PoE2 needs to be its own game.

PoE2 shouldn't be a clone of PoE1. Especially since both games are intended to be developed alongside each other.

Many PoE1 mechanics simply don't coincide with the original vision of what PoE2 was meant to be (souls-like, ruthless, etc.), so they have no place being here.

One example of this would be Delirium; it just doesn't work with the vision of PoE2 - it actively punishes builds that don't blow up the entire screen instantly.

A second example would be Trials of the Sekhamas (Sanctum); it punishes builds that adhere to that same slower, methodical gameplay which was supposed to be the highlight of PoE2.

PoE1 league mechanics/endgame were designed for PoE1, so obviously they're not going to work in a format where the intended gameplay style is supposed to be different; slower, more tactical/methodical, etc.

Instead, currently we see the worst offenders of PoE1-style zoom'n'loot gameplay, where blowing up the entire screen/killing bosses instantly while moving at the speed of light is the "correct" way to play the game.

This is the complete opposite of what we were told things would be like through the advertising/marketing hype we saw before the release of early access.

What sense does it make to enable players to make PoE1-style builds within PoE2... when PoE1 exists? People looking for that kind of gameplay experience can just play PoE1. Trying to appease all playstyles within PoE2 just holds PoE2 back from being what it was meant to be, while creating counterproductive and self-conflicting overlap between the two games, which isn't beneficial to either.

I think they really need to focus on creating a unique gameplay experience, and some things I think they should do is:

• Item design that follows the intended gameplay design

I really think they need to rethink itemization. If the intended gameplay is meant to be tactical, more methodical, etc. then we should have a bigger emphasis on item modifiers that do just that. Tone down attack speed, damage, raw numerical increases, etc. and emphasize more interesting, gameplay changing things like:

- Spell damage slows enemy movement speed by _%
- X% chance to inflict bleeding/poison
- X% chance to reflect projectiles
- X% chance to reduce targets' damage by _.
- Adds _ (element) damage to melee attacks.
- Damage increased by X% against pinned/maimed/poisoned/stunned, etc. targets

Modifiers that change the way people interact with the game, rather than being stat-sticks to make number go up.

• Passive Tree that follows the intended gameplay design

The passive tree is kind of boring, even compared to PoE1. There's a huge opportunity here to actually make it a way for players to customize their characters, rather than how they make their character's numbers go up on a spreadsheet. Like items, passives could use a similar treatment, where changing the gameplay is emphasized more than increasing the numbers.

Here's some examples:

- Thrash About: X% increased damage against pinned targets. Pinned enemies thrash around, attacking targets around them.
- Sticky Grenades: X% increased AoE of Grenades. Your grenades stick to ground and targets directly hit before exploding.
- Pinning Bolts: Enemies close to walls struck by your crossbow attacks are pushed to the wall and pinned.
- End Misery: Your melee attacks have a X% increased chance to critical strike against maimed targets.
- Crippling Poison: X% increased poison magnitude. Poison applied by your melee attacks reduce the attack speed of the target by X%.

• Rethink the entire mapping experience

While I appreciate the effort behind the "living" atlas, it just doesn't work; it's ugly, it doesn't make sense, it creates more issues than it solves, and most importantly, it's just not fun. They took something that worked just fine and made it worse, then created towers, which are just a bad solution to a problem they created themselves.

Here's a better idea:

Simplify the entire process. You get a waystone, it has modifiers and a biome, you plop it into the map device, and you get thrown into a map. The biome tells you what it could look like and gives you an idea of the monster table. You know nothing about what's there, you just explore the area. Maybe there's a boss, maybe there's a random event/league mechanic, who knows. There's no objective besides exploring and killing stuff. Just make them random & procedurally generated; then nobody can complain about the layouts. It creates an infinitely re-playable experience that's easy to understand and jump right into.

Expand tablets to allow players to customize their waystones more to make up for getting rid of all the modifiers on maps. You want at least one boss guaranteed on your waystone? Put a Boss Tablet on it. You want things to be harder? Throw a +1 Monster Level Tablet on it.

• PoE2 "League" mechanics should be unique to PoE2 and emphasize its style of gameplay

If you port over league mechanics from PoE1, only PoE1 playstyles are going to be viable for them. They were designed with PoE1 in mind, not PoE2, so they're just going to force PoE1 style gameplay.

Sanctum and Delirium are both very guilty of this.

Ritual and Ultimatum are not so bad, Ultimatum just happens to be miserable when you gatekeep ascendancies behind it.

Expedition is just kind of dumb in my opinion; why are we blowing up sticks?

Why not give them all some new life?

Example 1: Expedition, but actually an expedition.

Instead of the current expedition of blowing up sticks, we have a real expedition, where we actually do some exploring and treasure hunting.

You talk to an NPC to prompt an expedition to an uncharted land. You can pick a variety of cargo to bring with you; this includes food, explosives, lanterns, pickaxes, shovels, etc. You only have so much cargo space. You have a stamina bar that goes down the longer you stay in the expedition area, as well as when you perform actions in the area without the proper tools. When you run out of stamina, the expedition ends. The objective is to find as much "treasure" as possible; special items hidden throughout the map.

