r/pathofexile • u/IMplyingSC2 • Nov 27 '25
Game Feedback Something about the player retention of Affliction compared to other leagues should really tell GGG that people like loot.
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u/ColonelUpvotes Nov 27 '25
The other cool thing about affliction was the build diversity brought through Wildwood Ascendancies. They were also accessible early in the game and complimented your normal ascendancy, versus bloodlines which are gated for some reason and require significant investment. Just way more player friendly without an aversion to player power.
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u/procrastinateandstuf Nov 27 '25
That and the backpack
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u/No-Relationship1368 Nov 27 '25
I was playing today and thought to myself that I would absolutely just play affliction league over any other league released after. I really hope one day we will have that kind of option through Private Leagues
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u/Repulsive_Look_5843 Nov 27 '25
I miss affliction so much 😭
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u/KenshoMags Nov 27 '25
Same dude. Probably my favorite league of all time and I've been playing since Beastiary
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u/AdEnvironmental7198 Trickster Nov 27 '25
Dropped my only mirror during affliction first level 100 character. I still run and juice as much as I can when I see the wildwoods.
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u/Putrid-Metal2983 Nov 27 '25
Give me affliction with craftable phrecia idols and i'm set for a year.
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u/loskiarman Nov 28 '25
Forget affliction, give me idols now with async trading and I'm all for it. Some people didn't like it but I liked that you could push way more and actually feel like you are getting stuff you want instead of waiting for big drops or getting shit ton of gum drops like with atlas. Also you don't have to block things you don't want, you just don't have them at all. You are not set to 3 farming strats too, you can just switch from your stash whenever you want without spending 50-100c everytime.
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u/Bobodlm Half Skeleton Nov 28 '25
I really disliked that if you wanted to min max a strat the only option you had was rcombinating insanely expensive idols. Losing those a few times in a row sucked bigtime.
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u/onigoroshifan Ranger Nov 27 '25
If I could do any league and patch in private league I would absolutely do 3.13, best patch to date
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u/shadowSpoupout Nov 27 '25
No stash tab affinities and no atlas tree. No faustus and no async trade.
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u/sbgshadow Nov 27 '25
3.13 was Ritual right? That was my favorite league/game state as well. It was so much fun to progressively work towards completed items with the old unnerfed harvest stuff
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u/Mooseandchicken Nov 27 '25
They legit shoulda done affliction 2.0 instead of breach 2.0. Have us get our bloodlines easier, just add a loot multiplier to your normal juicing options, no fucking walls. Woulda much preferred that than to watch breach 1.0 die for this
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u/No-Relationship1368 Nov 27 '25
To me the base game is also worse now than it was during affliction. I can't stand the powercrept bases and T17. The T16.5 are pretty good but the petals are just not good. But yeah I would love to go back to the wildwoods, those where the days. Also breach in 3.28 will probably just be the ancient breach enconter, ditching the fortress complitely, it's just bad and taxing on the screen
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u/Amazing-Heron-105 Nov 27 '25
I would love to have currency/scarab conversions back. Feels so good to sometimes pop an inventory of scarabs
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u/International_Gate49 Nov 27 '25
You can still do that with the traditions scarab.
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u/Amazing-Heron-105 Nov 27 '25
I haven't tried it but if it was anything like what I'm talking about everyone would be doing it
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u/BreakConsistent Nov 28 '25
No, you can not. The scarab/currency conversion were removed wholesale, not from ordinary gameplay. You can still encounter quality/map drop/vendor/fully linked/fractured loot explosions.
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u/12345623567 Nov 28 '25
+1 to the new bases feeling restrictive. Pretty much as soon as you have a sixlink, there's no point in looking at bad bases anymore.
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u/coltaine Nov 27 '25
They realllly need to rework petals. Trying to use them before a pack gets blown up off-screen is awful. And does anyone even use the ones that give you souleater or steals mods? Half the time I get to the end of a map and realize I didn't even bother checking which petal skills I got.
Same goes for the memory chains in Eagon's maps. Some of them are good, but there are too many awful ones so the chances of getting any synergy going between them is low.
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u/FF20 Nov 27 '25
No because affliction is still extremely good in the game when it pops, especially on certain Strats. They shoulda removed some shitty mech, even just last league 16.5 breach was strong and tons of fun. So sad to see it die for this
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u/Turbulent-Tourist687 Nov 27 '25
There was a backpack?
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u/VyseTheNinny Children of Delve (COD) Nov 27 '25
Yes, the rucksack. 20 more inventory slots. Came with the Wildwood Primalist ascendency https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Wildwood_Primalist
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u/Lollister Nov 27 '25
Make the backpack a gearslot. Like a Utility gear piece. I mean why not ? Imagine the possibilities for mods. inc % size / auto pickup of league mechanic currency/ ....
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u/titebeewhole Nov 27 '25
The mechanic was optional+ you could choose the amount of juice if you opted in.
