is Path of Exile action or a "loot" game? 

"big fan of tera before it died" You mean before you killed it according to all those fans years ago?

Yeah I immediately thought the tencent guy was gonna ask how to buy better gear too

the problem is that PoE players got used to how the game is and the poe 1 a long time ago became a loot rpg with some action elements

Do your duty and report the booty spam bots

To be honest, I think a good game can allow for both reactions. The whole "I need to grind to get better numbers" is probably something I would think of, having grown up on the likes of NES Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy. Granted, those weren't action-based at all, but the principle isn't that hard transfer over to an action RPG. (I will also admit that one of the other reactions I tend to have is to simply get more potions and just out-tank a tough enemy.) Of course, this doesn't mean I don't find joy in "getting good" at a game; it just simply means that the game needs to do a good job of incentivizing action-oriented gameplay. (The Legend of Zelda games are generally good at establishing those elements, despite not really being RPGs.) I get that Path of Exile was always kind of a niche experience, but I think a lot could be done to allow different solutions to problems, especially for the early parts of the game. If you want the end-level stuff to be execution based, that's fine, but for casuals, it would be nice for the game to allow alternative solutions instead of just feeling like they're running into a brick wall early on.

If one were to make it a game of pure skill though, what would that entail? - Not allowing better gear to be farmed until after you have defeated that boss? - Level scaling the boss to match the player's gear rating?

I think the best way to look at this is, where does POE sit imbetween Gauntlet and Baldur's gate (The old ones 1&2). Since thats kind of where action RPG's sit imbetween. Is everything planned out or are you making decisions based on the situation you are in at the moment. Path of Exile 1 I feel leans more towards planning things out and thus will mean people might grind more than engage with mechanics until they understand it. Because there just isn't as many moments when you push a button and delete a pack in the early game because its quite difficult and numbers do matter here. Later on however you still need to plan more but your skill comes more and more into play, especially when we talk about things like pinnacle bosses and ubers. My feel of POE 2 is that the endgame feel you get from POE 1 is going to be more apparent in the early game which means that there is going to be a greater demand in skill level. But now the question comes in what way is the demand in preparing and loot going to be to affect your early game? Because if its as high as POE1 then its a good thing you are making respecing easier in POE2.

My look has been if im fighting boss and im doing mechanics correctly but seems im not doing enough damage then go and try getting better gear. If im doing seemingly ok dmg but just fail at mechanics then just bash head against the wall till i learn the mechanics.

Tencent may be ok with the pay to win jokes, but will they be ok with me mentioning the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre?

Josh saying that people will barely watch someone just be OP and destroy everything, meanwhile The Spiffing Brit seems to be doing alright. Anything can fun with the right context.

I lov building stuff but my problem is that i equip all thid gear znd have honeetly no idea if what im foing is any good. Aml the silly numbere are there but itd so much. (Which is part of the charm... But still hard for me to tell what im foing.,) Keep in mind i am still on my first xharaxter after 150 hours. I am casuao at best and let me zombies do the fighting as i am a necromancer. (I dont get how people can just blaze through the game. I lnow im slow but damn there is so luch game to olay through.) All the systems are neat but by god there is so many of them that i cant keep track of it

It is a matter of genre. For RPGs the role play is that it is the character's skill that matter NOT the player. If it is an action game then the player skill is important and not the character.

I'm sure PoE has changed in the 12 months since I played, but its a loot game. It has some action elements, but the loot is kinda inescapable as it differentiates player power at max level, which is where most of the content is

I really like the idea of one company who made the designer of a boss being able to beat it with the worst gear in the game at lv.1 before it was approved to be in the game.

This whole interview feels like just Josh explaining what he thinks game design is to a professional game designer 😅

lets nor try sort this game into action/loot/or whatever .. Let it be what it should be.. a great game!!! :D

Time to change the name to Gitting Gud Games In all seriousness though, PoE cannot solve this problem with a linear inflationary item progression. If everything was more sidegrades and ups and downs like Souls that'd be the only way. Havel's Armour is the best in the game, but it's also the heaviest and many sacrifices have to be made at normal levels to use it. In PoE theoretical Havels armour would be the best armour in the game period no downsides it's just straight upgrade to everything before it and everyone would have it in their build. Basetypes would have to have innate quirks and differences that alter your playstyle with increases to damage in certain ways rather than always just linearly improving. You'd also need stat scaling like souls as well, because then the gear + level ratio is more tandem, where the gear might technically be good, but it being A scaling requires you to get the levels to have the A scaling work, and to get the levels you're either gunna be grinding for 10 years or beating the bosses, and choosing your stat nodes on the tree well. tl;dr PoE should just try having actual stat scaling on weapons, the whole shebang with D > S scaling and the stat nodes on the tree now are more than just requirement checks. Drop gear in Act1 that can be S scaling but has bad damage and later on in the endgame suddenly lots of gear is viable. Endgame gear higher basedamage but much harder to get S scaling, and if you give it S scaling it drops the base damage. It's still likely the best gear but maybe earlier act gear is where you can get the most powerful in certain aspects, like one of the highest bleed potential dagger is an act2 base or something, but it has bad elemental damage affinity or something. i.e. if you're gunna copy souls and be an action focused rpg you kinda need to copy the whole thing. Skill based gameplay will always be at odds with just linear numbers bigger items. Items need to be more of a diverse thing with each one having something to offer compared to the others you found.

