Real corker of a chat with Jonathan and Rory, some amazing insights and the live development of pause on disconnect was amazin. Make sure to check out Raiz and Nugi and thank them for the efforts in asking some great Qs too! RAIZQT: www.twitch.tv/raizqt ru-vid.com/show-UC6gv... NUGIYEN: www.twitch.tv/nugiyen ru-vid.com
Let's make sure the melee totem part gets to Mark, thanks :) EDIT: Using berserk or focus does not feel bad, while using ancestral warchief and protector does. There isn't a problem with pressing buttons to do damage, though melee has 4-6 temporary buffs(2 totems, focus, bloodrage, berserk and maybe divine blessing aura). The totems give WAY TO MUCH damage instead of the BASE GEM(~50-65% extra TOTAL DPS) and that prevents GGG from buffing the base gems, while having downsides: 1/ activation range 2/ cast time 3/ duration 4/ apart from vaal ancestral warchief - they die in a single boss hit 5/ range 6/ need skill point investment to deal with 2, 3(lingering effect), 4, 5(lingering effect) and give bigger bonus 7/ use usually 3-4 links -> Ancestal protector, Ancestral Warchief, Multiple totems and maim or comustion based on archetype, 2 links for slams and forced unique item, 2 links for some strike skills To this day I dont understand 2 things. Why does absolute majority of skill gems have 0.7-0.9 attack speed modifier and then they give us Ancestral protector to compensate it -> just remove protector buff and tweak the base attack speed effectiveness... Why do slam skill support gems have also 0.7-0.9 attack speed modifier. I get what they are trying to prevent -> play slam skills on 6 - 15 attacks/s, but you could achieve that by shifting more power into war cries themselfs(aka old seismic cry), so they feel powerful to use and not a button to get Echoes of creation buff. This virtually means, that you HAVE to craft attack speed on slam axe/maul/staff, while it goes against the idea of not caring about attack speed itself, maybe we should have warcry speed suffix, that we would go for instead. Currently there is barely a difference between slam axe and strike axe. We can see difference only in very high investment crafting(5-6 ideal mods). Bonus -> why it seems like Tawhoa + Fist of War does not work together, whenits literally forced on to you in the chieftain ascendancy... Swapping the position of those two would be way better, but imho it should be Ruthless support instead of Fist of War or other way to make it work together with tawhoa.
For the Question on Lingering Death effects, a solution IMO, is to tie the death effect to the pack leader. Once the pack lead dies the Death effect on the rest of the pack ends. This also allows for a counter to the death effect by targeting the pack leader early.
Really great QnA. Really great questions and @ZiggyD Gaming, I really appreciate how well moderated it was. You've done a fantastic job planning ahead and helping it move smoothly along. Appreciate the hard work you put into this and thanks to Jonathan and Rory for being so open about everything. continues to be a fantastic dev and community.
the one with kripp or dm and ghazzy were also amazing. this level of transparency is just awesome. its not only informative, its also cool to see how enthusiastic they are with it. sometimes it looks more like brainstorming than a Q&A session. :D
Some real surprising stuff coming out of left field in these answers. Love how much the GGG devs allow themselves to be open about development. thanks Ziggy!
I bet the NDA fo GGG devs is: You state you will not share nay code! Talk about development, and everything, which is not content? sure go ahead. We need to share wisdom! :D
I love how they talk about the actual process, too. "Mana isn't relevant, what's the problem with that? Oh, it's reservation. What's the solution to that? Someone already proposed it 3 years ago."
Great interview. It seems like all this input from the community funnelled into discussions with invested content creators who have clearly put a lot of thought into the game's direction will make PoE2 a better game. Also ZiggyD has top tier interviewer skillz.
41:25 oh my god, this was so insightful. Because chaos orbs (and essences) exist, dropping items is less valuable, because you can "drop an item" over and over in yoir hideout. Using a chaos orb and dropping an item are the same thing!
Firstly, great interview. I really wish we didn't have the "one shotting bosses and whole maps" conversation every time the devs come on stream. It's boring, it's always the same answer, it's so obvious by this stage, and honestly feels like we only do it for the dummies at the back of class who didn't listen the first 1000 times we've talked about it. Can we move on? Stop asking that question. Please.
“I feel like these are the arguments that developers now are too scared to answer”. This is why these developers are the real deal. It’s such night and day listening to these guys talk vs AAA developed talk. This is how we make capitalism work right, the people in charge actually know the job. 🎉. I am so excited about these changes he talks about because he actually understands what it’s like to be a player and he understands the game in and out.
