GGG which lane are you on: Mindless Blasting or "Visceral" combat

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Niszczyciel#1619 เขียน:

Two groups apparently, zoomers hate campaign and would love it to disappear, haven't seen "what a slog" posts?

Visceral combat folks dislike that participating in endgame and trade economy means you generally have to use zoomer build or you will get zerged by mobs and inflation will outpace you.

You would rather be called weird if you play the way it was originally intended, and you will feel unrewarded for your effort.

It's like you would put a sniper character into dark souls and he would one shot everything from far away, that would feel out of place if you were just that knight. But it doesn't end here, now you would balance the game so sniper gets some difficulty and as a knight you would be at even worse spot, like what's even the point of being knight? Now every knight would ask "make me op too, I wanna shoot lasers from my helmet"...

YEP. You see people advocating for speeding up the warrior for instance. I understand their point on why the made the warrior the way they did. They wanted to be really thematic with him, and I think they hit the nail on the head. BUT, like you said, you play warrior and see classes with sniper rifles on them (deadeye, Bloodmage, crossbows), and you're like "why am I playing this?".

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You can easily see how that would lead to complete erosion of it's core identity. Lot of people would certainly want that.., but the game wasn't advertised as such and it would ruin the effort to make it visceral. It's not easy task, and ruining it is simple, you speed up things to the point where it doesn't matter whether your enemy moves or maybe it's just static dummy, who cares? It's dead anyway. Why bother with animations and distinct behaviour patterns if people crave shallow blasting with artificial numbers increasing in the background?

You keep hearing the zoomers tell GGG "We need to move/attack/cast faster. It's taking too long to do anything". Now, just like the BOTW, you see what happens when the game gets faster. It completely throws everything they claim to be aiming for out of wack.

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Well not everybody wants exactly that, and Poe 2 originally was made for different audience, but the current public view is shaped by Poe 1 streamers who hate slow and love zooming, that will only reinforce more zooming in the future and more audiences that want that type of gameplay, seeing poe2 clips and videos will not exactly bring a visceral combat players. It's gonna be hard to recover from this unless GGG pulls a rug on zoomers, they will need to do it if they want to retain game identity.

It's quite ironic how some of the streamers say that the game has no combat and it never had it (exactly because it's too fast), but when the game is slowed down so the combat can actually happen, they will cry about it that it's too slow, duh.

I actually loled at this. The same streamers who keep pushing for faster and faster will then, in the same breath, say "WTF GGG what's up with all these on death explosions" when they die. Not realizing that the constant on-death BS is to catch the speed of light movement that they were advocating for.

They say "GGG where is the meaningful combat you've been talking about". Then you go look at their past clips of them saying "GGG the game is too slow". They believe you can have meaningful combat with poe 1 vampire survivors gameplay.

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Rakie1337#5746 เขียน:

They actually answered this when us POE 1 players started railing about how slow the game looks.

In an interview Jonathan stated (or mark? I think Jonathan) that "The endgame of POE 2 is not that different from the POE 1 endgame"

So they hit their original idea -- they just didn't seem to know those are 2 very different groups of people.

Maybe they just want you guys to play the campaign and quit -- Id rather them just focus on endgame as nobody truly cares about the campaign. Most of us wish the game didn't even HAVE a campaign, let alone a giant ass slow slog that takes more than a COUPLE hours.

I don't know what you mean by "most of us". Maybe you feel the game doesn't start till maps, but at the point I can just ask for a lvl 100 character cause the game doesn't start till I have a lvl 100 character.

The campaign is part of the character's lvling process. If you ask to skip it cause it's a slog, then I can ask for a lvl 100 toon cause lvling is a slog.

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wi5pa1#1100 เขียน:

GGG should never have called this EA game poe2.

If they want to make a slow meaningful combat game, then call it something different, becasue it isnt POE.

Poe2 should be a natural upgrade on poe1.

What we currently have with poe2, as OP correctly says,
is some kind of mismatched hybrid that isnt working, and cant cater and please everyone. poe2 feels annoying to play for long period.

poe2 also feels very restricted and rigid.
the gem system is worse.
the skill tree has grown too, but the skill points received for your character completely restrict the build and you cant properly go around the skill tree to make a good half and half build.
proper crafting isnt in the game yet.

edit:- forgot to add
the whole character ascendancy is a total disaster,
why did they take the worst parts of poe1 and throw them into this EA game.
sanctum works in poe1 as an extra thing to do, but to make it a trial for ascendancy is a wrong decision.

Their hybrid gameplay isn't pleasing anyone. The zoomers want to go even faster which means a bunch of the stuff they've added is useless and need a rework. The slower crowd doesn't like how endgame is just poe 1 on repeat.

They need to pick a lane and stick to it. They cannot please both crowds.

