GGG, have you given up on methodical combat? People deserve to know.

Initially we were lead to believe that PoE2 will offer a more methodical combat approach... but after this interview I am lead to believe that is no longer your intention.

Were mace skills and warrior just a product of a vision from the past that you have completely given up on in favor of screen clearing and "zooming"? As Darth Microtransactions more or less pointed out indirectly in the interview.

You have mentioned in the interview that you want to make the transition between campaign and endgame smoother but that was not the question that was asked.

What people wanted to know precisely was if your intent for PoE2's endgame is for it to be the same type of low-input combat like PoE1's where you clear screens of meaningless mobs with one button or less, which is obviously very far from a methodical approach to combat.

Let me be extra clear with this... clearing screens of enemies with 1 button is in antithesis with methodical combat.

We need to hear a firm stance on where you want this game to be. There is no middle ground here.

"

AintCare#6513 wrote:

given up? as soon as i saw breach, deli and ritual I knew it was never on the table

Yeah, neither of those mechanics should be in that game the way they are. They're all way too overtuned.
Breach spawns way too many monsters too fast and most are moving too fast as well.
Delirium fog stays way too short to properly do it with a non-zoom build and the mobs also run like hell.
Ritual especially in higher tier maps pretty much fills the whole arena with mobs so that you basically have to spam whatever you got to get rid of them without ripping. It has nothing to do with "methodical".

With the current state of projectile spam builds and Meta Gems triggering like crazy I'm not sure methodical combat stands a chance.

"

AintCare#6513 wrote:

given up? as soon as i saw breach, deli and ritual I knew it was never on the table

While you are right about breach, deli and ritual being against that whole philosophy, these were all mechanics brought at the last moment in the last 3 months before EA launch as they mentioned themselves. Mechanics ported almost entirely from PoE1 with minimal differences.

Imo this was done in some sort of act of desperation because they were afraid of being criticized in the same way other ARPGs were for lack of endgame activities.

But to say that it was never on the table is clearly not true. You need not look further at mace gameplay and you will see how different it is from everything else.

Nobody would implement a skill with a timing window for best results if they did not intend at some point to have meaningful combat.

The question to GGG still stands and we all deserve to know what their intent is for the future of the game regardless of what our stance is towards it.

"

IonSugeRau1#1069 wrote:

Initially we were lead to believe that PoE2 will offer a more methodical combat approach... but after this interview I am lead to believe that is no longer your intention.

Were mace skills and warrior just a product of a vision from the past that you have completely given up on in favor of screen clearing and "zooming"? As Darth Microtransactions more or less pointed out indirectly in the interview.

You have mentioned in the interview that you want to make the transition between campaign and endgame smoother but that was not the question that was asked.

What people wanted to know precisely was if your intent for PoE2's endgame is for it to be the same type of low-input combat like PoE1's where you clear screens of meaningless mobs with one button or less, which is obviously very far from a methodical approach to combat.

Let me be extra clear with this... clearing screens of enemies with 1 button is in antithesis with methodical combat.

We need to hear a firm stance on where you want this game to be. There is no middle ground here.

"You have to eventually get to that op point" was the answer to that question on the talk show yesterday. So true methodical combat will go out the window once you're sufficiently geared.

"

AIDA_TriEdge#4390 wrote:

"You have to eventually get to that op point" was the answer to that question on the talk show yesterday. So true methodical combat will go out the window once you're sufficiently geared.

That's still not really answering the question. I, for one, would be alright with that level of power if only the top 1% could reach it after 2 and a half months into the league grinding like crazy. But this is not what is happening neither now in PoE2 or ever in PoE1.

Screen clearing and one-shotting everything is the norm for most when they should be extremely rare outliers.

In short, that sentence doesn't properly answer the question. It's still extremely vague.

"

IonSugeRau1#1069 wrote:

"

AIDA_TriEdge#4390 wrote:

"You have to eventually get to that op point" was the answer to that question on the talk show yesterday. So true methodical combat will go out the window once you're sufficiently geared.

That's still not really answering the question. I, for one, would be alright with that level of power if only the top 1% could reach it after 2 and a half months into the league grinding like crazy. But this is not what is happening neither now in PoE2 or ever in PoE1.

Screen clearing and one-shotting everything is the norm for most when they should be extremely rare outliers.

In short, that sentence doesn't properly answer the question. It's still extremely vague.

Well, if saying "you eventually have to come to a point where you're OP" (and OP naturally implies that you "one shot" everything) is not clear enough for you that it's entirely some kind of denial on your part. After the talk show it's obvious that the end game is going to be "zoom zoom" with tweaks to skills they deem over or under performing. It's for you to decide what to do with that information.

"

AintCare#6513 wrote:

given up? as soon as i saw breach, deli and ritual I knew it was never on the table

Heh, yeah.. it does look like that, doesn't it?

They banged the drums about things being slower and more tactical but it's the same old press one button to clear a screen while one tappy enemies zoom at you from all around gameplay and that's disappointing.

Maybe it's the early access but still hoping they'll pull through and slow things down so the transition from story to maps isn't such a massive whiplash.

"

AintCare#6513 wrote:

its the norm because the norm copies meta builds and gears on the market

Meta builds exist everywhere, that's not really the root cause of it.

"

AIDA_TriEdge#4390 wrote:

Well, if saying "you eventually have to come to a point where you're OP" (and OP naturally implies that you "one shot" everything) is not clear enough for you that it's entirely some kind of denial on your part. After the talk show it's obvious that the end game is going to be "zoom zoom" with tweaks to skills they deem over or under performing. It's for you to decide what to do with that information.

What I'm talking about is specifically the amount of time and dedication required to reach such power which is extremely low and everyone can reach it without much effort at the moment.

You can have a character reach that OP state without disrupting 98% of the players experience due to how hard it would be to reach that state. So yes... it is indeed not clear enough of a statement.

If everyone is able to screen clear and one shot things easily with low investment and by just copying a meta build from some youtuber in week 2 of the launch of a new league... then we must ask if that is indeed intended. Because if it is intended to be like this then we clearly can't be talking about meaningful combat anymore... and we all need to know where GGG stands on this.

Again, they used to say that they want more meaningful combat, so they need to answer themselves if that is still on the table or not and if it does what exactly does it mean for them.

"

IonSugeRau1#1069 wrote:

Nobody would implement a skill with a timing window for best results if they did not intend at some point to have meaningful combat.

That's why the majority ditched that skill and spam stampede instead