[outdated] Caustic Arrow Solo Map MFer (20/300+)

Another tale, this time about the extremely difficult challenge to collect Chayula splinters. Hopefully your challenge is going better than Nilfer's.

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Dispatch: Ten-Baker-One, Ten-Baker-One. Four-one-five in progress at 161 North 51st Street, Apartment 16C. Please respond.
Unit 10-B-1: Roger dispatch. Ten-Baker-One en route.

"Goddamnit," thought Officer Branson to himself; "Disturbing the Peace call at 2:30 in the morning. Well, there goes the coffee break."
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Earlier the previous day...

Global (1):
40#BigBully: You're such a noob Nilfer.

3#Nilfer: Guys, help me out please. How'd you finish the Chayula splinters challenge?

38#NeenerNeener: Duh! You attack Chayula in a Breach.

40#BigBully: Haha!

3#Nilfer: But Chayula never spawns! Come on guys, help me out!

38#NeenerNeener: Well, did you follow the ritual?

3#Nilfer: Ritual? What ritual?

40#BigBully: Noob!

3#Nilfer: What ritual?

38#NeenerNeener: Oh for Christsakes. The tabasco sauce, baking soda ritual, obviously.

40#BigBully: Yes. The way-past-midnight, naked gaming with loud music ritual. Haha.

38#NeenerNeener: That's the ritual, BigBully, LOL. Oh, and you need to shout "CHAY OOH LA" over and over else he won't spawn.

3#Nilfer: What? Wait. I'll screenshot this for reference. Thanks guys. Thanks a million.
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Nilfer isn't a particularly good Path of Exile player. In fact he's bad. Really bad. It's a miracle Nilfer somehow managed to complete three challenges. But one thing Nilfer has going for him is tenacity. Failure after failure does not deter Nilfer in the least.

And now, Nilfer knew how to spawn Chayula. None other than BigBully, Hardcore Ladder Rank 7, provided the secret. And so Nilfer began to prepare for the ritual.
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Belatedly Nilfer realized that he should have asked how much tabasco sauce and baking soda were required. Well, the more, the better, probably.

So Nilfer emptied a full bottle of tabasco sauce into a tall glass, filled it half way with water, and then added about 1/4th cup of baking soda. He stirred the concoction, stripped naked and logged onto Path of Exile.

"Oh, almost forgot the music," realized Nilfer. "Hmm, this should do."

He clicked on a Motley Crue mp3 and set his speakers to maximum volume. His apartment literally shook with the blaring noise.

It took four maps, but finally, Nilfer spawned a chaos breach! No time to waste! He downed the entire tabasco sauce-baking soda concoction in a single gulp.

Immediately his eyes began to water; it was hard to see the screen. He felt absolutely terrible.

Still, Nilfer shouted at the top of his lungs, "CHAY OOH LA... CHAY OOH LA...," over and over. Baking soda bubbled from his mouth each time he spoke.

Except that Nilfer's tongue began to swell and his lips started to turn numb. What began as "CHAY OOH LA" became slurred and jumbled sounding like "CHI'LL KOOH AH" and then "CI'LL KOOL YA."

But it worked! It worked! There, in front of him, was Chayula! Nilfer moused over for the attack!
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"SHOUT, SHOUT, SHOUT AT THE DEVIL!" blared from the speakers within Apartment 16C. The noise was deafening.

Officer Branson knocked loudly at the door of the apartment. "Open up! This is the police! Open up!"

No response.

So Branson crashed heavily into the door, using the full bulk of his 6'-3", 225 lb. frame. The door literally exploded inward.
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There, in the room, sat a maniac hunched over a computer screen. He wore no clothes and seemed to be gesturing crazily at something.

Branson was a good, church-going Christian, and thus, immediately recognized the scene in front of him, for what it obviously was: Devil Worship.

The madman was screaming something. White foam frothed from his mouth - a clear indication of lunacy, probably advanced rabies infection.

"CI'LL KOOL YA.... I'LL KOOL YUH..." shouted the madman. "I'LL KILL YOU!"

Fortunately, Branson was well prepared to deal with the situation presented to him. He simply took out his nightstick and struck the lunatic squarely on his head.

The madman fell unconscious onto his keyboard.

Out of curiosity, Branson looked at the screen. There, in front of him, some sort of winged, purple monster was beating on a human-looking form. Shortly, a dialog box appeared.

"You have died.
Resurrect in Town.
Resurrect at Checkpoint."

Branson shut the computer off.
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I really do not like the approach POE has taken this league at all.

To improve online player participation, POE decided to make the challenges this league much more time intensive - double, or more, as compared to the past few leagues.

So, endless repetition of the same content - over and over again - to achieve challenges is the new design.

Is this good? Desirable?

I think not at all.

Why can't GGG attract continued participation by offering new content/races/prizes?

Instead, the forumla is to make 40/40 about 2 times more difficult in terms of time commitment.
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Don't get me wrong - I'm enjoying the league - and, after a fashion, I think I'm enjoying the leveling process for my first ever level 95 toon.

But is the time I spend achieving these ends really worthwhile?
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And there's further impact on the game.

Previously you could roll CA/magic-fnd and leisurely progress towards 40/40 without a huge time commitment - fairly confident of success.

Now... it takes so much time to get to 40/40 that you need to rapidly clear maps with extremely high DPS - not just for maps, but for killing bosses.

Which makes a ton of builds completely unsuitable - unless you group or unless you're willing to play 8 hours/day for the entire league - this includes CA/magic find.

And I for one, was hoping to play the terrible Blight skill - I like the way it works, and it's a unique playstyle - but getting 10,000 map levels on a Blight toon - no thanks. I'm now playing the most powerful reasonably affordable toon in the game (CI/HoWA) IMO - and it's taking me way too long.

And I've had to completely alter my playstyle to give me a chance at 10K map levels (don't pick up anything at all unless it's totally worthwhile, re-jig your Atlas so that it drops linear or otherwise quick-to-run maps... skip everything in a map (for me this includes Essences) unless it's fast - and if you don't care about leveling.... skip everything that's not fast and won't drop maps. Essences here are a waste of time for sure - Breaches probably make the cut because so many mobs spawn that map drops increase enough to make Breaches worth while.

Side note - probably these same mechanics and map drop rates continue into next league - but without Breaches or some high mob spawn mechanism - next league could easily be extremely difficult until GGG rebalances things; for me, Breaches make all the difference between sustaining Shaped Mesa/Strands (or nearly so) and having to spend all your currency on maps or sextants or Zana/mods to sustain a map ppol.
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Once more... I think GGG will be better served by trying to make the game fresh/new/technically challenging - as opposed to making it time-consuming/tedious.

But I may be wrong...

Perhaps striving for a goal is more rewarding than actually fulfilling a goal.

According to GGG their player-participation numbers have never been higher.

So, in spite of my desire... I think time-intensive, monotonous grinds are the new norm.

Expect next league's 40/40 to take at least as much time as this league's.