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Feels like PoE 1 and 2 are so vastly different games that they shouldn't even share the same title.
Yeah, PoE1 is the spiritual successor to D2, PoE2 is the spiritual successor to D4.
It can be a good game in its own right, but as a sequel it's a failure. It'd be like if the next Call of Duty came out as a Turn-based Strategy game.
PoE2 is a great tutorial for PoE1.
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Posted byLixy#2668on May 11, 2026, 5:52:59 PM
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The fix is balance the game to where you can "zoom" in maps but have to focus on bosses in an attrition style fight.
I think that actually it is what they r going to do.
Atlas tree is heavy boss related and they stated that ppl should be challenged by bosses.
We will see how 0.5 will look. Im hyped after watching interviews. They r talking about so many extra stuff in 0.5, that im on copium about them announcing something similar to "Disciple of Varashta" in next 2 weeks.
While this sounds like a reasonable compromise on the surface, I don't think it'd work and would just leave everyone unhappy.
People who want screenwipe EZ mode won't like relatively more difficult boss encounters, and people who want challenging gameplay will quickly lose interest if they have to slog through relatively much longer and more tedious periods of what they feel is the boring mode just to get to a brief moment of fun.
It's pretty clear which route GGG is heading anyway.
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Posted bySkutz123#5377on May 11, 2026, 7:14:57 PM
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I'll keep it brief for now, but update the idea if it becomes an engaging topic.
As most people here know, there's a division among players in their preference for which game philosophy PoE2 should take.
• Fast-paced screen clearing with many monsters.
• Attrition-style engaging combat with fewer monsters.
The endgame atlas passive tree could potentially provide a solution to satisfy both play styles. I believe the original intent was to enable players to customize their experience with regard to which league mechanics they engage with.
But what if it could also enable players to customize meta gameplay aspects with keystone nodes which gave a clear choice between:
• More monster density / pack size.
• Or drastically reduced density with increased effectiveness.
And to approximate the reward balance as best you can.
It would be important to closely balance the reward incentives between these two, because it is my belief that unless they are perceived as having proportional loot / rewards for the time investment, players engaging with the endgame will by and large gravitate toward meta play styles that yield the most reward for their time.
For more detail about why this is, please see this other post, which discusses player-incentives, and the perception of clear-meta as popular, due to clear-meta being the most rewarding in terms of loot rewards.
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3879773
Thanks for your consideration, and please keep replies cordial.
I think what they could do is make a whole mechanic around slower paced gameplay. For example, perhaps they end up making a mechanic where you go through dungeons where there are fewer monsters with more health etc in a smaller area, so that density can feel better. The deeper you go in the dungeons, the more monster effectiveness goes up. Perhaps more monsters are also added, but not a crazy number of monsters, just enough so that it can build up over time.
Make it so players don't have to engage with the content if they don't want to, but if they want to, perhaps they can get items/rewards that can apply specifically to that mechanic, or at least can be used anywhere, but works better with that mechanic.
In other words, make a Ruthless mode mechanic with other past mechanics (or new) that would fit with it. BUT the league that this mechanic is added, it also needs to have an "opposite"/"regular" mechanic added so that people who don't like Ruthless mode get something to play/do as well.
I see what you are talking about but unfortunately in games like this, with a mode like that you end up in one of the basic scenarios...
Either you are still forced to go glass cannon to get deeper in the dungeon because the HP scaling gets out of control when using multipliers
Or
You promote absolute pure tank regen builds to just out last basically making thorns the only way to play the mode to get deep into the dungeon
Unfortunately with the nature of players in games like this, if you are not willing to make your own challenges, the game will never be able to satisfy both groups.
The best compromise is still map blasting with attrition style bosses. It is the best win win scenario I can think of and is realistically possible. Again though, insane levels of balance need to actually occur and so far, 4 leagues have proven they cant or wont.
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I think this only works if it's broken into separate leagues, and of course GGG would need to see a financial reason to devote resources to balancing both leagues. I'm guessing if they even wanted to do this it would be a long long way off. It's basically making a different game.
With the current gameplay mechanics it would be a monster task to implement and properly balance "Attrition-style engaging combat with fewer monsters"...It's just so far past that point I think those in the community who would have preferred it, myself included, would be better off just letting it go and moving on.
Thanks for your input.
While I would like to see PoE2 take a more official direction toward interesting combat, a complete rebalance was never proposed; only an option between two different variables. We already have pack size on Waystones, and effectiveness on tablets. You can choose to run either, both, or neither of these modifiers on your map. All this post is proposing, is to move those modifiers onto the atlas tree, and to make balance drops between the two, proportional to map completion times.
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Sadly as someone who doesn't like the current direction they're heading "fast-paced screen clearing with many monsters" I can acknowledge it's probably better for them to focus on this exclusively, and deal with the current bugs and issues plaguing the game in general.
The broadened appeal and freedom of customizability if something that GGG is best at. And it's well worth adding nodes with some basic loot tuning.
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Posted byWhisperSlade#0532on May 15, 2026, 5:10:26 PM
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The fix is balance the game to where you can "zoom" in maps but have to focus on bosses in an attrition style fight.
