Dear GGG: You brought over a MASSIVE mistake from PoE1 to PoE2 and it hurts everyone! Resistance?!

Most people won't even consciously realize how horribly implemented resistances are in Path of Exile and it has slipped past GGG too in recent years as they have been re-evaluating mechanics for PoE2.

Resistance in PoE is calculated so that every point you have is worth more than the last with growing returns until you reach a hard limit, which is then echoed with increases to maximum resistance. This is such a simple mechanic that it's completely overlooked and disassociated from the multitude of damaging side effects that it causes for the game. Resistance needs to have this curve inverted so that the first point you have is the most valuable and every point afterwords has slightly diminished value. While this might all sound niche it is actually immensely impactful and becomes more apparent the more it's inspected.

Let's first look at how the current resistance system in PoE is tedious and counter-intuitive:

Players gain resistance as a form of progression in order to survive fighting stronger enemies, however as players get into the higher levels resistance becomes easier and easier to reach the 75% limit on and this is a problem. There can't be any progression if a limit is quickly hit after all. The solution GGG first and still has is that as the player progresses throughout the game they lose 60% resistance. One of the problems with this is that it's the opposite of satisfying progression; people want more stats and harder enemies, not less stats for the same enemies. This creates a League start and leveling loop that sucks part of the soul out of players. Normally the first stats you get on your character are the most impactful and then everything afterwards generally takes more grinding in order to match due to diminishing returns. Resistance is the opposite of this though as the first few sources, especially after the campaign reductions, may not be enough to actually make a difference in whether you can survive an extra hit, but the last few sources of it either normalize the difficulty or perhaps even trivialize the game... Then they're constantly stripped as you step upon the tedious from design leveling treadmill.

Resistances are anathema to "grinding gear" in their own sick way too. The satisfaction of getting new gear upgrades is constantly tainted by resistances. If you get a new piece of gear that has better stats then you could still be stuck using the worse item you already have until you go through the loathsome process of re-balancing your resistances to match your new item; all because the resistance system is top heavy and you don't want to get 1 shot from missing a single suffix. This can also happen in reverse where you find an item with amazing resistances, but you already have the 75% limit from the house of cards that is your carefully balanced load-out and so would have to do a ton of gear re-balancing just to make it fit without having its amazing stats hard-capped into oblivion.

Now let's talk about how offense vs. defense builds are backwardly affected by resistances. You would think typically a glass canon would skimp on resistances and a tank would go heavy on them, but that just doesn't happen. Since often times only the top 1 or 2 resistance mods on your build will actually save you from getting 1 shot glass cannons will always cap their resistance (not including the 0.1% high end damage/clear characters). Tanks meanwhile just hit a wall at the 75% resistance limit and gain no value from having more of the tank stats, absurdly enough. Maximum resistance instead takes the place of extra resistance, but has the same messy issues normal resistance does and then also suffers from a glaring weakness to penetration modifiers and debuffs.

Now for how situational and temporary sources of resistance are doomed to obscurity. Normally if you have a way to lower damage taken available you will utilize and plan around it for optimal game-play. Sources of resistance are a complete exception to this. Since the top of your resistances are so impactful you will almost never rely on a situational source or outside influence instead of always having the 75% limit on your gear by default. This leaves any source of inconsistent resistance like co-op sceptre/skill auras and the new PoE2 charms amidst other things dead in the crib for the super-majority of players.

You know what the worst part about all of this is? And simultaneously the best part if you are actually trying to fix it? None of the above bullshit needs to exist and it could all be alleviated with a basic change to how resistance modifiers function and are calculated.

Resistance could simply be formulated differently. Instead of all sources of resistance being additive up to a limit, it could just be a rating that is calculated with diminishing returns. A standard viable example being a formula such as (50+0.05*resistance)/(50+resistance)=mitigation multiplier. This example doesn't account for negative resistance values, but does that even need to be in the game to begin with? Resistance could be hard limited to not go below 0 just like how Penetration now works in PoE2 in general. Penetration could be buffed to also apply to Damage over Time effects and then debuffs that apply negative resistances could be changed to instead make the target take More or Increased damage. The campaign reduction would no longer serve a progression purpose and could be removed. Maximum resistance wouldn't need to exist anymore either. Modifiers granting More resistance could be added in and be a relevant high end tank stat perhaps. The % sign would probably need to be removed from resistance descriptions for the sake of clarity. The end value of your resistance mitigation could simply be viewed in the character menu.

That's about it for covering the hidden in plain sight disaster that is resistances and how to effectively remove a ton of horrible symptoms caused as a result. Please GGG fix this now while PoE2 is still in the oven where it would take less work!

I also made a similar smaller post about how armour could also be re-balanced better:
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3667538

I can't emphasize enough how much nicer PoE2 would feel for everyone if the above conceptual change were to happen to resistances. It would remove so much tedium from the game while simultaneously making the game a bit more balanced.

Agreed

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3626451

+1
Resistance system could be so much better.
Penalties come from nowhere, could be balanced without them.

I've seen a lot of other posts today that have 1 thing in common. People are having an extremely unfun time balancing their resistances.

Hmmmmm...

I keep seeing people having an awful time balancing their gear. I really hope GGG ends up seeing this post or similar ones with the way they are getting flooded with feedback.

by awful time you mean they have to find good gear with stats they need and use it.


thats literally what the game is designed around, its a loot game, theres stats on the loot you need and the fun is looking for the gear?

its not counterstrike? its a game specifically designed around hunting for items?

"

Snorkle_uk#0761 wrote:

by awful time you mean they have to find good gear with stats they need and use it.


thats literally what the game is designed around, its a loot game, theres stats on the loot you need and the fun is looking for the gear?

its not counterstrike? its a game specifically designed around hunting for items?

?
The entire post is about how dis-proportionally effective the scaling of resistance is and how a single affix on equipment can turn into a stat balancing headache when trying to upgrade your builds. Also, being dis-proportionally viscous towards people that don't hit the +135% sweet spot of each mandatory stat which especially targets new players while still being an irritation for veteran players.

I am fully aware PoE is designed around loot. I have thousands of hours too this isn't an out of nowhere new player post. The problem is NOT the need to build resistances and I never said that and apologize if I worded something to give the wrong idea. The entire point is HOW resistances scale not whether you should need to build any or not.

Agreed.

One thing I never liked in PoE 1 was how you maxed out your resistances pretty much whatever build you were using, and the game was clearly balanced around this. It's the illusion of choice, and a trap for new players not aware that they are expected to max out these stats.

Increasing your resistance never really felt like powering up your character, just something you had to do to be playing at baseline difficulty.

Similar to Life not being on the tree (because everyone has to take it otherwise), Resistances really shouldn't be a part of the power progression (because everyone has to get it).