From what we've seen so far, do you feel you're going to stay with PoE1 or move to PoE2?

PoE2 for SURE!!

Both and if a league mechanic comes by that I don't like I will mainly play the other. If both deliver bad league mechanics I'll play other games or standard as usual then return when something seems interesting. In other words exactly like I approach PoE1 now xD

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Phrazz wrote:

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superbomb1967 wrote:

Hopefully, PoE2 is that. I really love PoE, but I always burn out after I play maps for a few days. I just dont find the grind enjoyable.

PoE 2 will probably be more casual friendly when it comes to the learning process. But I seriously doubt it will be much different when it comes to grinding.

right, i think theres different perceptions on how game content and ease of obtaining it work. if ggg dont change their perception on it then it will be pretty much the same, and its worth noting that formula has proven to work long term better than any other in this genre.




i think theres a complex web a lot of people dont appreciate, and more still dont want to appreciate.

the easier something is to get the less exciting it is to get it, as a general rule of thumb. obviously other factors come into play like usefulness. but no items hype is going to survive it being instantly obtainable with no effort.


so when ur designing the content its best to look at it in a more conceptual way. be it items, currency, whatever, you have content thats easy to get, a challenge and really hard to get. you need these stages or it becomes like diablo 3 where nothing is really that fun to find.

whatever your pitch for that item or currency thats really hard to find but feels really rewarding, why not have another bit beyond that which is basically impossible to find, but if you did it would be like winning $100,000,000? the massive life changing jackpot.

something in the game dies when uve seen it all, found it all, had it all. the games fundamental drive is a loot hunt, and if you have found all the loot before many times that drive breaks down. so its best to always have something in the impossible category.



now the players come into it, impossible for steve is only mildly hard to obtain for kevin, cause kevin is a tryhard no lifer and steve has 5 wives and 147 children to feed from the 8 jobs he works.

but the way u have to see it is that doesnt matter, as long as there is something kind of impossible to find even for kevin, then it doesnt matter where steve is on the ladder of obtainability as long as there is something easy for him to find, something hard and something impossible. there is still content that fits the categories required. the only thing u have to make sure is that the game functions self found for an average player to a reasonable level. can you still get somewhere and beat a lot of endgame with gear that is reasonable to find yourself? if yes then its fine.


this is the kind of abstract way things have to be seen imo. when you start giving items names and then its 'i demand mageblood in X hours or ill get upset' then the debate descends into a mess because people struggle to accept an item in kevins hard to get category is in their impossible category.






that system works as long as everyone appreciates that it doesnt matter where they are on the scale there will always be things they cant find and this is great because that means the games motivation loop will not run out for them, there will always be a better item, a bigger reward they can hope for.

if you dont have that you dont have a functioning loot hunt any more, so the other point of view that just says i want to be able to get everything in the game reliably leads to a game where theres nothing left to stick around for. its self defeating, you want to keep a certain set of players with this different point of view by catering to them, but what they are demanding is removing the mechanisms that keep people playing. these people got what they wanted in diablo 3 and they all stopped playing the game a few days into every season and most of them gave up on the game all together. essentially they are completionists, nothing wrong with that, but theyre asking to complete the game which has the same effect as them leaving because they couldnt complete it.



i think ggg will chose to keep the game exciting, keep the carrot on the stick and recognise if some section of the playerbase will leave because they cant get the carrot then you just have to let them go because giving everyone the carrot will cause an even bigger exodus.








what chris says about playing modes like hardcore, theres a casual mindset to it. play the game, you get as far as you get, you die, you go again. it doesnt matter how far along u get theres always further you could have got. its fully letting go of the completionist mindset, i wasnt quite there with poe1, and i wont be playing poe2 in hardcore mode but i will be playing it group found only among my close friends, never trading with strangers and never getting as far along the item hunt as i got in poe1. cause actually the closer you get to getting everything the less rewarding it is to play the game. it can be a tough cookie to swallow mentally because to hunt is to want to obtain, but really the point is to have fun, finding stuff is fun so the less you have the more fun is in the game for you.

i think its the devs job to let us have fun, let us find fun things and enjoy ourselves but also to stop us just becoming black hole that consumes everything because we as players often dont have that appreciation or restraint.

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jsuslak313 wrote:

Lets not get confused here: seeing a game and playing a game are two VERY different experiences.

A game can "look" one way, but play and feel wayyyy different. The visuals we see are basically ONE person's way of playing the game. You might play differently. You might be "better" or "faster" than the samples we've seen. Advertisement play purposely slows things down as much as possible so you can see every aspect of play.


Personally, I think this whole thread is kind of silly. PoE 2 is YEARS away. Years. PoE 1 was in beta for 2 years before release. Gameplay videos were presented a year before even the alpha began. PoE 2 will likely be in beta at least that long, if not longer (because its newer / bigger than PoE 1 was). Trying to ask folks to make a decision NOW on whether they will stick around or not is just unhelpful and unfair.

Revisit this question after the beta has had a bit of time to rock and roll, and we have a lot more variety of gameplay and 1st hand experience. Even then, the game will evolve over the course of the beta.