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SaKRaaN#0012 เขียน:

The main reason we were frustrated with the game wasn’t just that it felt slow—it was the lack of meaningful loot and rewards.

The rewards were far too scarce compared to the time invested. Spending hours grinding only to receive little or nothing of value makes the game feel unrewarding and tedious.

The solution is to find a balance where the time invested matches the value of the loot earned. For example, spending six hours in the game and receiving no divine drops across multiple maps simply feels wrong.

Any average player should be able to reach endgame and afford gear within a reasonable amount of time. If they can’t, then the game design is flawed.

This is why many players grew frustrated and demanded faster, more rewarding gameplay—similar to what we had in POE1. A better system would ensure each player in a party receives their own loot. Additionally, loot should be more meaningful and tailored to the class being played.

For example, if I’m playing a Ranger, I should see a higher chance of receiving Ranger-appropriate gear—whether normal, magic, or rare. When it comes to unique drops, they should remain available to everyone, since they are meant to be special.

A more thoughtful loot system would not only feel fairer but also make the game much more enjoyable.

The forum is filled with poe 1 players. Most poe 1 enjoyers want zoom zoom. The people who wanted a slower poe 1 left a long time ago. The people who want slow arpgs won't be playing poe 1 either. So all that's left are the people who like the current zoom zoom state of poe 1.

Hence, you're going to see a lot of "Give us more loot and more speed and more and more". The people who are posting these threads are the poe 1 crowd who want zoom and even more loot with that zoom.

If GGG keeps listening to this, there is only 1 way this ends. It's going to be poe 1 reboot.

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stecheese1#0850 เขียน:

Based on some of their design decisions, my conclusion was that they where aiming for visceral combat and messed it up badly.

Getting the combat where I think they wanted it means controlling player power, you're supposed to use the baked in combo mechanics for burst damage, but the balancing is all over the place, some don't align monster speed and many cases player just don't want to be forced into a rigid skill rotation for a ridiculously long campaign. They are arpg players and they like being efficient and powerful, not every arpg has cater to that crowd, but understandably of it has "path of exile" in the title then there's going to certain expectations and playerbase crossover.

I think where in the process now of GGG fighting a losing battle against the zoomers. GGG would have to completely gut the build creativity to achieve what they want, And it just won't be worth it. A mid league nerf to lightning arrow would be disastrous, a nerf at 0.4 might work but then the zoomers will just move to next most efficient skill, and continue the cycle until all the zoomers either leave or are playing the "right" way.

This is one of the problems. They let player power get too out of hand. Just like in poe 1. Rather than balance it they just keep giving more and more. Then when they need to give bosses billions of hp, they try to backtrack, but the crowd they've attracted only wants more speed, more aoe, more loot. So they are left with just 1 option.

They can go whichever way they want. I just want them to make it clear. If they had said this would be a poe 1 reboot with better graphics I wouldn't have cared. I went onboard because I thought maybe they wanted to return to their "slower day" roots.

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Nikuksis#6962 เขียน:

Probably the only way to "fix" it is entirely rework the way monsters balanced. Much less packsize, but increased loot/strength of monsters.
Probably if people get more "divine/hour" in endgame while killing monsters at speed you do in act1-2 will keep the game from negative feedback. Since players like to be effective and loot more, not the zooming itself.

The mobs should be balanced the way players won't need the screen-wide aoe and gigaspeed to be effective.

May be the game should look zoomy in certain endgame content which you can skip/replace with something else like you can in PoE1 if you don't like it. Or on certain Atlas builds, while it won't be much more effective than "visceral" slower builds. Probably even less, since you'd reveal the atlas much faster and can find more POI instead.

I don't really think the waystone management is THAT exciting, and people enjoy it too much, so the slower map clear with higher reward is mostly preferable.

They have to address monsters if they want to have engaging combat. Throwing 100s monsters at us at a time isn't helping.

Lets take 1 monster that requires mechanical skill to beat. It has 15 attacks that require the player to be aware of. In a 1v1 the fight is very mechanical. 2v1? Still mechanical. Now lets take 100 of that monster vs you. 100v1. It doesn't how many mechanics that monster has, with 100 of them of screen you cannot have a methodical fight. You blow them up or they blow you up. That's the only option.

I think if they want poe 2 to not just be a poe 1 reboot they have to let the zoomers know that if they want to zoom with screen wide aoe and hear their loot filters there is poe 1 for that. You can't straddle the fence cause both groups want 2 completely different games.

