What happened to Engaging Combat? Video Feedback.

"

Grayeye#1799 เขียน:

After thinking about it four a couple of hours it all boils down to two things.

The inability to make a combination out of engaging combat and loot.

Path of exile is loved because of the loot, that is what keep people grinding. Then what is really loot, what is the soul of loot? It is power. Increases in player power. People will not grind if the power gained is not enough to be worth the time invested.

Two different kind of games, diablo II & dark souls. People dont run a thousand bhaal runs or a thousand countess runs because of engaging gameplay, it is all about the dopamine loot. And people dont play dark souls to grind loot, but the engaging combat, the soundtrack & atmosphere.

And if they want to engaging combat they can not have a loot-grind system, not one that works anyhow, because loot is the same as power, and you can not increase the power for players in a meaningful way that makes it worth to grind it without breaking the strict combat rules that engaging combat demands, which is a very thight low/max damage ceiling.

They can make PoE 2 have a endgame that have engaging combat, but that in effect means that the total skill tree with ascendancies can not give more then 20% player power, the difference between a 5 link and 6 link cant be more then 5%, the difference between a bad item and best in slot no more then 10%, or else the engaging combat model completly breaks down.

It is partly because the lowest damage ceiling cant be to low, or else player would quit en masse because, and at the same you cant have the highest damage ceiling to low either, because how do you convince a player to grind an 100 extra hours for loot when he doesnt really gain any new power?

Disclaimer, all the numbers are arbitrary, im trying to explain the schism between between a loot-grinder and a engaging combat simulator.

Couldn't power be measured in other ways?

I think you're right using the frame of reference of POE1 where Power = raw numbers; more damage, more health, more defense, etc. It's extremely difficult to balance this sense of power with engaging combat. They are at odds with each other.

But what if power was measured in different ways? GGG even mentioned this as an issue with the current support gems where they are just a source of more damage. And they smartly pointed out that support gems being used to provide utility would be better for the game.

Think about a collectible card game where you collect "power." New cards that you obtain aren't inherently more powerful than others (to a degree), but when you unlock certain combinations, that is what gives the players "power." The same can be said about many action games where as soon as you have certain toolsets, you feel very powerful. It's not just that I now deal 100x more damage and can facetank forever. It's that I can do way more shit that I couldn't do before and can take on obstacles in new ways.

I think GGG needs to seriously consider giving a statement to the players on what their true direction is. Because as of now, their official stance has been "engaging combat." And now everyone is saying "can't be done." So which is it, is the goal to provide us with was promised or is the goal to now simulate the POE1 experience with a new shine?

The exilecon part is almost funny to me, they list and degenerate the "problems" or limitations of Poe 1 combat but then take the same approach with Poe 2?

Like, I want to know what is the cause behind this, did they give up on their philosophy for poe2? Are they not aware of what they're creating and incentivizing?

I mean is not the end of the world if they make Poe 2 just a copy of Poe 1 but then you gotta ask what is the point of Poe 2?

"

saashaa#5518 เขียน:

it's just poe 0.5 with better graphic - and all engaging combat exist only in first two acts. Game just killing it's identity later

Yeah, in 0.2 it was 3 acts but they decided to nerf the HP of every boss in Act3 by 15% so now Act3 is a complete joke.

You become a screen-clearing god by Act 3, and the game is just a dopamine slot machine simulator with no engaging combat anymore.

Sad.

"

cowmoo275#3095 เขียน:

1st: No....I'm not wrong about its popularity. Streamers do it at a certain point in their progression and then completely forget about it.

2nd: "How does people liking it or not invalidate"......excuse me? That's the entire argument at play here! People play a game because they LIKE the game. If they aren't liking it, the game is a failure. If players actively DISLIKE content, it is because the content is not meshing with the game loop.

The ONLY argument here is player preference and genre preference lol.


As to the "logic" here: you are leaping around to many different arguments. We are talking about "meaningful combat" first and foremost. Blight absolutely does NOT have meaingful combat: it is screen diahrrea where you hold a button as much as possible and hope everything dies in time. What's even funnier is, because its a tower defense shoehorned into an arpg, its arguably the mode of play with the LEAST amount of direct combat: the direct opposite of your points.

In fact, you brought up Blight to defend whatever point you were trying to make when in fact it does a better job defending MY point: loot is the main driver, not combat. Players will even play blight if the rewards are good enough, regardless of the fact that the combat and engagement is one of the worst across all of the league mechanics available in PoE 1. But because it has an artificial time limiter on it, the vast majority of players avoid it because TIME and speed are paramount, even over potentially greater rewards sometimes.

