Ever since the launch of POE2 early access I have been frustrated with the newcomers to the game and indeed GGG themselves. It seems everyone new to this game wants it to be either Elden Ring or The Witcher 3. It is neither of those. It is an ARPG. An ARPG of this style is not supposed to be the mechanical Skill of dodging Melenia or discovering the long chain of events of an epic story. ARPGs like POE are about build crafting.
The strategy is in combining the skills, passive tree and equipment to efficiently kill many .... many ... many enemies. The accomplishment is usually measured in efficiency of earning currency. Some play ARPGs to engage with the crafting system (in POE2 its getting better but still a slot machine). Some play ARPGs to find the niche combination of this skill and that equipment.
For example, a build called a Ward Loop in POE1 was able to leverage a side effect of ward break to trigger other skills and then make the mapping efficient. Another example is that my character in POE2 currently leverages Resonance keystone and Combat Frenzy. She pins enemies which generates a frenzy charge and with resonance this is converted to a power charge to empower bone storm.
Trying to turn this game into other games that are popular is a HUGE MISTAKE because they are incompatible. A game like Elden Ring with detailed mechanical interaction is not compatible with 300 enemies charging you at once. If someone wants a highly mechanical tactical combat experience they should play Elden Ring.
A game like The Witcher 3 is not compatible with the epic power creep that happens when builds are found out. ARPG players dont' want to delay the build crafting to play a 7000 hour campaign. So the rest becomes just a slog to get to end game. Look at the stats GGG. People who dont finish the campaign dont play as long in the game. In POE1 most hours, by your own admission, are spent in the end game. Its such a prelude that there are actually campaign racers and people who want to skip it altogether.
I really wish forum posters would stop trying to turn this game into one of those two games.
I really wish GGG would get back to making an awesome ARPG and stop trying to make other games. I wish they would make the bosses harder, the tedium less tedious. Maybe you should sit down and think about the campaign and the game and decide what you think is the best ARPG rather than "Well Elden Ring was hard so ..." You should look instead at other ARPGs and pluck the best things out of them. The boss design in Lost Ark is great. The way it drops red warnings and you ocasionally have to dodge inside changing rings of certain death then get back to damage. LE has good crafting design (but the rest is too easy).
What I really dont understand is GGG started scrappy POE with 1 / 1000th of the budget of Diablo and managed to threaten them enough that they felt compelled to fire off snarky tweets at the EA release. And then GGG promptly forgot 12 years of experience on how to create an amazing ARPG.
Amazing achievements in POE1.
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Crafting: Best crafting system in an ARPG ... well ... ever.
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Boss Design: Pinnacles are great. Some of the campaign bosses are easy but Innocence and Kitava constantly kill me if my attention strays a bit and when playing Hardcore that HURTS.
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Delve: Amazing gameplay, the toughest gameplay in POE1. You are building a new endgame and want infinite maps? You had that? Crib the idea, put on a new spin (integrate maps and delve).
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Skill Tree And Buildcrafting: No one can touch this. POE is the unquestioned king of this. Why dont you start everyone at the center like Scion and then let them choose class based on ascendancy. It would BLOW OPEN build options. Think a pathfinder using zombies. Worried about balance? Don't. POE and every other ARPG are never balanced. The balance shifts league to league. Enable anything and then fix on the fly.
Please get back to making an ARPG.
As it is I wont get to endgame because I got bored in the campaign. Cruel was better because I could blow through that. I wont play 6 acts where each act is as long as all the acts before combined. I am working through a story game, Expedition 33. I have beat Elden Ring and even Sekiro. Not interested in doing so in POE. At the same time my bonestorm char takes down campaign bosses a little too easy because their moves are predictable and you nerfed their HP.
NO ... STOP FLAMERS ... I DONT WANT AN EASY GAME ... I WANT AN ARPG. Learn the difference. I didnt get far in Last Epoch because it was too easy. I didnt get as far in POE2 because it was too tedious.
