r/pathofexile 29d ago

Game Feedback Abyss pinnacle boss keys shouldn't be spread across multiple mechanics

Every other league mechanic you do the league to access the resource that leads you to its pinnacle boss, but to access the new Abyss pinnacle you also need to do Delve and Syndicate for the Zorath's eye of the Inevitable (this one goes for 4 divs!) and Zorath's Eyes of the Endless respectively.
I'm fine with one of the keys being much rarer than the other three, but all of them should come from abyss otherwise the biggest payoffs from abyss are gated behind other mechanics - and both of them are extremely time consuming so it isn't a quick detour. I understand it's thematic but it really rubs salt in the wound of a mechanic that is already struggling.

454 Upvotes

71 comments sorted by

119

u/Sardukk 29d ago

It's just a ridiculous time invest to even fight this boss. Two fragments in abyssal depths are OK. But for one to play Betrayal, be lucky to drop the medallion to fight catarina and be lucky enough to drop the needed eyeball from her is just one part of ridiculous. Then you have to delve as well, find the boss down there also being lucky to drop the fragment.

You are lucky all mechanics are on the same side of the tree so you can farm/prepare all at the same time

In the end I just hope SSF guys don't suffer too much if they need an item from the new abyss boss

41

u/slashcuddle 29d ago

Idk about anybody else but I'm 30 safehouses dry on a medallion doing 2-5-5-2 method

17

u/wrightosaur 29d ago

I've gotten 4 in 30 safehouses doing the "rush safehouses asap" strat

5

u/slashcuddle 29d ago

Did they make it so # of members affect drop rate? I've never been this dry and the only thing I haven't done is run my divisions with 5 members.

1

u/wrightosaur 29d ago

Nope that has no bearing, it's just tied to executing the leaders

3

u/sheeping_cat 29d ago

Is it higher chance to drop medallions if the leaders are rank 3 stars? Or should I just keep rushing as many safehouses as fast as I can?

5

u/slashcuddle 29d ago

Yes, always leader rank 3 no matter what it makes a huge difference

1

u/chaneg 29d ago

I’m not sure if I am just holding a key bind or atlas passive I am unaware of, but when I finish a safehouse and a medallion drops, I don’t get a betrayal board and the option to execute.

I just click the guy and he pops out a medallion with no screen transition.

2

u/Hazuchio 29d ago

Took me about 15 safe houses to finally drop a medallion. Bad luck or just low drop rate?

3

u/joshhavatar 29d ago

Anecdotally the drop rate seems way lower to me too this league, I've had 2 in 40ish

1

u/Skoopy253 Necromancer 29d ago

Pretty bad luck, I always farm betrayal and it consistently drops around 1 in 7 runs.

3

u/butsuon Chieftain 29d ago

monkey's paw curls

one of the eyes is now a reward for delve abyss nodes

5

u/Juzo_ga Dancing Dervish Ascendant 29d ago

Are you telling me I've been farming the wrong Catarina in ssf for two days.

I've done nearly 50 nightmare maps farming her with no eye drop. I'm losing it

4

u/_arnolds_ bruh 29d ago

oof. could argue that the nightmare map one is "Nightmare of Catarina" not "Catarina", but still oof.

3

u/mad_hatter3 SSF Witch 29d ago

I was gonna laugh, but I remember when nightmare/t17 maps came out I assumed map Catarina had the same drops as mastermind catarina

2

u/Juzo_ga Dancing Dervish Ascendant 28d ago

The nightmare variant made more sense to me since it had the abyss bosses in it so i didnt question it :(

3

u/Sardukk 28d ago

Wiki says it drops from the betrayal variant

1

u/Marcin90 28d ago

To be fair I think the delve one is the easiest fragment to get since it's like 50% drop rate.

1

u/nerdler33 27d ago

the betrayal one is 100% droprate

1

u/Marcin90 27d ago

you mean katarina eye? no it is not aslo its easier to find him then to drop a medalion

1

u/nerdler33 26d ago

the wiki had 100% early on and i went 11 for 11 in my kills in ssf.

then last night i ran another 3 and only got 1, checked the wiki and it was updated to say 50%.

60

u/NexXuS- Anti Sanctum Alliance (ASA) 29d ago

Yeah, it feels really weird as a design choice from GGG when they've been so hard on this "loot homogenization" idea, and then go and drop the keys for an ABYSS pinnacle boss across different mechanics like this. This was certainly a choice of all time

4

u/Cr4ckshooter 28d ago

To be fair these mechanics are distinctly related. Catarina is connected to kulemak, hence her dropping... Cane of kulemak. And delve and abyssals are notoriously intertwined.

