PoE 2 having more sockets is a lie

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Zork#7081 wrote:

The problem with the 'more engaging gameplay' is that there are those builds and tehre are the 2-button screen wipers. I suspect that most of the latter will be eliminated somehow, but then there need to be some changes to the rest.

For example, I leveled one character as a Frost Sorceress. That was actually an interesing playstyle.

Frost sorceress indeed requires an interesting playstyle. I use all my skill slots, because I need so many to make the build work.

Arctic armor with clarity, archmage, frost wall, frost bomb, comet, hypothermia, cold snap, frostbolt and lightning warp (although the latter isn't really necessary, but it's a fun finishing move and it does shock a lot of enemies nearby). 7 of those skills are 4-links, so the support gem diversity really works for those.

The problem is that the playstyle is relatively slow, so delirium or breach are a pain and ritual is also difficult.

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IWalkTheLine#7164 wrote:

Yeah, it's really weird how the redesigned the system to address a problem but made it so much worse in the process.

This new socketing system was never done for the players. It was always done for the devs to have an easier time managing it. Reduced server costs is just a bonus. The old system is inefficient and complex.

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C4Guy#0918 wrote:

The problem is that the playstyle is relatively slow, so delirium or breach are a pain and ritual is also difficult.

Indeed. Also, we have all those charged skills that sound fun on paper, but the actual gameplay in most cases is not so slow that I could actually make good use of them.

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Zork#7081 wrote:

Indeed. Also, we have all those charged skills that sound fun on paper, but the actual gameplay in most cases is not so slow that I could actually make good use of them.

Sadly, yes. Without frost wall it would be pretty much impossible to get anywhere with that build.

I'm hoping with the last classes there will be more usable supports. I'm having issues even finding supports that make any real difference.

Yep yet another lie, not surprising really.

And the 1 support copy limitation literally pushes people into 1-button builds anyway it's hilarious. Droprate of these jeweller orbs is actually just Ruthless-level of item scarcity. Not fun. On top of that its wayyyy harder to get lvl20 and 21 gems now and they made the level req for a 20 gem lvl90 for some reason?

This gem and socket system is literally just a downgrade, worse in every possible way than gems and sockets in PoE 1. At least there you get to play with 2 6-links and use whatever gems you want to make the build you desire, PoE 2 has such trashy build diversity because of all these arbitrary limitations put in the game for no reason its just sad.

What amazes me most is how horrible most of the supports are.

There are a few outright good supports, a few niche ones, and a bunch of useless ones.

Some skill gems don't even have more than 4 support gems that can work with the skill. I hope that they take a serious look at support gems and overhaul the entire system.

To be clear the "X is a lie" is variant of "the cake is a lie". I just mean I think it doesn't achieve it's design goals, not accusing GGG of intentionally lying.

Clearly some people agree and others don't and that's healthy I guess. It's true that the new system has advantages. Love being able to upgrade gear without messing with gems. But as far as the limited choice of supports giving a puzzle, it's a much simpler and less interesting puzzle than the POE 1 system.

As for the tangent, the zoom zoom of POE 1 is in large part the result of how GGG kept adding league after of mechanics that require extreme clear speed like breach, legion and delirium. It's quite interesting they are mostly the mechanics they choose to keep for POE 2.

Speaking of cake, it seems that GGG is trying to have it's cake and eat it too on this. You can't keep rewarding zoom zoom in the extreme and expect players to adopt slow and mechanical gameplay. I don't think they actually want to slow down the endgame that much just mostly slow down the campaign. That's probably fine to an extent, POE is never going to be Dark Souls, but it's a balancing act and I don't think they expected the meta to get that fast that quickly.

That fits with my view is that in order for more complex, multi button gameplay to be appealing, it can be mechanical but it can't be too slow, especially in a game like POE. Of course it's in part a balance issue. The STR area of the tree having more notables giving reduced attack speed than increased is another issue.

But from the player's perspective, getting the choice of a single attack with a support that makes it faster and all the best damage support or a multi skill setup that doesn't have access to any of that tilts the decision towards single skill, and that's not what they claim to want to encourage.

There should be no limitations on what gems you can put into what skills as long as they can't be used at the same time (such as an aura) or cause a debuff that can be stacked.

Since you can't use more than one skill at a time anyway...

They get really hung up on "play it like we intended" over at GGG to the point that it feels like games are an obsession project with them instead of something meant to be fun.