How long can this game of making things difficult for the sake of being difficult last?

As an ordinary player, I really can't accept the fact that I have to be highly tense while advancing through the map, only to die for no reason from some insignificant attack. This sense of frustration makes it impossible for me to continue playing.

1. Tag Conflict:
Finding a balance between mowing down hordes and Souls-like elements is extremely difficult. These two aspects inherently conflict with each other. Players won't gain a significant sense of achievement from defeating ordinary monsters because there are simply too many of them, lacking any uniqueness.

Take representative Souls-like games such as "Dark Souls" and "Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice" as examples. 1) There are rarely large groups of monsters, and battles with ordinary monsters are mostly 1v1; 2) Boss battles are meticulously designed, and players rarely die from random area-of-effect (AOE) attacks.

It's clear that the designers wanted to incorporate Souls-like elements into the game and combine them with loot farming. However, in practice, they got it backwards. They overly focused on the strength of ordinary monsters, weakened the character's survival abilities, and deliberately increased the tension during map progression, but failed to address the issue that due to the existence of the talent tree, 1v1 boss battles are actually easier than map progression.

2. Emotional feedback issues:
In my opinion, the flow of this type of game is as follows: map advancement/relaxation - encounter monsters/slightly tense - map advancement/relaxation - boss battle/highly tense/death and restart (infinite times) - victory/positive feedback.
However, during my playthrough of Path of Exile 2, my emotional experience was exactly the opposite: map advancement/tense (limited resurrections) - encounter monsters/more tense/avoid being instantly killed (limited resurrections) - map advancement/tense (limited resurrections) - boss battle/extremely tense (limited resurrections). I believe that some single-player gamers share the same feelings as me. You can see that throughout the process of completing a map, I hardly ever felt relaxed. The limited number of resurrections intensifies the frustration of being killed by ordinary monsters. Instead of enjoying the game, it only makes me more tense.
The problems here are: 1. The character is too fragile and lacks survival skills; 2. Ordinary monsters are too powerful and can instantly kill the player. Killing them does not bring a sense of achievement. Excessive tension only makes players tired and reluctant to continue playing.

3. There are many unreasonable restrictions on players within the game.
1. As a game focused on looting, it should encourage players to develop different builds. So why is there a gold limit for resetting talents? Encouraging players to try different equipment and builds can only extend the game's lifespan without harming players' enthusiasm.
2. The death limit for changing gems is unreasonable. The higher the difficulty, the fewer the allowed deaths. Facing the pressure of high-intensity normal monsters and bosses, imposing a death limit on players is like the designers taking pleasure in torturing them.
3. The backpack limit is an odd restriction. The game rewards players with drops, but then limits the size of the backpack, forcing players to interrupt their flow. I really don't understand the purpose of this mechanism. Is it to make players' lives difficult and bring joy to the designers? It's time to keep up with the times.
In summary, the above unreasonable settings seem to be designed to prolong the game time. The restrictions on money-making, backpack size, and death limits are all aimed at consuming players' time. However, POE2 already has many aspects that require players to invest a lot of time, such as builds, equipment drops, equipment appraisal, currency, gold, map runs, and various gameplay elements. These are already enough to keep players engaged. I believe that now is the time to optimize the gameplay time for POE2's backpack, talents, and high-difficulty death limits, allowing players to focus their energy where it should be.

no

Build a tankier character and you wont die all the time

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Argonlo#6237 wrote:

Build a tankier character and you wont die all the time

This. It ain't that hard.

If you are dying in maps you need to upgrade your gear and get better defense. You see all these long winded complaints and then when asked to see their POB you get glass cannons with 1k eHP.

Master the art of defense, and even a 2-3k HP character will feel immortal. If there's a problem and there's a solution, that's also part of the game. If there's a problem but no solution, then maybe it's time to go write forum posts.

Showcase of my latest findings: https://youtu.be/ip1rIz2TEks?t=62&si=8-Qn7zs-E9wJRjCg

difficult = reward for completion. Easy = nothing earned.
In the past when I'm struggling it's usually due to me building my character wrong. Unfortunately not every build is viable in this game

And remember. EVERYTHING is an tradeoff. Sometimes it means lover hp.

Yeah dunno, I might agree more if the title were "How long can this game of making things tedious for the sake of keeping people logged in longer last?"

Crafting...loot spam... Fine by me if some people actually like this, or they make more money on the game somehow, but I wont stick around if these aren't changed.

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Skutz123#5377 wrote:

Yeah dunno, I might agree more if the title were "How long can this game of making things tedious for the sake of keeping people logged in longer last?"

Crafting...loot spam... Fine by me if some people actually like this, or GGG keeps some people hooked this way for whatever reason, and makes more money on the game somehow with the current mechanics, but I wont stick around if these aren't changed damatically.