Please bring back Trials of The Ancestors as an endgame mechanic for PoE1 !

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de_Lioncourt#4889 wrote:

It would be fun to run a bit of TOTA again. But it requires a bit of polishing. They somehow need to make it not one-build mechanic.

True. I'm sure some balancing would be done to stop cheese only builds. I will admit I did like the cheese builds as they were quite interesting to build and play around with in TOTA.

With that said being able to progress through the ranks to 2k rating as you invest further into a regular build should be doable too.

GGG, we want TOTA back in PoE1 !!

Happy PoE2 0.20 launch day folks.

But GGG, please don't forget about TOTA and PoE1. We want it back!

Trials of the Ancestors. Gimmie.

Trials of the Ancestors was fun, but only at a surface level. Underneath the novelty was a deeply flawed league that doesn't warrant a return to core gameplay.

Here is a smaller list of why it wasn't great in first place.

Disconnected gameplay loop:
It felt less like a side minigame, breaking the core ARPG rhythm rather than enhancing it.

Inconsistent and frustrating AI:
Unit behavior was erratic, and victories often came from exploiting weird interactions rather than strategic depth.

Completely trivialized by cheese builds:
Most players ignored the core mechanics entirely by running specialized builds that broke the system.
Positioning, unit synergy, and actual tactics were abandoned in favor of cheesing tournaments with minimal effort. Sure other league content gets also cheesed, but not as bad as TotA was.
This turned TotA into a currency geyser, pumping out rewards far beyond what even the hardest endgame content could justify. Instead of being skill-based or engaging, it became a low-interaction farming method that undermined its own design.

High dev cost, low long-term value:
Bringing it back would demand time and resources better spent elsewhere.

You may ask,where that time could be better used? It's simple!


[I]Reworking old league mechanics:[/i]
Systems like Blight, or some other already functional existing mechanics are long overdue for enhancements. They lag behind modern content in both balance and engagement.

Reviving and refining past leagues:

Synthesis could be modernized to bring back meaningful base crafting, not RNG beast spamming.

Bestiary itself could use some love and changes, or be nuked for good.

Crucible could return in a toned-down form as a build enabler, not a power spike machine.

Scourge + Beyond could act as Delirium’s darker counterpart, simply add enemy density and difficulty to maps on players demand. The on click second map was just a good players favorite.

Necropolis lanterns added back some difficulty to maps, a rare thing nowadays. With proper polish, they could help counter power creep without rebalancing the whole game.

Settlers has huge untapped potential as a "successor" to Harvest. With reasonable limits to prevent another full-blown item editor, it could offer targeted, meaningful crafting, making high-end gear more accessible without trivializing progression.

Beyond crafting, gold and resources could serve as natural sink mechanics, opening the door to deeper systems, NPC upgrades, city progression, item synthesis, or economic features that create long-term goals and player interaction. It’s a foundation, not just a feature.


And outside of league content there's space for improvements.

Ascendancy reworks:
Classes like Assassin, Saboteur or Occultist feel outdated. They need modern identities and tools to match today’s design standards.

Skill tuning:
Many skills are either overpowered with little investment or underpowered, requiring deep investment just to perform decently. Addressing both ends of the spectrum, ehether through more buffs, nerfs, or reworks, would improve build diversity and gameplay balance by a lot.

Unique Item tuning:
Just like many outdated skills, a large portion of unique items in the game are long overdue for a rework or buff. Over time, many of them have completely lost their place, even as niche options. They're not exciting, not build-enabling, and certainly not competitive budget options for rare items.

While uniques shouldn't always be best in slot, the balance has tilted too far. At this point, only about 20% of uniques feel relevant, offering real value or creative utility. The rest exist in a state of irrelevance, overshadowed by rares which act like a better stat stick, or outdated by modern design.

It’s time to breathe new life into more of the forgotten ones. Whether through stat overhauls, added mechanics, or synergy with newer systems, a pass on neglected uniques would add a lot of depth and discovery back into the item landscape.


It may sound silly but I could see TotA as a PvP mode, in a stripped down version where players control the units and face off in 1v1 or team battles.
It could be a fun, non-reward PvP side activity. But it would still be extremely niche, appealing to a very small subset of the playerbase. And once again, not worth the dev time compared to other, more impactful improvements for a larger improvement of the game.

I totally respect your viewpoint. Very valid and you certainly highlight some concerns (i.e. the cheese builds). The thing is that what you wrote could be applied to what they did with Sanctum and making it core. Or bringing back Ultimatum in place of Metamorph. If they did it for these mechanics, why not TOTA?

I'm no dev but I imagine that dev cost wouldn't be as high as the assets and mechanics are already there. Just requires a balancing pass through. This can also satisfy balancing towards cheese builds, but you already have highly specialized builds for most league mechanics anyway so who really cares? Sanctum pumps out currency like a currency geyser you mentioned, and you have builds with very little to no defensives with screen-wide dps clears with freeze shatters, yet it still goes untouched.

AI - not much to say there, they can always continuously improve on that point.

Disconnected gameplay loop - see Blight TD or again Sanctum.

Your mentioning of reworking old league mechanics/ascendency reworks/skills and uniques tuning - these are things that GGG already does almost every single league.

So with all that said... please bring back TOTA to PoE1 GGG!

WE WANT TOTA IN POE1 !

I have said it before but my stance on side content is real simple.
If it's outside maps aka heist or sanctum and you don't have to interact with it or even see it then it should stay in the game for those who enjoy it regardless of how i feel about said content.
Having said that i really enjoyed the mechanic, so yes pls bring it back.

As long as people don't necessarily have to do ToTA content for 36 or 40 challenges in a league, and they can pick a different mechanic then its fine for it to exist like heist,sanctum etc.

Just don't force players to do it for challenge completion lol, let them ignore it if they want to. And recent leagues have had pretty flexible challenges, letting you pick like 3-4 mechanics out of 10 or more of them so I think they'll keep designing them like that moving forward, so people can just do whatever content they find fun to complete those challenges.

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Toforto#2372 wrote:

As long as people don't necessarily have to do ToTA content for 36 or 40 challenges in a league, and they can pick a different mechanic then its fine for it to exist like heist,sanctum etc.

Just don't force players to do it for challenge completion lol, let them ignore it if they want to. And recent leagues have had pretty flexible challenges, letting you pick like 3-4 mechanics out of 10 or more of them so I think they'll keep designing them like that moving forward, so people can just do whatever content they find fun to complete those challenges.

I have a feeling if they do re-implement TOTA, it will be part of a challenge the league it is brought back. When they brought back Ultimatum (in place of Metamorph), the very same league they brought it back it was part of a challenge.

However it was part of a challenge that had multiple options so you didn't have to do Ultimatum necessarily.

I think that's the way to go.