Please don't ruin POE2 by trying to appeal to POE1 zoom gamers.

Listen, I’m very excited for POE2 but I’m concerned about GGG sacrificing their vision in order to appeal to POE1 zoom gamers. I watched one of the recent interviews and JR was mentioning how during early testing POE1 gamers were having less fun than new gamers and to that I say ‘’Good’’. You should be trying to appeal to 10’s of millions of gamers rather than the tiny pie that POE1 encompasses. POE1 does certain things very well but at it’s core it’s a niche game with a great deal of complexity and an unrewarding one dimensional style of gameplay where you keep using 1 skill to kill screens of enemies.

If you want to emulate that style of gameplay you’re going to kill off the potential for POE2 and how it could reach 10 times the audience.
So for JR to almost suggest that they are trying to strike some kind of balance is a massive red flag. My advice to GGG and JR….. stop looking at the past.

You have something very special with POE2 and please do not nerf the experience and make the enemies easier just so POE1 gamers can clear screens of enemies faster. That would be the biggest mistake you could make. The more methodical strategic combat where you have to use your brain is what makes POE2 much more appealing to new gamers…. who could be casuals and hardcore gamers.

Stop trying to appeal to the worst of what the POE community has to offer. Zoom gaming is what killed POE1’s larger potential. Most gamers DO NOT WANT what POE1 has to offer. So if GGG in any way tries to make POE2’s gameplay similar to POE1 it will kill the long term potential.
Because imagine the ramifications where each new league everyone ends up just dreading the campaign because it’s a bunch of easy enemies who after the first time around no longer cause you to think and strategize. And it all becomes about reaching maps as soon as possible. That level of monotony and redundancy is something the larger gaming community would deem one of the worst possible aspects of POE2…. if the enemies are too easy and unsatisfying to defeat.

So…. Long Story Short…. Make the game challenging please. Make enemy encounters actually mean something. Do not appeal to the POE1 crowd and instead go for a more sophisticated wider audience who appreciates more complex and varied gameplay rather than ‘’lets see how fast I can clear the screen with 1 skill’’. You have that system in place already and it’s called POE1 and it had a ceiling. You reached that ceiling.

You have the opportunity for something far greater with POE2 so please don’t screw this up with an appeal to POE1’s player base. Would be a massive mistake. I implore you…. it is a GOOD thing if POE2 is more similar to elden ring and those methodical types of games than POE1. POE1 is never going to go away…. please make the 2 games as different as possible while of course maintaining the same essence. Zoom gaming…. screen clearing gameplay….. turned POE1 into a mundane 1 dimensional experience that ended up appealing to primarily players who wanted their character to feel like a god. It didn’t appeal to a wider more sophisticated player base by any stretch of the imagination.

Please think bigger. Do not sacrifice your vision for the sake of POE1 faithful's. I'm sure many POE1 gamers will criticize me here.... but you need to think of the millions of fans you will have who PREFER what I am suggesting here. Don't settle for a tiny pie. Please make the enemy encounters reasonably challenging, if not in the first acts then please do so for the final acts at minimum.

Very much this^ If they manage to hit that more engaging less cookie clicker target in the first place. Hard nerfing of dumb shit will need to ALWAYS happen. Anything that becomes trivializing will need to be nuked from orbit without groveling before the playerbase apologetically.

Even if I suspect I wont like dark-souls boss mechanics I very much crave a more deliberate pacing with loot that can then also be less about dumpsters of junk raining from the heavens and more about treasures after a hard fought battle.

Less 1 out of 99,999 per evening of play, and more 1 in 99 per evening. Quality over quantity. A dungeon crawl with solid brisk paced action, deep D&D like character, itemization and meta progression systems. Less of the "space ship shooter with legs" divorced from authenticity cookie clicker silliness of POE1.

