Limiting support gems to only one skill nearly forces one button gameplay

It does. I only use Stormcaller Arrow and sprinkle a little bit of Rain of Arrows on it. It's boring AF after doing this for over 30 hours.

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thor777#1684 wrote:

I'm a bit disappointed in that GGG still chose to go with straight up damage increase supports in PoE2. Although they have down sides, like reduced aoe, people are still going to gravitate toward choosing the damage supports. It's because of this that people feel the need to use the same damage supports for all skills. I wish they would balance the damage around gear and passive tree more and focus the support gems on utility.

You don't have use the damage gems on your character, I'm sure there will be 5 supports for your skills that don't add damage, so pick those. Unless other people are hacking into your instance and ruing your fun, why worry about what supports they gravitate to?

I'm gonna go out on a limb and try to address your "because the bosses will be balanced around using them" response beforehand to save you the time.

Wonderful! Added "challenge"(read tedium) for those who claim they love "challenge" so much that they want to spoil everyone else's time.

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Mr_Vagtastic#4761 wrote:

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thor777#1684 wrote:

I'm a bit disappointed in that GGG still chose to go with straight up damage increase supports in PoE2. Although they have down sides, like reduced aoe, people are still going to gravitate toward choosing the damage supports. It's because of this that people feel the need to use the same damage supports for all skills. I wish they would balance the damage around gear and passive tree more and focus the support gems on utility.

You don't have use the damage gems on your character, I'm sure there will be 5 supports for your skills that don't add damage, so pick those. Unless other people are hacking into your instance and ruing your fun, why worry about what supports they gravitate to?

I'm gonna go out on a limb and try to address your "because the bosses will be balanced around using them" response beforehand to save you the time.

Wonderful! Added "challenge"(read tedium) for those who claim they love "challenge" so much that they want to spoil everyone else's time.

I don't have an issue with support restriction. I actually like the idea. I'm just voicing my concern that GGG still went with damage supports.

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thor777#1684 wrote:

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Mr_Vagtastic#4761 wrote:

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thor777#1684 wrote:

I'm a bit disappointed in that GGG still chose to go with straight up damage increase supports in PoE2. Although they have down sides, like reduced aoe, people are still going to gravitate toward choosing the damage supports. It's because of this that people feel the need to use the same damage supports for all skills. I wish they would balance the damage around gear and passive tree more and focus the support gems on utility.

You don't have use the damage gems on your character, I'm sure there will be 5 supports for your skills that don't add damage, so pick those. Unless other people are hacking into your instance and ruing your fun, why worry about what supports they gravitate to?

I'm gonna go out on a limb and try to address your "because the bosses will be balanced around using them" response beforehand to save you the time.

Wonderful! Added "challenge"(read tedium) for those who claim they love "challenge" so much that they want to spoil everyone else's time.

I don't have an issue with support restriction. I actually like the idea. I'm just voicing my concern that GGG still went with damage supports.

"people are still going to gravitate toward choosing the damage supports"

It may be a misunderstanding, but this line specifically and overall message made me believe that you dislike that people will pick damage supports. You may or may not feel this way, I'm still not sure, it's just so many people are calling for tighter restrictions on everyone instead of just opting into that "challenge" themselves without being forced by GGG.

If that's not what you're trying to push for, you're still able to focus primarily on the utility gems. If you're wishing the utility gems were more interesting, I agree. I can't recall the name but there's an indie or AA comic book themed ARPG with really cool skill transformation via a support get type system you should check out.

So far everything with the new systems seems to be just limiting builds into specific archetypes which than a handful of them will become the have to run builds to be able to push maps and endgame bosses. So far the options are to basically one shot, stun chain, or have specific minion builds just beat bosses down. The options for builds is limited by the new "core" system way more so than POE 1. Its a pretty regressive step back. I would rather be forced to deal with links and socket colors than this system any day.

