Um, every Diablo game has difficulty modes? Simple damage multipliers do the job well enough.
As for "just play white low tier waystones" - sure, but you omit small detail: there is absolutely no loot there, poe is balanced around breaking it with specific few builds. Point of difficulty levels is that player can still visit and complete all content with less effort. Poe endgame content was always hard locked to T14+ maps.
jesus christ, read the freaking post.
And lol that you are using Diablo difficulty modes as a GOOD example. D1? Nope. D2? Nope D3? Yes but if you played at lesser difficulties.....YOU GOT A CRAP TON LESS LOOT. You functionally could not play D3 at anything less than a mid or upper tier inferno difficulty. And ancient items and higher gems were "gated" behind higher inferno difficulty (seems awfully familiar to your criticism of PoE no?) Plus, these didn't exist for the first year or two of the game. D4? Same as D3 except LESS Lol.
[Removed by Support]
Maybe you forgot, but during D2 mainstream years (before all those character editors were developed), the usual scenario of casuals first coming to Hell difficulty (and meeting exp penalty) was often to retreat back to Nightmare difficulty to prepare themselves better without being kicked by exp penalty. This is how the system should work, option should be there as you are not the only person playing here.
Poe never tried to accommodate to different players, it was "bear with us or screw off, thank you for your support".
As for D3 and D4 torment-only loot, I spoke about content first. In D3/D4 loot you refer to is only used for minmaxing, you don't need it to see all sights game has to offer. In poe minmaxing comes before content, pinnacle bosses will oneshot players trying to sleep on minmaxing stage. Which drags numerous undesired consequences in tow, like mandatory trade interactions, eating many exp penalties during minmaxing itself, new map sustain problem in poe2.
I realize GGG is doing it on purpose, they spoke many times about "ok to have aspirational content most players won't reach". Which means they will remain niche project forever, with limited audience size. If they manage to survive on said audience alone, good for them.
There definetely is a kind of player POE does not accommodate towards and there is a clip of them, along with their false assumptions on ... pretty much everything.
Just curious what others think, but maybe a middle ground would be acceptable?
Lets say, you always start with 6 tries on a map, but in the atlas passive tree you can pick nodes that make the map harder (+quant +rarity) at the expense of one of those tries (it could also add an additional negative modifier to spice things up). That way newer players can enjoy early access at their leisure.
Have an amazing build and want to do some solo farming? Respec the tree to use the five nodes that reduce respawns.
Having trouble learning the game and sustaining maps? Don’t pick to many of those points, or just 1 or 2 of them so you can still complete your map.
If you want to play during peak times but are worried about latency or hardware issues? Spec into all but one of these nodes to give yourself an extra chance (in case you get an 11 breach map and your game starts crashing/lagging).
It could mirror team play as well. The nodes could add difficulty and rarity/quantity equivalent to having 1/2/3/4/5 additional players, allowing solo players to experience greater difficulty.
Ultimately, I’ve always loved how much POE allowed me to customize my playing experience. Allowing newer and older players greater customization/flexibility might be best for new player interest and longevity.
Just curious what others think, but maybe a middle ground would be acceptable?
Lets say, you always start with 6 tries on a map, but in the atlas passive tree you can pick nodes that make the map harder (+quant +rarity) at the expense of one of those tries (it could also add an additional negative modifier to spice things up). That way newer players can enjoy early access at their leisure.
Have an amazing build and want to do some solo farming? Respec the tree to use the five nodes that reduce respawns.
Having trouble learning the game and sustaining maps? Don’t pick to many of those points, or just 1 or 2 of them so you can still complete your map.
If you want to play during peak times but are worried about latency or hardware issues? Spec into all but one of these nodes to give yourself an extra chance (in case you get an 11 breach map and your game starts crashing/lagging).
It could mirror team play as well. The nodes could add difficulty and rarity/quantity equivalent to having 1/2/3/4/5 additional players, allowing solo players to experience greater difficulty.
Ultimately, I’ve always loved how much POE allowed me to customize my playing experience. Allowing newer and older players greater customization/flexibility might be best for new player interest and longevity.
What about just keeping one try per map, but letting the players choose the level of difficulty they engage with, like let's say, something like Tiers going from, I dont know, maybe from 1 to 15 or something.
And if the players want, they could also, somehow, change the map parameters with like an item, let's call it a waystone, they could alter with currencies for crafting, and choose or not to run. Ho yeah, that would be nice.
And after a time, people could also add more modifiers to the map they run by like running a special map like a tower and putting at the top another currency modifier item, like a tablet, to add more challenges to the maps.
Ho yeah, so like that any players could adjust the difficulty of the content they run accordingly to their abilties, gear, and build.
Just curious what others think, but maybe a middle ground would be acceptable?