Oh but you are wrong about it's popularity, even one of the most zoom zoom enjoyer PoE1 CC's was quite positive on them, namely Zizaran. And if you look at his video guides about them, you can see in the comments that a lot of people like it. You can lie all you want about that but the truth is there.

Also, no, that was not the argument you were making, this is the argument you were making:

"

cowmoo275#3095 เขียน:

The fact that "loot grind" is a core concept in this game completely changes how players approach the game. Speed becomes the single most important stat, and there currently doesn't exist a single game where this isn't true. That is the very nature of a loot-based rpg.

Without understanding this, you can't possibly compare/contrast or talk about "design" in any meaningful way. Because you are missing the point.
Nothing else matters if you fundamentally do not understand how loot changes the equation of the entire game loop, including combat.

And I proved you wrong with my example.

This whole "The ONLY argument here is player preference and genre preference lol." was not something you mentioned at all till now. Maybe you thought you did in your head while trying to be disingenuous and make it look impartial but that's definitely not something you've mentioned in your first comment.

Funny enough you argue about jumping around but you're actually the one doing it, now trying to spin Blight into your favor when I haven't given it as an example of a good mechanic or anything, just mentioned it to prove my point that speed is not a constant and it's relative to the boundaries created by the developers. It served my point perfectly.

As for this whole spin that loot grinding is not compatible with good combat ... it's just ridiculous. Many games prove this wrong with ease... No Rest for The Wicked for example proves you instantly wrong. But even games such as Monster Hunter prove you wrong as well. And many more.

Also, the whole reason and focus of this feedback thread that I've made is to point out that GGG has promoted this game as having good/engaging/meaningful combat and how the game is not currently achieving this at all and is further straying away with each patch... it has absolutely NOTHING to do with your opinion on how the game should forget about combat. That's just some of you trying to hijack the whole thing and make it about your own preferences.

"

Shrodin#0981 เขียน:

Couldn't power be measured in other ways?

I think you're right using the frame of reference of POE1 where Power = raw numbers; more damage, more health, more defense, etc. It's extremely difficult to balance this sense of power with engaging combat. They are at odds with each other.

But what if power was measured in different ways? GGG even mentioned this as an issue with the current support gems where they are just a source of more damage. And they smartly pointed out that support gems being used to provide utility would be better for the game.

Think about a collectible card game where you collect "power." New cards that you obtain aren't inherently more powerful than others (to a degree), but when you unlock certain combinations, that is what gives the players "power." The same can be said about many action games where as soon as you have certain toolsets, you feel very powerful. It's not just that I now deal 100x more damage and can facetank forever. It's that I can do way more shit that I couldn't do before and can take on obstacles in new ways.

I think GGG needs to seriously consider giving a statement to the players on what their true direction is. Because as of now, their official stance has been "engaging combat." And now everyone is saying "can't be done." So which is it, is the goal to provide us with was promised or is the goal to now simulate the POE1 experience with a new shine?

Something that I constantly see being brought as an argument is "POWER" but the truth is, they're not even talking about feeling powerful... that's not what they're really making an argument for... what they're really saying is that they want to feel OVERPOWERED... which is COMPLETELY different from feeling powerful.

There are many ways to make a player feel powerful, and most of them don't involve trivializing the content of the game. Feeling OVERPOWERED is one of the most boring things for a game, it gets old extremely fast too.... which perfectly explains the ABRUPT player drop off numbers of PoE in general, but especially PoE1.

When a game makes you feel overpowered, it's essentially as if they gave you kid gloves because they're too afraid to have you play the game and go through any difficulty whatsoever. It's quite frankly, INSULTING. It's a form of yellow paint if I could draw a parallel.

I still remember how I felt the first time using cheat codes as a kid in GTA Vice City... I was enjoying the game till that point, and then after about 5 minutes of playing with said codes I quit playing it.

I think it's not as black and white as y'all are making it seem.

It's extremely complicated to keep up the "Challenge" and "Pace" that act 1-2 provide (The soulslike gameplay / pacing) as we go forward, as players will eventually get items and skills with more speed (attack / cast / move etc).

Eventually, there is no option but for the game to get zoomier in the endgame, which is fine, and also fun.

But the endgame currently is utter trash in terms of balance and difficulty. You can easily trivialize the entire game, and all the pinnacles die in under 10 seconds on most builds with a basic 5-10 d budget.

This part I hope GGG works on in 0.4 and gives us a solid endgame with challenges to conquer, as right now we do instantly become gods (This should only be possible on higher budget / loot)

"

zeddy123#4861 เขียน:

I think it's not as black and white as y'all are making it seem.

It's extremely complicated to keep up the "Challenge" and "Pace" that act 1-2 provide (The soulslike gameplay / pacing) as we go forward, as players will eventually get items and skills with more speed (attack / cast / move etc).