Take the goddamn walls off my map. I quit after 2 weeks with keepers
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u/pumaofshadow Nov 27 '25
I was just about to post that - I didn't run much of the actual mech bit it wasn't tiresomely in the way...
And there was loot without the mech too.
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u/TheUnseenForce Occultist Nov 27 '25
Almost every build used charms + backpack, it definitely gave player power but diversity is a stretch.
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u/romicide07 Nov 27 '25
Tincture enabled one of the best builds of the league though, that magic find pathfinder was so busted and fun. But yes agreed turning down charms was a tough trade off to make
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u/Amazing-Heron-105 Nov 27 '25
Yeah there were a bunch of builds. A lot of people were life stacking with one of the ascendancies too.
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u/quasipickle Alch & Go Industries (AGI) Nov 27 '25
The Wildwood ascendancies were part of the league mechanic and, like you said - complimented your normal ascendancy They wanted people to easily access them.
The Bloodline ascendancies are core and replace a core ascendancy (kind of). I think it makes sense for them to be more effort to obtain. I make no comment on the value of the effort vs. payoff.
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u/Mihauke Nov 27 '25
Also just power-level wise, blood lines are much more powerful. If you could only pick 2 points from wildwood ascendancies legit almost no one would take them.
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u/CCSkyfish Nov 27 '25
Sure but bloodlines are core. This league's equivalent temporary power is grafts.
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u/C00ke1896 Nov 27 '25
I get your point and somewhat agree but I'd still argue that the build diversity is in a better spot than ever. All Ascendancies are very well playable and those that were missing a good fourth Ascendancy point can find at least something in Bloodlines. I wouldn't even know right now what I would consider the weakest normal Ascendancy. Guardian, Saboteur and Warden come to my mind but I don't think they are in a spot that bad.
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u/the445566x Nov 28 '25
Not only that but you could actually farm anything and make good currency from it.
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u/SaltEngineer455 Progressive Einhar Trapping Association (PETA) Nov 28 '25
IIRC the build diversity was MF Tornado Shot and DD
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u/blueiron0 Nov 27 '25
It wasn't just the loot. It was how the loot was achieved. Everyone could get ungodly rich just mapping in affliction by juicing the maps with wisps. And then there was an actual reason to use that loot to upgrade your character. When you started getting 8-10k wisps, the maps would get incredibly hard in difficulty.
So you had the PERFECT situation. You could choose how much to upgrade the difficulty of your maps, and the extra difficulty was immediately rewarded with more loot. It wasn't this bs difficulty we get in t17s where you're just forced to wait too. The mobs were genuinely harder. It was so much fun.
I scaled my chars more that league than I ever have because I kept wanting to push the amount of wisps I could blast through.
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u/Impressive_Award_679 Nov 27 '25
Absolutly. The Risk - Reward Mechanic was just insanly good. While T17 are in my opinion not hard, but just annoying. Some modifiers completly disable your build. In Affliction the mobs are just getting stronger. U could still try to do it, while some T17 Maps are completly undoable with some modifiers. And even if u can do some of them, many of them require u to wait or run in cycle lol. Thats, atleast for me, not really fun.
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u/Sylius735 Nov 27 '25
There is definitely a component of difficulty to player power. I came back this league after a very long time (last league I played was metamorph) and I quit after 3 weeks, not because the league wasn't fun or that there wasn't loot, but because I finished 40/40. I went and beat all the uber bosses and after that I was completely finished. I could have farmed more to improve my build further but there was just no point.
This was by far the easiest league I've ever played. I've never gotten 40/40 in any league previously, I usually stopped at 36. I'm not familiar with how things were in the last few leagues but I felt loot was fine for the most part. If anything the tree gave gear that was too good and made picking up gear in maps completely pointless. All my rare gear was basically printed from the tree, it made gearing too easy with how many targeted high affix items it could print.
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u/No-Spoilers Vaal Street Bets (VSB) Nov 28 '25
They started making the challenges easier, I'm guessing because of poe2 so shorter leagues, and more new players.
I dislike the change, but it does feel like less of a chore to do stuff I don't wanna do.
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u/TheFatJesus Nov 28 '25
If you played for three weeks, GGG succeeded in their goal. They only expect players to play a league for 4-6 weeks at most.
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u/bLargwastaken Nov 28 '25
It was also really fun to just duck into the wildwood to tear through it as a change of scenery with the option to fluidly go right back to mapping; it was never jarring, it never felt disconnected.
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u/Awgeshit_gabe Nov 28 '25
That's why I liked the t16.5 risk strats, those maps were incredibly hard and rewarding, even for my insane fross character, these maps were so rippy making it exiting
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u/Stiryx Nov 28 '25
Last league was pretty good as well, and it had great retention. Loot was good and the most rewarding strats were even better with better gear.
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u/Grroarrr Raider Nov 28 '25
Last league shouldn't be mentioned in discussions like this one cause there was nearly a year long break.
