Why POE2’s Direction Is Worrying for Veterans and Newcomers Alike

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Vampyrex#5188 wrote:

I've been playing since the launch of PoE1 on and off. So I've experienced all the ups and downs of that. Took several long breaks during PoE1s course. This definitely feels like a "down" moment in the games lifespan all things considered. They actually successfully compelled me to hit that uninstall button. While I'm not happy with the state it's in currently for reasons that are pretty obvious and have been beat to death I think I'll definitely revisit it around 3 or 4 months from now if word of mouth is good. They need to get rid of the developers responsible for the toxic positivity that resulted in it being pushed out with core philosophies from poe1 ruthless that were proven to be unpopular already. It is what it is. 500k peaks now down to consistent 380k peaks. That's bad news no matter how much you sugar coat it. Definitely a wake up call for the dev team. It's adapt or die time guys. Good luck. I sincerely hope you are successful in the redesign.

500k happens on the weekends that’s how school and employment work

+1

If they're going to commit to a lot of these new changes I hope they at least keep PoE 1 online.

I agree 100% what you said, 60 hours in and i do not enjoy the game in the slightes, already burnt out, i only play it cause of it's title. I don't even know why, i never enjoyed ruthless as well. I am not sure if i can play this every 3-4 months leagues

+++

I tend to agree with most of this.

I really enjoy this game, but damn it becoming tedious. I've pushed through to maps and i'm really feeling like it's a grind to move from one to the next with any sense of real progression.

One of the nicest things about the atlas was there was a finish to the atlas, before we could focus on other things like bosses, min/max, etc.

This end game although cool seems to just.....go.....on.

I really hope they do a few things:

1. revert 1 portal. it sucks.
2. create a sense of progression in maps
3. put implicit movement speed on boots.
4. have charms go up with ilvl. bloody headhunters drop with 1 charm, what the bejesus is that?
5. drop more crafting currencies, especially exalts and regals during the campaign
6. allow runes to be overridden

kthnx.

Totally agree. I have stopped playing due to frustration with the game. I'm gonna come back in 6 month or at least until major changes/patches have been work on and released.

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Danjeroux#6704 wrote:

+1

If they're going to commit to a lot of these new changes I hope they at least keep PoE 1 online.

They are, they have said so repeatedly. The next league was a little delayed while they shifted their entire team over to make sure the POE2 Early Access launch went off (relatively) smoothly. The POE1 team is back on POE1, new league is on its way.

You have some good suggestions, and bring up some valid issues.

But then you also have suggestions about things that well.. Didn't bring a lot of value to most casual players in PoE 1.

1. You're right. They need to improve the feel of the combat. Slow and methodical is good. Fast and action packed is great too. I'm really quite disappointed in how they're forcing us to use more spells, but most of them feel weak. Combat also doesn't flow.

Improving combat alone would be a HUGE improvement to this game.


2. Yup. quite a bit of tedium in this game. Skill gem tedium. Crafting tedium, looking at a map tedium. Lots of enemies are painfully slow too. You are as well. Running around killing them is bad.

3. Flasks feel so bad now. I am literally screaming for a flask with something on it that actually does something.

I'm not usually one to ask for more buttons to press. But even just having one 'large charm' or something, with a special effect. And the possibility to swap out a flask for a unique one. Would add a ton of variety to builds, and 'oh shit' buttons.

4. Here's where I vehemently disagree with your prestigious 'veteran' take. I fully, and completely believe that the crafting system in this game should be largely removed. At least in it's current state.

For your average player. They simply are not interested in crafting. This is a uniquely veteran desire in this game. I have many friends who play PoE, and not a single one has ever used anything more than a few orbs on leveling gear. It is not fun. It is confusing. You need to follow a guide to craft. I would rather more, and more interesting gear drop. It simply doesn't add anything to the game that most people would want. And by most, I mean, 95% of players, all the ones that quit over the years.

5. Loot is done poorly. Both Vendors and loot should be amazing. Half the issue is they bloated the loot table with whites and blues for crafting, because guess who likes that? Oh.. veteran sweaty players. Other things like needless skill gems dropping add to it. I want loot explosions of all sorts of colours. Not a bunch of whites and blues for 'crafting' and then maybe a rare.

I'm being dead ass serious here too about this. I've talked to many people over the years into trying PoE. And not a single one of them was ever interested in crafting gear. Make it drop. Make it drop good loot, with wild stats possible. And you'll have a fun game. Enough with this crafting system. That can stay in PoE 1.

6. Fully agree on the skill tree. Can't reach anything interesting. Too many points are wasted. Nodes could be far more powerful. The thing I like about PoE best, and which is far more fun than crafting, or grinding. Is the unique builds. This does not have it.

7. I don't think the gem system fits in the same way it does in PoE 1. I believe it needs to be improved. I want the variety of PoE 1. But without the need to socket it into gear and link it. If this part of the game is more accessible.. More average, and casual players will enjoy it. Remember, emphasis on fun loot, fun builds, fun combat. Not tedium like rolling for links or sockets. Unfun.

8. No. The campaign is fine. You have your PoE 1 brainrot in full display here talking about 'leagues'. If the goal is to make this game different. Why are we defaulting to adding what the other game has? Lets come up with something better, rather than resorting to League after League every few months which just eventually ended up with a bloated, convoluted, and overly complex game with 50x the loot it needed to have.

9. Yeah, I liked the labyrinth from the old game better if i'm honest. Whatever they did with this honour and what not, it aint it. Not too sure about ascendancies.



There are a few great core aspects that they need to focus on in this game.

I think everyone agree's. The combat needs to be fluid, feel good. It needs to be decently paced.

