Incline Path of Exile II - isometric souls with loot (beta coming late 2024)

[Cyberarmy]

You anti-zoom fags are all on some industrial grade copium if you think that PoE2 will allow you get to their version of Pinnacle Bosses without serious time investment. Yes, it might have instant buyout AH, but they'll compensate for it by reducing top clear speed by 90% and the drop rates as well. Built in AH doesn't favour slow and inefficient build hipsters like you, it will skew the purchasing power disparity towards the meta cucks even further.

GGG has a history of making launch content very difficult so they will probably just get filtered by the campaign, funnily enough. Remember when Act 4 destroyed people and they couldn't even get to maps?

Back then side maps in campaign were a lot harder in higher difficulties.

 

[Grunker]

This is going to tank if it doesn’t feel smooth to play and no action RPG where trash mobs take long to kill feels smooth to play.

 

[Damned Registrations]

This is going to tank if it doesn’t feel smooth to play and no action RPG where trash mobs take long to kill feels smooth to play.

Yes, Dark Souls famously flopped for this very reason. Thank god the sequels improved it by letting the player run at mach 20 and kill everything in line of sight each time you swing your sword.

Other styles of game do exist, you know. The original diablo kicked this whole fucking thing off, and it sure as fuck isn't smooth to play. I'd be perfectly fine with a game where falling back to a doorway to avoid being surrounded by tanky zombies was a regular occurrence, or it was possible to *GASP* run out of mana and not be able to spam your most powerful attack as fast as the animation will allow for 5 minutes straight.

 

[Zeriel]

This is going to tank if it doesn’t feel smooth to play and no action RPG where trash mobs take long to kill feels smooth to play.

Yes, Dark Souls famously flopped for this very reason. Thank god the sequels improved it by letting the player run at mach 20 and kill everything in line of sight each time you swing your sword.

Other styles of game do exist, you know. The original diablo kicked this whole fucking thing off, and it sure as fuck isn't smooth to play. I'd be perfectly fine with a game where falling back to a doorway to avoid being surrounded by tanky zombies was a regular occurrence, or it was possible to *GASP* run out of mana and not be able to spam your most powerful attack as fast as the animation will allow for 5 minutes straight.

They aren't the same type of game and don't serve the same audience. The Dark Souls market segment is flooded with games anyway. If that is GGG's plan they're retarded and gonna get bitchsmacked by reality. I think the likeliest scenario is like referencing other games in league mechanics they are just mining it for ideas and it won't be that bad. One can hope, anyway.

The issue, by the way, is not the game being slow or fast. It is whether it is becoming a totally different genre. Every boss being a pinnacle boss in style would be a vast departure from PoE 1. There were times when PoE 1 was very slow and difficult. Did you play in beta? When the last boss was Vaal Oversoul, everyone clunked around at near base move speed, and there were no support gems? When unboosted flicker strike was considered OP just for moving you around? That was the same game. That would be fine if PoE 2 looked like that on launch. What wouldn't be fine for lots of fans of PoE 1 (i.e, their customers) is if it actually becomes a boss rush game where you spend all your time "learning" boss fights and dodge rolling around even on basic story leveling bosses. That should be saved for pinnacle bosses you do rarely even in endgame.

The style of gameplay you're positing exists right now, too. If you don't have a busted build... yes, you do that. You're basically saying you don't like that people can get powerful. Well, okay. Play ruthless? I get it. I also think it's ridiculous to watch some people with mirror budget builds play the game in a way that makes it look so boring and trivial. But not every endgame build does that. And the alternative is the system you have in Diablo 4 where everything is so tightly controlled that you're basically playing Simon Says with the developer constantly holding your hand and preventing you from getting outside the ordered box they built for you. A side effect of having a complicated game with lots of possibilities is some people with lots of currency will break the game. I'd rather have the possibilities than have everything dictated to me by the developers, which is the alternative style of "balance". Oh, you thought of something clever? Nope, that's not allowed, you have to do exactly X performance and not an ounce more.

 

[Damned Registrations]

The issue, by the way, is not the game being slow or fast. It is whether it is becoming a totally different genre. Every boss being a pinnacle boss in style would be a vast departure from PoE 1. There were times when PoE 1 was very slow and difficult. Did you play in beta? When the last boss was Vaal Oversoul, everyone clunked around at near base move speed, and there were no support gems? When unboosted flicker strike was considered OP just for moving you around? That was the same game. That would be fine if PoE 2 looked like that on launch.

