What happened to Engaging Combat? Video Feedback.

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cowmoo275#3095 เขียน:

The reason why I am saying its impossible is because, at its core and no matter what GGG has SAID their intention was.....PoE 2 is the same game as PoE 1. Exactly the same. There is no difference. If you can highlight a specific difference other than "things are temporarily slower"....please let me know.

Like you yourself said, trying to "force" meaningful combat into PoE 1 was never going to work. Given that PoE 2 is fundamentally the same game...it will never work in PoE 2 either.

I mean.....we already see that. That's why this thread exists. We are now almost a year into the public release of the game, well over 5 years into the DEVELOPMENT of the game. And we still don't have a "fix" on meaningful combat. Not to mention we have the entire history of PoE 1 which, we can assume, they tried to use to teach themselves what NOT to do in order to create a different game.

And yet here we are.

Ofc it is ultimately their choice what game they put out.

Did they say they want meaningful combat?
Yea

Did the game have meaningful combat?
A bit in the early bossfights.

Was it clear that meaningful combat doesn't work in PoE1?
Should have been.

Did they mislead some players into thinking this will be different from PoE1?
Sure did.

But nothing of that means they are in any way obliged to put out this “early vision” of PoE2 with meaningful and engaging combat. They put out what they want to put out, and the players that enjoy it should play it.
Still, for now the game is in EA, Jonathan still insists on meaningful combat, and I can still hope it will get there.

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cowmoo275#3095 เขียน:

^oh yes, thats what I thought you meant and my post does illustrate that as well. We are describing the same thing in different ways.

Then I guess we can agree that this feature just comes with trading. You will always have the possibility to "skip" content as long as you have enough currency. If someone doesn't like it, don't play trade.

Kinda thought we were arguing against each other there…

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KäsePizza#3007 เขียน:

But nothing of that means they are in any way obliged to put out this “early vision” of PoE2 with meaningful and engaging combat. They put out what they want to put out, and the players that enjoy it should play it.
Still, for now the game is in EA, Jonathan still insists on meaningful combat, and I can still hope it will get there.

I mentioned this earlier, perhaps it got buried. They forced their OWN hand. Remember: this game may have been released in 2024 to US, but millions have been spent on its development and AT LEAST 6 years of development time.

Jonathan can insist until he's blue in the face, but the product is out. It is public. We are in open beta. It would make the absolute worst business sense for them to suddenly pull the rug out and start again. They must work with what they have, and do the "best they can". My entire point is, because of the foundation they have already created and released, the "best they can" will never involve meaningful content in the ways some in this thread envision.

Because they erroneously chose to build on and copy PoE 1. Because initially the idea was for the two games to be ONE game. They spent far too long thinking about them as the SAME game, and the result is.....the SAME game. It was early 2024(?) when they announced it would suddenly be a separate game right? Well, at that point they should have scrapped everything and restarted. But its clear they didn't: at release we literally had the same content in PoE 2 (such as breach) that we had in PoE 1. Not even altered in any way to fit the "new" paradigm. And they are still following the same pattern: now the new league is Abyss, hardly altered from how it worked in PoE 1. If their TRUE intentions were to make the game different.....these mechanics would either not exist at all in PoE 2 in favor of completely new ideas that complement their new vision for the game OR the familiar material would look radically different.

Look at Last Epoch: it was in open beta for what, 4 years? 5 years? Possibly one of the longest open betas ever. And yet...the game foundation fundamentally HASN'T changed. Systems were laid on top, things were tweaked, balance passes happened, but the game NOW is pretty much foundationally the same game as when the beta began.

There are hundreds of thousands of players currently involved in PoE 2, for positive or for negative. We have had 3 major patches. There has been over 9 months of additional development post-public release. There simply WON'T be a 180 degree turn at this point. I think GGG knows they can't too: hence, 0.3 being the Abyss copy/paste.



***I did also state earlier, and I want to highlight: They still CAN make meaningful boss fights. THAT is where their attention should be. Act 1 boss was and still is fantastic. Other bosses across the game are still awesome to interact with. The fluid movement and combat of PoE 2 lends itself better to boss mechanics in ways that PoE 1 can't. But the rest of the game will not support that slower, more methodical, more time-consuming engagements.

Every single map boss should be unique and be a major fight.
Every single pinnacle boss should be beefy as all hell and take a while to beat.
There should be a LOT of boss encounters, unlike the throwaway boss design in most of PoE 1 mapping.

