Long Form Analysis of PoE2 and it's current problems

Perhaps this is just beating a dead horse, still, feedback is feedback. It is my hope this feedback is productive. Overall, I enjoy the game, but there are some clear issues that need to be addressed. Apologies in advance this is a bit of an essay. I (attempted) to post a form of this to steam reviews as well.

First let me lay down some caveat's. I did not pay for EA, I was gifted a key by a friend who had extra because of how much they'd sunk into PoE1. I am not a veteran of PoE1, I played maybe an hour or two of it a decade ago. I did not reach 'End Game' in the first season, and I am not yet at end game in season of the hunt - my Huntress is currently 64ish, and nearing the end of Act 3 cruel. When I finish there, if I choose to stick with it, then I'll go on to 'mapping' which is where a lot of consternation is coming from. I am also playing a predominantly lightning spear Amazon Huntress (which is the OP Build Du-jour this season), but am not following a guide.

What's the TL;DR on this? I am a fucking casual. I'm not a hardcore PoE fan, I do not have intimate knowledge of the games systems. That does mean I have inherently less equity in this series than long time fans who made PoE1 such a huge success. But it also means I'm squarely in the demographic that GGG seems to have been aiming for at least with the release build of PoE2 - people who might have but didn't play PoE1, new blood.

Because fundamentally, PoE2 has a VERY different design mentality than PoE1... except when it doesn't. Therein lies one of the key problems I think, in that PoE2 has a much more diversified design mentality than PoE1. In some places it works wonderfully, in others it's schizophrenic. I think GGG had some big ambitions but also might have bitten off more than then could chew (more on that later), and they might have diversified TOO much in design vision.

The fundamental issue is the methodical, souls-esque game-play and vibe that it is claimed GGG is going for (not sure if this was ever officially stated though it wears some influences) does not mesh well with the overall design. Player start out slow and vulnerable, needing to use a wide variety of skills to survive. Enemies by comparison are fast, and come in large quantities, as you would expect from a classic ARPG looter. Usually this is OK. But because there are so many enemies filling the screen, and so many particle effects, there are times when you will be playing and you will INSTANTLY die and not know why. And this is a cardinal sin of action games - the player MUST be aware of what is going on at all time. However it's simply impossible, with the visual field we are given, for this to occur.

Proponents will say that this is to entice players to engage with mobs more slowly and methodically, kiting rather than running in. This is well and good, but the maps in the game are huge and sprawling. They are designed like traditional Diablo zones, but even bigger. They are lovely maps by the way, make no mistake, but by in large they are just corridors through which you go and punch enemies for loot. Trying to play this game slow and methodical is a slog, and it puts you at odds with the underlying systems of the game itself, as enemies come at you very quickly leading to 'rocket tag' where depending on the difficulty you're at, you either kill the enemy very quickly or they kill you very quickly. This incentivizes a play style where you are constantly moving, constantly attacking, because slowing down or heaven forbid standing still will get you killed.

OK so you die, is that bad? Yes and no. There are no penalties for dying... except it resets the map. It resets the map and puts you at one of the nearby way-points (which blessedly you can teleport between now, this was not in at launch). You die, and every enemy on the map re-spawns. What doesn't re-spawn? Your loot (on the ground), any random special encounters (like strong boxes, boss encounters, spirit hunts etc). The map just reseeds it's contents and your progress is lost. This, along with boss one shots, has probably been the single most frustrating part of the experience, and it further incentives the run and gun game-play that seems to be the bane of GGG's balance team. Brrr go fast, kill everything in an instant, suck up loot and repeat. This is explicitly what GGG doesn't want, but it's also the only way to successfully play their game.

Lets talk about those one shots. There are four passive forms of defense in the game, and three active. The passive forms of defense are block, dodge, armor, and energy shield. Block and dodge are what they say on the tin, a % chance to block or dodge an attack, mitigating or outright removing the damage. Energy shield is a secondary regenerating healthbar that depletes between your real health. There's also armor, which is a flat damage reduction stat. Equipment has various benefits to these stats, with some pieces being pure armor dodge or shield, or having a split between two of the three, with shields and bucklers being much the same as well as providing a passive block chance.

The three active forms of defense are roll, block (action), and parry. Dodge roll is exactly what it sounds like, a quick dive in a certain direction to roll out of danger. No equiploads like a soul's game or stamina system thank god, just a brief internal cool-down tied to animation frames. Dodge roll is your panic button to quickly reposition (it ignores enemy collision and interrupts animations). Block (action) is using your shields inherent skill to well, shield. You lift your shield and block certain attacks in a frontal arc, and you can follow up with a shield bash action. Parry works similarly, you hold down the button and you parry attacks in front of you in a narrow arc, applying a parried debuff to enemies.

