From what we've seen so far, do you feel you're going to stay with PoE1 or move to PoE2?

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BaumisMagicalWorld wrote:

Fine, I wasn't up-to-date on the most recent developments. Yet you are comparing revenue vs cost, rather than their actual financials.

Their stock value took a nose-dive - by over 75% - after release and has since only (slowly) recovered. Phantom Liberty's success is what actually tipped the scales over the last year, from negative to once again positive. It had negative stock market value for 3 consecutive years after Cyberpunk. Maybe take that into account.

A game that made $600M with over 10 million digital units sold, then went on to sell over 15 million more units, is a game that is successful. One can pick corporate nits all they like, but the end result is the same - Cyberpunk turned around. It redeemed itself. Does every game do that? No - but you picked one of the two highest profile ones that did.

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BaumisMagicalWorld wrote:

This isn't necessarily a matter of size. When you have a very niche but extremely loyal fanbase, alienating them with wrong decisions, especially in a free2play business plan environment; each major change of direction should be measured with extreme caution.

I am a MechWarrior/Armored Core/Zone of the Enders diehard fangirl. it does not get more "niche but loyal" than BattleTech fans, and Armored Core/ZoE isn't far behind. Doesn't change the rules of engagement - you can play it safe and never get anywhere, or you can swing for the fences and hope you hit. I'd rather see someone swing and fail than see someone produce a bunch of inoffensive, unimaginative, 'safe' tapioca-pudding garbage.

It is as Phrazz said. If not for PoE2, I would no longer really care much about Path of Exile. This game is no longer a game I care to play. I invest in it mostly to keep reasonably up to date on PoE2, but at this point the requirement to get to "moderately good build" is so out of reach of ordinary players that there's no real point anymore. Either you're a Streamer Memer adherent who does what Ziz, Mathil, Ghazzy or the rest tell you to do, or you get nowhere. It sucks, but what can a girl do? Other than play other games, I suppose. Settlers is actually a fantastic league, I'm glad I jumped in for a month or so to give it a run, but I just don't have the wind for this game anymore.

If PoE2 was nothing more than a crap retread of ground PoE1 already covered? There'd be no damn point in playing it.

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BaumisMagicalWorld wrote:

I'm actually liking a lot of what I'm seeing, but I'm not blind to potential problems, either. I'm just a touch too annoyed by all the hypers that continue to parrot how PoE 2 will be our "salvation" and "fix everything".

Fact is, they are being awfully mysterious and reserved about the game, which does not sit right with me, to be honest. I'd like to see more, but they are handing out only crumbs of information and/or showing us positively framed footage, which has shown in the past to have negative side effects on user perception.

People are excited by what they see. They want to talk about it. whether it's a "salvation that fixes everything" remains to be seen of course, but I am basically one hundred percent behind every single major decision they've made with the game. Slower, more rhythmic combo-based combat? Hell, I played the bejeegus out of Devil May Cry - gimme. Elaborate boss fights with towering monstrosities that require a bit of patience and strategy to take down? I've got a thousand hours in elden Ring - gimme. WASD controls that allow fluid, dynamic movement baked into every skill? Mein gott, I'll take five please. I really, truly do not think the game will feel 'slow' at all when people get into it and start playing and learning it. Just like Elden Ring doesn't really feel 'slow' when you're in the midst of doing battle with half a dozen jackwads because you got a little careless.

As for them being 'mysterious and reserved'? They know better. The stuff people are clamoring for is all "LEMME MAKE BUILDS!" information. That stuff is in rapid flux right now. A skill tree they released right now would be hopelessly out of date by the time the game drops in forty-odd days, and people would be furious. Why throw out information everybody knows is preliminary and subject to change, but will blame them for changing anyways?

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BaumisMagicalWorld wrote:

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1453R wrote:

PoE2's slower, more measured and methodical design paradigm is required if one wants to have an actual back and forth with enemies where your resources matter, because in PoE1 all your resources are effectively infinite.

