Faster bosses is less fun

Recently did another campaign playthrough for the new expansion, and while I'm used to melting bosses and the feelings of ZDPS in PoE1, my first multiplayer campaign experience on launch was SO GOOD, that playing through it again now feels incredibly disappointing challenge wise.

Through a combination of multiplayer scaling and balance changes from launch bosses that previously gave me tension and FEAR of getting hit, were such pushovers that I didn't even need to dodge in most cases or killed them before they could even use most of their moveset. The PoE1 special and why this game was made, looking at you Searing Exarch cheese. My first run against Doriyani was so stressful that it felt like a raidboss, almost all of the encounters were like this, most notably Balbala, Forsaken Son, Geonor, Jamanra, Blackjaw who most of you probably don't even know, and the Forgemaster.

To put things into perspective, first ever Doriyani my Warrior's rolling slam was dealing 2.5-6k non crit, or 8-12k crits. This is what a slow 2 hit would look like on his bar.


We spared no expense gearing up and used high level decently rolled self found weapons/runes etc. Multiplayer scaling was in combination with base patch was just noticeably more difficult. Boss attacks also hit way harder, Doriyani's Triumph laser ass maneuver would easily oneshot either of us if we didn't roll through it at the right moment. Even tanking just a little bit too much of it was a oneshot. It put the fucking fear in us and made dealing damage a game of playing around opportunities, while heavy stuns and freezes and keeping debuffs on for damage were priority and didn't feel like cheese. Actual raid boss gameplay where I could go all out and try my hardest and not feel like I'm missing anything.

During the Forsaken Son we would specifically try to avoid tanking him into the braziers in the corners of the room, because once they were all broken the arena was so small that dodging his multi hit sweeps or rolling into burn would run our potions dry. There was no face tanking him at length, he was one of the first bosses we got heavily stuck on and would break to town to optimize gems/gear. This time even deliberately trying to make him break the torches he barely got two and hit like a paper bag.

Balbala was literally so hard at the time that we learned the mechanics of her fight, most of you probably don't even realize that she'll stab the coins she puts out if you stand on them, while leaving them alone will spawn a wraith. The wraiths were so tanky and took enough time to kill while dodging her that we had to prioritize this just to get a win. You can chalk it up to "Oh you probably just suck or your build is bad" which wasn't the case at all.

Flamethrower chick when you rescue Risu? her melee bomb explosion would one tap either of us, I would only survive it by blocking and legit could not outrun her. It wasn't hardstuck but it was enough struggle that there was breath of relief after having a bunch of attempts.

Jamanra and most bosses were an endurance match of learning mechanics and optimizing around them, some of the most fun I ever had in PoE. Though I'm one of the few who voluntarily fights Exarch without cheesing the meatballs.

So like, I understand that it's not everyone's cup of tea to struggle that hard, especially on every playthrough where you just want to get to endgame after doing it a million times, but actually having something to use all this excess power on is truly fun. Even if I could just do pinnacle versions of everything later that give the same level of challenge and adrenaline on a casual playthrough would be nice, but by endgame you're usually starting to tap into cheese level damage to skip over these things anyway which is the PoE1 fantasy. I love both games and zipping around insta clearing packs has its place in PoE2 as well, but for bossing I think there should be a credible threat that forces you to adapt or dodge that isn't just lazy invulnerability phases. Just turn up the action speed of bosses until it makes people shit their pants. Give me fear, give me challenge, and let me use the drops from those completions to reach the stages where its easy and not before.

I'm almost agree on your experience. I experienced way easier bosses in 0.3 than in 0.2 or 0.1, both as singleplayer and coop. First time geonor with 3 friends was one of the best gaming experiences i had.

But the solution isn't the action speed. Right now you can melt almost any boss in the campaign, so you don't notice mechanics. I think with all the crafting, support gems and skill revamp the player power level is simply too high: the bosses need more life to compensate (normal, magic and rare monster should remain the same).

And a lot of people notice the mechanics of bosses, not few. Youtube and Twitch aren't representative. You can notice in these forums when discussing boss mechanics.

This league is the worst for campaign fun but it's the best for gearing without playing the market. A lot of it has to do with the league rewards.

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wellehad001945#9920 schrieb:

This league is the worst for campaign fun but it's the best for gearing without playing the market. A lot of it has to do with the league rewards.

i stopped 'gearing'. i'm using a raw drop (no qual/no sockets/runes) bow on a poison ranger with 0 links (no support gems) and i easily defeat bosses in act 2-3. dunno wtf they did to martial weapons but my spell caster wasn't even 1/10 of this power.

if i would to 'gear' for abyssal depths mobs, the campaign would be pure afk adventure.

