Early Access Discussion - SHOULD pvp be introduced in POE2? - Forum

" baconbyte#0146 wrote: " Lore#3772 wrote: " baconbyte#0146 wrote: I mean I used to leave my summoner in the PVP area in act 4(???) when I had to do something for a bit and would come back to messages of people who were dumb enough to go inside and get instagibbed Assume I know nothing about poe1 PvP game mechanics other than it is widely considered to be by a majority of the people who indulge in the game AND a majority of the people who spent a few hundred hours and exited as the weakest component of the game. I don’t need to know anything other than what both sides of that coin think. You are never going to please that player who plays for 30 minutes and asks for a refund. It’s about what can be measured. This isn’t even something people are aware of themselves. Apparently poe1 PvP experience was so bad that it has given people real life ptsd of PvP being in poe2. PvP isn’t the problem. The way it was implemented and the game mechanics employed clearly are the problem. You can’t give a community a broken platform over a canyon and say build boys. The foundation of the PvP experience is what matters the base of it. From there you can do anything. But without a proper PvP foundation it won’t work. It isn’t about achieving permanent balance. It’s about having a general balance that is acceptable. No different than PvM other than human ingenuity vs human ingenuity. It doesn’t have to be perfect to be good. It just has to be its own specific area of developed content. My overwhelming suggestion is removing exp loss on death in PvP but dropping a single “worn” item on death with a system to flag protect 1-3 specific items from being that 1 dropped item on death. Having PvP flagged servers is not PvP development. I cannot stress this enough. It isn’t PvP flagged servers in RuneScape that is even 1% responsible for its PvP success. It’s all the other PvP systems that make it iconic as it pertains to PvP. I’m not saying to turn poe2 into runescape because frankly that’s not possible nor would it be good in the genre. What I am suggesting is to entirely rework how you see pvp in this game. Because there has to be a way to success. The ways to failure are obvious. Self evident actually. PvP didn’t hurt you. The way it was designed and implemented hurt you. Don’t blame PvP. Let the right people take the heat and get better for it. Not one streamer has asked about this topic. It’s not because the game couldn’t be better with PvP. It’s because everyone’s trying to back seat micromanage what the biggest priority for GGG is when next to none of the players actually know what GGG are up against. If you want this company to survive and thrive you better pray they start developing well designed and thought out pvp and pvp lore. Some men just want to watch the world burn but some men, some men just want to watch ignorance burn. If “the vision” doesn’t include improving where they are weakest and simply cutting out the soul of any top tier AARPG I can’t do anything about it anyway. So with this I take my leave. I’ll be dodging responses to my logic here harder than any streamer dodged the thought of asking about PvP. Much dodge such wow energy. Have a good night folks, I hope I at least made a few of you that can read chuckle. Also, some PvP development should turn into a PvE mechanic. But that’s not something to focus on initially. Adding a little monster density to PvP is different than designing PvE. Each is its own segment of PvP. That’s why having no PvP is such a big deal. You aren’t removing one segment of potential. You are removing at least 2 segments of potential and relying on Player vs Monster to always drive interest. It’s just nonsensical on its face. To leverage everything into player vs monster development and completely disregard PvP as development potential even after having developed player vs monster to the point poe1 and Poe2 already is. Wild. New name for “the vision” “Tunnel Vision”. If “the vision” is for no PvP or same PvP as poe1 in poe2 then I can say without a doubt it’s some sort of genjutsu or domain expansion that’s cooked someones sight bro. I could write another Ted talk about this but I’m done. Do what you will. "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident" what the quote doesn’t illustrate to most of you is what the person preaching the truth has to deal with along the way of raising the ignorant from perdition only to hear it was self evident in the end from those who shouted and held pitchforks in protest of the truth. Quite the reward indeed historically. “But you aren’t very nice and you are rude a lot” yeah I can be both. When the situation calls for it I can do either. I can be as kind as I can be cruel. What matters is the energy I receive and perceive. Self respect and ego look a lot alike when you tell people the truth a lot. I'm not reading that I just thought it was funny I could sit in an area for ppl 50 levels lower who didn't understand the game and afk kill them..... It's not complicated Sounds like you should have been banned for griefing. Also just because you could read something doesn’t mean you understand it, don’t sweat it. Wouldn’t want you to strain yourself “In all the realms of heaven and in all the realms of hell I alone am heralded as the honored one, who am I?” Last edited by Lore#3772 on Dec 10, 2025, 6:30:30 AM	Posted by Lore#3772 on Dec 10, 2025, 6:12:25 AM Quote this Post
