Game problems, easy solutions

Watched a few interviews after patch 0.2.0. In my opinion, there are a few problematic moments with obvious solutions.

1) Boss oneshots

Obviously, instead of a one-shot, you can make a stacking, non-removable debuff. Minus 10% HP or resistances or shield/HP regen, increased incoming damage, etc. This is used in many places, it’s strange that it has become a lost technology. There should be no oneshots. It devalues ​​defensive builds and makes glass cannons the only effective ones.

I also really don't like the homing attacks where you have to do a roll at the last moment. I mean when the boss turns to the player before the attack and "follows" the player until the last moment. This is not normal, it is better to make an additional AoE with damage reduction the further from the point of impact. This way the player will be punished for sluggishness. But at the same time there will be no stupid moments when either 0 damage or you died.

2) Unusable combo skills

Specifically, the accumulation of Power for the monk and Frenzy for the Amazon/Archer, also Glory charges (there are builds for frenzy, but these are lategame abuses exclusively for deadeye). The most frustrating example is the monk's power.

First I'll write the solution, then more about the problem:
There should be skills with a long enough cast time, but not channeling, for each type of charge. At the end of cast it should just give 1 charge. This way they can be used in meta skills to get charges in a human way. The rate of charge accumulation can be reduced by increasing the casting time.

As a monk, in order to get charges, you need to finish off the mob with a special skill at low HP or remove the shock from the mob with a special skill (also via frenzy with its own problems). A number of problems with this:

a) If you kill white mobs with 1 hit you won't get charges. At the same time, rare mobs can still be a problem. While you are trying to gain charges on them, they can kill you. The need to finish off or take away shock (which reduces damage) is just a bad design and will always be a problem.

It just occurred to me that you can constantly apply shock using a pet... But this is still not the best solution. The pet must live, you need to stand next to the boss and make charges, risking getting one-shot.

b) Charges will help you deal with a crowd of mobs, but you can't get them on a boss. Bosses are the biggest problem. If you solve the problem of defeating the boss, then regular mobs will not be a problem also.

Then it turns out that combo charges are a trap for new players. They will spend all their skill gems on these skills and when they reach the boss they will have nothing to fight with.

Combo charges are an extremely poor design that will punish any player who uses them. This is a "win more" mechanic against a weak crowd, when the most important thing is to solve the problem of damage to the boss.

3) Example of good combo and some ideas

A good combo is a crossbow shot and a grenade from a mercenary. Met a strong enemy - throw grenades and roll over them until they explode. Works well on bosses. No need to stand under attack and cast/twist anything. No time wasted changing bolts or weapons. Simple, comfortable, intuitive, human.

That's why I would like cast on dodge to be usable. Returning to charges and their accumulation with the help of meta skills. What if "Сast on dodge" was available at early levels and could give charges? You dodge silly boss oneshots and build up charges to then give him a combo to the face with your foot. Now that would be a strong combo gameplay. No need to hysterically setup damage, risking getting a one-shot. Just dodge mechanics and accumulate damage potential. That would be simple, comfortable, intuitive, human.

You can make a cooldown on the accumulation of energy from the roll, so that people do not roll all the time.

I would even make a "Cast on time" meta skill, so that the energy accumulates itself over time. Then you can remove "Cast on Dodge" as redundant.

I would also like a crossbow reload when rolling, that would be badass. With a cost in spirit, of course. I don't like Shard Scavenger. Another mechanic - more winning against a crowd of weak monsters, almost useless on the boss. For some reason it absorbs negative statuses on enemies. That is, it reduces damage. Counterintuitive. It is possible to abuse it somehow, but why if on the boss it will be below mediocre? Well, maybe it will work well on maps. But the mercenary has no problem quickly clearing maps with Galvanic shot or grenades.

You killed sorcerer, you should have worried about her. I had an archmage on spark on SSF, she barely farmed tier 1 maps. You nerfed her by 3 orders. Instead, runes in a wand, which will give her barely 30% of the damage.

In general, I don't want to play now because I don't see a lot of variety in builds.

And also totems on the warrior. Make it possible to remove 95% of visual effects and so that the screen does not shake. It is impossible to play with totems.

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smurfme5#6072 wrote:

I also really don't like the homing attacks where you have to do a roll at the last moment. I mean when the boss turns to the player before the attack and "follows" the player until the last moment. This is not normal, it is better to make an additional AoE with damage reduction the further from the point of impact. This way the player will be punished for sluggishness. But at the same time there will be no stupid moments when either 0 damage or you died.

