About POE 2 and Last Epoch - The games offer different things and that's ok!

[DJSamhein]

@Kulze

That’s why Path of Exile 1 and 2 are distinct. GGG specifically made the second one to move away from the modern PoE 1 experience of blindly blasting through maps and returning to a more managed and tactical gameplay.

They failed in that, though. Only act 1 is like that and act 2 for some classes/skills. And even that has been offset by simply going lightning arrow with all classes until you get your main skill online. Cruel difficulty is usually a lot easier than normal because of that.
Players are blasting through maps the same way as in PoE1, they’re clearing whole screens with several different skills/classes and they’re also one shotting bosses.

I expect GGG will implement a wave of nerfs even bigger than D4’s Season 1 and we’ll see what the player backlash will be.

[Airowird]

@Kulze

They’ve created a live-service game.
The primary setup for LE is also a live-service game, it only has the option for offline play. ‘True’ offline-play has only been implemented since 1.0 and their goal always was to upkeep the server costs via microtransactions.

So I guess you’re kinda out of luck there.

Everything pre-0.9 was all offline only. (except login verification iirc, but once in game you didn’t need network anymore) You could also notepad your save files to instantly be level 100 with 4xT7 gear. Afaik, there are some content creators out there that are still banned from benefiting from EHG’s community programs because of it.
So it only being in 1.0 is just false, it’s just when they allowed Steam to verify game license without their servers.

@Kulze

Games are first and foremost about the mechanical aspects of interaction… just that many many alternative mediums like interactive novels (visual novels often fall into the category, some are actual proper story-puzzles though at least) are often named ‘games’ nowadays. They’re as far away from the medium as possible to barely allow the naming though.

And yet there are people out there buying shiny games over those with better gameplay. Because they like to “create their own movie” more than have a good challenge, or puzzle, or …

Just because I don’t like playing horror games because I dislike jumpscares, doesn’t mean that the people that do play those games are doing it wrong. Heck, in the same vein, encyclopediae and dictionaries are books, but they don’t even have a story at all!

Video games (not all games) are interactive software systems with a visual feedback component. Claiming they need to all have X, which just happens to be what you find important, is at the very least a selfish attitude. I knew people in WoW that played for Mythic raids, and people that played for the Warcraft story. Neither of those was “doing it wrong” (even though my elitist cunt of a GM would’ve disagreed on that)

@Kulze

The game is ‘released’, hence I would expect the ‘basics’ to be finished. But the storyline isn’t.
That didn’t bode well with Wolcen and doesn’t bode well with Last Epoch either, especially since the majority of the campaign is still in a majorly unpolished state in dire need of a rework to their current standards.

In that same sense, PoE didn’t release with a full story, neither did D3, or D4, or even WH40k - Inquisitor. Neither has any MMO ever, and then there’s games without a story to begin with, like basically most MOBAs & team shooter games.

Yet, the story in the game is coherent and brings you straight up to the endgame loop. More so than e.g. base D4. If a story truly has to be finished to launch a game, there wouldn’t even be a D4 to begin with, or even a D2 expansion, which gave us half the mechanics that are staple in so many ARPGs.

@Kulze

That’s flavour, not ‘better’ or ‘worse’. The skill system in Last Epoch is more simplistic and straight-forward but allows inherently less variety. The one in PoE 2 is more convoluted and complex but also gives a higher amount of options hence.

I could quote pages of WoW forums on the fallacy of choice in talent trees, but essentially, just because you can chose 200 points in a 1000-node tree doesn’t make it more complex or varied than 20 points in a 100-node tree. I recall a lot of my choice back in PoE to be “what’s the least costly way to travel to node X”, and what I’ve seen from PoE 2 this hasn’t changed much. WoW talents have varied from 7 points to 79 and a bunch of formats in between, yet neither of those 2 ends has actually seen the most diverse builds.

@Kulze

@Incursio

Some dungeons need to be reworked but the ideas are great.

Some? All of em But yeah, the foundation is solid, now EHG just needs to build up on it.

