Path of Pain – It May Be a Great Game, But Not for the aRPG Fanbase
|
Woke up to this post blowing up a bit, so I haven’t had time to respond to valid criticism yet. Just a few general points, which I’ll add to the OP.
For all the people claiming they share the majority’s opinion and that I speak for a "vocal minority": Feedback, by its nature, is mostly negative because if someone likes something, they just play the game and don’t bother with forums. So stop using that dumb argument. That said, the fact that the community (even the most hardcore streamers) voices so many uniform concerns—mostly about QoL and the unnecessarily punitive nature of the game—is concerning. Some people write that I don’t speak for all aRPG fans, or even for the majority. But is this QoL deprivation torture really what the majority wants? Do you play because of it or despite it? Are you arranging your hideouts with stuff spread as far as possible or as close as possible? If it’s the latter, why can’t developers do the same? Why does getting to the actual content take so long? The game is now a torture device. By hindsight. I wouldn’t mind arcade, skill-based play, It appears that wasn't what bothered me. In fact, I just started playing Last Epoch, and I already miss WASD movement and dodging mechanics. (Just not rolling, though—it’s a stupid mechanic visually and a copy-paste from you-know-what. Rolling from danger looks dumb, and no one actually does that IRL.) But they’re just torturing us: with pointless running through empty spaces, pointless trips to The Hooded One to click two more pointless buttons to identify items that should just drop identified, don't get me started on The WELL. Do you enjoy running through Ultimatum spaces to get to the next fight? It’s just tedium upon tedium. Why do we tolerate this pointless time-wasting? Is your time really of so little value? Last edited by vonMistont#4223 on Dec 22, 2024, 5:47:45 AM
|
|
" +1 |
|
" That guy is assuming i said things that i didnt say, he´s twisting my words when i never said they changed stuff because of me especially, they changed because they recieved more feedback from people like me who have been around forever and seen what happens things go south, he´s assuming i want the game easier (lol? the game isnt even hard), when my problem is bad design on various mechanics, dodge not working with the current iteration of the game ,you have videos of people doing the Pinnacle boss needing to use blink because even with 35 ms boots you cant do the mechanic, its literally impossible, mobs are too fast and too many to just rely on a dodge (they either give ways out or cant have mobs working like that), ridiculous one shots that are many times hidden behind foliage, spell effects and a massive ammount of mobs, the massive lack of depth on the passive tree (PoE 1 tree was more interesting and gave more freedom 12 years ago), lack of any player agency when crafing items (only omens and they are so rare that no common guy ever gonna use them and will sell them instead at 6-7 divines a pop), Pinnacle bosses only having one portal not giving a chance for people to learn the boss, so you farm for hours just to get one shot and get nothing in return (give more portals and reset boss life on death), Mechanics atlas passives being locked behind the bosses (again 1 portal) when they are completely trash without any points allocated, i could keep going, but you get the point, noone wanna make the game easier, i want it less shitty just that, it´s just frustrating, shallow and a slog atm. IGN - Slayonara
|
|
" Don't wait time on people trying to gaslight u. They are trying to make the argument about how u said it, instead of what u actually trying to convey. U just cannot assume common sense nowadays. |
|
|
OP is correct, he did miss out on a lot of other aspects that PoE 2 is just extremely shit at but we´re not as a whole talking about minor tweaks or gameplay adjustment but the entire foundation of the CORE of that game is bad, it is the opposite of a chill ARPG game and not even those who loves soul-series have said anything positive about this game either as far as i know, it just does not suit any group of players at the moment.