Josh, its ok to tell the truth, its always good to be honest (unless your wife asks "does this make me look fat").....

If poe2 is a loot game then you should have an indicator of the loot level expected for the boss. That way players know if they're just ramming their head against a wall and have been good at the boss run part but lack the stats for the boss.

People play PoE to mindlessly blast maps while watching something on another screen. They complain about builds that use more than 1 button. Do the GGG devs know their core audience?

3:12 TLDR - Either grind some gear or grind learning a boss, personally do not like spending twice the time doing both. Have to agree with that view personally, as we would like to spend time to *either* get gear that helps us beat a boss *or* spend time to learn the boss, not spend twice the time to do both **on top of** some bosses being inherently more difficult for some people due to physical(disabilities, injuries, left-handed, minor but important differences in height, arm length, the variable speed at which nerve signals travel, chemical balance in the brain, etc), mental(emotional state, mental health conditions), environmental(people play games in all sorts of places, public cafes, parties, at home, at work, etc) or PC hardware(whilst this is likely a minority, there are players who will and do play PoE on absolute bottom-tier rigs or laptops just because they are willing to tank the performance hit for the enjoyment they get from the game, we were one of those people some years ago, running PoE at a "stable" 20 FPS, with lagspikes when any large group of enemies died or cast something) differences in peoples lives.

I disagree, bosses for me are a build check usually. I did grind some gear for one last epoch boss, the one with a super annoying lead up and unskippable cutscene which was just a big FU. I don't think I'm alone in not upgrading anything until I hit a wall. I only consider it a skill/training issue once I am comfortable i'm on the expected level or above. Furthermore I like in the games that allow you to prepare if you want to. i'll try to avoid equiping the anti dragon shield when fighting a king black dragon or somesuch- or at least have it in the chest in case I need it. Has he not heard of a 'dry run' where you go in to see the skills and abilities? I'm not a beat my head at the wall gamer. I'll go in blind if I'm not given prep info, I'll learn as much as I can, and I'll go off and make changes, then I'll beat it. If it's like wow and a farming gear check though, I'm out. I have no issue with action games, like hogwarts legacy, but I think that custom builds really change the gameplay up in ARPGs. I want to play around my way, rather than play what can become a QTE (quicktime event for you kids) depending on how much you force block dodge style gameplay. I like the idea I can make a tank that can take any hit but can only widdle on enemies if I want to. I want to feel like I'm exchanging risk for power/speed. If you're doing unblockable or instand death you should give visual and consistent obvious cues, though. The worst thing is being unsure if an attack is meant to kill you or not, in an arpg you die in a fraction of a second and beat the boss in seconds frequently too, and aren't sure if you missed your 'dodge' chance or it wasn't dodgable, if its attack isn't the type you think you resist well, or something like that. Its concerning that defence won't be a viable option with this approach, though. As much as I love my poe flicker fairy that teleports around away from all attacks, i also like juiced magic shield tanks and things like that. 'Unblockable' also niggles me- often they're attacks that are reckless and dangerous to the boss. If the attack is say a big limb swing, charge, or bite, then a spear/polearm braced = death/severe injury to the creature. If i'm using a bow, I can't really block. And if I have minions- who am I kidding they aren't going to be any use in this design ethos.

You can farm mobs in souls games to also outgear a boss, it's just time inefficient. Wasting hours of your life grinding the same mobs over and over to get over your lack of dextrous skill just made you a loser in the worst sense: Time. Your greatest currency as a living soul on this planet. You should be fine with letting people play that way, it's up to them if they want to be inefficient losers who win. One way Fromsoft tried to combat this was having a set amount of spawns for an enemy spawn in the zone in Dark Souls 2 where 15 times rekilled they stopped appearing, eventally meaning you can no longer grind anything. There was however an intended way around this, which was to enter the hardmode covenant that made enemies respawn infinitely, but this almost defeats the purpose because now the content you're trying to get around just got harder. I think that worked even if people didn't like it in ways, it was something you could opt into if you wanted the spawns back. There was also unique perks for using that hard mode route where you could unlock special rewards.

Imagine being called "Grinding Gear" games and want people to get good and not grind gear

why has no one asked what the sell out to china means to the games future? not a single streamer/content creator having an interview with the devs asked that. was that a prohibited question?

no, its a shit game

"Lot's of games have dodge roll" This statement comes off as disingenuous and not wanting to give credit where it's due which I find abhorrent from a developer. You're effectively taking the lessons another developer paid for by the grace of time for free and not even acknowledging where you got it. Lost Ark got dodge roll from Dark Souls. Diablo 4 got dodge roll from Dark Souls. No Rest for the Wicked got Dodge Roll from Dark Souls. You got dodge roll from Dark Souls. If you got dodge roll from Monster Hunter or DMC you'd have had it in 2013, not 2023. He even talks about the "Red indicator for unblockable attack". That was also Fromsoftware, with Sekiro. That's where everyone got that from. Again, refusing to acknowledge his peers. PoE2 even has the stagger bar, which is also a Sekiro thing that other games have taken which was just From making their poise mechanic more visible. A developer just pilfering other peoples insights and passing them off as their own comes off as real snakey. Be humble and fucking say their name.

what a stupid joke about chinese players