An Open Letter to GGG RE: One Portal

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RoyalGuards#3689 wrote:

The main problem of all defenders of one portal - they dont whant to listen to anybody with different opinion. I'll try to make it simple. All of us can do a one portal run, it's not something for pure elitists. For the most of us, it's just not brings any enjoyment, only needless annoying. There's many game modes in poe for tryharders - hardcore, ssf etc, so if you whanna bigger challenge, there's always a place for that. I really like poe2 (espetially campain), but with current flaws - overall character clumsyness, absence of movement skills, no +hp mod in passive tree, insane speed of all monsters in maps - a one-life system feel not "play carefully" but "How can we makes your game experience more awfull". And in multyplayer problem becomes even worse, most time i play with my wife and when somebody dies, second mate forced (by game) to abandon map, becouse there's no ressurections and no second portals. I dont have too much time for games atm and i whant spend that time for playing together, not soloing map or waiting in hideout for my partner.

This guy gets it

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RoyalGuards#3689 wrote:

The main problem of all defenders of one portal - they dont whant to listen to anybody with different opinion. I'll try to make it simple. All of us can do a one portal run, it's not something for pure elitists. For the most of us, it's just not brings any enjoyment, only needless annoying. There's many game modes in poe for tryharders - hardcore, ssf etc, so if you whanna bigger challenge, there's always a place for that. I really like poe2 (espetially campain), but with current flaws - overall character clumsyness, absence of movement skills, no +hp mod in passive tree, insane speed of all monsters in maps - a one-life system feel not "play carefully" but "How can we makes your game experience more awfull". And in multyplayer problem becomes even worse, most time i play with my wife and when somebody dies, second mate forced (by game) to abandon map, becouse there's no ressurections and no second portals. I dont have too much time for games atm and i whant spend that time for playing together, not soloing map or waiting in hideout for my partner.

It brings you no enjoyment, how would YOU know if that is the opinion of the majority, MOST people don't come onto the forums and cry, because they are fine with it while playing the game. Ofcourse it is the major opinion of those who are in this thread crying about the 1portal - that doesn't mean it does reflect the majority of players.

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Kashou#2868 wrote:

One portal is great, the game is just not balanced for it currently. Enemies swarm you too much in ways you can't handle often, such as in the tiny enclosed spaces of ritual. Even if the ritual has optimal terrain around it, it's still too small, and most of the time you get body blocked by some fucking tree or a rock and enemies move way too fast anyway.

White mobs are extremely overtuned and chunk you for like 80% of your HP at tier 2 with armor sometimes. Fighting Rathbreaker in maps his little adds on top of the cliff will one shot you with their spears while Rathbreaker himself does like 5% of your hp with swings.

Tons of on death damage coupled with the on kill animation for rares that teaches people that huge on death animations are SAFE (which they of course are not).

One portal is fine, the rest is not.

If you played PoE1 for years you'll understand that this has always existed in one form or another. By no surprise here it is again in PoE2. Some could say it's part of the charm of PoE but thats neither here nor there. This was overcome and accepted by vets because there were six portals. If you're thinking that GGG will magically solve this problem that has existed for well over a decade then I'm sorry thats probably not realistic. The solution to the problem is already available. Six portals.

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Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index#1288 wrote:

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Prototype20#1877 wrote:

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Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index#1288 wrote:

Also the bulk of players:

Stuff on trade is too expensive, now guess what happens if MF gets boosted - which that bulk of players doesn't play.

Early access, MF is a knob that can be turned and adjusted. One portal is a core design decision. Apples and oranges.

It is a design decision which I very much like after using portals as a defensive layer for a decade

Wow then you should really get it. This new direction has essentially removed 10 years of fun for someone else (a lot of someone elses). Just because you chose not to explore a different way to play for a decade doesnt mean it wasnt there all along.

