The Boss Fights in PoE2 Feel Exhausting

I wish I more clearly understood GGG's vision. Specifically things like:

1. How long do they think it should take to down "map bosses", act-end bosses, and random named bosses that pop up during the campaign??

2. How many "dodge or die" rolls do they expect us to make? 99.9%? 95%? N/A because they expect you to "CC" the boss so it never uses a killer ability?

3. Is there a degree of mitigation & recovery available to every class that would allow you to take one [or multiple?] Dodge-or-Die attacks so that you don't necessarily need to be "perfect"??

4. Will there ever be another mechanic that you can use to avoid boss attacks or is success in the game going to revolve EXCLUSIVELY around one mechanic [recognize boss ability -- get out of way].

5. [See 4 above] If success is gated by "recognize boss ability -- get out of way" then where is the dividing line because [psychometrically] there is a significant range of speeds that people do the above. Is the game coded targeting a 25 year old with better than average processing / reaction times? A 65 year old with slightly less than average processing / reaction times??

Depending on the answer you'll either have a significant number of people bored if you make it too easy [I.E. gear for a 65 year old with slightly less than average ability] OR a lot of people will be left out [25 year old with slightly better than average times].

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KingAlamar#4071 wrote:

I wish I more clearly understood GGG's vision. Specifically things like:

1. How long do they think it should take to down "map bosses", act-end bosses, and random named bosses that pop up during the campaign??

2. How many "dodge or die" rolls do they expect us to make? 99.9%? 95%? N/A because they expect you to "CC" the boss so it never uses a killer ability?

3. Is there a degree of mitigation & recovery available to every class that would allow you to take one [or multiple?] Dodge-or-Die attacks so that you don't necessarily need to be "perfect"??

4. Will there ever be another mechanic that you can use to avoid boss attacks or is success in the game going to revolve EXCLUSIVELY around one mechanic [recognize boss ability -- get out of way].

5. [See 4 above] If success is gated by "recognize boss ability -- get out of way" then where is the dividing line because [psychometrically] there is a significant range of speeds that people do the above. Is the game coded targeting a 25 year old with better than average processing / reaction times? A 65 year old with slightly less than average processing / reaction times??

Depending on the answer you'll either have a significant number of people bored if you make it too easy [I.E. gear for a 65 year old with slightly less than average ability] OR a lot of people will be left out [25 year old with slightly better than average times].

For me I feel powerful when I overcome a tough fight, not when mobs or bosses are loot pinatas.

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Pereg#4871 wrote:

For me I feel powerful when I overcome a tough fight, not when mobs or bosses are loot pinatas.

Yeah, I don't really care about loot from bosses. I only want XP, Skill points, or maybe currency. I love a lot of the boss fights, but they need some tuning/improvements. I'm def more of a souls fan than POE1 fan though.

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1453R#7804 wrote:

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Xmangox4#5836 wrote:

Am I the only one who can’t stand the boss fights in Path of Exile 2? Don’t get me wrong—the bosses are visually stunning, and I can appreciate the effort that went into designing them. But I personally hate Souls-like games, and dying repeatedly to the same boss is just not fun for me.

It wouldn’t be so bad if there were only a boss at the end of each act. However, it feels like every zone has a boss with multiple phases. On top of that, they feel like bullet sponges, taking forever to kill. There seems to be way too much emphasis on bossing, and it’s exhausting.

The worst part is being stuck on a boss when all you want to do is continue playing the game. It’s demoralizing, and I often lose the willpower to keep trying. Sure, it might be a skill issue on my part, but like I said, I just don’t enjoy Souls-like gameplay.

I wish GGG would consider adding a mode for players who don’t enjoy boss fights. Maybe they could make the current mode “Ruthless” and add a more standard mode for players like me. My favorite part of an ARPG is mowing down mobs of monsters and feeling powerful—not grueling boss fights, and especially not the ones in Path of Exile 2.

What do you all think?

achieving the status of "Gud" - feels awesome.