The willingness to answer questions in a direct, in depth way, with transparency and confidence without holding back on the stream of thought is really refreshing. It's really great to see them putting themselves out there like they are doing these days with these q&a's, reddit, etc. The dedication they are showing to both the community and their game(s) is clearly not limited to the office hours. Looking forward to try this game when it arrives.
i think what's great is when he's drifting away from the question, he actually mentions it and says "let me cook, i'm going to pull it back to the question" It's not just some gishgalloping or whatever it's called
On MF: I feel the big issue is that you don't really 'feel' MF until you have all of it. There's immediate feedback when your DPS goes up, but you can never really be sure about MF until it's totally in your favor. A little something like a blue glow appearing around MF found gear would go a long way to changing it's perception.
Or they could add a drop tracker of some kind if possible to show the actual effect of improved drops that shows what you get from MF and what is normally dropped. At least for D2 people have so much data and the drop rate has been stagnant for so long we just know the MF impact on drop rates on certain boss runs etc.
Let me start out by saying that I've been watching the 3 interviews that GGG has had with content creators and they've all been very insightful and enjoyable to watch - and I truly do mean this! One thing though that I'd like to comment on, why oh why did you guys had to add stuff like "[question], that GGG has been very keen to avoid answering in the past", it's like - that's just a dumb way to end a question. GGG is sitting down to answer those kinds of questions exactly - and actually has eluded to the answer they gave multiple times before, even in previous interviews, and then people add that stuff to the questions. I don't know, I'm just sad that that is a way of asking questions. Ghazzy was under fire for being harsh (as understand by his comment on his video) - and he was never like that direct, in my mind. I think I'm just confused as to why GGG gets so much flak for being non-open when they are way more open than SOO many other game companies; it's like they're being punished for being open, but not with exactly the things that people actually wanna hear. That sounds like a lose-lose situation to me, no wonder if they've wanted to just slam shut like the rest under those circumstances. Anyways this was just a minor rant, wanting to throw some light on a topic that I thought about. No evilness intended towards anyone. GG GGG and content creators all :-)
no just no... Ghazzy was not being harsh he was being a Dik about it and being rude as hell. he was purely being toxic and he laughed about it on stream later on. he should never be allowed again to a Q/A.
@@TaurielWoW He wasn't being rude during the Q/A, if he was I'd like you to tell me when, because I wouldn't call any of that rude. Whatever he does after the interview I really don't know about because I generally don't watch PoE on twitch.
@@Mipzhap i agree. i liked that interview most, he was awesome./ Nguyen on the other hand is such an annoying facenerd, i cant stand it when he talks, let alone see him. i i moved a window over his face during this and skipped his talking after i heard that he is still 12yo gamerboy.
5:40 Ah, come on! There was so much additional, extra power added over time. Knowledge being shared made usage of tools better understood but it was GGG that added all the tools in the first place. Ascendancies. Jewels. Clusters. Influenced mods. Fossil, Essence, Harvest crafting. Eldritch implicits. Anointments. Catalysts. All of that stuff is extra player power with hardly any or no opportunity cost at all. Just added on top of every existing tool. Player knowledge didn't pile these onto everything else. No amount of evolving player knowledge could ever match the raw added power of all these tools. It's like going "We added 300% more damage to all builds in the game but that player knowledge though!" We already have a zoom-zoom-Zoomer game in PoE1. Thanks to the split PoE2 can be different. At least until power creep sets in let PoE2 be methodical and slower. These reserved answers out of fear of angering the ADHD screen-wide firework Zoomers are so boring. Judging from GGGs attempts to reign in player power and how frustrated they are by not being able to do it in more drastic ways it's easy to tell that they themselves are not satisfied with how PoE1 evolved. Don't let the same issues carry over into PoE2 just because you want to pander to the same crowd again. I love PoE1 but I can recognize that it has issues. And I am ready for a very different experience alongside it. I don't need the same game twice.
@@CCSplinters I believe his grandma or mom had an illness he was helping with which stopped Baeclast (also Raiz and Nugi was playing Lost Ark). Then he got a gig as a dog walker and a comedian (not a joke) and hes been afk for a while and the last I think hes been seen was on Episode 100 of Fated Podcast with Catmaster and Balor.
@@gochubattamugga oh wow, a comedian. I could never imagine tarke doing that hahaha. Good for him tho. I though he just stopped because he no longer loves the game 😭
It's awesome the Devs and bosses can just sit down and just chat like one of the boys it's so refreshing and it is obvious they play their own game. I put it down to the Kiwi mind set, just chillax.
