Poe 2 further away from the ''Broader Audience'' goal

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2836742981#3689 a écrit :

Most of my IRL friends have quit. It's such a huge time committment. Let's be real, you can't really play this game 30-50 minutes a day and expect any reasonable progress. I decided to leave the game on a high note because I think the temple has been one of the best mechanics although it's not explained at all in the game.

That's the other thing. I have to YouTube and watch people to figure out how the temple mechanics even work! It's not explained in the game at all how it works, what rooms connect to what, how your temple can be bricked, etc. GGG relies too heavily on 3rd party vendors and sites to fill in this information gap. Then they have mid league patches that change how things work and can brick your temple. With the backlash they got, they had to revert those changes but they still diluted the medallion pool of spymasters. Like comon, just wait until end of league to make changes. I have no trust in this company after they have done so many small shadow nerfs like this. The other one that comes to mind is when they decided to hide all rares from the mini-map and didn't show it in the notes and the announcements. Or when they nerfed the Choir of the Storm interaction in 0.2 and it wouldn't build energy for CoC anymore. In the middle of the league, that can brick your build.

Theres just too many changes made in the middle that can brick your build and you have to keep up to date with. For new players, nothing is explained in the game and for crafting or really any useful mechanic you have to alt-tab and read websites or watch YouTube videos to understand. The progression curve can be terrible in campaign on your first run if you don't find any good weapon or it can be very smooth depending. Not to mention, you have to repeat the campaign on every single ALT character. This game just has way too many frustrations with it. It's not a challenge, it's just tediousness and friction for the sake of friction. And now I see them heading down the path where they will overbloat the game with more useless items. Each league mechanic they add more crafting materials without really explaining things. 0.3 was Abyss and 0.4 is now incursion. Some of that stuff is not really useful like delirium has no use besides the 3-4 times you might need it for instilling amulets. Or essences besides 3-4 are all useless. Well I tried POE1 and I saw like 20 pages of stuff on the Ange version of POE1 and I just quit. It's overwhelming. If they bring that kind of philosophy to POE2, I shudder to think where the game will be in a few years. 95% of the uniques are useless outside of campaign of very specific niche builds.

The reason POE2 gets a pass from most players is because it has pretty graphics and the visuals are outstanding (which is another issue, visual clarity lol). And the combat animations are smooth and satisfying. But the rest of the systems are horrid. Once you get past all of the pretty visuals and environment, the spell breaks and you realize you could be doing other and better things with your time and actually have fun/enjoy rather than adding another stressor in your life. I am already stressed about real world economy and inflation, the last thing I want to worry about is inflation in POE2 which happens in every league lol.

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Rora-hime#7011 a écrit :

Couldn't agree more about the disconnect between Campaign and Endgame.

When I first played this game, I had never heard of it or PoE1.
Had a lot of fun, ran my own thing, did okay. Not great, but okay. Played blind, didn't know anything about it going in, still had a ton of fun. Died plenty, but I was always learning what not to do in a boss fight so it was fine. Did a little better every time I fought them. Great feeling to finally win against a boss that had been giving me trouble.

Then I hit Endgame.

I want to say it was like hitting a wall, but it was more than that.
Hitting a wall is one thing. Diamora was a wall. Lythara was a wall. Difficult, but not insurmountable.
Endgame was like getting hit by a stray car careening off the highway when you weren't standing anywhere near a road and never saw it coming.

Now, it would be one thing if I could learn from that, but I just kept getting slaughtered without any context as to why, what I was doing wrong, or how to fix it.

And okay, Endgame is supposed to be on another level, I get that and I'm actually all for it! But it was like suddenly, I'm playing an entirely different game out of nowhere. A floor and a ceiling with no stairs in between was a really apt way to put it.

I haven't touched Endgame since before Abyssal league, I don't know if the changes they made to early tier maps helped all that much or not. I'm kind of waiting to see what they do with the overhaul, I'm happy just messing around in Campaign for now (I play slow, go at my own pace, because life is hard and being an adult sucks sometimes lol), but the disconnect is definitely part of the problem.

And sure, I was a "new player" when all that happened (and I'm definitely not claiming to be an expert now or anything because I absolutely am not), but is that really what you want your "new player" experience to be? Maybe it is. I'm sure my builds now could handle a lot more but it soured me on Endgame so much I haven't been back.


I also wish I could play with my SO more but he can't take the time commitment, and he's the one who introduced me to the game in the first place.

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Japonbu#0742 a écrit :

Being "better than other flawed mechanics" is a very low bar to set for a game that claims to be the king of the genre. You’re comparing the Temple to chores like Kingsmarch or mindless Delve nodes, but that doesn't fix the fact that the Temple’s current UI and stability are actively hostile to the player.

We agree that the combat needs to change to support melee and tactical play. But you cannot have a tactical game when the "strategy" phase (the building) is plagued by bugs and a lack of basic undo features. A true S-tier mechanic is one where the strategy is in the choices you make, not in fighting the interface to make sure your progress isn't deleted by a misclick.

If the "running the temple" part is broken because the combat loop is a one-shot mess, and the "building the temple" part is frustrating because of poor UI, then the mechanic is failing on both ends.

A great idea with poor execution is just a missed opportunity. GGG shouldn't get a pass for "good concepts" while the actual player experience is filled with unnecessary friction. If we keep settling for "at least the concept is okay," the devs will never have the incentive to fix the underlying technical mess.

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Exilion99#5481 a écrit :

Again, you focusing on the wrong thing.

Temple is absolutely need to be polished, but not removed. THIS is the direction we need to follow, not scrap an actually good idea.

I mentioned this before in other thread, Building Temple is a better Atlas than current Atlas.

