Please heed this feedback GGG

GGG you are already taking the exact same course that Path of Exile 1 took, quickly branching away from your vision of slower more thought-out combat and becoming a kill or be killed environment.

The changes to player power were completely necessarily, no problem. However player power has never been the issue, ever since Path of Exile 1. The problem has always been monster power. We, as players, have always looked to raise our player power to extrodinary heights because:
#1 it is fun
but also
#2 its required to overcome the monster power

Already, GGG, you're shooting yourself in the foot with your bandaid fixes with stuff like this:

"

All non-unique monsters have less life tapering from 100% to 75% of what they had between levels 8 and 15. All monsters between level 15 and 46 now have exactly 25% less Life. All monsters between level 46 and 64 now have less life tapering up from 75% to 100%. This results in all monsters in Endgame having the same Life as before this change. Their thresholds for Crowd Control and Ailments have been adjusted proportionately by the same amount.
Rogue Exiles have had their Life reduced by 40% (on top of the change above).
The "of the Hydra" (Life Regeneration) Monster Modifier now only appears at Level 65+.

Monster life isn't the problem. More monster life is probably what should occur (with the old player power) in order to draw out the fights. The problem with drawn out fights with monsters is their movement, action, attack/cast speed and damage are out of control for the player power at that part of the game.
By just nerfing the monster life you are CREATING the very problem you're trying to solve with Path of Exile 2 vision, and 0.2.0 patch in general, by making the game a kill or be killed environment.

Of course a kill or be killed environment is dominated by off-screening, huge area of effect, fast attack/cast speeds, ranged vs melee etc etc. Path of Exile 1 literally went through the exact same scenario and i could prove it to you if i had the time to go through all PoE1s patch notes and hotfixes.
We've already lived through this and we're going through it again.


If you want a slower paced combat like you keep trying to showcase us in the trailers and stuff, you need to nerf monster speed and damage not their life.
At the moment, the very first area after you step out of clearfell has wolves that will chunk you for 60% of your life in one hit. Oh right there are dozens of them and they move faster than you, too. There are witches which will channel and 100-0 you without an issue. Why is this happening?
Its happening because their power is out of control for the power you have immediately leaving town. It is as though you've balanced it considering us to have twink gear on a 3rd/4th character or something.

Now maybe the current speed and damage of campaign monsters is great against characters who have acquired a ton of gear already, but it absolutely feels like a horrible slogfest where everything is against the players if they haven't gotten all that gear yet.
I anticipate it is the very same thing for the end game, but i haven't heard or experienced it yet (nor will i because i've stopped playing for now).

This brings up the next issue, which is actually rewarding the players. We, the players, need to be rewarded, or feel like we are. Progression is the biggest factor in the ARPG genre and it has to be smooth and impactful.
For a player to slog through a boss fight to get a bunch of gear they cannot use, or maybe nothing at all, is ridiculous and feels TERRIBLE.
It will not ruin the game to reward us with gear and power!

Honestly this is why i've really started to prefer single player ARPG type games. Not live service games balanced around trade, because how can you balance a game around a single player experience while trade exists?
Right now it feels like the Path of Exile 2 changes of 0.2.0 were knee jerk reactions to what PoE2 can be with hundreds of thousands of players trading gear around on already established characters and accounts with currency to buy it. AKA everything is overtuned for fresh-start scenarios where you do not have gear or currency to buy anything.

But of course if you balance the game around the single player experience, then the fear is (and GGG has expressed this all the time) that a player can just get a drop/currency, buy whatever gear they want and use it to trivalize the entire game.

I don't really have ideas as how to reign in what is starting to spiral out of control, but i am very good at noticing patterns and anticipating what results changes bring and i am just trying to warn that this is not the path.
This is exactly the same path that Path of Exile 1 went through and PoE2 is already mirroring it with just its very first patch. This does not envoke confidence in me that GGG is capable of putting out the fire, but will instead continue to shoot themselves in the foot by contradicting their own patches with hotfixes which creates and compound the initial problem instead of working to solve it.

Im sorry for the wall of text but i did my best to make it readable.


TLDR:
PoE2 is already making the same mistakes PoE1 has made in order to become the kill or be killed problem which directly works against and contradicts the very patch that was set out to address.

I agree, monsters are already super squishy. Further lowering their health makes no sense. They could lower monster density instead of making them even squishier.

"

rifraf-_-#9478 wrote:

I agree, monsters are already super squishy. Further lowering their health makes no sense. They could lower monster density instead of making them even squishier.

That's not what I've been seeing. Some of the streamers are barely scratching white mobs while they get rekt.

No

At this point I'd probably prefer a more Diablo 2 approach where early monsters tend to be weak and slow that makes up for the player character being weak and slow.

While I haven't played much I'm not having "difficulty" problems though ... I'm having "caring" problems. For some reason I don't care to play ... maybe because I've had enough PoE, that I don't see much fun in certain design decision, etc.??

To make an arpg like a souls-like game they need to:

Greatly expand campaign
Add more scripted fights
Remove endgame entirely(last boss = game finished)
Remove random loot from bosses, they should drop based on the player's class/ascendency.

I would also suggest removing a large amount of support gems. The purpose would be to streamline the game towards whatever this vision is and stop trying to make a classic arpg.

Valid points there. Ive once seen a video where someone talks about monster design. In there he said something about the three characteristics of monsters:

- Damage
- Toughness
- Speed

A monster can only have a maximum of 2 out of those three.
I think this does apply to a lot of monsters in PoE2
It can have high damage and toughness, but needs to be slow (good example would be the Pillar guys in the graveyard).
Toughness and speed should then apply to things like the rolly guys, they speed at you and force-move you, so high damage would be bad on them.
The only problem is Damage and Speed. There are (or at least were in 0.1) some monsters that are really fast and do a lot of damage -> so they can easily stun you, and if there are more then one attacking you simultaniously, you have a big problem. And then you are also supposed to get out some combos to kill these monsters... it just makes little sense to me this way. I think that either the damage of fast enemies is too high or some of them are too fast.

Bit of a rant there, I think Zizaran wants to ask something in his interview on the 8th in this direction, so I guess we will hear something soon.

"

wav3form#7703 wrote:

"

rifraf-_-#9478 wrote:

I agree, monsters are already super squishy. Further lowering their health makes no sense. They could lower monster density instead of making them even squishier.

That's not what I've been seeing. Some of the streamers are barely scratching white mobs while they get rekt.

When it comes to streamers, Alkalizer currently 1-shots everything with his Warrior, and 3-shots bosses.

The game is too easy even in high lvl. If anything, mob density may be too high.

If I can start playing the game without lag, i may start to complain about other stuff as well.

Where can I learn more about this "vision" that people keep referring to? Did they make a video or a manifesto for it?