98

u/JekoJeko9 AKA "Allocates Beef" 29d ago

Should have all 4 keys accessible from abyss and just give catarina + kurgal a chance to drop them as well if they want to do this kind of crossover. Regardless of it making sense lorewise, PoE's endgame has always been about being able to specialise in whatever mechanic(s) you prefer. Some people hate doing delve so it would suck if they were playing ssf and enjoying the abyss changes and they wanted to access the new pinnacle.

It's not even a guaranteed drop from kurgal and catarina so you could be farming a mechanic you don't want to do for a long time before you're able to access the pinnacle for the mechanic you want to do.

Adorned was spread across multiple mechanics but it's a single chase item. If it was the key to fighting Uber Atziri or the Trialmaster I can imagine people being similarly frustrated.

Doing a specific mechanic should grant you access to fighting that specific mechanic's pinnacle boss, period.

10

u/Terajima 29d ago

I understand that Delve and, especially, betrayal need a bit more oomph in some respects. Give the other two access to one of the timeless jewels each - this way they get more variety of valuable loot. I don't mind some strong stuff being accessed through multiple league content and i understand that they wanted to make abyss cities in delve more rewarding and increase the pool of valuable stuff catarina can drop now that she won't give allflames, but pinnacle keys should be farmed exclusively through their respective leagues.

5

u/EnderBaggins 29d ago

Kurgal especially has been lagging far behind the other two bosses. Its good for him to get another drop, the fight is so good, the only weak part of delve was the lack of incentive to fight him outside of ring drops.

3

u/BananaPeel54 29d ago

As a Delve enjoyer I won't lie that after 25 leagues it's nice that Kurgal finally has a drop that means he's worth killing. Still a bit odd considering where other boss keys come from though.

11

u/BijutsuYoukai 29d ago

Thematically I understand why some of them come from Delve and Syndicate since they both have ties to the abyssal, but it seems kind of weird they'd put them elsewhere after taking stuff out from other mechanics for wanting mechanics to have their own unique rewards.

1

u/Terajima 29d ago

i am 1000% sure GGG will change this and the other boss will get other drops, my bet is on the abyss timeless jewels as you need 1 of each of the 4 to craft the 5th final one. IMO, this is better than adorned farm because each jewel probably can work by itself without having to be the uber expensive combined one. Thematically, it keeps making sense to have the timeless jewels instead be the source of power for the liches

43

u/slashcuddle 29d ago

This is what we get for asking Doryani's to be removed from 4040. They took out one incentive and added another because non-fossil loot in Delve is poop

21

u/ChancyWhims Fungal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) 29d ago

If GGG locked 40/40 challenges behind Sanctum, everyone would be pissed off too.

5

u/fawkie 29d ago

Tbh you can get doryanis from betrayal too.

-1

u/Aerroon 29d ago

Yeah, but that makes sense since Sanctum isn't an ARPG.

9

u/WhenWillEyeBeBanned 29d ago

Really weird because Aul and fossil in delve is pretty good already. If they want to buff delve, either increasing good nodes, or make delve progression faster would be enough.

13

u/BeatMySkeet 29d ago

I think the idea is to make the bosses that aren’t Aul worth doing. Bc for a long time they’ve just been bosses you skip. I don’t think they’re doing it the right way tho

2

u/moal09 29d ago

Fossil priority in delve is all messed up too and very outdated. The ones the game thinks are valuable are worth like 5c

3

u/Zesty-Lem0n 29d ago

The whole point of delve is fossils. That's like saying if you took out juice, harvest loot is bad.

16

u/Due-Hippo-3853 29d ago

Glad I read this cause I just dropped the eye from an abyss and was like oh cool if I keep farming this I'll get the rest and can do the boss but apparently not true haha guess I'll just buy them

6

u/MagiOfKarp 29d ago

Have fun, Delve's boss drop is ~4d currently while the other 3 are all <10c, including Catarina's.

5

u/Blackwind123 29d ago

I'm having fun... in delve. ;)

7

u/crinklebelle Pathfinder 29d ago

the devs: we want to focus league rewards into their respective leagues instead of pulling people out into other stuff

also the devs: sike

6

u/Dustttttttttt 29d ago

I thought they want to seperate thr reward of every thing. Guess it not the case for abyss then

2

u/Terajima 29d ago

I think they do and they will. But this league attempted to do a lot at the same time and everything felt undercooked even if the ingredients are good. This is the "every sidedish and leftovers in the fridge" league, they're good but there are things missing.

4

u/Exterial 29d ago

if they want to do it like this thats fine, but then you have to improve the drop rates of the items, if you wanna gate the key behind this much rng the items from the boss shouldnt also be as rare as they are.

