Just a thought, a possible compromise

I loved POE1 and played it as a casual. I too invested and bought into my support for GGG was going both going to both games. I believed that everything would be better in POE2, streamlined with clever new ideas and counted the days to the beta launch. What we were shown I believed, had a lot of respect for GGG


Still do

My first hint is when I started to hear just before launch over and over, "this is not POE 1" everyone suddenly underling it. Yet no real details, and I wondered.

I log in POE2 first day of Beta and ran right into the "this must be hard dream" wall like everyone else. Shock, surprise, confusion. I thought, oh this must be the first ten levels, then strength would come. I couldn't figure out why the world was also full of witches, everywhere. Lack of loot, complete resets on small mistakes. unkillable bosses with some classes ect ect

It's a beta, so came and posted on the difficulty in the forums and I saw I was not alone. Yet I learned the community was split in half with one side having a grand time getting upset at the thought of a beta game requiring change. Many of them playing, guess what, witches. I didn't see many melee outside of lightning monk.

I kept coming back and realized which side of the fence the developers where sitting on difficulty. It was obvious the the main core concepts of the game had changed.

POE1 was a loot dropped luck based ARPG with passive that evolved halfway through into a harder map based achievement oriented reward system that required downloaded passive designs for Godly uber builds from content creators mostly.

Game crutches that required no thinking to allow a player to walk through the hardest content.

Each league turned out to be a tug of war with these builds, added difficulty and nerfing the the previous leagues builds. And so went the dance, builds counter builds counter ect. The higher map group loving the challenge to find that perfect build.

Meanwhile GGG added content for those in the first part of the game and those in the second part, harder stage of the game. This worked because the casual gamers moved at a slower pace and would just start getting into maps and running into the "the need a crutch build wall" to go any father. It didn't matter because by then the league reset. In the first part of the game where people with little time, families, disabilities, bad reflexes and age.

there was an odd sort of balance


Poe 2 beta launches not as a loot based RNG reward system. but a reflex based one with a dodge roll with tight timing. Hyper speed mobs, A full reset rule, and boss after boss design. The reward was now a ego stroke when you cleared a boss and promoting a us and those that can't atmosphere. Loot was hidden behind a gear modifier that required magic find. A very belittling environment.

Not only did you cut the game in half, changed the main rules, and abandoned the first half of players and told them to go back to POE1.


You promised the moon to them and then pulled the POE1 plug because the second game was a resource hog and that slap in the face punishing design wasn't as loved as you hoped. Yet you didn't warn us again and you want us to keep hoping for how many more months?

yeah ouch

Yet since you will be spending all that support money on POE 2, why not add a mode that makes all your players a part of it to.

All I propose is a mode, call it casual or beginner but change only one aspect of all your new rules. Remove the reset rule completely. Let the zones stay half done upon death, let the bosses slowly be picked at until we bypass them. Let us play too, we earned it. Don't block our game through a wall of death because it might ruin the intensity of the ego stroke for others.

they don't have to play this mode, they would hate it.

I can't believe creating this mode, removing that one rule but keeping everything else the same would be difficult or resource intensive. Your not changing the game just the punishment block for some of the players.

Give the POE 1 casuals a place to go in POE 2. This might work, and then you might have a balance again with most in the game and a road to leagues latter. No one is going to want to crawl that crawl every four months.

more players happy more support resources

I think your game is being held back by this madness and need to be "hard" rule

I think it is a fair comprise to consider for your round table.

My two pennies,