It depends of bosses. Some bosses like Draven in cemetery, have an attack that is going in a direction, not following your movement, but doing an AoE dmg. In that case, you have to move faster to go in a safe place. Others have a "telegraph" attack, that follow you then
But you dont have a "delayed" attack (like in Elden Ring for ex) so its still easy to read the movement and so, the attack of boss and know the moment you have to dodge roll.
Such attack are here to propose different gameplay for bosses. If every bosses would have the same kind of attack it would be boring. So for me, its okay when its easy to read it for players, and that is not delayed attacks.

And about your solution, yeah its true it could be something good but with such mechanism, question about the duration of such debuff on you. Cause if you can take 10 different hits before die and then, having to wait 10sec to take it back all, fights would be not interesting anymore imo.

"

smurfme5#6072 wrote:

a) If you kill white mobs with 1 hit you won't get charges. At the same time, rare mobs can still be a problem. While you are trying to gain charges on them, they can kill you. The need to finish off or take away shock (which reduces damage) is just a bad design and will always be a problem.

b) Charges will help you deal with a crowd of mobs, but you can't get them on a boss. Bosses are the biggest problem. If you solve the problem of defeating the boss, then regular mobs will not be a problem also.

Nop thats the interesting part in my opinion. While designing such skills, you are creating different kind of skills using in different situations. Thats make skills interesting and versatily of gameplays. In this case, you have a combo : gaining charges but finishing white mobs then using this charges to do a lot of dmg on rare or even a boss. But for a boss, it forces you to use other skills to do some dmg to the boss. Its here to avoid abusing charges to OS a boss (like in PoE1). The best example is the build with "Winds Serpent Fury" that litteraly doing 15 Millions dmg on boss. If you let players that could use charges to burst, it should result on same stupid build imo. I know players like to burst a boss, but what the point of having a boss if I can kill him as fast as a trash mob ?

"

smurfme5#6072 wrote:

Combo charges are an extremely poor design that will punish any player who uses them. This is a "win more" mechanic against a weak crowd, when the most important thing is to solve the problem of damage to the boss.

3) Example of good combo and some ideas

A good combo is a crossbow shot and a grenade from a mercenary. Met a strong enemy - throw grenades and roll over them until they explode. Works well on bosses. No need to stand under attack and cast/twist anything. No time wasted changing weapons. Simple, comfortable, intuitive, human.

I agree with you. Huntress have the same kind of combos with storm lance and explosive spear that detonate the storm lance. You throw it, turn around to make sure ennemies are in the middle then BOOM, destroyed them.

But the parry mechanic ? The fact that is irrelevant against bosses and hit of bosses makes me feel its a bad design. Its cool against some trash or rare mobs, but really hard to play around later in campaign and against bosses.

"

smurfme5#6072 wrote:

That's why I would like cast on dodge to be usable. Returning to charges and their accumulation with the help of meta skills. What if "Сast on dodge" was available at early levels and could give charges? You dodge silly boss oneshots and build up charges to then give him a combo to the face with your foot. Now that would be a strong combo gameplay. No need to hysterically setup damage, risking getting a one-shot. Just dodge mechanics and accumulate damage potential. That would be simple, comfortable, intuitive, human.

You can make a cooldown on the accumulation of energy from the roll, so that people do not roll all the time.

I would even make a "Cast on time" meta skill, so that the energy accumulates itself over time. Then you can remove "Cast on Dodge" as redundant.

I would also like a crossbow reload when rolling, that would be badass. With a cost in spirit, of course. I don't like Shard Scavenger. Another mechanic - more winning against a crowd of weak monsters, almost useless on the boss.
For some reason it absorbs negative statuses on enemies. That is, it reduces damage. Counterintuitive. It is possible to abuse it somehow, but why if on the boss it will be below mediocre? Well, maybe it will work well on maps. But the mercenary has no problem quickly clearing maps with Galvanic shot or grenades.

Thats some good ideas actually.

Personally, I am most annoyed by Jaman Ra's overhead strike. And also Xesht(+2) in the second phase with 3 hands from underground. In both cases, you need to do a roll at the very last moment. I never managed to do it on Xesht, in the end I killed him by skipping the second phase. Either dodged and took 0 damage or died. Also Lachlann (last one in the graveyard) is too strong, much harder than Wolf. The whole arena is covered in ice, several one-shot attacks, not a normal boss. You have to kite around the gravestone the whole fight. Bad design.