In general I like the idea of using the support gems only 1 time each. Otherwise I would be concerned that players just pick the best support gems and use them on most skills. I also like the puzzle of figuring out which support gem to use best on which skill. As a monk I had actually a quite diverse set of support gems at the end of act 3.

However the current implementation might have flaws:
Stacking 5 support gems that act as damage multipliers sounds very strong indeed, I just haven't tried it out, since I'm still in cruel campaign. It would also be sad if damage bonus gems would in general be just better than support gems that are more focused on utility or alter how a skill works. Maybe 5 support gems is also simply too much: having only 3 support gems per skill, but making those gems more interesting could lead to better gameplay than stacking more generic effects. That would also lessen the damage multiplier effect.
I would need to play more and experiment to come to a real conclusion.

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Mr_Vagtastic#4761 wrote:

"people are still going to gravitate toward choosing the damage supports"

It may be a misunderstanding, but this line specifically and overall message made me believe that you dislike that people will pick damage supports. You may or may not feel this way, I'm still not sure, it's just so many people are calling for tighter restrictions on everyone instead of just opting into that "challenge" themselves without being forced by GGG.

If that's not what you're trying to push for, you're still able to focus primarily on the utility gems. If you're wishing the utility gems were more interesting, I agree. I can't recall the name but there's an indie or AA comic book themed ARPG with really cool skill transformation via a support get type system you should check out.

I'm not complaining about any players. I'm saying players will more often than not pick more damage, when given the choice. That's why including these types of gems, then restricting the use to only one, will result in people complaining, just like this any many other similar threads. What I wish GGG would do is use support gems to mainly be utility or skill transformation, and move the damage elsewhere.

I like thors idea to have the support gems be more focused on utility and skill alteration. That could work well, if implemented in a good way.
Btw the passive tree might have the issue of choosing damage options over more utility focused nodes as well.

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thor777#1684 wrote:

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Mr_Vagtastic#4761 wrote:

"people are still going to gravitate toward choosing the damage supports"

It may be a misunderstanding, but this line specifically and overall message made me believe that you dislike that people will pick damage supports. You may or may not feel this way, I'm still not sure, it's just so many people are calling for tighter restrictions on everyone instead of just opting into that "challenge" themselves without being forced by GGG.

If that's not what you're trying to push for, you're still able to focus primarily on the utility gems. If you're wishing the utility gems were more interesting, I agree. I can't recall the name but there's an indie or AA comic book themed ARPG with really cool skill transformation via a support get type system you should check out.

I'm not complaining about any players. I'm saying players will more often than not pick more damage, when given the choice. That's why including these types of gems, then restricting the use to only one, will result in people complaining, just like this any many other similar threads. What I wish GGG would do is use support gems to mainly be utility or skill transformation, and move the damage elsewhere.

Gotcha. Thing is we only get damage 4 places. Tree is increased (technically some more too with crit multi, but crit areas looked to be more right side), skill gems/weapons are how we increase base damage, and a few supports give more. Not looking at them and don't have them memorized, but even if some ascendancies add damage somewhere, I don't think all of them do from recollection.

You could argue we don't need more damage multipliers if they balance for that, because idk where they could put it if not support gems. Then we just take even more increased damage on the tree and I feel lose even more complexity and customization options.

I'd argue I would use other skills more for their effects if my RMB skill didn't do so much more damage due to the gem restriction.

I know that sounds like removing the damage scaling from gems is viable, but where do you put the weight of that more damage customization and complexity-wise?

Without support gem capping, I can only imagine everyone and their mother running around with pierce + chain on every single skill they equip.

That aside, to be fair about the situation, this is a sequel to a game where one button gameplay, was the gameplay, and only using a single skill, was just how the game worked.
In PoE1, people got themselves gear with 6 link gem sockets, put in one skill with 5 supports, and never used another skill again.
That being the case, PoE2 is already mountains higher on multiple skill usage than PoE1 was.