I think most people would agree, that one of the funnest part of PoE 1, was the unique interesting builds. This needs to stay. But.. Remove some of the tedium from it.

The crafting and socket/link set. Ruined the game for a lot of players in a lot of ways. And it is not needed in order to get the unique builds. It detracts from gameplay that is gameplay, and not staring at inventory play.

Let people respec even easier. Like, I don't get why this isn't an option. Let people experiment. Let people try new stuff. Half the fun of games like this is trying new builds. Last game you ruined that. This game it still takes so much gold.

I also believe, emphasis on better map design. More maps. is also going to massively improve the game.

I also believe that better loot will as well. And by better loot I mean. More randomization, and remove crafting that isn't anything more than superficial. People want to see lootsplosions and then take a look at all the goodies they got. Not sift through white base items and identify blues to craft.

Think Borderlands. Did the game have crafting in it? Nope! But you were always checking new guns to see what dropped. Because sometimes the way it randomized, it was just an awesome weapon. Be more like Borderlands, and less like 'Hello, welcome to PoE crafting 101. This advanced university course is incredibly difficult, but if you put in the effort, after 7 years, you too can be a streamer spamming exalts on an item you spent 170 hours grinding the same map for.'


I'm actually with you on a lot of the changes. But I really really disagree on the crafting and the whole lets focus on leagues and end game stuff.

While I do want lots of end-game content. I want all the content in the game to be viable as much as possible. I get mapping does this to some degree. But far too many games focus on end-game at the expense of everything else and I don't want to see that.

Leagues also need to be improved. New content. New enemies, new area's, and new GEAR. But I absolutely got sick of the old game introducing more and more currency, and crafting with each new league. More pointless bloat items that took up inventory space. This ruined PoE 1 for the vast majority of people, we shouldn't do it again. The game got bloated, and too complex.

I will say, One of the things that did improve PoE 1, was the random events you could partake in. They definitely need to add those to PoE 2. It added variety to maps, and an interesting fun challenge.. or more, if you dared.


I think.. I'll also emphasize the whole crafting thing again. Because I really do think most of the top end players in this game, do not realize how incredibly unfun that is for most of the rest of the playerbase. That sort of stuff appeals to such a small demographic. And I get that it's part of what made PoE, well. PoE. But we HAVE a game with an amazing crafting system in it for the players that want to craft. PoE 2, absolutely in no way, needs to have it. It seriously detracts from how good loot can be. I'm telling you. A lootsplosion with tons of different colours of items, with randomized stats will be FAR more satisfying for your average player.

This is something that so many ARPG's get so very wrong. The loot is BORING. Make it INTERESTING. Even if it breaks builds. This isn't a competitive game, and we shouldn't be treating PoE 2 like it is. If something is op, so what? Add in something like delve with harder and harder enemies, and randomized loot. And you'll have a game people will play for weeks without sleeping. Trust me, I've been there. PoE 1 crafting is not what this game needs.


The only other thing I have a gripe with is EXP loss on death. Make it an option that you can choose. Make it give people that choose it, more quality, or more quantity of items as a bonus.

I'm tired of playing games where my progression for the last 2 hours is ended by a random one shot. If people want to play that way, fine. I don't think many do honestly. Given that very few games actually have this mechanic in it. It's frustrating for more than it is a rewarding experience. Like I said, Optional. That way everyone wins.

Loot

The problem with loot is that 97% of it is for other classes, which I will not play through the season. I prefer to focus on one class throughout the season instead of getting distracted by what it does not need.

It is very easy to fix loot issues, just give more to the current playing class because this is a reason why people choose to play class in the first place. Another ARPG game finally understands the purpose of choosing and playing a class.

Losing EXP
To be honest, I don't have a word. Progression backwards. If players agree with Losing EXP so, why add as well to items if they want a punishing experience or, even better, you have to start a new character if your character dies? If you want hardcore mode, then ask for developers to make a hardcore mode. And we all know how it should be hardcore mode - the player starts a new character if it dies. I doubt players who support the idea of losing experience are going to play Hardcore Mode.

I disagree with most of the first post. I like the slower game, this is not supposed to be a PoE1 clone, I like kiting and the small game loops that creates - zooming is booooring! Overall I think there is Tedium here, but it's within systems and due to GGG's stubbornness to keep said systems faithful to PoE1 rather than combat or speed.

That being said there a lot of points I agree on:

Crafting:

Sure you can craft something along the way, but as soon as you hit level ~40 it's all about trading. Almost every Exalt you put into equipment is a waste, you can always get better bases to slam on from the shop for as little as one exalt.

We need an initiative to craft and that has to come through a non-tradable and abundant resource. Honestly I don't see that happening, GGG isn't ever making changes in that direction, so crafting will remain a super end-game thing.

Ascendancies:

In my opinion, Ascendancies should be split entirely from specific mechanics or the Ascend versions should have very different setups. Why should I grind for Honor Resistance relics so I can do a boring activity once then forget about it? Just remove this stats when Ascending.

Allow players to LEARN the ascendancy bosses, there should be no need to go watch a streamer video about every boss since you get just one opportunity to see them per run. These are not endgame bosses or at least shouldn't be, re-tries on the bosses should be allowed to foster and teach new players at the cost of removing rewards at the end of the run (ascendancy points and chests). As it stands I know many people who just don't want to do any of these and that's a valid reason.

Campaign:

Yes, it's too long. This is all I can say because otherwise I had fun, but the novelty will run out and there is a jarring lack of checkpoints on later maps. I don't see myself doing this, 10-15 hours entry to a league is too long for me specifically.

Personal Wish: Movement speed always rolls on boots.