"question about the duration of such debuff on you" - I wrote that until the end of the battle. Eternal duration.

About charges and monk. If this is your first character then you can't "use different skills", you have a limited amount of gems. If you take a combo with charges then you will suffer on the boss.

The number of skills is limited in the skill panel. I don't like the idea of ​​having different skills for different situations. + you also need to keep spirit skills.

And what's the point of having a separate skill for getting charges from white mobs? I repeat, if you can kill the boss, you have no problem with normal mobs. You don't need a separate skill for white mobs. Especially such a bad skill. If you kill a white mob in 1 or 2 hits, it's just useless. It's made for a narrow situation, and even in that situation, it sucks. It's bad design.

And also, if anyone reads this. I want new spirit skill. What it will do - movement skills instead of moving you will create a copy of you, which will do the movement/skill instead of you. I want this for Monk's flicker strike. So that a copy flies at mobs and you don't have to go back for loot.

Press the skill - a copy flies, while you do your own thing. This will work well with flicker on mobs. I also think it's good for a leap slam and a warrior's charge. The sorceress has a teleportation skill "inside" a mob.

I think this is strong enough not to be a support gem.

"

smurfme5#6072 wrote:

Obviously, instead of a one-shot, you can make a stacking, non-removable debuff. Minus 10% HP or resistances or shield/HP regen, increased incoming damage, etc. This is used in many places, it’s strange that it has become a lost technology. There should be no oneshots. It devalues ​​defensive builds and makes glass cannons the only effective ones.

Rare monsters are sometimes more terrifying than bosses because of their various ways to shut down your defences. Personally my ideal solution would be the boss applying a debuff that changes its AI to do a flurry combo. A defensive build can survive with correct timing of blocks and rolls, a glass cannon just can't tank the combo. Each time the boss gets to do that combo again, it hits harder and faster.

"

smurfme5#6072 wrote:

I also really don't like the homing attacks where you have to do a roll at the last moment. I mean when the boss turns to the player before the attack and "follows" the player until the last moment. This is not normal

I regard that as realistic enemy behaviour. Of course they're going to change their aim until the last moment. If PoE 2 really wanted to emphasise player skill, the boss would vary how long they wait before they slam.

"

smurfme5#6072 wrote:

Specifically, the accumulation of Power for the monk and Frenzy for the Amazon/Archer, also Glory charges (there are builds for frenzy, but these are lategame abuses exclusively for deadeye). The most frustrating example is the monk's power.

As a monk, in order to get charges, you need to finish off the mob with a special skill at low HP or remove the shock from the mob with a special skill (also via frenzy with its own problems). A number of problems with this:

The need to finish off or take away shock (which reduces damage) is just a bad design and will always be a problem.

It just occurred to me that you can constantly apply shock using a pet... But this is still not the best solution. The pet must live, you need to stand next to the boss and make charges, risking getting one-shot.

Shocked ground. Enemy is immediately re-shocked as the monk eats the shock. If this is impractical, then get a lightning spell and stack it with shock chance. Ball lightning is nice as you can lightning warp to teleport away after you briefly go into melee range. And as you say, a companion with "All damage shocks" modifier. They only need to hit once and the shock lasts long enough for them to rez.

Then there's that keystone to change what charge you get, so a monk can run around with Combat Frenzy to get power charges. Or heck, there's that spirit skill to get power charges just by dodge rolling at the right time. Monk does not have problems getting charges by lategame. Not that a Monk needs to be using power charges all the time.

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smurfme5#6072 wrote:

b) Charges will help you deal with a crowd of mobs, but you can't get them on a boss. Bosses are the biggest problem. If you solve the problem of defeating the boss, then regular mobs will not be a problem also.

Then it turns out that combo charges are a trap for new players. They will spend all their skill gems on these skills and when they reach the boss they will have nothing to fight with.

No I don't buy that, unless the new players think they only need 2 active skills to clear all content, or that they can't use skills from other classes. I actually find it difficult to devote a skill gem slot to use my spirit in the earlygame, I want all 9 slots for active skills. By endgame, unset rings give me breathing room to use my spirit. It's also when normal attack gets 4 support slots for free so that can be turned into something useful.

Having a couple skills to make and use charges is fine for clearing mobs. There should be different skills used when fighting rares and bosses. There are many high damage, single target skills that require a different economy to get the payoff, e.g. High Velocity Shot for crossbow.