Hard or punishing but not both

Coming from a mediocre-ish gamer who's not mechanically gifted, I don't mind that the game is difficult but it's far too punishing.

For context, I'm not terrible - played mobas my whole life and peaked in low plat probably a decade ago. I also know how to gear/fix my build etc.

The fun part of the game for me is experimenting with new builds, puzzle piecing different mechanics together in fun ways. I don't mind the game forcing me to be mechanically precise, but every mistake feels like an hour of progress lost. Consider what happens when you die:

- You lose 15% of your xp: ~15-30 mins of gameplay if you're not blasting maps
- You lose the map
- You probably have to rerun the same map without being able to put in any tablets.
- (or in trials) Literally the whole trial and 45 mins of progression lost.

To be fair, you likely have 1-3 portals to do the encounter. The problem is that *consecutive deaths are correlated*. Whatever killed you the first time (random abyss mob lazering you to death, boss mechanic you're still learning, etc) is probably going to kill you the second time, and then the third time. Better gamers than me can learn quickly, but I'm old and senile. The consequence now is that your 15% xp lost is 3x-ed (~45% xp) and maybe the specific map you've been pathing to is now bricked. For a game that wants to be more action-rpg like, you really don't have a lot of fun options to get stronger or course correct:

- acknowledge the fact you didn't play a meta build - your homebrew build is trash and it's time to start again
- if you died in a map - trash it (you're more likely than not to die again)
- incrementally make your build tankier (significant diminishing returns)
- grind lower level waystones to level up
- buy a omen of amelioration for 0.2d
- walking back 30s-1min if there's no waypoint

None of these options are fun.

I get that the game is trying to gatekeep content that you're not ready for. But honestly, I'd like to play a slightly less tanky build just to try things out. I accept that I'll probably die more than other characters and honestly don't mind it. The game *should* stall me for making mistakes - nudge me in the right direction. *Actively* setting back my progress feels terrible.

The actual gameplay loop is exhausting because 90% of it is vampire survivors where you're not allowed to die. The parts of the game that *are* fun to me (theorycrafting, economy, crafting) are harder for me to do.

I know this is antithetical to the game design but removing the xp loss, portal loss, etc would keep me in the league for longer - especially when there are so many one shot mechanics and overtuned monster abilities etc. A mechanically easier game like poe1 can be more punishing because well, "I should've known better". But for a game like poe2, it's just not fun.

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yuzuquat#2253 wrote:

- incrementally make your build tankier (significant diminishing returns)

Doesn't work for melee. At 24k armor, 2.6k health, 75% res across the board, 100% of armor applies to chaos dmg, 170% armor applies to elemental dmg and 52% block chance I still get occasionally one-shot by rares and map bosses.

You are absolutely correct. This game is stupidly punishing for every mistake for absolutely no reason. This is doubly weird, since the game devs have said that they create the game in a way that people will die.

In the post eldenring soulslike craze, you realise some developer's think that the souls tag is an invitation to add extra punishment and tedium to their games. No rest for the wicked is a good example with very limited inventory space and equipment durability constantly interrupting the exploration. That's just not how souls games work, somme Devs are just adding punishment to their games on top of difficulty thinking that's what players want now. But souls games aren't about punishment for failure, they're about Repeatedly failing and continuing to learn the boss fight until you succeed. Devs need to learn the difference.

To the ggg's credit too, I honestly do appreciate some amount of difficulty like sekhma and the trials. It forces me to actually think about my character and the mechanics.

My problem is that honor loss and afflictions feel like a slow moving train wreck where you're not sure if you're engaging in some sunk cost fallacy - stop half way to save another 30 mins or actually play the sweatiest last floor of the trial with 50% honor, 3 damage debuff mods. Failing the trial means I lose 5c for the djinn, an hour of gameplay, 15% xp loss and I'm instantly tilted. It sucks that the "correct" gameplay is to farm 30-50c of currency and then buy a bunch of relics to cap your resistance, etc so you even have a chance to coin flip a good trial run (with not terrible afflictions).

I don't mind the souls-like gameplay but let me choose how often I engage in it. And when I do engage in it, let me try however many times. If I fail some citadel because I'm experimenting/fixing my build, hibernate it there or something. When I'm stronger and I figured out some new ideas, let me try again. Suppose I start some difficult content/boss and I realize I'm not ready for it - I'm stuck.

Not only have I pathed 5 waystones towards it, I also can't do any other content to farm/get stronger until I concede the boss and I lose the encounter.

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Doesn't work for melee. At 24k armor, 2.6k health, 75% res across the board, 100% of armor applies to chaos dmg, 170% armor applies to elemental dmg and 52% block chance I still get occasionally one-shot by rares and map bosses.

I was actually really excited to play a crappy eldritch battery build on my druid. I had t1/t2 mana on each gear piece and fairly decent es but I could barely push 3k mana (4.5k with undying hate). Where I gave up was realizing that even if I managed to add 1k more base mana miraculously (6k ehp), I'm still getting one shot.

I was actually kinda proud for coming up with a low-life manastacking build since you can slot execute3, supercritical, clash into all your skill gems. should've just played pf I guess :/

The game is balanced for acts right now. Endgame has little to no balance at all. Play the correct build, then you'll succeed in endgame. Play your own scuffed build / non-meta build, then good luck in farming resources and competing with META builds that can clear 2 screens away or move at mach 5 speed.