PoE2 Difficulty: A Necessary Challenge for PoE1 Veterans

"Many more players will come"? I checked Steam Charts this afternoon, during US gaming primetime on a weekend. Saturday the game had 538k max players, and today it had 352k max. They lost 200k players on the 3rd day, and thats just Steam. Games rarely ever gain more players over time, unless you are WoW, LOL, Minecraft etc. POE2 is never going to have as many players as it had on the first day of EA.

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gmillar#4054 wrote:

The difficulty is great. Finally you actually have to do something in an ARPG instead of just clicking.

This is not an ARPG its a souls game...

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Well you have to do it again to hit max level and you'll have to do for every season, and newsflash most wont.

I'm not a big fan of seasons. I feel like they're mainly a way to test new elements and keep streamers engaged with the game.

EA isnt a season. The full game is going to launch in 6-12 months, and by the looks of things itll be closer to 12 months. So sometime around holiday 2025.

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This is not an ARPG its a souls game...

Souls games are ARPG.

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Lauxent#6359 wrote:

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Well you have to do it again to hit max level and you'll have to do for every season, and newsflash most wont.

I'm not a big fan of seasons. I feel like they're mainly a way to test new elements and keep streamers engaged with the game.

wrong one sorry

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Lauxent#6359 wrote:

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This is not an ARPG its a souls game...

Souls games are ARPG.

Then they would call them ARPGs not souls games.

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Lauxent#6359 wrote:

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No they won't, few people are going to want to do a 40+ hour slog fest of acts, then redo it all each time a season pops. its not happening in 2024. the few will the many wont.

When they adapt, they will do it with ease. I know lot of players that have no problems with difficulty.

I think it depends on where the source of difficulty is.

If a player is dieing to "trash mobs" on the map then that's mostly something that is easy to fix. People will recall how they played D1 in max difficulty and take things slower / more carefully.

If a player is failing the dodge-or-die mechanics then some attempts may be needed to fully understand the telegraphing used. If the tolerances of time allowed is set too low though a certain percentage of people with slower reaction times will NEVER be able to have a satisfying play experience. If you slow things down enough for those players then the quicker [normal?] players will be bored as the mechanics will be TOO easy for them and provide ZERO challenge.

If I'm right GGG may have picked a poor way to add difficulty into the game.

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Skilletor#0857 wrote:

"Many more players will come"? I checked Steam Charts this afternoon, during US gaming primetime on a weekend. Saturday the game had 538k max players, and today it had 352k max. They lost 200k players on the 3rd day, and thats just Steam. Games rarely ever gain more players over time, unless you are WoW, LOL, Minecraft etc. POE2 is never going to have as many players as it had on the first day of EA.

I can think of a game that gained a lot of players over time. I'll give you a hint: look up.

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Then they would call them ARPGs not souls games.

Souls games are generally considered action RPGs. They share many characteristics with other games in the genre, such as Nioh, including a focus on challenging combat, intricate level design, and character customization.