@ZiggyDGaming , your chapters are amazing. Thanks for the extra detail and effort! I love the chapters! (And, of course, awesome job hosting, as always.)
Great interview. Lot of questions asked and some of them got Jonathan and Rory thinking about things. It's always nice to see when a dev can think on the fly and then takes info that they are given from players back to their team to come up with solutions to things. Very nice work all around.
It's really nice to see when Jonathan, or any of the GGG staff, get into a rant when asked about something. Shows just how much they care about making a good game
Can we have determined percentages please? Like Evasion. For example Shaping the mountain is 10% chance to gain a craft. Can it be that the tenth map will always trigger it, or as a pity mechanic and if the at the 20th map it hasnt trigger yet, it will be guaranteed? Same for a lot of other percentages wher it makes sense for it to work this way.
With pausing the instance, if you're worried that the game would "just randomly pause" if you have high ping, just put it in the options menu and let the player choose. In general SO MANY issues could be solved by just letting the player choose a number that works for him, instead of 'dev magicing' a number that's supposed to work.
The pause feature would be AMAZING for inspecting debuffs to see what they actually do. In the heat of combat you can never scroll over and read those.
Question regarding respecing points: why GGG think that respecs are mistakes on the skill tree? Sometimes I want to experiment with few skills in Act 9 for example around lvl 65. For that I have to respec some points to try them from fire to chaos. Is that a misstake to experiment with other skills, when they create a sandbox game?? is there no solution for it like a quest item view time which give players 6 respec points. Within the concept of POE 2 it would also make sense to have side quests or bosses which allow that below level 70???
I was thinking the same thing that they should give us free or very cheap respec points before a specific mid game milestone and afterwards it can become something like poe1
Jonathan's level of excitement and lack of ability to be able to, what I can only imagine, say what he would *really* want to say and share is so damned relatable to me. I love it.
PAUSE DURING DC IS GENIUS. HARDCORE PLAYERS LOVE YOU. Do multiplayer do on toggle option of party. Everyone pauses and you either wait to leave party which puts you in your hideout!!
I guess he is talking about Octavian getting hired by GGG, when he hoped to get in. But to be honest I expect the medical condition his voice got diagnostic with is the real reason
Yeah, especially an ability that procs CC more than just more damage. Like a dodge roll that also chills/freezes monsters around you could be super handy.
Maybe the problem with on-death effects is that they can kill you. Which is not required to make you react to a mob in a pack dying. On-death effects could be about crowd control, damage taken increase, displacement, etc. Can even reduce your health, just don't kill on it's own.
On MF topic, it's too late now, but I feel like the current league issue could easily be solved by simply reducing the amount of wisps gained in lower tier maps, and thus lower the price of lower tier tinctures etc and restrict having multiple wisps types for yellow and red maps. So if you really want to juice at current levels, you *need* to do it at T16, and deal with that however you like. Maybe there's something I'm not considering?
This talk was so good. Especially loved the conversation about 'pushiness' and having enemies feel tangible. So many amazing insights, and it seems like actionable steps to take, too! So glad this happened, and even more glad we got to hear it. Thanks to Rory and Jonathan for their answers, and thanks to the Baesquad for organising and having such good questions. If I were to speculate, I think the intention behind melee totems giving you a buff was to make it so you still felt like a 'melee' character. By buffing your own melee attacks, it encourages you to get into the fray yourself. In practice, the totem placement playstyle felt like 'required' friction for a melee build, and the melee buff was just meaningless for a totem build, so neither style really benefitted. Would be nice to see this change to make melee totems more like other totems.
Personally, I think the problem with melee totems is that they don't feel like melee. I don't care about the buttons. War cries are a good way to implement a buff because it actually seems like a melee character. You let out this big war cry as you charge into battle and invigorates you or intimidates enemies. A totem is like a shaman or spell caster thing. Totally out of place for people who enjoy melee.
