LET ME PLAY 0.1 AGAIN!

"

This sort of "wish to be a noob again" thing is why I tell people never to use a guide on their first playthrough or for as long as they can hold out. You only get an opportunity for that "blind" experience once - and for me it'd be a shame to look back on it knowing it wasn't entirely my own.

I cant speak for everyone, but for me problem lies somewhere else.

I'm fully aware that over 1000 hours I've put into PoE2 made me better at the game. As you've said, we learn how to gear, what supports to use, how to move etc.
And its true that campaign could never be the same for us.

Again, I'm speaking for myself, but my biggest concern is lack of challenging/aspirational content later in the game. As things stand today, if you are a player with decent experience and game wisdom, campaign is equaly non-challenging at lvl 10 as is an end-game at level 92.

I've talked about that in another topic: thing is we dont have something to aspire like years ago in PoE1 in form of Atziri (joke in PoE2), Shaper, Uber Elder or Maven. I know that we are weeks before large end-game patch with many pinnacles but I worry that they could be something similar to Atziri: great story arc, super visuals but no real challenge in terms of end-game goals.

PoE as a franchise was for me always a game that take care about keeping aspirational content up to date and fresh. Multiple Atlas expansions in PoE1 prove that. I really hope that they will nail the pinnacles in coming patch, but even if not right away, they (GGG) will not be afraid to do massive balance patches in coming months leading to 1.0.

To summerize: I agree that campaign will never be the same challenge as it was in 0.1 for players who put many hours into game.
But there must be something in the game that will bring back that kind of feeling. While in 0.1 we got that from the start, in 0.5 or 1.0 we just have to be able to feel the same in late/end-game.
Without that, game is set up to fail in long term, especially being successor to PoE1 where bosses are the main selling point and thing that made whole franchise what it is today.

As someone that has played PoE1 and has decent experience with it, I already knew what would work in PoE2 in terms of building the character... but that didn't change at all the difficulty and feeling of act I 0.1 for me. So it's not really a case of getting better at it or something like that. They just made it considerably easier.... add on top of that all the additional player power added even from early levels across patches, and so on.

I also think everyone remembers the incredibly jarring disconnect between campaign and late game in 0.1. A surprise to no one either, since the endgame was literally something they quickly put together from PoE1 to have something there, out of fear of getting backlash like Last epoch did... which was a terrible decision. So when they started "smoothing" the transition... they actually gradually smoothed out the combat feeling out of it early on too.

Talking of.. I still remember that exilecon when they were talking for the first time in more detail about PoE2 and them mentioning how they want to cut down drastically on more multipliers on gems so that it doesn't become the same problem as in PoE1... funny how that completely disappeared from their minds. Like someone just wiped out their memories.

https://youtu.be/yP7XhyQNG18





The more I look at this the more upset I get.

"

IonSugeRau1#1069 wrote:

No Rest For The Wicked also had their fair share of the same crowd show up in the beginning, but they didn't bend over for them, thankfully.

their all time peak is about the same size as the random mid league private server a couple streamers did not long ago.

i strongly dislike games like no rest so i don't play them.
glad to hear people have other options though. grim dawn also seems appealing to that crowd.

i would prefer GGG not needing to layoff most of their talented staff because they catered to an insignificant niche audience.

Well Grim Dawn is a pay to play complete package with expansions. And I believe it's not even a online game so... poe2 can't be like a grim dawn kekw

I still remember when you could only have 1 of each support gem across your skills.

I think it gave more weight to skill identity in terms of the variety of roles it could play across multiple builds.

It was a really refreshing way to think about playing the game and filling out your build.

I kind of wish they had stayed with that "vision" instead of pandering to what I considered pathetic and whiny complaints from people who were accustomed to playing a version of poe with 13yrs of community solutions and blueprints at their fingertips suddenly needing to activate a few extra neurons.

Because now I hardly think about what supports to put on which skills at all and it reminds me of PoE1 where a skill gets 4 of the same supports and then 1 of 3 "wildcards" depending on the build, and it's the same every time, forever. It resembles a build-agnostic problem you only ever solve once.

It would have been a better solution just to add more support gem variety instead of copying the PoE1 model and making the 1 "wildcard" option lineage supports. Now in some instances the support gems feel bland or they become permanently irrelevant past certain levels.