Which are coming in the next patch. But atleast they’re listening to player feedback

[Scipo0419]

Have you never played a third person shooter? You aim your character/weapon with the mouse. Allowing you to hold W and control the direction you move with the mouse.

[Llama8]

I have, but not an over the shoulder arpg which is what confused me. Though you could change the camera angle in Sacred 2 to minic that.

[DJSamhein]

I think he meant games like Fable. It’s not quite over the shoulder, but rather 3rd person. It still allows you to move with WASD while controlling the actual direction of movement with the mouse.

[Houlala]

@DJSamhein

Players are blasting through maps the same way as in PoE1, they’re clearing whole screens with several different skills/classes and they’re also one shotting bosses.

A very interesting topic.
After re-playing older games, I believe there is a “global power-creep” going on in the entire genre, and it is extremely hard for any developer to go against the trend.
People want super-flashy skills that clear full screens with one button, full health leech in a microsecond, and movement skills that would make A-Train look sluggish. And game companies have to provide, or run the risk or having their game shunned for being slow and boring. There is a weird kind of inflation, which game can get the more zoom-zoomy playstyle, the most fireworky kill-all skills, the most gigantous pile of OP loot.
Of course, faced with near-immortal gods with ridiculous skills, monsters have to adapt, and their only choice to survive is one-shotting. Nothing else can work.

I admit, for a short while, it is fun. I can see why people enjoy it. In small doses.
But man, does it feel great to sometimes go back to Titan Quest (or other previous-generation diablo-like) and enjoy some slow fights where each skill is meaningful, and the fights are long enough to see what is happening and build a strategy…

[DJSamhein]

@Houlala

After re-playing older games, I believe there is a “global power-creep” going on in the entire genre, and it is extremely hard for any developer to go against the trend.

I don’t think that’s it, though. The game seems to be balanced pretty much how they want it in the first 3 chapters. They’re slow, barring some stuff like lightning arrow, and it’s not that easy to progress. Even in act 3, when your build is kinda online, it’s still slow and you still need to be careful.

I believe it’s just that they rushed to make all the endgame stuff and didn’t properly test the growth of their skills into endgame properly. Along with players finding broken interactions, which would have happened regardless.

If they had taken their time to properly test it they could have fine tuned their skill growth, but simply jumping development from act3 to endgame means they sort of lost control of power growth.
And, to be fair, it’s very hard to get balance right off the bat.

In the end, I do expect GGG to nerf everything a lot and players will cry out about it and a bunch will leave. And I think they’ll do it because they don’t want PoE2 to be the same as PoE1 and the endgame of both is pretty much the same right now. In terms of pace and combat, I mean.

[DiceDragon]

@DJSamhein

In the end, I do expect GGG to nerf everything a lot and players will cry out about it and a bunch will leave. And I think they’ll do it because they don’t want PoE2 to be the same as PoE1 and the endgame of both is pretty much the same right now. In terms of pace and combat, I mean.

PoE2 has a massive problem in regards to design.

Many of the choices PoE1 has made simply is ignored for poe2. like front loaded content. You can rush breach spec in poe1, and farm tons of splinters. They did this on purpose, and wrote about doing it that way, so the early mapping does not feel bad. PoE2? you have to basically “beat” breach to start to farm it. and it does not drop splinters until t10+ so early game breaches are just slight exp buffs.

GGG also rightfully has for years talked about “we cant put something in then take it away, its way better to leave stuff weak and then tune it up to temper expectations” They have learned these lessons for years.

And supposedly this is because the poe2 devs have 0 cross over with poe1 devs. So any issues fixed in like the past 5 years in poe1 are straight up ignored/not told to poe2 devs? its really weird.

The game feels fine even in end game for me. But it feels like the feet are controlling the hands, its all kinds of messed up

[PvtVlad]

@DiceDragon

And supposedly this is because the poe2 devs have 0 cross over with poe1 devs.

I mean the game director of poe2 was working on poe1 for years (Jonathan Roger)

[Llama8]

@DiceDragon

GGG also rightfully has for years talked about “we cant put something in then take it away, its way better to leave stuff weak and then tune it up to temper expectations” They have learned these lessons for years.