I wanted to respond to the question you posed: "Why do you think Magic-Find gear is unpopular?" My take on it is basically FOMO, but not in the sense that it's not there for the taking. Rather, the people who are able to leverage MF gear then show the possibilities and outcomes of this gear. However, not every build can sacrifice damage/defenses in service to better Magic-Find. Even if you have a build that can afford the sacrifice, it can come at the cost of fun, because the power fantasy is what some people find enjoyment in, whether it is in the form of being unkillable, or being a destroyer of worlds fantasy. I'd say it's like the people who say they can't play Trade League anymore because it takes the fun out of the game for them. When you know that your time is being spent in a sub-optimal way, but the optimal way isn't fun (for you), it leaves you feeling like you're playing the game "wrong". This dissonance leads to an outcry, where these people don't want to be shamed for enjoying the game in a different way. What's more, people rarely know themselves well enough to identify this kind of problem, and instead point to things only tangentially related. Getting rid of MF gear won't make them a better player, or have more fun, but it might mean that the difference between optimal play, and the play they find fun, might be reduced.
Did they say "Launch year" and does that mean that beta will be over before the end of the year and the public release will be probably at christmas 2024? I feel like he spoiled more that he wanted to with this info.
The weapon swap thing sounds like they're going to have to have situations where specific elements or status effects reeeally matter to avoid purely optimizing damage with curses. Which also implies there gonna have to have damage type "combos" or ways to scale swapping directly (similar to EE or Trinity for elements). Cuz yeah without that it's definitely just gonna be curse swap like they said. Interested to see how that works.
Torchlight Infinite will pause when you experience server drops, the screen greys etc, it works very smoothly. Obviously not something we will get in poe1, but I'd love to see it in 2
@@INeedANewHandle And if it wasnt a mobile game, it would be dead. So much fun to play a game where the only thing you do is leap slam and that's it during a whole Map. Go play D3 you will get all the fun you want
Hells ya!! Baeclast back in action 🎉 Or whatever you guys want to call it. Miss you Tarke. Thanks Ziggy for the great interview and I hope to see more 🎉
I don't necessarily think the current league's problem is that the player difficulty is free to be honest. I think the main problem is, and maybe that's just me not having figured out the magical ways of the afflictionleague... But I don't see any way to opt out on purpose without stacking more difficulty unintendedly once you think it's enough, and I have a really hard time quantifying how difficult I'm making things for myself just looking at a number behind 3 colors that then also gets randomized in the map itself. Like obviosly if I stack triple 2k's a lot of monsters will be wickedly strong. But if I stack 2k in blue and 0 in red and yellow, is that stronger than if I stack 1k in blue and 1k in yellow? Is that stronger than if I stack 333 in blue, 333 in yellow, and 333 in red? There's not really anything telling me concretely "you're being an absolute massochist please cut it out or face the consequences" like a league such as metamorph or sanctum has for example. So do I want more rewards? Well yes of course... At what cost? I don't ffing know so I'll just keep clicking and we'll see what happens. Oh okay that was too much last time so let's stop now. Wait crap do I really need to alt F4 to not "opt into" more difficulty? I think those two factors weigh much, much harder than giving it away for free. Because if you give it away for free but you warn me and give me an easier way out at least if I click it anyway you can say haha idiot I told you so and I'll say ok that's fair. I didn't get pissed at the final Franky McBossenstein once during metamorph. I created absolute immortal abominations but everytime I did I laughed my ass off at my own greed and stupidity. But now I don't even know or feel like I have another option.
I, for one, miss Chris Wilson on the stage, talking to us. Sure, he is not as involved in PoE 2 as Johnatan, and Johnatan has his charm, like making us believe he is developing New features as he talk, but what I can say, years and years os Chris being the face of GGG doesn't go away.
Jonathan just sometimes has to let his other host talk more xD Sometimes Rory sits in silence for like 20 min. Nothing against Jonathan, but I guess I want it more close to 50 50 70 30 is fine too, but this feels like 80 20 maybe even less. I noticed that with mark too that he doesn’t get his time to speak. But obviously if they before the interview agree on Jonathan answering most of the question then my point is irrelevant.
POE Dev Question: Could we see kick attacks in POE2? Being able to use your feet to attack, even if bound to a particular character class, would awesome. I guess it might be difficult to determine damage (based on a weapon or if it’s based on your boots lol)
I'm continually impressed with how many fundamental problems they're solving. Love Jonathan's "nothing is impossible" attitude. He really needs to learn to stop interrupting though.
Yeah. Best as I could figure, a lag-triggered pause (in single player) has only one drawback: It would then need to figure out when to unpause. When it receives a packet, obviously. But what if it's super intermittent? Then it needs to be as immediately reactive to the player as possible. But this is also just a problem with lag in general. How much worse could this idea really make it? Well it could simply never unpause. That would be bad. But that would never happen, I'm sure. We all know servers always behave exactly the way you tell them to.