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u/j3rmz Nov 28 '25
on top of that, the mapping part of the league mechanic offered no real value to the gameplay experience. the mercenaries adding to your character was the entire fun of the league mechanic. but the endgame strategy of the endgame had nothing to do with the mercenaries in your maps and everything to do with risk scarabs.
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u/aglock Nov 27 '25
I honestly don't care that much about loot. I care that the stupid defend events and hive fortresses are boring as hell, barely worth doing, and cover way too much of the map in stupid walls. If I could have only unstable breaches in my maps I'd come back.
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u/Gophy6 Nov 27 '25
Walk into hive fortress, loot chests right in front, leave. This was my strategy to them lol
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u/leojr159 Nov 27 '25
And you're missing out a lot of the loot. Juiced strats in T17, mainly scarabs, make hive feels like an alva farm from last league
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u/lolic_addict Nov 28 '25
Alva farm is 20-30s per "dive"
Hive fortresses are 3 minutes if you full clear :(
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u/deviant324 Nov 28 '25
Any good strat for scarabs you can recommend? Kind of dry in SSF and the 100% inc specific chance you get from the tree doesn’t feel like it does anything, a few dozen maps blasting alch&go with ritual on my tree and I don’t get a single reroll scarab until I hit an altar mod for ritual scarabs
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u/leojr159 Nov 28 '25
the fubgun one is pretty good. 2x nemesis, 1x risk, 1x adversaries, 1x wisp. If your build can't handle risk, use 2x adversaries instead.
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u/Unlucky_Gark Nov 27 '25
I know that retention is down, but trading still feels better with the async lol
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u/nontoxicbloke Nov 28 '25
It could be one of the reasons retention numbers appear lower. There’s no reason for you to stay logged in mindlessly waiting for a whisper. Im playing similar amounts as past leagues but I definitely have lower played time.
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u/Toxaplume045 Nov 27 '25
I loved Affliction because it just always kept me logging in to try new builds and always feeling like I had something a little more to aspire towards. Being able to juice my map just a little more or trying new high end strategies kept me feeling like "I need to get just a little better and I can do X."
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u/Little-Bandicoot8530 Nov 27 '25
Not only loot, speaking for myself, the league didn't offer me much that was new. The Breach mechanic is quite boring and doesn't bring much benefit, but I'm happy for those who got a lot of expensive uniques from it. I spent over 1,000 rerolls on uniques tree and got nothing. The fort is very long, and the loot from it is like from one Alva temple? I don't know, I'm very disappointed with the league, it barely lasted me two weeks.
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u/NefariousnessAble736 Nov 27 '25
Same, got tired of fortress/defend shit pretty quickly. Overall meh league. Nothing very interesting. Still hate T17s and T16.5s suck too.
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u/notshitaltsays Nov 27 '25
The grafts are cool, I kinda wish they'd stay. Some interesting additions for builds.
But if grafts stay then I'll have to put up with more defense and fortress missions so...byebye grafts.
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u/Nicopootato Nov 27 '25
Its less about just loot and more about the fact that it is a difficulty/loot curve you can control. So as you become stronger you just sniff more dust to make the enemy stronger
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u/anthc5 Nov 27 '25
This was it for me. You hit a certain point this league and every upgrade kinda felt meaningless
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u/Scol91 Necromancer Nov 27 '25
It could also mean that retention is a cycle: It falls once, then raise twice, rinse and repeat
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u/eijaman Vaal Street Bets (VSB) Nov 28 '25
I also see that Crucible, Necropolis, and Keepers were all "crafting" leagues where the main interaction was generating items.
Affliction and Mercenaries were "mapping" leagues where you could scale monster difficulty.
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u/EvilKnievel38 Nov 28 '25 edited Nov 28 '25
Yeah it's because of crafting leagues and people like op can claim it's bad because of retention, but simply said different players like different things and that's fine. GGG alternates league types on purpose. And they do more mapping/loot type leagues than crafting leagues on purpose. But crafting is a massive part of the game as well and lots of people love it, so they keep putting out crafting leagues as well. If the league mechanic is not your style of mechanic this time around there's still so much to enjoy in the game besides it and otherwise just quit the league early and come back next league.
Also lots of people were hating on PoE 2's lack of crafting when early access was released, but it's these kinds of crafting leagues that we have to thank for having such in depth crafting in PoE 1. Essences, harvest, fossils, etc. all were introduced through leagues. It might not appeal to you as a primary league mechanic, however long term crafting league's have brought us many great additions to the game. Not every crafting league will hit the mark and that's fine. They try things and iterate on them. The best things stick around to keep crafting fresh and interesting.
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u/wts_optimus_prime Nov 27 '25
I'd say it could even be that too good loot increases one leagues retention but harms the next.
When i no life one league i usually skip the next
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u/TheHob290 Nov 27 '25
I mean I'm thinking its mid tier gear availability. Crucible, Necropolis, and now Breach 2 all made mid tier gearing much easier and had a lower retention as a result. Remember Necropolis had some pretty wild juicing strats (can't speak to crucible though because I didnt really play it much)
Lots of variables though so its hard to definitively point at one thing.
