Making Combat "Meaningful" in POE2, a 10y POE1 Vet View
" There is DEFINITELY a HEAVY influence of POE1 ruthless in POE2. Despite what some think there just isnt a big market for this. MOST people are not able to devote hundreds of hours to a game and thus POE2 will be a slog fest nightmare to all but those small few who can put in that kind of time. Talkative Tri did a great podcast with three other streamers that really laid out a lot of fundamental issues but even the streamers are not a target audience because playing games is their livelihood. One of the best comments made during that podcast was that there was ONE GAME that got the balance perfect. That game was POE1. POE2 just isn't a sequel. Its barely even comparable. It would be nice if they just renamed it to something else and started work on an actual sequel. |
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" There is no reason it should be called Path of Exile 2 then. It needs a different name. And I am not sure ANYONE believes the league in June will even happen. TenCent is running the show now and all they care about is numbers. They will ride this monster into the ground and kill POE1. I, and many others, are just waiting for the announcement. This is why there is such a low player count on POE1 now. Even at the end of leagues there is usually 5x the players there are now. Everyone expects POE1 to be cancelled as it has had no updates for a year. |
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OP, that's not what meaningful combat means and is not what PoE2 is going for. And if you want another click click click a billions things happen and nothing else is "ARPG" for you, we have PoE1 for that. PoE2 and the people wanting to play it instead of the other arpgs is trying to make it so that the game is not a menu/trade simulator. Yes there are adjustments to be made. We can't engage in combat when we need to insta kill 50 mobs at a time to avoid death. We need defenses, less mob density, combos that don't take too long to set up, etc, etc, etc. But the adjustments are NOT to make the game as you described "meaningful combat".
"meaningful combat" does not need to be slow (in their own words). It's just about I'm paying attention and not repeating the same 1-2 buttons over and over mindlessly. Right now my Amazon is using 5 active skills. They combo together but also work individually. Each one has a use case. Spear field gives me proj damage bonus from tree and support gem, gives me rage, slows and light stuns mobs and deals decent damage that I can use to set an area where I'm safer and mobs will likely not reach me. Lightning spear clears. Storm lance does damage over a few seconds to a small area, and kills bosses. Cull the weak gives me a bit of fast maneuver and free frenzy charge every once in a while, and 1 rare monster modifier from the support gem when I see an opening to do that. Spear of Solaris I use immediately when a boss gets stunned and it bites off a huge portion of their health. I had to remove from my bar the lightning leap skill to free up a slot but I used that to traverse gaps, get out of trouble or do a big aoe damage on demand if I ever had no frenzy charges, in which case storm lance and lightning spear don't do much, and/or trigger storm lance. See? I am clearing and killing extremely fast, but I do one attack every couple seconds. Each one attack I do has a reason behind it. I react to the monsters, get out of their way, stop their movement, I manipulate the combat. Other arpgs you hold a button while spamming another (or numlocking it) and do 15 actions per second and have no clue what is going on. In PoE2 my gameplay is super fast but it's at most one action per second and I know what is going on. Last league I played monk and it was not THAT engaging once I had to remove all my active skills to make room for spirit to max out a couple active skills, but still there was a lot going on and decisions being made and reactions being taken. That's the problem with every other arpg that GGG is trying to fix with PoE2 and a LOT of people want that. Nothing wrong if you prefer the existing formula, but you have all those other games for that. Going forward I hope LS is nerfed slightly but remains efficient and cool. And that a lot of other builds are found and/or made viable that are as efficient and engaging as described above. Also, I hope we get changes on defenses/on-death because dying within half a second with no reaction time and no clue what happened is not part of the engaging combat described above. |
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" Well, said. Right now the community is divided between people that want "A" in ARPG and people that want the illusion of "A" in ARPG. It really doesn't help that the endgame combat is just not balanced yet for this kind of Action. Last edited by Gordyne#2944 on Apr 23, 2025, 12:26:52 PM
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well written.
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" You are talking about the mechanical gameplay. Like a combo of .. fast step to mob a teleport attack start. Into a grouping maneuver ... Into a spender detonator setup ... boom Thats D3 Exploding Palm Monk. A great example of fun and mechanically involved ... In PoE the mobs hit too hard. The holes in your defenses assure failure. Which is fine i mean you need to die but the deaths are all ... sub second .. dead. Evasion Failed Dead...... Bypassed Energy Shield Dead..... Boss hit dead.... The combat people describe wanting is Elden Ring. And picture elden ring fighting 50 opponents at once all who move faster than you . You cant have that in isometric games . If you think you can, name one ..... The goal is probably Approach skill A Builder skill A Grouper skill A Spender skill In Poe2 it can feel good if you cycle that once and get significant payoff. Too often that series doesnt pay off. IMO PoE2 is making the mistake of one on one fighting the opponent and calling it meaningful when i think meaningful combat in PoE2 should be an aggregate of all mobs on the screen . More focus on efficiency of killing .... less on trying to provide a manual skill check or stat block every few steps ... The game drains your mental energy to the point I first ... start switching windows... and get a break from what should be .... the break .. and it is a strange thing sometimes right in the middle of a map ... I just stop moving and window out often to retun to me dead.. I forget about it running and read forums for an hour ... It has many issues related to game loop tedium. RE Meaningful Honestly go play BG3 , you can take a piss between moves and each move is planned, each enemy considered and it is as far from an ARPG as you can get. D3 Exploding palm monk from season 7 perhaps is when I was doing it..... Was really good for time invested , risk taken , pay off !! PoE2 can slow down combat .. OK Better speed up everything else.... Selling BOOM done, Grouping my inventory BOOM done, Breaking down items ONE BUTTON NUKE ALL DONE, Maps stored in map device and can be gambled on in the map device with split screen of atlas , available maps , and orbs in inventory that apply to maps usable from map device UI. Do that ... ok slow it down ... dont' and ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz Last edited by Jitter912#4278 on Apr 23, 2025, 1:11:07 PM
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" that's kind of the thing, after 2x trough the acts, and a few deaths u can deal with any of the bosses even in shit gear as long u just have that 1 needed resistance maxed, it just takes a shitload of time and is just not fun. Every time someone say's the game is not fun and or tedious it is translated to as if the game would be hard. PoE2 is not hard, and most of the people hating it don't suck. The game just sucks. |
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" Not sure what you are trying to convey here? That the game is tedious? I agree with that. |
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" I am sorry, I thought you meant that we all just suck because we think the game is not fun. |
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" No, seems you misread my original post. |
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