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[Jopax]

Sure, but why would they change the UI if it works as is? Furthermore if it's all going to be unified by the endgame it'd be strange to be using one UI and then having to switch to a different one once you get to endgame. Visually it is similar but I think that's more because it retains the style while improving on the graphics themselves in minor ways for the most part. Also most of the differences will be mechanical in the end since it'll be changing the way skill gems work in a fairly fundamental way, which then will effect items and builds themselves.

Tho, to be fair calling it PoE2 is a bit strange since it's more of an expansion of the existing game (a fairly massive one but still not exactly a completely separate sequel in the traditional sense)

[Aoi]

Sure, but why would they change the UI if it works as is? Furthermore if it's all going to be unified by the endgame it'd be strange to be using one UI and then having to switch to a different one once you get to endgame. Visually it is similar but I think that's more because it retains the style while improving on the graphics themselves in minor ways for the most part. Also most of the differences will be mechanical in the end since it'll be changing the way skill gems work in a fairly fundamental way, which then will effect items and builds themselves.

Tho, to be fair calling it PoE2 is a bit strange since it's more of an expansion of the existing game (a fairly massive one but still not exactly a completely separate sequel in the traditional sense)

Pretty much the same reason why there are superficial cosmetic tweaks to cars every years... so they look different and you can tell that something has changed since the last iteration. I literally couldn't tell that it was actually supposed to be a different product and thought it was a joke/hopeful video until I remembered there was supposed to be some con or something late this year (followed by some additional verification which cemented it). It's easier to sell the idea if it looks like something new is happening.

Though... it's all supposed to be unified by endgame? Like PoE rolls straight into PoE2? That would make a lot more sense, but makes it seem even more like an expansion than a sequel. Which makes this whole thing kind of weird for other reasons.

Eh, whatever; it's earned enough goodwill from me to see where it lands when it finally drops, in either case.

Edit: Fixed an open tag.

[Jopax]

Yeah I personally don't care much for change for the sake of change, it usually leads to shit.

And you misunderstood it. PoE will lead to maps, PoE2 will lead to maps. It's pretty much gonna be another story campaign that's gonna lead to you the same endgame thing. And sure, 1.5 or whatever might be more accurate than calling it PoE2 but imo this is a great way for them to explore the world and bring in great amounts of new content without abandoning the old one or forcing people to choose one over the other. Five years later we might get PoE3 which is just gonna be another big-ass story arc that ties into the same game and revamps some of the core mechanics to make the whole thing more interesting and fresh for everyone involved.

[Kanil]

While I would play an actual sequel to PoE, I'm not sure I'm all that interested in the same game with a new campaign. I suspect all the things I don't like about the original are still going to be present in this version.

[nenjin]

don't see anything different

Having played PoE since beta.....I immediately saw the graphical update, the model quality, the animation quality. Particularly on the monsters.

The UI I assume is a beta UI. It's the POE UI only shittier, none of the flourish, which tells me its still under development.

PoE vs. PoE2.....I don't see it as that confusing. A new engine means a higher level of graphical quality. With all that, why not take the time to remedy some structural design flaws in the gearing and skill tree? And if you're going to do that, why not create a new campaign as well. Yeah, granted, they're reusing more than I would have expected. As soon as I saw a relatively upgraded version of a Devourer I kinda knew.....they're going to make this as cost effective as possible.

But with it being 20 years after Kitava's defeat, it is a new storyline. (Not sure where they plan to go with it seeing as the "threat" in PoE has morphed and changed over time. The Beast was supposed to be the reason gems exist, and Wraeclast is all fucky, and after defeating it that the whole bit about why Wraeclast is the way it is got buried under all these additions: the other cultural factions, Izaro, Gods, The Elder and The Shaper.)

So maybe the storyline will get back to the root causes of Wraeclast's problems. I'm not too hung up on PoE's story but they're moving it forward enough that I don't think of this as an expansion.

To me, PoE 2 makes sense from GGG's perspective. PoE's engine can't support expanding the game much further IMO. It can't handle higher graphical fidelity, it can't put more enemies on the screen, and the can't add any more cinematic features either. (My fucking system locks up every time the Immortal Syndicate shows up because it's having to load all their dialog in real time.) So they need a new engine. But they don't want to redo the last 10+ years of content they've developed as far as assets go. Redesigning the core game systems is a lot less labor intensive than literally redoing all the Unique models and textures, or all the monsters. I remember a long, long time back when spell effects like auras were simplified to reduce their performance impact. I have a feeling a lot of PoE assets exist in much higher quality but were deliberately throttled back for the sake of performance. So it's possible higher quality versions of stuff have existed for a while, just waiting for a new engine so they could be put in play.

I suspect all the things I don't like about the original are still going to be present in this version.

I suspect you are right. The minute I saw the Witch gameplay it felt like they're not deviating from how they think an aRPG should play. PoE 2 will probably continue to go on being very grindy, being very focused on build execution rather than build flexibility, and it's probably always going to be about finding quality by churning through absolute metric shittons of quantity.

