A few month ago I suspected the future of ARPG being dipping into social hubs and cities like Lost Ark. Not neccessarily as slow and as skill-rotation bound, but slightly slower which I still believe ist he case compared to the zoom of PoE. They already work towards making the game slower and fights more meaningful.
Personally I hope they find a good balance between meaningful fights which I don't neccessirely consider RARES and zooming when you have a progressed character. It doesn't mean I dont want to see monsters and one-shot 4 screens but ideally controlling packs and blasting them if you are specialized in clear should still be viable without feeling tedious.
I have faith in GGG that they find good balance. In terms of bosses I believe they have no real competition in the original ARPG field. They have their fair share of bad bosses and mechanics / ground effects but overall PoE bosses are very good, telegraphed and learnable. I dont want to compare them to Dark Souls but they are at least aiming towards that pattern / learning system.
Lost Ark for me has incredible dungeon and boss mechanics. I don't expect PoE2 to aim at that or be on that level - but if they get visible, telegraphed bosses with some engaging mechanics and hardness that don't rely on oneshots only (hello lilith) I'd be more than happy.
I have high hopes PoE2 will be a very worthy successor.
Tbh I'm watching PoE2 feel like I'll probably want to try it out. I like the sound of "slower" endgame personally cause seeing videos of everything dying instantly on screen is exactly why I never played PoE but anyway so far gameplay videos for PoE2 look very solid. Also that logo is insane lul
I'd like it if there were slower paced encounters, along with the zoom zoom boom, but I'm not sure if they will be able to execute it. Archnemesis was one of their attempts at that. We all know how that went.
Regarding combo based / cooldown based gameplay, we know that can work. Warcry Earthshatter was dominant and fun until it got hit with the nerf bat. Sure the keyboard faceroll was a bit tedious, but having that playstyle option is viable.
If something does enough damage + clear, people will use it.
On July 22 2023 15:19 HolydaKing wrote: With Exilecon next week, I have already checked what I want to watch. The time zone is obviously crazily bad for Europe, so I will watch the absolute minimum to not fuck up my schedule. Plan is to watch the first hour of presentation, could become two depending on how it goes, and the last 1 1/2 hours that shows the racing event final starting on Sunday at 5:30 a.m.
So I'll skip watching almost all of the PoE 2 stuff, at least I won't catch it live. Probably will watch it on youtube later on. That said, I'm a bit scared PoE 2 will make the game less fun to me, given I like the chill play style of most PoE builds and PoE 2 will allow much more gems being 6 linked which should make the optimal game play much more active.
I have had a look at the schedule and will watch the keynote presentation. I usually go to bed between 1 and 3 am when I'm not working so this is perfect for me. I might tune in on Saturday in the evening or watch the rest on youtube when I feel like it (including the race finals).
Regarding the active playstyle: I think PoE 2 will likely still allow one-button builds. If they encourage a more active playstyle with more buttons, I wonder if the change the UI to give you better options to bind the skills. Right now, if you play a build with a lot of buttons, you are starved for key-binds, even with the second bar, which is a pain in the arse to use for active skills (except one, which I got bound to strg+space, which is ok).
The live demo of poe2 was incredible, expecially for a game thats still more than a year out probably. Actually, dying on stage on a side boss but then going coop.
Don't know how I feel about gold though the rest of the keynote was insane. Can't wait for football manager league.
The PoE2 showing was extremely good. It sucks that it's gonna be almost a year out still, but if that means we get an amazing product I'm fine with it.
Bold choice to turn back from having PoE 2 just being a new endgame. I wonder if they saw OW2's missteps and adapted.
Overall this neatly side steps the issue of Speed zoom boom PoE 1. PoE 2 can be the more tactical and involved gameplay experience without compromising the existing PoE 1 fans.
RE: PoE 1, the new Ancestor league looks amazing. Auto-battler in PoE, another genre adapted.
Did they actually talk about what they're using gold for? (Some) currency orbs still dropped and they've previously talked about how they'll continue to be used in the game, so what are we using gold to buy?
PoE2 looks sick tbh. I really adore the design. Monsters and environment looks really cool, colours are coherent and it's really gritty. Combat looks good as well although we have to see how it will look when players are quicker later on. I also liked what solutions they had for certain problems in the game rn (e.g. freeze and stun on bosses).
The new league sounds exactly up my alley. o.O And I'm glad they are bringing Sanctum back as well.
On July 29 2023 08:38 EchelonTee wrote: Bold choice to turn back from having PoE 2 just being a new endgame. I wonder if they saw OW2's missteps and adapted.
Overall this neatly side steps the issue of Speed zoom boom PoE 1. PoE 2 can be have more the more tactical and involved gameplay without compromising the existing PoE 1 fans.
This exactly. I think it was not only scope but also the consistent "battle" with the zoom fanbase over the past 1-2 years that factored into this decision. It makes me really glad because PoE is a unique game and it would have been a shame to have some of it lost, e.g. how gems/sockets work. It's absolutely sick that they run both games side by side. I wish Arenanet had done this for GW and GW2 as well.
On July 29 2023 08:41 Craton wrote: Did they actually talk about what they're using gold for? (Some) currency orbs still dropped and they've previously talked about how they'll continue to be used in the game, so what are we using gold to buy?
Johnathan just talked about it with Kripp right now.