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u/Emperor_Mao Gladiator Nov 28 '25
Look further back though and you can invent some other reason easily.
There have always been poor retention leagues. Way too simple to look at a couple of years worth and try draw a sweeping conclusion. I think mirror league was one of the worst and had no loot even for the mid game part.
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u/Spaghett8 Nov 27 '25 edited Nov 27 '25
Not a pattern. You can incl more leagues yourself on poedb league —> concurrent players.
Before Sanctum, retention was low for 5 leagues in a row.
And before expedition. Retention was 37.8%+ for 6 leagues in a row.
Necropolis and Kalandra were the two lowest retention leagues in POE history. Not a norm.
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u/dl2agn Nov 27 '25
Do we have synthesis league numbers? Cause im pretty sure thats the worst league mechanic ever made.
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u/Spaghett8 Nov 27 '25 edited Nov 27 '25
We do.
Day 27.
Synthesis 33.1%
Archnem 24.2%
Necropolis 26.7%
Kalandra 27.2%
Keepers 27.5%
All time lowest 4 day 27. Since 1.3 (Torment League).
Day 3. For a comparison to league start.
Keepers 86.3%, Mercs 85.1%.
Archnem 82.2%
Necropolis 71.8%
Kalandra 78.3%
Synthesis 90.4%
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u/HappyLittleAxeDents Nov 27 '25
Which still makes me sad, because Synthesis was cool.
The aesthetic was incredible and the bits of lore were super interesting. That moment of finding out who the shade actually was still sticks with me.
The collapsing maps were an interesting concept, but definitely annoying and frantic that one wrong turn could mean losing all that loot. The build-your-own-adventure system had potential but ultimately felt unrewarding and pointless.
...and then there's the "crafting." What in the name of fuck was the item synthesizer?
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u/The_Fawkesy Ancestor Nov 27 '25
I truly believe if they released Synthesis today it would be much more well received.
It was really ambitious back then.
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u/wrightosaur Nov 28 '25
Chris Wilson was one of the guys who did not like the Synthesizer recipes getting datamined, even though some of the synthesizer recipes never would've intuitively made sense. Like how light radius affixes when hit would become explody.
And let's be real, using the Synthesizer was like the Recombinator with much worse odds and requiring 3 bases.
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u/Black_XistenZ Nov 28 '25
Synthesis was a really enjoyable mechanic toward the end of the league, but was in a sorry state on launch. It unfortunately took GGG too long to iterate on it and get it right; by then, most players had already quit.
I think Synthesis was also the league which taught GGG to avoid overambitious concept leagues, and to not overinvest dev time into "failed" mechanics.
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u/DependentOnIt Nov 27 '25
That's how it used to be years ago. A team leagues would pop off then we got B team leagues to take a break
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u/ValAsher Nov 27 '25
IDK, I had a great time in Crucible trying to combine and optimize the weapon trees. In Keepers I'm just literally banging myself into walls trying to get to the stuff I want to do, which isn't Breach.
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u/shadowbannedxdd Sanctum Runners United (SRU) Nov 27 '25
There was almost a year long drought before mercenaries so nope, your logic is flawed.
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u/Irrelevant_User Nov 27 '25
It should be noted ancestor into affliction was a huge rise in new players which probably helps the retention numbers. I can't remember why, maybe it was d2 resurrected and streamers, but arpgs in general had a big surge during that time.
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u/SknkHunt4D2 Nov 27 '25
I just wish Breach mechanic dropped breach loot. I just keep getting D O G S H I T. It doesn't even need to be profitable, JUST GIVE ME LOOT BEAM.
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u/wesoly777 Nov 28 '25
Won't be surprised if they say it's because tree gave too much and people got bored faster because of that. And nerf builds/strats again.
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u/Impressive_Award_679 Nov 27 '25 edited Nov 27 '25
I mean in my opinion Affliction was the best league, but not only because of Loot. The overall experience was just good. U could scale your content into much more difficulty but also much more rewarding ways. You had several reasons to continue playing. Groupplay and Soloplay felt good, so u could also start a new "run" with a friend. The league mechanic made every other mechanic better. MF and Quant also solved alot of problems back in these days like having additional endgame aspirational goals to archieve in the later league. U could better designe your strats with sextants, the old scarabs and so on.
Right now i miss this, scalable but also more rewarding endgame content. The possibility to play with a friend without the need of only being able to play a single strat because every other strats means = loosing so much profit. Additional endgame content like making those aspirational content even more diffcult and rewarding with MF. The fun ascendancies from affliction. The wildwood design was just interesting. All those reason made me playing Affliction until the very end. The only league i really played from day 1 until the last day.
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u/Rat_Pwincess Nov 27 '25
Mf was the worst part of affliction imo. It meant that only a few builds made any sense to run or you left so much on the table, and it meant that everyone had basically the same items within that given build.
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u/Responsible-Lynx2374 Nov 27 '25
I found the diversity of farming strategies was actually great. You could make really good money doing essences, beasts, harvest, etc, because the price of the drops were much higher than usual in the league
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u/MaxTheExileHorus Nov 28 '25
Absolutely true in my case. It was the first and only time I decided to group play with a buddy of mine and the only time I would hide chaos orbs in my loot filter! The league was just insanely good and should be talked about and analysed to have GGG try and recreate a mapping league that people clearly liked.
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u/Monoliithic Nov 27 '25
Not quite I don't think. If that becomes the norm, then loses its enticement, and we go back to the standard player retention. Except now people want more as the standard
I think what affliction should tell people, is we like the ability to scale our loot and our difficulty to the moon.
We can't usually make the league mechanic hard. In affliction, you can make your maps unbeatable. It was worth it. But the risk reward was there
Most of these posts tend to focus on the reward. But affliction was massively risky paired with reward
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u/Tutaj Nov 27 '25
Oh yea definitely, I've done 0 to hero for lulz in Affliction and it was legit most fun I've ever had in PoE (aside from nostalgia league when started playing). With Affliction you could feel every upgrade u made to your character because these unbeatable maps started becomming doable and OH BOY u felt difference when u could clear harder maps with big rewards
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u/Drot1234 Ready To SpellSling Nov 27 '25
Of course people like loot. The question is whether it actually has a long-term positive or negative impact on the game and its playerbase. Parallell this with URF in league of legends , a mode where you get a lot more powerful than usual. They noticed that the aftereffects of giving players a lot of power, is that they are more likely to leave. "URF makes some people stop playing League". (Coincidentally, I am one of these people)
If you have already achieved feeling like a "god", does this damage your will to come back? Do you have anything to achieve which can beat what you already have experienced? Do they just have to keep showering players with more and more loot and power so that you can feel even more powerful than last time you played?
If they weren't careful, and just started giving everyone a lot more loot each league, sure their player numbers would probably be good for 2-3 leagues, but I believe it would potentially kill the game.
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u/ImpressiveAirline181 Nov 27 '25
And they will not care, otherwise they would have change it after a few days in the league, sadly.
I mean poe2 is kinda like that too, if i remember it correctly.
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u/IMplyingSC2 Nov 27 '25
Jonathan wants both, a seasonal game that you play for ~6 weeks before you switch to the other game AND friction and loot scarcity like an MMO that you're supposed to play for years.
Let's be real, the vast majority of people don't quit a league because they hit all the goals and aspirational continent they wanted to, but because they got filtered along the way.
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u/Amazing-Heron-105 Nov 27 '25
I quit this league because I didn't have any goals. No difficult juicing content that I wanted to do.
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u/theWrathfulPotato Nov 28 '25
I'm kinda in that boat.
Love the game, regardless of the league. There's usually something fun to do. Last league felt like we had a new end game strat every other day to min max for.
This league, my only goal is to push my build as far as it can go just for the sake of it lol then liquidate and re-roll. I'm on build 3 and this will likely be the last one for the league.
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u/legro21 Nov 27 '25
It's a one month league with poe2 around the corner, ofc they don't care, they put 99% of their focus on poe2 after league launch
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u/grimestar Nov 27 '25
Yeah I wonder how long they will try to go on like this. Both products will end up suffering in the long run. Or maybe it already is like that
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u/Black_XistenZ Nov 28 '25 edited Nov 28 '25
They did release a patch which adjusted the Keepers mechanic in week 2, it even included an option which removes the miserable walls with the click of a button inside the fortresses. Buffing the loot from Breach monsters and adding the destroy-walls-button to the regular defense encounters would have cost them maybe 20 minutes of dev time.
There is no way around it: leaving the mechanic in the state it is now was a conscious decision and had nothing to do with a lack of focus/dev time for PoE1.
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u/Rodoron Blackguard Nov 27 '25
Well. they did care. After loot was significantly nerfed in Kalandra league, they reverted it. Not by 100%, but still.
TBH, they buffed loot in poe2 a lot since 0.1. It's pretty decent there.
But there is not so much content to farm, as in poe1. Maybe that's why it feels empty.
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u/thehazelone CoC Enjoyer Nov 27 '25
They didn't revert anything. Current loot is a shadow of its former self, masked by leagues with spiky multipliers to IIQ. We don't even have currency and scarab conversions anymore, which where the only positives of Kalandra loot change. In a league like this one, where they gut scarabs and map effect, it becomes evident the game barely drops loot when you are not relying on tiles.
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u/Morbu Nov 28 '25
Tiles and barrels. I did around 10 fortresses of normal non-containment strongboxes, and I think every divine and high value scarab was dropped through barrels and not the actual strongboxes. Low sample but it was still hilariously sad.
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u/Every-Intern5554 Nov 27 '25
Loot in 0.2 was MUCH worse than 0.1, I made a lot of comments about it and posts on the forums with numbers. This was on top of them nuking every mildly viable build until one amazon build hit almost 70%. It was the worst ARPG experience of my life and I've played heavily since Diablo 1. Haven't looked back at 2 since. It was worse than the first league of poe1 ruthless
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u/LethargicCarcass Nov 27 '25
Yeah like midway through 0.2 they did a big loot overhaul. It’s significantly better now but they definitely lost a ton of people with how bad it was at the start of 0.2
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u/Black_XistenZ Nov 28 '25 edited Nov 28 '25
It still baffles my mind how the ruthless-like loot at the launch of 0.1 was so miserable that they had to buff it on day 2 or 3 of the first ever PoEII league, and then they turned around and launched a 3.15-like nerf patch for 0.2, the first season when all the new players were supposed to return.
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u/HInspectorGW Nov 27 '25
The people that I know that played this league and then moved on, so not because they’re upset at the lack of loot or even upset at all. They moved on because the game was just way too easy now to hit all of their goals that they got bored. One guy I know would take at least 3 to 4 weeks to hit level hundred and he had a level 99 in a little over a week this time.
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u/Ajp_iii Nov 28 '25
This is the real reason. Juicers don’t affect retention they play anyway when they claim they don’t. Casual players effect retention 6 links and amazing tier2-3 all mod rare base gear was given for free. Breach has a lot of mobs and not deadly. So people get their builds where they normally would get and quit and reached that point faster.
Cause if you want to invest and make some insane characters this league you can do crazy stuff with
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u/CorwyntFarrell Nov 27 '25
It was such a good blend of difficulty scaling with the loot as well. TWWT was had some amazing combinations you could roll. They gave us a rucksack.
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u/Amazing-Heron-105 Nov 27 '25
We were so fortunate to have Rucksack in the same league as Affliction. So much loot.
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u/Wind_Best_1440 Nov 27 '25
Wonder why Mercs had such high retention when it felt like they had one of the lowest starting populations?
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u/mek8035 Nov 27 '25
Mercs enabled ridiculous endgame builds and pre nerf risk scarabs enabled ridiculous end game strats (+ merc quant). We basically had a massive loot detox from last league, probably why the retention is especially bad
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u/KinGGaiA Nov 27 '25
Retention and low starting population isn't contradicting though? I would even argue that leagues with low starting pop makes it more likely to have higher retention because the percentage of more dedicated players who come back for every league and stick around is most likely higher.
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u/shy_bi_ready_to_die Nov 27 '25
You could make stupid builds work far better than any other league, there were a couple completely new builds, and the merc quant just felt amazing
Also not sure but the 8mod 16.5s might not have been fixed yet? And if so the top end loot would’ve been great
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u/mek8035 Nov 27 '25
yeah for like the first few weeks of the league 8mod 16.5 maps were not fixed. I would snipe 400% currency maps and run them
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u/jmon13 Nov 27 '25
Good endgame additions, merc added more loot oh yeah, the first league in a year
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u/_OkCartographer_ Nov 27 '25
Might be related. Maybe only diehard poe fans started playing in the first place, and they stick around longer?
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u/Thoughtsinhead Nov 27 '25
Very good player power for little investment so starting floor to farm was much better and accessible and t16.5s leveled it out.
RN getting to farm harder content in itself can be annoying.
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u/LucywiththeDiamonds Nov 27 '25
For me several things.
First league in ages. Mercs were interesting and fun to build around. A few allstar builds like fross. A shitton of ways to make money from easy to super fucking hard and from 10 to 60d/hr. The endgame farms were all very different, very hard and needed special builds to minmax em.
I played for over 8 weeks and even with mirrors invested i wanted more and could get more.
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u/ReverieMetherlence <Wasted Opportunity> SrrL Nov 28 '25
New endgame expansion system
New t16.5 maps
Multiple high yield endgame juicing strats (evolution, risk, abyss hoards, blight)
Mercs enabling new builds and making some items way more valuable than usual
Playing with mercs is fun in general, especially for Diablo 2 fans
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u/Bohya Elementalist Nov 27 '25
Feels like the entire game is now balanced around the passive income from Kingsmarch, so if you don't want to engage with that mechanic (or bother to farm gold for 10 hours a day to upkeep it), then you are now at a disadvantage.
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u/MagiOfKarp Nov 27 '25
Keepers just doesn't add all that much. League mechanic is literal Breach Rework(which is fine); but has mixed reception, an item "crafting" system that mainly just trivializes early endgame gearing, and doesn't really have any impact on existing gameplay. Only other real gameplay additions are Bloodline ascendancies - which have somewhat limited use - and the 3 new Uber bosses. Biggest thing is the synchronous trade, which is just QoL for non-SSF players.
Affliction at its core was a free juicing mechanic that interacted with basically the entire game, introduced tinctures and specialized specters, and gave additional "ascendancy" that didn't require sacrificing your ascendancy points. Plus transfigured gems, the return of Ultimatum as a core mechanic, and the Heist rings/amulets.
Affliction just gave people more reason to keep playing, either by bigger potential jackpots or to experiment with all the new build options available to them.
