POLL: Did Exilecon increase or decrease your overall hype for POE and POE 2?

Ever since I saw an earlier gameplay showcase centered around the "6 link" skill gem system I've said to my friends many times that many things in Ruthless are toe-dipping for things that will become base in PoE 2 (this was before ExileCon 2023). I'm not really surprised, and while I'm not a fan of what they've shown... eh. It's going to be free, it'll be a new thing to play, and PoE 1 is going to be there for me as always (hopefully).

So in short, my answer is neither. Neither less hyped nor more. I was set on trying it out anyway.

I am excited for change, though uninspired by PoE2.

With PoE being over a decade old, most of who started at the beginning are at least in their late twenties if not late thirties. Eventually life kicks in and that biological backdrop of dread starts to set in when gaming. This means games need to really have something valuable that keeps you playing, or you lose interest quicker and quicker.

PoE 2 doesn't have the quaint, humble beginnings of the indie passion-project I adored. Coming from D1 to D2 then moving to NZ and being shown PoE... it was like fate handed me the best game I'd ever played. And it was free!

Now the CCP owns shares in the company GGG is now beholden to, and I have no interested supporting them further. I will play while it's free, though no more MTX. This is my own opinion based on principles, much like why I don't support EA. I'm in no way suggesting anyone else stop supporting GGG and even encourage them to support GGG should they enjoy the game.

PoE 2 will be a new source of revenue for streamers and GGG/twocent. Though, I think it will fall off sooner than expected unless they truly reinvent the wheel.

I never get hyped with anything. Learned my lesson a long time ago with this little game called Spore, so I'll remain skeptical as usual.

I did like most of what I saw at Exilecon though.

Decrease, by far.

I was looking forward to it being 1 game with 2 campaigns like they said.

I also don't think I will ever maintain playing 2 ARPG leagues. I need those 1 to 1 1/2 month breaks between leagues, but I'll feel obligated to play both.

Just no longer looking forward to poe 2.

Cautiously optimistic about PoE2. GGG are saying the right things, but I've seen the difference between what they say and what they end up doing.

If they manage to deliver this time though, then I doubt I will touch PoE1 ever again.

super disappointed with path of exile 2. I would of rather they went with the original vision instead of making it its own seperate game. It doesn't look that great either.

I'm disappointed that the beta for PoE 2 isn't until next year (if that) and I found the next league rather uninteresting. If anything it made me want to skip a league.

If we're talking purely about PoE 2 I think it feels too slow for it to be called an aRPG as it's clearly missing the action part. It might still be a good game, but I'm not sure if it's for me or not.

Guess we'll find out in a year.

For me, personally, it was confirmation of time to part with the realm of POE.
- No game is perfect, but I guess it all comes down to the following;

- time sink, vs time waste
- feel of progression vs regression
- player agency vs player control

Chasing that 0.1% upgrade is not for everyone, but the jist of any arpg, dungeon crawler etc. must be to offer a variety of ways to experience what the game has to offer, without any forced interference in the shape of progression impairing mechanics and heavily weighted RNG, slot machine, interactions.

The core is loot, and having the majority of loot be meaningfull, either as a direct upgrade, or mats. We want to be swarmed by enemies to preserve the feel of immersion, not be taken outside the game for basic interactions or utilizing of what should be in-game features.

Some games are strong on ambience, lore, variance etc., but it becomes none of them to be set back as a player and have things taken from you without a valid alternative offered.

no game is perfect and no time is meaningful if not for the player remaining invested and its time respected.

Increased.

For me personally standalone title > big expansion. And now I don't have to worry that PoE 2 will change the core of PoE 1 to something that I might not enjoy. Before Excilecon I had mixed feeling of excitement and 'fear' about PoE's future. Now only excitement is left.

dramatically decreased

Lots of things we had to cope with those last 2 years have been mentaly put on PoE 2 wait. To me PoE2 was designed to be an asynchronous part of the game destined to casual players who want to focus on more action intensive gameplay and streamlined build all baked into a big breath of fresh air for the game, actually it looks like a bad mix of semi demanding but yet very repetitive gameplay coupled with masochistic vanilla poe items while not being PoE at all.

Then there are all the contradictions about brand direction, the principal one is owning in a technical sense a game engine but forking out another version of the same universe for the sake of it? They want to keep all the microtransactions but why? It's twisted af. As players we can understand the discontinuity of some items/structures in the game because of technical limitations but forking out like that is a massive mistake. It actually looks like more that a good chunk of the work it outsourced, companies that outsource their work tend to be on ndas and communicate sporadically about it, and it what it looks like: shaddy, unprofessionnal, or naively just incoherent/incompetent.

Then there are the other big contradiction, why build hype like that for years and hint at so much content, they spoke about 36 ascendancies and 100 bosses, on a scale level it's overwhelming even for them to balance properly, not even speaking about maintaining the base they'll set on release... It is bound to be a complete shitshow, it won't be playable at all for 90% of the players I'm sure. The scale of the game suggest that they outsourced modules of the game and as teams took longer than other, the others got paid to produce more, meaning inflation on some areas of the game.

The only thing that felt nice is the work of the shadder guy. The engine looks ground breaking, but if it's filled with crap and it looks like so, it's all for nothing.

Keep in mind that this company rarely respected the players, how many wrist injuries playing PoE, how much coping with toxic practices every time we engage with it? I've personnally got enough...

Probably so long until next year guys.