I did, in fact, play back then. I recall people stunlocking vaal oversoul (and it basically one shotting everyone with every attack.) It's a lot closer to my ideal game in this genre, honestly. I like having to dip and dodge around brutus for 2 minutes, having enough time in a fight for long duration poison stacks to run their course multiple times, and clearing trash mobs to involve doing things like letting them clump up so cleave hits a crowd while you don't get surrounded or you can more efficiently spend mana instead of wasting a huge aoe attack one one or two guys. I also liked enemies telegraphing attacks instead of casting corpse explosion from offscreen or flickerstriking you for 12 trillion damage. Or the good ol' fashioned 'hide a projectile dealing a billion damage amidsts 400 similar projectiles dealing 3 damage each." That shit is nonsense.

I'm fine with not needing to dodge attacks too, provided you built your character like a brick shithouse and can just facetank things all day. But that should have tradeoffs in movement speed and offense. What I'm not fine with is people popping 'bosses' like zits before they do more than 2 attacks or trash mobs (including rares) doing the same to players that have invested even 25% of their power(not attribute points only, but passives, auras, affixes on gear, etc.) defensively.

What really needs to change is the game needs a wider variety of challenges instead of just "How much dps and movespeed can you get." It should have things that check your durability, without a chance to dodge everything or win a damage race. It especially needs to put a harsh limit on resource recovery. Every ARPG that allows for insanely fast health and mana leeching inevitably devolves into glass cannon shit because if someone can heal from 0 to full in 2 seconds you need to be able to kill them in a split second or they're going to be invincible and potions are rendered meaningless.

 

[Zeriel]

Yeah, that's fair. I'd mostly agree. I think a lot of it is just powercreep, rather than a defined game philosophy, and indeed they have shown the opposite in terms of adding Ruthless and SSF as their personal instincts.

It's tricky because the "solutions" devs come up with traditionally are worse than the symptom imo. Like... the talk of wells refilling flasks in PoE 2 sounds awful if it indicates what it seems to indicate. Yeah, I don't like piano flasks either, but the not-shitty solution seems to me to be stuff like the enchants that make using flasks automatic, or more items like mageblood that are not as expensive/rare that turn flasks into another interesting gearing choice rather than giving you arthritis. On the other hand, using a Diablo 3 launch style limited uses model just sounds boring and lame, and that's what wells make me think of.

For what it's worth, they have tried to do what you said. They just seem to always miss a mark by quite a bit. For example, Sanctum, setting aside the roguelike inspiration, was supposed to make dodging the most important thing (theoretically, if I assume the devs didn't quite grasp what they were actually incentivizing). Instead, since defenses basically don't matter, it led to billion DPS builds being the only effective way to clear it, since you simply take too much resolve damage if you try to engage with the mechanics for more than a split second.

There is some of that in the atlas passives too--you can choose to take more or less damage, or you can spec Ultimatum to be all about surviving with zero need for DPS, etc. It just comes down to the fact that at the end of the day doing infinite damage and speed is always more efficient. That might be the crux of the problem; people's obsession with efficiency and looking at everything they do in terms of divine/chaos per hr.

 

[abija]

There were times when PoE 1 was very slow and difficult. Did you play in beta?

Yes, that PoE was fine. It's not even about bosses, monsters in general should get to do something after you engage them. Your basic spam shouldn't clear packs.
And that PoE was balanced around a lot less loot dropping per minute.

 

[Damned Registrations]

There is some of that in the atlas passives too--you can choose to take more or less damage, or you can spec Ultimatum to be all about surviving with zero need for DPS, etc.

The problem is these don't really work because at the end of the day, it's monsters dealing the damage to you. Assuming your build was balanced such that you could kill a monster in 100 units of time, that means you're taking 100 units of damage. Reducing your damage 25% means that monster is going to live for 33% longer so now you're going to take 133 units of damage. Reduce that by 25% from the atlas passive and you're still taking more than you were to begin with. But the passives aren't even balanced that way. Instead it's "monsters have 50% more life and 25% less damage" which puts the end result at you taking 13% more damage unless you were overkilling them to begin with. It's at best helpful vs bosses where you might now survive somehting that would have oneshot you and have a chance to survive, but for something like ultimatum where you're locked in a cage with a clusterfuck, you're taking more damage, not less, not to mention other problems like various debuffs that don't scale down at all (or your own inability to stun/freeze), or the fact that you'll be progressing far more slowly though every other league mechanics like delerium.

For what it's worth, they have tried to do what you said. They just seem to always miss a mark by quite a bit.

This is what makes me lack confidence in the new gameplay. They've consistently done things like nerfed player speed to 'slow the game down' while letting monsters move at warp speed, or added things like on death effects or reflect so people will stop and read their effects, ignoring the fact that stopping to read the effects is an utter death sentence if you're fighting something that might drop anything better than vendor trash. I haven't tried sanctum but what you're describing is exactly what I'd have expected.

