Do you guys really enjoy it?

Yes. I get bored by spamming one skill over and over real quick. But this is a problem I was pointing at like 2 years ago for the 1st time and all the fanboys just flamed and moved my posts to oblivion. Interesting is that for some it took 2 years to finally admit it, and I can see that some people still have their pink glasses on.

Every new league my in game friends are playing 90 % of the time Lameblasters or Arc builds and they push it to 90+ which means hundreds hours of spamming one skill. Sorry for this term but I think this is retarded.

I was most satisfied with the gameplay before automated support skill gems were introduced and 2H melee builds were viable. I had like 5 - 6 active skills to use every encounter.

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b15h09 wrote:

I find the actual gameplay to be one of PoE's biggest weaknesses. There are a lot of great concepts, but they didn't all gel to create good gameplay. Great theorycraft, though. I'd say the link concept is a great failing here. One, possibly 2 5-6L per char kinda limits the potential of multiple skill usage. Automatic conditional cast gems just further exasperated this.

Exactly.
Also, there are almost no skills with cooldowns. Such skills cant and wont be spammed, thus encouraging using more-than-one button. Look at Diablo3. While it sucks as a game, it has lots of cooldown-skills, both offensive and defensive. Why PoE cant take the best from its opponents, leaving worst aside?

D3 builds...


condemn = spamming condemn

whirlwind = spamming whirlwind

loaded for bear = spamming loaded for bear

ponythrower = spamming phalanx



or you could go old school where you spam hota, or spam throw weapon, or just mash keys to prema freeze, or spam archon, or spam strafe....


D3 skill rotation doesnt actually work, non of the actual effective builds play that way, the entire game has always revolved around spamming 1 thing or button mashing 2 or 3 buttons at once to produce a single attack spam. If you are playing D3 in a different way you are probably playing a really shit, suboptimal build, which is exactly what people say about skill rotations in poe, you can do it but its sub optimal.

D3 has cooldowns? Yeah, and if you use one of those skills in a proper optimal build you are stacking cooldown reduction and the required uniques to the point where you can spam it infinitely.

Buttons your average single-attack build will use:
-move
-attack
-movement ability
-vaal gem
-curse/totem/other utility skill
-reactive flasks (health, status)
-preemptive flasks (resists)
-quicksilver flask

That's really not that bad, especially as most of those require some thought on when to use them. Having a bunch of attacks isn't actually very interesting in practice, the result is typically a skill rotation that adds a lot of button presses without actually providing many decisions. The number of choices you have to make during combat is what matters, POE just focuses on defensive choices rather than offensive ones. That's not to say that there isn't room for improvement. Many players find skills like flameblast boring because you approach every fight the same way, that has more to do with the mechanics of the skill than anything else. Ideally that playstyle would work, but wouldn't be more efficient than using skills with more nuance.

Personally I like the rather minimalistic approach when it comes to attacks compared to other games that feel like you're just randomly pressing keys over and over. My problem is mostly that the skills get kinda boring, my two main skills are Reave and Static Strike which I love but even that can get boring. So I'm hoping for alot more melee skills for you to create a character around.
also as someone mentioned previously, you can spice up your char in many different ways. Im running a max block build with static strike and reckoning, currently at lvl 81 and still loving it to death.

More skills and hopefully another end-game mod apart from maps is what Im hoping for when act 4 hits.

"

FunkyFritter wrote:

Buttons your average single-attack build will use:
-move
-attack
-movement ability
-vaal gem
-curse/totem/other utility skill
-reactive flasks (health, status)
-preemptive flasks (resists)
-quicksilver flask

That's really not that bad, especially as most of those require some thought on when to use them. Having a bunch of attacks isn't actually very interesting in practice, the result is typically a skill rotation that adds a lot of button presses without actually providing many decisions. The number of choices you have to make during combat is what matters, POE just focuses on defensive choices rather than offensive ones. That's not to say that there isn't room for improvement. Many players find skills like flameblast boring because you approach every fight the same way, that has more to do with the mechanics of the skill than anything else. Ideally that playstyle would work, but wouldn't be more efficient than using skills with more nuance.

Agree, having many skills to spam doesent automatically make the game better. Having strategic choices and knowing when to attack and when to go defensive is.

I'm currently going through such period where I realize that the game while addicting is very bland when it comes to actual action. Build and gear diversity is there but the combat itself is very bland.

I currently play 2 characters, Static Strike scion and Tornado Shot hunger, who both are pretty much single button mashers, scion more so since SS is solid single-target and great AOE skill.

I would love to see more dynamic gameplay where skills buff each other or create windows of opportunity for additional strike benefits. PoE is more about chances and automatic triggers. Gemmed skills and its support also do not help with diversity because a player has only limited space for skills and their supports so we tend to maximize power of one or max 2 skills to make them as powerful as possible.

I recently bought into Early Access for Victor Vran ARPG. I can say this game is looking very promising after few hours of playing. It is different take on ARPG genre than PoE but the game makes combat dynamic and interesting. Play must react to certain scenarios and triggers to utilize his/her character to the best. Some examples: standard attack makes target vulnerable on 3rd strike, which increases damage from normal attack by a %. Alternatively, you can use another skill that is normally on CD to vulnerable target to not incur cool-down and also get guaranteed critical strike.

I am the same. I enjoy leveling up fresh, with an empty stash, trying to survive without anything. But as soon as my char is OP it gets boring quick, unless I have something to do, like complete challenges or whatever. As soon as challenges are done im pretty much on break until next leagues. Thats how I play PoE and that is fine for me.

That is probably also why I play Hardcore, because it makes it more challenging. Every time I die I extend the time I have to play to get that OP char and get challenges done etc. I also usually play self-found most of the way, I sell stuff, but I rarely buy anything, unless I need a unique to get the build going.

"

donong wrote:

Don't you guys get bored of spamming the same skill again and again? Seems like the most exciting part of the gameplay is having your build come together but after that it's just one skill all the way(mostly)

No, THIS is the reason why I play PoE and not some shitty MMO with cool-down based crap where you click half an hour on one monster.

An ARPG always was about grinding loot as fast and effective as possible.
The "Action" in ARPG stands for "killing countless monsters in very short time".

If you want to buff your char and debuff a monster for 15min, then use different skill combinations on it for half an hour and wait 10 min for your cooldowns to refresh, then use skill combinations another time to fully charge up your finisher move and kill the monster, then play a goddamn (MMO-) RPG, but leave ARPGs alone.


PoE is fine (imho it could be even a bit faster) and Bloodline mods already really did hurt the perfect gameflow by slowing it down unnecessary.

Other than that you have curses, movement skills, flask management, end/power/frezy charge generators, and other buffs to recast (Molten shell, IC, blood rage...). its really enough to do a complex build...

"

CrazylikE wrote:

I am the same. I enjoy leveling up fresh, with an empty stash, trying to survive without anything. But as soon as my char is OP it gets boring quick, unless I have something to do, like complete challenges or whatever. As soon as challenges are done im pretty much on break until next leagues. Thats how I play PoE and that is fine for me.

For me its quite the opposite. PoE is so bad, slow and boring at the start, but starts slowly to make fun, when your build reaches lvl 60-70 and starts working and is the best @ lvl 80-90+ when your build and gear is finally working and you can farm high lvl maps.