PoE 2 Controversial Tower Change

In the leadup to patch 0.2.0, Grinding Gear Games announced an upcoming change to towers, the second biggest change yet to the endgame juicing system.

"In Path of Exile 2's 0.2.0 update, we're making it so that Towers can spawn with mechanics, including bosses! Towers will also be able to have content added by tablets from other Towers, so you'll be able to juice your Towers as much as your maps!"

The one bigger change Towers received was earlier, when the Alpine Ridge, Bluff, Mesa and Sinking Spire layouts were added to the existing Lost Towers layout.

With its narrow pathways, maze-like layout, poor visibility and projectile-blocking barriers, the Lost Towers layout is by far the worst layout, so this early change was nearly universally seen as an improvement.

The 0.2.0 change is more controversial, with some players seeing it as an improvement and others as making towers worse. Whilst the author is in the former category, I'll present both sides fairly and let you make up your own mind.

The 0.1.0 Tower Meta

Prior to 0.2.0, players typically use poorly rolled Waystones on their Towers. Bad corruptions such as no-change Vaal Orb outcomes, or unwanted low tier Waystones, are used as the player knows the Tower will contain no league events and little loot of value.

Players often path to multiple towers that overlap, complete them all, and place a well-rolled Precursor Tablet in each of the overlapping towers.

This allows the effects of several towers to stack in the overlapping influence region.

With one Precursor Tablet prefix adding unconditional item quantity to all maps in a region and another providing item rarity to all maps in a region, this overlap farming can be very strong. Increasing zone rarity is good, increasing zone quantity is good - increasing both at once is better than the sum of the parts.

This strategy will still work in 0.2.0. However, you might not want to use low tier Waystones any more, as Towers will no longer be as loot-starved.

0.2.0 Change: The Negative Aspects

Searching Lost Towers

The 0.2.0 changes will mean more time needs to be spent in each Lost Towers zone, as now the clear condition is not 'find one point of interest in the zone' but instead 'find and kill all rare monsters, and the boss if present'.

This clear condition change applies to the other towers too, but will only be oppressive in the one truly awful layout, as it will mandate searching the area thoroughly. Finding one point of interest in a maze requires (on average) traversing 50% of the maze; finding nine points of interest (8 rares and a boss), an average of 90%.

This means about 80% more time in Lost Towers.

Breach Towers

Additionally, Breach tablets will sometimes "waste" a +1 breach proc on a Lost Towers map. The narrow nature of the Lost Towers map ensures it will be a disappointing Breach encounter.

Players may feel an unwanted pressure to decide between placing a well-rolled Breach Precursor Tablet into a tower before completing nearby Lost Towers maps (risking 'wasting' a Breach proc on the Lost Towers) or waiting until after the Lost Towers are clear (missing out on the prefix and suffix rewards from that Tablet on the maps required to path to the Lost Towers).

Tough Bosses?

If a player is not confident that they can defeat the boss of a Precursor Tower, but still feels they need to run that tower, they have access to three workarounds.

They can attempt the boss for practice, and if they are defeated, the boss will despawn as happens with player death to a boss in any non-Tower map.

They can open the Tower map using an unwanted Waystone, then re-open a new Waystone afterwards, which will also remove the boss encounter.

Or they can run the Tower using an easily cleared low tier Waystone.

All of these are the same options a player would have if they were unable to defeat the boss of a Mire map and that Mire map was in a critical pathing location on their Atlas.

0.2.0 Change: The Positive Aspects

Loot Added To Maps You Already Had To Run

Prior to 0.2.0, endgame juicing required you to traverse to each tower and complete it. The Towers themselves were bad maps, devoid of content and mostly devoid of loot.

In 0.2.0 - four out of five of them (everything except Lost Towers layout) will be just 'normal maps' now, no worse and no better than any other map, except for the additional reward of being able to use a Precursor Tablet upon completion.

These are maps you were always desiring to run, and now, they will have more loot and more in-map events. You'll encounter more Ritual events in maps, more Breach events, more Delirium mirrors, and so on. You'll have almost the same number in non-Tower maps (the only exception being tablet-added content that hits a Tower instead of a non-Tower map) - but you'll now have some in Tower maps as well.

Where in the past Towers were an investment of time that would award little loot but allowed you to set up more profitable farming in the future, in 0.2.0 they will still provide that effect.

But unlike pre-0.2.0, they will also have loot themselves.

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