My biggest issues with the temple mechanic - Full feedback after playing it for 200h+

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Zoidberg50#9782 wrote:

What bothers me the most is having to learn how to do it on Youtube, which are all 30min videos that overwhelm and make me tired within the first 2min.

Yeah, there are legitimately much more complex games out there that don't require you to learn mechanics from outside sources. I have to once again bring up how GGG themselves had no clue how their temple worked considering its initial release and the changes they made to it. I worry that this mechanic will keep being a thorn in their side if they keep it like this. They should go the PoE 1 route and simply delete it until they figure it out.

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Pizzarugi#6258 wrote:

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Mashgesture#2912 wrote:

Given the current state we see right now, one of three things would need to happen for it to go core:

1. Precursor tablets must not be available for it, otherwise people will farm up the temple layout and crash the economy again.

2. Serious changes to destabilization mechanics must be implemented to prevent making long room chains.

3. Room bonuses must be harshly cut so temples don't produce currencies by the truckload.

GGG's killed currency printer leagues for less in the past.

in my opinion, only one change is needed and that is to remove the lock medallion and everything will fall in place nicely.

snakes cannot be formed.

players will have to go for tree branch or random layout instead.

ggg should just remove the lock medallion now to test out the effects.

Making a snake is the most lore-like think people could have end up doing. Also it solves the main issue with temple, destabilization is only a good mechanic if you can fight it, if not it totally drives people crazy. No one likes to invest time for something that RNG blows up again and again. However, with nice rewards and a way to fight it people actually like to invest time in something that they can buildup against the elements. So right now snakes are the fun part, is what saved this league.

If they want to diversify temple building what they can do is give diminishing room bonuses with chain length, the most long the chain the easier to maintain with locks but the less bonuses they give. Also to attract people to do not only multiple branches but also matrix builds with multiple rooms interacting in loops they could lower the probability of destabilization based on room level and number of links, so by trowing some room fodder and a bit of luck you could squeeze some good rooms setups for many turns without locks.

Added to this, to diversify even more so people don't follow guides 100% of the time, they could add global vaal bonuses similar to the modifiers medallions, these bonuses could benefit your temple for 10 runs or something, and they would benefit specific rooms. This would make players want to adapt to the current bonus, making them fill the destabilized gaps with the temporal buffed room types. You could even make sacrificial chamber have infinite sacrifices so people can adapt their temple to the new bonus.

Less agency and make players be totally at the mercy of destabilization would kill what makes temple the fun minigame that it currently is.

Up

The original top 5 issues feel really insignificant - terrain could be better, corner monsters could be a bit less silly, sure.

Balance i don't feel qualified addressing, i'll just say it's awesome to have a semi-reliable source of high level runes, in ssf i rarely see them otherwise.

The long term variance in benefits is awkward. More luck is now needed to obtain desired layouts and from the outside it can feel like there's too much reward for the rng being generous - because it's an ongoing payoff. Compare that to Abyss or Ritual which maybe require at least a decent Waystone to become good one time (and tablets etc).

The real problem is indeed construction difficulty. Off the top of my head Garrisons get appropriated by an Armoury etc and most often Synth lab can't be connected to anything other than path, which would be fine but since you want to keep it for a while you need to snake it, and so it begins. Perhaps if more rooms were allowed to connect (and i guess raise each others bonuses without upgrading tier?) and medallion protected a 3x3 square we'd be building more interesting layouts

SSF

Overall the post is solid.

1. Not an issue for me.

2. This is the worst issue for me, walking the temple, looting, is shit.

3. Spymaster room is shockingly overtuned compared to any other room.

4. Yes. Any room with environmental effects are pretty bad. Ring of fire with waves of fire- fuck that room. Lots of smal passages into rooms and then stairs deadends. Overall its not too bad, but the run-out-of-room-to-move-and-get-stuck-ded is pretty high. If I ever die in the template, its from running out of room to move and getting stuck. Which in my opinion, is my biggest gripe with the game overall at the moment- getting stuck.

5. Very similar to 4, I would put it as the same thing. Getting stuck period, is a massive issue in the game. Dodge roll in place is sooooo troll. Especially with big mobs, you're just dying to character collision.

SSF

Ah the temple.

2. Yes. Temple is too big, checkpoints are lols. Extremely obvious.

3. Spymaster, is wtf compared to all other rooms, second room of a similar nature is the bronzeworks. Both are crazy broken compared to other rooms.

On the opposite end, the generator rooms always have like 4 mobs in them and are super easy.


4. Yes. Basically, the temple is too big, and the rooms are too small. Simply do like a 4x4 with bigger rooms... probly good? Right now doing a temple takes about... what, at least 4x the time to do the map it spawned in? Obvious issue.


5. Unbelievable, obvious, how it got live... I have no idea. The doors are buggy, and if you die mobs gather to them and you can't get through them. Only aoe damage goes through them when they are shut. The doors always lock your minions out. If you have minions you can pulls mobs out of the rooms and nullify the doors shutting. The doors shut which is super trashy mechanics- you can kite everywhere in the entire game, except here and like... boss fights(even that is annoying). Error on error on error on error on error.

Insanely bad playtesting. If there was playtesting. Like, I get we're playtesting, but what the fuck, do we have to do everything?


Past all of this, the blue balls are holy shit overtuned. If the bronzeworks boss rolls extra damage, kiss your ass goodbye. Mana rings are insane... it goes on and on and on.

The current model of killing players is clearly either slow them to REEEEEEEEEE and kill them- or leave them nowhere to move and kill them. Its pathetic, its lazy, its fucking annoying.

Let think about it this way:

Game: WOW
Endgame: YYYYYYYYYYYYIKES

Which is quite the bamboozle.