Er, have they talked about it let alone done it? New skills they add are frequently very powerful & then get nerfed massively. That’s been happening for years!

[Houlala]

@DJSamhein

The game seems to be balanced pretty much how they want it in the first 3 chapters.

I hope you are right, it would be great to have a slower, more meaningful progression.
I don’t know, I haven’t played it yet.

Still, your previous post illustrated my point:

@DJSamhein

And even that has been offset by simply going lightning arrow with all classes until you get your main skill online. Cruel difficulty is usually a lot easier than normal because of that.
Players are blasting through maps the same way as in PoE1, they’re clearing whole screens with several different skills/classes and they’re also one shotting bosses.

If that is what a lot of players want to do, well… at some point the company has to listen. That’s what has been happening to games in recent years (including LE), pretty much since PoE1 started the trend.
It is not a charity, they want to make money first (no offense meant, this is normal).
I guess it will depend on what proportion of players fancy a slower approach, compared to those who want to rush through everything.

[DJSamhein]

@Houlala

If that is what a lot of players want to do, well… at some point the company has to listen.

Do they? If players want to blast, they have PoE1 for it. GGG always planned to have both games co-existing (initially PoE2 would actually be part of PoE1, with a separate campaign but the same endgame, but they scrapped that idea soon(ish)).
So it makes no sense to make PoE2 be like PoE1 with better graphics, because that would effectively kill PoE1.

They do have to listen to players up to a certain point. And that point is the game’s identity. Same thing as with LE. EHG has an excellent feedback loop with the community and they do cave on some stuff they never wanted (like LP in loot filters and now the autotransfer of shards and the now stackable keys), but they also have lines on the sand they don’t want to give up on.

Blizzard tried the “let’s try to make everyone happy” and it failed miserably. Because of course it did. Many players don’t actually know what makes a game work, they just want instant gratification which doesn’t work in the long run. And then you have the issue that you have several distinct different types of players that want different things.

So I don’t think GGG has to change their game identity because the PoE1 players want a blasting game. They already have PoE1 for that. They’ve repeatedly said they want to attract a different audience for PoE2.

[DiceDragon]

I mean they have certainly talked about it.

Now as for actually implementing it, thats just up to luck really.

I think the arpg scene designers just dont listen to their testers. or dont have enough testers, because they legit I think, think some things are fine when they release them only to have unforseen balance issues cause im guessing no one found it in testing haha.

[Scipo0419]

Yeah, I consider over-the-shoulder third person to be something like Fable, Gears of War, most MMOs, Dark Souls, etc. because by definition Diablo-like games are third person. They’re just third person isometric/top-down. So I was simply trying to differentiate between isometric WASD and Third Person RPG WASD where the mouse controls/can control the camera

Edit: I’d also like to contribute to the conversation about End-games in ARPGs. I’ve been playing Chronicon a lot lately (I think Steam says I had 50 hours in the last two weeks?) and the end game systems for that are incredible. Everything interacts with each other in a way I haven’t really seen before. You have multiple different Anomaly (Rifts) types, each with varying reward types (dungeon anomalies reward runes, boss anomalies reward crafting materials, etc). The difficulty can be chosen at the start of the anomaly with increasing rewards for harder difficulties. The runes can be either a specific rune or a blank slate to pull a legendary power off of, allowing crazy customization of your builds (free respecs!), and the expedition tree is a whole separate web of passive skills that you can unlock by doing expeditions but they require materials gained from elite anomalies, which are made easier by the expedition tree passives.

And I haven’t even gotten to touch the artifacts/pets systems yet!

I’d love to see LE really tap into that interwoven systems feeling where everything ties together, at the moment i don’t really want to engage in endgame content in LE. I play a build till I see how it works, maybe tweak some things as I go, finish the campaign, do a couple monoliths and then I’m bored and want to try a new build on a different character.