This would be more difficult than simply adding "Density Vs Effectiveness" on the atlas tree. And it wouldn't yield the player agency descisions between play styles that I am espousing.
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This requires several things to happen first tho. Main thing is defense needs to be significantly buffed (besides ES) and/or bosses need all their one shots removed..
Not possible since due to high amounts of player sustain, allowing players to recover all of their life very quickly, one-shots or high burst damage have become mandatory in order to kill the player. If you do not like players being one-shot by mechanics, then high player sustain needs to go in order for players to not be immortal.
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The problem is some want to turn POE into NRFTW and I am sorry but no. That is not POE.
This was never proposed here. Give players the choice, and find out what PoE2 is.
Last edited by WhisperSlade#0532 on May 15, 2026, 5:30:10 PM
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Posted byWhisperSlade#0532on May 15, 2026, 5:29:10 PM
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There should be no remedy. GGG has to pick an audience and go with it. Tons of games out there for the people who don't like what is decided.
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Posted byvexorian#9572on May 15, 2026, 5:34:54 PM
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It feels like we’re going in circles discussing endgame philosophy when the devs have already made their choice. Why is the request for an engaging campaign being completely ignored? While everyone argues about fast vs. slow endgame, the campaign experience is being overlooked, even though this is what decides if many of us will even bother to return each league. [/b]
Thanks for your input.
If the devs have made their choice then there's no need to worry. But even if it is etched onto a stone tablet, I will still talk about how it can evolve and be improved. We're still half a year from initial release, and GGG updates the game frequently.
I also would like campaign to be more difficult; similar to how it felt in 0.1 & 0.2. But that's not the topic of discussion here. You should make a post about it.
Last edited by WhisperSlade#0532 on May 15, 2026, 7:16:57 PM
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Posted byWhisperSlade#0532on May 15, 2026, 5:35:34 PM
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The campaign is already too long and still has 2 full acts to be added. The calls for "campaign skips" which should just be an alternate leveling path that opens up after you complete the campaign the first time each season are only increasing.
They've said that act 6 will be the shortest act, and once it is added the interludes will be removed. So don't expect it to become much longer, and to be approximately the same level upon reaching maps. Not that I would mind increasing the campaign length, because it's currently the most fun aspect of the game.
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No matter how good the campaign is, once you have done it so many times it is no longer good and enjoyable. Having the option to level up just killing monsters in the level scaling zone or "cow level" to take a break from talking to 1000 NPC's, clicking water levers, and moving the caravan to get off to talk to get back on to move to blow a horn to get back off again stuff....
You're describing clicking a on few things every few areas. When you map, do you not have to return to your hideout and open up the map device, choose a node, craft your batches of Waystones and Tablets?
There are few things more repetitious than the current experience of running maps. You spend over 95% of your league time in the endgame, and I will never understand the plea for giving up the other 5%, for the sake of "reducing repetition."
Campaign puts everyone on equal footing, and is an important part of character progression. It's essentially a stream-lined map system, with portaling to your hideout for Waystone/tablet crafting and node selection in the map device being replaced by clicking on an NPC in town.
Last edited by WhisperSlade#0532 on May 17, 2026, 9:18:00 AM
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Posted byWhisperSlade#0532on May 17, 2026, 9:13:53 AM
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Feels like PoE 1 and 2 are so vastly different games that they shouldn't even share the same title.
o,O They growing the be more similar with every patch... Like again, breach mechanic which we got a change for in PoE 1 will come to PoE 2 with the new season.
Where or how are they so "vastly" different or was that sarcasm?
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The campaign is already too long and still has 2 full acts to be added. The calls for "campaign skips" which should just be an alternate leveling path that opens up after you complete the campaign the first time each season are only increasing.
They've said that act 6 will be the shortest act, and once it is added the interludes will be removed. So don't expect it to become much longer, and to be approximately the same level upon reaching maps. Not that I would mind increasing the campaign length, because it's currently the most fun aspect of the game.
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No matter how good the campaign is, once you have done it so many times it is no longer good and enjoyable. Having the option to level up just killing monsters in the level scaling zone or "cow level" to take a break from talking to 1000 NPC's, clicking water levers, and moving the caravan to get off to talk to get back on to move to blow a horn to get back off again stuff....
You're describing clicking a on few things every few areas. When you map, do you not have to return to your hideout and open up the map device, choose a node, craft your batches of Waystones and Tablets?
There are few things more repetitious than the current experience of running maps. You spend over 95% of your league time in the endgame, and I will never understand the plea for giving up the other 5%, for the sake of "reducing repetition."
Campaign puts everyone on equal footing, and is an important part of character progression. It's essentially a stream-lined map system, with portaling to your hideout for Waystone/tablet crafting and node selection in the map device being replaced by clicking on an NPC in town.
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You spend over 95% of your league time in the endgame, and I will never understand the plea for giving up the other 5%, for the sake of "reducing repetition.
Just wanted to throw in that for me it is rather 70% of my time in campaign and maybe 30% in endgame, since endgame is nearly dead on arrival and offers no joy to me. The only time I really like a character I go into sekhema trials and level there/make currency rather than running maps :,D
But I am also against skipping campaign.
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