Their explanation was that in pursuit of their goal to improve drops, they had the issue that when you kill something and nothing drops, it feels like crap. And you can't have every mob drop valuable currency / rare items. Gold works as a stop gap, but they don't want it to be the main trading currency.
It sounds like it's only usable at vendors, they mentioned the example of using it while leveling to fix gear. So presumably it will have a fixed value relative to vendor currency
On July 29 2023 08:38 EchelonTee wrote: Bold choice to turn back from having PoE 2 just being a new endgame. I wonder if they saw OW2's missteps and adapted.
Overall this neatly side steps the issue of Speed zoom boom PoE 1. PoE 2 can be have more the more tactical and involved gameplay without compromising the existing PoE 1 fans.
This exactly. I think it was not only scope but also the consistent "battle" with the zoom fanbase over the past 1-2 years that factored into this decision. It makes me really glad because PoE is a unique game and it would have been a shame to have some of it lost, e.g. how gems/sockets work. It's absolutely sick that they run both games side by side. I wish Arenanet had done this for GW and GW2 as well.
Woops I totally mistyped those sentences. My cousin insists that GW1 was the better game and misses it.
Running parallel live service games is pretty tough, I hope GGG is up for it. Are there many examples of companies doing this in the same genre? I suppose FF 14 and FF 11 counts, but FF 11 gets much much less support. Ofc a lot of companies run multiple games (e.g. Blizzard) and I guess GGG has gotten big enough to follow suit
I think it helps that PoE is the sort of live service game that can afford to compete with itself. Since leagues have a very big boom/bust cycle you can launch new content for one game in the downtime of the other.
On July 29 2023 08:41 Craton wrote: Did they actually talk about what they're using gold for? (Some) currency orbs still dropped and they've previously talked about how they'll continue to be used in the game, so what are we using gold to buy?
Johnathan just talked about it with Kripp right now.
Their explanation was that in pursuit of their goal to improve drops, they had the issue that when you kill something and nothing drops, it feels like crap. And you can't have every mob drop valuable currency / rare items. Gold works as a stop gap, but they don't want it to be the main trading currency.
It sounds like it's only usable at vendors, they mentioned the example of using it while leveling to fix gear. So presumably it will have a fixed value relative to vendor currency
On July 29 2023 08:38 EchelonTee wrote: Bold choice to turn back from having PoE 2 just being a new endgame. I wonder if they saw OW2's missteps and adapted.
Overall this neatly side steps the issue of Speed zoom boom PoE 1. PoE 2 can be have more the more tactical and involved gameplay without compromising the existing PoE 1 fans.
This exactly. I think it was not only scope but also the consistent "battle" with the zoom fanbase over the past 1-2 years that factored into this decision. It makes me really glad because PoE is a unique game and it would have been a shame to have some of it lost, e.g. how gems/sockets work. It's absolutely sick that they run both games side by side. I wish Arenanet had done this for GW and GW2 as well.
Woops I totally mistyped those sentences. My cousin insists that GW1 was the better game and misses it.
Running parallel live service games is pretty tough, I hope GGG is up for it. Are there many examples of companies doing this in the same genre? I suppose FF 14 and FF 11 counts, but FF 11 gets much much less support. Ofc a lot of companies run multiple games (e.g. Blizzard) and I guess GGG has gotten big enough to follow suit
Yeah, I still think GW1 is the better game to this date. I still play it (it's on life support), it's just not the same with a very small player base, pvp mostly dead etc... It's also very unique and solved many of the typical "MMO issues", imho it was very ahead of its time. Yet, nobody seemed to want to take the concept and improve on it, which is weird and sad to me. At the same time, GW2, while certainly being a good MMO on its own, brought back many of those issues the predecessor had already solved. There are also a dozen GW2-like MMOs on the market. Oh well... sorry for the off-topic rant but I feel strongly about this.
I think there is some precedent. Blizzard imho doesn't count because they run everything on life support (or sucking the life out of it in the case of SC and WC) except WoW. Lineage 1 and 2 were run at the same time, which worked well as far as I know. Runescape and Old School Runescape as well. Riot is running Teamfight Tactics and League of Legends. So yeah, if a company wants to do it and cares for the games and community, they can handle it imho.
On July 29 2023 18:27 Latham wrote: It was pretty soul-crushing to hear that they plan on having a beta up by June 2024, but on the other side it looked great and well thought out.
Kinda hard but it has been such a long wait, I personally don't feel like waiting another year is going to be too hard. Yes it looked amazing and kinda made me want to play it right now, on the other hand I think it's crazy and amazing they have this level of polish one year before the closed beta is supposed to start.
I honestly feel like it could happen that PoE 1 becomes more popular than PoE 2 after a year or two, depending on how things shape up. Which I wouldn't mind if its more fun to play. I think GGG is big enough to patch both of them by now, though surely PoE 2 will receive more attention after its release.
I think IF PoE 2 ends up less popular, they'll be forced to put more attention to PoE 1, but IF that happens, it will probalby take a year or two like I said because new things usually end up fun and I have faith PoE 2 will be fun. Though PoE 1 endgame content is really good so we'll see how things end up.
PoE 1 will definitely be more zoom-y and quick-paced. A lot of people will surely go back to it after trying PoE2 and not liking the slower, more deliberate combat they've shown here, once they've tried it for themselves.
I'm just wondering if now that they've announced PoE2 to be a separate product, will they undo the changes to PoE1 that were meant to slow the game down, in preparation for the merge with PoE2?
EPT