I doubt they will revamp the game and delay it another 6-12 months to make it closer to PoE 1. It does not have to be "brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr mega fast" It does need: proper crafting system It needs to promote creativity It needs to be easier to progress through the campaign otherwise it will be a "one character per league game", it just does not have any replayability when the acts take this long and when the bosses have 999% more health than PoE 1 You can make endgame as tough as you want it to be, heck make it almost impossible but keep the campaign FAST so CASUALS will actually play the game, they are the majority of the playerbase so by saying "FUck you casuals" you have already doomed the game, at that point you can just quit the project. Want money? Make it casual friendly. This is not an RTS or FPS game, you don´t have a competitive scene to market for so stop making an ARPG game that is competitive when there is no market for it. |
|
|
Agree with OP, there are a lot of flaws in the game
|
|
" Not JUST a torture device though. I mean, they did say that the endgame was rushed to put out instead of Acts 4-6, but it's a torture device that doesn't even work or follow the rules sometimes. It's you, laying on a table, and some program pressing buttons on a board, and when you try to figure out what each button does, you realize it's different every time. Standing in the middle of a meteor without Acrobatics? Thats 0 damage. Standing 5 feet outside a meteor? That's death. Standing under 9 meteors? That's 10 damage...but one meteor 5 seconds later? That's 2000 damage. Or how multi proj is essentially x3 damage on a map, or how 25% ele pen is AT BEST 2x ele damage taken if you have 75 max res. If you have 90 max res, it's 3.5x ele damage taken. Or how the 30-40% all damage as added ele should be a net 7.5-10% damage increase if you have 75 max res, but the same mobs go from doing 100 to 1500 damage with the same attacks? And don't get me started on the gold standard way of controlling in isometric ARPGs having FORCED "AIM CORRECTION" or whatever it's called. I've said it before - the devs deserve their holiday/Christmas, but we didn't deserve a lump of coal. EA should have come out in like...April 2025 at the earliest. |
|
|
I'm of multiple minds.
I'll start with the dreaded counter-argument that many dislike: This is Early Access. No, I'm not saying it snarky. My suspicion, is that in true GGG fashion, they have tuned this into a monster to start in order to give room to relieve some of those stressors later while leaving the ones that are less harshly received over time. Am I sure of that? No, of course not. But it's my guess. The other piece that I think is not stressed enough is that we are literally missing over 50% of the game. Missing three acts, 6 classes, 24 ascendancies, several weapon types that could make some of the weaker ascendancies stronger and can solve some issues. The passive tree will likely go through some major passes to add nodes and switch nodes up. The game as it stands IS entirely too punishing. But I really do think there is a large amount of relief as more content becomes available. I think the base of this game is excellent. I had an absolutely awesome time in the campaign, but I get characters to end game (1 monk, 1 warrior) and I struggle a bit in the t1 maps and I just kind of... stop and restart a new class. That is certainly one way to play, but it's not the intended way. Some things I believe: -Endgame was rushed a bit to get out in some iteration for mass testing in Early Access. I think this is going to be very different on release. -Additional Ascendancies, classes and most importantly: Weapon Types will add variety to the game and solve some of our current problems -GGG will continue to balance and tweak this game so it is in a much better state come full release. Some feedback: -Maps - I am only in t2... mostly because going further doesn't feel like fun to me at the moment. One life is a bit too punishing, six makes it so you can circumvent having defenses... Make it three lives if there is full map reset, two if there is continued progress. It's still punishing that way, but it makes the janky deaths feel less bad. -I know... Early Access... but start releasing other weapon types. I realize their intent is to release weapons with classes (Templar: Flail, Marauder: Axe, Duelist: Sword, Huntress: Spear, Druid: Claw?, Shadow: Dagger/Traps) but I think more weapons should be added prior to more classes and ascendancies. It allows us to test each weapon and, quite frankly, solves a lot of issues. -----For instance, a dagger monk would probably be pretty awesome for Chonk. -----Warriors are begging for additional weapon types -----Spear throwing Ranger? The list goes on. -I'm guessing some things won't be in early access at all... Full release can be delayed, of course, but 6 months for 24 ascendancies, 6 classes and several weapon types (and 3 acts and drops and content) seems short. Especially because additional items haven't dropped yet and likely won't before the 1 month mark. But it's time to start giving us new items for player retention purposes. Even small nuggets helps. A single