I just don’t find learning boss mechanics fun or rewarding. If that’s going to be a core part of Path of Exile 2, then maybe it’s just not for me. And I guess that’s okay, as long as PoE1 continues to get updates. I’d love to get into PoE2, but I just can’t bring myself to care about or put effort into the boss fights.

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Pereg#4871 wrote:

For me I feel powerful when I overcome a tough fight, not when mobs or bosses are loot pinatas.

And I think that's wonderful. But why cant we have both? It seems like GGG is splitting its player base. Why cant POE2 have a more "standard" mode?

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silentshout12#1360 wrote:

The success of the souls game has shifted the culture of gaming to an insufferable circlejerk about how cool you are for playing unnecessarily difficult games with unnecessarily difficult guidelines/restrictions. All of this is intended and exactly what the devs want. The vocal majority who just hates PoE1 and wants to be smarmy about it are going to tell you to shut up. Essentially you are screaming into the void.

Weird, I'm a big fan of poe1 and even bigger fan of spouls borne games. I should be target audience then for poe2.

But I think poe2 is just very bad game at its current state. Little weird don't you think?

In ds you have parry, roll, very good collision boxes (with few exceptions), stamina, poise to mitigate the challenge. In poe2 jou just have tedious gameplay and roll-slop

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Xmangox4#5836 wrote:

I just don’t find learning boss mechanics fun or rewarding. If that’s going to be a core part of Path of Exile 2, then maybe it’s just not for me. And I guess that’s okay, as long as PoE1 continues to get updates. I’d love to get into PoE2, but I just can’t bring myself to care about or put effort into the boss fights.

Path of Exile 1 will absolutely continue to get updates. It's been hit harder than anyone, including Grinding Gear, thought by the needs of POE2, butthey have no intention of abandoning it despite shitty memes to the contrary from the community.

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Xmangox4#5836 wrote:

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Pereg#4871 wrote:

For me I feel powerful when I overcome a tough fight, not when mobs or bosses are loot pinatas.

And I think that's wonderful. But why cant we have both? It seems like GGG is splitting its player base. Why cant POE2 have a more "standard" mode?

In part, because of the community's terrible perception and treatment of Ruthless modes and Ruthless players. Ruthless players are basically soft-banned from these forums, any time anyone tries to talk about their Ruthless experience they get viciously screamed at until they leave.

The idea of cordoning off the intended game experience in a 'Ruthless' mode is basically telling everyone who bought into the bill of goods GGG sold us prior to the EA drop for PoE2 "you guys suck and aren't part of the community; here's a jail cell you can play in while we ignore you and cater to the Zoomer Boomer Blaster Masters and them alone for the second game in a row."

And in part because creating a game mode that's just PoE1 but wearing PoE2's shredded, mutilated skin - whether the original game is called Ruthless and PoE1-wearing-POE2's-skin is called "Standard" or whether the original game is called "Standard" and the zombie-skinwalker mode is called "Easy" or such - destroys any reason for them to've made Path of Exile 2 in the first place. They're trying to evolve the genre as a whole and seek a new audience of people who didn't even know this was their favorite kind of game, exactly the way Soulslikes did. Turning their new game into simply a butchered clone of their old one would render the entire effort utterly meaningless.

The folks for whom this is not the case and PoE1 is exactly the game they love? They have PoE1. It'll get a new league in February sometime, and it does suck that 2024 was such a thin year for PoE1 fans. It does. Here's hoping the next league for POE1 isn't some weird nonsensical stinker like Trial of the Ancestors.

If they tuned the hp down I'd be happy. I like the challenge but the tankiness does make fights feel like they're dragging on.

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whitegladis#6306 wrote:

If they tuned the hp down I'd be happy. I like the challenge but the tankiness does make fights feel like they're dragging on.

Remember, everyone is currently flailing half in the dark with barely-counts-as-builds in the first week of release. By this time next year, the exact same HP values will go barely a third as far because people will have figured out optimal leveling builds/paths/routes and gotten enormously more damage out of those first few levels. Geonor and Jamanra feel like sponges now; they absolutely will not by the time 1.0 drops.