ZiggyD's "PoE2 Combvat Review" Video

"

bauermayers wrote:

I don't watch stuff from POE

"

Baharoth15 wrote:

"

AintCare wrote:

is this a review of the review? if so can someone tl;dr this as i would like to review it

Sounds cool, looks cool, but you'll die to things you can't control 24/7.

"

finisterre wrote:

Do we give up at Mud Flats in Act 1 because of Rhoa's nests ?

ExileCon 2023 Day 1

Design: Rory Rackham
Animation: Ed Tate
Character Skills: Jonathan Rogers

Context

Problems with Combat Feel
The feel of Path of Exile's combat has always been held back by a few key factors:
• Animations are outdated and limited by old rigs.
• Being locked in place during any longer animations make the character vulnerable and result in combat feeling unresponsive
• Increasing attack and cast time was the player's only solution, and one we used liberally to improve early game feel.

Momentum in Actions
• Targeting far away combines movement with the attack starts, letting you close in on enemies while already starting an attack.
• Many skills include smooth movement as part of their animation, letting the player close in, retreat, or time the attack carefully to avoid enemies.
• Motion rarely passes you through enemies. Actions can let you push aside small enemies. Conversely, larger enemies will push through weaker enemies to get to you.

Dodge Roll
• Dodge Roll can cancel out of most actions.
• At the start of the roll, you'll avoid any melee attacks or smaller projectiles.
• There is no restriction on how often you can dodge roll.
• Dodge Roll can't be cancelled, and you are resistant to stun during the dodge.
• Dodge Roll isn't faster than running.

Animation Driven Actions
• Attack patterns, visual effects, character movement and damage positioning is animation driven.
• Timing is controlled by the animation, giving personality and a level of mastery to different
weapon classes and spell types.

Weapon Identity
• The unique nature of animations and skills for each weapon type mean it only makes sense for skills to be weapon specific.
• Far more identity between weapons and their skill sets, mix and match your favourite mechanics and weapons using the improved Weapon Swap system.

Problems with Skill Variety
Skill variety in POE1 suffers because you are heavily rewarded for using a single skill.
• Every skill needs to do everything.
• Situational skills have very little place.

What PoE1 mechanics cause this?
• You only have one or two items with five or six sockets. Support Gems increase damage so much that skills without supports do a fraction the damage of fully supported skills.
• Specialization through passives and gear leans towards further specialization in specific mechanics.
• Reservation effects and buff skills turn spare sockets and mana into permanent damage and defence.

Negative Consequences
This hampers skill design because:
• You can't have any particularly slow skills
• Every skill that damages a large area skill still needs to deal significant damage to a single target
• Skills become balanced around using specific damaging supports.
• You can't use a high mana cost to restrict skill use.
• Skill slots are often used for permanent or ongoing benefits their build can include.

Bad Solutions
We could force a player to use multiple skills by:
• Putting cooldowns on everything.
• Relying entirely on skills that reliably gain resources to use other expensive skills.
We've avoided this because it gets players into a rotation, which can be fun to learn but once it becomes natural, there is no depth to it. Instead, using different skills should come from combat situations.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Path of Exile 2 Solutions
• New Skill System
• Support Gem Changes
• Dual Specialization
• Spirit System
• And more…

New Skill Gem System
• Characters start with 9 skill sockets.
• Skill gems have their own sockets
• You'll find currency to increase the number of support sockets a gem has. Each upgrade is rarer than the last.
• Gradual upgrading means you'll rarely have one skill with far more support sockets than others.
• Changing socket colours is also deterministic.

Support Gem Features
• Most supports give no direct damage. They customizing the role and mechanics of the skill.
• No support should end up on every skill on a build If it did, it should be a passive or spirit reservation.
• Old favourites will return, but more than ever they'll be about changing the role of a skill.
• Supports that give offensive benefits will have restrictions that make their skill more conditional.

Dual Specialization
• Allows you to differentiate your build between your two weapon sets and a shapeshift form.
• Different passives let you take full advantage of two weapon types, two different elements, or different combat focuses.
• Has a small swap time cost, so it's not free for the level of flexibility it grants.
• Being Transformed has its own tree.

Spirit Reservation
• Permanent effects reserve spirit now, instead of mana or having standard limits.
• Spirit is obtained from items and passives.
• Permanent minions reserve spirit while alive, so are complimented by temporary minions that just cost mana to summon.
• Many Trigger mechanics are Spirit Reservations now.
• Buffs and Auras from Spirit can be set per weapon set.

Stun, Freeze and Immobilisation
• Stun, Freeze and Immobilise can be applied right away if you deal enough damage.
• If you don't apply it right away, it'll build up on the enemy, making it easier to apply with the next hit.
• Once you do apply it, there is a higher threshold for all these effects for a duration, so it's easier to lock an enemy down at the start of a fight, but they become more resistant the more you and your allies attempt to control them.
• The same goes for the player - If stunned, you're more resistant to further stuns for a time.
• The player only stores this for a brief period, so a swarm of enemies could stun you if they hit you close together. Big hits are always better at stunning.