Do you think GGG stay true to their original POE2 vision? Or will they slowly abandon it?

I have the same thoughts. Finished the campaign blindly as a warrior. Start to look at others play style and see poe1 tempo - screen blowing spells... IDK, my favorite gameplay is also 1-3 acts on normal. Cruel is somehow easier.

You are sort of right but also wrong. Its an ARPG with elements of dark souls dont get that confused. Am not defending poe 1 but it is expected that you will be crushing the game at end game. Just think of 20 min naked souls speed runs or how strong you are at end game in that game. No one wants a game where you have to do maps that take 40 min if you have to do hundreds of the to acquire meaningful loot. Its one of the other.

I dont know if you reached endgame, but end game and itsc core is copy paste poe 1, with dont have much fun extras. So if you have poe 2 like build, you have hard time to try and enjoy endgame. After slow campaign like trench war, you got blitzkrieg by endgame. Everyone is trying to make poe 1 style build, because its best way to somehow enjoy endgame in current formula.

GGG haters have spread this idea that PoE2 wasn't for PoE1 players and that GGG is making the game ruthless and you'll be trading hits back and forth with mobs in maps and....that's not really accurate to anything GGG was saying about the game.

When asked about endgame speed (which happened a lot), Jonathan was always very non-descript. He said they didn't want to give players an impression of it super early because he didn't want to deal with broken expectations if it changed significantly before players got their hands on it. What he DID emphasize was that it is "SLOWER" than PoE1, but not "SLOW". He regularly said things like "If you have 1000 projectiles in PoE1, you'll have 100 projectiles in PoE2" or "You should still feel OP, but we're going to bring down the high end to something a little more reasonable".

I don't know what their endgame looks like at the end of the day. Right now we're probably closer to PoE1 than they intended with some of the most popular builds and frankly I'm not certain if they'll have the guts to stand up to all the hostile PoE1 vets who are ready with pitchforks the second they start nerfing them. But at the same time, the endgame was never going to look like Act I - III, that's simply not how the progression of these games works. What I do know is that GGG iterates like no other developer. If players aren't happy with the game, they'll keep changing it until they are.

I ask myself the same thing. I am sure they will abandon their original idea faster than you think. It will be interesting to see how they plan to fix all the problems. They either nerf the broken builds hard, or they have to make other builds just as strong to achieve something called balance.

I am a new player and heavy in favour of this „new“ vision. Since poe existed I tried to play it four times and never made it beyond act one except in the settlers of kalguur league and one button builds are not fun for me.

That being said, after 3 weeks of EA, i feel like reaching the poe1 playstyle is a natural progression in the endgame. I just dont see how they would be able to keep the early game playstyle in later stages of the game without severely homogenizing the experience and balancing around that. Maybe they will find a way, but it will just delay the inevitable which is fine imo. Reaching the „blast“ stage with your character might be the goal of every playthrough.

I quit my mercenery in act 3, because I started deleting everything. Playing Titan in maps now and having fun, tactically handling the masses and using different tools in the same build for different enemies

I really hope they do.

https://preview.redd.it/7701hidu2k9e1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=52a035db20973f4e72550acf6fa418ca6bf8f101

I had the same experience first 3 acts were the most fun when I can deal enough DPS not hitting like a wet noodle. But once you know the way to gear and stat the early game it's fairly easy with high damage.

Ok mapping should not feel like a slog unless you don't need to run hundreds for meaningful loot. Bossing is what should still feel like a challenge, specifically Pinnacle bossing. How arpgs always go. Your play style will NEVER enjoy an arpg post campaign simply because you do not enjoy the endgame that is the core of the game, end game is grinding to refine and increase power of a build, not still constantly swap and go slow and test things out. These are things you can still enjoy while mapping, however the mapping experience will not be balanced for that, as it is not what the average arpg player enjoys. A subgroup of arpg players don't feel like the game starts till endgame, which I don't agree with, early game is for playing with skills that might not scale to the top, but specifically are fun and engaging in early game or even the skills you will keep, so long as you have to make decisions in building to progress

I have a feeling that not much will change by the time the game is released. If PoE2 doesn’t offer a more “Souls-like” gameplay model or at least something significantly slower than PoE1, I’ll personally pass. The PoE1 gameplay model just doesn’t interest me. Still, I hope that a lot will change in the next 6–12 months before release.

I’m a PoE 1 enjoyed and love the slower pace of the campaign. I don’t know why people keep saying this. Many PoE streamers have also said they want the game to be its own thing and not just a remake of PoE1.

The worst parts of PoE2 are the PoE1 parts they crammed in at the last minute. That said, the hardcore light gameplay is not fun. 

I think making the framework "poe1 vs. poe2" is kind of short sighted when it comes to what's better for the longevity of the game.

I guess my main question would be, if you get to the end of act 3 (which is realistically where the end of the beta is at story-wise) and end up quitting and remaking a new character over and over because the gameplay gets too fast, what would your idea for increasing the difficulty be? I also enjoy slower and more interaction in fights, and one of the main qualms I have with the end game is there's so many things going on and you'll just get one shot to a patch of fire or poison on the ground out of nowhere because it gets too noisy. Also, some of the telegraphs on monsters aren't very apparent. I guess I'm just not sure how difficulty could be introduced in a more fun way, but I think there must be a solution out there.

Who cares what we think, just wait 3 more days for nerf hammer to arrive and you'll see.

And what's the original PoE2 vision? Devs always said in interviews that one button builds will be possible. I think they will tune down the biggest offenders like Spark but clearing entire screens will always be and should always be a possibility if that's what you want to do. There are multiple skills the purpose of which is clearly to kill as many monsters as possible as quickly as possible.

