The biggest issue with the endgame is NOT that it is TOO punishing, it's that...
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The biggest issue with the endgame is NOT that it is TOO punishing, it's that the punishment you get is: you are forced to play a boring version of the game.
How many games out there literally say to the player: "Oh you died? Well fuck you, you have to play version of the dungeon/map/level/stage we purposely made boring af now!"? PoE2 does. I made a quick video explaining this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIpL6CCqNvg Last bumped on Jan 26, 2025, 7:43:14 AM
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I also think it is worth noting that this wasn't an issue in PoE1 because in PoE1 you only lost EXP on death, and the map+resources spent to roll the map if you failed at 6 portals. Never did the game turn off mechanics on the next map you did as a punishment.
Imagine if you died in a map so it removed all the league mechanics you specced into? Crazy right? No, in PoE1 you're always going to be getting fun mechanics in maps no matter what, no matter how much exp and orbs you lose rolling and dying on maps, the next map will always have fun mechanics in it, especially the ones you spec into! |
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You can always go around the node, or if you're in a placed where you have to go through it, toss a T1 in, spend 90 seconds swallowing your pride and move on?
If time lost is the issue, xp on death is exponentially worse into the 90s, than running a single contentless map. |
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The biggest issue with the endgame is NOT that it is TOO punishing, it's that endgame has the dumbest possible gameplay, like in PoE 1.
Last edited by Suchka_777#4336 on Jan 26, 2025, 4:27:55 AM
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" No, you can't always go around the node. Sometimes it's the only node to progress to the next area. You also might die on the next node with mechanics. You also need to spend time putting the mechanics on the nodes. But more importantly you're missing the point. "If time lost is the issue"? Uh no? The entire premise of my video and post is that time, exp, currency, etc. are totally OK things to sacrifice as punishment. What isn't good game design is forcing the players to play a version of your game that is boring, because then they will think your game is boring. Throwing in a shit waystone to clear a boring map with no mechanics is boring mindless busywork and game devs should not want their game to be boring mindless busywork (excepting edge cases like frustration-games). Last edited by RedaOu#0533 on Jan 26, 2025, 4:31:13 AM
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" I get that it's not optimal, but also, dying on consecutive maps repeatedly is, to some extent, user error. Maybe it's actual reaction, maybe it's build, maybe it's waystone mods, resists, one of a million passive tree interactions, apparently taken from life on a mana flask... Being able to skip the node would mean people would have corpse throwing runs to rush citadels and such, which is FAR more horrible as an efficient playstyle than occasionally having to run a crap T1...or improving your character. |
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" You're still missing the point and I never suggested being able to skip nodes? Am I being trolled lol? I'm saying the game as currently designed literally removes fun things from the maps as a way of punishing you, i.e. it makes the game less fun -> more boring. I'm not arguing about whether they're punishing the right kinds of failures. I'm saying the punishment that they do decide to give you is to lock you in the boring cube for a while and that is dumb af. |
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All of the head-wooshing aside (from both sides I think), I'm just saying it's obviously not the best method, but what is the alternative method that wouldn't be exploitable? That's the part I can't figure out and no one else seems to be able to either.
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" I give one such example in the video, and I think there are thousands of ways you can redesign the endgame to achieve that. But yes there is no tiny patchwork change that will solve it. You can easily increase the punishment from PoE1 by making it so you lose more orbs/gold or other kinds of progress that doesn't result in fun things being removed from the map. The example I give is adding some kind of currency investment process to zones on the map so you can just choose to add more mechanics without being forced to run blank nodes. |
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I guess I just hold onto the "we pivoted to endgame and did it in 3 months" harder than most. Like, it's a miracle the endgame EXISTS if it was only done in 3 months. I assume things like the atlas will be barely recognizable in a year. PoE1 completely overhauled it's atlas multiple times...no reason PoE2 won't do the same.
That said, totally valid, I guess I just assumed that the "endgame is barebones" included fixing things like that. |
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