The last time they really hit the mark I think was Labyrinth and Delve. Delve has a lot of incentives to go high dps and especially movespeed as well, but it's at least got options that don't demand it so strictly. People hate labyrinth but I think that's largely because A: The loot is really underwhelming, especially for SSF where all those helm enchants are worthless, and B: People get forced into it. It could use some fixing up so other defenses besides regen help you through it, but overall it's open to a lot more playstyles than 95% of league mechanics and isn't overly punishing if you want to take it slow. Heist would also have been acceptable if it didn't waste my time watching some asshole crawl through an airvent over and over again.

 

[Peachcurl]

Looking at ruthless, I have not much hope that they still know how to make a slower game work.

It is possible though.

 

[Grunker]

This is going to tank if it doesn’t feel smooth to play and no action RPG where trash mobs take long to kill feels smooth to play.

Yes, Dark Souls famously flopped for this very reason

You kill 5 mobs between every campfire in Dark Souls you spanktastic moron. How could you even make this argument without seeing the gazillion reasons it is obviously, totally stupid?

 

[Damned Registrations]

This is going to tank if it doesn’t feel smooth to play and no action RPG where trash mobs take long to kill feels smooth to play.

Yes, Dark Souls famously flopped for this very reason

You kill 5 mobs between every campfire in Dark Souls you spanktastic moron. How could you even make this argument without seeing the gazillion reasons it is obviously, totally stupid?

Sounds like they should reduce packsize as well then.

 

[Kjaska]

There were times when PoE 1 was very slow and difficult. Did you play in beta?

Yes, that PoE was fine. It's not even about bosses, monsters in general should get to do something after you engage them. Your basic spam shouldn't clear packs.
And that PoE was balanced around a lot less loot dropping per minute.

Nostalgia so thick, you can cut through it.

Old poe also had only 2 acts and no endgame besides trying to hit lvl100 by exalting and mirroring maps. You want to go back to that? Play Elden Ring. It makes 0 sense to go back to that pace in a game with League cycles and multiple proper endgames present.

Clear speed is a dimension to a character build that has always existed in ARPGs. PoE simply allows you to invest further into it than any other game making the dimension more apparent. You don't have to go full retard into clear speed to enjoy the game, but if you completely ignore it at all costs AND you complain about not being able to get any meaningful progress done, then you're fully retarded indeed. Play Elden Ring.

 

[abija]

Extra content doesn't justify fucking up with the speed. It all started because they had shitty animations and gameplay felt clunky without high speed and it ended up in retardo land.

Clear speed should be a reward for completing your build. In PoE atm 1 shotting standard packs is a minimum requirement. At any point in the game you can chose the difficulty and the way rewards are tuned extremely favors you chosing a difficulty where your build 1 shots.

Oh and I almost forgot the rares. The difference is so big that if you go to a difficulty where normal mobs have any meaning there's a big chance the rares fuck you up. So no, it's not as simple as "gimp yourself" when for some years now their design decisions are done for retardo mode. Same applies for league mechanics.

 

[tritosine2k]

It all started because they had shitty animations and gameplay felt clunky

and that's valid in terms of "suspension of disbelief" . And it's validated by users.

On the other hand there are claims slower animations will just work and that's ridiculous thing to say. Like they tune animations for slower gameplay. Yeah right.

When you have 2-state stuns and shit with literal spinning stars, you go from that to wholly working turtling system.

LOL. Don't be ridiculous.

 

[abija]

It's not about slower/faster animations. They required all the states of the animation to be played always, so fluidity was only possible when the full animation was so fast transition states didn't matter.

 

[Zeriel]

I can't agree with that because I want fast attack/move speed on every ARPG I play. I always prioritize it as a stat if it's available, and get annoyed when there are hard caps (see: Sacred 2, Grim Dawn, etc). It's not because of efficiency either, it just feels better and more fun even if the damage is similar in every single game. The sudden removal of large attack speed buffs in the present D4 season is a key reason I'm not playing it.

 

[ArchAngel]

I can't agree with that because I want fast attack/move speed on every ARPG I play. I always prioritize it as a stat if it's available, and get annoyed when there are hard caps (see: Sacred 2, Grim Dawn, etc). It's not because of efficiency either, it just feels better and more fun even if the damage is similar in every single game. The sudden removal of large attack speed buffs in the present D4 season is a key reason I'm not playing it.

Luckily you will always have PoE1.

And PoE 1 vs PoE 2 will show which type of game is more popular (after first few months of PoE2 when novelty effect wears off).

 

[Grunker]

I can't agree with that because I want fast attack/move speed on every ARPG I play. I always prioritize it as a stat if it's available, and get annoyed when there are hard caps (see: Sacred 2, Grim Dawn, etc). It's not because of efficiency either, it just feels better and more fun even if the damage is similar in every single game. The sudden removal of large attack speed buffs in the present D4 season is a key reason I'm not playing it.