With all of these methods of defense, you would think: wowee, players must be nigh unkillable! What's all this complaining about death? Ah but you see, *absolutely none of these defenses work on AoE's or certain unblockable attacks*. And most of your tough later game enemies or the more dangerous unique monster affixes do what? Apply AoE's to the field. Any signaled AoE ignores your block and dodge completely. Armor mitigation does apply, and critically so does energy shield. Even more critically, energy shield is either bugged or designed to prevent damage overflow (though this is unreliable). This means if you take a hit where the damage would exceed your energy shield and apply to your health, your energy shield goes to 0 but you do not take health damage. It's not consistent, so it's not clear which end is the bug. But this makes energy shield and 'ablative life' that can prevent a one shot, instantly making it the most effective defense method. OK so AoE ignores block and dodge, what about armor? Armor is actually the worst defensive stat, despite the fact you'd think it'd come in second since it doesn't ignore AoE.

This is because enemy damage in PoE2 is INCREDIBLY over tuned. When I say ONE SHOT I mean *ONE SHOT*. Fighting more dangerous enemies or bosses at or above your level is a knife edge. Fail to avoid an AoE - which you might not be able to see, or might not even be signaled appropriately since attacks you cannot block or parry aren't even always correctly signaled - and you die, and your progress is completely reset. You don't even get the salty run-back! Unless it's a map/chapter boss, the monster that killed you DE-SPAWNS! This is INFURIATING. I can't even take a SECOND SHOT at that prick, who only killed me because I didn't MEMORIZE HIS ANIMATION SET YET. Again, proper signalling is key, and many of the larger monsters or bespoke entities in the game do NOT signal unblockable AoE's properly. One notorious example is the giant skeletons in the valley of the giants in act 2. These are large, slow and lumbering enemies. You'd assume their attacks would be well telegraphed - and they are. Except for one. One where the giant stumbles and falls over on you, doing AoE damage in a large area and instantly killing you unless you are a high health specced character. You get one, maybe two seconds of animation warning - as a result you simply learn to circle strafe the fuckers.

All of this suggests the 'dark souls' influences, where they want you to learn enemies tells and animations and combat is a matter of study. But in dark souls, 3 on 1 is a large encounter whereas in PoE2 it's more like 30 on 1. Ranged and Caster enemies will support melee enemies who make break into sudden or unexpected animation spasms because someone REALLY like that hollow wild slashing thing. Dark Souls also has the same bespoke encounters over and over, so you can learn and adapt. It gives you the salty run-back, it doesn't take the encounter away from you for failing once. PoE2's design does NOT work with this methodology.

Defense will always be a losing arms race and the game-play will always boil down to rocket tag until GGG tones down the damage from AoE's. It's simply not possible to balance these high levels of burst or even DoT (looking at you blood/poison pools) with the games defenses stats as they're hard coded. Furthermore, UNLESS IT FLASHES RED, EVERY ATTACK SHOULD BE BLOCK OR PARRY-ABLE. I don't care what's realistic, I don't care what's balanced, this is action game 101 the field MUST be visually readable at all times or abilities MUST respond as they're expected. Exceptions are a design failure.

Finally (yes almost there) I briefly mentioned 'biting off more than they could chew' at the start. It's no secret GGG is having a 'Hell Divers 2' problem. They're a smaller AA studio and their launch blew up far beyond their capacity to control or respond to. They've admitted in interviews and news articles that absolutely everything is gridlocked because they simply don't have the staff to respond to things. PoE1 has been put on hold for the time being because of it, further incensing their established player base who are already leery about PoE2's direction. This is important because PoE1 is their revenue stream, despite their somewhat cringe attempts at monetization in PoE2 (won't even go into that here). GGG is a victim of their own success. Thankfully, this game is in EA, so they can iterate and respond to player feedback. However, there is no chance in hell this game is ready in the 'year' they predicted at launch. It's clear there is still design dissonance to knock out, and it's clear they don't quite have a handle on the games direction - let alone the ability to churn out the amount of content needed. They, and the audience, need to accept this is in fact an ALPHA, a true Early Access, not a glorified beta/demo and they need to treat it like such.

And the funny part is, all of this said? Still absolutely recommend. 291 hours on, and I am eager and anticipative of having all the classes and all the weapons to play with, because of the sheer amount of creative mix and matching people will be able to do. Combat is snappy and responsive and fun when you aren't dying instantly to something you didn't even see in the Touhou-esque bullet hell of a bosses final phase. But none of that will work without hard work iteration and testing everything over and over again. In fact, I feel like where we are is where we need to be, but the conversation and expectations need to change. And GGG needs to figure out where their design is going. Either fundamentally overhaul the entire game and it's code structure (unlikely), or tone back insta-kill and rethink death. What they want, what the consumers want, and what the game is trying to do are all at odds.