Philosophical design ideas to spark discussion

Hi everyone! I've been playing POE1 for a couple years and now POE2 for a couple hundred hours and was thinking about some things in game that were designed to give us trouble (in a good way, I think) but lack more options to be avoided, bypassed or mitigated.

I really do think that, sunny days wouldn't be special if it wasn't for rain, so I'm not against these mechanics, I just think I should have the option to buy an umbrella, boots or a cape (maybe even all of them) on rainy days... And pay the price for it.

I'm not here to give solutions, I'm no game designer by any means, I just want to spark inspiration and healthy discussion.

- Random/too big map design

This one has already been a topic and was addressed, with the checkpoints but, I just got of an Traitors Passage (Campaign map) with 16 dead ends...
I get the importance of randomness and I'm all for it, but the solution seems to be, just running...
How about using Light Radius to affect how much I unveil in the mini map? That could be scalable to unveil a lot more, and has a tradeoff.
How about a persistent Aura that does the same? Coud also be scalable with a tradeoff.
How about boot affixes or maybe helmet with more "vision"? Maybe even a legendary helmet that reveal a lot more of the map as we walk, also with a tradeoff.

-Invincible mobs
So, every now and then you find those and the solution is, run... Not much you can do about it.

How about a gem to make you damage immortal enemies with a global cooldown so you couldn't just swap on the fly, or maybe work like the old vaal skills so you would need to get kills to gather some resource (souls) to activate when needed? I really don't get how in all those years of development someone put invincible mobs in the game with no option whatsoever to deal with them besides running.

-Covered in Oil, grasping vines, River Rag's balls, and some other effects

IIRC there is 5 or 6 things that are completely unavoidable and the solution is, guess what? Run... and since there is no movement skills, all they do is ruin my hands, sometimes I just die on purpose because is faster than drag my character through.

How about more options to deal with those? I'm always in favor of tradeoffs, especially if they are easy to get and understand, if there is really no place for movement skills, how about a Unstoppable skill gem with a cooldown that make us immune to slowness, maybe some runes that help mitigate the slowness of everything, I think we should be able to be completely unstoppable if we want, with a tradeoff, always. I know we have things like Wanderlust I just think we should have more easy options for things that are so common.

River Rags ball are absolutely disgusting, if you get that mob type with high cast speed or multiple minions the screen gets just flooded with one-shot slowing balls, and there is no counter to it, if they are immortal then guess what, multiple screens full of it.

Same goes for Oil, the only option is either you one shot the whole screen or run, there is middle term, and some of them drop oil ground when you kill them, also unavoidable besides... Running through it. Oil on hit and on death is just crazy.


Sorry for typos, english is not my first language. I'll edit if more things come to my mind, I think we have a lot of potential with POE2, we just need some refinement.

Keep up the good work everyone!

Sorry, just trying to understand some things.

What invincible enemies? There's a rare mob modifier for immunity aura, but thats short range and doesnt apply to the one giving the aura. Unless you mean the rare shrine that makes nearby enemies immune, but those are great imo.


Can you name 1 of the 5-6 things you consider unavoidable? The ones you did list have ways to avoid them, you even touched on that.

Never even knew I could get covered in oil tbh