A critique on PoE2's contradicting nature.

First off, I want to start this write up with the point that I'm also a software engineer, and while I could take a shot at maybe proposing solutions and stuff, I will NOT propose anything. I don't know their system, I don't know their minds or goals and I don't know their code. Also, users are notoriously good at detecting things that don't work well, don't work as expected, or feel bad, and notoriously bad at proposing fixes.

I'm also very interested in game design, both for boardgames, and videogames and have done some modding. Additionally, I've seen basically every critique and feedback video out there that I could find about the perceived and actual problems with the game: Zizaran, Rhykker, DarthMicrotransactions, Kripparian, Asmongold, Paul Tassi, Josh Strife Hays, etc. A whole bunch of videos and different opinions. I'm also at endgame with a sorcerer and leveling one of every class.

I have been thinking about the problem with endgame that most of the feedback I have seen kinda touches on but IMHO isn't able to pinpoint, and it goes around as the game being punishing, unfair, hard, difficult, frustrating, obnoxious, too fast, too slow, the campaign is better, etc.

I don't claim to have the truth or anything, but I think there's one thing that hasn't been touched in the conversation, so I will first try to make a succint explanation and later expand on it:

The game simultaneously makes death too frequent and easy, while making it too punishing at the same time.

You can have one or the other, but not both, since that's just horrible design.

Either make death frequent with the on death effects, the one shots for not rolling on time, the chaos damage everywhere, the hordes of mobs critical hitting you and NOT punish the player so hard for dying at such an extent,

OR

Make death be the result of the player's hubris, missplay, errors or lack of skill and make it be punishing.

As it is, it is very easy to die by no fault of your own and LOSE stuff. I think many mobs are too fast and gang up on the player, while at the same time many support gems trade power for speed.

Watching as many of Jonathan's interviews as I could, I got the impression they wanted to make the combat more impactful, involved and methodical, so the pace is slower, things hit harder, and you need to use dodge roll or active block on time to keep up and do well. However, this is anathema with fighting hordes of monsters! I cannot and should not be expected to be methodical and calculated while there are 20 things running at me. This type of combat works in Elden Ring because you are NOT fighting hordes of mobs.

Alternatively, if you want to make it work like an ARPG where I run around killing things that throw themselves at me, then the combat cannot be slow paced and methodical.

Even more so, players usually don't have the tools for either of the styles: you either equip a shiled, doddge roll, or get OP. There's no back and forth because all the back and forth is inherently lethal, and, again, death is excessivelly punishing. The majority of builds that have seen success are the ones that kill things before those things can get near, the ones that kill a boss in seconds or the ones that zoom around avoiding all damage. Minion builds, or builds filling the screen with sparks, or a hammer of the gods that one shots bosses. If you're going for slow paced, considered combat where you engage with the mechanics of the bosses and you need to keep positioning, dodging and blocking in mind, the game is not working as intended. If the intention is to overkill everything, then it will quickly devolve into fireworks all over the screen and many many many builds that simply don't work.

So, if they want the players to take risks more often and display skill and assemble interesting builds, they contradict it by punishing experimentation or suboptimal builds or suboptimal play. On the other hand, if they want the game to be so punishing, they can't be one shotting players. GGG is simultaneously saying "Get Good" and "Be Good From the Get Go".

The game has an identity crisis, it doesn't really know what it wants to be. And different people like it for different reasons, but one of the most common positive feedback is that the combat is good. And one of the most common complaints are the bullshit deaths.

Yes, it seems they are sadists and they like their games difficult and punishing at the same time and they are the kind of people who likes a game where you test your patience and invest a ton of time and failure to redo things, retrace your steps, and at the same time they want everybody else who plays this game to be the same kind of person, and that's fine. If that is the actual intention, that's fine. But I haven't seen this approach being very popular, and their intention with PoE2 seems to be attracting more players... this again is a contradiction. It is also very contradictory that the players are expected to invest so much time failing and losing, so little time suceeding and gaining, and have the possible expectation of this being a seasonal endeavour. I don't think there are many humans who would tolerate that amount of frustration at an activity that is supposed to feel rewarding and fun, but to each their own.

Keep in mind the problem compounds and gets worse as you go further in the game. This WILL cause burnout, is not even a supposition. People will only put up with this amount of grinding in an MMO, because your progress is permanent. In a seasonal game it's simply not going to happen for a vast amount of people.

It seems to me that there are two or more minds behind the wheel of the game direction and they don't agree. This constant conflict of identity, vision, or meaning will inevitably lose them a lot of the playerbase, a huge playerbase that is here excited about the game and quickly getting frustrated.

This is Early Access, technically a huge beta test, so here's the feedback. Make up your mind: is it slow paced, calculated, is it fast paced and grindfest, what is it.

Also, the campaign has a fantastic pacing, maybe they just need to capture a bit of its essence for the endgame.

I have my own thoughts on "crafting", but I'll leave those to another post. But crafting is a little bit of the same issue in some regards. Also I have very stern concerns with the support gems that I need to meditate a little bit more before saying anything.

Thanks for reading.

Very well articulated post, thanks for the read.

Haven’t been to endgame yet so I cannot make a judgement call on it.

But I do agree a lot of the mobs get on you very quickly and can be difficult to navigate it. Maybe stronger freeze/stuns/slows would need some tweaking to deal with that.

