The potential of Path of Exile's dynamic content -- End-Game? What End-Game?**

tl;dr

J/K!

An interesting and thought-provoking post, Charan.

Even I am wearying, a bit, of running through the same content over and over again (just as I did with Diablo 2), even with different builds. Such fatigue is natural, and can be ameliorated by stepping away from the game for a time.

Still, the notion of more content with Act 3 promises refreshment of the excitement I have always felt about PoE; the removal of a difficulty setting which, frankly, I have never reached (character wipes can do that) doesn't bother me a bit.

I look forward to Open Beta, and waking up my characters for one, last start, naked on the Twilight Strand, before finally marching into the great unknown of Wraeclast, and whatever destiny awaits them within. =^[.]^=

I'm dying to see what changes they're going to make to acts 1 and 2 with the introduction of act 3. Probably only subtle things related to story, but still!

Also, I think I can answer my own question re: MMO grind vs ARPG grind. MMO grind is slower. You generally can't kill monsters in one hit. Each fight has phases, and if you face more than a few monsters at a time, you're probably screwed unless you're built for group farming. Grinding in an ARPG is more about speed-clearing zones.

...So maybe GGG's higher-end solution is fewer but tougher monsters. ;) (I've not seen MoC so I can't say how tough they already are, but I imagine it's very possible to just turn every mob into the equivalent of a boss.)

Problem is, PoE is all about fighting the hordes. Folks are already commenting on the reduction of the size of enemy groups as a negative (and I'll add my voice to theirs).

I dun want to have one, grindy boss fight; I want as many things to smash as I can get. I'm not even so concerned with the issue of drops or xp as I am with the mayhem.

On the other hand, I also want more meaningful interaction (within the limits of an ARPG) with the world and its inhabitants. Wanna know what one of the best "quest rewards" I ever got was? At the end of Act 2, when Yeena makes her "You are a gift from sun and rain, a flower in winter. We live because you live" comment.

That's an awesome thing to hear from an NPC, and I hope GGG is prepared to create more meaningful speeches from the "supporting cast," as well as more simple idle chatter, the kind D2 was so good about. Remember Alkor in Act 3, and his pithy comments? I'd go back to hear a good one several times.

There's more to a game like PoE than xp and lootz. =^[.]^=

Oh, absolutely. But like you said, for some it really will come down to killing as many things as possible at once.

Well, GGG have their work cut out for them. BUT yknow, we all speculated for ages on what the sixth class will be called, and I don't think I saw anyone ever get it right.

They're pretty good at surprising us in pleasant ways.

I commented about this elsewhere, but 'pace' is important. There has to be a healthy combination of fun smashing little things with low hp and more difficult things that are few but powerful... and combinations of the two.

Pacing comes in with how and when each type is considered. Even boss encounters often require pacing consideration, particularly for 'pet' classes or 'charge' classes that might rely on trash aggro to be successful.

One thing D3 does do right is pacing, at least that I've seen so far. It's very important to note approximately how many attacks are necessary to kill a given thing, assuming you are dealing average damage intended for your level.

I've found that generally it feels good if little stuff takes 1-3 attacks total, medium stuff takes 3 sets of 1-3, and big regular enemies take upwards of 10-20 seconds to kill... bosses take minutes.

Then we can divide that by if you are doing single target damage or multiple... and do a time expectation.. small stuff should die in seconds regardless, medium should perhaps die in 3 seconds or so for single and 5-7 seconds for group damage, and big stuff 5-10 seconds single and 7-15 group.

Furthermore, you can devise group size and power by the expected time to engage a group... and then density.. how often you encounter a group... etc.

Rough estimates based on what I've seen of games and how long I feel maximum I should be engaged with a particular pest... I'm also exhausted writing this, so I don't even know if this is germane or not :P

Very, zeto. And I agree -- Blizzard have mastered pacing.

Always more fun when bosses are also interactive, D2 technically could be, but Diablo was simply too fast with his fire attack, but you could dodge it.

I enjoyed so far in D3 seeing various abilities being used that players can intuitively dodge or counter, making the long hard boss fights much more interesting and involving.

The mechanics aren't the same for normal monsters and mini-bosses, where you can just beat them up for 10-15 seconds and expect no intuitive abilities that you have to try and dodge.

I like that bit of D3 for sure though, it reminds me of Lunia online.

To pull this back on-topic (losing one half-decent PoE thread to the void of Off-Topic was enough for me, thanks), I was envisioning precisely that sort of engagement, Neo-K, when I said perhaps late-game PoE could have fewer but tougher monsters.

The devs have already said that the act 2 boss is challenging 'in an arcadey sort of way,' which sounds very exciting to me. They've shown an aptitude for creating pretty filthy boss monster attributes, too -- some of those combinations can be downright impossible to beat.

So I suppose I'm imagining monsters like Brutus or even bigger, multi-formed maybe, with their own specific areas. I'm also thinking of how other games I've played have a hidden 'boss rush' mode, where you get to bypass all the mooks and just take the bosses on one after another; the very pinnacle of this style of game is, of course, Shadow of the Colossus.

I wouldn't expect anything THAT big from GGG or PoE, but it does illustrate where I think the ARPG and the MMO parts of the game can meet, shake hands, and then proceed to thoroughly beat us to a bloody pulp together. Creative monsters of truly legendary scale (relative to what we have so far) as opposed to 'another huge zone full of corpses waiting to happen.'

Heh. Regarding the Act 2 boss... Whaddaya think those "Shadow Fragments" are fragments of?

I expect a giant, three-headed version spitting out elemental attacks from each head. Dodge-dodge-dodge- SHOOT! =^[.]^=

Just all in all I think its adds alot more depth to a boss that actual requires to you perform something or dodge something, etc etc. I would honestly like to see PoE take the reins and make bosses with complex mechanics that take time to learn, not just bosses that are hack and slash, spamming left and right click and spamming flasks.