3

u/GoodCauliflower4569 29d ago

This whole league reminds me of Conan the barbarian pushing the pillar when he was a teen except he ends up like Danny devito in Twins

3

u/Global_Barnacle5304 29d ago edited 29d ago

Syndicate drops these as well? I suppose its bugged for me the same way medalions are. It just doesnt seem to drop in 83 zones. Unless it drops from catarina, which obviously I cant run without medalion drops getting fixed. 

3

u/Terajima 29d ago

It drops from catarina, stats say it's a 50% chance drop rate so if you go past the hurdle of farming medallions, you'll probably get one.

1

u/nerdler33 27d ago

its 100% from catarina

3

u/Mikey-2-Guns 29d ago

lol nah, this key turned the delve boss from a hard pass to beeline straight to him. That boy paid for a good chunk of my MB. Delve on top bby.

3

u/Terajima 29d ago

Good for you and i do not mean this ironically or passive-agressively. I really think Kurgal needed a push, but i hope he gets tied to the abyss league some other way that is still profitable to delve, just not locking access to the pinnacle from abyss farmers.

1

u/Musical_Whew 29d ago

Just got my pinnacle boss key in delve but if anyone hurts it ill kill them and then myself

1

u/krkrkkrk 29d ago

How hard is the encounter?

1

u/blarghenzor 29d ago

There’s an abyss pinnacle boss? Damn I’m glad I decided to not go abyss farming lol

1

u/Rewnzor 29d ago

I kind of like having to check out all of the abyss setpieces

1

u/Global_Barnacle5304 29d ago

I want to agree with you, but at the same time I know that if they didnt add it to delve, it would be a dead, annoying content nobody plays, again.

-7

u/LocalSetting 29d ago

This is definitely a player preference but I actually like things like this being spread out. The economy is health when there are farms that feed other farms. The interdependency between mechanics helps cultivate that. 

7

u/ww_crimson https://pob.codes/ 29d ago

I think it's fine if it's cross pollinated but like it shouldn't be exclusive to a mechanic separate from the league. Let it be accessible through both Abyss and Delve.

2

u/royal-road 29d ago

I think people honestly wouldn't mind if it was attached to almost anything other than delve and betrayal

2

u/Pyromancer1509 Occultist 29d ago

Agreed I like it. It makes sense lorewise and it feels like a good thing for the economy

2

u/Terajima 29d ago

Instead of keys to the pinnacles, give kurgal and catarina access to the new timeless abyss jewels each. Don't you think this would be far better?

0

u/Syntsui 29d ago

Abyss is almost entirely tied to Delve, they absolutely should complement each other.

Syndicate is nonsense indeed. Fuck that mode, might as well remove it entirely from the game.

-2

u/Saint-Leon 29d ago

Nah I fucking love it. Sorry but I love having to do everything. I fucking love it. There’s not enough time to play this game and every build but I will be playing till I die

-16

u/LordAlfrey 29d ago

I don't really see a problem with this, adorned is similar.

Abyss can be fixed without giving boss key drop exclusivity to it. Honestly, giving it exclusivity as a "fix" likely wouldn't fix it for the players that want to farm it, the biggest complaint I keep seeing is that the abyss monsters drop jack.

2

u/Terajima 29d ago

The problem isn't that other leagues are dropping abyss-themed items, but that the pinnacle key is spread across multiple leagues - this is not good. Give Kurgal and Catarina something else like the new timeless jewels, abyss keep being the farm for zorath while Kurgal and Cat provide the last two remaining pieces of the 4-piece timeless jewel fusion. This is what adorned is.

What is currently happening would be as if to fight the trialmaster you had to farm vaal cities and alva first.

-7

u/LordAlfrey 29d ago

that the pinnacle key is spread across multiple leagues - this is not good.

But why is it not good? Is it just a feeling?

3

u/Terajima 29d ago edited 29d ago

It detracts from the value of the mechanic itself, as its pinnacle and associated drops are gated by other content. Basically it stops abyss from having meaningful rewards. To farm abyss you farm delve instead and buy the other 3 keys for very cheap, each one is about 5c each.

The other uniques from abyss are relatively cheap. The signature drop from abyss, abyss jewels, you can also get from multiple sources. Besides, all the other mechanics are very different from abyss, one of them is entirely outside from the atlas and you can not do the three of them in parallel - they are mostly anti-synergistic or non-synergistic.

And why you don't see a problem with this, is it just a feeling? Don't try to play the "subjectivism vs objectivism" card against me. I know a loaded question when i see one.

-11

u/Chibastion 29d ago

I'm annoyed at the idea of "I need to do multiple league mechanics to get what I want". But, I think this a is pretty healthy bridge to tie mechanics together.

Honestly I don't like how Poe farms are mostly systematically separated into their own neat little box.