How GGG's Dev Team Masterminded the Ultimate Player Punishment System for PoE 2

Imagine this: GGG is having a team meeting, and the team leader of the dev team poses a question.

“How do you think we can make players hate our endgame even more than they hate Diablo 4?”

The room falls silent for three minutes until Skinny Jo finally speaks up. “I have an idea.”

“I’m listening,” says the team leader.

“Well,” begins Skinny Jo, “what if we introduce a four-way punishment system in Path of Exile 2? You know, since random one-shots are already pretty common, we make it so that when players die, they’re punished in four different ways!”

The team leader nods, intrigued. “Sounds good, but it’s not quite enough…”

After another three minutes of silence, Skinny Jo has a lightbulb moment. “I’ve got it!” he exclaims. “Let’s take it a step further. What if we implement this punishment system in softcore mode too? That way, no matter what players choose during character creation—even if they explicitly avoid hardcore—they’ll still be forced to experience hardcore mechanics after completing a semi-finished campaign.

“Then, we can hold their progress hostage at endgame! Picture it: they get ten keys for pinnacle bosses, but the mechanics are so punishing they don’t even bother to use them. It’ll be hilarious!”

The team leader grins. “Brilliant! Let’s do it.”

Honestly, it must have gone something like this. And I have no idea who thought forcing softcore players to deal with hardcore mechanics in endgame was a bright idea, but whoever it was deserves to be fired—and tortured—for the rest of their life.

I dont even know what exactly you are talking about but youre mad.