I can only hope they find a way to unify melee and ranged combat in PoE2 though. There is simply no comparison between old style Diablo hack 'n slash gameplay, and the fucking fireworks display most aRPGs today have become. You just cannot kill faster than someone lighting up the whole screen at the click of a button (which is what end game PoE builds aspire to) AND the enemies are designed to be instant death if they actually touch you. So melee isn't viable anymore on a couple fronts, and hasn't been for many, many years. Their changes and fixes helped make melee less galling to play but it never actually brought the two playstyles anywhere near in balance.

Their solution to this in PoE2 seems to be "make flashier looking melee-esqe abilities with bigger hitboxes." That one shot of a guy morphing into an animal mid-leap reminded very, very strongly about how I felt about monks in Diablo 3. MINO. (Melee In Name Only.) Maybe that will do the trick, but I kinda doubt it will ever be more effective than a quad shotting archer whose arrows do all this fruity shit as soon as they touch an enemy.

But maybe this is also a chance for them to address the power imbalance as well, by slowing down ranged gameplay, dialing back the overall obsession with attack speed that makes most high level PoE gameplay look like you're watching Youtube at 2x speed. I think there's always been a secret preference for ranged in PoE (or a secret fear of making melee too effective) and I hope they really try to bring the two in to parity with each other in the sequel.

[Rex_Nex]

Well, that heavily depends on what you didn't like about the original. There's a lot of things already confirmed to be changing between now and PoE 2 (pace, visuals, audio, skill tree, performance, skill gems, endgame) even if the new campaign doesn't interest you. It's probably a safe wager that there are also going to be a lot of changes in the coming year(s) that haven't been alluded to yet that don't necessarily have anything to do with PoE 2. Unless your issues are fundamental parts of ARPGs, I'd imagine at least some of them will have been fixed.

[nenjin]

Their monetization policy is one thing I'm really interested in how or if it will change in PoE 2. Their MTX has always been really aggressive and targeted at whales. PoE started in the pre-Kickstarter days and has basically used the same model going forward. Big transactions. $5 gets you essentially jack shit in PoE outside of the cheapest stash tab (which is basically the only MTX that actually matters in PoE.) They want you to spend upwards of $15 to get something as simple as a hat.

I wonder if they'll change that approach, and realize they can drive more sales with cheaper prices than banking on a player dropping hundreds of dollars every time they do a new season. It's clearly worked so far, it's kept them afloat. But I think it's contributed to PoE feeling like a game for wonks rather than for a general audience. Between the complexity and the price of MTX, many people I know couldn't get in to PoE where there were more straightfoward, better performing aRPGs on the market.

Or....will they double down on what's worked previously. Devaluing the purchases of previous backers by changing pricing schemes would be a gamble. As is manipulating the currency economy even more, to say.....halve the sizes of all currency stacks from PoE to PoE 2 in an effort to get people to buy currency stash tabs. Or altering currency stash tabs to hold less total amounts than before. Or cutting down on the # of slots in a vanilla stash tab, from 12x12 to 11x11 or 10x10......There's all sorts of ways they could try to fuck with the formula. PoE I felt like has always toed the P2W line because inventory space in its relation to currency is so central to playing the game. It's not a +5 Sword of Owning you're paying for, it's the inventory space to eventually one day make a +5 Sword of Owning. It's pain removal and FOMO and all this other shit that has been a definite turn off to many people I've tried to get in to PoE. It's less obvious PW2 than them trying to sell you a +5 Sword of Owning in the first 30 minutes of the game. It's a bit more insidious, in that you get well in to the game before you realize the structure of MTX and how they relate to gameplay. Maybe that's a fair exchange, or maybe it's a bait and switch. That comes down to the actual player.

My wakeup moment came when I did the math on Orbs of Fusing and realized if I wanted to make a 6-Link at the crafting bench, I would have to devote over half of an entire stash tab JUST TO Orbs of Fusing. And then you see that you can buy a tab that makes that limitation non-existent and realize you're not actually be given a reasonable choice here.

And that's TOTALLY separate from everything you don't have to pay for looking like shit while everything that makes you look cool coming with an insane price tag. ($25, on average, for a whole set of cosmetics.)

So yeah. I can't blame anyone for being turned off by that taken as a whole. PoE has happily plodded on in their model for a long time, and I'm interested to see, given the chance to change, what they're willing to risk, what they're willing to make better, and what they're willing to turn the screws even further on. Are they going to take hints and philosophies from their friends in the East?

[Kanil]

Well, that heavily depends on what you didn't like about the original.

The single biggest issue I had was how all the difficulty of the game was found in the bosses. The trash mobs were really quite trash, and existed solely to waste a bit of your time and drop loot. I don't know if that's just a fundamental part of ARPGs in 2019, but I recently replayed through Diablo 2 for the first time in many years, and greatly enjoyed how challenging and engaging it was to merely progress through each area... really with emphasis on "engaging", compared to PoE where progressing through an area involves right clicking a couple of times and then walking forward and not really caring until you meet up with a boss.