[Kulze]

@Scipo0419

WASD in an isometric POV is the problem. WASD in third person over-the-shoulder is perfectly fine because your mouse controls the camera.

Yes, and there is nigh no difference when you have a direct input WASD control scheme in a bird’s eye view.

You press ‘up’ and the characters goes up. You press ‘down’ and it goes down.

It’s not tank control, that would enforce the movement direction based on the view-direction of the character, which yes… sucks. But it is not the case

WASD is a very very good control method depending on class/skill, and some classes do better with a keyboard input.
And very very few are handled well with a controller input. They exist, but are extremely rare for a reason, since controller has the most limitations and the least precision available. The only upside of controller is enforced auto-targeting in some cases as well as theoretical adjustment of movement speed through the sticks (which isn’t used). For precision movement keyboard+mouse is better, for targeting+movement WASD is better.

@DJSamhein

They failed in that, though.

Heavily depends on class, the majority showcases it. There’s outliers though definitely.
Those outliers are - as usual - highlighted. I tend to always play ‘mediocre’ builds which are simplistic in their mechanics, hence the majority does ‘middling’ overall. That usually shines a light on how good/bad the state of a game is, outliers (on both sides) need to be reigned in after all.

@Airowird

So it only being in 1.0 is just false, it’s just when they allowed Steam to verify game license without their servers.

Server identification enforces that you can’t start the game without a connection, hence my argument there generally stays true (albeit I missed the local save file aspect).
Also the focus on the live-service aspect was the same since the kickstarter.

@Airowird

Because they like to “create their own movie” more than have a good challenge, or puzzle, or …

Absolutely fine! Never said anything against that.
Loot based hack’n’slash ARPGs are focused on the mechanical aspects though, hence as ‘true’ to being a game as a game can be.

This mandates the focus on those things primarily.
Story heavy games are fine too, if that’s in the foreground, which also LE clearly showcases it’s not. Pure graphical games tend to be a fad, they exist shortly and die off as quickly again.

@Airowird

Claiming they need to all have X, which just happens to be what you find important, is at the very least a selfish attitude.

It’s a realistic attitude if you wanna sell your product. I’m not talking about passion projects or SP games which can afford to have a short-time engagement, you got a lot more leeway (which I’m mentioning regularly) to provide a product. As a live-service you can’t.
And in some genres you also can’t.
A looter hack’n’slash ARPG without mechanical depth of at least miniscule amounts is a failing product by design, ‘Van Hellsing’ is a prime example of that. People talked shortly about it and it did middling at best… because despite being a beautiful presentation it’s short and shallow and has no replayability value.
They could do that and still not have negative outcomes because it’s a SP game, imagine it as a live-service and you can only laugh at it though… but that’s why it’s SP.

Here we have the part that LE is a live-service game though, hence they need mandatorily focus on the aspects which will make them successful. Which are… mechanical depth and quality, not shiny graphics or the storyline. They provide short-term income but never a functioning live-service. You ‘sate’ yourself easily on graphical fidelity without substance and a story is told once and then you know it. Mechanical depth to push forward and master though is a long-term endeavour.

@Airowird

In that same sense, PoE didn’t release with a full story

I’ve mentioned it before and I’ll mention it again.
For the time PoE 1 was released in a full state. Yes, the story was expected to be expanded but the story of ‘The Exile goes and gets revenge on the one exiling him’ was finished. That ‘more’ is beyond that aspect was not meaningful to finish the respective Arc, everything at the time back then was basically said, you could’ve made a book out of it and finish it at the same place and people would’ve nodded and said ‘Yeah, nice finished story’.

You finding out there’s a huge antagonist and random person in the end of time telling you ‘Nah, don’t wanna tell you more or guide you to her’ is not a proper finished state

@DJSamhein

I believe it’s just that they rushed to make all the endgame stuff and didn’t properly test the growth of their skills into endgame properly.

Yes, they worked roughly 5 years on base mechanics and the campaign but only 8 months on the end-game. The scaling and end-game situations are a mess still. That’s to be fleshed out over time, which is why they’re EA after all to get that under control.

