Take on "Ben's" feedback

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MyNam3lsJosh#8566 wrote:

I haven’t seen a reply to the OP that rebuts any of his remarks in a cogitation fashion. (I Looked that word up)

NOT trying to be snarky but in this context I think you want "cogent" cogitation is the noun. Probably autocorrect.

IMO lots of Bens points are subjective, and lots of the OP's are as well. All anyone can do is offer opinions.

For example I disagree with the OP's idea that you can just "not play 1 button builds"

There's logical reasons for this: GGG tends to balance the game against the most strong stuff,(historically almost 100% of the time they do this). This means "choosing to play" a less 1 button assortment of skills because of engaging combat means you're literally choosing to lose the game; locked out of pinnacle content and or (if you like trade) at a massive inflationary disadvantage. As well as suffer many consequences that "better" 1 button builds don't.

Among the very distinct effects of this in POE1 that I personally hate about the game (and hope they can do better in POE2 which I'm aware is not the case yet):

terrible time til death design: being one shot or shotgunned because you don't one shot the screen and the Dev's have balanced the game to spike you to death as the only challenge they can provide "OP builds".

Entire playstyles invalidated or at least far more punished than others (melee up to 3.25) due to design choices meant to slow down Ben_

Archnemesis remember that?

Having to kill bosses with a billion HP with 1million DPS instead of the expected 20-100 million DPS

Getting killed by on death effects because you're slower than meta builds which run past them and never die to them unless they backtrack to get some loot.

Dying because you stopped to pick up aforementioned loot.

Back tracking because your damage doesn't wrap around the nooks and crannies of the map.

Extreme Tedium and loot dumpster itemization because drop rates are balanced against giga zoomer builds.

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auspexa#1404 wrote:

you got it all wrong, I think poe 1 is also a terrible game, though it used to be good long ago. I like poe 2's approach more than poe 1, as I like grim dawn more than I like poe 1, it's just terribly executed

Okay I apologize, I do agree some stuff is badly executed and some of just a bad idea (IMO) such as huting down each rare not being a fun idea that shouldn't have ever gotten past the initial idea phase of things.

Its early I'll keep hoping for now but if you guys or Ben want to write it off so be it.

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alhazred70#2994 wrote:

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auspexa#1404 wrote:

you got it all wrong, I think poe 1 is also a terrible game, though it used to be good long ago. I like poe 2's approach more than poe 1, as I like grim dawn more than I like poe 1, it's just terribly executed

Okay I apologize, I do agree some stuff is badly executed and some of just a bad idea (IMO) such as huting down each rare not being a fun idea that shouldn't have ever gotten past the initial idea phase of things.

Its early I'll keep hoping for now but if you guys or Ben want to write it off so be it.

the issue is that some of the problems are almost impossible to fix without redesigning the whole game because they're embedded into the game's systems

Personally agree with Ben 100. I am a strictly POE1 player now. Well, I will be when 3.26 launches.

Ben's review is spot on. OP takes contrarian prize, good job on that one.

There's some less reasonant points but I get his points from his perpective: the tedium is everywhere and it's not needed.


You can't sell water in a prety box to people who were drinking juice before for that price.

Adn the price her is people's time. no one want to do more for less. If the action is slower and we are expected to use combos and rotations for 10 sec to kill 1 pack (so no multiscreen oneshot BS) I expect it to drop usefull stuff.

If the maps are x3 time bigger, the speed is x2 slower and the loot is x4 more scarce, then the gamedemands you to waste x24 more time for similar effect. you can't put that shite on clear yeys and expect people won't compare the gameplay.

Ok you did coold animations and graphics, that's not worth x24 time slowing the pace for ARPG format, just make Anisotropic Souslike camapign sell it for 60 bucks then.

And to me personally, the worst offender is "VERY REWARDING BOSSES SO WE MADE THEM ONE IN FOUR MAPS", like WTF guys your director tells the bosses is the meat of a game but you cut in in four (even more actually cause of bug but ok) and then all they drop consistently is maps. Boss drop is terrible if they were en every map, wake up my dudes.

Also 0% rarity shouldn't feel like youre not getting anything, default loot sohuld be equal 100% curreent rarity but x10 diminishing returns.

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He says the only good thing is the campaign, but then lists points that are present in the campaign but are system changes - not the campaign itself.
The changed vendors where we pay gold instead of other currencies? Has nothing to do with the campaign itself.
The new "Uncut Skill" system? Same.
An easier time to get into the game? Again.
These are all system-related changes you could easily transfer to PoE1 and that would impact how ppl play through the campaign and learn the game if they are new, but would not change the quality (design) of the campaign itself.

I think by "campaign" he means "base game".

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The campaign is so good because the structure is better. The area design is rich and differs from zone to zone while keeping the theme of the Act in mind. Most zones have a unique boss to defeat and sometimes smaller tasks to complete for additional rewards that matter. The story is integrated in a way that you get a basic understanding even without reading all the dialogue/texts. The layouts are procedural, but not as annoying as PoE1 - IF you know them.

