A little feedback about archetypes and lack thereof

Quick answer is - this game is classless. All so called "classes" is a fake, pure marketing to attract new ppl.

As for archetypes - you can build and play one, but yes, it will always be ineffective and inferior, because, again, the game is classless as all items and skills are available for any character and best variants and combinations will always ruin any archetype.

And they won't fix it because this is the core of the game. Even if they wanted, there's nothing they can do.

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Azimuthus#1135 wrote:

Quick answer is - this game is classless. All so called "classes" is a fake, pure marketing to attract new ppl.

As for archetypes - you can build and play one, but yes, it will always be ineffective and inferior, because, again, the game is classless as all items and skills are available for any character and best variants and combinations will always ruin any archetype.

And they won't fix it because this is the core of the game. Even if they wanted, there's nothing they can do.

Exactly...and that is the point, that makes PoE so special. Which other game gives you the opportunity to play a Witch/Lich with a bow build for example. I love that so much.

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Azimuthus#1135 wrote:

Quick answer is - this game is classless. All so called "classes" is a fake, pure marketing to attract new ppl.

As for archetypes - you can build and play one, but yes, it will always be ineffective and inferior, because, again, the game is classless as all items and skills are available for any character and best variants and combinations will always ruin any archetype.

And they won't fix it because this is the core of the game. Even if they wanted, there's nothing they can do.

That doesn't mean you can't have classic archetypes. The game just needs A LOT more skills, that's all.

Yea, PoE isn't a classless system. It used to be when it came out. The only difference between characters was how you wanted to travel on the passive tree. Then they started segment it over time starting with Ascendancies. "Pick me" for Bleed and "Pick me" for Minions.

Just when it was starting to get far too segmented they added Cluster Jewels. Yay. Then they nerf'd Cluster Jewels into the ground and added specialization nodes...

PoE2 isn't even close. While Ascendancy options can pretty much be dumbed down to stat sticks. Your class is your weapon and it's driven by high stat requirements. This league was a great example. They literally said "Druid will be a weapon swap class" and it was complete BS.

All I wanted was a traditional Human + Animal hybrid but you can't do it. 1) There's only 2 wheels in the entire tree that support this. The rest are "While Shapeshifted". 2) Elemental skills are gated by the Infusion system. Talisman pre-sets made their intention very clear.

You can have archetypes in a classless system. Make what you want is kinda the point.

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Vyend#2601 wrote:

I mean poe 2 changed a lot already, i still remember the mercenary walkthrough video and how different the game was compared to poe 1, and then in 2024 or 2025 they showed some co-op gameplay and the game was again different from what they showed before with the mercenary, it was pretty similar to what we have now.

I think they'll do a big overhaul to combat once all weapons get released, it may take 2, 3 or 5 years but i think it's possible.

What they showed over the years looked a little different but the core design concepts didn't seem to change. Unfortunantly that's the most broken part of the game. They showed some cool bosses and skill interactions but in reality those bosses die in seconds and the interactions aren't needed or don't actually work well. Not fixing those core design flaws is why we'll end up with PoE1.5.

Just to name a few. Elemental Resists should not be linear when you have non-linear physical protection. Both should be non-linear. High resists being ~40%. This goes for armor and evasion also. They shouldn't need a cap on those stats. It should simply not be reachable.

If you have Physical / Elemental / Evasion values of 30-50% you can normalize a lot of things in the game. No more Big hit Vs Little hit. Just make things hit hard. Each stat should also have an equal counter stat. You don't have Curses reduce a set value then Armor Strip reduce to 0.

Think of Armor as "Physical Resists" and see how much sense the system makes.

If a character had 40% Armor or 50% Evasion you can better judge the defense of that character not to mention balance around it. These values prevent the need for mobs to stat smash you to death. Positioning, not getting overwhelmed and active avoidance all play their parts much better.

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Xzorn#7046 wrote:

What they showed over the years looked a little different but the core design concepts didn't seem to change. Unfortunantly that's the most broken part of the game. They showed some cool bosses and skill interactions but in reality those bosses die in seconds and the interactions aren't needed or don't actually work well. Not fixing those core design flaws is why we'll end up with PoE1.5.

The core design is created by combining many different elements together, the elements that changed a lot over the years are monster density, map/monster modifiers, monster movement speed and the 'time to kill' in general.

If you watch the mercenary gameplay walkthrough video you'll notice how these things changed compared to what we have now.

The time it takes to kill a monster is totally different.
The low number of monsters and their slower movement speed give you plenty of time to react and use combos with different skills.
And last but not least, there is no overload of different modifiers like temporal bubble, temporal chain, degen ground effects, shroud walker, tangibility, periodic fire/lighting explosions, etc.

I think that was the vision for poe 2, but it only really works when you fully commit to it.

The biggest mistake GGG ever made was to skip the step-by-step development of poe 2 and deciding to create an entire endgame system in just a few months.

That's the exact moment where they choose the easy way out, the path of least resistance. They brought over everything they could from poe 1 without really considering why certain things had been designed the way they were. And how these things don't fit the vision of poe 2 being its own separate game instead of being just an update to poe 1.

I believe that GGG is about to face another big decision moment with the next couple patches, because the problems i listed above mainly affect melee builds, and most of the content left are melee-oriented classes and weapon types like swords, axes, daggers, flails. And the classes like Templar, Marauder, Duelist and Shadow.

The easy solution is to say screw this, and make most melee skills aoe ranged attacks, where the distinction between ranged and melee almost doesn't exist. AKA poe 1.5.

The hard solution is to go back to the drawing board and understand why certain design decisions clash against the original vision of the game.

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Vyend#2601 wrote:

The easy solution is to say screw this, and make most melee skills aoe ranged attacks, where the distinction between ranged and melee almost doesn't exist. AKA poe 1.5.

The hard solution is to go back to the drawing board and understand why certain design decisions clash against the original vision of the game.

There’s another easy "solution", which is making the new melee skills just as bad as the current melee skills are for mapping, cementing the ranged supremacy for good, while not touching endgame combat design. Worse of both worlds. I think it’s the most likely outcome.

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Which other game gives you the opportunity to play a Witch/Lich with a bow build for example. I love that so much.

Again, this is a fake. There are no "witch" or "lich". There are just a couple of mediocre special nodes and male/female models, that's it.

Right now none of the classes feel that unique because the majority of power for any character comes from items. This needs to be addressed, sooner rather than later or they'll have more work cut out for them.

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Azimuthus#1135 wrote:

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Which other game gives you the opportunity to play a Witch/Lich with a bow build for example. I love that so much.

Again, this is a fake. There are no "witch" or "lich". There are just a couple of mediocre special nodes and male/female models, that's it.

And starting points on the tree, a notion that plays a crucial role in build diversity imho.

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Supercow_X#7071 wrote:

Exactly...and that is the point, that makes PoE so special. Which other game gives you the opportunity to play a Witch/Lich with a bow build for example. I love that so much.

Actually there is a pretty popular and affordable build in diablo 2 for sorc with bow/crossbow :D - https://maxroll.gg/d2/guides/enchant-sorceress

but i know what you mean. And it`s rather exception in d2 to have such out of the box build.

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Vyend#2601 wrote:

The easy solution is to say screw this, and make most melee skills aoe ranged attacks, where the distinction between ranged and melee almost doesn't exist. AKA poe 1.5.

PD2 (most popular d2 mod) buffed melee by adding splash. SSo, still melee, semi aoe solution. Of course they did gazilion of balance changes besides that but in the end melee take by pd2 crew was well received by community.