Luckily you will always have PoE1.

And PoE 1 vs PoE 2 will show which type of game is more popular (after first few months of PoE2 when novelty effect wears off).

I doubt the latter. Regardless of whether PoE 2's gameplay is embraced by the fanbase, many people will move from PoE regardless because it will feel like playing a superseded product.

 

[Zeriel]

I can't agree with that because I want fast attack/move speed on every ARPG I play. I always prioritize it as a stat if it's available, and get annoyed when there are hard caps (see: Sacred 2, Grim Dawn, etc). It's not because of efficiency either, it just feels better and more fun even if the damage is similar in every single game. The sudden removal of large attack speed buffs in the present D4 season is a key reason I'm not playing it.

Luckily you will always have PoE1.

And PoE 1 vs PoE 2 will show which type of game is more popular (after first few months of PoE2 when novelty effect wears off).

Nah, my guess is PoE 2 will have lots of speed. You'll be disappointed once again. My gripe is not with speed, but the apparent design of overly complicated bosses.

 

[tritosine2k]

( let's pretend nuxcom is not some football manager)

xcom = slow gameplay, lots of idle animation, true "iron man" mode

dark souls = trial and error autism simulator, nothing to do with "iron man"

P o E = fast, trade, build simulator, no "iron man"

 

[Zeriel]

PoE has both iron man & opt-in iron-man on softcore (maps that will delete your character if you enter them and die even on the non-hardcore mode). I guess I can take the point that PoE is not iron-man for most people... but then neither is XCOM, most casuals play on non-iron-man and just savescum.

 

[ArchAngel]

I can't agree with that because I want fast attack/move speed on every ARPG I play. I always prioritize it as a stat if it's available, and get annoyed when there are hard caps (see: Sacred 2, Grim Dawn, etc). It's not because of efficiency either, it just feels better and more fun even if the damage is similar in every single game. The sudden removal of large attack speed buffs in the present D4 season is a key reason I'm not playing it.

Luckily you will always have PoE1.

And PoE 1 vs PoE 2 will show which type of game is more popular (after first few months of PoE2 when novelty effect wears off).

I doubt the latter. Regardless of whether PoE 2's gameplay is embraced by the fanbase, many people will move from PoE regardless because it will feel like playing a superseded product.

I would not be so sure. If it will feel different enough to play people that love Zoom Zoom of PoE1 will go back. It is common in gaming world that sequels that are too different have to gain new audience while original one goes back to what they loved.

I can't agree with that because I want fast attack/move speed on every ARPG I play. I always prioritize it as a stat if it's available, and get annoyed when there are hard caps (see: Sacred 2, Grim Dawn, etc). It's not because of efficiency either, it just feels better and more fun even if the damage is similar in every single game. The sudden removal of large attack speed buffs in the present D4 season is a key reason I'm not playing it.

Luckily you will always have PoE1.

And PoE 1 vs PoE 2 will show which type of game is more popular (after first few months of PoE2 when novelty effect wears off).

Nah, my guess is PoE 2 will have lots of speed. You'll be disappointed once again. My gripe is not with speed, but the apparent design of overly complicated bosses.

Even if I am disappointed I will get my 20$ of playtime from PoE 2 that I invested into my PoE1 Xbox account (because you cannot link your PC account to your Xbox one) so I can buy stash tabs once again.

 

[tritosine2k]

PoE has both iron man & opt-in iron-man on softcore (maps that will delete your character if you enter them and die even on the non-hardcore mode). I guess I can take the point that PoE is not iron-man for most people... but then neither is XCOM, most casuals play on non-iron-man and just savescum.

Hardcore in PoE doesn't change anything and until a fatal flaw you play a build simulator eg usual business. Maybe if you'd get gear loss anytime you logout or portal ( with the spell keeping track of enemy power) - it'd be more of an iron man thing.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I think the pandering to the logout warriors is a major reason gameplay got so fucked as well. If you can avoid death by logout, the only way to kill a hardcore player is instantly by surprise. If enemies have the potential to surprise kill you instantly, the only defense is to kill them before you're even aware of them. And thus began the era of killing shit offscreen being 'normal.'

Death in a game should be the result of a series of mistakes made over the course of at least 5 seconds or so, preferably much longer, like running out of resources, underestimating some enemies, running away into a dead end and finally failing to avoid attacks in that confined space. Death should not be the result of a rare monster spawning near you and then exploding when it dies to collateral damage.

 

[abija]

Plus the stupid trend in gaming to try to 1up/troll streamers.