Yeah, here's the thing, though: it's the wrong genre for that. It's "hack & slash", not "Souls-like". The whole point of the genre is to progressively become a demigod and to decimate hordes of monsters, not dance around enemies and carefully manage your resources. That's what Souls-like Adventure RPGs are for.

And before you know it, we will have to gather sticks and rocks to make a campfire so that we can cook food and boil water to quench our Exile's hunger and thirst rate so they don't suffer from exhaustion (reduces maximum HP and Mana), then build a bed so they can sleep to regenerate Mana before they are ready to enter a dungeon. And after we clear a dungeon, we get to choose between something like "Your hunger rate is reduced by 0.3%" and "You can boil water 0.05 seconds faster". Then you hunt down bosses for limbs and other parts to craft your own boss weapons, with the special ones also granting a "boss soul" that allows you to level up its specific boss weapon. Killing 1000 bosses will allow you to craft a rune slot onto your weapon so that you can unlock a special boss ability, i.e. something like "Wet Noodle Sweep - Channel your inner strength and lash out with your wet spaghetti. Inflicts the 'wetness' debuff on enemies you hit, making them more susceptible to salt attacks and increasing their chance to become soggy."



/s

That's also what continues to confuse me; like, why change direction?

Rare i laugh out loud, thats funny.
I understand the desire to change direction.

The top end build in PoE are well .. getting stupid.
This league I played witha friend who likes to experiment and got some good market sales early so had some cash to throw around.

He had a new build every day .. hex blast .. some Fire/Chaos build .. not sure what the frost build was but .. they were all top tier ... and I was blind the entire time .. to the point i just start laughing in discord cause im just hyper fixated on my health bar .. waiting to die ... i cant see anything with the lightshow his charaters are giving with hyper fast attacks or complementing spell interactions.

He had a cast on damage where he is damaging himself and chaining aoe's like a mother... It does need to slow down ... but not the activity and pacing ... but definitely the attack speed ... if im hitting 100 times per second doing 1 million damage or hitting once every 2 seconds doing 2 million .. same pacing slower animations ..whatever... it is too fast to have meaningful feedback to killing things.

Im ok with it but don't pull back too far .. .

If I may I describe what i think was perfect pacing and just very satisfying gameplay in this genre.

The exploding palm monk from Diablo 3

It required 3 things
The Grouping of all the mobs on screen into a ball (however you choose)
Marking an individual with the exploding palm ... I think i was cold...
Then the detonation .... KaaaBOOOOM!!!

Carnage .. the more the density the bigger the boom ...
you used to build detonation balls .. to contain as many yellows as possible
or keep pulling them with you as you build ball after death ball ... it was friggin glorious !!!! and

highly engaging game play.
diverse in that you can group or detonate however you like .. monk had a grouping skill to pull the mobs...

The Poe Equivalent would be if Void Sphere pulled in all the mobs in a radius ... then based on the total hit points of the mobs pulled in would detonate killing everything inside or throwing out half dead yellows ... if the ball was dense enough ..nothing was going to live...

So so so satisfying.
They need that kind of pacing where yes you can kill the whole screen .
Yes you can do it without highly repetitive movements.
Yes it is visually stunning but not blinding...
and honestly add a real low low down in the guts THUOOM! to the explosion.... epic.

but too slow ... with too many rolls .. roll .. roll .. roll , a la Dark Rolls and Elden Ring Around the Rosie. and it is tedious and that will not be well received by the PoE 1 lovers.

Do you people even understand what "souls-like" means? Do you realize that Dark Souls IS AN ACTION RPG?!?!!!?! AKA: the same genre as PoE 1 and PoE 2?

Souls-like is not a different genre......its a subset of the SAME genre. Not only that, but the term "souls-like" only existed for about a decade now. There were harder arpgs before it, there were harder arpgs after it.

I don't get this stupid thought that "souls-like" is somehow entirely different...because its not.