But regular mapping and regular gameplay...it has zero place and would actively detract from the game if implemented.

Well trading breaks the meaningful combat completly. If a newly started character finds a divine orb at level 68, he can buy a weapon that can destroy content up to tier 15, and the later into the league the more true this is.

But Path of Exile is based on trade, that is a large part of its popularity and what made it such a success. It is in their very core of their business model.



Trade creates both a value to a grind and also offers up a road to greater complexity and build diversity, but its very nature also destroys meaningful combat.

The only way to create meaningful combat is to diminish trade, either by soulbinding, add strict level requirements on equipment and prevent players from over-level in each tier, also adding unique currency in each tier that only have value in that tier, but that would destroy the grind-loot aspect. Or enforce SSF.

Because if the option to trade is there it will lead to people choosing the path of least resistance, ergo; grind the easy zone until a divine drops and make a massive upgrade and destroy screens of enemies in higher tiers, repeat.

This is the schism between a dark-souls game & grind-loot game with complex character building.

Even if they reduced the amount of enemies, removed the clutter, increased their health, reduce player damage, the mere possibility to get 500% more damage from a lucky currency drop and trade will make a new meta of players blasting screens.

It would look like this; get to maps, grind tier 1 maps until you get a divine orb or x amount of regals, x amount of chaos orbs, buy a upgrade, and then breeze trough 5 tiers of difficulty, repeat.

The path of least resistance.

And that is the problem with trying to combine a complex-theory-loot-grind with a engaging-combat-game.

The only way to create engaging combat is to remove trade, and hardlock both items, currency & loot to -x/+1 of your tier level and rework the entire system of crafting to only be -x/+1 of your tier level.

And that would also destroy complex character building, unique rare items & the value of loot. A 1/100.000 unique drop that enables a new character type might just not exist at all. And the itemization system would have to be completly reworked into something of a diablo 3 system.

But that would destroy one of the fundamental pillars that made PoE 1 popular and successful, and would the new game have the same success and economical prosperity?

I really dont belive that.

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Grayeye#1799 เขียน:

Trade creates both a value to a grind and also offers up a road to greater complexity and build diversity, but its very nature also destroys meaningful combat.

Oh absolutely, 100% correct. Yet another specific reason why meaningful combat is an impossibility in PoE 2.

But just to poke a few holes: there is SSF. And players do play SSF. But simply choosing SSF (negating trade from the equation) still wouldn't allow for meaningful combat. It almost makes meaningful combat even LESS likely without trade, because you are required to farm exponentially more by yourself without help: forcing much more speed, much more efficiency, if you ever want to progress and proceed.

Unless you are the unicorn player that....isn't striving to make a better character. Or your time on a character is measured in years instead of weeks. They exist....but its an extreme minority.

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cowmoo275#3095 เขียน:

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Grayeye#1799 เขียน:

Trade creates both a value to a grind and also offers up a road to greater complexity and build diversity, but its very nature also destroys meaningful combat.

Oh absolutely, 100% correct. Yet another specific reason why meaningful combat is an impossibility in PoE 2.

But just to poke a few holes: there is SSF. And players do play SSF. But simply choosing SSF (negating trade from the equation) still wouldn't allow for meaningful combat. It almost makes meaningful combat even LESS likely without trade, because you are required to farm exponentially more by yourself without help: forcing much more speed, much more efficiency, if you ever want to progress and proceed.

Unless you are the unicorn player that....isn't striving to make a better character. Or your time on a character is measured in years instead of weeks. They exist....but its an extreme minority.

Another point to be made, trade existing creates room for great item & crafting diversity. As in PoE 1 with delve crafting, beast crafting, harvest crafting, essejce crafting, synthesised items and so much more.

If you remove trade these systems completly collapses and must be much more simplified. The amount of things you find for your build in PoE 1 is a percentage.

And if you want enforced engaging combat, well, you have to more or less slaughter these systems.

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cowmoo275#3095 เขียน:

Oh absolutely, 100% correct. Yet another specific reason why meaningful combat is an impossibility in PoE 2.

But just to poke a few holes: there is SSF. And players do play SSF. But simply choosing SSF (negating trade from the equation) still wouldn't allow for meaningful combat. It almost makes meaningful combat even LESS likely without trade, because you are required to farm exponentially more by yourself without help: forcing much more speed, much more efficiency, if you ever want to progress and proceed.

Unless you are the unicorn player that....isn't striving to make a better character. Or your time on a character is measured in years instead of weeks. They exist....but its an extreme minority.

