GGG, Wake Up! Meta Tyranny is Killing POE2. Non-Meta Builds are Trash and Trade's a Nightmare!

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Warrax#2850 a écrit :

I swear people lost touch on how to play ARPG, instead they whine and call for nerfs. A lot of builds are viable, they are simply underrated/underplayed. People dont wanna do research, they prefer to copy builds, players are part of the problem and tourists make it worst.

+1

Well i agree that non meta builds have zero chance to be competitive. If you make them be faster at mapping i think it would be fine. The issue is most ascendancies are just worse than Deadeye or Bloodmage.

If you just want to paly the game then you can play everything and probably finsih all things too.

I'll just say, in this community too many ARPG players care excessively about the "Action" part and not enough about the "Roleplaying Game" part. Casters underperforming early it's like RPG 101, same with Warriors being perceived as "weak" on paper and easy mode gameplay on practice.

Deadeye being OP doesn't mean you have to play Deadeye, so far Warrior, Witch, Monk and Mercenary have all viability in all their respective ascendancies (I won't comment on the Huntress as I didn't play her).

Spending 40 minutes on the first boss is certainly skill issue, and I don't say this to bait you, but Geonor is a skillcheck the same way the golden guy from Act 3 is a DPScheck. Geonor has shitty HP and very telegraphed attacks, if you have beaten Draven then Geonor is just one more layer of difficulty.

I agree on something. I don't really mind the long campaign but I understand that as it is now, it's too long compared to PoE1, and is not even finished yet. You can expect it to become even longer after Act 5 and 6. I feel like you should only need to complete it on your first league character, and subsequent characters are given these "interludes" to reach the endgame faster. Mind you, I feel like Poe2 does a better campaign that Poe1's sad tutorial that may as well be deleted. But it's true that if you intend to play multiple characters in one league, it becomes too long.

I'm more and more convinced that this obsession with handing out negatives along positives is a big reason what kills build diversity. It either straight up butchers what could be a fun build or it forces you into a very tight lane to pick other specific things that will negate the negatives again.
If not removing the negatives GGG should at least consider to make them more dynamic by giving players choices that might not impact their prefered playstyle so much.

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Granathar#7992 a écrit :

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Which can be mitigated by starting with a meta build first to farm some currency and better starting gear to allow the less meta builds a better start.

Are you really going to defend game balance this way? /endless rant

No, I simply mentioned a solution which can be applied considering the current state of the game. I never said it's good so wipe that foam off your mouth. Jeez...

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Granathar#7992 a écrit :

Creating alts is something you do when you still want to play, but your main is finished / you got bored, not sad necessity because of shitty game design lol.

Speak for yourself. I currently have three chars and I haven't even finished Act 4 once. Unlike a lot of other people I enjoy playing the campaign.

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Urza_Mechwalker#7393 a écrit :

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SoFaux#7759 a écrit :

I started with a Warrior on SSF with my own build. ARPGs tend to be easier than most video games in my experience in terms of gameplay. I think you should branch out and play some more games like Nioh 2 which has ARPG and Soulslike qualities. Act I's boss was a nice change of pace but I don't believe there is anything remotely difficult about this campaign. I am a proponent of buffing these bosses.

I also have a SSF Witch Infernalist minion build in 0.3 and it is just automated gameplay at this point. I'm really not sure what issue people are having unless they think having to press more than 1 button makes a build not worth playing. All I do is use the abilities that buff minion damage and let them do everything. I don't attack enemies nor have to aim. If anything, LA Deadeye should be nerfed. I don't want to see this game go in the direction of PoE1. ARPGs should innovate and evolve, not die as the Diablo dad gamers die out. There is no action in PoE. Maybe it should be labeled and idle sim? I am hoping GGG is making changes to tap into the market of people who like making builds but also don't want to be grinding while pressing only 1 button.

A bit unfair comparisson. Nioh2 is 10 times deeper and more complex (and 10 times more loot pinata than any ARPG). Pity they are not going to make Nioh 3 :(

Not sure if you heard, but Nioh 3 will be releasing the early 2026! Go check out some gameplay

PoE2 became a hostage of its own combo-based design.
Take spells for instance.
There are 3 spells total which are designed as the "clearing" skills:
Spark, Arc, Fireball.
Everything else requires a lot of setup and\or supportive and can be used in some rare cases to get shocks, to nuke, to gain infusions, etc.
Or take spears. For instance, you want to play an elemental-based Amazon build. What options do you have for clear? Basically three and a half: Lightning Spear (super boring), Twister + Whirling slash, Primal Strikes (requires the shocking ground boots) and Thunderous Leap if you're playing Titan.
What's happening right now is that people optimizing their builds, trying to get rid of as many unnecessary buttons as possible. In the end, we're left with like 3-4 viable options (good clear, not annoying to use, good\okay-ish to scale, etc) for each weapon archetype.
That's basically the reason why we only see the most basic setups and nothing else.
The game was designed that way.
I believe that GGG wants to fix that and Jonathan said that they will buff underperforming skills, potentially making any of them viable. Hopefully it will happen in the next patch.

I feel like, after about 400 hours, I'm not really feeling the "role-playing" element in this game's Action Role Playing Game tagline. Some people do get the chance to enjoy different aspects of the skills and builds in the campaign. The game, however, tends to shift drastically toward a different approach in the endgame. The rate of loot drops and the quality of those drops tend not to reward much else other than the fastest possible clearing speed, and ranged area-of-effect builds no less. One potential solution to the problem, in my opinion, would be to adjust the survivability of close-range combat builds to a much higher degree. Other possible solutions, as stated in a few notable forum posts, would be to adjust enemy density to compensate and pair nicely with the more methodical approach to combat the devs initially envisioned. This would satisfy the impression left by the game prior to launch. This poses another issue, however. To alter the game in this way would be to, with much dissatisfaction from the preexisting playerbase, create a game with the familiarity of something beloved and yet the feel of something quite foreign. Against the ideas posed before release, the developers are prompted with the choice between familiarity and potential: a choice hard-pressed by a split community. There is also the problem created by the game's early-access tag, which perpetuates the risk of the absence of feedback from the outside community in favor of the opinion of potentially biased long-standing community members of the previous game.