Speedrun event doesn't fit into PoE 2 - Stop the "rush" mindset
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100% agree. PoE 1 is already braindead zoom zoom screen go boom type of arpg. PoE 2 doesn't need to emulate it.
Unfortunately, I think isometric arpgs as we think of them today are fundamentally flawed, and the reason is that everything is tied to rng, especially loot quality (and even more so when it comes to GGG). The only way to increase the probability for the "maximum" in loot quality is loot quantity. And loot quantity is directly tied to clear speed. Hence, clear speed is THE metric above all else. It is the only metric in fact. So every build that provides zoom zoom clear speed will reign supreme. There is ways to alleviate it, but they would have to cut really deep into the fundamentals (and it's probably too late for PoE 2 at this stage in development). A few steps that could be taken: 1) Nerf AOE to the fucking ground. I mean complete eviceration. There should be no scenario where a comparably geared AOE build (and in particular ranged) should outperform a mostly single-target melee build. 2) This drastically reduces clear speed and hopefully puts everyone on a level playing field. Once that is achieved each encounter with mobs, especially magic and rare, can be really meaningful again (like in the campaign before chars have all the aoe skills and the build starts coming online, and was THE part of the game that was universally praised by everyone) 3) Maps take a lot longer to finish now. Keep the loot quantity of the map, but significantly improve quality. Remove dogshit modifiers no one wants, or adjust the probabilities in favor of desirable one. Remove dogshit tiers that are not appropriate for the level of play. tier1 rolls on ilvl82 items should never happen. This way the quantity of loot over time drops a lot, but at the same time it is compensated by the loot being high quality. No one needs all the trash raining from the skies. 4) Nerf trade. Balancing around trade and "the economy" is breaking the game insofar as players start to try to put a value on every item in terms of trade and makes it so that in late game you are only farming currency anymore. Boring af. Introduce in-game trading and limit trades to say 3 per day and 10 per week. Friction is still there due to the limitation. No more scams, no more false advertizing, no more "playing the markets" instead of the game. 5) Introduce meaningful crafting, that can be a mix of deterministic and random and can be expensive. With 3) you have less loot, but higher quality, so crafting now also becomes meaningful. Instead of pulling the lever a 100 times with full rng giving you only trash, you only pull the lever say 5 times, but get 2-3 real good items out of it. 6) The game is a lot slower now. Getting to 100 is a lot slower. You can remove xp loss now. Replace it with a 25% exp boon for the next map upon completion of your current map without dying. We turned a punishment that is meant to slow you down, into a reward that speeds you up. 7) Remove all one-shots. On both sides. There should be no bosses that can one-shot you. And there should be no builds that can one-shot bosses. Seeing builds in PoE2 right now being able to one-shot max-tier arbiter is laughable balancing. There is probably a lot more that one could cook up to turn this game into "slow, methodical and meaningful gameplay". I doubt it tho. It will probably stay "zoom zoom I clear screen with one-button boom build" gameplay |
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I'd find a race much more entertaining to watch/keep tabs on then seeing players hit/be target dummies, endlessly repeat trial rooms, spam whittling omens, pick up orbs, or run a tainted paradise over and over.
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" I am also a bit disappointed because I thought the slower pace, methodical combat, MEANIGNFUL maneuvers was the entire soul of the game. I'm hoping the game will get there after some time, though; I'm already a casual player in the early access phase so all there is, is to wait. |
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