Looks like you don't understand why people are playing SSF or Private Leagues.
Mainly its not for "challenge" or something.
Its just for actually playing the game, searching/crafting items yourself rather than playing currency farmer simulator.

However I do not see the problem of being trading game and meaningful combat at the same time. Why do you think that zooming = farming faster. Its not connected, they can balance loot around slower and more engaging combat the way you'd get more currency/items in the same time you do now.

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Nikuksis#6962 เขียน:

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cowmoo275#3095 เขียน:

Oh absolutely, 100% correct. Yet another specific reason why meaningful combat is an impossibility in PoE 2.

But just to poke a few holes: there is SSF. And players do play SSF. But simply choosing SSF (negating trade from the equation) still wouldn't allow for meaningful combat. It almost makes meaningful combat even LESS likely without trade, because you are required to farm exponentially more by yourself without help: forcing much more speed, much more efficiency, if you ever want to progress and proceed.

Unless you are the unicorn player that....isn't striving to make a better character. Or your time on a character is measured in years instead of weeks. They exist....but its an extreme minority.

Looks like you don't understand why people are playing SSF or Private Leagues.
Mainly its not for "challenge" or something.
Its just for actually playing the game, searching/crafting items yourself rather than playing currency farmer simulator.

However I do not see the problem of being trading game and meaningful combat at the same time. Why do you think that zooming = farming faster. Its not connected, they can balance loot around slower and more engaging combat the way you'd get more currency/items in the same time you do now.

Well, the tiers, to have meaningful combat you need to have STRICT control and regulate the intended damage of a player, that means if the next tier to complete, lets say tier 7, is intended to have 700-900 dps and tier 15 is 2900-3900 dps and a player can trade for tier 15 equipment with currency he have found, the system breaks down.

And SSF is much more of a currency farmer simulator than trade by natural reasons, you will need to grind a gigantic amount of items/currency to be able to have the same power as a trade-based player and if you go off-meta you will most likely not be able to break into the late-game.

For all of the above:

I don't think trading and meaningful combat are exclusively one or the other. At least not like zooming and meaningful combat.

You can trade your way up — to do that you need to either be lucky, or already have the resources from another character, or grinded enough and got unlucky with items you can use — that's kinda the point of trading in the first place. Speed up the parts of the game you don't want to do. It is not a problem, but choice. Maybe you feel forced to trade then? Just play SSF.

Also, just because you can trade your way from “t1” gear to “t15” gear — if that's what you want, do it. It might not be possible because of level restrictions, and stuff — maybe you need a stopover at t7 for a few levels. That's not an issue, because you still have t16-insanely-juiced maps and pinnacle bosses. If you want to trade your way into the top, why not? If there are players farming the easy content instead of the “appropriate” one, that's completely their choice. Meaningful combat doesn't have to be everywhere in the endgame, it just should be somewhere.


In the end, we do not know if it works — and we do not know if it doesn't. The only way to know is to see a game succeed at it, or fail trying. PoE2 wanted to try, but never committed to it.

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Grayeye#1799 เขียน:

Well, the tiers, to have meaningful combat you need to have STRICT control and regulate the intended damage of a player, that means if the next tier to complete, lets say tier 7, is intended to have 700-900 dps and tier 15 is 2900-3900 dps and a player can trade for tier 15 equipment with currency he have found, the system breaks down.

And SSF is much more of a currency farmer simulator than trade by natural reasons, you will need to grind a gigantic amount of items/currency to be able to have the same power as a trade-based player and if you go off-meta you will most likely not be able to break into the late-game.

Maybe not that much. Just blur the lines between the tiers. If you get a lucky drop in t1 maps, a good craft while in t2 — perhaps you can go skip right into t5. Luck was always a big part of these games as well. There might be stronger/meta builds that can use worse gear to progress, but there should be content that is a challenge and feels rewarding enough so that you don't feel getting more out of easier content.

PoE2 also “breaks” if you drop a Headhunter in t1 maps. You'll probably throw it on and have fun, or get equipment from it and be able to do pinnacles at this point.

As I've said, I think it can work, maybe it can't. We don't know since we haven't seen it succeed or fail. Could be that it's easier to make it work than we think — could be just a fine line of balancing that makes it fun and meaningful without being restrictive. Maybe it just doesn't work for the majority of players, maybe other people find it fun, maybe almost noone. We just don't know — which also might be a factor that GGG is not willing to take on.