IMO Monster Speed Feels Awful because of Player Evasion - Ziz Interview

I think part of the reason why fast monsters feel so awful right now is because so many people decided to play a pure evasion class. I think everyone playing Huntress is what changed between 0.1 and 0.2. I felt like a piece of wet paper going through the campaign, despite using vendors and currency to try to improve my evasion. Keep in mind I played a poison bow-build, but I was still in that evasion part of the tree.

I constantly felt on-edge because of how much damage I was taking from enemies and the only recourse I felt like I had, was to just run away as fast as possible. In PoE 1 when I felt like this, I took more life or evasion nodes and it felt better. It felt like getting an evasion node gave me a noticeable amount of evade chance. In PoE 2 though, it just feels like evasion nodes don't do anything.

I think this is also why people feel like they need better items. Getting more evasion requires better items, but because something with evasion feels like it isn't working, players don't feel satisfied when they do get that item upgrade.

With huntress in act I used gear that had some level of energy shield for that reason. In act II I switched to armor/evasion. Beat the boss after raising lightning resistance to 75% disregarding the other defenses. I don't think the game is meant, overall, to mean you only have to use one defensive layer. I also switch armors or rings depending on what enemies I'm fighting, I don't expect to have a complete set of defenses early in the campaign. I don't see that as a flaw, just as a developer's choice. And that means that players getting stuck in their mindset are running into self created problems. You imagine you can get away with only evasion, but nothing in the game says that.

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Gorbarr#2442 wrote:

With huntress in act I used gear that had some level of energy shield for that reason. In act II I switched to armor/evasion. Beat the boss after raising lightning resistance to 75% disregarding the other defenses. I don't think the game is meant, overall, to mean you only have to use one defensive layer. I also switch armors or rings depending on what enemies I'm fighting, I don't expect to have a complete set of defenses early in the campaign. I don't see that as a flaw, just as a developer's choice. And that means that players getting stuck in their mindset are running into self created problems. You imagine you can get away with only evasion, but nothing in the game says that.

I don't think I should be able to "get away with" only using evasion. But when having this discussion with people, I've never ever heard anyone say: "you're going pure armour/energy shield? Try getting some evasion as well". My argument is that evasion at all is significantly weaker than armour and energy shield. If anything, what you're saying proves my point.

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TheTimtam#3675 wrote:

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Gorbarr#2442 wrote:

With huntress in act I used gear that had some level of energy shield for that reason. In act II I switched to armor/evasion. Beat the boss after raising lightning resistance to 75% disregarding the other defenses. I don't think the game is meant, overall, to mean you only have to use one defensive layer. I also switch armors or rings depending on what enemies I'm fighting, I don't expect to have a complete set of defenses early in the campaign. I don't see that as a flaw, just as a developer's choice. And that means that players getting stuck in their mindset are running into self created problems. You imagine you can get away with only evasion, but nothing in the game says that.

I don't think I should be able to "get away with" only using evasion. But when having this discussion with people, I've never ever heard anyone say: "you're going pure armour? Try getting some evasion gear as well".

Deadeye gets reduced damage taken with Wind Ward, I'm not talking about Deadeye, for anyone that's going to retort with that.

Yeah well I was using the general you, not you specifically. The assumption you mention is a problem I agree with. People don't put enough thought into defense and run full glass cannons, then wonder why they die so much. Granted there were/are real issues, but so many are player induced that it's hard to separate the real ones.

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Gorbarr#2442 wrote:

Yeah well I was using the general you, not you specifically. The assumption you mention is a problem I agree with. People don't put enough thought into defense and run full glass cannons, then wonder why they die so much. Granted there were/are real issues, but so many are player induced that it's hard to separate the real ones.

I think part of the reason why players don't "put enough thought into defense" is because (I don't know how armour on the tree is right now) effective amounts of evasion is really only acquired from item drops. I can pick up new bases and craft on them as much as I want, but it's not like I can "put more thought into it" as much as another player. Item drops are item drops, the only way I can put more thought into it is on the tree.

My argument essentially, is that if passive tree evasion was better, players would be more likely to not go full glass cannon.

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TheTimtam#3675 wrote:

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Gorbarr#2442 wrote:

Yeah well I was using the general you, not you specifically. The assumption you mention is a problem I agree with. People don't put enough thought into defense and run full glass cannons, then wonder why they die so much. Granted there were/are real issues, but so many are player induced that it's hard to separate the real ones.

My argument essentially, is that if passive tree evasion was better, players would be more likely to not go full glass cannon.

They answered this question in particular on the latest interview and they agree they can make adjustments to defenses in the tree - but they also think that if they make them much better it would still not convince people to change from glass cannons all the time. And if they just made them so good that characters are immortal, it would run into the issue of trivializing any challenge. One suggestion given was to have a defense tutorial, or character that teaches you how to use runes or something. In general I think the lack of defense tutorials or any communication from the game itself that defenses matter is part of the issue.