The thing is with balance the teeter totter swings back and forth. If we have improved stuns/slows/freeze then it makes the slow mobs a complete joke.

Very well-written. I'm not sure I agree with all of it, but you're definitely hitting on some good points here. +1.

"

Turddog#8292 wrote:

Very well articulated post, thanks for the read.

Haven’t been to endgame yet so I cannot make a judgement call on it.

But I do agree a lot of the mobs get on you very quickly and can be difficult to navigate it. Maybe stronger freeze/stuns/slows would need some tweaking to deal with that.

The thing is with balance the teeter totter swings back and forth. If we have improved stuns/slows/freeze then it makes the slow mobs a complete joke.

But here's the problem with that: now every build needs to have some form of slow, freeze or stun to be able to keep up. Why not instead give me bonuses for being swarmed? There's a couple nodes in the Mercenary side of the tree that kinda do something like this, but I don't think that's enough.

"

D4rkona#3815 wrote:

"

Turddog#8292 wrote:

Very well articulated post, thanks for the read.

Haven’t been to endgame yet so I cannot make a judgement call on it.

But I do agree a lot of the mobs get on you very quickly and can be difficult to navigate it. Maybe stronger freeze/stuns/slows would need some tweaking to deal with that.

The thing is with balance the teeter totter swings back and forth. If we have improved stuns/slows/freeze then it makes the slow mobs a complete joke.

But here's the problem with that: now every build needs to have some form of slow, freeze or stun to be able to keep up. Why not instead give me bonuses for being swarmed? There's a couple nodes in the Mercenary side of the tree that kinda do something like this, but I don't think that's enough.

I don’t see anything wrong with being able to have a skill that is utilized for crowd control. Just my opinion though.

"

NicknamesOfGod#1810 wrote:

Very well-written. I'm not sure I agree with all of it, but you're definitely hitting on some good points here. +1.

Thank you. I would love to see what you don't agree with so we could have a civilized discussion. Im open to figuring what other people think.

Spot on and well written. I'm still enjoying the game since I'm willing to accept EA weirdness. However the contradictory nature you outlined is very very apparent across the board. It feels like two different lead developers were just fighting the entire time. Or more likely it was originally supposed to be an actual continuation of the PoE1 vision but when they decided to make it a separate game it was too late to unshackle themselves from a lot of the PoE1-isms.

The crazy speed of monsters in relation to the player is the most visible of these issues. They said they want you to be punished for getting surrounded, which I'd be in board with if I felt I had any genuine agency in the matter. As it stands I have to have 35% ms to come close to keeping up with monsters, and almost every monster feels like it has some crazy gap closer to go from literally off screen to standing at my feet. I've seen the comment elsewhere that I agree with: "Players are playing PoE2 and monsters are playing PoE1."

Still. Fun overall, look forward to the improvements to come. I just hope either it keeps a lot of the PoE1 identity, or PoE1 development literally doubles (we lost 50% of our content this year, a decrease that had been noticably increasing over time making me doubt the future of PoE1).

"

Turddog#8292 wrote:

"

D4rkona#3815 wrote:

"

Turddog#8292 wrote:

Very well articulated post, thanks for the read.

Haven’t been to endgame yet so I cannot make a judgement call on it.

But I do agree a lot of the mobs get on you very quickly and can be difficult to navigate it. Maybe stronger freeze/stuns/slows would need some tweaking to deal with that.

The thing is with balance the teeter totter swings back and forth. If we have improved stuns/slows/freeze then it makes the slow mobs a complete joke.

But here's the problem with that: now every build needs to have some form of slow, freeze or stun to be able to keep up. Why not instead give me bonuses for being swarmed? There's a couple nodes in the Mercenary side of the tree that kinda do something like this, but I don't think that's enough.

I don’t see anything wrong with being able to have a skill that is utilized for crowd control. Just my opinion though.

Oh, not what I meant. Of course you should be able to have a crowd control skill. What shouldn't happen, in my opinion, is being forced to always have crowd control.

But then there is a chance we will be left with linear gameplay. Having quick mobs mixed in throughout the map keeps you on your toes. Otherwise it’s just the same old slow moving mobs that you bust down with ease.

It’s a balancing act when GGG is trying to make the gameplay interesting for 12 different class styles.

But really they just need to supply our characters with proper crowd control and this shouldn’t be a big deal.

"

Turddog#8292 wrote:

But then there is a chance we will be left with linear gameplay. Having quick mobs mixed in throughout the map keeps you on your toes. Otherwise it’s just the same old slow moving mobs that you bust down with ease.

Then stop punishing players for being surrounded. If the game is forcefully surrounding me with monsters, I am expected to be able to deal with them, and I would expect to have better means of doing so that aren't rolling around constantly and trying to run away because else I just get murdered.

Also getting surrounded without it being my fault is not engaging.

I always remember the reason why Minecraft never added another mob like the Creeper: They wanted things to be caused by the player, not that things happened to the player. I understand this is a vbery different game, and things might well happen to the player, but the agency is severely diminished while at the same time punishing the player for it. It's nonsensical.

I agree with you, if we are to be constantly ganged upon, then we need awesome crowd control. But my point is that now crowd control is mandatory, and that's also linear play, don't you think?