[Megathread] Path of Exile

[Fencers]

I dislike the lack of control in the endgame of my experience in POE2.

In POE, we have so much granular control over what and how we go about things. You're able to carve an economic niche or cater a build to a specific set of content.

But I feel I am playing rhe endgame GGG wants me to play in the exact way they want me to play it. And that's not very fun after a while due to so many undercooked or lacking mechanics.

Ritual sucks; spiky difficulty, poor rewards, bad placement in maps. Delirium is a huge waste of time; not difficult, too short, too slow, bad rewards.

Basically, anything that isn't Breach is a waste of time and only maps with bosses at a high tier are worth pursuing.

The old atlas tree was more robust. The old map system was more varied. And we need Delve itself back. Even Heists.

The endgame is a very frustrating experience for me.

Edit: Also, I honestly do not think GGG are on the level of From Soft, Platinum or Team Ninja. They do not have the skill (currently) to have hurt and hit boxes interact this way with collision on objects. It's not a matter of design, but their skill in having very well keyed animation rigging to the hurt boxes.

It isn't easy to pull off Sekiro or Ninja Gaiden 2. There is a reason most "souls-like" and character-action games are rarely as finely tuned as From/TN/Plat/Compile offerings.

This ain't your strong suit, GGG.

[Zemini7]

Still xp on death. Can't really stomach that. Just too penalizing

[Fencers]

Still xp on death. Can't really stomach that. Just too penalizing

That's in POE 1 too.

[Cyclone Jack]

Well, we also need to remember that end game was rushed out the door. The only thing they've been able to do thus far is a minor patch it to make it not a completely crappy experience. I suspect, or at least hope, that the next big patch begins the refinement process of the end game. Not just in terms of balance, but in terms of "what the heck is this hodge-podge supposed to do?"

I think they've done a fairly good job at the Souls-like experience, especially in the early campaign. Act 1 bosses are pretty spectacular, in general, and it has some interesting enemies like the Eternal Knights, but Act 1 is also the most polished. Acts 2 and 3 had good bosses as well, but the Acts have a lock of polish, and there are quite a few areas without a boss. The problem is, Souls-like and ARPG don't scale in the same manner. You can't have both Souls-like combat and screen clearing destruction; those are mutually exclusive designs. And that's why PoE2 has a huge identity crisis; it doesn't seem to know what it wants to be. And that is the clarification that GGG needs to really focus on over the next few patches and interviews.

[Zemini7]

That's in POE 1 too.

It sucks having it there too. But i never bothered to play enough POE1 to get to the end game. I got bored half way through the campaign. POE2 is much better game imo

[Fencers]

Not just in terms of balance, but in terms of "what the heck is this hodge-podge supposed to do?" d

Yeah, the balance is whatever. That's just a matter of tuning. But I think "hodge-podge" is a good way to describe the collision of design ideas in the current endgame.

It sucks having it there too. But i never bothered to play enough POE1 to get to the end game. I got bored half way through the campaign. POE2 is much better game imo

I am not sure GGG will get rid of death penalties in general. GGG has said many times failure penalties are a design idea they really like - and would make harsher if they could.

[Nzx]

interesting enemies like the Eternal Knights,

"interesting" is not the word I would use to describe them. I might start with an entree of "terrible" and end with a dessert of "fucking awful", but "interesting" would never appear in my description personally.

[Zemini7]

I am not sure GGG will get rid of death penalties in general. GGG has said many times failure penalties are a design idea they really like - and would make harsher if they could.

Isn't that what hardcore is for? Unless you have a pristine game where I can avoid damage through skill ... sure penalty, but right now that isn't even close to the case. Lots of people on the official forums seem too agree

[prwraith]

Part of me doesn't really understand how you have 5+ years of development and no single aspect of your game is ready.

Not all the gems are in, for really any spec. (There may be one or two) something as basic as an Atlas tab isn't done. The campaign in 5 years only had 3 acts finished?