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Sulik7#2502 schrieb:

I'm almost agree on your experience. I experienced way easier bosses in 0.3 than in 0.2 or 0.1, both as singleplayer and coop. First time geonor with 3 friends was one of the best gaming experiences i had.

But the solution isn't the action speed. Right now you can melt almost any boss in the campaign, so you don't notice mechanics. I think with all the crafting, support gems and skill revamp the player power level is simply too high: the bosses need more life to compensate (normal, magic and rare monster should remain the same).

And a lot of people notice the mechanics of bosses, not few. Youtube and Twitch aren't representative. You can notice in these forums when discussing boss mechanics.

The main reason I suggest action speed is that when a boss is aggressive enough with its attacks that you're forced to dodge, that cuts into DPS no matter how strong your build is. So at the very least a build that melts bosses would still have to wait or risk some high value opportunities.

>Bosses need more health
They specifically reduced it by 15% last I checked. I know they're kinda going hard on community feedback right now because of the PoE1 league fiasco and trying to win those players over, but to truly rival PoE1 I think they need to preserve both gameplay styles while strategically positioning them somehow during campaign or endgame. Blitzing through the campaign on a second character that you have lots of currency on is basically what people do in PoE1 anyway, and I think that's fine. You're twinking yourself for early encounters and start to level out during the endgame. But that endgame should have encounters that will give you that same level of danger and thrill that the campaign did in the form of souped up rares and pinnacle level versions of bosses with giant healthbars. Like the early days of elder/shaper in PoE1.

There's an interesting quote linked at time about one of the dev's favorite bosses being Jamanra and the more difficult version they fought internally a bunch vs the nerfed version that came after, and now its even further nerfed. I'd love to fight that version https://youtu.be/JZqaI2XNNdI?t=683

Just did the arbiter of ash (non-uber version) and he couldn't do the corridors or donuts. I took him down in 20 seconds. My 0.1 and 0.2 arbiters were hard. I hope they buff monster life and reduce endgame player power.

Slower bosses is less fun.

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Sulik7#2502 schrieb:

Just did the arbiter of ash (non-uber version) and he couldn't do the corridors or donuts. I took him down in 20 seconds. My 0.1 and 0.2 arbiters were hard. I hope they buff monster life and reduce endgame player power.

This is a misconception. Tedious, not hard. Arbiter wastes all your time in the fight as you just walk around avoiding one-shots. In 0.1 I think the best fight was the Trialmaster. Couldn't one-shot me but I had to learn his abilities and not get caught twice in a row or I'd die. Oh, and it took me 2+ minutes to dps him down.

Yes, player damage is high. No, lowering player damage won't fix the problem. It'll just get more of the player base to quit playing. They need to tune player damage *and* remove one-shots from bosses at the same. Maybe well-telegraphed ones(again, trialmaster showing 3 sunders before doing it is a good example) so that even the first time you encounter the boss you should be able to understand how to avoid said one-shot.

That isn't to say players who ignore defense for glass cannon shouldn't get one-shot. If you don't have decent defenses then you should definitely die to big boss hits.

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FruitLord#0833 schrieb:

They need to tune player damage *and* remove one-shots from bosses at the same. Maybe well-telegraphed ones(again, trialmaster showing 3 sunders before doing it is a good example) so that even the first time you encounter the boss you should be able to understand how to avoid said one-shot.

That isn't to say players who ignore defense for glass cannon shouldn't get one-shot. If you don't have decent defenses then you should definitely die to big boss hits.

Wholeheartedly disagree. A big fucking telegraphed slam should absolutely kill you even the first time. Making everything easy so that people can feel strong because they first timed something isn't good gameplay, its just a free pass for something you haven't earned. You can argue that getting onetapped robs you of your attempt and is cheap, but there are plenty of bosses acrossed a myriad of games that do this, and yet here we have the freedom to prepare for it if necessary. You can build a character to survive, or you can exert supreme caution as you learn a new boss, I fully expect to die on a first attempt for any high level/pinnacle content or general difficult boss, you just learn as much as you can from the loss and dab on it as you improve. That's mental progression.

there was 1 boss in the whole campaign in hcssf that made me sweat, it was the prince guy in interlude 2.

All his abilities die so much damage that they ALMOST killed me but never did, gave me a heart attack everytime and drained my whole life flask in the first 30 seconds, until i learned to dodge the mechanics properly and barely beat him with an empty life flask.

But ofc he got nerfed multiple times and everything else in the campaign was faceroll, going blind hcssf, beating every new boss first try