Players who aren't very reflective or analytical about game balance need to realize that "reward" is all relative:

1 million monsters that die instantly before you even recognize what they are per T0 drop, over say a week of sweaty RSI cultivation is literally the same thing as 100k monsters that die a little less instantly over the same time for the same T0 item drop chance. All you're "losing" is a lot less filtered out junk (noise), and the lack of being connected to anything resembling authentic looking RPG action.

The reward math is the same. The benefits are that you can actually recognize whats going on on the screen as something resembling combat, instead of infinite smart bomb screen clearing of XP globes in some Arcade shooter.

(that said I have always wanted to make a shoot em up that uses POE's clear speed meta as its design model, something like the coin-op Sinistar mixed with R-type with RNG loot)

The point that drives this home for me is watching a giga clear speed guy like Cute_Dog playing Lost Ark or Divinity... he had the same fun he was just doing a lot less cookie clicking. (and a lot less looking at a incomprehensible flashing screen with a pair of Head Hunter-ified lower legs in the middle)

Please don't ever return to this... let POE scratch the cookie clicker itch maybe even LEAN INTO IT. Stick to the design pillars and philosophy that made a sequel happen in the first place. otherwise all the toil and hard work making POE2 will have been effectively just a Graphics reboot of POE1... please let these two games always remain distinct... Give POE1 guys the dumb as a box of hammers gameplay, and nerf that trash out of the sequel whenever it rears is ugly game play ruining head.. EVEN IF POE1 PULLS A FULL OLD SCHOOL RUNESCAPE (I could see this being the case) even then... let POE2 be the niche more sophisticated game for the less fidget spinner audience if thats what happens.

Very thankful that we have people that can speak up for "millions of fans" and more "sophisticated audience".

Telling GGG to "stop looking at the past" is madness. Ofcourse they should look back. Ofcourse they should appeal to the PoE1 players. That is their bread and butter. They can still make a way better game mechanically/codewise/game feel etc. Not looking back would mean abandoning what made their game so popular. It would be the greatest mistake ever to not look back. It is 10+ years of invaluabe lessons, great communities and passion. Are PoE1 players less sophisticated gamers than the "wide audience"? I wasn't aware. Thanks... jeez

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arknath#4740 wrote:

Very thankful that we have people that can speak up for "millions of fans" and more "sophisticated audience".

Telling GGG to "stop looking at the past" is madness. Ofcourse they should look back. Ofcourse they should appeal to the PoE1 players. That is their bread and butter. They can still make a way better game mechanically/codewise/game feel etc. Not looking back would mean abandoning what made their game so popular. It would be the greatest mistake ever to not look back. It is 10+ years of invaluabe lessons, great communities and passion. Are PoE1 players less sophisticated gamers than the "wide audience"? I wasn't aware. Thanks... jeez

You have POE1 they will continue to make content for it probably nerf it and balance it a LOT less than POE2. There's no reason to turn POE2 into what POE1 has already degenerated into.

Why would you want that? Just for selfish graphics upgrade? Maybe they can still do this after POE2 settles in. They literally started POE2 for the express purpose of making it a more engaging more sophisticated game. It would be an abject failure to turn it into a clear speed meta cookie clicker.

Objectively speaking: someone who wants to turn their brain off and instantly explode screens full of completely unidentifiable XP/Loot globes for hours on end until they have RSI and give up, or make the cookie clicker number go up enough to be satisfied (or self realize some things about gaming) is: unarguably a less sophisticated audience than someone who wants combat that actually involves more authentic feeling levels of agency, action, visual feedback of consequences, challenge, or adjustment to whats happening on the screen.

Chess is a more sophisticated game than cookie clicker.

I'll never agree with this "split" in the user base idea, It's too convenient.

There is always a path forward, Maybe GGG couldn't do it, Maybe they didn't see it or maybe they did and could have but chose not to.

I don't know, But it could have happened with our expansion, The math added up.

Here we are however with two separate games, The solution is more complicated now in the long-term IMO but still not impossible.

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SilentSymphony#3358 wrote:

I'll never understand this "split" in the user base.

