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

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LW187#4876 wrote:

Please listen to the community and make the game more fluid and optimize map layouts, character movement speed, enemy movement speed and endgame farming content in a way that it is still hard, but doesnt force us to stop, wait and waste our time for no reason.

WELL said !!! you are absolutely spot on in every regard. let's hope they can get this all tuned correctly because it's really just a few changes away from feeling like a great game as is/was D2 (BTW, you didn't mentioned Project D2, give it a chance if you haven't, it combined PoE1 with D2 and they will have a new ladder soon).

to be honest I'm not sure if it's because I play the ranger/huntress, there's a lot of movement speed mods in that area of the tree, I take every single one and with tame beast and haste aura I'm at 35% move speed which feels pretty good in this game. it's nowhere near what D2 feels like with some of the builds on there where you literally sprint like an olympian gold medalist but it actually feels OK for this game. not sure if the other classes have as many movement speed options in their respective areas.

Please don't listen to community, game design is not a democracy.

Also, anyone who uses "community" as an argument for anything is wrong by default, and neither honest nor capable of providing valuable feedback. There is no consensus on a single issue in the "community", if you don't even get that, how are you supposed to get what is good for the game.

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rhorains#6760 wrote:

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LW187#4876 wrote:

Please listen to the community and make the game more fluid and optimize map layouts, character movement speed, enemy movement speed and endgame farming content in a way that it is still hard, but doesnt force us to stop, wait and waste our time for no reason.

WELL said !!! you are absolutely spot on in every regard. let's hope they can get this all tuned correctly because it's really just a few changes away from feeling like a great game as is/was D2 (BTW, you didn't mentioned Project D2, give it a chance if you haven't, it combined PoE1 with D2 and they will have a new ladder soon).

to be honest I'm not sure if it's because I play the ranger/huntress, there's a lot of movement speed mods in that area of the tree, I take every single one and with tame beast and haste aura I'm at 35% move speed which feels pretty good in this game. it's nowhere near what D2 feels like with some of the builds on there where you literally sprint like an olympian gold medalist but it actually feels OK for this game. not sure if the other classes have as many movement speed options in their respective areas.

I did play project D2 as well:) Its great, somehow I stuck more around in PoD but its really just personal preference. Both are great mods of a great game. Its basically taking the solid base that was D2 and further refining it, making new skills or buffing underperfoming stuff while slightly adjusting completely OP stuff without killing them. As it should be.

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7. The Gem System Isn’t Fun

I'm actually begging GGG to completely ignore this post. Actually, maybe it should be against the rules to make a long list of completely unrelated points when they should be separate threads. I can see why some people might prefer a faster pace which I guess is the first point of the list and makes this thread popular. But demanding PoE2 be a PoE1 clone is just nonsense.

Indeed , Potions and Gems work different in PoE2 than in PoE1. I don't see this as a problem. And this is actually the first time in a lot of Forum weeks I see this point be made against Gems. Support Gems in PoE2 aren't the deep mechanic from PoE1 but they have the advantage of being much easier to learn and explain and adapt. This is a good system. And if you prefer the PoE1 way, well, that's good to. But maybe some PoE1 players just wanted PoE1. Which is nice and all but already exists and is going to remain playable and even get updates.

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vexorian#9572 wrote:

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7. The Gem System Isn’t Fun

I'm actually begging GGG to completely ignore this post. Actually, maybe it should be against the rules to make a long list of completely unrelated points when they should be separate threads. I can see why some people might prefer a faster pace which I guess is the first point of the list and makes this thread popular. But demanding PoE2 be a PoE1 clone is just nonsense.

Indeed , Potions and Gems work different in PoE2 than in PoE1. I don't see this as a problem. And this is actually the first time in a lot of Forum weeks I see this point be made against Gems. Support Gems in PoE2 aren't the deep mechanic from PoE1 but they have the advantage of being much easier to learn and explain and adapt. This is a good system. And if you prefer the PoE1 way, well, that's good to. But maybe some PoE1 players just wanted PoE1. Which is nice and all but already exists and is going to remain playable and even get updates.