If a game was not built with PvP in mind, it has been my experience that bolted-on PvP sucks and never becomes balanced.	Posted by LexBolt#0100 on Dec 10, 2025, 7:24:51 AM Quote this Post
" LexBolt#0100 wrote: If a game was not built with PvP in mind, it has been my experience that bolted-on PvP sucks and never becomes balanced. Agree. But as I stated above. Your competition isn’t going to take a rope and a sword and cut their arm off while tying their feet together. If you don’t see the problem, don’t worry, quick time will teach you just fine. This isn’t a game design issue. It’s a psychological blunder. You can’t make a game in this genre that is actually the top of its class without well designed PvP. Thats how good Diablo 2 had it. With its terrible PvP design it still looked and played great. It was the best of the genre’s history. But just because Diablo 2 PvP was a joke doesn’t mean you should be designing PvP in 2025 as a joke. If you do that makes you a 🤡 “In all the realms of heaven and in all the realms of hell I alone am heralded as the honored one, who am I?” Last edited by Lore#3772 on Dec 10, 2025, 7:47:48 AM	Posted by Lore#3772 on Dec 10, 2025, 7:44:19 AM Quote this Post
the only way for pvp to work in poe 1 or 2 is to ignore the entire build, giving "loadouts" with passives and some gear, restricting skills and interactions or just implement battle-royale like they did once years ago, that was fun i even won a rhoa dinner	Posted by Dragoon_Diver#5241 on Dec 10, 2025, 8:18:40 AM Quote this Post
Entirely disagree. The best thing they can do for pvp community is design PvP so that there are Smurf tiers. A good way to think about it is, whatever the max level you can hit in act 1 is the first Smurf tier. Whatever max level you can hit in act 2 is second Smurf tier. So on and so forth. If builds can be better in some tiers than they are in others that provides a weird balance. Like the top 5-10 builds of each Smurf tier shouldn’t be that alike. Smurf friendly has always been the best way to design PvP. Look at RuneScape if you need to know why. Smurf tiers allows you to start at the lowest tier as work your way up. It also allows for some things to be better than others at certain tiers. Example: minions would probably be busted in act 1 tier PvP. But there is probably other stuff that would be pretty busted too. As PvP tiers go up minion viability would probably fall off unless it’s some weird niche build that does weird stuff. Baking “pinnacle power” even into act 1 limitations on level and gear requirements can be iconic when done right. Sacrificing all of that potential is nothing short of tragedy. Giving people reasons to value items that already exist and already drop for them more is only a benefit. Example im doing .4 fresh run and in act 2 I drop a rare wand with all max tier mods for the act 1 character level limit. Normally people wouldn’t really care. But if someone’s trying to do that tier of PvP that wand is pretty decent. Sure they can craft it but who wants to do that on low level gear unless PvP exists? Sacrificing PvP in this genre is a mistake of unimaginable proportions. It’s the hardest task for a reason. You can’t please everyone with it. But when done right it will have its own hyper engaged community of players. Smurf tiers also introduces an ease of entry. Teachable crafting methods at a lower degree of “possible rolled mods” Like you can’t even imagine how much not having well designed PvP like I’m talking about is a detriment. Every time I think about it, I find more reasons it’s absolutely one of the worst decisions you can make for any long term health or growth or community building. Every time I think it’s over and the nightmares will end, I think of even more. But hey man make your game and I’ll eat popcorn, blizzard desensitized me to studios making decisions that even clowns couldn’t turn into comedy “In all the realms of heaven and in all the realms of hell I alone am heralded as the honored one, who am I?” Last edited by Lore#3772 on Dec 10, 2025, 8:43:08 PM	Posted by Lore#3772 on Dec 10, 2025, 3:23:07 PM Quote this Post