You're making an ARPG in 2025, but you're stuck in 1999

"

MoonPeace#1394 wrote:

great post pg 16

Great post, with real tangible, fleshed out explanations and conclusions and essentially no useless inflammatory rhetoric. I agree with many of your conclusions and assessments.

The one thing I 100% AGREE with, but needs to be specified, is HOW PoE 2 is a more dumbed down version of PoE 1. One obvious way is the passive tree. Choices don't REALLY matter anymore, the nodes are far more generic and they removed masteries for some weird reason. The reliance on NEGATIVE passive effects to give the illusion of choice is just lazy design for the most part....the real way would be to just balance the numbers correctly. Save the "negatives" for keystone nodes. Another way is the skill gem system: the choices are severely limited and also far more clunky to navigate since not all viable support choices are actually present when you click on a skill (you have to navigate to an entirely separate screen and sift through everything). With this new "screen" we get, why can't they list all possible supports that "work" with the skill, to encourage different builds the way NOT seeing "recommended" supports did in PoE 1?

I will say, based on your post and the things I agree with, is that PoE 2 is actually MORE modern than PoE 1. Rather than being "stuck in 1999" as described by the OP, it has taken many cues from modern arpgs aka "make things much easier for the sake of a larger audience". Easier in terms of choice and character design, or rather the removal of choice from the equation that made PoE 1 such a trailblazing achievement. The focus shifts to graphics and fluidity, and almost ignores the gameplay and character creation aspect of the genre, which is a real shame because GGG had spent 10+ years developing an RPG system unlike any other on the market and seem to have abandoned a huge portion of what made it great.

In terms of actual game difficulty (damage, health, reflexes, deaths), rpg and arpg games in the 90s were HARD hard. Unforgiving. Games have only gotten easier and easier since then, as attention spans and effort dwindles from the average player. In that respect, I am glad that PoE 2 is at least keeping THAT aspect of 1999 gaming alive.

*that name is already taken*

Due to nostalgia reasons, I hate to say it, but I think the inventory management would work better as a list view. The management of "area" in the stashes is just busy work.

The item images could appear tiny in the list view and then be at full size in the item hover popups. The name of items appear next, then the rest can be configurable to allow people to quickly scan for preferred stats in their inventories.

"

Blasphemous84#2190 wrote:

Why are maps so big?
Why do I have to backtrack so much?
Why do runes / catalysts / distilled emotions only stack to 10?
Why does a single crossbow take up 1/4 of my inventory?
Why do I roll fucking light radius or accuracy rating every time I exalt something?
Why is movement speed not implicit on every pair of boots if every pair of boots is totally worthless without it?
Why are charm slots not implicit on belts? Higher level belt = more charm slots. Easy.
Why is there no auction house?
Why can't I just buy something immediately from someone on the trade site? You're actively encouraging price fixers.

I could go on and on. GGG, you seem highly capable of making a great game, you just need to get out of your own way and make the game more fun. Everything doesn't need to be annoying as fuck all the time. It's perfectly OK to add some quality of life to your game. People might even feel compelled to play it longer.

You're basically asking this game to become another Diablo 3/4.
Crossbows aren't tiny, it doesn't make sense a person can lift or fit 10 crossbows in their bag. You're just not familiarized with ROLE PLAYING GAMES. You're confused. You're asking for the role playing part of the game to get removed in exchange for comfort, not fun (as you claim).

They obviously want to sell more stash space, because they have to somehow monetize on a FREE GAME.
There are several games with this kind of quality that monetize with inventory space (i.e. Phantasy Star Online 2)

"

Teysa_Karlov#0428 wrote:

"

Blasphemous84#2190 wrote:

Why are maps so big?
Why do I have to backtrack so much?
Why do runes / catalysts / distilled emotions only stack to 10?
Why does a single crossbow take up 1/4 of my inventory?
Why do I roll fucking light radius or accuracy rating every time I exalt something?
Why is movement speed not implicit on every pair of boots if every pair of boots is totally worthless without it?
Why are charm slots not implicit on belts? Higher level belt = more charm slots. Easy.
Why is there no auction house?
Why can't I just buy something immediately from someone on the trade site? You're actively encouraging price fixers.

