Path Of Exile Feb. 21 Development Manifesto: Converting Betrayal League Into A Core Game Mechanic

As the first announcement of the game's next league went live, Grinding Gear Games has managed to unveil its reputedly great plan of integrating Betrayal Expansion into the core game mechanic in Path of Exile based on the announcement. Although it barely mentioned how this integration works and what will happen after the integration, the announcement seemed to be off to a great start and now the bombshell comes - Development Manifesto from Grinding Gear Games! 

As a matter of fact, the Betrayal League still concerns the most of Path of Exile gamers, even though it's been told to be succeeded by Synthesis League in next month. Today's Development Manifesto is sort of a further explanation and declaration of the original statement "an integrated version of the Betrayal league and much, much more" in the Synthesis league announcement. Although turns out, players are not so exhilarated and contented for this Manifesto as they heard the news from the original post for the first time. 

To sort the whole Development Manifesto out organically, we managed to slightly modify the original content of this Development Manifesto and outlined the highlights intuitively and briefly. Here is the list:

Betrayal League will become the permanent system in Path of Exile after 3.6.0 expansion:

• Jun, the main character of the Betrayal League, will be introduced to Highgate in Act 9;
• Jun's appearance will not interfere with the chances for encounters from other masters;
• Wherever Jun is, there will be three Betrayal encounters;
• Other improvements to Syndicate member choices and outcome.   

Atlas Objectives:

• Five daily Atlas Objectives in 3.6.0 expansion with Jun's addition;
• The chance of completing a map with one Atlas Objective appeared will be raised up to 20% from 16% at now.

Big Scale Nerf:

• Few Safehouses in the 3.6.0 expansion;
• Reducing the value of Special Rewards from certain Safehouses;
• The increased experience gain of All types of Upgraded Breachstones will be reduced respectively(150% at most);
• Lowering the pack sizes of all types of Upgraded Breachstones;
• Reducing the power of Cartography Scarabs, Divination Scarabs, and Sulphite Scarabs(50% at least, 70% at most);
• Reshuffling the organization and removing one rank from each member after completing the fight, instead of resetting the entire Syndicate;
• Reducing the number of ranks on Veiled Crafting Modifier.

Lost Game Lore Reversion

• Re-include the important elements of lost game lore soon.

Above is all the significant contents that we collected from the unveiled Manifesto. As for public opinion, well, they are more frustrated than stunned, and thereby hangs a tale.

A viewer named Fluffylife wrote this in the comment area"I think betrayal is one league I would have been happy with not going core". The implicit yet deepest pity soon was seconded by a bunch of peers. More of the comments are more of rants and raves than neutral reviews. Someone was booing the Scarabs Nerf, and one of the viewers implied that the Betrayal league is the second worst league of Path of Exile in the history, next to Essence League. There is one comment saying the company has a pattern to make changes like this: making a high-percentage reduction of some project and claiming it as a slight adjustment while trying to make a compensation by increasing a far-below odds for getting certain rewards. In a word, the comment area just becomes the front line of lashing out at the nerf part from the Development Manifesto.