End game combat feels too fast

Yea, we will wait and see what GGG's stance are

either they keep standing on uncertainties,
or came out and hake a hard stance of "we want POE2 be slow and punishing, if you want faster games, POE1 exists... cry all you want but that's how we going to do it."

not in such language but you get the idea
if they continue to be uncertain, that really not inspiring confidence on both end of the camp.

I'm totally fine with the endgame being made slower, even super slow, as long as I feel like I have agency, choice, and enough of a toolbox to creatively solve the challenges I face and progress in the game at a reasonable rate.

Right now it's archmage, howa, or triggers, and skills that do HP% damage (this shouldn't be in the game, it's ALWAYS impossible to balance on both enemy and player sides) that is basically the only way you can actually become capable at high level.

In PoE1 scaling mana was a valid choice among other choices. We had CHOICE! In PoE2 Mana costs are so high that you are pigeonholed into building mana for late game scaling, which also pigeonholes you into archmage (but also just because there is basically no other way of scaling spell damage).

The devs so far have been "fixing" this extreme scaling from the best builds so far by just nerfing them, which does technically slow the game down a bit. But they still have not provided us with the tools to make other builds enjoyable (read: not clunky, able to clear stuff smoothly, not bricked on 50% of the content because we don't have a solution for X/Y/Z, not 1000x weaker than the meta builds).

What we need is way more tools and less restrictions on the tools, but weaker tools, and enemies balanced around the power level of the tools we have. Yes, nerf stat stacking, nerf archmage, fine. But supports should be as flexible as they were in PoE1.

The devs seem to have major regrets about PoE1 and how power scaling happened there and how they had to patch up things back in PoE1, so they just decided the solution to that is to lock down everything and remove all the creativity and have canonical combos you have to use.

It feels like they told themselves "yep, that will fix the players being too powerful and the game will feel identical in every way except that one thing we didn't like will be fixed" and didn't think about it further, how it would affect the game. In fact it seems like they didn't even test the game (like... how did they not know multiple things in that interview that the community was talking about for ages?? One day playing the game and they would have known).

It feels terrible and like we have no choice but to do the 1 or 2 OP meta builds that will always get nerfed because they remind the devs of their PoE1 regret.

I like playing fun weird silly builds. I beat the entirety of Elden Ring and Malenia with JUST a magic/int scaling claymore and int stacking, no magic, no summon, no shield. It's not a good build, but it's viable. When you maximum upgrade a weapon in a game, and stack the stat that scales it, even if it is a TERRIBLE idea (e.g. int scaling weapon with no magic) then it's still completely viable and does fine at killing things.

But PoE2 has NOTHING for the aesthetic builds style player who just wants to make weird quirky builds that look cool/fun to play (rather than being meta).

PoE2 literally SCREAMS at you "Use ED + contagion this combo is going to be great!" (WRONG). It SCREAMS at you "Use bone spells to add flat phys damage received debuff to enemies so your skele warriors get bonus damage when hitting them, it'll be great!" (IT SUCKS). "Unearth will be a great way to spread your contagion" (COMPLETELY USELESS, no one has ever used it for this). I'm giving Witch examples because most of the builds I've been trying are Witch.

Even things which don't suck like arsonists spam have a combo which does suck (exploding minions with their command skill).

From a game dev point of view you simply cannot do this, you cannot yell at the players what the obvious canonical combo is going to be and then have that combo suck ass.

Oneshotting most stuff on 2 or 3 divine build is just boring. I am rolling t15-t16 maps with my totems and it's just mindless picking up loot. Don't feel the need to upgrade not that anything drops. Gambling is just a scam(chance orbs especcialy, why put them in game at all?) And I don't wanna feel punished for playing other build. Considered going ssf but I still wanna be able to play with friends.... I will wait and see where GGG is going with that and maybe decide to play sometime when the game feels rewarding not punishing.

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IonSugeRau1#1069 wrote:

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LVSviral#3689 wrote:

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Jonathan even said so himself, directly, that speed and "being able to kill larger crowds" is KEY for players to feel the character progression.

And Jonathan is confused and doesn't have a proper base understanding of how this works and that is why there are so many problems.

Slaughtering a horde of fodder enemies after becoming stronger is fun. Duh, but you can't base THE ENTIRE END GAME around this without amounting to anything more than an insanely over-complicated for entry, yet somehow simultaneously basic bitch piloted arcade mode that ruins everything that isn't blaster mashing.

Right now the game is balanced and designed where nothing else matters late game except getting more damage and wave-clear. All forms of nuanced content, progression and difficulty are most efficiently solved by blasting and the entire game is balanced to enforce this while leaving everything else in the dust.

EVERY. SINGLE. THING. BECOMES. POINTLESS. AND. DEAD. EXCEPT. FOR. BLASTING.

https://youtu.be/opm9xybEmmw?si=bC5IyyS5pULPHRlp

Found this great video where this guy goes through multiple materials where GGG talks about their intentions and shortcomings.

Jonathan does seem to contradict himself at times in his statements. And some of the bullet points from that 2023 video from exilecon seem to have been forgotten about too?? They were aware of damage multipliers on support gems and they did the same mistake despite that??! I'll point them out later on.

You are kind with your words. Jonathan contradict himself all the time and he uses feeling over logic.

TLDR: Bumpity Bump Bump.

Yep sadly this game is no different than poe 1 and that’s a shame. I love poe 1 but i didn’t want it again. Given that ggg kept archnem bullshit in poe 2 and things like archmage and endless stat stack nonsense along side with breach and ritual monsters instantly on top of you if you don’t blow them all up which destroys build diversity you have simply another poe 1 and i’m bored of it already. Also, make more than two skills per weapon type useable and not all gimmicks and set ups given how the end game feels. Something has to give either cap a lot of stuff in this game and actually slow it down like the the early campaign which felt great or just lean into poe 1 again with better graphics.

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I'm totally fine with the endgame being made slower, even super slow, as long as I feel like I have agency, choice, and enough of a toolbox to creatively solve the challenges I face and progress in the game at a reasonable rate.

This. Can't say better.

I'm in the middle of act 6 on my rapid shot build and i DREAD the endgame. Like how am i even going to survive T1 with this skill lmao?

Agreed

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Fart_Smucker#3238 wrote:

Yep sadly this game is no different than poe 1 and that’s a shame. I love poe 1 but i didn’t want it again. Given that ggg kept archnem bullshit in poe 2 and things like archmage and endless stat stack nonsense along side with breach and ritual monsters instantly on top of you if you don’t blow them all up which destroys build diversity you have simply another poe 1 and i’m bored of it already. Also, make more than two skills per weapon type useable and not all gimmicks and set ups given how the end game feels. Something has to give either cap a lot of stuff in this game and actually slow it down like the the early campaign which felt great or just lean into poe 1 again with better graphics.

The worst part is they KNEW what a lot of the fixes were but still went against pretty much everything they were trying to accomplish. Truly mind boggling.