Current mob density kills the build diversity in POE2.

As said in the title I think the mob density is way to high in POE2.

Before pulling out the torches and pitchforks, let me explain why.

With POE2 GGG tried to slow down the game and make fights more meaningful (what I personaly love, it's like a loveletter to us Veteran ARPG player).

But the thing is that the mob density in endgame kinda requires the opposite for success....means builds who zoom & clear whole screens.

And yes maybe it's possible do so with all skills with very high investment but for the "avarage guy" the game will simply not feel good with most of the skills and they'll stick to the handfull of skills who offer good clear + boss damage at the same time.

And buffing unused skills won't change the problem here.

The problem is that the mob density in endgame is way to high and create the need to run screenwide clear skills, hopefully with decent boss daamge.

This problem could be solved by reducing the mob density by a lot but make fights more meaningful & tactical at the same time.

Means instead of 100 mobs we face maybe 20 mobs, but those 20 mobs synergize with each other.

Lets take a mob of skeletons f.e. ...where as soon as you get into theyr FOV they make a formation of 4 shield skeletons, while 4 archers stay behind and shoot you, 2 assasine skeletons attack you from the side and a healer in the backline heals the archers.

And those skeletons protect a group of Necromants who'll resurrect a tough miniboss if you don't kill them fast enough.

This kind of enemy behavior would open up so much more build diversity and would even open up room for different combos depends on the situation.

I know some people love the 1 click 10 screen wide clear playstyle but the market is already oversaturated with such ARPGs.

POE2 wants to go the slower but more intense route, lets keep this spirit thoughout all phases of the game (esp endgame).

Mob density is exactly why I grew tired of PoE1 so fast, it's exactly the same here. And it's even worse now with no movement, so half of the mobs run so fast you have literally no means of escaping them (knockback skills? they don't do anything). So you end up trying to AOE them off-screen as much as possible. What a fun gameplay trying to shoot things that you can't even see yet.

Funny enough, the easiest fights right now are map boss fights. The hardest are swarming white mobs. This feels like totally wrong way to do things.

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saturninecult#7044 wrote:

Mob density is exactly why I grew tired of PoE1 so fast, it's exactly the same here. And it's even worse now with no movement, so half of the mobs run so fast you have literally no means of escaping them (knockback skills? they don't do anything). So you end up trying to AOE them off-screen as much as possible. What a fun gameplay trying to shoot things that you can't even see yet.

Funny enough, the easiest fights right now are map boss fights. The hardest are swarming white mobs. This feels like totally wrong way to do things.

Exactly....the way slower gameplay paired with way higher mob density than in POE1 simply don't fit together.

Either let the mob density as it is and include more "zoom zoom"...or keep the the slower/tactical approach but also offer tactical fights throughout the whole game, not only during the first 1-2 Acts during the campaign.

Mixing slower movement with very high density simply doesen't feel good and as you said urge us to play screewide clear builds to compensate. :)

Exactly! Well pointed out. I would also like to point out that a lot of the individual monster complexity is definitely there but it's overshadowed by density and low life pools.

Somewhere along the process they lost the plot.