The dodge roll changes actually diminishes the combat experience

I guess this will be a bit of a hot take, but after playing with the dodge roll with 0 hitbox it has dramatically reduced the moment to moment engagement that was really awesome during launch. From a combat perspective its a new game now. Before, I was constantly looking at every monster and keeping track of any gaps and actively making decisions about positioning. Now, I have stopped looking at monsters, I only look at the minimap to see where I can move and if I notice that I get stuck on something I just dodge roll and that resolves it in 99% of the cases. The difference is striking, before the patch I was focusing - but now I'm barely paying attention.

Before, monsters blocked access so you had to think on your feet of where you could move. Do you want to flee into a corridor, make sure to not pick the one with monsters since you'll not get past them. Now I can just go wherever I go during combat, just dodge through any big dude in a doorway, no problem. Sure it feels nice with agency, but I feel like I'm gliding around with a flying cheat compared to the intense positioning considerations that was really engaging.

I understand the outcry about the surrounding massacres that became an overnight meme, and I've been a repeating victim of them several times. But I was really disappointed to see GGG just drastically change a fundamental gameplay decision on what felt like a whim. Not going from 1 to 0.75, or 0.5 - but just straight to 0. So there is probably no chance of going back now without an even bigger outcry.

Hopefully they reconsider, the combat was goated for the first days. There has to be a way to have positioning being meaningful and monsters matter instead of devolving into zoom zoom before the first week has ended.

Now, correct me if i'm wrong, but the dodge roll changes are not in game yet? no?

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Mentelgen#3162 wrote:

Now, correct me if i'm wrong, but the dodge roll changes are not in game yet? no?

They are. And honestly they aren't great.

If anything, dodge needed nerfs (like a small CD) rather than buffs. Buffs only promote more glass cannon-y complainers who think they must dodge all incoming damage via dodge roll spam.

Position is still meaningful.
You can still get swarmed, blocked and die because of it.

If people are smart enough to pull smaller packs and keep the option to evade that is a choice.
If you pull too much trying to speed run and get blocked that is a choice.

I could see how something like 0.5 or 0.25 size when rolling would be a bit more reasonable than 0 size, but it does kind of need to be small enough that rolling actually does something when trapped, and more often than not.

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just_dont#6539 wrote:

They are. And honestly they aren't great.

If anything, dodge needed nerfs (like a small CD) rather than buffs. Buffs only promote more glass cannon-y complainers who think they must dodge all incoming damage via dodge roll spam.

Ah, I see, sorry, did not see it mentioned in the patch notes.

As for the changes themselves, so far i have no opinion on it, if anything i want to be surounded on my titan, but that can just be a me thing.

Plus ten thousand.

Size 0 while dodging is basically phasing with no phasing, and it sucks. the change to allow the character to shove small enemies out of the way while dodging was a good one - that makes sense, and it resolves cases of being swarmed by three hundred Adorned Beetles exploding out of the walls and giving you no time to react before you're buried under scarabs like a Mummy movie sequel. But the size reduction is just lame.

Positioning mattered in PoE 2, and combat awareness was amply rewarded. Now positioning is meaningless and there's no real need to pay attention to anything, you can just Ant Man your way out of literally any problem. It sucks.

I agree that the ability of the enemies to block and sourround me is a meaningful part of the combat and should be retained. Positioning should matter and not just constant dodge rolling just through hordes of enemies.

+1. While I like the new roll better than the old one, I think a player size of 0.25 instead of the new 0 (was 1 before) could feel good.

What behavior should I be seeing now? Just died testing this on steam deck by trying to get surrounded and roll out. Idk if a steam deck or controller issue, but I guess I'll try on my PC tomorrow and see.