IMHO it was a really unique and interesting aspect of PoE2 that I wish they had the balls to tell the PoE1-brained complainers to figure it out and see it through to release/when we'd have all the baseline supports and skills in the game.

"

JODYHiGHR0LLER#6171 wrote:

"

IonSugeRau1#1069 wrote:

No Rest For The Wicked also had their fair share of the same crowd show up in the beginning, but they didn't bend over for them, thankfully.

their all time peak is about the same size as the random mid league private server a couple streamers did not long ago.

i strongly dislike games like no rest so i don't play them.
glad to hear people have other options though. grim dawn also seems appealing to that crowd.

i would prefer GGG not needing to layoff most of their talented staff because they catered to an insignificant niche audience.

You're not seriously going to compare their numbers with a triple A game such as PoE2 that also had a reputation beforehand, are you? Besides... the graphics and art style of NRFTW are niche in itself... I'm certain a lot of people didn't even consider it because of that.

Add to that the instant hate from a lot of PoE1 sources, no real coverage compared to studios with higher budget... etc. I reckon they did pretty well, all considering.

Also, no, GGG wouldn't layoff anyone, not that -you- would really care... as a matter of fact they might have laid off people ever since launch... as numbers definitely went down since then for each new league as a lot of people noticed that what they were advertised wasn't really there and got bored with it.

Yeah, i miss the difficulty of the campaign during 0.1 as well

"

IonSugeRau1#1069 wrote:

.. as numbers definitely went down since then for each new league as a lot of people noticed that what they were advertised wasn't really there and got bored with it.

The amount of new blood will only know the current course correction will be much more when 1.0 launches. (Maybe, haha)

Players had a lot more power in 0.1. I had a Merc stat-stacking Spark caster(6th character) of all things. Players also had more flexibility, I think, but as usual folks gravitate towards the most powerful.

I don't miss the campaign difficulty because it still exists. It is basically the same, but much easier now that I know what stats on items make it easier.

Also, GGG consider themselves AA, not AAA. Probably because they had 1 game, so it makes sense. It was just high quality. But if they want the slow, meaningful combat then they need to follow No Rest's example of gutting mob quantity and heavily increasing mob quality. But as mentioned, the bulk of ARPG players *don't want that*. They want to get super powerful, feel like a god, and wipe screens to pick up loot. And when that gets boring they theorycraft a new build and try that...or move to another game.

"

FruitLord#0833 wrote:

Players had a lot more power in 0.1. I had a Merc stat-stacking Spark caster(6th character) of all things. Players also had more flexibility, I think, but as usual folks gravitate towards the most powerful.

I don't miss the campaign difficulty because it still exists. It is basically the same, but much easier now that I know what stats on items make it easier.

Also, GGG consider themselves AA, not AAA. Probably because they had 1 game, so it makes sense. It was just high quality. But if they want the slow, meaningful combat then they need to follow No Rest's example of gutting mob quantity and heavily increasing mob quality. But as mentioned, the bulk of ARPG players *don't want that*. They want to get super powerful, feel like a god, and wipe screens to pick up loot. And when that gets boring they theorycraft a new build and try that...or move to another game.

Lol it is definitely -not- the same. Geonor put the fear in me and many with those ice crystals and raining beams, now I can knock him over once or twice and phase and kill him on a fresh character.

One aspect of difficulty people don't really understand in ARPGs, or even action combat games as a whole like Sekiro or Elden Ring, is that not everything has to be invulnerability phases or nerfs to damage to extend a fight. By making a boss extremely aggressive and giving fewer and quicker windows to strike back, it puts the player on the defensive and fighting for a chance to get their damage off. Which makes taking those risks and striking right after a dodge or during a long attack animation becomes really satisfying. You learn the boss and your opportunities that you personally discovered, and in future encounters you may learn even more still that are unique to your build or character. In 0.1 there was a lot of that, in 0.4 you can face tank a lot of damage.

Here's footage from my 0.1 multiplayer playthrough against Forsaken Son.
https://youtu.be/YyPiUvRomEY

He was basically a raid boss and the whole room ends up on fire by the end of it, we had to optimize statuses and DPS as we exhausted our resources.