[nenjin]

I hear you on bosses. They're consistently for me one of the most disheartening things about playing the game. You get through a large chunk of the game with your build and what not, then hit bosses that require you to play perfectly, despite a) lag b) poorly telegraphed damage effects and c) never ending amounts of shit meaning you do more avoiding than DPSing. And then you look at how much damage you're actually doing when you have a chance to do so and realize you need to play perfectly for X minutes to ever win.

And then you get a lag spike, or a random crit, and you're dead.

Only in the last year have I built characters strong enough to trash every boss I've run into....and none of the characters I've made that stand a chance against end game bosses are melee. Not a one. You can't face tank because the fights are designed to punish face tanking. You can avoid, but if your damage is not stellar, or you don't have minions dealing damage and taunting while you move around, it's a race of attrition. Right now on my Necromancer I just sic my minions on the boss and focus 100% of my attention just avoiding all the AOEs, projectiles and adds that current bosses throw at you. And only if I fuck that up do I die. But on my scion or my shadow or my marauder.....you basically get to swing once or twice then you have to move or you're dead. For a low DPS tank, PoE boss fights feel almost impossible. And if you CAN face tank.....you're looking at a solid 3 to 4 minutes of hacking away at a boss that can't kill you. For melee it's like your choices are a) never be able to deal damage for fear or dying or b) never have an interesting boss fight. (One of the Elder bosses I remember quite clearly puts a burn on you that does 100% of your life in damage in about....1.5 seconds. Shit like that is just fucking stupid.)

Based on some of the stuff I've seen from PoE 2, maybe they've learned something there. That you can't fill the screen with things that will deal 80% of a player's life in one hit but looks like a shitty little elemental effects. That telegraphing damage is really, really, really fucking important if you want your boss fights to feel fair. Unfortunately, I kind of doubt it. GGG seems to love their boss fights now including mandatory "do this or you die instantly" phases. If you're lucky they're just movement and skill checks. If you're unlucky, it's something they just throw it out without warning.

[Jopax]

Harvest League

Yeah so after TD league we're getting Harvest Moon league it seems :V

Gotta say tho, I like their willingness to experiment with wildly different ideas to shake up the core gameplay loop which can get stale after a while (tho that might be my 1500+ hours talking). Delirium was kinda fine but I also kinda dropped it once I hit maps, the passive tree changes were a great addition and I'm glad they're staying tho.

Other than that, uh, yeah, PoE, still chugging along with no signs of stopping, which, considering the poor offering of ARPGS these days (Wolcen lol) is kind of nice to see.

[IWishIWereSarah]

We'll have to see he rarity and difficulty of finding the see you want, but I like hat this league would make it easier for people to craft items they want, as the reward for he Harvest Encounters will be to be able to add and change the affixes on items

[Minstrel]

I didn't play a lot of Delirium, but that's mostly because my new work from home regimen is hell ony my wrists. Still, I'll happily check the new league out, since planting stuff in games has always been my jam.

[IWishIWereSarah]

another things we learned recently :
There are multiple tiers of seeds (at least 3 tiers), and you only get tier 1 seeds from normal gameplay.
You get tier 2 seed from killing monsters spawned from tier 1 plants (so from tier 1 seeds), and so on.
Better recipes (exalt-like recipes) will only  be rewarded from high tier plants.

so, if it's anything like previous league, anybody ho doesn't make it to level 90+ and has stuff that already costs exalts won't get any good recipe from their plants, because they won't be high tier enough :/

[Jopax]

And now we're getting an Oceans 11 league, nifty!

Highlights include the new replica uniques (you take a regular unique and fudge one of the things it does, already some interesting stuff like a new shroud that's basically just 6 abyssal sockets) and alternate quality skill/support gems (basically they change what quality does to a gem, multiple variants for every single gem it seems, they cite something like 900+ new variants)

Other than that, seems interesting, another massive change of pace league it seems, probably will be janky at first but it has potential to be interesting I guess.

Tho, again, I'm not sure how much PoE can hold my interest anymore, seems that for the past year all I've been able to do is get to maps and get annoyed by the new atlas progression and kinda stop playing afterwards.

[Niveras]

Tho, again, I'm not sure how much PoE can hold my interest anymore, seems that for the past year all I've been able to do is get to maps and get annoyed by the new atlas progression and kinda stop playing afterwards.

I can maintain my desire to get up to Sirus. And then lose to him 4 or 5 times (each repeat attempt probably taking 100 maps, but I could be exaggerating - whatever it is, it's a lot of fucking work just to constantly lose) and get discouraged. Can't never be assed to level up a new build that might be able to handle him better.

Had a similar issue with Uber Elder - could get to him but never beat him, then say "fuck it" because I obviously suck too much at a game where people can apparently do the final boss at fucking level 32 (reaching maps then intentionally de-leveling through a vendor recipe).

Even Harvest league, while well received overall, between the RNG of getting the right crafts and not being able to wrap wrap my brain around what I had to do to use them properly, I got discouraged from not being able to do anything in what should have been the easiest most OP league yet.