I could go on and on. GGG, you seem highly capable of making a great game, you just need to get out of your own way and make the game more fun. Everything doesn't need to be annoying as fuck all the time. It's perfectly OK to add some quality of life to your game. People might even feel compelled to play it longer.

You're basically asking this game to become another Diablo 3/4.
Crossbows aren't tiny, it doesn't make sense a person can lift or fit 10 crossbows in their bag. You're just not familiarized with ROLE PLAYING GAMES. You're confused. You're asking for the role playing part of the game to get removed in exchange for comfort, not fun (as you claim).

They obviously want to sell more stash space, because they have to somehow monetize on a FREE GAME.
There are several games with this kind of quality that monetize with inventory space (i.e. Phantasy Star Online 2)

Are you trying to define RPG around the amount of crossbows you can carry ?

"

Vinsdvalh#0247 wrote:

"

Teysa_Karlov#0428 wrote:

"

Blasphemous84#2190 wrote:

Why are maps so big?
Why do I have to backtrack so much?
Why do runes / catalysts / distilled emotions only stack to 10?
Why does a single crossbow take up 1/4 of my inventory?
Why do I roll fucking light radius or accuracy rating every time I exalt something?
Why is movement speed not implicit on every pair of boots if every pair of boots is totally worthless without it?
Why are charm slots not implicit on belts? Higher level belt = more charm slots. Easy.
Why is there no auction house?
Why can't I just buy something immediately from someone on the trade site? You're actively encouraging price fixers.

I could go on and on. GGG, you seem highly capable of making a great game, you just need to get out of your own way and make the game more fun. Everything doesn't need to be annoying as fuck all the time. It's perfectly OK to add some quality of life to your game. People might even feel compelled to play it longer.

You're basically asking this game to become another Diablo 3/4.
Crossbows aren't tiny, it doesn't make sense a person can lift or fit 10 crossbows in their bag. You're just not familiarized with ROLE PLAYING GAMES. You're confused. You're asking for the role playing part of the game to get removed in exchange for comfort, not fun (as you claim).

They obviously want to sell more stash space, because they have to somehow monetize on a FREE GAME.
There are several games with this kind of quality that monetize with inventory space (i.e. Phantasy Star Online 2)

Are you trying to define RPG around the amount of crossbows you can carry ?

As much as you're trying to make the other person sound dumb, the answer is kinda yes.

Role Playing involves some level of manufactured realism, and carrying weight or inventory space (or spell slots in various forms) are ways to keep some sort of natural flow and not just allow people to amass an inventory of 6,000,000 items while chain running content.

Even outside of RPGs, you have two weapons per loadout in Call of Duty, one of each weapon in Doom, limited ammo in Doom, etc...

I could go on for days, but...using the language already brought up here and generalizing even a little bit more...

Video games are defined by their systems, one of which is usually "how many crossbows you can carry" in some form or another. :D

"

Redthorne82#3177 wrote:

As much as you're trying to make the other person sound dumb, the answer is kinda yes.

Role Playing involves some level of manufactured realism, and carrying weight or inventory space (or spell slots in various forms) are ways to keep some sort of natural flow and not just allow people to amass an inventory of 6,000,000 items while chain running content.

Even outside of RPGs, you have two weapons per loadout in Call of Duty, one of each weapon in Doom, limited ammo in Doom, etc...

I could go on for days, but...using the language already brought up here and generalizing even a little bit more...

Video games are defined by their systems, one of which is usually "how many crossbows you can carry" in some form or another. :D

Sure you can define a game, but not an entire genre. You can "not like carrying 10 crossbows" but it's a bit dishonest to pretend that being able to do it is pushing you out of the RPG genre. There's a lot of RPG that has 0 realism in terms of inventory space and that also are pillars of the genre.

Did poe1 veterans already came here to defend their favorite devs?

Totaly agree on all of the above. I don't think im gonna play this game if those things are not fixed. Waiting for that stream today, their response is going to be deciding factor for me.

You could say that you don't like the color of the game menu and someone would come to tell you this is not diablo 3/diablo 4.

+1 with everything