Lets say, you always start with 6 tries on a map, but in the atlas passive tree you can pick nodes that make the map harder (+quant +rarity) at the expense of one of those tries (it could also add an additional negative modifier to spice things up). That way newer players can enjoy early access at their leisure.
Have an amazing build and want to do some solo farming? Respec the tree to use the five nodes that reduce respawns.
Having trouble learning the game and sustaining maps? Don’t pick to many of those points, or just 1 or 2 of them so you can still complete your map.
If you want to play during peak times but are worried about latency or hardware issues? Spec into all but one of these nodes to give yourself an extra chance (in case you get an 11 breach map and your game starts crashing/lagging).
It could mirror team play as well. The nodes could add difficulty and rarity/quantity equivalent to having 1/2/3/4/5 additional players, allowing solo players to experience greater difficulty.
Ultimately, I’ve always loved how much POE allowed me to customize my playing experience. Allowing newer and older players greater customization/flexibility might be best for new player interest and longevity.
I have to say I genuinely dislike this approach as much as I appreciate the effort. Making portal count an atlas passive only risks significantly increasing the spread in power of wealth and progression for those with the big meta screen nuke builds over those who can't reliably risk fewer portals. It is not an ideal approach. Quite frankly, if there really is enough pushback against changing it, the compromise is a Mediumcore league the makes death punitive beyond exp loss.
This has got to be changed. Flat out, has GOT to be changed. I've never encountered a game that has screamed at me this loud to just stop playing because of how little it respects my time. The current state of balancing is bad enough (especially Warrior/Mace and how bad Armor/Life is as a defense that can't even handle being hit by physical attacks stronger than a wet noodle, the thing it's supposed to defend against). We already lose 10% exp which is a loooooooooot of experience once you creep past level 90 with how long it takes to gain. You're already fixing one-attempts for pinnacle, so fix it for everything else, too.
Remove the map reset on death (because campaign does the same thing, all mobs respawn and map resets as if you never entered), retain any incomplete mechanics, and give us back 6 portals already. One-attempt is a terrible mechanic for numerous reasons:
Spoiler
- Softcore league has certain expectations.
Death should be meaningful (lose something, like exp) but you shouldn't be losing too much. Softcore should NOT be losing loot, map mechs, AND waystone on top of the already significant experience loss. I'm not aware of a single game THIS punitive that isn't by design a rogue-like/lite with baked in hardcore mechanics. PoE's classic inspiration of D2 dropped your body and gold. Many like games since have had little to any death penalties beyond time spent. Last Epoch only costs you the bonus reward for a Monolith node, or time to build up another attempt for the Monolith or Shade boss. The extremely punitive death penalty in PoE2 goes against expectations of a softcore league. Nobody signed up for this.
- The stress of survival feels too close to Hardcore
As mentioned, Softcore has certain expectations. Dying is never desirable, even if all you ultimately lose is time to return and reattempt. Some people like the thrill of that threat, but I gave up on hardcore ages ago because I no longer want to risk the loss in time investment and got tired of too many one-shots in the likes of PoE1 or bullshit moments in any number of other like ARPGs. The stress of one bad move or one bullshit moment is too damn much. I want to play for fun, not for threat, and softcore is a threat. It makes it a chore and more frustrating than it should be thanks to the threat of losing my entire map (plus all loot, mechanics, and the waystone on top of the already significant exp loss for rate of gain at 90+).
- Dying and losing your map is intensely demotivating and demoralizing.
This is made even worse by the game's current abhorrent state of balance, especially for Armor/Life as I only have a warrior in maps right now. When you can run dozens of maps at the more or less same level of juicing and suddenly get one shot by a rare, or a normal attack from a boss that ignores dodge (or hell, a bug, like the Forge boss's sword not blocking the inferno's damage once no matter where I stood), or any number of bullshit moments beyond your control in the hectic nature of this game's game play, it feels all that much worse losing so much.
- Losing the entire map creates significant risk of a Negative Feedback Loop
Map sustain droughts happen. I've had times where I was juicing 300+% around T9 or 10 and would get next to no waystones, and they'd never be above 4 or 5. Knowing what my build can more or less handle, it also means certain map mods brick the waystone before I can even use it (I miss Scouring and Alteration orbs SO friggen much because of this, such a weird choice to remove them entirely rather than making them rare), further negatively impacting map sustain. If I then die once or twice--my fault or otherwise--I could risk going back many tiers worth of maps, which any further drought will only then make even worse. It feels horrible losing map sustain for the tier you're able to reliably clear. This reason alone should be all GGG should need to bring back 6-attempt maps, or at least return to the drawing board and find a sensible compromise (Hell, I'd be fine with 3 attempts as a compromise, so long as I can then town portal as much as I want (just prevent use of TP during boss encounters if that could pose a problem)).
