Feedback and Some New Ideas for the Future of Game

I am writing these ideas because I like the game, it gives me a good time, and I care about the future of the game, I hope you take it into consideration. My biggest expectation from Poe2 was that, unlike other ARPG games on the market (including Poe1), it would break away from the game structure where we would use a single ability to destroy hundreds of monsters on the screen and run around incredibly fast from one map to another, and bring an innovative perspective to this genre. I was expecting a game structure where we would use various cool abilities and fight monsters for real, requiring strategy and coordination, and most importantly, where each monster encounter would be meaningful. There are definitely steps taken in the right direction, and seeing them gave me great hope. Unfortunately, however, Poe2 has not yet reached this point. The current game structure is very similar to Poe1. Although Campaign feels different in this regard, it is still not there yet, but the main problem, Endgame, does not feel any different from Poe1. Don't get me wrong, I love Poe1 and have played it for nearly 1000 hours. However, we do not need another one of its kind. I know that this is not the intention of the developers, but what worries me is that the criticisms of some big streamers and YouTubers are dragging the game back to this point. There are other very good and appropriate criticisms from these streamers, so I am not saying that the content of these criticisms is completely wrong, but some criticisms also carry the risk of turning this game into a different Poe1, so my expectation from the developers is to choose the right criticisms. From here on, I will share my own criticisms and ideas.

1) Monster density: In a game where every monster encounter is important, constantly encountering hundreds of monsters every second does not fit the main ideology of the game at all. I am not saying that we should always fight in small numbers, being surrounded by a lot of monsters all of a sudden makes for a very exciting encounter. However, the fact that this is a constant situation both makes this excitement meaningless and creates a very annoying situation due to the way the skills in the game work (except for spark and herald of ice, but they are a completely different issue on their own). While playing the campaign, we encounter new and different monsters in each region, we learn how these monsters attack us and what strategy we should follow, but this beautiful atmosphere completely disappears when we move on to the endgame. In the endgame, I don't even see the monster in front of me most of the time.

2) Modifiers: I think the idea of ​​modifiers being the element that determines the difficulty in a game is now quite old and personally I think it is a lazy method. Even in this early access state of the game, there is actually a lot of creative and interesting content that provides us with difficulty. Poisonous plants in the region we are in, various traps, different monsters and their different attacks, different map structures, and many other things. I want to ask those who will read this, what should be the difference between the normal form of a monster type and a special and more difficult form that we rarely encounter? Should it explode like a fireball or explode when it dies? I know it is not an easy task, but I am sharing this because I have really high expectations from this team and the game. I think if a monster is rare, this should be obvious from every angle. You already have a nice theme like monsters becoming corrupted due to the beast's effect, please use it. For example, you can design different versions of monsters that will be corrupted in a different and more difficult way, which will create a mini-boss effect for us. It can have more limbs, be huge, breathe fire, you can be creative, I really think here. I think this is a huge missed opportunity. Because I also see how creative this team is. What makes a region difficult shouldn't be that the monsters have 50% more health and we are 30% weaker. These ideas are more than 20 years old, please think of something new. Poe2 is the perfect game for these.

3) Waystones and atlas: I really liked the general structure of the new atlas. The idea of ​​conquering different regions and progressing and reaching the regions where the endgame bosses are as a result of this progress is quite nice. However, it feels insufficient in its current state. Maybe this is the original intention and more is not wanted, I don't know, but I still think there is a huge potential here. When you look at this idea from the first map, it almost comes close to an open world structure. And I think you can use this approach. Of course, I'm not saying turn the game into an open world, my request is definitely not in this direction. However, I would like each waystone we enter to feel more meaningful. I'm definitely not saying add boring tasks like taking this stone and moving it to there, other than killing monsters, but if you are making larger maps compared to Poe1, I think new content can be added to these maps. There may be targets to be discovered and special treasures and battles that we will encounter here, there may be secret areas, there may be interesting and not boring small quests related to the lore of the game (but of course let's not collect mushrooms for a villager or kill 50 goblins). In summary, we see on the map that we are progressing in the game with waystones, I mean let's feel this while we are actually playing. Let's feel that we are going somewhere, that we are progressing for a purpose.

I tried to give criticisms about the basic structure of the game as much as possible because character and balancing changes can always be made, but I think it would be too late if the opinions about the basic structure of the game that I saw and felt were inadequate were not expressed at this stage. I would be happy if you share your ideas with me.