Incline Path of Exile 2 - now available on Early Access

[Ismaul]

We were spamming them all the time because base movement is so slow. I am not a quick player, mind you. I usually take my time in to do anything. I like to do the chaos orb recipe

I do the same, since I play SSF. I love the speed, I'm a move skill spammer, and frankly I've started feeling other games are too slow. But I see what the devs are trying to do there, and I'm wiling to give it a try.

Movement skills are more than a simply moving fast, they are both a way to dodge, engage and cause damage

Agreed, and I think that will find its way into the game in a way or another, but maybe not the move accelerant part.

But, besides that, the very approach they have to the game with the idea of seasons make eventually rushing through it desirable. The way poe is played is that you repeat the basic content again and again

Good point. Which is why, if they re-introduce skills that make you move faster than the baseline, it'll be later, some time post-release. I think they're also waiting to see the reception and feedback without such skills after players have spent a good amount of time with the game, before they see what to do.

I think flame dash teleports.

Right. Shows you I haven't played in years, stopped some time after the War for the Atlas.

 

[Israfael]

You can divide movement skills in two rough groups - universal movement spells / skills that are not spammable (unless you have sky-high cd reduction) like Flame Dash, Frostblink etc, but which allow you to teleport to a LoS-permissible spot and spammable skills (shield charge, flicker strike etc) which can be used ad libitum but which have restrictions and cannot be used to go through, lets say, maven beam or fire exarch's balls of doom. I actually use both on my RF Inq as it allows me to have both fast map clear and escape from dangerous effects and bosses' abilities. It'd be a shame if they tried to shoehorn everyone into using I-frame roll which is basically 100x slowed fire dash without damage / ailment effect.

 

[Gerrard]

Using Shield Charge to move around while you get stuck on everything is genuinely one of the worst gaming experiences in existence.

 

[abija]

"Fine" except the same animation that was fine for fast you can hardly keep track of and obscured by particle fx will be lacklustre with slow and clean gfx. That's easily 5x as much work or 5x less content in the end players don't even want to put up with.

You answered to a post talking about playstyle. But if you are talking about graphics, they reworked all models and added (3 iirc) speed variations for animations. The reworked character models is what they said will not be ported to PoE1, everything else seemed possible.

 

[Ismaul]

They had Leap Slam in the demo. But it clearly wasn't meant to replace regular movement. It looked slower, and also stunned reliably in an AoE (not sure if this was due to a support gem like you'd do in PoE1). In other words, you don't purely use it for movement, but it does have some move utility in certain contexts for jumping over obstacles. So I think we can expect more like this.

 

[Jaedar]

They had Leap Slam in the demo. But it clearly wasn't meant to replace regular movement. It looked slower, and also stunned reliably in an AoE (not sure if this was due to a support gem like you'd do in PoE1). In other words, you don't purely use it for movement, but it does have some move utility in certain contexts for jumping over obstacles. So I think we can expect more like this.

If melee doesn't have a reliable way to close the gap to enemies it's going to even worse than it is in poe1.

 

[abija]

They added gap closers to melee skills. The animation panel from day 1 has a lot of info.

 

[ArchAngel]

They had Leap Slam in the demo. But it clearly wasn't meant to replace regular movement. It looked slower, and also stunned reliably in an AoE (not sure if this was due to a support gem like you'd do in PoE1). In other words, you don't purely use it for movement, but it does have some move utility in certain contexts for jumping over obstacles. So I think we can expect more like this.

If melee doesn't have a reliable way to close the gap to enemies it's going to even worse than it is in poe1.

From what we have seen melee is worse than PoE1. All characters kept getting stunned and melee suffered most from it. I think the whole stun mechanic should be removed, it is stupid and not fun. Everyone in PoE1 always found ways to ignore it because it is supper irritating if you do not. It was also stupid in D2.

 

[Zeriel]

Losing movement skills sounds like a huge decline to me.

Also, while crafting in poe is really... repetitive, I like the idea of crafting my own gear, and I think the crafting table is actually one of the few systems that is not annoying in this way.

Holding them in reserve in case the initial reception is critically bad, they can then reintroduce them later in flask league and look like some grand saviors offering the playerbase a great boon.

Such plans generally don't work out. Instead you'd end up with most people writing off the game, and not caring when they reintroduce them.

I guess the saving grace is PoE1 will remain, but it will hardly look good if no one plays PoE 2.

 

[Ismaul]

From what we have seen melee is worse than PoE1. All characters kept getting stunned and melee suffered most from it.

You're reading too much into the demo. It was made harder than it will be on release on purpose, so veterans have a challenge, progressing farther than others at Exilecon is an achievement, and to push players to engage tactically.

In fact, like abija pointed out, melee is greatly improved because melee attacks automatically bridge the gap between you and the enemy, so you won't miss because you're not close enough. Targeting is also improved, they gave the example of the Hand (?) skill of the Monk that gives you power charges when you kill with it, and it will smart-target low health dudes in a pack when you use it instead of being an exercise in pixel hunting. Finally, you get the roll which allows for precise positioning and cancelling attacks if you change idea.

