On bloat. (Crosspost from Feedback)

This early access made me realize what I like and what I don’t like in games. And one thing I really don’t like is bloat. What I mean is: high complexity / depth ratio. What I want is depth. In design, you “payl for depth with complexity. That means, every bit of complexity that doesn’t give you depth is one step in the wrong direction.

What I experience as bloat in current PoE2 (inefficient complexity)

- currency orbs having multiple tiers.
This isn’t adding anything meaningful. If I want better rolls, I use the better orbs. No depth here.

- support gem tiers.
supports are a clear plus on depth. I would like to level them higher and higher myself to get a better effect out of them with increasing costs. This is only a plus on depth tho if I have to make a meaningful decision on how to distribute limited resources. But we get flooded with uncut supports so if I get level 2 uncut I ditch level 1. No depth here. On level 3 some supports change their behavior completely, many change so drastically that I do not want the effect at all. So leveling my supports often just ends after 1 step and 1 resource investment. Very bad depth.

- small nodes on ascendency tree.
I don’t get to make a decision here. If I want the main skills on my tree I have to path through them. No depth here at all.

- most content is too easy
there are key points in the campaign that force me to really think about my gear, my options, what do I have in my possession that helps me to beat a boss like in act2 etc. those moments I love and those moments are the reason I play this game. Every time I encounter a challenge and I go back and learn about skills and gear etc I realize how cool this game is. Even small adjustments can result in large outcomes and overcoming those challenges make me feel immersed and proud of my character. But between those critical moments I have to play hours upon hours killing the same enemies without ANY challenge / decision /consideration at all. The challenges in this game are just way too far apart from each other and I consider the parts in between especially in campaign as VERY HIGH bloat.

-multiple status stats per effect
we get chill, we get freeze. We get shock, we get electrocute. Why? Electrocute build up for example doesn’t do anything before reaching a threshold. Why not make every ailment have simply more threshold level? For example: I attack and roll to apply shock. If i apply shock again the stacks go higher, at threshold 20 the monster takes 20% increased damage. by reaching a threshold of say 75% the effect of electrocute applies. You don’t need two status effects for this behavior. But we have to learn two, think about two, read about two. Compare against two. This is very very bad bloat imo.

-resources
We get health, mana, energy shield, spirit, ward, runic ward, Witchhunter ward… for what? Many of them do almost the same kind of thing. Health should be your life pool. If you run out it should be over. Period. Now we got runic ward, a life pool for the life pool. It’s just bloat. It doesn’t really cost anything so there is no decision to make here at all. Then we get ward. Just delete it. It’s just a worse kind of runic ward. Why not make all those ward mechanics go into your design for energy shield instead when they are suppose to be a shield? And if this is against class specifications, design it into spirit! (My absolute favorite solution) Spirit is nice, it’s already in the game and fulfills exactly the kind of role runic ward, ward, etc try to fulfill.

- trial currency not giving trials
There shouldn’t be trials currency at all imo. Just make a trial attempt cost normal currency instead. We find barias that won’t give us points. That’s just stupid. Those items are nothing but bloat.

- extra screens for extra abilities.
I’m playing monk this league. There is a little extra window to slot a second set of runes into. WHY are those rune slots not ON the inventory screen? They should be there. Only there. Visible all the time like the second ring slot for Ritualist.

- alternative set of mods (mods not doing what they say they are doing)
this might be a weaker point to make but having to learn not only a mod for my gloves but the conversion mod as a martial artist hollow palm player as well is really bad bloat. I now need to know that attack speed IS NOT IN FACT attack speed… it’s chance for Onslaught. This is.. just not very elegant. And for the second example: gemling Legionaire. Some skills change the behavior drastically like level 3 supports. A skill should be one skill imo. Not two skills. There is no depth in this, only complexity.

This probably isn’t everything. But I’m only like 800h into this game. I think if those points above would be removed / reworked, the game would just be better tho.