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stecheese1#0850 เขียน:

I'd also argue it needs a big skill rework. Remove all the baked in synergies, and prioritise making utility and mobility skills. Escape moves and gap closers that can weaved together naturally like in the old huntress gameplay, I think that's the only way, to keep some of the combat vision. Changing disengage from an actual disengage to charge harvester after a parry was just dumb

Escape moves and gap closers like escape shot only work in slower combat. I remember watching that huntress gameplay ur referencing. It was so fun to watch. Have you ever seen anyone use escape shot? I know I haven't. You don't need to when you can kill screen wide enemies in 1 click.

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norkore#7589 เขียน:

I don't even know what damage type that shroud walker thing is supposed to be. i have all my elemental res capped, 71% chaos res, i have Catalysis and Melting Flames, over 20k armor, almost 3k hp, and it's still annoying to fight on warrior. wouldn't be surprised if it was bugged and had some wonky interaction causing it to deal way more dmg than supposed to.

Oh the monster is not bugged. They deliberately made them deal that much degen WHILE turning off ur recovery (life regen, life, and mana flask) at the same time.

These type of monsters exist in poe 1 as well. It's the only way you can kill characters moving at the speed of light, while dealing so much dmg, with a ton of recovery, insane cast/attack speeds, and billions of dps.

The only way to kill superhero player creations is with superhero monster creations. You fight absurdity with absurdity. The players can create really dumb characters so the monsters need to be really dumb as well.

The shroud walker + degen mob is just the beginning. They will add more "you die in 2 seconds" things later. This is how poe 1 started too. Fast gameplay with this much power and screen clear will only result in poe 1 type design.

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SoujiroSeta#2390 เขียน:

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stecheese1#0850 เขียน:

Based on some of their design decisions, my conclusion was that they where aiming for visceral combat and messed it up badly.

Getting the combat where I think they wanted it means controlling player power, you're supposed to use the baked in combo mechanics for burst damage, but the balancing is all over the place, some don't align monster speed and many cases player just don't want to be forced into a rigid skill rotation for a ridiculously long campaign. They are arpg players and they like being efficient and powerful, not every arpg has cater to that crowd, but understandably of it has "path of exile" in the title then there's going to certain expectations and playerbase crossover.

I think where in the process now of GGG fighting a losing battle against the zoomers. GGG would have to completely gut the build creativity to achieve what they want, And it just won't be worth it. A mid league nerf to lightning arrow would be disastrous, a nerf at 0.4 might work but then the zoomers will just move to next most efficient skill, and continue the cycle until all the zoomers either leave or are playing the "right" way.

This is one of the problems. They let player power get too out of hand. Just like in poe 1. Rather than balance it they just keep giving more and more. Then when they need to give bosses billions of hp, they try to backtrack, but the crowd they've attracted only wants more speed, more aoe, more loot. So they are left with just 1 option.

They can go whichever way they want. I just want them to make it clear. If they had said this would be a poe 1 reboot with better graphics I wouldn't have cared. I went onboard because I thought maybe they wanted to return to their "slower day" roots.

Yes player power is high for SOME skills/combos. Others cant do anything without absolute god tier gear and even then, a 2 div deadeye build already killed everything. They give bosses billions of hp to offset true but here is the most obvious glaring issue from day 1 of them saying they want slower methodical meaningful combat.

The first events you bring over are all SWARM events. From day 1 they contradicted themselves. So what is left? Clear or die and have a bad time. Players decided to take clear and have run wild with the options in game. Just like any other game when players have a choice. Johnathan is on record saying its disrespectful to see his bosses one shot and the idea of a build that can face tank it. My first response to this is why do you feel that way?

His response was similar to one shotting bosses is bad because you dont see all the hard work put into them. Ok cool, then balance the game so it isnt a game of who one shots who first.

Secondly, if I invest into so much defense I am darn near immortal but I take 30 minutes to kill the boss. Why is that a bad thing? Why is being tanky so against the vision BUT low damage combos some how are with some in and out hit and run playstyle. That works for bosses. It will NEVER work for mapping. Thats why NO ONE does it. There are so many unused skills and ascendencies in the game but they buffed deadeye. If you cant see they are pulling the game in 100 different directions at the same time, I dont know what to tell you. Eventually its going to rip at the seams. They need to pick a direction and go.

And side note.... stop treating it like a full release. Balance and updates should be weekly. Obviously new acts and characters should not be that fast but you cant tell me that they cant tweak some base level numbers on non used stuff to try and get people to use it and actually see where it is to test in the EARLY ACCESS.

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SoujiroSeta#2390 เขียน:

Their hybrid gameplay isn't pleasing anyone. The zoomers want to go even faster which means a bunch of the stuff they've added is useless and need a rework. The slower crowd doesn't like how endgame is just poe 1 on repeat.

They need to pick a lane and stick to it. They cannot please both crowds.

+1, still hoping they go for the slower crowd. PoE1 still exists, and it does the zoom a lot better already, why make another game just to make it the same…