ARPG's are power fantasies of killing and finding cool loot, POE2 is top down Souls-like not an ARPG

i rly think GGG made a mistake showing weak and fragile build powers and slow gameplay speed. it gives wrong impression on poe 2 speed and power.

but removing currency +removing craft bench + need to visit wells in towns to refill flask. for me kinda killed hype for poe 2 and i dont rly feel like playing poe 1 anymore .

ARPG is a genre, not one single design. It's not like there's some universal standards authority defining a maximum amount of 'action' in action RPGs.

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GusTheCrocodile wrote:

ARPG is a genre, not one single design. It's not like there's some universal standards authority defining a maximum amount of 'action' in action RPGs.

There does need to be a minimum amount though, else the word 'action' would have no meaning.

The term ARPG already has no meaning. It's regularly stolen by console titles that are just third person games that you mash buttons in and have like 5 skills. It technically qualifies as an ARPG. We need a better term. PoE-like or something.

I think the most important part is the complex character building and optimizing to meet an essentially stat check challenge. Key word: complex. Grinding some sort of progress by mowing down enemies is also part of it.

Ultimately for me, it doesn't matter if PoE2 is a PoE-like or not, if it's not quite literally PoE 4.0. If it's a separate game, then that's not the game I've been investing my time into this whole time and the company is literally diverting resources from the game I love to make another "ARPG".

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innervation wrote:

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GusTheCrocodile wrote:

ARPG is a genre, not one single design. It's not like there's some universal standards authority defining a maximum amount of 'action' in action RPGs.

There does need to be a minimum amount though, else the word 'action' would have no meaning.

In a sense, sure, but again, that “amount” is not actually an amount. There’s no quantitative value anyone is measuring when calling something an ARPG and even if there was, everyone would be entitled to disagree about what that value was; there’s no authoritative standard.

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albert2006xp wrote:

The term ARPG already has no meaning. It's regularly stolen by console titles that are just third person games that you mash buttons in and have like 5 skills. It technically qualifies as an ARPG. We need a better term. PoE-like or something.

The term exists: hack & slash ARPG.

And yes console games tend to put ARPG on many products and got nothing to do with the ARPG genre introduced by Diablo.

I regret putting ARPG in the title as this bogs the discussion down into the obviously subjective definitions and I'm not trying to gatekeep. I am trying to express the sentiment that Diablo, D2 and POE are games that focus on characters and loot, in the attempt to capture the beloved D&D core loop that is quite literally why David Brevik started making Diablo 1. Trying to trim some of the "fat" of CRPG's (NPC story/dialog heavy things that were often crumbling the gameplay under the weight of too much text and not enough action) and get down to the part of D&D that drove so many late night Mnt. Dew fueled dungeon crawls. the Unpredictable addictive RNG character/gear/build progression. A narrative of character power that develops as you progress, which is why so many games that came after D&D borrowed these two key aspects for replay-ability and addictive quality..

Dark souls is a cool game, about learning patterns and reflexively mastering boss fights over and over with skill and precise controls and timing with a minor side of mostly static, almost 100% deterministic loot/secret finding.

They are very different core loops, in fact they only resemble each other superficially.

Obviously POE2 team can make whatever game they fancy making, but my feedback of POE2 (and to be fair a great deal of Streamers I watched over the last couple days) is:

I'm very likely not going to enjoy the Souls-like mash up, because thats not what I play a hack and slash loot and character progression based game for. When I do play a souls like, I do it with precise controls to help compensate for my aging skills. I can't imagine playing one with mouse piloting and auto pathing. I think this would be a lot like playing the Sirus fight (which I think is the worst boss fight I've ever experienced in 40 years of gaming) fight over and over from level 1 to 100.

I also question how insanely generous or "Gifty" (to borrow Chris WIlsons favorite seeming phrase) POE2 is going to need to be to feel good with:

1. 10 minute boss fights
2. 3, 4 and 5 button combos with pseudo "builder spender" to kill even the weakest white mobs
3. Ruthless 2.0 mob density and dramatically slower characters

Like seriously: good rolled rares are going to need to be 50-100x more common if you're adding 40-50x more button presses (hyperbole perhaps but whatever the numbers are its a lot more buttons per kill on average and I saw almost nothing dropping from monsters it very much looked like Ruthless).

Again I actually want "more engaging combat" than POE1's cookie clicker clear speed meta... just to ad perspective of where my feedback is coming from, but that doesn't mean I want a game with POE1 trade tuned drops rates with 4000 more button presses per chaos orb, and 10 minute sweaty boss fights.

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alhazred70 wrote:

1. 10 minute boss fights
2. 3, 4 and 5 button combos with pseudo "builder spender" to kill even the weakest white mobs
3. Ruthless 2.0 mob density and dramatically slower characters

Thats not what PoE2 is going to be.

This guy played the beta and basically confirmed what I suspected.
The builds in the demo are terrible but as soon as you do gear them and equip proper supports all the sudden the game plays pretty much like PoE1.

1Button spam to victory and fullscreen explosions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQhML7N-Je0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ejSJiGN4A8

from 2012

"In PoE, you're not a god! Back in (good ole) D2 you could explode entire screens of enemies!" Imagine...the gameplay of PoE being described as SLOWER than D2. THAT is where PoE began.

PoE 2 looks EXACTLY THE SAME as what PoE 1 was like when it was released. Absolutely no difference, maybe even a bit faster gameplay. The game is literally trying to get back to its roots: the very same gameplay that got the most diehard PoE fans hooked for life. Perhaps not Kripp...but this was the essence of what PoE was. Today's version is a bastardized, overstuffed version. PoE 2 seeks to remedy that, at least for a little while.

I also predict PoE 2 will inevitably go the same way that PoE 1 did eventually...but its good that the starting point will be back to slow methodical play (unless a fully fleshed build can zoom ofc, we can't possibly know that at this time).

I've been around the entire life of this game. I love the current game, including all its faults. But I also love the old version of this game and I can't wait for PoE 2 to bring back that nostalgic experience of not blowing through everything at 1 map per minute speeds.

*Ed: I should also say, even in the OG PoE from pre-1.0 and a bit later: with a fully geared, endgame, optimized character you COULD still feel like a god. I imagine an actual fully-fleshed character in PoE 2 would look much the same. However, the gameplay videos we have seen have been the bare minimum of what a character can be. The actual easiest, most basic form of gameplay.

That's just a matter of nerfing more, you don't need to go full nuclear and make a sequel if you just wanted to slow down the game a bit. Tell everyone who hated 3.15 to take a hike and make it one game not two. And you don't need to remove crafting or remove divination cards to make the game a bit slower.

Just don't go too slow and become D4 or I will fall asleep playing, it's actively boring to play that game, it's like playing a slow motion cookie clicker.