As someone that has never played PoE1 but other ARPGs, I can explain to you why I personally think the skill/support gem system is kinda bad really despite having benefits as well of course. The problem is that all of it (Skill, Spirit and Support gems) in combination with their powerups (Jewelers Orb, Gemcutters Prism) are RNG based drops. Now you might say well they do drop often enough no (aside from Greater/Perfect Jewelers Orb)? But the problem is that might be true on average but it opens the possibility to just get really really f'ed on RNG and never get them when you should and the campaign provides you with very very little of them through quests.

The thing is, the gear in an ARPG is already RNG/loot dependent. If you include everything about skills now to also be an RNG dependent powerup you run into the problem that a level up doesnt really feel good because it doesnt give you any guaranteed character progression anymore if you dont already have the next gems available. That creates a weird scenario where you are not hyped for a level up at all and if finally the gems you could already use since 3 levels drop its more a feeling of "ah f'ing finally, the gem!" instead of being excited.

Imo its very important in a game thats about power growth and character progression to provide things that are guaranteed (small) powerups in foreseeable intervals to keep players motivated. Other ARPGs do this via skill points and it works well since the beginning of the genre. This is ofc not to say thats the only way of doing it (skill trees and skill points) but there should be more of a fixed progression of skills via level up instead of having both gear AND skill powerups be at the mercy of the RNG gods to improve. Same for jewelers orbs and prisms, they should come naturally via level up so no matter how much bad luck you have, theres always smth to look forward to and a certain base power level you are always going to achieve just by playing and progressing in the game.

plus it's so ~very much fun~ to spend 30 seconds setting up a combo after waiting 5 minutes to have the conditions to use it come up only for it to MISS because targeting sucks. If you're gonna force us to roll 12 keys to do damage give us the ability to lock a target. We only have 2 hands. Can't reach the keys with my feet and hitting keys with my 5th appendage is inaccurate and disturbs my wife.

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LW187#4876 wrote:

"ah f'ing finally

how I feel when anything I needed 2 days ago happens in PoE2 lol

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there should be more of a fixed progression of skills via level up instead of having both gear AND skill powerups be at the mercy of the RNG gods to improve.

yes another issue for me is that when I reach the level to equip a new gear it's not good, my old gear I've been upgrading is always better than what item level I've now unlocked. this tends to stay true for 10-20 levels sometimes.

in other games I'm always eager to grab that next piece of equipment - either needing to reach a new level for it or add some stat points, but it's clearly an upgrade to what I have. or, I have some means to make it better (like creating the same runeword in D2 in a better piece of armor)

There is no POE2 Veterans ... the game isnt even "out" yet.

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rhorains#6760 wrote:

in other games I'm always eager to grab that next piece of equipment - either needing to reach a new level for it or add some stat points, but it's clearly an upgrade to what I have. or, I have some means to make it better (like creating the same runeword in D2 in a better piece of armor)

I mostly feel the same way. Ground loot for the most part isn't worth looking at strictly for yourself (outside of reasonably early campaign) -- at least if you're in SC + Trade.

While having skill gems (and links) completely separated from gear is great in terms of freedom to use whatever (gear) is best there's a downside as it cuts down on the number of gear progressions you go through.

For example in PoE1 it's probably natural, in the campaign, to switch every piece of gear out at least four times and likely much more. Grabbing gear that has more sockets of the right color or (even better) more linked sockets of the right color was always nice.

Yes to every part of this post.

The haters will say we just want a PoE 1 clone.

No, we want a PoE 1 SEQUEL. Is that not what this game is supposed to be?

“Path of Exile 2, Dawn of the Hunt” isn’t trying to BE anything. It’s simply trying NOT to be Path of Exile.