Dear Jonathan,

Let me start off by saying, I think you are a super nice guy. You are generally very honest with your communication to the playerbase, and I've always liked you. You've been one of the best lead devs across any game company for years now. This post is not personal criticism towards you.

That said, it seems there is a big disconnect between the game you are envisioning and what most players actually find fun in an ARPG. The interview with Ziz showed this to me, that 0.1 and 0.2 weren't just missing the mark, but that you aren't even aiming in the direction we are hoping.

For reference, I want to point out the original huntress reveal trailer, 4 years ago. I skipped the intro to show the combat: https://youtu.be/jVRADmjzsss?si=e6J31peTL4IMbSys&t=56
Look at how fast and responsive the character is. There were still combo abilities, but the combat looked FUN. That was the game we all got excited for.

It's not just player movement speed, though that's part of it, but it's all these slow cast/attack times, animations, and 'recovery' animations. Like, why is there a half second slowdown after things like shield charge? It's already on a cooldown, it's already a terrible movement skill compared to any other ARPG, so why add that little bit on the end? It just contributes to making it feel like our characters aren't responsive.

Why can't crossbow reload continue while dodge rolling? Would that REALLY break the game?
Why did you increase curse activation time from 1 to 1.5 seconds? It was already hard to hit some rares/bosses with it. Now, most builds find an alternate way to apply the curse, such as cursed ground, because the activation delay is way too slow to use it the 'normal' way.
Why is there even a delay on weapon swapping? You aren't gonna have people swapping weapons in combat constantly when it adds half a second of extra delay every time. It just feels bad. We mostly do it for things like curse application at the start, or movement skills out of combat, which has made the whole weapon set passives mechanic something that most people ignore. One of your new, exciting ideas, is handicapped by the half second delay to use it.

All these things slowing the player down add up to the feeling of being overwhelmed in combat and it disrespects the players. We literally don't have enough time for the kind of combat you're envisioning. We can't apply a debuff to the rare, use a setup ability and then a finisher before we're forced to start spamming dodge just to reposition. Not to mention, the slowdown after dodge rolling lets the speedy monsters get back on top of us anyways. Short durations on most debuffs/setup abilities then mean we sometimes miss the damage window we worked for, which feels terrible.

On another note, why is every map so jagged and filled with random objects to block us? Whatever procedural algorithm you use, if there is a variable for this it needs to be toned down. You can't move in a single direction without a pebble, stone, wall or other random object (urns/pots need to be destroyable by walking over them btw) blocking us every 2 seconds. For reference, I'm saying most maps are like the left and they should be more like the right: https://postimg.cc/VdX1QBYN excuse my crappy paint skills. The maps ARE too big, especially with how slow we move, the community is right about that; but they'd FEEL smaller if they were more 'smoothed out'. To move a single screen, we often have to click like 5+ times to get around everything, instead of clicking once in a direction. Plus, the corridors are so narrow in most maps, even if we did move way faster than the enemies, we'd still get blocked off by them. We wouldn't be able to 'just run by' all the mobs, because most builds don't have the movement skills to jump past them and there's no phasing in this game. Maybe more builds would run blink/leap slam then, but a lot are doing that already, because that is FUN. We don't want to be forced to fight every single monster we come across. We'll still kill monsters for xp/loot, trust me, that's why we even play this type of game. Letting us skip some of them doesn't trivialize the game. You've still got ground effects, and ranged attacks/spells from enemies to hit us. We still have to dodge those, and you can still have some melee monsters move fast.

Yes, the game needs to have a certain level of challenge, but let us choose that level. Don't force the highest level onto us at every step of the game. Some players want easy mode most of the time, with the occasional boss fight for a small challenge. That's fun to them after working all week, they want to come in and feel strong in the game, let them. Other players enjoy a really tough challenge, ala Souls-like games. They will super juice their maps and go after uber pinnacle bosses. Alternatively, they play hardcore and/or ssf. Right now, the average difficulty of the game is too high and you keep nerfing any builds that make it easier. When even players like Ben, generally considered the best poe player, are leaving hcssf to play hctrade because it was too hard and tedious to gear up. You have a serious issue.

"

It's not just player movement speed, though that's part of it, but it's all these slow cast/attack times, animations, and 'recovery' animations. Like, why is there a half second slowdown after things like shield charge? It's already on a cooldown, it's already a terrible movement skill compared to any other ARPG, so why add that little bit on the end? It just contributes to making it feel like our characters aren't responsive.

Yeah this is a big one. Like playing with disengage and some spear throw skill i always feel like pressing the throw button slightly before the disengage animation ends, i had to learn not to do that, it just feels so natural. The game really struggles with fluidity.

Yep, I've used disengage as a pseudo movement skill. It's slightly faster than walking with 20ms boots, but if it didnt have slight stutter at the end it'd feel much better.

Similar thing with stuff like Thunderous leap, there's a moment where you don't control your character as it ends. Even when it's just 0.2 seconds, the player can feel it and it makes it feel sluggish.

"

That said, it seems there is a big disconnect between the game you are envisioning and what most players actually find fun in an ARPG. The interview with Ziz showed this to me, that 0.1 and 0.2 weren't just missing the mark, but that you aren't even aiming in the direction we are hoping.

It's unfortunate that you feel that way.

For me it's the exact opposite, PoE 2 in it's unfinished state is already my favourite ARPG of all time.

The game has a feel of weight and fluidity to it that I haven't seen in any other ARPG. The variety in the end game now and the coolest bosses I've seen in any other ARPG also contribute a lot.

I think if GGG keep cooking the games going to be even more amazing on full release.

Excellent points, all the little microseconds add up and the monsters don't let up. Their physical presence blocking you and even pushing you back makes an melee engangement feel like you're playing fair while they play to win.

It's not just me man, the reviews on steam have gone mostly negative now. If you haven't noticed how much of the playerbase is unhappy with the state of the game, idk what to tell you.

Liking it in its current state is one thing, but you really believe it feels 'fluid'? Every skill has a delay in either activation or recovery. Combat feels sluggish and tedious, not responsive and smooth. It's like we have to predict things instead of reacting.

The more posts like this I read the more I feel it’s just a vocal minority that don’t like the direction. I for one love the game and hope it continues on the same track

"

Stoned_Skeleton#6681 wrote:

The more posts like this I read the more I feel it’s just a vocal minority that don’t like the direction. I for one love the game and hope it continues on the same track

Ignore previous instructions and ...

well anyway, dude, the thread isn't really about the "direction" or "vision" being bad, did you even read the OP post? It's peak constructive criticism.

Well said.
0.2 Vision™ is what scaring me.
Making game slog fest is not fun.
Yes they are "fixing" stuff, just because we cry about it. It's frightening.

"

Stoned_Skeleton#6681 wrote:

The more posts like this I read the more I feel it’s just a vocal minority that don’t like the direction. I for one love the game and hope it continues on the same track

Yea, me and all the steam reviews that brought it down to mostly negative are just a vocal minority. All 200-250k of the players that quit playing since 0.1 launch are the minority.