Endgame feels out of tune with the meaningful encounters & skill combo design principles

The vision for PoE2 appears to be that of a slower paced game, where you take the time to think about your actions instead of smashing your keyboard. The skill system encourages using different skills in tandem and deploy an elegant setup for a glorious payoff.

This is, at least, how the campaign felt to me. The first 3 acts are awesome, I can't wait to see the 3 others.

In the meantime, I'm playing the atlas endgame, and I wonder: why am I suddenly playing a more punishing version of PoE1? Where has the vision gone?

My most jarring discovery was to see bosses become reward pinatas. Three quarters of PoE2's gameplay revolves around fighting bosses. PoE1 has a boss in every map. Of all the design choices for endgame, this one I understand the least.

But that's not all.

All the special encounters (Breach, Ritual, Delirium, and to a lesser extent, Expedition) vomit waves after waves of monsters that magically appear right next to you (which, from a plausibility standpoint, is just crass). They hit hard, they stun, they kill you in less than a second.

This leaves no time to setup any kind of skill combo. This doesn't encourage any kind of meaningful interaction with the game. Instead, you need to play one skill that hits fast and covers as much terrain as possible, or you die, you lose the waystone, you lose the map "things", you lose 10% xp, you can't resurrect your friend.

I actually like that death has consequences, but I cannot stress enough how, after a wonderful campaign played in coop, this felt like a ice water bucket thrown at my head.

I used to play a cold magic sorceress. I had fun, I froze enemies with Frostbolts & Frost Bomb then used Cold Snap to do immense damages. It was a powerful combo, but I eventually pivoted to Spark Archmage because I couldn't cover enough terrain with my skills without being swarmed.

Now I still have fun, I love triggering Lightning Conduits and zapping hundreds of monsters. I enjoyed PoE1, and I enjoy that in the same way. It's clear to me, however, that I'm no longer playing the same game I enjoyed during the campaign.

I just want to make sure the dev team realize they have, deliberately or not, transplanted PoE1's endgame on top of PoE2 because when I see this:

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One of the key realisations since launch was how important it is to have more variety in tower maps, so we made it a priority and patched in four more, as well as a better variation on the existing tower map we had.

This is great, but I can't help but wonder if you guys also realise how jarring is the whole endgame experience as it stands now.

I used to think it was a temporary addition cobbled together to give us something to play after the campaign, but if it were to become a permanent fixture, tower maps should be the least of your worries.

+1. I lament that endgame killed the diverse attack loop that I loved from the campaign.

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This is great, but I can't help but wonder if you guys also realise how jarring is the whole endgame experience as it stands now.

Tencent now owns 100% shares and, obviously, dictates what to do. And, as it seems, they said: release the game in whatever state it is and copypaste poe1 onto it (because it worked before and brought $). Tencent doesnt want to reinvent the wheel. They bought the wheel and now need earnings from it. So be prepared for reskinned POE1 regardless of how many patches are released.

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Azimuthus#1135 wrote:

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This is great, but I can't help but wonder if you guys also realise how jarring is the whole endgame experience as it stands now.

Tencent now owns 100% shares and, obviously, dictates what to do. And, as it seems, they said: release the game in whatever state it is and copypaste poe1 onto it (because it worked before and brought $). Tencent doesnt want to reinvent the wheel. They bought the wheel and now need earnings from it. So be prepared for reskinned POE1 regardless of how many patches are released.

Bruh... Tencent already owns GGG since 2018 where they had 87% of the shares, they only bought the last few per cent recently.

You know, Tencent and GGG have an agreement (contract) and while we don't know the entire thing for obvious reasons, we know some parts.
The most important thing is: GGG has full freedom over "Path of Exile" and the only thing related to the IP that Tencent can dictate is the Chinese market version of the game.

And yet Chris and Erik completely disappeared. Jonathan remains but for how long. It reminds me of blizz north story. Guys made a successful game and started a new, quite different project. And blizz south who overtook blizz north "didn't approve" and so blizz north devs left. And blizz south simply tried to make D2 but with modern graphics (and some dubious "improvements").

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Azimuthus#1135 wrote:

And yet Chris and Erik completely disappeared. Jonathan remains but for how long. It reminds me of blizz north story. Guys made a successful game and started a new, quite different project. And blizz south who overtook blizz north "didn't approve" and so blizz north devs left. And blizz south simply tried to make D2 but with modern graphics (and some dubious "improvements").

Sure. But with all fairness... don't get me wrong, the "Hi, I am Chris Wilson from Grinding Gear Games" warms my heart every single time, BUT - if you look at what kind of "vision" Chris had with "Path of Exile" and how "out of touch" he was with his player base - letting someone else take the wheel isn't always a bad choice.
Do Jonathan and Mark make mistakes now? Yes. But Everybody has to grow into a role and isn't flawless at the start.
Let us give constructive feedback and look at where GGG is going with it.

Yes, I agree, it is two different games at the moment. I thoroughly enjoyed the campaign and am also really enjoying endgame atlas mapping. If endgame mapping turned into the slow, dodge-roll pace game that is the campaign - I certainly wouldn't be pushing for 100 at the moment. It would take about 9-12 months playing 10 hours a day. That isn't sustainable for GGG. Currently, the grind to 100 can be achieved in under 3 months - which is the typical league length - and to me that is perfect. That being said, the grind to 100 isn't for everyone and if you enjoy the slow paced campaign style - then play the campaign over and over? I'm not sure but the slow paced gameplay just doesn't work for grinding maps.

It's almost like the game isn't finished and bare bones. Almost like its open beta and there still is a lot of work to be done. hmm.

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It would take about 9-12 months playing 10 hours a day. That isn't sustainable for GGG. Currently, the grind to 100 can be achieved in under 3 months - which is the typical league length - and to me that is perfect.

If it comes down to that, the xp curve can be adjusted. It's not like it's set in stone.

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AintCare#6513 wrote:

doesn't mean tencent didn't tell them...

Any proofs then?