Melee is going to be much more dynamic, responsive and mobile. No more standing in place, and no more using a "melee" skill at range in order to avoid the gap-closing problem.

 

[Perkel]

They had Leap Slam in the demo. But it clearly wasn't meant to replace regular movement. It looked slower, and also stunned reliably in an AoE (not sure if this was due to a support gem like you'd do in PoE1). In other words, you don't purely use it for movement, but it does have some move utility in certain contexts for jumping over obstacles. So I think we can expect more like this.

If melee doesn't have a reliable way to close the gap to enemies it's going to even worse than it is in poe1.

From what we have seen melee is worse than PoE1. All characters kept getting stunned and melee suffered most from it. I think the whole stun mechanic should be removed, it is stupid and not fun. Everyone in PoE1 always found ways to ignore it because it is supper irritating if you do not. It was also stupid in D2.

Except this is what people want from melee. What you want is just ranged spellcaster playing at close range because they never miss nor they can get stopped for a second. Which is what POE1 does.

This is the same reason why melee in POE1 plays like shit. It is not only animations but also how game is balanced.

 

[ArchAngel]

They had Leap Slam in the demo. But it clearly wasn't meant to replace regular movement. It looked slower, and also stunned reliably in an AoE (not sure if this was due to a support gem like you'd do in PoE1). In other words, you don't purely use it for movement, but it does have some move utility in certain contexts for jumping over obstacles. So I think we can expect more like this.

If melee doesn't have a reliable way to close the gap to enemies it's going to even worse than it is in poe1.

From what we have seen melee is worse than PoE1. All characters kept getting stunned and melee suffered most from it. I think the whole stun mechanic should be removed, it is stupid and not fun. Everyone in PoE1 always found ways to ignore it because it is supper irritating if you do not. It was also stupid in D2.

Except this is what people want from melee. What you want is just ranged spellcaster playing at close range because they never miss nor they can get stopped for a second. Which is what POE1 does.

This is the same reason why melee in POE1 plays like shit. It is not only animations but also how game is balanced.

Nah, I want if to be smooth and cool to be melee. Getting stunned all the time is neither. There will not be this huge group of players enjoying this.

 

[lukaszek]

The Closed Beta will start on June 7, 2024

called it! no poe2 before diablo5 big reveal

 

[ArchAngel]

Ziggy agrees with me about stun in current version of the game and shared all those problems with devs:

 

[abija]

Hopefuly they don't listen to him.

 

[Ismaul]

Ziggy agrees with me about stun

That's great and all, but not the point. The point is that the way it is in the demo is not how it's intended to be in the final game. The demo wasn't balanced, it was too hard and characters were undergeared.

The devs did say so during the Con, maybe not clearly enough, so here's Ziz explaining from his discussion with the devs, timestamped:

 

[ArchAngel]

Ziggy agrees with me about stun

That's great and all, but not the point. The point is that the way it is in the demo is not how it's intended to be in the final game. The demo wasn't balanced, it was too hard and characters were undergeared.

The devs did say so during the Con, maybe not clearly enough, so here's Ziz explaining from his discussion with the devs, timestamped:

I watched that one as well, he also said stun killed the gameplay in that PoE2 demo

 

[Gerrard]

I feel like PoE2 is sitting awkwardly over the fence between action and RPG. Apparently they removed accuracy from the game, but players still have evasion, block, etc. RNG based defenses.
Also action combat doesn't feel good when even the smallest enemies you fight do not react to being hit. Instead it seems like it's the player that gets stunned by every hit.

 

[abija]

They were pulling mobs and trying to aoe them like in PoE 1 though.

 

[Ismaul]

While getting stunned often is an issue, my point is that it is not intended to be like that.

Stun in PoE1 is based on damage taken vs max health. If PoE2 uses a similar formula, since the demo was heavily overtuned then damage taken is very high and causes a lot of stuns. Also, max life was kinda low, 900 HP on a lvl45 Warrior? So you see how a lot more stuns would occur. Balancing that will reduce them significantly.

Is that enough? Not sure. If Ziggy is right and the CC system of small hits adding up to a big CC is applied to the player, there might be an issue. A bit too early to tell right now IMO. But I believe GGG would address it if after balancing and player feedback it isn't working well.

 

[abija]

From another interview, no life nodes on passive tree in poe 2, to encourage build diversity.

 

[Jaedar]

From another interview, no life nodes on passive tree in poe 2, to encourage build diversity.

Incline if true. Hopefully means other defenses are more relevant.

 

[abija]

I think the reasoning behind it is completely retarded and probably they should run everything involving math by that russian guy.

 

[ArchAngel]

From another interview, no life nodes on passive tree in poe 2, to encourage build diversity.

Incline if true. Hopefully means other defenses are more relevant.

Not really. You will just put those extra points into evasion, armor and max resistances. Total number of points into defenses is going to be remain similar.

 

[Ismaul]

From another interview, no life nodes on passive tree in poe 2, to encourage build diversity.

Really? I have a hard time believing it. So everyone will have the same HP, except those with higher strength or +Life gear?

That will only make +Str passives and +Str/+Life gear more valuable, basically pushing everyone in this direction if they want HP for survivability. Diversity?