weapon type opens the game up for melee, for instance. -Map size is way too big. It just is. I can live with it. I get through it. But some of these zones are unnecessarily large, especially in campaign mode... and it makes things feel like a chore... Which won't be fun in re-running the campaign. ---Apex of Filth is a waste of energy, in my opinion. ---Utzaal and Aggorat are way too big. ---Matlan Waterways feels like it should end three times before it does. ---Deshar is oddly long, in my opinion. -Respecs are still too expensive. I agree actions need weight. But it's still too much to completely retool a character: Respec the tree, cut new gems, use new currency (lesser orbs, prisms, greater orbs, etc), find new gear, etc. Some of those costs are inherent in changing direction, so nothing can be done. But respecs can be course corrected a bit. -On death mechanics are stupid. -Screen clutter is very real. I can't tell when I'm standing in goo because there is too much happening on the screen at any given time. -I love that there are so many problems to solve with gear: Life, Resists, Mana, Damage, Defensive layers. But it's too difficult to solve them at the moment. ---The tree needs to add more of these types of nodes (Life, Resists) to help ease the burden ---Runes needs to be destroy on remove, but we should be allowed to swap. ---Belts need implicit charm slots based on level. -Crafting needs a bit of love (though this is in feedback, I do think they started barebones as an introductory phase and this is going to be a major area of refinement over the next several months) -I'd add the salvage bench to a vendor and make the salvage bench a "dumbed down" version of the poe1 crafting bench and SLOWLY and much more user friendly increase it's abilities over time. Perhaps even including the new items in tutorial type fashion in the campaign where an NPC can guide you through some crafting basics (or, you don't need to have that convo with the NPC and can skip it if you are familiar) -And one QoL... The Last Epoch vacuum button that allows all crafting mats to go into your crafting inventory... the dopamine hit is real. I'd love that here. I really like this game... but I am now feeling like I've done all I care to do at the moment and will be playing much less until new stuff is added. |
|
|
I remember grinding in D2 a lot, before each boss or major leap forward. The Cemetary, Tristam, Andariel's levels, the Sanctuary in act 2 (or however it was called), the Tombs, Kurast temple, Mephisto's temple (jungle not so much ^.^) and so on.
To try and get better gear, up the resitances and so on. I almost always ended up way overleveled before an act boss. Funny enough, it's what I do here as well now, after having struggled with resistances and survivability on my first monk playthrough. So from that point of view, I consider the game to be fine. Sure, drops are much rarer than they should be and the devs' argument that map bosses drop valuable stuff is flawed, as they quite often drop absolute crap (not on the first visit, for some reason). The bigger issues are the map traversal (so hard to get some movement speed on those boots!) and the actual combat tweaking. Some classes just seem to have received a bit more care before the EA launch. However, all classes suffer from bad mechanics, like aim-assist (or rather, aim-impede), shots and attacks being completely blocked by even the smallest (sometimes invisible) obstacle and bosses sometimes chaining high-damage or one shot mechanics a bit too fast and, as I've seen in one clip, overlapping the aoe of the 2nd attack over the safe zone of the first one, while the first attack's aoe is still active - basically giving you no chance to survive. At all. Oh, oh! Also... Wouldn't want to ignore the big pink elephant in the room: Balbala's Ascendency trials. Everything there feels luck based for a melee class. The Ultimatum runs might be better, if not slightly overtuned, pacing wise (again, it would be fine if movement speed buffs wouldn't be so few and far between both as affix roll and passive skills) Game for me feels much better than PoE1, with it's brain-afk, 1-shot builds that you can just easily buy. But that's already a subjective and I'm looking at PoE2 after having finished Normal mode only, once and now replaying it on hardcore. |
|
" Maybe the problem is endgame isn't even a game. Campaign structure is like carbon copy of a souls game giving you checkpoint right before bosses and you're constantly fighting different bosses. What about "endgame"? You're fighting the same generic mob for dozens of hrs just to fight a pinnacle and if you fail you're back to farming a random loot to even get back there. I think it's not hard to see a problem here: your game will be perceived as hallow, empty and just trying to pad hours before any "new content" just like every other slop not even necessarily live service, being unnecessarily gatekeeping. At the state of the game endgame has zero value for the audience already setting expectation by only playing PoE2 campaign. Refusing to acknowledge real player feedback is like main stream media thinking democrats had 2024 in the bag, yall need to stop being delusional. |
|