You sail up to a random area and appear in a makeshift campsite. The zone is very large, random/procedurally generated, with random features scattered throughout. There are monsters and all that, and sometimes even other treasure hunters, who want to kill you and take your treasure. You can kill them and steal theirs.

Maybe there's a temple or a cave, where you pretty much can't see anything without a lantern, and that really drains your stamina the longer you stay in the darkness, but there's valuable treasure hidden within it.

Maybe there's debris blocking a passageway, where if you brought a shovel (maybe even explosives when you progress enough) you can clear the path without exhausting too much stamina, to find treasure behind it.

Maybe there's cliffs where if you brought rope, you can easily climb them to reach treasure up there.

Maybe there's overgrown vegetation, where a machete could help you clear it.

You get the idea.

Example 2: Delirium, but you actually go crazy in a cave.

Instead of a Delirium mirror, you enter a bottom-less cave, where the deeper you go down, the more a "sanity bar" goes down. As you become less sane, you see more and more hallucinations, some of which do nothing, and some of which are actual enemies, but there's no real way of knowing unless you kill them or take damage from them.

Killing hallucinations that aren't actually real enemies makes your sanity go down, which creates more hallucinations, which can easily spiral out of control until you lose all sanity, go unconscious, and wake up at the top of the cave, with the entrance collapsed in, ending the mechanic. Killing real hallucinations causes you to regain sanity, which can cause hallucinations to disappear. Throughout the cave, there's various objects you can interact with to regain sanity. The deeper you go, the higher your magic find, and the greater chance of special tokens dropping that allow you to start off deeper the next time you enter one of these caves. Maybe there's bosses when you go down deep enough or something. Maybe you tunnel into buried ancient ruins of lost civilizations, the tunnels/nest of some giant burrowing beast (devourers?), etc.

Example 3: Ritual, but you do a ritual.

There's a variety of different kinds of ritual shrines; each has different components required to perform its ritual.

One shrine might have: Insert a currency, insert a body part dropped by a boss monster in the area, and insert an curio found in a destructible in the area.

Reward(s): Duplicates the inserted currency

This is just an example.

You do the things it says, start the ritual, and then monsters spawn, a boss spawns, or whatever. If you fail, the items you inserted are lost.

Same idea, but now it's a scavenger hunt kind of thing.

• Diminishing returns on certain player stats

Things like attack speed should have diminishing returns. While there should be ways to make a character that's inherently quick, like your classic "rogue/thief" archetypes, monks, etc. stacking attack/casting speed shouldn't be the optimal goal for literally everyone.

There should be room for making characters who are slow, tanky, etc. but have very powerful attacks or can withstand a lot of punishment, without being punished for opting for that playstyle.

Warrior only feels bad because in comparison to everyone else, it has very few options to have a super-fast, zoom-around-killing-everything-instantly playstyle. Warrior actually feels really cool throughout the campaign. The problem isn't with Warriors, the problem is with everything else.

Ranged characters and spellcasters should have to consider their position, utilizing debuffs and slows, etc. Ranged abilities should do less damage than melee ones, since their advantage lies with being at a distance. AoE should be tuned down, and only really be effective at clearing large groups of weak enemy types, not entire screens. Large enemies should involve some effort.

• Enemy tuning to coincide with the gameplay

One shots should be very, very rare, and only apply to the most telegraphed attacks.

Most enemies should be drastically tougher, with higher life and defenses, while also slower, unless they're specifically designed to be a "swarmy" monster by nature

Right now, blowing up the entire screen is the best way to play because if you don't, you get swarmed and die.

What was the point of having all these monsters, scripted boss fights, both with different abilities, animations, etc. if they're all just meant to be exploded instantly? They should live long enough to actually do things, but they shouldn't be instantly killing players either.

Effects like blind, maim, pin, slow, debuffs in general, etc. are never going to be used by anyone unless there's a good reason to. If killing everything instantly is an option, there never will be.

Long post, doubt anyone will read it, but I just want to see the best for this game. It has so much potential. Thanks for reading anyone who did.

Yeah this is pretty much how i see it as well. Certain mechanics do not fit within the vision of the game.

Diminishing returns on speed should be higher, definetely. They need to really think about how they are going to handle attack and move speed, including boots, travel-skills, the armour movement speed penalty. Speed is often overlooked as just another stat to boost or 'play-style'. Its really everything, its defense and offense, clearspeed, it is mandatory.

In D2, if you knew what you were doing, every new ladder season you made either a sorc, or a hammerdin. They both have movement-skills and ranged attacks that could be the base of a 'magic find' character. Some don't see this as a problem having one zoom zoom to fund all your other characters, but if a large player-base doesn't like those play-styles or worse, it doesn't fit into the core gameplay, its detrimental.

Itemization is huge in ARPG so your points about that being important to compliment gameplay intention is spot on.

I don't want to write too much so I'll just say: i agree with the whole post.

"

This is the complete opposite of what we were told things would be like through the advertising/marketing hype we saw before the release of early access.

You can't sell new game showing disgusting POE1-like gameplay. This is why all ARPGS - before actual release - advertise themselvem as slow, clear, tactical, methodical, where everything matters, every single monster is unique and important and so on. People buy that - just to find out the game is a screen-clearing shtshow. Been like that with D3, D4, and now POE2.