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Prototype20#1877 wrote:

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Kashou#2868 wrote:

One portal is great, the game is just not balanced for it currently. Enemies swarm you too much in ways you can't handle often, such as in the tiny enclosed spaces of ritual. Even if the ritual has optimal terrain around it, it's still too small, and most of the time you get body blocked by some fucking tree or a rock and enemies move way too fast anyway.

White mobs are extremely overtuned and chunk you for like 80% of your HP at tier 2 with armor sometimes. Fighting Rathbreaker in maps his little adds on top of the cliff will one shot you with their spears while Rathbreaker himself does like 5% of your hp with swings.

Tons of on death damage coupled with the on kill animation for rares that teaches people that huge on death animations are SAFE (which they of course are not).

One portal is fine, the rest is not.

If you played PoE1 for years you'll understand that this has always existed in one form or another. By no surprise here it is again in PoE2. Some could say it's part of the charm of PoE but thats neither here nor there. This was overcome and accepted by vets because there were six portals. If you're thinking that GGG will magically solve this problem that has existed for well over a decade then I'm sorry thats probably not realistic. The solution to the problem is already available. Six portals.

Actually six portals isn't the solution to that at all. The solution is fixing the problem, which is more fixable now than ever with life nodes removed from the picture which makes the survivability baseline a lot more predictable.

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Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index#1288 wrote:

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RoyalGuards#3689 wrote:

The main problem of all defenders of one portal - they dont whant to listen to anybody with different opinion. I'll try to make it simple. All of us can do a one portal run, it's not something for pure elitists. For the most of us, it's just not brings any enjoyment, only needless annoying. There's many game modes in poe for tryharders - hardcore, ssf etc, so if you whanna bigger challenge, there's always a place for that. I really like poe2 (espetially campain), but with current flaws - overall character clumsyness, absence of movement skills, no +hp mod in passive tree, insane speed of all monsters in maps - a one-life system feel not "play carefully" but "How can we makes your game experience more awfull". And in multyplayer problem becomes even worse, most time i play with my wife and when somebody dies, second mate forced (by game) to abandon map, becouse there's no ressurections and no second portals. I dont have too much time for games atm and i whant spend that time for playing together, not soloing map or waiting in hideout for my partner.

It brings you no enjoyment, how would YOU know if that is the opinion of the majority, MOST people don't come onto the forums and cry, because they are fine with it while playing the game. Ofcourse it is the major opinion of those who are in this thread crying about the 1portal - that doesn't mean it does reflect the majority of players.

Wrong, the absolute vast majority of the "I love the slower pace, it require skill" are indeed horrible players with low skill cap. They yet have no idea what the endgame/one portal looks like because they are still stuck in campaign and fine with it.

Dodgeroll your way to the circus, clown.

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Kashou#2868 wrote:

Actually six portals isn't the solution to that at all. The solution is fixing the problem, which is more fixable now than ever with life nodes removed from the picture which makes the survivability baseline a lot more predictable.

Dont hold your breath.

+1

As someone who plays mostly with casual friends, having 1 life per map is just depressing for everyone involved. Two of my friends already stopped playing because of that.

Just scale the portal numbers with difficulty and rewards. This will provide 'player agency' like so many people are requesting.

1. You can CHOOSE a single portal, with much more challenging content, and reap additional rewards (i.e. quant and rarity)

or

2. You can CHOOSE multiple portals, much more relaxing content with less modifiers, and reap the rewards of safer content and less stress etc...

This provides flexibility and choice for new and veteran players. If you die on a single portal map of your CHOOSING, suck it up. Risk vs Reward should always be a important pillar for an ARPG.

I personally am loving the single portal for POE 2. I usually play super glass cannon builds in POE 1, and I am looking forward to doing the same next season. However in POE 2, I like the challenge and complexity of building my character to ensure death only occurs on a rare basis. I enjoy the risk and the rewards that come from sucessful completion of overcoming that risk. I do understand how people feel though, which is why there should be an option to scale the difficulty through adding multiple map attempts (but with less risk should come less reward).

A perfect solution! I wish devs read your post and add that system in game.