The Skill Tree in POE 2 is too Restrictive and Needs to be Fixed or Removed.

It seems that the goal of the POE2 tree is to trap you into known builds that they can control while giving you the illusion of choice. This, combined with restrictive skill gems, means you are stuck playing what they want not being creative and if that is the goal then just remove the tree altogether and make individual class trees. To understand how this is the case, lets try an example.

In POE2 the skill tree makes it nearly impossible to move around the tree. Lets compare my skill tree at level 76 from POE1 as an example.

https://pobb.in/u8gb_y4J6S6H

Here you can see that Traverse a wide variety of nodes to reach my goals. I am walking over to Marauder for some strength things, and near Ranger for other things but the combinations are near infinite. Now lets contrast that with POE2 SSF char.

https://maxroll.gg/poe2/pob/z0pyq039

As you can see both chars are in the same level area but the POE2 path allows me to take a LOT fewer options. Can I run up the tree and grab a couple of spell casting nodes near witch? No for me to run up to get sturdy mind would take 14 levels from the start.

The less flat version of the tree introduces more travel node costs and if stat stacking was possible they are the only people that would love this. But stat stacking doesn't really work in POE2.

Now lets get really crazy, lets imagine we want Path of Flame (18 Fire Dmg, 30% Chance to ignite) near witch, it takes 12 travel nodes to get there!

Furthermore, the tree surfing doesn't work because different trees exist for different class. Lets say you get the idea of running an Acolyte of Chayula with minion focus for chaos damage. (Nevermind that this wont work for other POE2 unique reasons.) You cant Navigate to Witch Minion nodes because they DONT EXIST. Witch gets a different version of the tree that everyone else sees.

In fact if you really wanted to be revolutionary, put a ring path around the starting nodes and let a player start a monk running as a sorceress, that would be cool. Of course you will have a lot more build variety to deal with but that is supposed to be the point of Path of Exile.

Did you notice they added new nodes this league? Some even got changed or had added effects. Probably this will be a trend to shift the meta further in next leagues. Let's find out...

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Kraythax#2592 schrieb:

It seems that the goal of the POE2 tree is to trap you into known builds that they can control while giving you the illusion of choice. This, combined with restrictive skill gems, means you are stuck playing what they want not being creative

This is true and very palatable due to hard restrictions (tags). There is nothing wrong with balancing the game around certain combos, but the hard restrictions are equivalent of Quest arrows in RPG games. Its way easier for the dev to just point you to the place where they want you to be then to balance the game properly.

Early days of poe1 were amazing due to complete freedom of what could be combined with what. and even if certain combos were intended the player had that eureka feeling when they found something that worked, or even appeared to be broken. And most of the time you weren't sure what was 'broken' or what was intended. in poe2 we get prescribed 'broken' combos and it feels awful because you feel pigeonwholed.

I don't agree about comparing poe1 with poe2 on any level tho. and poe1 'tree' is in a terrible state compared to poe2.

While some "classes" (second version of witch and second version of ranger) has "own" versions of trees already... And what is even more silly that both versions of witch cannot take second ranger's spear passives. Only bow passives.

So a couple of people get it but still the diehards "I like it the way it is" are most of whats left in this game. If GGG wants to market this game to 9000 concurrent players at PEAK they should stick this path. If they want to make money, they need a rethink. One that will piss off the diehards.

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Kraythax#2592 schrieb:

So a couple of people get it but still the diehards "I like it the way it is" are most of whats left in this game. If GGG wants to market this game to 9000 concurrent players at PEAK they should stick this path. If they want to make money, they need a rethink. One that will piss off the diehards.

+1, on point.

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Kraythax#2592 schrieb:

So a couple of people get it but still the diehards "I like it the way it is" are most of whats left in this game. If GGG wants to market this game to 9000 concurrent players at PEAK they should stick this path. If they want to make money, they need a rethink. One that will piss off the diehards.

your concern for maximizing Tencent profits its truly admirable, and it goes very well with the mobilegame-esque 'creative choices' behind some of the most recent poe1 content. I truly believe we can all be happy. people that support the profit squeezing of poe1 can stay there and the 'diehards' of poe2 can just be happy here.

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AintCare#6513 schrieb:

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Kraythax#2592 schrieb:

So a couple of people get it but still the diehards "I like it the way it is" are most of whats left in this game. If GGG wants to market this game to 9000 concurrent players at PEAK they should stick this path. If they want to make money, they need a rethink. One that will piss off the diehards.

your concern for maximizing Tencent profits its truly admirable, and it goes very well with the mobilegame-esque 'creative choices' behind some of the most recent poe1 content. I truly believe we can all be happy. people that support the profit squeezing of poe1 can stay there and the 'diehards' of poe2 can just be happy here.

This game wont exist. It will be cancelled. You think they are going to waste millions on 9000 cvoncurrent players. If they can get it to hold interest then its more than likely it will get cancelled or pushed back 2y as they totally rework it into a POE Sequel like it was originally intended. POE1 is not a mobile game. You are just being derisive and defensive. POE1 is a masterpiece. There are some things that can be improved but throwing out the entire gameplay because a producer played elden ring is not a good idea. They will either know that now or later.

august 29 they will rework passives ascendanices, skills . but that will be available only in league for month tho

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Kraythax#2592 schrieb:

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AintCare#6513 schrieb:

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Kraythax#2592 schrieb:

So a couple of people get it but still the diehards "I like it the way it is" are most of whats left in this game. If GGG wants to market this game to 9000 concurrent players at PEAK they should stick this path. If they want to make money, they need a rethink. One that will piss off the diehards.

your concern for maximizing Tencent profits its truly admirable, and it goes very well with the mobilegame-esque 'creative choices' behind some of the most recent poe1 content. I truly believe we can all be happy. people that support the profit squeezing of poe1 can stay there and the 'diehards' of poe2 can just be happy here.

This game wont exist. It will be cancelled. You think they are going to waste millions on 9000 cvoncurrent players. If they can get it to hold interest then its more than likely it will get cancelled or pushed back 2y as they totally rework it into a POE Sequel like it was originally intended. POE1 is not a mobile game. You are just being derisive and defensive. POE1 is a masterpiece. There are some things that can be improved but throwing out the entire gameplay because a producer played elden ring is not a good idea. They will either know that now or later.

Bro if Devs want to improve poe2, then its not problem for them... But they want not. THIS game need balance and diversity in builds and now has nothing of two of them. maybe in 1,5 year. And poe1 should someday to close as a game. it past almost one decade...