I'm starting to realize, GGG should give us feedback too.

"

Karishin#7986 wrote:

its antithetical to all the interviews they were shitting out.

PoE2 is a fully adapted mindblowing time stretch that even Blizzard/Activion couldn't do better. But the trusty base of the community has yet not understood this: Chris Wilson has gone full Bobby Kotick.

So, i don't really believe, there is some 'catering' to streamers. It seems, there's just a director giving commands of his 'vision' and a silent staff following orders. Because it seems there has been nobody testing PoE2's qualification to create fun, it feels like an manifested excel sheet coming from an excel sheet brain putting random in any formula and stretching player's ways to gain access to randomized content. This is not how a game feels, a game recognizes and rewards player's efforts, random does NOT - paired with the insane punishment systems it all creates massive frustrations but no sustaining fun.

PoE2 is an soulless excel game that doesn't read player's expectations, but shareholders interests. GGG managed to put metrics over fun being the only NOT half baked mechanic in the game: time stretch, time stretch, time stretch as if there's no tomorrow. It's a disgrace to the once exciting PoE franchise.

"

AngryGekko#0233 wrote:

"

vittorcsj#7475 wrote:

Guys, seriously, most of nonsense message is coming from old PoE players that just want PoE1 with better graphics

PoE2 is exactly this. Poe2 is PoE1 with
- slower walking speed to increase playtime
- bigger maps to increase playtime
- casino crafting to increase playtime
- longer campaign to increase playtime
- 1-death-maps to increase playtime
- longer boss fights to increase playtime
- full rng atlas quest to increase playtime
- increased exp loss to increase playtime

PoE2 is PoE1 with better graphics. It's GGG's vision to increase playtime for maximizing profits while not acknowledging developments in the arpg genre in present times. The company seems to have a huge amount of staff that played D2 over two decades ago, while not observing the evolution of the genre since then.

Yep exactly, and this is why I'm just gonna stay away from this game and only wait for new PoE 1 leagues. At least that game is fun. And in between leagues I'll just play other games that aren't some cheap hamster wheel designed to maximize player engagement metrics lol

Like if they triple down on "The Vision" then that's all the proof you need that PoE 2 is exactly what you described. Some nostalgia-driven project with 0 knowledge about what an actual fun arpg is while also trying to squeeze playtime out of your players and punishing them at the same time as they play Ruthless 2.0

"

vittorcsj#7475 wrote:

"

Sadly, yea, not all skills / ascendancies were made equally. Some of them have far far easier time and scaling than others, the rest of them will have way way harder time. And this is also prevalent in PoE 1. Things shouldn't be like this in PoE 2 tho imo, game should way way different than PoE 1, better focused on action combat and less about tailoring the game around trade but it is what it is.

The whole point of my frustration is that playing the game, I literally feel like any of my skills were actually tested to check if they could actually be viable on most demanding bosses.

If I do what you suggest, I'm actually proving my point, that many skills does not work on end content, since I will need to follow a guide and use an outline offensive skill to finish the content.

On my point of view is really simple to balance these skills. I just don't understand why they don't, or at least ppl don't come with alternative ideas. Everybody just says "Build Issue", "Get good", like the game is perfect in the current state.
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I wholeheartedly agree on your takes / points and understand your frustration regarding not many archetype / skills work on endgame. I also did make gemling and quickly change to invoker when I see the situation. One of the biggest thing that doesn't make sense to me is how can they promote mercenary as the one that use crossbow build archetype and yet none of the ascendancy actually give or boost crossbow playstyle. Witchhunter is just god awful, and gemling legionnare's power only start to shine when you invest tons of resources to gears.

"

__MaX__#5861 wrote:

"

vittorcsj#7475 wrote:

This is not a feedback post, but a questioning post.

To answer you in a more "objective" way vittor, as a developer (not from GGG so that there's no confusion), we do try to test as much as we can. At least, critical aspects of the game.

Now, from an ARPG perspective, people being insanely talented theorycrafters, it's impossible to test every permutation. There are "simulation scripts" that will run dozens of combinations and drop rates to check if your skills or drops are ok, but... from there, you can't really ensure you have tested everything.

Now, what will follow is not a "get good" / "you need to learn" comment as a troll, but an actual "factual" behavior of these games: you can't expect all skills to perform as good as you'd want to "out of the box".

No matter how good your weapon is (dps wise), maybe your skill setup is not optimal, maybe your skill interactions are not very good. They might be excellent for farming, but not enough for bossing: this, is common.

You have some builds that are perfect for speed farming, others for bossing.

Now, I'm not saying boss at difficulty 4 might not be overtuned on the dps check... but what I'm saying is that, not every setup / skill / build can do all content. It's not a matter of testing or failing to make every skill viable, it's actually how it is designed... and how you might need to potentially theorycraft your way through your build and make it better on bosses.

Even tho PoE 2 has a bunch of bugs (to say the least), I've seen very weird clever/inventive builds on YT clearing all content and bosses.