I've heard many counter arguments favoring one-attempt, but aside from my points laid out above, here are the reasons why these counter arguments fall flat:
Spoiler
- Players will be incentivized to glass cannon/skip defenses with multiple attempts
Glass cannon builds capable of nuking the screen are already the meta, both in PoE1 and in PoE2. In fact, it could just as easily be argued that glass cannon/screen nuke build players are incentivized to play such builds more as a result of one-attempt. Knowing there's only one chance, the "path of least resistance" mindset leads to just killing everything on screen before it can threaten you. Without knowing precise numbers, it's only anecdotal that there would be any more or any fewer players "skipping" defenses. Besides, as anyone would quickly discover, you still need a viable minimum, so this isn't a strong point to favor punitive one-attempt.
- Players will push harder content than they should and die constantly to clear maps by using most or all 6 portals.
Leveling up is still desirable. Those last 30ish passive points (as most players will be tickling the taint of level 70 if not leveled passed it by end of campaign) can still significantly benefit your build. The exp penalty is already enough of a disincentive to not smash your head against a brick wall hoping it crumbles. I fail to see how an almost certainly minority of players is going to negatively impact anyone else, nor the trade league economy that a properly played build juicing T15+ isn't already inflating.
- Death needs to be meaningful and is a teachable moment.
Exp loss is already meaningful, and there are plenty of other ways for GGG to make death meaningful. They could downgrade the map's level, costing you the chance of drops at the ilvl you need; You could lose mods on your map, thus weakening it; You could have a re-open cost through some currency charge, new or existing. And beyond that, there's nothing teachable about the game auto-targeting the wrong enemy, or being pushed into a corner that traversal/dodge can't push out of, or suddenly encountering a super juiced rare that is doing easily 10 times or more the damage of any other similar rare (even of the same mob type), or just some unlucky moment that you simply could not react to like a crit or bug or something lost in the visual clutter. Nothing is teachable when you're one shot or fighting the game more than the monsters. And with this game's mob damage balance just being "Line go up", there's nothing teachable about mobs that can zoom across the screen with damage you can't reliably recover from or avoid that offer no mechanical strategy in a game that puts so much more emphasis on player skill, tactics, and reaction. Nothing is teachable about being hit by the equivalent of a Golden Gun in content you're clearing that doesn't even raise your resting heart rate.
- The death is your fault and you should learn how to play/git gud/you're just bad
All the more reason for multiple portals. How am I expected to learn from deaths legitimately my fault if I can't re-attempt the encounter that killed me? What is teachable about dying to something you didn't even register? What is teachable about misjudging a boss attack and not being able to go back to try again? And so what if someone is not a good player, do they not deserve a more casual experience that allows them to get better? No one deserves for their time to feel like it was wasted, especially a video game we play for fun. No matter a player's skill or fault for a death, we signed up for Softcorefor a reason.
They should at least add in "Revive Coins" like how the Chinese Client of the Game offers by Tencent.
Revive Coins – Allowing players to revive in place instead of having to restart maps, reducing frustration in tough encounters.
Revive coins: you may buy and spend these coins to revive in SC leagues to avoid XP loss up to level 95. The costs go up gradually, up to 4 coins per deaths at level 90+.
These coins are not very expensive and are often given as free gifts.
They might also want to think about adding in QoL Features from Chinese PoE That Should Be Added to the International Version such as:
1. (Auction House/Trade Market) – A more streamlined, in-game trade system that reduces reliance on third-party websites.
2. Revive Coins – Allowing players to revive in place instead of having to restart maps, reducing frustration in tough encounters.
3. More Stash Space by Default – The China version provides more stash tabs without needing as many microtransactions.
4. Pet Auto-Item Pickup – Pets can automatically collect currency and basic items, reducing the need for manual looting.
5. Auto-Sort Stash Button – A single-click stash organization feature to quickly sort and arrange items.
6. VIP System – A battle pass-like system that provides QoL benefits without disrupting game balance.
7. Better Currency Stack Sizes – Increased stacking for currency items like Chaos Orbs, Exalted Orbs, etc., to free up inventory space.
8. Death Log (Death Recap System) – Provides a detailed breakdown of how you died, showing the final hits received, debuffs, mitigation details, and a timeline of incoming damage before death.
9. Auto-Identify Feature – Automatically identifies items when picked up, saving scrolls and time.
10. Improved UI & Minimap Enhancements – A cleaner, more detailed UI with better quest tracking and improved minimap clarity.
11. Daily Login Rewards – Small bonuses for logging in each day, such as currency shards or crafting materials.
12. Auto-Flask System – Automatically uses flasks based on conditions like health or mana thresholds, streamlining flask management during combat.
Comparison of Quality-of-Life Features: Chinese PoE vs. International PoE:
Hi guys, I checked out the chinese POE site today and noticed a post about multi-flask hotkey available in TGP(Tencent gaming platform?), it's an official program developed by the POE publisher Tencent.
