No half measures - just design the game without potions
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TL; DR: In my opinion, health and mana potions as a design concept are just a bad band aid solution - and GGG should rip the band aid off, remove them and be forced to balance the game properly.
Diablo 2 obviously a great game, did have the annoying feature of constantly picking up and replacing consumable potions for both health and mana at the best of times, and at the worst you have a full inventory and die and have to pick them all off the ground beside your corpse. POE innovates on use of potions, making them not consumable items in themselves but having charges that recharge, so no more constantly picking them up or dropping them on death. There is a reliance on potion use in the beginning of the campaign, but you can relatively quickly leverage multiple tools to solve for recovery without them. The main issue they created in doing so was unbalanced instant / near instant recovery so that the only way a player can die is through one-shot mechanics, since they can't be out recovered. This too is not fun and is disliked by players and POE developers alike. So in POE2 they attempt to slow down the game, supposedly reducing damage/one shot mechanics, reducing recovery, hoping to create a game with more of a methodical and tactical play style. One that would very much be amenable to well balanced and nuanced types of recovery investment and scaling. But, from the characters I have played so far, they seem to have forgotten about recovery mechanics entirely outside of life gained on kill (fine as one of many options), picking up ground orbs (not fun), and a few other niche scenarios, requiring reliance on both health and mana potions into the end game. I believe POE2 would be a step closer to achieving their ultimate goal of methodical, tactical combat and gameplay if they removed potions and were forced to adequately balance damage done by monsters, player defensive mechanics and player avenues for recovery, leading to a more fun experience for players and rewarding game design for the developers. Last bumped on Apr 26, 2025, 6:23:50 AM
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I think the problems/gameplay you think of can already be solved/achieved by simply making the potions not passive, but active.
Like having to hold down potion, get slowed while drinking or hold still alltogether. This way you could still heal outside of battle, or even in battle if positioned right/given the chance. Outside battle usage could also be made faster to not slow the Player/Gameplay down too much inbetween battles, so you can move on to the next fight quicker. This would not just solve the problems you mentioned, but also keep potions as an additional layer of combat. All in all, I don't think that really is the problem though. This is simply my personal opinion, but I feel that the combat feels bland due to a lot of the skills design and balancing. Everything works kind of the same-ish. Skills/Combos should give you opportunities to deal damage as a reward for pulling them off. Shields, stuns, quick movement are all examples for things that should help you avoid damage while keeping combat interactive and allowing different patterns of gameplay at the same time, but there is none of that. Freeze, stuns, electrocute are the same thing with different visual effects and name pretty much. You stack them or you don't. Combat is currently one out of three: -You stun stuff so it doesn't hurt you, "preventing combat" -You one-shot stuff, "preventing combat" -You just stay away doing dmg over time, which IMO pretty much is the same, just more painful since it's pretty much just evading and waiting it out That's my thoughts on it though. I have by no means enough knowledge of the game to say for sure and I'm sure there's lots of people with different opinions and views on the matter. Last edited by Flamewish#2511 on Apr 25, 2025, 11:01:21 PM
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" still, many toon still getting killed with 1 hit. what you say have a logic ofcourse, in my opinion, beside what u say, i belive they must make toon toughness, adding life and max life to passives, and improve massivlly evassion. especialy for range chars. ranger in poe 1 is far far better. |
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" "But there is none of that"? There are many synergies and different patterns of gameplay. Chaos/Poison/Bleed bypasses Energy shield, so high stacking Energy Shield users have to avoid it. Evasion is countered massively by slam attacks and AoE burst spells Armor is simple and you have to adapt to threats in a sensible but less reactive manner. And all of these defensive options are available for all classes to mix or not + in combination with CC's which are vast (remember also that pinning is a strong CC) and some are easier to apply than others, depending on how well you burst or the specific monster type situation. I think the problem lies in a lack of research/commitment, especially for melee players. I have always been a Monk and there's a very easy route to easy defense with knowledge, you get an incredibly high evasion chest piece, which will be over 1500 evasion stat with evasion gems socketted and you take both the passive to double your evasion stat from your chest and increasing ES based off of your chest's evasion stat AND THEN you imbue your necklace with the skill "Increases Evasion by 100% when you've been hit recently" + Ghost Dance spirit skills (Proper Spirit skill usage is absolutely critical in this game). I'm sure for Warrior and Spear mains there are other avenues for easy trick defense too. Last edited by TrunktenUK#3407 on Apr 26, 2025, 12:43:47 AM
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" I do know about these three defensive options of course, and as you already mentioned, I might just be missing the research. But isn't that just coming back to the whole "flavor" type of deal again, where it's a different name but the same thing in the end? They're all just increasing your overall healthpool and decide how much you are allowed to mess up. What I was talking about is actual combat interactions, that would provide meaningful and fluid decision making during a fight using skills, beyond simply waiting for your cooldowns, which right now I feel combat comes down to if you're not one-shotting everything, which isn't exactly combat either. I think everyone (or most) people already know what defenses to choose, they're needed to stay alive and the game pretty much decides what you need already depending on which class/weapon you use. (Which I think removes even more strategy and options from making builds as well) Maybe I'm still not thinking of the right thing that I'm trying to convey, but I simply feel like the combat and gameplay right now are just not "it" in combination with the current status and skills. Bossfights excluded, I simply do not feel like combat is engaging or interactive enough at the moment. Last edited by Flamewish#2511 on Apr 26, 2025, 3:19:24 AM
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Chaos does not bypass energy shield, it does double damage to energy shield.
Currently the amount of energy shield you can stack allows for a very high effective hp pool AND it does not rely on health flasks to recover, so a redesign of flasks would also require a redesign of energy shield Last edited by unmasque1#3357 on Apr 26, 2025, 6:30:49 AM
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