You got some nerve, talking about structure while being pro-PoE2. I thought I hated leveling a new character in PoE1, but damn, PoE2 went ahead and made it so much worse. Areas are many times bigger in size while being way worse to navigate (looking at you, mire / random area in act 1 where you fight the king). Guess that's the one area PoE2 beat PoE1.

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That he often has to search for the "last rare - hiding in a corner of a map" is weird. With decent pathing, you rarely miss a rare "hiding" somewhere. And the few maps with a shitty layout should be known to him and how he should explore them to avoid backtracking. Hell, that he says the worst layout in PoE is S+ compared to PoE2 is crazy. I could list more maps from PoE1 with trash layouts than PoE2 has maps in total, is he only running "Strand/Atoll"!?
What are the bad layouts in PoE2? Mire? Vaal Factory? Sure.
Augury? Nah, the levers are the problem there.
Now compare that to every "Channel" or "Prison" related layout (map) in PoE1 and run them without "Dash" skills... yeah.

See, the thing here is, you are not obligated to kill any rares while regularly mapping in PoE1. You have a map boss, which you can kill to complete the map, but you can also just skip that objective if you don't feel like it. :)

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The big balance changes don't happen because we are too deep into this "league" (economy) and they don't want to screw over all the ppl who are still playing - like they did with the rapid "Cast On x" changes.

Hard disagree. There is no big balance change because they have nothing to show at the moment.

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The combat is meaningless because "all the builds are one-button builds and explode the entire screen"? Well, then don't play a one-button build that explodes the entire screen. I played them all, multi-screen-wide explosion builds and the ethical-Quin-builds (but with damage). They exist. Him not playing these builds doesn't mean they don't exist or are bad.

The builds are bad since they clear maps at a fraction of the speed that a good build does. Playing a low-clearspeed build feels generally bad - esp. for PoE1 players - since we care about efficiency. It's fun for us to optimize things. It's not fun to have no variety within those efficient builds. There also is basically no "specialisation" as there was in PoE1 with builds. You don't have boss killers, and mappers, and lab runners and so on. You play a build with a temporalis and blink and do all of those things, with no trade-off.

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At least I think he is on the "pushing - no phasing" point right, that's really frustrating for melee characters. Next.

"Melee characters"... Tell me you never touched a deli mirror without telling me you never touched a deli mirror.

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It's weird to say it, but most things he said are like "Redditor" stuff you get from ppl without a clue about mechanics and understanding of systems, who are hard-stuck in yellow maps and only can play for a few hours a week because of the 12 wives and 69 kids.

I disagree. You, on the other hand, sound like someone with very little knowledge when it comes to anything related to Path of Exile as a whole.

Don't know if it was posted alredy, but let's add Ghazzy to it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxJzaqOmvww

Aaaaaand it's also spot on.

every time someone says "it's just EA", I think of this

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I am sorry, but this video is L after L for me... some dude got a "+7 super duper weapon" so his "Hammer of the Gods" cost more mana than the character had!? Wow... really!? Could that be because the power increase from SEVEN additional levels over the max soft cap provides insane damage, so the cost has to make relative sense?
New hidden tech - get more mana.
If he clears maps with HotG for some reason and can't sustain it - use another weapon without the +X for clearing, the moment you encounter a boss and hit him with the +7 HotG - the boss is dead anyway. Power in PoE2 is not free... getting a huge amount of levels on top comes with a cost, that simple.

Been on the forums for a while. This one takes the cake for the stupidest take I've ever seen. At least it makes it obvious that you're merely trying to bait people.

In the end of the day, if PoE 2 doesn't make a significant change with its core game design and core gameplay mechanic / loop that currently is almost a clone of PoE 1, everyone will have bad experience.

PoE 2 will ended up just a clone of prettier PoE 1 and added dodge roll, all of PoE 1 problems but none if the solutions PoE 1 had, so then why differentiate both games ?

Resources and work-force will be divided, players and community will be further divided, we already have bad news about PoE 1 league being delayed (god knows when 3.26 come), we don't know whether there will be new expansion going to PoE 1, and both games will receive less quality contents in the future.

Idk, but the announcement of PoE 1 league delay because of PoE 2, alert my brain that this could be spiraling out of control and become the seed of PoE / GGG downfall.

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That he thinks a "Beta" means the game constantly changes is weird. It's not in "Alpha" status. The fundament is established, the core mechanics are laid out and we now test these things - give feedback and GGG changes stuff or not. Hell, Over half of the game is missing. We still get 3 Acts, 6 classes, 24 Ascendancies, half the weapon types, uniques and so on.
What? We haven't had many changes in the last two months? The 0.1.1 patch notes would disagree with him and holidays ma dood.
The big balance changes don't happen because we are too deep into this "league" (economy) and they don't want to screw over all the ppl who are still playing - like they did with the rapid "Cast On x" changes.

I do have to agree with Ben here. Basically being to "afriad" of the backlash of people complaining about frequent balance changes in a Beta. I do think GGG should balance the game a lot more frequent and (IMO) biweekly till they are pleased with the balance and then release new content that shakes up the meta so they balance that again. With the current "iterative" balance approach GGG will take at least 6 months after all the content is in the game playing whack-a-mole with all the OP stuff and balancing out the game and that can't be in the interest of anyone