Seeing to how Early Access is likely only going to launch with access to the first 3 Acts and endgame I'm probably going to stay with PoE 1 at least for a few months.

Why would I want to experience anything to do with endgame content before even completing the games campaign.

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1453R wrote:

Slower, more rhythmic combo-based combat? Hell, I played the bejeegus out of Devil May Cry - gimme.

Different preferences and all that. I, for one, do not like this change. I did play the shit out of Bayonetta (arguably the "cooler" DMC, depending on who you ask), though.

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1453R wrote:

Elaborate boss fights with towering monstrosities that require a bit of patience and strategy to take down? I've got a thousand hours in elden Ring - gimme. WASD controls that allow fluid, dynamic movement baked into every skill?

This I don't mind, but that WASD thing is already on my radar of things I'll probably loathe. Hated it in Guild Wars 2, this hasn't changed for me.

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1453R wrote:

The stuff people are clamoring for is all "LEMME MAKE BUILDS!" information.

Well, yeah... I wanna know what tools I can work with and what my overall options are. I'm not interested in chaining combos; I've always hated the concept of resource generator and resource spender, this isn't any different here, gameplay-wise.

15. November PoE2 EA
13./20. December 3.26

dip me in butter and roll me in nuts!

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mefistozxz wrote:

Do you people even understand what "souls-like" means? Do you realize that Dark Souls IS AN ACTION RPG?!?!!!?! AKA: the same genre as PoE 1 and PoE 2?

Souls-like is not a different genre......its a subset of the SAME genre. Not only that, but the term "souls-like" only existed for about a decade now. There were harder arpgs before it, there were harder arpgs after it.

I don't get this stupid thought that "souls-like" is somehow entirely different...because its not.

I do not ask this question very often, but; are you serious right now?

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TorsteinTheFallen wrote:

dip me in butter and roll me in nuts!

Sure thing.

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Phrazz wrote:

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Raycheetah wrote:

Back in the dawn of PoE, I was still a D2 fan excited about the prospects of D3. As more and more information became available about Blizzivision's new Diablo entry, the less I liked what I saw. Fortunately, the same YouTuber who I followed for D3 coverage also covered PoE.

tl;dr: I could tell pretty easily that D3 was gonna be garbage (for me, at least). ='[.]'=

This sounds like me.

I played D2:LoD for several years. Close to 10, I think. Still one of my favorite games of all time, even though I couldn't really get into the remake. Sometimes it's just best to let nostalgia be nostalgia. So damn hyped for D3, but I really disliked how it turned out. Not even close to D2 in any way, sadly (for me).

And are you talking about Kripp? I followed his D3 streams back then, his world first (only?) kill in D3 (pre-nerf). Still, D3 was not for me. He went over to PoE, I tried it out, found out it had/has the character customization, itemization and complexity D3 lacked, and the rest is history.

----

I will of course give PoE 2 a fair chance. I'll try it, I'll probably sink a fair amount of hours into it to really learn it. But there's not much in the terms of teasers, trailers and news that have made me "hyped". More the opposite. And just like D3; I'm sure PoE 2 will be a success, but I don't think it will be a game for me, at least as long as PoE 1 exists.

Sorry; been without power most of the last week.

Nah. I hadn't even heard of Kripp yet. It was a channel called Force Strategy Gaming (now just Force Gaming):

https://www.youtube.com/@ForceGamingYT

He hasn't covered POE in many moons, though. ='[.]'=

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Raycheetah wrote:

Nah. I hadn't even heard of Kripp yet.

Me neither. I got into the game because a German Let's Play channel featured it in a one-off episode. The channel is called "GameTube", but that video unfortunately no longer exists, or at least I couldn't find it. Was sometime in early 2013, and soon after, in April, I downloaded and played the game for the first time.

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Raycheetah wrote:

He hasn't covered POE in many moons, though. ='[.]'=

Yeah, I've been following him since the build-up days to D3 too. Still watching his "New games to look forward to this month" series.