Archnemesis system and is clearer and easier to understand in the heat of combat than Archnemesis was.
