You would have to be a special kind of stupid to pop an XP pot and then target farm a single enemy - rinse - repeat. Similarly I have a totem farming routine that takes about 20 minutes and I would need to have my head examined if I altered my routine by eating an XP pot before the farming run – bye bye 44000 iron bits (or whatever the thing costs).
Having the Ascension Altar mechanics last only a single session is good to know but I agree with others that the ‘price’ should be in a state of parity. Having some things cost easily attainable materials whilst others cost very difficult to obtain materials doesn’t make sense unless the Altar effects of the difficult to obtain materials are so much better.
I haven’t gotten that far yet but I was intending to use the Altar to farm certain legendaries (if that is even a thing). Question: I understand that SR is not impacted by Ascension mode – can the Altar impact it? So if you are farming SR 30-31 with the Altar populated by Pierce mechanic does that mean that you have a better chance of dropping Pierce legendaries on the SR run? If so then having the Altar in play for only that gaming session would work because you just craft another Waystone and start all over in the same session. Presumably there is an advantage to doing this because the game ‘remembers’ what you dropped throughout that session…
Probably like how GD league’s alteration tree works ie. it’s set for each difficulty. Ofc they might have to rebalance the material usage etc. (and maybe there’s a reason why this can’t be implemented like that)
I’m not sure exactly how I feel about it yet, but it seems like it could be improved. I’m still in normal, so I’ll have to play with it more in ultimate/ascendant.
That said, I feel like the game doesn’t do a good job explaining that the effects only last for one session. luckily I just tossed some aether crystals in there to try it out, but I’d of been pretty mad if I had lost some valuable materials without knowing that it only lasted for the session.
If it would, it would kill the purpose of Ascended/Altar. The point was to elevate the Campaign Content which fell behind SR and Crucible as an endgame experience, so it’s meant to make Campaign Content the 3rd Endgame Pillar. If Altar would effect SR it would again elevate SR to the ultimate Endgame Tool and we sit at the same situation as pre-FoA
I was disappointed to realize this as well. I can’t play long sessions just due to how my life is structured (trust me, i wish I could game for 10 hours straight like I did in high school but I can’t anymore). As such while I think it’s a very cool mechanic I just don’t see me really using it too much.
I definitely agree that the altar could do a better job of indicating that the materials don’t persist between sessions as it works currently.
The obvious compromise seems to be to have each material last over n sessions where the number of sessions are tracked by downcounter in the character save file or similar. Whether the engine can manage that is another question - you’d hope so, but given some of the funk unearthed in it over the years who knows.
This thing about legendary and blueprint drop rerolling while in the same game session then? When is that gonna be fixed? Are you gonna complain about that too how it hurts those who can not play as long sessions as some one else?
i just tried to use 100% voidmarked chest modifier in last ditch desperate attempt to boost my bloodbound infamy gains
Noticed something, probably should have suspected at all, not all chests actually became voidmarked, which means Altar bonuses is probably to some hidden base modifier value “100% to what” 10%, 5? 0.1%
Also strangely enough seemed like a lot of chests disappeared, atlest i don’t think i’ve seen a run with this few chests around all of a sudden, but that might just have been teh weirdest rng ever to only see 4-5 chests across 4 zones
I feel like perhaps the tooltip/description should change if it’s adding x% to an unknown base value - unless i’m one of the few initially reading it too literal
I agree wholeheartedly! This is the only thing I don’t really like about the DLC. I often play in small bursts, which makes me waste materials. That is fine for crystals, shards and the likes, but not for rare materials. Also, having to go back to Kurnhold and activate the altar every time I start up the game, is very annoying! It makes this feature more of a hassle. I think it should either last until you change it, or until you die. The latter would make it more risky and interesting imho, but also a bit trial and error so I can see it bothering some people.
To keep the original progression feeling while fixing the frustration of losing progress between sessions, how about changing how the buff is distributed?
Keep original costs: The initial unlock/creation costs for the altar remain as they are.
Consumable Potions: Instead of granting the buff directly and permanently, interacting with the altar allows you to purchase potions that grant the buff.
Cheap refills: Buying these potions requires only reduced and standardized materials, making ongoing upkeep much more forgiving if you log off or die.
Changing the buff: If you want to change the specific type of buff stored in the potions, you have to pay the full original material cost again.
This way, the initial investment is still meaningful and respected, but players aren’t heavily penalized every single session, while still keeping a balanced material sink for changing builds/buffs.
Juicing maps in PoE doesn’t magically change how much it costs depending on your play session length. It is per map, not “per session”. If it was “per session”, you’d have tons of people complaining there too.
It seems that some people don’t want Ascendant to be the “basic endgame farm”. Well if that’s your intention, cheaper Altar would really help to shift that role back to Ultimate.
IMO the ideal system is if Altar stuff was a one-time purchase, with ability to socket Blessings in or out. So for example I pay like 10 Aether Crystals, and I get one “+20% exp” blessing that can be active in Altar or just stored in stash.
After all the goal was to enable target-farms and difficulty tuning, not to add a resource sink?
I’m fine with the Altar only affecting the current session. It reminds me of juicing certain maps or bosses in other games. I just wish there was a way to close the game without resetting your session. Then I could get the most out of each Altar activation on my own time.
“100% to what” 10%, 5? 0.1% 
- unless i’m one of the few initially reading it too literal