Dear GGG, This Why POE1 is Fun and POE2 is Not.

"

Cadmus185#9233 wrote:

all i read was whining and wanting poe 2 to be poe 1. it is not, and not going to be. if you want POE 1, go play POE 1....

"

Kraythax#2592 wrote:

I have yet to get a character out of ACT 1.

"

Kraythax#2592 wrote:

In POE1 3.26 Mercenaries I have two chars. Both effectively SSF. They are both Champions and although one is in trade league he doesn't trade. He is only in trade league because GGG doesn't have Solo Character mode. They are fun and as a working adult they are my free time. They haven't killed all the elders yet, I am doing both of their builds myself with no guides and whenever I log into them time slips away and I have to add alarms to make sure I go do things in RL because they are fun. I switch back and forth depending on my mood.

By contrast in 0.3 of POE2 I have yet to get a character out of ACT 1. Its not that I cant. I simply cant be bothered because it is unfun. I have tried a dozen combos to see if anything was fun and the closest I got is Sorc Ice Nova and Frost Bomb but even that can be characterized by a single word. SLOOOOOOOOW.

In POE1 you get off the beach and are confronted with Hillock. He isnt that hard to beat once you practice a bit. Marauder has the toughest time of all but if he is smart he moves in and out and kills him. Then after you get your skill gem you go fight in the coast. The mobs start being aggressive here, you learn to deal with projectiles and flamethrower guys. You then RUN from fire fury unless you are a poison or bleed build because she will just kill you. Then you get to the flats. Rhoas are a super pain and its a slog. Many times you shave close with death as they run in and stun you but eventually you dodge them, grab the three items and open the passage. I usually pick up the tidal island. The frost wave Hellrake uses isnt that bad now. Then I go in submerged passage. I try to avoid getting chain frozen and killed. Now its a good time to learn about cold resist. I get through the passage dropping a portal at the briddge then rush the ledge. Dont slow down or you will get mobbed here. The goats in the climb are a serious hastle but not that bad and finally you are at the prizon. Double back and get dweller by going to town and jumping through the portal you dropped earlier, take him out. Finally you clear the prison having to deal with dozens of necros and bleeding skeletons but your build is starting to take shape. You have a movement skill like dash or frost blink to get out of danger. You fight your way through skeletons and kill Brutus who is a challenge to all but a few builds (yep ... casters basically roast him ... GGG has it in in for melee but still doable.)

At this point in POE1 your character is gaining power. If you are melee you are using sweep or cleave or double strike with ancestral call. Sunder will be a big power spike. You are learning reists and the game get progressively harder but your power keeps up with that if you do a halfway decent job of allocating passives. There are dozens of skills you can use. You want to be a big warrior with a spell "Righteous Fire" no problem. There is a way to do that. By the time you are at the ship graveyard you are taking out packs. The packs get harder and require you to fix resists. By the chamber of sins you can move through and unless you are just not awake you have now a power spike. By the end of act 3 you have some power and are now 3-ish hours into the game if you are taking your time. This will continue and you will encounter areas where the monsters get more powerful and you have to fix your resists then you find out about bleed in act 4 and so on.

In POE2 it is very different. You spawn on the beach and there are a bunch of slow moving zombies you can engage with. After you get your first gem you are now assaulted by quick moving projectile crabs. If you are melee you probably avoid them. if you are deadeye (any ranged or caster) they just die fast. You encounter the first boss and casters tear him a new one. Melee guys tactically fight him dodging his moves and stepping in to make that kill. Then you get in clearfell and out into the main game. Clearfell is something of a chore to kill The mobs aggress you they are fast, they run you down. There is no chosing your engagements you need to learn to deal with multiple enemies. But if yo uare melee you dont have ancestral call so you pick them off with your staff or spear ... run ... pick them off ... run. Its like the mud flats in POE1. If melee yo ucan easily die here. If caster its probably no big deal. But the character never gains relative power. As you get further into the game the Mud flats continues. The game is like playing mud flats over and over again at level 2. Its a constant slog. There isnt enough power for the player, melee players are totally shafted. Spell casters have a bit morejiuce but have to deal with monsters they cant outrun and get swarmed by. If you dont AOE you just die. Its a constant unfun slog hour after hour. The boss designs are cool but by the time you get to them you could care less. Its just "GOD GET ME OUT OF THIS ACT" but that doesnt help because the next one the slog continues. Hours later you sit there having 10h into the game being near the end of act 2 and just done with it.

Now there are a couple chars that get through this mess. Lightning spear last league was a loophole skill that actually gave POE1 like power but of course it is nerfed now. Instead of making all skills have power they made all skills have no power. Its like "lets make everyone equally pooor and then we will have equality." However the casters and ranged are most likely to have the loopholes because they do AOE damage and can keep distance on the packs, usually followed by minions. But even they find monsters overpowering their minions. When they find a niche build people swarm to switch to it (lightning spear) and then of course GGG nerfs it.

Its not about game balance, which char is better or worse. GGG seems to take toe approach that the best thing to do is to nerf any skill that gives players a notion of power. I play melee almost exclusively and they are NEVER on the power end. Cyclone would probably be termed overpowered so they just didnt put it in. in fact they didnt put in any melee skills that work. Sunder got a slow as dog crap animation to keep it from being spammed (a.k.a viable). Instead of bringing up other classes to this power and allowing them to "clear" they want everyone battling through the mud flats at level 2.

And there is why POE2 is unfun. The entire game is the mud flats at level 2. You never gain any relative power. The game is constantly trying to punish you. This is why people refer to it as "dark souls with ARPG elements" but Dark Souls is a boss fight challenge game. This game is just a mud flats at level 2 slog. Run, dodge run kill one mob, run , dodge, run, avoid poorly telegraphed insta-kill ground effect, run, dodge get swarmed and die. Spawn with it all respawned .... uh .... just like dark souls. Hmm.

I am not sure what the deal is but someone at GGG has lost the thread. You will see this game hemorage players again in this league. I joined to play this league exclaiming "the devs listened to us" after the reveal. But the reality is no ... they didnt ... nothing has fundamentally changed. A VERY VERY VERY small percentage of players (less than 5%) will love the game even if it was jabbing needles in their arm. I am not trying to reach them because that is impossible. The rest of the players will simply leave.

Because no one wants to play mug flats at level 2 for a hundred hours.

"

DistributedAutomaton#5739 wrote:

"

Kraythax#2592 wrote:

I have yet to get a character out of ACT 1.

Why are you expecting a power fantasy in Act 1? This is closer to Morrowind than Skyrim. You aren't the Chosen One. You're a schlub with potential who barely escaped the hangman's noose.

I think the very first encounter with the Abyss monsters might be overtuned. Everything else is easier (sometimes much easier) than 0.2.

You experience and mine are very different.