Like... Its not that substantially different from PoE1.. What was the majority of those 5 years spent doing. You can't even show all the classes, the entire end game was done in 6 months. It just doesn't make sense

[Edge-]

Part of me doesn't really understand how you have 5+ years of development and no single aspect of your game is ready.

Not all the gems are in, for really any spec. (There may be one or two) something as basic as an Atlas tab isn't done. The campaign in 5 years only had 3 acts finished?

Like... Its not that substantially different from PoE1.. What was the majority of those 5 years spent doing. You can't even show all the classes, the entire end game was done in 6 months. It just doesn't make sense

Development isn't fully linear usually, especially during early development. Tons of time is spend experimenting and tweaking something and tossing out the 50 versions that didn't work well. Or chunks of content that were built are dumped because you've changed directions and you need to rebuild that now. Mark went on to talk about how they had to rebalance a tons of bosses as changes were made to the combat system etc.

Plus, likely much of the rest of the game not in is in some state of partial/near completion, too. I wouldn't be surprised if a good chunk of the changes in 0.1.1 were already cooking before the holiday break but just didn't make it into the launch build/needed to wait for a proper update vs. a hotfix to deploy.

Also there was a chunk of time where the built this game to be part of PoE and all before they changed gears there. It's all frustrating, but there are lots of good if unsatisfying reasons.

[Khaza-R]

Part of me doesn't really understand how you have 5+ years of development and no single aspect of your game is ready.

Not all the gems are in, for really any spec. (There may be one or two) something as basic as an Atlas tab isn't done. The campaign in 5 years only had 3 acts finished?

Like... Its not that substantially different from PoE1.. What was the majority of those 5 years spent doing. You can't even show all the classes, the entire end game was done in 6 months. It just doesn't make sense

To be fair, its not some super tenured developer. They've literally only every launced a single game. I'm sure they have a huge amount of efficiency issues.

But we should really look at the bright side of that. Efficiency isn't always what's best of the consumer in the long run. Its what's best for shareholders. In a world of repetitive, mediocre, half-baked games, I am willing to be patient and let them cook.

[Cyclone Jack]

"interesting" is not the word I would use to describe them. I might start with an entree of "terrible" and end with a dessert of "fucking awful", but "interesting" would never appear in my description personally.

LOL! I fully understand your stance on that one. I lot of people hate those.

I play a lot of ranged characters, and to me these guys actually make me pause and adjust my tactics, and I like that. The Sea Hags and their bubble of doom (I laughed at how many people were raging over these; I've only died to them once and it was on purpose to see what happens if you stand in the bubble too long), those big guys in Act 2 that (if they survive long enough) drop those round slabs into the ground that actually block projectiles and movement, these make the game more interesting to me, and I'd love to see more enemies like that. But I'm also on the side of embracing the more tactical combat found in the campaign vs screen spamming.

I love the ARPG genre, but they all do the same thing for end game, which is just AoE spam. It not that I dislike that, it is what it is (and sometimes it is genuinely fun to just blow stuff up), but I'd like to see someone try something new and different. I personally found PoE2 Act 1 to be extremely refreshing and satisfying, surprisingly way more than I would have ever imagined, and Acts 2 and 3 were both good as well (but need polish), and I was expecting this to continue into end game, based on all the "souls-like" talk they were spouting. But then a completely different team with a completely different design doc created the end game, which feels like a complete disconnect from the campaign; almost like these are two different games. Again, its not bad, per se, but it does feel jarring, especially since every single one of my campaign characters needed to be respecced for end game.

Personally, I'd love to see them try and allow the end game to be tailored to the player, so that screen spamming is doable with hordes of enemies, and that campaign-style is doable with fewer, more powerful enemies.

[Biomega]

Part of me doesn't really understand how you have 5+ years of development and no single aspect of your game is ready.

Not all the gems are in, for really any spec. (There may be one or two) something as basic as an Atlas tab isn't done. The campaign in 5 years only had 3 acts finished?