Eventually, there is no option but for the game to get zoomier in the endgame, which is fine, and also fun.

Whether or not it is complicated to make it happen and too hard for them to make it so is not for us to decide. If they deem it so and come out to make a public statement that they were unable to and for different reasons they are giving up on it, that would be somewhat better. It still doesn't invalidate the fact that they've promoted the game as such. But it would at least give some closure if that would be the case.

But these constant claims that it's "IMPOSSIBLE" are really starting to piss me off. Even more so when it's VERY obvious that the reasons balance and power grow out of control are haphazard MORE multipliers, gear power blown out of proportion and other similar things.

It's only impossible for those that arbitrarily decided it's impossible. Most people would've said years ago that Generative AI is impossible... yet here we are.

I think you're upset at how trivial the endgame currently is, and most players are in agreement with that.

Haven't read every message here, but if you're upset at the pacing of endgame, sure it can be slowed down a little bit, but it will always be zoomy (I've seen a lot of players who think the endgame should be of a similar pace to campaign)

Sure, GGG should space it out more, so you cant instantly zoom when you start maps, and I'm sure they will in future patches.

But in all honesty, the uber-endgame that you want to achieve should be zoomy-godlike builds that you should farm hundreds of divines for.

I agree right now items are mega-op, and also easy to craft because of the current omens. Hope this gets nerfed.

"

Shrodin#0981 เขียน:

Couldn't power be measured in other ways?

I think you're right using the frame of reference of POE1 where Power = raw numbers; more damage, more health, more defense, etc. It's extremely difficult to balance this sense of power with engaging combat. They are at odds with each other.

But what if power was measured in different ways? GGG even mentioned this as an issue with the current support gems where they are just a source of more damage. And they smartly pointed out that support gems being used to provide utility would be better for the game.

Think about a collectible card game where you collect "power." New cards that you obtain aren't inherently more powerful than others (to a degree), but when you unlock certain combinations, that is what gives the players "power." The same can be said about many action games where as soon as you have certain toolsets, you feel very powerful. It's not just that I now deal 100x more damage and can facetank forever. It's that I can do way more shit that I couldn't do before and can take on obstacles in new ways.

I think GGG needs to seriously consider giving a statement to the players on what their true direction is. Because as of now, their official stance has been "engaging combat." And now everyone is saying "can't be done." So which is it, is the goal to provide us with was promised or is the goal to now simulate the POE1 experience with a new shine?

Well, and here we come to the discussion of value. A couple of white boots with max level 14 are nothing valuable, but a divine orb clearly have a value attributed to it by the players.

And also here is where trade comes in, it makes it possible for others players to attribute value to your loot, and trade it. Its mostly faith based and it isnt more real than the current fiat-currency system, it simple has the value the majority attribute to it.

It also explains their, from some wievpoints, strange trading philosophy. Never soulbound items, always tradeable, but there is a need for friction, to add longevity.

But what we are really talking about is when the average player will stop looking for loot because the investment in time is getting higher for less results.

I would grind 100 hours to increase my character power with 30%, but not 3%, and certainly not 0.3%. And the latter would make almost everyone quit their character.

And there is where the "ruthless"-ideology shows its head, the point was to decrease loot(power) for players, with the purpose to control the damage parameters around meaningful combat. But it turns out players hated it in poe 1, and watching the community talk about it in 0.1 poe2 it seems player disliked it aswell. And there is a difference between the campaign start and the lategame grinding, there is two different games, the start is starvation and meaningful combat, the lategame is overflow of items, crafting and poe 1.

"

But what if power was measured in different ways?

But there still have to be a objectively increase in power to force the players hands, to make them grind. Very few people would use a week of gaming to make one item 1% stronger. The majority would say "its done, it is, for me perfect, GG next season". So there is a real limit to if a upgrade is worth it. Very few people perfectly divines all their equipment at the cost of thousands of orbs, the majority says if the reward is not worth their time and its "good enough", even if we talk about a 5-10% increase in power.

And loot have to be desirable to make people grind for it, and the largest thing that decided that is power. I know there a few demi-god items worth hundreds of mirrors because of rarity and historical ties, but for the large majority the equation is based on power increase over time investment.

You have to consider "loot" equal to add more power, and "meaningful combat" as the need for less power. One breaks the other, they can not really co-exist.

want my honest opinion dude just let me kill shyt xD

all i want is to kill monsters and see loot pop up in my screen

idc about doing combos i just want to see the enemy fall over and die because of the damage i deal with minimum effort

we just need more endgame mechanics right now and buffs to the slow and shitty skills and it will make the game greater