Serious request of the development team

This is not a flame post - a serious request/review of the basic underlying design methodology of this game and the simple gameplay.

I've been away from Path of Exile for along time, bouncing between many games of the ARPG realm and some others. The two that stay at the top of my passion is PoE and Diablo 3. Diablo 3 is fantastically flawed and Blizzard consistently continues to make horrible decisions across the board - which lead a lot of players back to this game, I would imagine.

What PoE brings to the ARPG realm with the skill system, the skill point tree, trading, orbs, etc is just brilliant and makes me enjoy each foray into PoE, when I choose to play.

However there is one, terrible flaw in this game and it is the reason I walk away from it, each and every-single-time I throw my hands in the air and decide to see if another set of developers have gotten the perfect mix of design together.

That major flaw is enemy AI and the considerable lack of nuance. For a ranged class, boss fights are in one of two categories: incredibly slow or ridiculously over-powered. Let me explain. Hillock or The Butcher boss in maps is a perfect mix of these two design ideas. He walks very slowly to you and when he reaches a range threshold, he without warning, quickly jumps in the air and moves impossibly fast and lands on top of you. He then just stands on top of you and hits you so fast and so hard, that you are dead within two hits.

This is not enjoyable at all. The spider boss, is at range and then just leaps, impossibly fast and lands on you and with no nuance, grace or spacing, just hits you so fast, so successively that you have no time to react and die instantly.

This isn't a "you need more gear/health/resistances" argument. This is design and it is poorly done. Monsters in general just seem to have an AI script that is "run to target as fast you can/stand on top of target and hit it as fast you can." This leads to gameplay that is "hit attack button/try to move away while mashing all of your potions as fast as you can (because that's how hard they are hitting you) and then hope you live."

The only variance I see to this is "boss stands on a small area and that ENTIRE AREA is filled with unavoidable traps that are a two hit kill to the player"

Malachi is the perfect example of this. Zombies, ground effects and a swirling circle of shit that follows you, while Malachi hits you with a ridiculous sized hitbox. This fight is the PERFECT example of what the developers at GGG really need to focus on for the next expansion.

Please - add some nuance to the AI. It is not enjoyable to provide an boss encounter that limits the player to 10% of the area, because you've filled 90% with ridiculous mechanics that the player has to spend more time running from than fighting the boss. Please have monsters actually do something besides run right to the player and stay on top of them, hitting them with speed and force that is not balanced at all. You've done a brilliant job with the gear, the skills and the further mechanics of this game. Be creative with the AI and not simple or lazy and this game will continue to outshine the rest of the competition.

Every build needs a good foil. Yours is leap. For some it's reflect. For others it's healthregen. There's a reason for the variety. It creates a motive for trying other types of play. Good design. You've obviously identified your foil... now is as good of a time as any to learn to deal with it.

The things you can't avoid are usually not lethal and when they are you kinda knew in advance they would be. It's a part of the learning curve, you first try bosses vanilla so you know what to expect when they are possessed or jacked up in other ways.

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-forum/feedback

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Polrayne wrote:

That major flaw is enemy AI and the considerable lack of nuance. For a ranged class, boss fights are in one of two categories: incredibly slow or ridiculously over-powered. Let me explain. Hillock or The Butcher boss in maps is a perfect mix of these two design ideas. He walks very slowly to you and when he reaches a range threshold, he without warning, quickly jumps in the air and moves impossibly fast and lands on top of you. He then just stands on top of you and hits you so fast and so hard, that you are dead within two hits.

This is not enjoyable at all. The spider boss, is at range and then just leaps, impossibly fast and lands on you and with no nuance, grace or spacing, just hits you so fast, so successively that you have no time to react and die instantly.

Well here's the problem. You are not supposed to be able to safely stand still for significant amounts of time when near a boss.

Have you never watched a top ladder player when they stream?

Attack, move, attack, move, attack, move..

Are they moving because they see something and actively dodge it? Most of the time no. They understand that the amount of time you spend not moving must be under a certain limit to be safe. That constant movement is what allows you to avoid the majority of boss attacks.

It's important to know that you will NEVER get read by a developer, much less a response on these forums. I suggest posting this to Reddit instead.

Unfortunately mate, PoE has some of the worst boss design I've ever seen in ARPGs.

If I could choose just 1 boss that I think is done just about right (NOW), that is normal Atziri.

The major flaw in Boss Design in PoE is that you need DPS in order to kill most of 'em, not skill or smart play.

If you don't kill certain bosses fast, you are dead no matter what. ( e.g. Kaom / Pit boss ).

Oh, forgot to mention the chicken / dog bosses in Canyon now. Ridiculous designs.

IMHO good boss design should include the ability to kill a boss slowly and being able to handle / dodge certain skills they use. More of a learning the boss's moves, less of a "have enough dps or get the fuck out".

Bosses are made in such a way that they are either too easy and too hard. There are some expections. Izaro - without adds he is perfectly balanced, sans the problem that his abilities don't share a cooldown with the goddess abilities. He usually will never kill you with his "wind" alone nor with his green balls alone. Sometimes he just stacks those two. When you move out of range of his "wind", he can slow you with his green slugs, because you can't see him. Zooming out the screen for this map would basically fix this fight.
Then there's Atziri. She puts some RNG flameblasts here and here, and yeah, sometimes they will make hiding impossible, but it's quite rare. Her spears are onshots though usually and you need godly reactions to dodge them.
Then there's trio. There appears to be some bug with the graphics, because I almost die every time while NOT sitting on anything that wasn't here before the fight. Malachai is mechanical fight assuming you have enough hp/es to survive some mistakes, because mistakes with him are unavoidable.
Most of non-mentioned bosses are just easy to kite or dps/stat checks.
Most games I've ever played had those slow bosses with oneshot_minus_two_hp dmg and I was always fine with this.