A Concern with Pinnacle Bosses in PoE2

So far everything I've seen from PoE2 reveals has me counting down the days until early access. I really do not have many concerns, everything from game systems to character design seems extensively thought out and jumping in will be a blast. As I'm watching a video on PoE2 right now there is one concern I'm having about this one chance per Pinnacle Boss per key system.

I feel like with a game that does such a great job of having build diversity and a play it your way type of theme that having only one shot at bosses will end up really hurting potentially A- builds, builds that could've been a solid alternative to the cookie cutter builds for bossing. The reason is simple with only one chance for a boss that takes a lot of effort especially for the SSF players to reach they already gravitate towards builds that are known killers but it will greatly discourage experimentation and especially in a newer game I think experimentation should be encouraged. So naturally giving someone more opportunities earlier in the games development than making it harder would naturally make more sense to me but that is not something you can do - playerbases do not accept taking away convenience in games ever. Once its there you cannot take it away. Perhaps this is why GGG has decided to really make it so unforgiving to see if people can do it anyway- I just hope this does not result in a bunch of cheese builds or everyone playing one class similar to say Trap Rogue on Last Epoch just 1 shotting bosses never having to know the mechanics. For as long as I've been playing GGG has always been fairly quick to correct abnormalities but if you really want this to be a shining achievement it needs to be nipped in the butt beforehand.

Sorry I know this was a bit all over the place,
It's just a small concern from someone who really likes to experiment and come up with my own builds in ARPGs and got owned so hard doing that in PoE1. I know this is an end game activity for the top players- In a game like PoE there's a lot of mechanics that someone like me who normally would play HC in a game like Diablo or Last Epoch plays SC because I like to know what killed me. I just feel like anytime you're putting in several hours to get a key and this boss potentially just ghosts you without you even knowing what attack you died to that doesn't present as much of a learning experience as having a couple tries and it feels pretty awful to spend a day doing something and not even coming out with the knowledge of where you went wrong. In the end even people that are the most dedicated to learning for themselves will be watching guides on the fights- this is already a thing in PoE1 but having 1 chance in PoE2 instead of 6 IDK? Either way this games going to be a great time and I cant wait.

-Darth (soon to be glad to be playing monk again)

Can someone tell me what did he write , i am not reading all that .

1. You can try again in the future
2. If you are too afraid of failing and then having to get to it again, watch a guide and learn the mechanics ahead of time.
3. If you don't want to watch a guide. Go in fully focused on defensiveness with extra defensive layers for that boss theme/element.
4. I also dont like the idea of 1 attempt per map/boss. I much prefer a system that is between both PoE1 and PoE2.

My ideal system would be limited "X portals", but if you DIE, you have to start again with the boss at full HP. This makes it so you still have to finish the entire boss fight without dying to earn the rewards, but gives you a few attempts to learn the fight, or to deal with game/internet issues that are beyond player control like:
Server lag,
Game crashes,
Server crashes,
Game bugs etc....

I think they'll add a couple of portals eventually would make sense let's say 3 portals roughly 1 for a phase with a total reset of course. Maybe extra loot for not dying at all. I also like what they did in wow showing boss skills for dungeons. You skip youtube basically and have it in cool UI frame.

It's EA and you're worried about the aspirational content - which is not that bad a worry :-)

They will still have to tune it many, many times.

Plus, the whole idea on what makes a build viable can differ from PoE1. Many defensive layers were added later in the game, which improved the 'layers of defense' concept.

These lessons learned are now embedded in the system from the start.


It's a new challenge.

"My ideal system would be limited "X portals", but if you DIE, you have to start again with the boss at full HP. This makes it so you still have to finish the entire boss fight without dying to earn the rewards, but gives you a few attempts to learn the fight"

Yes. This makes the most sense to me. To be honest though I actually do like the idea for regular maps and the base content of if you die your done with the map because you can just get right back into another map but activities that require a significant amount of time investment it feels terrible to not even get a learning experience from that. I think the more defenses thing is something any experienced ARPG player would know off the rip but if they dont will certainly be taught by dying in maps. When you want to learn the mechanics, sure you can go watch a video, but that's still not the same as playing it and then there's a ton of people (I'm not one of them generally) that will straight up refuse to watch a video.

Kaepae I like the attitude and suggestions. It is a new challenge and who knows maybe it is a slower pace enough that you don't typically just die out of nowhere if you do have your defenses in order.

diablo dude - the extra loot for not dying is a cool concept but I think that will lead even more people into cookie cutter builds and making sure they watch a guide on the bosses beforehand. I Dunno if the pace of the game would allow for something like WoW preview.

Do you guys know if we'll even have access to Pinnacle Bosses in EA? For some reason I was under the impression that just half of the story line was mostly what was going to be missing because it seemed like there were several end game systems already in it for EA.

Just get good lmao, if you evade/dodge every mechanic then you can kill them even with a F tier build unless they have some type of self-heal mechanic.

"

Darth1885#7261 wrote:

Do you guys know if we'll even have access to Pinnacle Bosses in EA? For some reason I was under the impression that just half of the story line was mostly what was going to be missing because it seemed like there were several end game systems already in it for EA.

Not even sure, though the end game was a focus point for EA. I'm with the assumption that there will be content that is considered very hard to unbeatable, a bit in the trend of how hard red maps were initially in PoE 1. A T16, from what I heard, was considered aspirational.

There might be plenty of trouble already.

As long as every character class and archetype are fairly balanced, this won't be a huge problem. But the problem will be exponentially larger if there are clear power differences in characters/archetypes.

I honestly believe this will be the first thing that gets changed. Even with perfect class/ascendancy/build balances the bosses will last long and they are tuned giga hard I just can't see the 1 try bosses idea last long. That is insanely big punishment. Even in a game like Elden Ring you just go right back and retry if you die. In PoE2 you will have to not just find it again but have the entry key as well. All of these are insanely high expectations towards the players. Not many people can one life (without leaving the zone and re enter) pinnacle bosses in PoE1 that are out for 5+ years without instant phasing builds or immortal builds.