Jonathan Rogers Interview about POE1 playerbase

To be honest, the thing I'm most concerned of is that large parts of the innovation this game has over poe 1 (e.g. slower pace, less, but more meaningful loot, hard bossfights, focus on improving as a player over simply outgearing, much more engaging moment to moment combat contrasted to 2-button builds) slowly get lost by appealing to the poe1 player base.

"

No, just what I have heard from friends. I played D3 on launch and learned my lesson about modern blizzard. The only other purchase I have made from them is D2R, which was awesome until they gave up on updating or fixing anything.

Well the Diablo fan base for the most part have now gravitated to POE2. GGG hands down is going to take this market share away for the time being as they are now focused on bringing a much larger audience to their platform.

"

To be honest, the thing I'm most concerned of is that large parts of the innovation this game has over poe 1 (e.g. slower pace, less, but more meaningful loot, hard bossfights, focus on improving as a player over simply outgearing, much more engaging moment to moment combat contrasted to 2-button builds) slowly get lost by appealing to the poe1 player base.

Watch the interview and it should take your apprehension away. Jonathan isn’t focused on the niche POE fan base. But they can still go play that game if they like it better than the new vision they have for Path 2.

"Most new players"

Like what? 50 of the thousands that started? Not a very good pool to take that from.

"

"Most new players"

Like what? 50 of the thousands that started? Not a very good pool to take that from.

Huh?

Hmm, am I an old timer. Blasting a map is fun to a point ut it becomes monotonous and leads to uber builds. There will be uber bnuilds in POE2 and if they try to slow them all down they have an undending war on their hands. I dont mind the moss dificulty, the pack fighting and most things. Crafting is broken, the bosses could use some tuning and the size of maps is a bit huge. Pretty much those are my only big gripes.

"

Havok135#4193 wrote:

"Most new players"

Like what? 50 of the thousands that started? Not a very good pool to take that from.

Yeah, you dont have that data. You are just emoting. Besides it is an early access game. Not sure what you thought that meant but it means things are not done.

As an old gamer who played both Diablo and D2 when they came out (on my totally awesome 16" crt) this feels like a throwback with a modern flavor to those games. I played D3 (after the massive update, since I am opposed to rmah on principle) and played D4 (enjoyed the campaign, got bored with the end game. I also really enjoyed grim dawn and Last Epoch. Both of these brought something fresh and interesting.

I keep hearing comparisons to dark souls, but don't really see it. I played Demon Souls, but couldn't get into the later entries, though I bought them on steam sales.

I am really enjoying the game, but see a lot of work to be done.

If respec is supposed to be a gold sink, they should either increase the gold drop or reduce the respec cost.

I'm fine with lower amounts of loot, as loot piñatas are fun for awhile but you need a continuous increase to feel the same excitement. I'd like loot drops to be progressive, in that they should get better as you level, and should have a higher probability of dropping something related to my class. I'm wearing heavy armor that dropped at level 10, for a level 30ish witch, because it's the best I've found. The best loot shouldn't be vendor buys, but again, it's another gold sink.

I don't mind the dodge mechanic, but think that there should be multiple strategies, e.g. tanks armor dudes should be able to go toe-to-toe, and squishy casters should have control spells and abilities to manage encounters.

I think people who discuss the difficulty of POE1 are conflating difficult with complex. And people who get angry about EA being rough, May have a point from their perspective, but probably haven't much experience with real EA vs. "Marketing speak EA." BG3 was in EA for almost 2 years and went through multiple balance issues and iterations that trashed characters, before launch. It became a genre defining game. I caution patience, as I can see the glimmer of that in this game as well.

I also think that some mechanics could use better explanations.

Overall good, possibly great,bones, but could use some work. Just my thoughts.

The increased difficulty is, by and large, fantastic. I love it.

That said, boss fights need some polish, because they're extremely easy for some classes while being extremely difficult for others. Some classes just melt them while others struggle for 10 minutes, and it makes for an uneven playing experience

"

TheKnave69#5275 wrote:

...
Overall good, possibly great,bones, but could use some work. Just my thoughts.

Hundred percent.

The game is far from flawless and definitely needs a lot of attention yet. All the complaints that just boil down to "This isn't POE1 so it's awful" are thoroughly missing the start of what has a good chance of being the next paradigm shift for the ARPG. Is it there yet? Doesn't seem like it. But man, I cannot wait to see what they manage to whip this thing into over the next several months.

"

The increased difficulty is, by and large, fantastic. I love it.

That said, boss fights need some polish, because they're extremely easy for some classes while being extremely difficult for others. Some classes just melt them while others struggle for 10 minutes, and it makes for an uneven playing experience

I agree with you here. One of my initial responses to the early criticisms to the difficulty was not to blanket change the loot but rather gather the data on what classes were having a more difficult time so the issue could be resolved in a better way.