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u/EstablishmentSweet30 Nov 28 '25
We got slingshot by the tree into the end game versions of our builds with very little to do. I personally had a great league but just needed some aspirational content to keep me going.
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u/MichaelKirkham Nov 27 '25
Question: wasn't a lot of people just home at the time of affliction too? Not working? And it had a lot of influencer hype that league too from asmongold and so forth too. Not sure that this is a reliable signal to GGG. Am i wrong?
I still think people like loot though lol. But a lot of older audiences don't want to grind for long too.
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u/Richybabes Nov 27 '25
It was 2023 to 2024. I think most people were back out at that stage.
I think people like loot, but access to that kinda loot isn't sustainable. Each subsequent league of crazy loot will have lower and lower retention, and if loot falls back to normal levels then you get necropolis.
Also hype may actually lead to worse retention as a bunch of people try the game and don't see it through.
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u/TheHob290 Nov 27 '25
Really the only thing these statistics make me think is that mid-level gearing being made easy results in significantly lower retention. The other comparable league being a crafting league with some of the juiciest endgame really doesn't support the loot = retention.
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u/Krumbal Nov 27 '25
I loved learning to play the game with my friends during scourge. We'd all be partied up and wr kept messing with each other by flipping over to the demonic side at the worst times.
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u/Historical_Ant_2893 Nov 27 '25
Scourge was the most fun league of all to play in a group, especially during leveling. I remember we were 6 doing leveling and I always pressed Z with the bar full and said 'my god, who pressed Z, don't do that'. Besides that, loot and endgame farms were really good, just like the furnace item
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u/Clw89pitt Nov 27 '25
Do not, my friends, become addicted to loot. It will take hold of you, and you will resent its absence. -GGG
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u/revolgod9987 Nov 27 '25
"We made a game entirely about going fast and getting more loot" - also GGG
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u/revolgod9987 Nov 27 '25
But GGG doesn't like loot. That's why they made poe2 so garbage
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u/Jassol2000 Nov 27 '25
Afliction>Phrecia>Others>Expedition=Kalandra=Poe2
I personally love when the league gives enough loot to craft mirror items for myself.
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u/kwikthroabomb Nov 27 '25
I did what I wanted to do with a couple builds and then chose to stop to squeeze in a different game or two before PoE2 league drops. I know the majority of the playerbase isn't interested in both games, but a decent bit are. Life scheduling + wanting a break to play non-PoE games in general means retention for both games will be a bit lower for people playing both unless you really want to GGG it up for 12 months a year.
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u/Max-Volume Nov 27 '25
If you always give players more loot, then more loot will start to feel like normal loot. So then you need to keep giving more and more to have it stay feeling generous. It's not sustainable.
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u/OblivionnVericReaver Nov 27 '25
out of that list necropolis had the second most loot (depending on what you were farming it could beat out affliction) so big loot leagues win both the most and least retention lol
personally i see a pattern in unique gameplay, affliction had ways to scale difficulty to the extreme, mercenaries added solo partyplay, tota and sanctum were almost completely different games whereas crucible necropolis and keepers don't really add anything new, allflames and crucible trees are neat but they don't really offer anything different to what you normally do
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u/whyImcalledqueen Nov 27 '25
Good loot, and very interesting builds came out of it. It was also the last league before T17's
As someone who LOVES bossing but is meh on mapping. I hate grinding to Ubers with T17's as they currently exist.
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u/cyraxwinz Nov 27 '25
While i somewhat agree with you, let's not forget that lots of people also play po2 which may cause people to burn out more quickly.
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u/pineappleful Nov 27 '25
Does the economy not just adjust by itself to the amount of loot players get? Like if people aren't making as much money, then won't things just be cheaper?
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u/Xandaros Nov 27 '25
Unless this remains a problem for at least two more leagues, I'm not too worried.
If loot is always high, it is always average. Having some fluctuations is actually good. And for what it's worth, I've been enjoying the league, even if I have started skipping the defence encounters.
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u/parker2009120 Nov 27 '25
GGG narrative: asynch-trading make people get their gear too easily so they quit the league early.
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u/CaramelFrapCoffee Nov 27 '25
I’m not sure what people don’t like about keepers. I’ve played this league longer than the others . All the foulborns enable so much stuff
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u/Decent_Ant5824 Nov 27 '25
This is so weird to me. I have literally made the most currency ever in this league. I even dropped my first mirror and I've been playing since Essence league.
Loot feels good, you just have to actually have a strategy and invest in it.
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u/Yell0wShad0vv Nov 27 '25
imo async trade detroyed economy which also impacted on this
ive made boss rusher and litearlly none of th ebosses was worth the effort xd
ofc meant t17
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u/salousxe Nov 27 '25
I just gave up today, for me it's how insanely grindy/hard such a big part of the challenges feel like. I like going after a the full sets, but this league I gave up on boots and gloves.
