Frontloaded mobs, other shtuff sprinkled in.

SSF

One of the worst feelings in this game, obviously opinion, is a ton of monsters rushing you at a speed far beyond your speed.

I know sprint exists, but fuck sprint. Who wants to run away in their video games, certainly no hero.

This rush turns into surround, which turns into stuck. Getting stuck is easily my most frustrating feeling in the game.

Combine this with limited map space close quarters- well done, you've created a frustrating experience. If you're not super melting, which in my opinion is broken, since this game is supposed to be interactive... then you're very likely stuck and dead. As defenses feel pretty weak, not trash, but weak, you'll die.

You get stuck, everything hits you, you roll in place, you die, you stop playing.


The combination of all of this, and the plethora of other issues. Gearing, resistances, droprates of everything, experience, performance, bugs- basically rewards in general, are ruining the game. We need to turn the grind knob down a little. Even the people who think they want grind, and there are lot of them in this game, do not actually want grind. Everyone would always prefer to be having fun, always.

Grind has no place in modern games. Obviously opinion. For clarity, grind means to me- playing a game and not having fun. Its like exchanging time for something, and not really having fun in the process; or something that is a timesink limit.

Players, all players, want skill based rewards, not time based. This is one thing the game is actually doing a pretty good job of- the difficulty feels good. Even if tons of other stuff feels off, not bad, just off. Although you add it all up, and it feels really close to bad. We're really flirting with the line of bad here.


This is the current experience in all extra content. More mob density than you've experienced except in extra content- oh and chaos trials, lol. All extra content seems to feel tuned for/from something else. The pack density, the expected clear speed, clearly(ha), is completely different than the rest of the game.

It feels like copy and paste, likely because thats exactly what it is. Something was migrated into the 'new' game, and no tuning was done to it. Or... at least not the most obvious tuning, in my mind.


Set off your explosives in expedition, shitloads of mobs. However here you can move and have space- you can control where they come from... its manageable, almost fine.

Cult thinger dinger, limited space- often extremely limited, lots of mobs. On top of it, the thing is producing aoe, further limiting space- lol.

Delirium, touch the mirror and immediately an absolute swarm of mobs. Often you'll actually just get stuck in the pack spawning around you. Straight autostuck and fucked. Corruption will do this as well, spawn around you and lock you in place. Players will ragequit.

Breach, holy fucking shit. Its sooooo bonkers. Touch that hand and you will have more pack density than anywhere else in the entire game! WAY MORE. Tons of ranged monsters, the packs are SO THICK you literally can't run without getting stuck. Theres no consideration for space. Mobs are fucking fast as fuck bois. We're stop, drop, rolling, to not get stuck, trying to get an attack/spell off... teh density isn't even on the pack size chart. Its bugged, right? How can such different behavior not be a bug.

I know that experienced players are... mostly fine with this, especially the stubborn ones- which are most of them. Your casual base will just assume its broken and not do the content. Its THAT out of balance. The balance team or whatever, just straight ignored it.

Then of course you'll have your cookie cutter melt builds and whatever claiming its fine. Its not fine. Its not even close to fine. If anything, its a balance and game objective violation issue.

We want an interactive game. This design violates the concept. Without insta-melting its pretty much unplayable.

Please, forfucksake, make the dream(interactive) into reality, or we should just not play this game and play poe1.

For all I know we've given up on this- but if I'm tracking just from the game... we're high percentage in. The entire game is interactive- then just extra content, trials, is bogus. Trials just all fucking suck, I'm avoiding that disaster. Trials are like they are TRYING to get me to quit the game. Most players are going to feel that way about it. Certainly not anywhere near, this is fun! Eyeroll.