Why POE2’s Direction Is Worrying for Veterans and Newcomers Alike

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We are in the holiday season and the numbers are still dropping. Everyone using the poe1 numbers is laughable. Poe2 went viral that's great TenCent/GGG made some money. The number will keep dropping if they don't make some major changes.

Poe1 is suffering being left in the same season for so long. So telling the poe1 players to go back is also laughable. We are being forced to play this great looking garbage. Poe2 is so simple minded it's boring on almost every aspect.

Agreed 100% OP.

In my opinion, POE2 is disappointing trash.

I'm also disappointed that they said they were removing IIQ/IIR, but then added in generic magic find which seems to even affect currency drops, and now the game is balanced around 6-man groups stacking 600+ magic find which multiplies with their group bonuses.

The optimal way to farm this game or ANY ARPG should be solo play. If 6-man groups running degenerate Empyriangaming style builds is the optimal farm method, then POE2 will never be mainstream.

Why act like everybody shares your opinion? I definitely don't and many here clearly don't as well.

Grow some nards and characterize this as your opinion, or are you too scared to have to defend it?

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GregoryAdams#7051 wrote:

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Xenus_Paradox#7530 wrote:

It can still happen if they port the first game'a campaign into this one.

It's not about the campaign. I prefer the PoE 1 systems, league mechanics, movement, skills, etc.

If all they did was to gradually replace the assets used for the environment and characters (textures, shaders, particle effects etc.) in PoE 1 with the PoE 2 assets, but otherwise leave everything else untouched, I'd be perfectly happy.

Well good for you! There's great news. That's exactly what's happening with POE1! Clearly you don't have a reason to complain anymore.

"My computer can't run PoE 1 anymore with the upgraded graphics! There's too many effects on screen at once! I demand a refund for every cent I ever spent on this game!"

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Many of us have played and loved games like Elden Ring or Dark Souls. We fully understand what makes those games great.

I'm not so sure that's true. The vast majority of POE players making content on YouTube are all saying they hate Souls games, and I don't doubt it. Isometric Diabo-like ARPGs are very, very different from Souls-likes when it comes to physical skill and mechanics. It's puzzle solving/exploit abusing/trade leveraging gear check vs raw physical skill check. The games couldn't be more different.

I don't doubt there are some players that enjoy both style of games (I'm one of them, and you might be too), but I don't think most ARPG players are Souls fans.

Regardless, POE 2 is really nothing like Souls-likes in any way. It has a dodge roll. That's about it. Even the dodge roll itself behaves nothing like Souls. There is no stamina management for dodging, and if there are iframes, it's not obvious when they occur. On top of that, hit boxes, in general, are nowhere near as precise in this game as they are in Souls games, and Souls-like games allow you to phase through enemy attacks when dodging, whereas POE 2 enemies just body block you constantly. They couldn't play more differently. And let's not forget you also get parrying in most Souls-likes.

At best, POE 2, like Diablo IV, tried to make the rather old and stale ARPG design a little more modern and active by including a dodge roll mechanic, but it's still really nothing like a Souls game.

Don't get me wrong, I think it would be very cool to get an ARPG with Souls-like dodging & parrying and hit boxes as good as what you find in From Software games, but POE 2 isn't it.

The best mix of these genres is probably the Nioh franchise, which is basically a Souls-like + old school Ninja Gaiden influence + Diablo-like loot collecting.

PoE 2 just needs to be more like itself than PoE. Otherwise it'll just be PoE with nicer graphics. Unless GGG intends to replace PoE with PoE 2, meaning this game is actually PoE 4.0 all along.

I like POE2 and am having fun, even with Acolyte of Chalupa being as bad as it currently is

I think there are plenty of people who got interested in PoE2 precisely because the gameplay model diverged from the typical ARPG style, where you just run around the map clearing everything with one click. I'm one of those people, and if the final version of the game ends up being just a reskin of PoE1, it will mean the end of my journey with this title. In my opinion, the best option would be to give us a mode where the gameplay is significantly slowed down—not turned into a "Souls-like," since it's still an ARPG, but adjusted in such a way that it brings out the best of both genres. The question is, how feasible is this?

Otherwise, I can't help but wonder about the point of making PoE2 into a copy of PoE1, especially when PoE1 not only will continue to be supported but already offers more than PoE2.

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Nilaos#3809 wrote:

where you just run around the map clearing everything with one click.

Well...
https://youtu.be/zgPXHI1RxkU?t=123

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Nilaos#3809 wrote:

it will mean the end of my journey with this title.

"Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar."