Maybe vision combat and endless grinding dont' mix

Must be a nightmare to balance from the developer side.

How about a boss challenge rush mode, so we can focus on the boss and not care about losing loot.

Fixed gear/loadouts, all classes, unlimited tries, 4 tiers of difficulty, no economy rewards.

I mean it would just essentially boil down to a "can you dodge boss attacks X times and attack Y times in windows of opportunity" but still fun I think.

I know that would bring me back to the game.

The dopmaine rush from beating a boss in soulslike comes from failing countless times and succeeding. Punishing failure by losing loot AND costing currency, only encourages one-shot builds, and when you win it's meaningless.

I don't think there's any issue with it at all, I think the combat and grinding could work. I just think this is an issue of GGG, trying to retain gameplay that kept their old players interested. Instead of realizing that PoE 1 exists for their old players, and PoE 2 is a chance to experiment.

They're afraid to take a risk and really throw a curveball at the players, and potential new players. And you can tell this is the case because when they were making this game. They wanted to include 'endgame content' to keep their old playerbase happy, and then proceeded to put in very similar mechanics to the rest of the PoE 1.

So we're stuck at some sort of half-way point, where they can either continue turning the game into PoE 1, version 2.0. Replacing the old version of the game. Or making a different version of the game that appeals to different demographics other than the people that like sitting there grinding maps constantly, and both could exist, and thrive. Appealing to different types of players.


I liken it to what has been happening with Pokemon over the years. They just keep releasing the same over-all game, with minor differences. And then someone comes out with a game like palworld, and it explodes in popularity, because it's new, fresh and innovative.

GGG could take this route. Try something new, but they're largely just giving us the same game as before. PoE 2 is PoE 1, with dodge rolls and some slightly different mechanics + new graphics.