[Akrylikzz]

WASD is a game changer, feels infinitely better than click to move, especially for ranger/caster archetypes. I hope other ARPGS include this control method going forward!

[Scipo0419]

@Kulze

It’s not tank control, that would enforce the movement direction based on the view-direction of the character, which yes… sucks. But it is not the case

sigh did you even read who I responded to?

@ApacheVE3D

POE2 is fun, I like it a lot so far. Playing a merc (shock, I know). About 10 hours in. WASD movement has been learnt the hard way, lol. But as soon as I pictured my guy as a little tank instead of a person it was easier to visualize/figure out.

So, when I haven’t played the game because I dislike PoE, and then I see “but if I pictured my guy as a little tank instead of a person it was easier to visualize” instead of “it’s like a twin-stick shooter, but with WASD” you can understand why I said:

@Scipo0419

Hearing that WASD has tank controls is actually hilarious

The issue with WASD in an isometric game is you are limited to 8 directional movement. With a controller you have 360 degree movement. With WASD unless you also have aim-at-mouse combat (which Last Epoch, Grim Dawn, and Titan Quest do not have), WASD is absolutely inferior to mouse-click. The only way for WASD to be a superior control scheme is if (and only if) the game allows aim-at-mouse combat to simulate a twin-stick shooter gameplay. And even then, unless you have a 10+ skill hotbar, controller is superior due to 360 degree movement for kiting purposes instead of 8-directional movement. I’ve played Titan Quest, Grim Dawn, Last Epoch, and Chronicon with Controller and never had any issues with my aiming being off, so I don’t know where you got

@Kulze

since controller has the most limitations and the least precision available

Unless you’re only using ground target skills, which even then auto target to the nearest enemy, there’s little to no issues with precision. ARPG’s are rarely about “I need to kill one specific enemy before the others” and are more about “let me kill this entire pack of enemies as fast as possible” so precise aiming at one specific target in a pack of enemies is rarely required.

[ApacheVE3D]

I wasn’t the biggest POE1 player. When a game gets X years old it kinda fizzles out for me. I do really enjoy POE2 though. Graphics are lovely, animation is top shelf, the fantasy of playing grenades is really cool. LE should get an engineer class

Up to 91 in the SSF league. Not much to do until they release big patches, so playing some LE in the new engine is fun. This refresh I have two characters I can finish, a 95 pally and 96 necro (I raced with the 100 falconer).

[Airowird]

@Kulze

Loot based hack’n’slash ARPGs are focused on the mechanical aspects though, hence as ‘true’ to being a game as a game can be.

Again, calling what you find important as the ultimate definition of a game.
No single-player shooter game ever sold as many copies as Duck Hunt. Better call Microsoft/Bungie to tell them Halo was a complete waste of their time, despite all their visual & mechanical improvements!
And let’s not talk about Baldur’s Gate 3, they just slapped a story on decade old mechanics, no way those 60k+ average player numbers for the last year aren’t all bots!! (/s)

Shiny games sell. Of the top 40 best-selling video-games, there is exactly 1 non-Nintendo game made before 2010. (GTA:San Andreas at place 36, FYI). The Nintendo games are all Mario, Pokemon, or Wii Sports franchises, Tetris (which came with the Game Boy) … and Duck Hunt, ofc. I’ld argue Mario Kart is the only one in the “older Nintendo” list that’s there for its mechanics.

And as long as you keep phrasing your arguments as “mandatorily”, “can’t”, “must have”, you’re indirectly telling people your opinion is the only right one, with no room for debate. So to that, my response can only be: “Nuh-uh!”

Oh, and LE is a passion project, so you sorta argued against yourself there.

[DJSamhein]

@Airowird

No single-player game ever sold as many copies as Duck Hunt.

Doesn’t invalidate the rest of your points, but this isn’t correct. Several games sold more units than Duck Hunt, including Minecraft, Red Dead Redemption 2, Super Marios Bros, Witcher 3, Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley.
Even Cyberpunk 2077 sold more.
Source: List of best-selling video games - Wikipedia, among others.