Still... yes, developers can't test everything, and think of everything. Especially on very "organic" games like PoE. The amount of balancing needed to make the game feel great is kind of insane : )

Beyond that, what you are describing overall is definitely a theorycrafting issue probably. If your build is perfect for farming, maybe you might want to improve it for bosses.

I am a developer too, and do really enjoying games. That's why I'm getting hyper critical here, even knowing some ppl will think I'm just hater or trying to reduce games credit or make it looks like a bad game. Is quite the opposite. I know the points I'm trying to bring are fixable and can be improved (I'm even showing some examples of how can be fixed), and some aspects of the game needs huge attention. Otherwise is quite of ironical that a game that allows you freedom to make your own build, anyway you want, actually put many walls check through the content that actually filters just a small amount of possibilities, punishing you to try have freedom.

I'm trying to fix the freedom aspect here. Freedom means bricking your own build many times, but it should not mean that only the best builds, the top 1 to 0.5% is meant to succeed on end content.

"

bewilder2#0356 wrote:

"

vittorcsj#7475 wrote:

"

Sadly, yea, not all skills / ascendancies were made equally. Some of them have far far easier time and scaling than others, the rest of them will have way way harder time. And this is also prevalent in PoE 1. Things shouldn't be like this in PoE 2 tho imo, game should way way different than PoE 1, better focused on action combat and less about tailoring the game around trade but it is what it is.

The whole point of my frustration is that playing the game, I literally feel like any of my skills were actually tested to check if they could actually be viable on most demanding bosses.

If I do what you suggest, I'm actually proving my point, that many skills does not work on end content, since I will need to follow a guide and use an outline offensive skill to finish the content.

On my point of view is really simple to balance these skills. I just don't understand why they don't, or at least ppl don't come with alternative ideas. Everybody just says "Build Issue", "Get good", like the game is perfect in the current state.
......
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I wholeheartedly agree on your takes / points and understand your frustration regarding not many archetype / skills work on endgame. I also did make gemling and quickly change to invoker when I see the situation. One of the biggest thing that doesn't make sense to me is how can they promote mercenary as the one that use crossbow build archetype and yet none of the ascendancy actually give or boost crossbow playstyle. Witchhunter is just god awful, and gemling legionnare's power only start to shine when you invest tons of resources to gears.

Yes. On gemling everything feels without connection and identity. Too much generalist.

For me, the campaing went fine. But I think they shooted their foot by not balancing endgame, because players will reach this part of the content.

I Say this because on PoE1, development design was to have the incomplete campaign, but with a good endgame. And the campaign was being completed through the leagues. On the beginning we had to complete act 3, 3 times, on PoE1, and nowadays is a straight line campaign before mapping. (I did not did PoE1 mapping in that time. I'm assuming it was balanced bc it was created at same time as the game was)

This system on PoE2 is repeating itself, by having act1-3 cruel after normal act 1-3, but I assume in the future it will be replaced by the continuation of the campaign, like they did on PoE1. But the issue is that this time they did not rebalanced the HP scaling of the end content bosses.

And on PoE1 we usually build a character surrounding a single main spell, trying to make it stronger. On PoE2 you are incentivize to use multiple spells, since you have a lot of skill slots, and all can be a potential 6L, without mentioning the way skill interact with each other making it more powerful. The sadness is they don't become too powerful on endgame bosses usually, and we return to focus on a single spell. They an amazing work, but a crucial part was left in the corner of room.

Players who will want to optimize farm to have fast profit they will end up using a single map clearing spells, and skill combination on bosses, for the sake of being practical, but player with more SSF style, those who don't know how to even trade, they will hit a wall at some point for sure for using many spells, and not optimizing one. Which brings back to the issue of having to consult a guide, like PoE1, to overcome, and removing the freedom aspect of the game. And cycle repeats itself, turning PoE2 in PoE1 with better graphics.

If they end up doing PoE1 with better graphics, fine. But on this, they just scammed a lot of ppl on wrong advertisement. Because what i got was that they want the content to be more accessible. And there is no way to be more accessible if just a couple of skill works, and the player must follow a guide from somewhere to know which skill is that. Without mention the market issue, making most of these guide builds expansive builds.

"

vittorcsj#7475 wrote:

On the beginning we had to complete act 3, 3 times, on PoE1, and nowadays is a straight line campaign before mapping.

This is how arpgs worked two decades ago, when there was no real mechanic to level up characters for the endgame. Even in poe1 being forced to rerun the whole campaign felt awkward. Over the years, many people critised this as being no fun. Many people suggested level up mechancis, ideas like 'endless delve' came up. But GGG never listened.

Now, in the year 2025, rerunning a campaign is just the wrong foot to stand on. I'm no fan of D4, but their mechanic leveling a build without touching the campaign is just insanely good and rewarding. That doesn't make D4 a better game. But the feeling of leveling is awesome.

By stubbornly insisting on completion of the campaign with every build at every season, while the genre has changed dramatically, GGG seems unnecessarily stalled and backwardy presenting the re-completion of a whole campaign as a concept of leveling.