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

"

GregoryAdams#7051 wrote:

"

Xenus_Paradox#7530 wrote:

It can still happen if they port the first game'a campaign into this one.

It's not about the campaign. I prefer the PoE 1 systems, league mechanics, movement, skills, etc.

If all they did was to gradually replace the assets used for the environment and characters (textures, shaders, particle effects etc.) in PoE 1 with the PoE 2 assets, but otherwise leave everything else untouched, I'd be perfectly happy.

Well good for you! There's great news. That's exactly what's happening with POE1! Clearly you don't have a reason to complain anymore.

"My computer can't run PoE 1 anymore with the upgraded graphics! There's too many effects on screen at once! I demand a refund for every cent I ever spent on this game!"

"

Many of us have played and loved games like Elden Ring or Dark Souls. We fully understand what makes those games great.

I'm not so sure that's true. The vast majority of POE players making content on YouTube are all saying they hate Souls games, and I don't doubt it. Isometric Diabo-like ARPGs are very, very different from Souls-likes when it comes to physical skill and mechanics. It's puzzle solving/exploit abusing/trade leveraging gear check vs raw physical skill check. The games couldn't be more different.

I don't doubt there are some players that enjoy both style of games (I'm one of them, and you might be too), but I don't think most ARPG players are Souls fans.

Regardless, POE 2 is really nothing like Souls-likes in any way. It has a dodge roll. That's about it. Even the dodge roll itself behaves nothing like Souls. There is no stamina management for dodging, and if there are iframes, it's not obvious when they occur. On top of that, hit boxes, in general, are nowhere near as precise in this game as they are in Souls games, and Souls-like games allow you to phase through enemy attacks when dodging, whereas POE 2 enemies just body block you constantly. They couldn't play more differently. And let's not forget you also get parrying in most Souls-likes.

At best, POE 2, like Diablo IV, tried to make the rather old and stale ARPG design a little more modern and active by including a dodge roll mechanic, but it's still really nothing like a Souls game.

Don't get me wrong, I think it would be very cool to get an ARPG with Souls-like dodging & parrying and hit boxes as good as what you find in From Software games, but POE 2 isn't it.

The best mix of these genres is probably the Nioh franchise, which is basically a Souls-like + old school Ninja Gaiden influence + Diablo-like loot collecting.

PoE 2 just needs to be more like itself than PoE. Otherwise it'll just be PoE with nicer graphics. Unless GGG intends to replace PoE with PoE 2, meaning this game is actually PoE 4.0 all along.

I like POE2 and am having fun, even with Acolyte of Chalupa being as bad as it currently is

I think there are plenty of people who got interested in PoE2 precisely because the gameplay model diverged from the typical ARPG style, where you just run around the map clearing everything with one click. I'm one of those people, and if the final version of the game ends up being just a reskin of PoE1, it will mean the end of my journey with this title. In my opinion, the best option would be to give us a mode where the gameplay is significantly slowed down—not turned into a "Souls-like," since it's still an ARPG, but adjusted in such a way that it brings out the best of both genres. The question is, how feasible is this?

Otherwise, I can't help but wonder about the point of making PoE2 into a copy of PoE1, especially when PoE1 not only will continue to be supported but already offers more than PoE2.

"

Nilaos#3809 wrote:

where you just run around the map clearing everything with one click.

Well...
https://youtu.be/zgPXHI1RxkU?t=123

"

Nilaos#3809 wrote:

it will mean the end of my journey with this title.

"Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar."

I agree on some of your points, mainly that POE2 feels like it is still searching for its core game mechanics.
Its a little bit of Demon Souls, a little bit of D2R, and in the process it has lost its own identity; which imo was Skill Gems on gear - sure there where issues with that, that needs to be addressed.
But what stays is a game that feels like Star Wars 9 - to much influence from to many sites.
+1 on your main point to return to a "Core idea" / own identity for POE

Just wanted to add my voice to the many that agree with you.
People whom I've known to hate on poe1 for it's ''fast game that you one-shot mobs'' have played the campaign, reached yellow maps then dropped the game after 35 hours and are left feeling like, ''this is poe 1.5'' with even more complaints about pacing, one-shots and nothing to do but kill mobs.

I've put my good 150 hours in, I've tried both melee and ranged playstyles, looking at the tree, looking at the ascedancies available now and the gameplay loop, the mechanis of crafting, all I got was this would be a hit game, for the people who touch a game once and never again.

But this is not that game, poe1 was not that game, the people who were the fire of poe1 poe1 were not people who touched a game for a mere 20 hours and left. They were people who gladly did the same thing for 1000 hours.
And the worst of all, is that poe1 changed to the style of poe2 over the years, making it a worse game and too similar to what poe2 is envisioned to be.

If poe2 is to shape poe1, then why keep the lights on the first game and to the people who were with you till this point?

"

MEITTI#3999 wrote:

Its not a fallacy. It happened in Blizzard games. It happened in WoW and it happened in Diablo 4. Now both of those games are ruined. Because Blizzard listened to players like you who simultaneously want a rollercoaster ride but then want to actually skip the ride. Campaign is an integral part for the game.

That's BS. Having the option to skip campaign on second/third/hundredth character did not ruin the games. WoW also lets you pick whichever campaign you like more (so you can level 1-60 in Northrend if you liked WotLK more than other expansions for example) or you can ignore questing altogether and just spam dungeons from 10 to max level.
WoW is still the most successful MMO in the market. And I don't see it changing any time soon.
D4 is one of the biggest ARPGs ever (you can call it a failure as much as you want but they still sold more than 10x amount of copies than poe 2 EA, and companies care about making money more than making universally-loved games, that's simple reality of business). Yes, the game has its own problems but none of them are related to campaign being skippable on alts.

I bet that if PoE2 had an option of leveling through tier0 waystones which would scale with player's level 1-60, a lot of players would use that option.