For example, rather than infinite Atlas, it should be fixed, and those nodes can be "buffed" like we do temples. Of course, running, a cleared nodes requires something to open it again, like re-corruption via tower.

Focus on how the CONTROL the temple give for each tiles, and subsequent tiles or compounding as a whole. That's the great thing about temple.

Bad? UI? NO reset? 3rd party app? Research?

BAH, I don't care about that one bit. I don't care if MTX porting being delayed. I don't care about nitpicking QOL.

The fact remains, POE2 is unfinished. It's quite a mess. YET, the only good thing that stand out is the one you are being so loud to discard.

As long as GAMEPLAY & MECHANIC is good, the rest can be delayed for all I care.

Stop nitpicking small issue like doing research or bad UI.

It's wasting resources GGG don't have.

I'd rather they fix GAMEPLAY (melee oriented, as per campaign vision,ehp/def issue) before anything else.

THEN, I'd rather they have more worthwhile MECHANIC, like Temple.

Afterwards, yea, sure, update QOL here and there, polish stuff, whatever you want.

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Japonbu#0742 a écrit :

I need to vent a bit because, honestly, I'm confused about the direction of this game....

I love this franchise, but GGG needs to stop confusing "tedious complexity" with "depth." We need the fun back.

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1. Druid: The "Bear" Trap

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2. The "Fate of the Vaal" Disappointment
This league mechanic is arguably one of the worst in terms of respect for player time.

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3. Endgame is Still Missing in Action

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4. Technical State & The "Ghost Town" Effect
these should be ironed out by now.

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5. The Fear of "Soon™" (Patch 0.5 & 1.0)
What are we supposed to do until May?

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We need the fun back.

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Japonbu#0742 a écrit :

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Exilion99#5481 a écrit :

Again, you focusing on the wrong thing.


Afterwards, yea, sure, update QOL here and there, polish stuff, whatever you want.

A king of ARPGs doesn't ask its players to "not care" about a hostile user experience. It delivers depth and accessibility at the same time. Stop giving them a pass for being lazy.

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Japonbu#0742 a écrit :

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Schranzfranz#4329 a écrit :

The major problem is the Vate of the Vaal was written not by the intern but by the literal co founder of GGG Mr Rogers.


So the game director himself introduced this convoluted spreadsheet heavy system that he actually wanted to get rid off in POE2.

It seems they just lack critical manpower and workhours for this endeavour. Its not easy by any means to come up with some new league that the hardcore andys and also the gamer dads can enjoy. But The whole POE2 project feels like two entire different departments work on this game. And it goes back to warrior design vs ranger. Boomer design vs zoomers.

The whole crew feels overworked, incoherent in game design decisions.

GGG could barely keep up with POE1, now they have to maintain 2 games at the same time with even tighter schedule

Unless they hire 100 more people to work on this project i dont see anything changing in the near future.

The irony of Jonathan Rogers personally designing the Fate of the Vaal—a system that doubles down on the exact "spreadsheet-heavy" complexity he promised to eliminate—is the ultimate red flag. It shows a complete disconnect between the marketing vision and the actual creative direction.

You are spot on about the incoherent design. It feels like the Warrior was designed for a slow, tactical souls-like, while the Ranger was built for a high-speed bullet hell. When you force these two conflicting philosophies into the same endgame, balance becomes impossible.

Managing two massive live-service games simultaneously with a tired, overworked crew is a recipe for burnout and mediocrity. You can see the exhaustion in every bugged patch and delayed feature. If they don't have the manpower to maintain a consistent vision, they will continue to release half-baked mechanics that alienate everyone.

PoE 2 is suffering from a leadership crisis where the directors are falling back into their old habits instead of pushing the genre forward. Hiring 100 people might help the workload, but it won't fix a leadership team that doesn't know which game they are actually making.

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Ondrugs#1147 a écrit :

It is not and the stuff you mentioned of people rather staying human as to use the bear, wolf or wyvern from is only a case for people which care for meta and being faster or more efficient.

Thus it is a problem that casters are to powerful. Which is the case since release of beta now.

Yet it has the most player retention to any other league so far?

Which was to be expected and which they care for in 0.5

Technical State & The "Ghost Town" Effect
these should be ironed out by now.

Can you tell me about a game that is in EA and which had these problems and ironed them out in less than a year? I would bet you cannot.

The same we all did when we were finished with a league? Playing something different?

From anything you wrote here, I wonder which "back" you are referring to?

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Exilion99#5481 a écrit :

Again, you focusing on the wrong thing.

Temple is absolutely need to be polished, but not removed. THIS is the direction we need to follow, not scrap an actually good idea.

I mentioned this before in other thread, Building Temple is a better Atlas than current Atlas.

For example, rather than infinite Atlas, it should be fixed, and those nodes can be "buffed" like we do temples. Of course, running, a cleared nodes requires something to open it again, like re-corruption via tower.

Focus on how the CONTROL the temple give for each tiles, and subsequent tiles or compounding as a whole. That's the great thing about temple.

Bad? UI? NO reset? 3rd party app? Research?

BAH, I don't care about that one bit. I don't care if MTX porting being delayed. I don't care about nitpicking QOL.

The fact remains, POE2 is unfinished. It's quite a mess. YET, the only good thing that stand out is the one you are being so loud to discard.

As long as GAMEPLAY & MECHANIC is good, the rest can be delayed for all I care.

Stop nitpicking small issue like doing research or bad UI.

It's wasting resources GGG don't have.

I'd rather they fix GAMEPLAY (melee oriented, as per campaign vision,ehp/def issue) before anything else.

THEN, I'd rather they have more worthwhile MECHANIC, like Temple.

Afterwards, yea, sure, update QOL here and there, polish stuff, whatever you want.