Elitism and Gatekeeping will be the reason this game wont be the pinnacle of ARPG

IT had the chance. It had the attention of the media, it hat the attention of all the important streamers. It even has all the necessary optics and systems.

But it is also currenty badly balanced and has a few hiccups (like the fact that you basically spend 90% of bossfights frantically pressing space to dodge).

Now, a LOT of people express that they think that this is not fun, that they are having no fun, and that they would prefer less dodging, and a better balanced gameplay (Warriors are close to useless currently).

A very FEW people then come out of their basements where they spend 99% of their time honing their mad skills, and they start insulting those players, demanding that the game stays that difficult, and that there shouldnt be changes.

Now: What do you think will happen when all those people who think its too hard, leave? Right. The game will fail, it will NOT become the number 1 ARPG like everyone was hoping it would. Also, GGG will make a lot less money, and no money means : POE will not be as good as it could be cause the finances arent there.

So, dear people who think 'skill issue' and 'get good' is a valid argument:

Do you like the game? If so, why do you want it to fail?

if you can only come with an excuse with get good or skill issue

then you just know there is something wrong with the game

this is no valid argument

There's a spectrum here, and you are creating a false dichotomy which is not helpful to the discussion.

I think we can all agree the bosses at present are overtuned and punishing (at the early stages) but there is quite a bit of distance between making this a "bit" easier vs turning this into a D3 / late-stage POE1 27M-dps-or-get-out Candy Crush loot fest.

I was having terrible difficulty adjusting earlier today until I started adapting and I'm now 1-shotting bosses with minimal angst - the key changes for me were circle strafing / keeping moving at all times *and* just buying weapon upgrades to ensure my dps wasn't lagging due to the less generous drop rates.

Just those two things alone turned the Devourer from what seemed an almost ridiculous boss fight into a challenging, but not stressful, experience. And I certainly don't regard myself as an elite player by any means.

Maybe something like that might be helpful to you as well, but imploring the devs to essentially turn POE2 into POE1-with-updated-graphics isn't necessarily the answer here either - that's the reason they're keeping POE1 going (and also, there's an aprg franchise that has specifcally chosen to cater to the market setment seeking much more accessibility, and player numbers have always reflected that).

I think like everyone else with this same opinion, you haven't played enough of version 0.1.0 of the game to have an actual opinion and won't be taken seriously.

"(Warriors are close to useless currently)." - Nope, playing warrior and having fun. Not struggling at all.

It is a completely reactionary stance based on a version of the game played (until now) by less than a few hundred people for any given length of time outside the development team.

We see the same thing over and over for every game release. The same reactionary doomer posts. "you could have changed to world but x" In this case you are saying its because the game has a dodge roll and is too hard and version 0.1.0 is unbalanced? Hilarious. Yes GGG, why isn't the game completely finished, polished and done with the first iteration? How can you not think you don't sound nuts.

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DetonatorLoki#3683 wrote:

I think like everyone else with this same opinion, you haven't played enough of version 0.1.0 of the game to have an actual opinion and won't be taken seriously.

"(Warriors are close to useless currently)." - Nope, playing warrior and having fun. Not struggling at all.

It is a completely reactionary stance based on a version of the game played (until now) by less than a few hundred people for any given length of time outside the development team.

We see the same thing over and over for every game release. The same reactionary doomer posts. "you could have changed to world but x" In this case you are saying its because the game has a dodge roll and is too hard and version 0.1.0 is unbalanced? Hilarious. Yes GGG, why isn't the game completely finished, polished and done with the first iteration? How can you not think you don't sound nuts.

Everything this man has said is correct and we should elect him as President of the World.

I agree with what's been said regarding the game still being early access and tweaks being made.

Worst-case scenario, the game dosen't change at all and it is more or less as difficult on full release as it is today. Well... it would just cater to a different audience. I don't think it's necessary to constrain a game to a genre. Labels like "ARPG" should be useful, not restrictive.

The game honestly is a reality check.
It is hard and unforgiving, especially if you refuse to adapt to the game.
Maybe change a skill/element/support gem. Compared to poe1 gem levels this is much easier to keep skills relevant.

Iam in A2 right now. Failed the trial twice at the boss cause he is tanky af and my minions only tickle him.
Meanwhile he spams his little volcanoes and Iam trying to avoid taken as much as I can.

Another boss that took me 5-10 tries was the Djinn. The fight was manageable after I played the mechanic correctly.

The other two that gave me a little trouble were the count and the praterian ?!?

Same category as the Djinn was the Hyaena boss. Unreasonable with where you have to play and dodge. Cant fight below, cant fight closer to the wall (adds on the cliff) and got multiple times boxed in by 15 adds spawning meanwhile everything kills my minions.


But this is all fine and provides me ample time to experiment with skills items crafting.

If I had one issue that make the game a bit meh is performance (more and issue on my end) and the movement. I really hate how the characters glides a bit further when you stop moving.
Looks like 200ms to me.
Especially since I played a lot of Lost Ark and Dwarven Realms the last days/weeks.