Like... Its not that substantially different from PoE1.. What was the majority of those 5 years spent doing. You can't even show all the classes, the entire end game was done in 6 months. It just doesn't make sense

There's a lot to do. Engine updates, models and world design, etc. all the art assets alone will take FOREVER to make. Finishing all the acts and various endgame systems is a mammoth undertaking, because while some aspects are directly lifted from PoE1 you still need to redo/rebuild a lot to make it work with the new setup. Let alone all the new stuff. Then testing, optimization, etc. to say nothing of the nightmare that is tuning.

This is not a AAA developer. They're super successful, but they're still constrained in many ways, plus also probably not that experienced with shipping a new project as opposed to working on an existing one. And all that while ALSO maintaining and updating PoE1 alongside, in parallel.

I'm less worried about what they put out and more worried about what's to come. They have a mountain to climb still, make no mistake. And this may be a chain of delays and pushbacks waiting to happen while this "Early Access" version becomes more and more considered as a release, no matter what they say. I get they wanted to push this out for various reasons, but I have a suspicion that it'll be quite a bit longer than everyone thinks until everything is in.

[Trifle]

Part of me doesn't really understand how you have 5+ years of development and no single aspect of your game is ready.

If you believe the 4chan leak, they weren't really working on it for 5 years since they didn't actually have different teams for poe1 and poe2 (for the most part). Take with a huge grain of salt, obviously.

[Fencers]

Isn't that what hardcore is for?

No. Hardcore is a non-refunable life token. You only have one credit in the machine in Hardcore, Softcore is unlimited continues.

Lots of people on the official forums seem too agree

That might be so. But GGG didn't change it in POE1 either despite protests to do so. Their comments about the doubling of penalties in POE2 suggest there will always be a penalty for failure that is a desired point of friction.

I am just saying, "don't hold your breath."

[prwraith]

So the beams of light for citadels is nice and all, but I'm over 200 maps going after each one and I've still got found a f iron citadel.

Ugh I just want the poe1 atlas back, I hate this travesty of a map system so much

[Cyclone Jack]

Ugh I just want the poe1 atlas back, I hate this travesty of a map system so much

I like the concept of the new Altas, but I agree that it needs quite a bit of work. I miss being able to pick the maps I want to run; certain builds are better in the wide open outdoor maps, while others are better in indoor maps. Let me choose the map 90% of the time, then you can place a few pre-determined maps here and there for structure (citadels, towers, etc). You need to be able to zoom out much further on the map, and if you zoom out far enough it should become a 2D Map, like like the PoE1 Atlas. I do like that certain biomes have certain enemies, so I know which ones to ignore. LOL

[Edge-]

Ben has thoughts on PoE2. Listening now, it's spicy in the first minute.

For those that don't know Ben: Ben is basically a godgamer in PoE. He is better than all of us at the game and knows more than us about the game.

TLDR largely seems to be: Campaign good, rest of the game is a mixture of either nonsensical decisions or bad that actively hinders having fun, especially around the endgame, and builds are largely way more boring than even PoE. He's fuckin right.

Edit: BEN YES, IT IS SO FUN TO BE PUSHED ACROSS THE SCREEN BY MONSTERS AS MELEE. I am so glad that almost every one of my complaints/criticisms is being echoed by Ben. I feel so incredibly validated.

[Fencers]

I just watched Ben's video this morning, actually. As I expected, he was totally on the money.

As I said above, GGG do not have the skill set to deal with environmental and target collision on this level. It might even be a mistake within the genre due to the perspective not lending itself to the tight animation rigging of a third or first-person game centered at the eye level.

GGG might not be able to pull this off currently.

[Cyclone Jack]

The only thing that I ran into in which I thought it didn't quite feel right was due to boss attacks auto-tracking you after the wind-up. IMO, once a boss begins telegraphing their big attack, they should be locked at that angle. This gives the player the necessary time to get out of the way. Otherwise, they need to add more i-frames to the Dodge Roll, since 90% of the time I got hit was the boss auto-tracking me during my roll. If they can clean that up, I think they'd be in a much better spot.