PoE2 is around the corner, most likely will be on full release at spring or I missed something?
PoE1 was developed in a garage with handful of people. Can't compare it.

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TorsteinTheFallen wrote:

PoE2 is around the corner, most likely will be on full release at spring or I missed something?
PoE1 was developed in a garage with handful of people. Can't compare it.

The BETA is starting in the middle/end of november. There is NO WAY IN HELL the full game is coming out in the spring. Look at one of the most comparable recent "beta"s: Last Epoch (also a tencent game company). How long was that?! 4 years+. Plus, if that were even remotely true, they would be advertising that EVERYWHERE (even if they were forced to walk it back later).

How long did it take to even get this far from the announcement that PoE 2 was a thing? 5 years. How long between announcing the beta and revealing the start date? Over a year.

I'm sorry, but you are deluding yourself if you think PoE 2 is "right around the corner".

So what if its a bigger team? Its also a 12-year more modern game that is LIKELY going to try and release with as much content as it possibly can. PoE 1 released after years of beta with: three acts, repeated 3 times, and less classes. It was TINY. and still took years.

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jsuslak313 wrote:

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TorsteinTheFallen wrote:

PoE2 is around the corner, most likely will be on full release at spring or I missed something?
PoE1 was developed in a garage with handful of people. Can't compare it.

The BETA is starting in the middle/end of november. There is NO WAY IN HELL the full game is coming out in the spring. Look at one of the most comparable recent "beta"s: Last Epoch (also a tencent game company). How long was that?! 4 years+. Plus, if that were even remotely true, they would be advertising that EVERYWHERE (even if they were forced to walk it back later).

How long did it take to even get this far from the announcement that PoE 2 was a thing? 5 years. How long between announcing the beta and revealing the start date? Over a year.

I'm sorry, but you are deluding yourself if you think PoE 2 is "right around the corner".

So what if its a bigger team? Its also a 12-year more modern game that is LIKELY going to try and release with as much content as it possibly can. PoE 1 released after years of beta with: three acts, repeated 3 times, and less classes. It was TINY. and still took years.

I understand but closed beta is ending and open beta starts at November 15th. Looks like things are moving quite fast. It would be unlikely that they stay in open beta for too long. It would kinda kill the hype momentum that PoE2 really needs to kick off.
I'd say we'll have finished game by the end of Q2 or Q4 2025 at latest. Even that would feel like long wait.

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TorsteinTheFallen wrote:

I understand but closed beta is ending and open beta starts at November 15th. Looks like things are moving quite fast. It would be unlikely that they stay in open beta for too long. It would kinda kill the hype momentum that PoE2 really needs to kick off.
I'd say we'll have finished game by the end of Q2 or Q4 2025 at latest. Even that would feel like long wait.

*Ed: i'm wrong here, I guess there was a closed beta going on. Not sure how extensive it was though. BUT the closed beta was nothing. It was basically everything that already existed that people played back at the convention years ago.

"Currently people are getting invites for a Beta test, likely they do not have any new content and only have access to content that was previously shown/a build of the game that was played when people were invited to play the game for example the couch co-op gameplay."

The closed beta was used purely to test system compatibility and technical things, and only lasted 3 months. PoE 1 closed beta lasted 2 years and tested actual new mechanics and gameplay. They are going to use "early access" or Open beta to actually do the REAL lengthy testing.

Pretty much all of history with this company, and similar games, tells us the exact opposite of your expectations. Like any other comparable game, the beta will be used to rollout different systems slowly, doing extensive testing on each one before adding the next. And balancing/rebalancing/rebalancing/rebalancing. It is an extensive and tedious part of the development cycle and arguably one of the most important. They aren't going to rush it, nor are they going to release everything come November. It's going to be minimal at first. There's a reason we've seen so little of the game in advertisement videos....

This game is not releasing in 2025. No way in hell. The absolute EARLIEST I could see it coming out, but I still think its a long shot, is Spring 2026.



If they were worried about "hype", they wouldn't have announced PoE 2 in 2019.....We are almost now 6 years past that "hype". Whats another 2 or 3? Even Diablo 4 with its massive team took over a decade.

You need to give it a couple of years AFTER release for things to settle down.

A lot of things at release will be barebones, especially endgame content.

But it will build up with more leagues.

I've watched a few of the class showcase movies and I'm not impressed. The freedom of making a spell casting barbarian or a melee witch is the best PoE 1 has to offer. I don't like that the classes (from what I've seen?) are locked to their animations and move set.

I will not play PoE 2, not even bothered with any form of hype to learn more after I saw a few class videos.

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Tungram wrote:

I've watched a few of the class showcase movies and I'm not impressed. The freedom of making a spell casting barbarian or a melee witch is the best PoE 1 has to offer. I don't like that the classes (from what I've seen?) are locked to their animations and move set.

I will not play PoE 2, not even bothered with any form of hype to learn more after I saw a few class videos.

theyre not locked to their animations or their move sets, what made you think that?