Trial of the Ancestors still gets people talking, and that alone says a lot. For some players, it was one of the few league mechanics that felt good to sit down with before heading into maps, especially when you had a bit of time and wanted something different. That is part of why POE currency keeps coming up in discussions around the mode, because the loop around rewards, trading, and progression never really left people's minds.

The recent player chat around ToTA is messy in a very human way. A few people want it back in the core game without much hesitation. They liked the tournament-style setup, the break from regular mapping, and the fact that it gave them a reason to stay in one place and keep pushing. Others were much colder on it. They said flat out that they did not enjoy the mechanic, or that it never felt worth the time.

A big part of the split comes from how the mode scales. Some players liked it early on, then slowly lost interest once the fights started getting out of hand. That complaint comes up a lot. You are doing fine for a while, then suddenly the pace changes, the enemy teams hit harder, and it feels like the game decided the difficulty for you. A lot of people do not like that sort of pressure. They want control. They want to choose when things get rough.

What players keep asking for

If ToTA ever returns as a permanent feature, most of the discussion suggests it would need real changes first. People keep pointing at unit AI, balance, and the way rewards are tuned. The idea is not that the mode has no fans. It clearly does. The issue is whether it can hold up when thousands of players touch it as an optional part of the endgame.

1. Keep the mode optional so players can ignore it without feeling punished.
2. Rework the AI so matches feel fair instead of awkward or random.
3. Make difficulty growth clearer, so players know when they are choosing a harder run.
4. Adjust rewards so the effort feels worth it without becoming mandatory.

That is probably the most practical way to look at it. Some players would happily run ToTA for hours. Others would skip it the moment they could. Both groups exist, and both are loud. The smartest version of a core return would probably respect that split instead of trying to force everyone into the same lane. And if GGG ever leans on POE trade currency style progression in the mode, it would need to feel natural, not like busywork stapled onto the side of the game.