I dunno coming from a D&D background I find it really easy to understand. Some people just want to meta game/rush to the end where they think "the point" is. (spoilers its not)

Some people want to relish the gameplay, savoir it like a nice wine or meal

Some people just want to make the number go up or compete.

These are all just subjective value judgements but they are very different viewpoints to see gaming from.

In D&D we had "Munchkin" players. (AKA Meta gamers) players who only cared about gathering tons of loot and wealth and would meta game, pre-read modules, rules lawyer, try to roll on items they can't use, and argue or steal from players and pretend its "RP" and generally rush through a meticulously hand crafted DM's D&D campaign, ignore almost everything, kill anything they could including NPC's and story characters without motivation, and generally shit up the entire thing for the players who just wanted to have fun. There was even a PnP game made that kinda lovingly mocked this type of player.

Not unlike how with POE1 GGG kinda gave up and embraced the clear speed meta and decided to lovingly hand craft a non clear speed meta version of the game tbh

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alhazred70#2994 wrote:

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SilentSymphony#3358 wrote:

I'll never understand this "split" in the user base.

I dunno coming from a D&D background I find it really easy to understand. Some people just want to meta game/rush to the end where they think "the point" is (spoilers its not).

Some people want to relish the gameplay, savoir it like a nice wine or meal

Some people just want to make the number go up or compete.

These are all just subjective value judgements but they are very different viewpoints to see gaming from.

In D&D we had "Munchkin" players. (AKA Meta gamers) players who only cared about gathering tons of loot and wealth and would meta game, pre-read modules, rules lawyer, try to roll on items they can't use, and argue or steal from players and pretend its "RP" and generally rush through a meticulously hand crafted DM's D&D campaign, ignore almost everything, kill anything they could including NPC's and story characters without motivation, and generally shit up the entire thing for the players who just wanted to have fun. There was even a PnP game made that kinda lovingly mocked this type of player.

Not unlike how with POE1 GGG kinda gave up and embraced the clear speed meta and decided to lovingly hand craft a non clear speed meta version of the game tbh

Meta gaming aka the most efficient route to boredom at least for me personally.

Anyway +1 in general to the topic, I am a fan of the oldschool stuff this game was based on though i never played Diablo I'm a big Morrowind fan and old JPRG's where stats and choices mattered and this game scratched such an incredible itch that nothing else has been able to scratch.

I very much love this game and want to see it stay alive an other decade and if its going to do that the zoom needs to be kept in control.

POE1 zoom gamers is why POE2 exists!! it was them who supported the game and it was them who remained long time loyal players and bought supporter packs every league over the years!! where were all of you!!??? you owe the existence of this game to them!!

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Jizade#2063 wrote:

POE1 zoom gamers is why POE2 exists!! it was them who supported the game and it was them who remained long time loyal players and bought supporter packs every league over the years!! where were all of you!!??? you owe the existence of this game to them!!

If i were to word it like...

"keep zoom in balance with non zoom"

Would that be acceptable to you?




I think the major problem here is that in PoE1 the balance between the two was disrupted and it was difficult to course correct and some fear this may happen again in PoE2.

to me im somewhat convinced that GGG has learned a lot from poe1.

i ll simply put my trust in them. theyre gamers too after all.

and things are different now.

they didnt need to keep pandering to player whims and instead focus on making their own game.

which i know is ironic coming from me coz i bitch a lot.

i would say a lot of problems in poe1 comes from ggg worried about losing their playerbase and thus their revenue.

they could have implemented caps or nerfed numbers. but were afraid that by ruining builds, players would hate the game. ragequit and never return.

so they went the other way and made harder content.

its also why we have such high monster damage spikes. ggg was afraid to take away layered defences.

in fact i have a friend who rage quit poe when he found out his max block build was nerfed and that he was no longer "immortal".

ggg now has the balls to do all this because its stable financially now. too stable in fact that they even went ahead and did stuff that wrecked standard players. things that were unimaginable many years back.