With 1.0 Approaching, Time Belongs to Core Gameplay

The point of a sequel is to honor the original formula while mastering the comfort zone of what already worked

That "comfort zone" is built on decades of powercreep and bloat, and it's being treated as a solid foundation for a new game, which is exactly why it feels so familiar and great

When the lead designer treats a sequel like a balance patch for the old one, you get pure refinement, a polished version of the past because you chose to perfect the mistakes that made the original turn into a mess

It's funny because while browsing reddit, someone reminded me of Lost Ark:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eez7Y0t6hZE

It looks so bad and is so uninspiring, PoE 2 is completely redefining how we look at ARPG combat entirely.. Rolling Slam is vastly superior to any of that

Why spend dev cycles on anything else when these deliberate numerical changes to classic skills show exactly where the focus on balance matters

The game is seeing subtle improvements ACROSS THE BOARD

You are about to launch 1.0, and the foundation of the gameplay, specially in the melee department is still VERY GROUNDED, showing how carefully time is being allocated.

Money is not the problem, and the results show it

This Rolling Slam change shows the vision: it doesn't need a behavioral overhaul, it benefits from a precise numerical tweak, and keeping the linear interpolation for +# seconds to attacks ensures absolute consistency while you are at it, linear conveys reliable satisfying momentum, it's clean

It's time to celebrate this approach to design, Mark, this is working incredibly well

I'm so glad NRFTW exists, it tries to do something different, but you, GGG, know exactly what the goal here is, staying completely confident in your potential

It feels like there is someone that is perfectly guiding the artistic vision in the gameplay department

Mark needs to keep his exact focus on gameplay design, he is successfully bringing the best of PoE 1 into PoE 2

The remaining classes are all Melee archetype

Mark is going to perfect them