Finite tries at the endgame encounters reduces player agency and build variety.

This critique is not prompted by failing at any endgame encounter, but by completing all encounters in the endgame just once and feeling there's no reason for me to touch the endgame in foreseeable future unless it's heavily changed.

I'm a new PoE player and an ARPG noob and decided to try PoE2 because of its soulslike inspirations. Firstly I like the game being punishing. I'm completely for the experience loss on dying (as long as the player feels like they did the mistake most of the time), losing a map on death (reroll instead of map turning into blank could be better) and Honor system on Sekhemas (melee and ranged has to feel equally valid). Sure the Atlas is a bit of a mess and empty in its content, but this is EA and that's fine. That's my angle.

However I find the goals of the endgame more problematic. The premise of grinding hours upon hours for items to get finite amount of tries at the final endgame content is asinine to me. I'm the kind of a player who would like to bash my head into a hard boss with a niche build for hours, but the game won't let me do this. It says hey, you are too weak, now go back to the grind! As a player I would like to decide that, thank you. Unlocking content by grinding itself is fine, and is the basis of an ARPG, I'm not arguing about that, but doubling down on this premise the way PoE2 currently is will keep players like me coming back for the long term I fear.

This obviously hurts build diversity as well. Maybe I'm thinking this wrong, but I'd like to see endgame where the build variety opens up and you have more choices. Now I feel like the campaign is the experimenting ground and endgame narrows down to handful of builds and if you dont play a meta build you'll have miserable time.

Having mechanics like the Trials are cool and thankfully they are not that badly gatekeeped, but I think the coins are there for just to be traded. Same with challenging encounters in the endgame you need to grind for hours, but that grind should be enough to unlock them for good. Combining these aspects creates frustrating experience and leaves little to no room for variety and experimenting. PoE2 is like an amalgamation of traditional ARPG grindfest, pseudo roguelite mechanics and soulslike challenges and combat. And these elements are not properly fitting with each other currently.

+1 OP.

Your feedback was what I said to GGG early on in the EA League.

The game mechanics favour certain builds and these are the current META.

Given how much one risks to obtain the 1~6 attempts at the endgame content, it's no wonder that players will flock to the META as this is simple Risk Aversion at work.

There might be others on the Forum who will pop in here and make claims that limited attempts increased the value of the experience or that the extensive grind to obtain these things give them "value".

But I hold that it just makes the game leading up to the endgame content a chore to be slogged through to get an attempt token.
And any "value" inherent in these tokens is subject to being flushed down the toilet if one makes the tiniest mistake or mistimes something.

Build diversity, sadly, probably will never happen. We seen the reaction of the overall community when something is "nerfed". We've seen GGG's take on it, by stating major balance changes will only happen on a "season" reset as a result. If we only get a few balance passes during EA, balance/diversity will be virtually impossible.

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EffKayZA#1861 schrieb:

+1 OP.

Your feedback was what I said to GGG early on in the EA League.

The game mechanics favour certain builds and these are the current META.

Given how much one risks to obtain the 1~6 attempts at the endgame content, it's no wonder that players will flock to the META as this is simple Risk Aversion at work.

There might be others on the Forum who will pop in here and make claims that limited attempts increased the value of the experience or that the extensive grind to obtain these things give them "value".

But I hold that it just makes the game leading up to the endgame content a chore to be slogged through to get an attempt token.
And any "value" inherent in these tokens is subject to being flushed down the toilet if one makes the tiniest mistake or mistimes something.

Hi

+1

6 portals is enough. If you have infinite tries the drop rates would have to be cut massively. something like 1/100 of what they are now.

I think you underestimate just how worthless every boss item would be if you couldn't fail and the drop rates were good.

That being said if they completely removed trade they could remove 99% of these types of balance issues.

it also is absolutely unfriendly for groups. a friend of your dies? ok time out them go sit in a corner while i finish the map OR forfeit the investment in the map go again. and depending on skill differences, physical ability differences, and build differences this may be repeated numerous times until your friend says screw this im out. great idea GGG.

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Lonnie455Rich#2087 schrieb:

6 portals is enough. If you have infinite tries the drop rates would have to be cut massively. something like 1/100 of what they are now.

I think you underestimate just how worthless every boss item would be if you couldn't fail and the drop rates were good.

That being said if they completely removed trade they could remove 99% of these types of balance issues.

I guess you misunderstood my post slightly. My main issue is that you can't attempt the boss with the grinded item multiple times. If you die on them, there's no loot to get. It's another discussion what would make sense progerssion wise after you kill the boss first time. I'm not advocating them to be grindable.

+1 good feedback

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mikeab79#3627 schrieb:

Build diversity, sadly, probably will never happen. We seen the reaction of the overall community when something is "nerfed". We've seen GGG's take on it, by stating major balance changes will only happen on a "season" reset as a result. If we only get a few balance passes during EA, balance/diversity will be virtually impossible.

poe1 has by far the best build diversity of any arpg so theres no reason to think poe2 wont when its actually finished being developed, but yeah it will take a long time before it actually gets there because theyre gonna be adding stuff bit by bit on big launches for sure.



i get what the op is saying but build diversity is currently very limited because most things that add build diversity are just not in the game yet. endgame unqiues, all the skills, the base items, the classes, subclasses, variety of endgame activities, crafting and target farming mechanics that allow us agency in finding the gear we need, and of course considered game balance.


all of those things are either only partially added or completely missing in the current version. i think its one of those issues where we care about it and the devs do too, but they know it will come in time and its more about what makes sense from them to develop first rather than what will make for the best game experience for players right now probably?

im not rly expecting things to be good soon, im expecting the game to be released in a year and im not getting my hopes up for any specific issue to be correct before then.