From the thread it seems that you can toggle on/off for the flask you want to multi, and using tilde (~) to activate it.
How do you guys or GGG(if you guys are reading) think about this?
Here's a direct link to the picture I was talking about:
Just curious what others think, but maybe a middle ground would be acceptable?
Lets say, you always start with 6 tries on a map, but in the atlas passive tree you can pick nodes that make the map harder (+quant +rarity) at the expense of one of those tries (it could also add an additional negative modifier to spice things up). That way newer players can enjoy early access at their leisure.
Have an amazing build and want to do some solo farming? Respec the tree to use the five nodes that reduce respawns.
Having trouble learning the game and sustaining maps? Don’t pick to many of those points, or just 1 or 2 of them so you can still complete your map.
If you want to play during peak times but are worried about latency or hardware issues? Spec into all but one of these nodes to give yourself an extra chance (in case you get an 11 breach map and your game starts crashing/lagging).
It could mirror team play as well. The nodes could add difficulty and rarity/quantity equivalent to having 1/2/3/4/5 additional players, allowing solo players to experience greater difficulty.
Ultimately, I’ve always loved how much POE allowed me to customize my playing experience. Allowing newer and older players greater customization/flexibility might be best for new player interest and longevity.
What about just keeping one try per map, but letting the players choose the level of difficulty they engage with, like let's say, something like Tiers going from, I dont know, maybe from 1 to 15 or something.
And if the players want, they could also, somehow, change the map parameters with like an item, let's call it a waystone, they could alter with currencies for crafting, and choose or not to run. Ho yeah, that would be nice.
And after a time, people could also add more modifiers to the map they run by like running a special map like a tower and putting at the top another currency modifier item, like a tablet, to add more challenges to the maps.
Ho yeah, so like that any players could adjust the difficulty of the content they run accordingly to their abilties, gear, and build.
Sounds nice.
What if, like, there was a forum for, I don’t know, feedback for early access. And lets say, in that forum, people of all stripes, including those who’ve already completed all the content, spitball ideas and thoughts.
But I’m down with low quality, low thought arguments. The game already has difficulty customization. Nothing you’ve “contributed” changes the fact that the game could have more difficulty customization.
But I’m down with low quality, low thought arguments. The game already has difficulty customization. Nothing you’ve “contributed” changes the fact that the game could have more difficulty customization.
MORE difficulty customization???? It needs MORE for you? You can't be serious. 15+ tiers, each with 3 "challenge" modes, plus additional difficulty which can be added via towers and the tree is.....not enough difficulty customization?
What....do you want to be able to sandbox every single monster encounter? Make your own game!
GGG has every right to set the baseline difficulty they are comfortable with. Just like D4 did, just like D3, just like nearly every rpg in existence. GGG has determined they wanted both PoE 1 and PoE 2 BASE to be harder than your average game. And it's still plenty easy enough. Man up and deal with it. Run the content you are capable of running. You pretty much have 50+ "levels" of difficulty when you hit the endgame to customize.
Starting anew....with PoE 2
Dernière édition par cowmoo275#3095, le 8 févr. 2025 21:28:13
Just curious what others think, but maybe a middle ground would be acceptable?
Lets say, you always start with 6 tries on a map, but in the atlas passive tree you can pick nodes that make the map harder (+quant +rarity) at the expense of one of those tries (it could also add an additional negative modifier to spice things up). That way newer players can enjoy early access at their leisure.
Have an amazing build and want to do some solo farming? Respec the tree to use the five nodes that reduce respawns.
Having trouble learning the game and sustaining maps? Don’t pick to many of those points, or just 1 or 2 of them so you can still complete your map.
If you want to play during peak times but are worried about latency or hardware issues? Spec into all but one of these nodes to give yourself an extra chance (in case you get an 11 breach map and your game starts crashing/lagging).
It could mirror team play as well. The nodes could add difficulty and rarity/quantity equivalent to having 1/2/3/4/5 additional players, allowing solo players to experience greater difficulty.
Ultimately, I’ve always loved how much POE allowed me to customize my playing experience. Allowing newer and older players greater customization/flexibility might be best for new player interest and longevity.
I have to say I genuinely dislike this approach as much as I appreciate the effort. Making portal count an atlas passive only risks significantly increasing the spread in power of wealth and progression for those with the big meta screen nuke builds over those who can't reliably risk fewer portals. It is not an ideal approach. Quite frankly, if there really is enough pushback against changing it, the compromise is a Mediumcore league the makes death punitive beyond exp loss.
Fair point. I was thinking about this all day, and realized no matter what GGG does, someone will have a complaint. Figuring out how to reduce the knowledge gap between newer/older players may be the best way to tackle this issue.