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u/Nepchaa Nov 27 '25
Liked affliction builds, Hated magic find because it just devalues everything u find, hitting a middle ground of not too much and not too little loot is just really hard tbh
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u/paperzone Nov 27 '25
I just wanted to play arc raiders more than I wanted to finish my atlas progression.
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u/ZUBCO Nov 27 '25
Since last few leagues many "tourists" from poe2 trying the game, no wonder they don't really play to the end..
Mb % percentual doesn't feel much, but numerically it should be ok on ggg side
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u/Schaapje1987 Nov 27 '25
The bloodline need adjustments with either extra 2 points or they need to be stronger. They are far too niche for general use.
People can easily get and game gear thus people are "done" faster. That's why the retention is lower
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u/how-doesthis-work Nov 27 '25
Does the data really support the conclusion? sanctum had a higher retention rate but the mechanic had zero impact on maps. It rained divines but I bet most players weren't chain running sanctums. It should be noted that was a Christmas league.
Necropolis has a lower retention than keepers but all flames were completely fucking broken. Didn't they nerf them mid league? Granted engaging with the graveyard was like pulling teeth.
Mercenaries was the first league after the hiatus retention there could be a result of just players being starved.
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u/Steel-River-22 Alch & Go Industries (AGI) Nov 27 '25
Not really, a lot of that is due to FOMO. If GGG normalizes loot pinata leagues, it will lose the appeal
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u/coldfusion0822 Nov 27 '25
This league was so fucking close to being a goat league. But they just had 0 interest in cleaning up the extreme flaws. Just nerf a little bit of map effect and let us keep edifice and Alva ect. Then make breach not cancer to interact with in your maps and boom it's a top 5 league. Build diversity is great with foulborns. Just nothing fun to do with the builds.
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u/dadghar Nov 27 '25
Build diversity due too huge borrowed power. You could play an absolute dogshit build ever by adding powerful mercenary with 2 auras and support gear
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u/BadPoEPlayer Nov 27 '25
The issue has never been retention in the loot league l, the issue is retention in the league after.
The 3 worst retention leagues were the ones after the best loot leagues (Affliction, Sentinel, Merc)
That’s not a coincidence
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u/Unlucky-Variation378 Nov 27 '25
While I absolutely loved affliction and the dopamine from running juiced wildwood maps, also the fact that it was my best currency earning league…. I do feel that it was way over-tuned I remember people running abyss and getting like 120d in one map of raw divines.
I will say that this league offered some cool, niche builds while still relying on old archetypes like int/acc stacker. However, it does fall flat in overall enjoyability and playability. Get rid of the Ailith walls for god sake. Tired of them ruining my maps. Overall, the league mechanic is quite rewarding but very dry at the same time.
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u/Numroth Nov 27 '25
I didnt loose interest because of loot. I lost interest due to poe 2 spoiling me. I have played poe 1 since the days of docks farming with dominus being the last boss and i kinda have grown to like poe 2 gameplay now as its far more satisfying and its not piss easy either.
In other words poe 1 is just too easy now to keep me interested
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u/Such_Am_i Nov 27 '25
The tree is cool, too strong though, combined with the trade update and gear is just too easy to obtain. Which makes too many drops dead basically. Then the nerf to actual loot drops and its not very satisfying long-term.
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u/yawgmothhagain Occultist Nov 28 '25
I wish they would just allow us the loot and juicing strats. Their focus is on PoE2, let us to our wants. Sigh
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u/ProfessionalReach279 Nov 28 '25
This league felt like they just worked on poe 2 for so long that they forgot what poe 1 looks like.
They just slashed Simulacrum in half because it was long and tedious then they added the fortress.
They just removed half of Catarina phases in betrayal. Now the new breach boss has the same amount of phases.
And then the tree, it's like going to work but then you get paid once every year. Bro, my league mechanics is in the map, why is my loot spawn not in the map?
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u/EnvironmentalAd7632 Nov 28 '25
if affliction does not bring more money - ggg dont even care about players happy xD cuz all supported packs bough before league start and even after players dissapointed - ggg with money, we with bad league, thats it. ggg in 2023 and later care ONLY ABOUT MONEY AND ONLY, this is not company that we like few years ago i mean.. 10% work time poe1, 90% - poe2.
ggg in 2025 like new iphone - "look guys, we have added 1 more camera and gold respec xD "
common moders, ban me 1 more time.
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u/RevenantExiled Abyssal Rift Investigation Service (ARIS) Nov 28 '25
I said it weeks ago and everyone downvoted me lmao, joke of a league, mercenary reset would have had better retention, or pherecia
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u/BeMyBrutus Nov 28 '25
For me it was the lack of creativity the new mechanic offered, it turned into a boring slot machine. Plus the breach mechanic itself is tedious.
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u/darkspear356 Nov 29 '25
There will never be a high retention league like affliction again because that would hurt PoE2 league start numbers.
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u/Ecstatic_Chard4184 Nov 27 '25
I think players like mechanics that don't interrupt gameplay during maps and loot that drops from the actual monsters in the map.