2 different games - make a choice GGG (in favor for slower pace action)

Hello,

I would like to share my experience of the game after 150h+ of playing the game.
I played sorc to lvl 55 (sparks) and monk to lvl 90 (ice strike), and I uninstalled the game last week.

To me, the game is in reality two games that are way too different. Let's talk about the first game : the campaign.

- I played in coop with a Warrior. Although the difficulty seemed higher than doing it solo, it was a really good experience, at least up to act 3 where things started to shift.
- The ability to resurrect your partner felt good; especially when we managed to stun the boss to have a very short window to manage to resurrect the other. It felt like we were really fighting to survive.
- ZSQD movement feels cool, action oriented.
- Dodge mechanic is cool, it felt like for once in an arpg you are using your brain during the action (and not only during the planning of your character).
- You are incentivized to combo spells, which is very cool, and very action oriented.
- The boss fights were engaging. Good readability (up to act2)!
- The visuals are stunning during the campaign (up to act2).
- The only downside is the Sekhema trial : it was a nightmare especially doing it in coop. Honor mechanic feels very bad (at least in the beginning).

Side note : my friend had to stop because Warrior was not enjoyable anymore especially at act 3: mobs are too fast, too many, and he could not pull a single significant attack because of the action delay and the impossibility to redirect the attack to the target that has moved during the animation.

I continued to endgame alone with a monk; the game quickly became a one shot festival, and the mechanics that I learnt during the campaign disappeared.
- Either I get to one shot the entire screen.
- Either I get one shotted, and I don't know where it came from, what type of damage that was.
- 1 portal : I do not have any opportunities to learn in rapid succession.
- I cannot revive my partner, he has to wait, which is the worst feeling in the world.
- Endgame mechanics felt far too punishing (losing maps), making me quit instantly.
- The action part is thrown away : dodging becomes pointless as the action unreadable, too many effects, too many mobs, attacks coming from outside the screen, the terrain is cluttered, no logs to understand why you got OS.
- The only things that matter are : dodge chance, energy shield and having sufficient damage to one shot the whole screen/one shotting bosses.
- Paradoxically, the content I enjoyed the most (even though it was very frustrating because of too much RNG) is the Sekhema Trial... I know, just listen. This is the only place where movement matters, the action is slow and deliberate, actions have consequences you can predict, analyze, and react to accordingly (provided you have enough movespeed).
- In the endgame, there is no longer "skill" involved in the action, no dodge no combo, which was for me the selling argument of POE2.

TLDR; The early campaign is very good : it leans toward a slow deliberate, thoughtful action game, where skill is a determining factor, which is why I bought the game (and what was advertised).
The endgame is a high loot dopamine/very high frustration, one shot screen festival that kills the mechanics of your game that you displayed so well during the campaign, and that neglects entirely the skill of the player.

@GGG if you're reading. To me, you advertised the first game and delivered (at least up to act 2). I understand that endgame was done in a rush.
Do you intend to change act3 and endgame to match the act1 and act2 design (dodge, combo action, with die and retry) ? Or do you want the second game ? We need to know.
You have to make a choice and clarify for once your vision, because as of now it is very fuzzy/misleading.

I agree with this post. It is very jarring to go from being able to revive a friend to having no ability to do so in waystones. It also feels horrible to the player that died to not be able to rejoin the action. I am not playing hardcore because I don't want a one mistake and it is game over experience. I enjoyed the campaign a lot. Even with some of the mechanics feeling too punishing in some bosses it still allowed the chance to revive if someone died. (Note I do think scaling for multiplayer needs to be looked at as it feels like it ramps up the damage a bit too much.)

For maps I really feel that reviving teammates should be allowed and even solo should make use of the portals you have so a random feeling one shot does not end a run. If the once and done does not get removed then at least something needs to be done to make area of effects easier to see in the maps and one hit KO mechanics should not be present (aka it should always be possible to recover from a single hit.)

Good post. Though I didn't have the same frustrations as I play only SSF - the gameplay does feel like it is split towards end of campaign.

I think part of this will be offset simply by having act 4-6. The campaign will be longer. So for casuals and people who don't enjoy endgame, there will be more content to replay.

Couldn't agree more!!

Support please read this text carefully before making further errors resulting in the deletion of community discussion which does not violate the rules as this post was unjustly deleted previously, Thank you.

"wtb" <- This denotes a want or need for what is about to follow and is not a trade offer but a cheeky way of asking the devs for the following.

"Party Content" - You can't trade for this, I'm asking the developers for it.

"Dungeons" - the game doesn't have dungeons, I'm asking the developers for it.

"Raids" - The game doesn't have raids, I'm asking the developers for it.

Do better GGG i have been here posting constructively for almost a decade.

Same here.

Played both group and solo and we enjoyed ourselves together until reaching maps...

Then it became unplayable in big group (we played in a group of 4-5 peoples.)

The one that could keep playing maps wer ethe ones that started trading thus entirely ignored the looting part of the game.


All the one that tried to drop together stuff still struggle to get a decent set of gear for t15 map after 300hours of play


Imagine 5 guy putting their loot together being unable to loot decent gear for an entire month of playing (around 300h each so 1500h of effectiv play). thus being condemned to buy gear...


what the point of the loot if its noever good in 5x300hours of playing

This game is not going to be slow. If you still hope so, you haven't been paying attention to anything that was said in the interviews, nor any attention to skills in the game.
The whole point of the EARLY game being slow is that there's room for power progression. If you missed that, idk what to tell ya.

The goal is to get rid of the movement skill spam.
The goal is to get back to a power level that PoE1 had like 5 years ago, not 10.

No Rest For the Wicked is that slow ARPG you want, go play that - stamina system and everything. I won't be playing it myself because I don't even see it as an ARPG, being shallow and tedious. And act surprised when I say this: Complex games are not going to be slow.

That said, this is the starting point of the game. Nerfs are going to happen, but there's also going to be a lot of power creep from here. If you play the game blind, the amount of power you're going to get over the coming year is insane. If you're a metacuck then you're in for a lot of nerfs, to the point where you'll probably never see the same power level again. Enjoy ^^

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Apoplexie#7568 wrote:

ZSQD movement feels cool, action oriented.

I have to try it :) Next challenge will be ZWMI movement.

I totally agree about frustration from having 2 different games. Really wish GGG at least would clarify which one to expect, so people would know if they want to stick with it or look for another game.