A Comprehensive Redesign of Map Modifiers - By Alyssa Calhoun

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honestly speaking i think GGG has no lack of passionate people like yourself. you have many good ideas.

pretty sure some people in ggg have had the same idea of grouping mods or making the mods not appear paired with certain mods a thing.

but i m also pretty sure these ideas got shut down.

in regards to mods. IIRC chris or some other dev mentioned how they liked the idea of mods being entirely random so that you have a "memorable experience"

this led to meme moments where a prominent streamer fought an arch nemesis mob for a few minutes and it dropped.... trash. certainly very memorable.

also, the idea of grouping up mods was actually a thing. more difficult monster mobs used to be grouped under "nemesis" mods. and only mobs or maps with "nemesis mod" could roll those mods. this led to a more balanced game where players didnt feel the game was randomly throwing bullshit mods at them once in a while. the people at the top decided that its better to just let players have RNG maps.

older grumpy fart gamers tend to lean into this idea. bad mods make a good map more valuable. the idea of bad mods is you would roll the mod away or just choose not to run the map.

i used to lean into this idea too, but nowadays i realize i value my time more. i used to think xp penalty was a good idea too and i still think that 10 years ago it is a good idea. but poe today is different from poe of the old.

many things need to change. many things have changed. but many things remain the same and ggg seems to not want to change it enough.

as such i will just say you have many good and interesting ideas only thing is. this is a 10 year old game. if the devs wanted to improve/change it. they would have done so already.

Hello!

Thank you for your feedback.

I understand your frustration. Over 10 years of experience playing the game and you still feel like necessary changes that need to happen just don't.

But I have hope, still. And that's because of Path of Exile 2.

Howcome? Because the creation of PoE 2 is a sign that, even though the game has a very well-established model and pacing, they still made something that broke the mould. They innovated. They changed.

So, rather than uphold a bleak outlook over "they had time to change all this but didn't, so they won't now", may I suggest a different perspective?

"Even after 10+ years, they still, somehow, continue to make changes."

But it's important that we, as players, voice our perspectives. Our struggles. Like I've done with my work, and you've done with your replies. It's the only way they'll ever know something isn't right to us.


~ Alyssa Calhoun

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SummerBlank#1374 wrote:

Over 10 years of experience playing the game and you still feel like necessary changes that need to happen just don't.

But I have hope, still. And that's because of Path of Exile 2.

Howcome? Because the creation of PoE 2 is a sign that, even though the game has a very well-established model and pacing, they still made something that broke the mould. They innovated. They changed.


~ Alyssa Calhoun

back when poe 2 was announced to be separate from poe1. my heart sunk. the entire reason for me playing poe1 for so long was because poe2 was coming and "poe2 would fix everything".

as a big true melee enjoyer, poe2 was meant to fix melee. and i ragequit from the game but did come back once in a while but with much lower enthusiam.

then ggg/jonathan kept going on interviews and in the interviews he was pretty candid. he stated that fixing poe1's melee imbalance required so many changes that they might as well create a new game. hence it was one of the reasons why poe2 was split from poe1.

he also mentioned how poe2 enemies are designed with melee in mind. it really shows during the campaign. where if you have enough movespeed/attackspeed. you can actually go truemelee and basic attack all act bosses and avoid damage by skillfully dodging.

this is in line with a new philosophy that they touted. saying they wanted poe2 to be slower and more deliberate but with some ability to "zoom zoom".

when EA first released, trumelee was in a bad place. maces actually were "good" and as i said you could basic attack things to death. and i appreciate that. but everything else was significantly better than using maces. in fact one of the best ways to play a warrior was to literally cry nonstop until your enemies bled to death. monk quarterstaffs felt really good but had so many aoe/projectile elements tied to it, it felt more like a caster with a melee requirement slapped on rather than melee itself.

GGG had an opportunity to rebalance the game and bring down everything to mace's level. but they didnt. in fact they just leaned into the zoom zoom playstyle again.

all that "deliberate gameplay" went out the window. poe2 is just another poe1.

what lesson have they learned?

i would give it to them where i can see they're improving poe2 AND poe1. but on a fundamental level, changing the mapping/mods is a very big ask. i have very low confidence that GGG would actually want to do anything about it.

also GGG made a very interesting approach to LIFE. where they removed life from the passive tree. this meant they could easily gauge how much HP players are expected to have at the end game and could allow them to create more balanced content.

but they did not apply this same mentality to ES. ES is now super strong and remains one of the best defensive options in POE2. ES players had buttloads of ES and could practically regen their ES with surprising efficiency.

did GGG do anything to rebalance ES? perhaps. but its so little. theres so many things they could do. despite singing praises to GGG for poe2, there definitely are imbalances. for example very early in game you can find a cauldron with flasks and a witch will attack you when you get near the cauldron. this boss constantly summons aoe denials which can inflict elemental ailments. if you're "true melee" you barely have any chance to attack her as there are no openings unless you're super lucky where shes not standing in the middle of an aoe.

then look at the trials. if in the ultimatum trial you pick the challenge that you have a safe spot you're supposed to stay in the safe spot as the outside area is setup to blow up, the game can be simply unfair. when you fight the bird boss, its entirely possible to have him summon a tornado smack in the safe spot. giving you NO safe place to be at. in fact its happened to me twice.

poe2 ea is gonna be 1 years old in a short few months. things like this have yet to be addressed.

speaking of which. theres another thread about headhunter. one mod that players can obtain causes them to teleport around the map randomly.

ALL of us can say this give near ZERO benefit to the player. it can be jarring and outright annoying being teleported around to random locations at random intervals with no control.

this issue has been brought up "forever". do you see ggg fixing it? nope. its pretty clear cut that players dont want this "feature". its pretty easy to understand why players HATE being teleported around randomly. but ggg is perfectly fine with it.

in fact i also brought up that it can be confusing, if i use a HH and get volatile orbs, i will constantly spawn volatile orbs. in the heat of battle, i cannot differentiate if it's spawned from me or from enemies. it makes me paranoid and waste my time running away from volatiles that came from myself.

did ggg do anything about it?

ZERO.

all that said, i really appreciate seeing players like you still being positive and enthusiastic. ggg doesnt deserve people like you.