Problems with PoE2's desire to be "the dark souls of arpgs"

As one of many voices in the "please don't nerf the difficulty" crowd 4 months ago, I think the recent patch 0.2's attempt to make the game more difficult and the resulting community backlash highlights a core design principle of soulslike games that isn't present in PoE2, which is the ability to overcome the game's difficulty through entirely mechanical skill.

You can, theoretically, beat elden ring's final boss on a level 1 character with no armor or weapons. It'd take like a straight hour or more of perfect gameplay, but it's possible. A much more practical alternative is doing it at level 1 with nothing but a max upgraded weapon, since adding damage brings you down to only needing to play about 7-10 minutes without making any mistakes. It's the core of "git gud", the idea that any situation in the game can be overcome by getting better at rolling, parrying, and decision making is what makes the difficult game rewarding to play.

Can you imagine trying to fight any of PoE2's bosses or even clear any of the zones after act 1 under similar conditions? The game is full of almost unavoidable damage sources, attacks that ignore dodge roll i-frames, and swarms of enemies that have no counterplay other then scaling your character's offense and defense high enough to overpower that enemy. Because of this, making the game more difficult by hindering ways for players to scale their character power or making the enemies stronger does not make the game more fun in the same way that putting more challenging enemies and environments in a game like elden ring or devil may cry does.

I don't have some big final point to make or solution to suggest. Would making dodge roll i-frames in poe2 a completely universal damage avoidance mechanic the way that it is in these other difficult action games that I enjoy make the game better? I have no idea. I just think that the people who are calling the shots in PoE2's development need to be more aware of this dynamic then they are.

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Frank#3975 wrote:

As one of many voices in the "please don't nerf the difficulty" crowd 4 months ago, I think the recent patch 0.2's attempt to make the game more difficult and the resulting community backlash highlights a core design principle of soulslike games that isn't present in PoE2, which is the ability to overcome the game's difficulty through entirely mechanical skill.

This. That's why I thought it was utterly nonsense the second the "souls-like" label was connected to PoE2. In the same way, PoE1 isn't a racing game because I can zoom with 300% movement speed. Things just don't work that way.

This is just rhetoric spammed from tencent to ape part of a seemingly adjacent market. they are not dark souls in any way, shape or form beyond aesthetic. literally zero percent.

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MeanBob_Games#6853 wrote:

This is just rhetoric spammed from tencent to ape part of a seemingly adjacent market. they are not dark souls in any way, shape or form beyond aesthetic. literally zero percent.

I think it's quite clearly always been the core intent of adding a dodge roll, slowing the game down compared to poe1, and trying to design boss fights that revolve mainly around avoiding large telegraphed damage bursts, and for the most part I love the attempt, the similarities to my other favorite genre are why I like poe2 more then poe1 even though 1 is great and they've stumbled quite a bit with 2.

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Frank#3975 wrote:

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MeanBob_Games#6853 wrote:

This is just rhetoric spammed from tencent to ape part of a seemingly adjacent market. they are not dark souls in any way, shape or form beyond aesthetic. literally zero percent.

I think it's quite clearly always been the core intent of adding a dodge roll, slowing the game down compared to poe1, and trying to design boss fights that revolve mainly around avoiding large telegraphed damage bursts, and for the most part I love the attempt, the similarities to my other favorite genre are why I like poe2 more then poe1 even though 1 is great and they've stumbled quite a bit with 2.

Yea i think when people who play PoE describe boss fights of Dark Souls it shows how bad they are at those games. You can face tank and blitz bosses in dark souls, if you dont its either because you dont know how or because your doing some sort of a challenge run.

Dark souls knows not everything should be a one shot because then it makes the one shots not as effective as a spectacle. Take Elden rings DLC boss Bayle the Dredd, it has a lot of near one shots, but really most are not one shots but near one shots. his only real one shots are his phase change explosion and 1 infrequently telegraphed attack (which isnt even truly a one shot) This game they not only one shot you, they overkill you so badly that you cant actually hope to defend yourself, you have to spec into evasion or block and hope for a "good roll" its fucking nonsense. Seriously, total bullshit.

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Frank#3975 wrote:

Would making dodge roll i-frames in poe2 a completely universal damage avoidance mechanic the way that it is in these other difficult action games that I enjoy make the game better? I have no idea. I just think that the people who are calling the shots in PoE2's development need to be more aware of this dynamic then they are.

You would also need to nerf pack size by 95%.

It's impossible to "dodge roll" 50 monsters. Even more so when half of them are ranged.

And there is another problem.

Elden Ring's goal is to beat the game = defeat the Elden Beast. PoE2 goal is to farm and make strong character. You will defeat 100+ bosses in the endgame if you play it a lot.

Hence making them super strong and removing ability to overpower them will be bad for the game. Imagine farming Radahn 100 times. And getting 1 exalted and 1 map after completion.

Yeah grinding end game has been too intense, cant chill and play. The problem is that youre playing dark souls(if youre not lightning spear) and the mobs are playing PoE1. ill let them cook till next patch again.

Also loot sucks in campaign and end game for all the effort you put.