Why even bother adding 36 ascendancies, dozens of weapon types, hundreds of skills, supports and a passive tree that doesn't fit on the screen if all they ever wanted is for players to swing their sword and dodge roll? It kind of sounds to me like you don't actually want to play an ARPG because the endgame grind and making your character as efficient as possible is like the ultimate endgame goal.

Also keep in mind Acts 1-3 in cruel are just placeholders and clearly they didn't manage to balance them properly. I expect you will get more of what you want in Acts 4-6 but don't expect the endgame to be Dark Souls with dodge rolls and fighting bosses for 10 minutes.

The biggest retention factor for a game is experience.

There are 2 things wrong on PoE2 on this part.

1. Experiencing the best and most rewarding content (not beating it), is gatekept behind horrendous rng or simply priced out of reach from a currency perspective. Audience with the King is 7-8 div. It also doesn't show up a lot in rewards. Citadels don't show up regularly enough and fragments for Arbiter are 3 div each. And don't even get me started on Atlas navigation. Still, this is EA and hopefully they'll push something good out after feedback.

2. The gameplay-reward loop is horrible and feeds directly into bad progression. Now I get it that GGG wants their game cycle to last the full length of a league instead of the usual 7-14 days in which most tryhards finish their endgame builds and goals in PoE1. But at its core, the loop is busted.

GGG's problem is that they have started to see PoE2 as a Souls-Like rather than an ARPG. I say this not from a perspective of difficulty, but from items granting player power. Their aim is that found item can be powerful. And sure, a lot of them could be. But its the exception rather than the rule. So the design philosophy gets a bit muddled. Do you want loot explosions? Or do you want meaningful loot? How many of the 10 items that are dropped by a map boss, are actually useful? Sellable?

That leads us to a few issues.

1. If they want the player to stop progressing quickly, then most of the found items cannot be too powerful. If they are -> Player does not interact with Crafting or Trade mechanics. Eventually does not interact with the game at all because their build is done just by dropped items. Sure SSF players do just that, but pinnacle content can't be beaten by anything but a specific build (big dps and big defence. And we all know that all skills are not the same)

2. If they do want loot to be meaningfully powerful or sellable, but they also do not want it to drop on every encounter, then they need to add in a lot of trash because players might still need to see loot actually dropping to feel accomplished. -> Player gets to interact with meta crafting and slamming.

3. They want players to actually do RNG slamming. This gets to act as a currency sink similar to Chaos spamming in PoE1 but with an entirely reduced set of metamod craft options. Keeping points 1 and 2 in mind, Players need to have the following for crafting upgrades - Either a set of 3-4 T7+ mods which are useful. Or a Blank slate (Normal rarity blank item which is high enough tier). If you exalt/chaos/metacraft them and the resultant mods are trash, then you have to try again. This wouldn't be an issue if meta currency was easily accessible or if usable half-baked rares were available as drops. The result? -> Player just buys stuff off the market.

You remember how I said GGG sees this as a Souls-Like? They want found gear to be meaningful, but the possibility of target farming a usable Rare weapon is non-existent. Uniques are not useful in most cases. Once again, this is Early access so I'm sure they'll come up with something usable in later patches.

TL;DR - In my opinion, their design philosophy is based upon keeping player progression locked behind RNG instead of deterministic upgrades. This is to ensure players stay the full 3 months of a league. This consequently leads to a lot of investment wasting mechanics (grinding, RNG drops, rarity of encounters, bricked slams).

It is way slower than poe1 unless you are playing a broken build or using broken items like temporalis. It feels like old school POE1 from 2013 but polished.

Big same. I never made it through act 1 on cruel just restarted in SSF because even replaying the main campaign with a stash full of random rares is too game breaking. I will be satisfied honestly if they just finish act 4-6 and it feels fun to play and then I can here and there when I want a fix I can roll a new character and play through the campaign.

I would like for endgame to feel good but I wont be bent out of shape if it never does.

I agree with you and very much hope they'll stick to their vision.

They need players online. People who go with comfy builds farming 12 hours a day give them that.

I'm with you. The first 3 acts were everything i was hyped for before launch and more! I hope they are able to keep this pacing and take it into the last 3 acts as well as 1 or 2 endgame modes. It seems to me like that's what they want, considering their nerfs so far

But I do think the warrior levelling experience needs to be looked at. They have 0 interesting abilities early, no basic/quick attacks except the default mace strike. Their fragility or paper-feel makes me question what class I am playing. Am I really playing a hulking tank, swinging ridiculous weapons that create earthquakes? Or am I playing a feeble old man, pushed around by single dogs, stunned/interrupted by mosquitos, too weak to wield his weapon well enough to produce and attack in less than 2 seconds? I didn't like that my monk felt stronger and tankier than my warriors early

Name me one ARPG that doesnt devolve into a character blinking/teleporting across the screen zapping everything in sight.

Ill wait.

I hope I'm wrong and GGG sticks to their vision, but I think this game will just turn into PoE 1 with a fresh coat of paint over time.

If PoE2 becomes PoE1, I'm out. I got my $30 worth already, so no worries.

Let’s give them a chance to release all of the acts and shape poe2s own endgame before we make any judgements

Stay true. Don’t like zoom zoom gameplay..

What was their original vision to be in general slower than PoE and have you have to somewhat pay attention now and again in boss fights. It's pretty spot on ATM.

All ARPGs are like the first two acts then your character improves that is why people play them. Take that away majority will think what's the point. Build a whole game like that perhaps even you would think I've been doing this same thing since act1 and now 40 hours later I'm bored.

I understand where you are coming from as I thought the same in PoE, as soon as I got 4 link skill it was well that is this build done 😅 but ye you won't get act1 for 100 hours in this game