The interesting thing about grace and determination is they used to be purely multiplicative. They were changed, I believe, so that aurabots running determination are still relevant to party members that aren't using armor gear. I have no strong opinion either way but I think it's an interesting discussion on the role of auras and aura bots. I think there is a possible world where auras are split between versions that only buff you and are "specializing" as Jonathon says and auras that are weaker, effect everyone, and are "despecializing" - allowing aura bots to patch up problems for party members.
i think its dumb they serve a purpose and dont need a nerf. i dont play with one but they have no interest in making the game fast paced like POE1 which is bad in my eyes as not a single person but select few like slow gameplay. 3.23 should tell them all they need people like blowing stuff up and being fast not being slow whacking mobs at a slow pace. D4 example they toned down the killing people grew bored. D3 is picking back up because people loveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee the hell out of power creeps. 3,14 was example then 3.15 when they killed it but expected people to suffer with the nerfs. the league was dead 1st week in because of it. standard even lost a lot players. if they change way aurabots work then they lose likely 30% playerbase who plays them.
Love love love everything I’m hearing! So fascinating. Convinced they are going to knock it out of the park with Poe 2. Thanks to ziggy raiz nugi and everyone at ggg!
For the Stun topic, I think raiz was going for something similar in Lost Ark when you are knocked down you can use your roll key to get up but it will trigger a cooldown to your get up skill which is around 15-30 seconds depending how much swiftness character has(as it affects ASPD, MS and CD) Which might be a good additional system to react with stun since almost no one builds reduced stun threshold in their gears in PoE(unless its 100% on one thing) and since its something that will mean death to Hardcore players
The issue with league mechanics being so powerful and going away so quickly is that it leaves a lot of cruft around in the build community and will lead to new players, who don't understand the importance of league versions or might not recognize antiquated leage mechanics in teh build, picking bait builds and having a bad time. Great interview!
The other interviews were great but this one was just the best. Ziggy, Nugi and Raiz, in my opinion, are the unofficial community/developer bridge and also the developers, while always being pleasant and forthcoming, seem to be even more at ease with this team and their relaxed friendly vibe. Thanks to everyone who participated.
About the annyance of mellee totems vs spell totem. Mellee is all about getting up and close, so any part of combo, where you essential want to be in a safe range place or put things things down in a safe range, introduces a 2 step process, position vice. That takes away from the game flow. And mellee is already strained in being forced to position up and close. Totem as part of a caster rotion, dont introduce a break in gaming flow the same way.
agreed. DPS with totems is roughly 65% higher than when they are down and it is ridiculous(Vaal warchief, ancestral protector, maim as links and panopticon annoint) that combined with other temporary things like charges, berserk, rage, focus, curses, marks ends up in the situation we have right now. You are NOT REWARDED for pressing buttons, because you can make caster/coc or bow build and have basically full buffs all the time enjoying max DPS 90% of the gameplay. Another issue with melee tied to existence of the totems -> you dont have enough links and keybinds to play it. Buttons to press: Strike skill melee -> ancestral warchief, ancestral protector, focus, berserk and possibly has to upkeep bloodrage or some aura on divine blessing. Slams skill melee -> 3-4 warcries upkeep, ancestral warchief, focus, berserk and possibly again bloodrage or div blessing aura Casters -> start of map press RF(assuming it even uses it) and if you have focus or div blessing you press that, but unlike melee you are not standing in the pack of monsters prebuffing If they want us to prebuff, they can give us "Combat rush" skill(something like focus or bloodrage) and we can link gems or spec points to enhance what it is doing, so we have to manage a cooldown with DPS spike, but not on using 4-7buttons and it should not result in roughly 65% of difference when it is down. Focus could be also merged into that Combat rush skill if you craft it on something.
Also more buttons to press is annoying, alot of builds are popular because of their smoothness, cyclone, RF, some minions, and alot of games aswell. I think combos are great in fighting games, tekken and such, but in poe. ..? Im very unsure adding "combo" when putting down a totem would make it feel better... People love easy combat, some Indie games have 100% automatic combat, both for spells and melee and are huge successes
Would be cool if Chaos Innoculation actually completely replaced the health globe... the 1/1 HP is useless at this point Speaking of flasks, the fact they don't refill during a boss fight sort of forces people into going 100 million dps and killing the boss in
I'm worried that in an effort to fix "problems" with poe 1 by changing core systems, that they will create other problems, and we end up with a game that is too different from poe 1 to retain players.
4:30 perfect example of this, with a very viewable difference, is Rocket League from 1-2 years after release to now. It's the same game but it's NOT the same game. As we learned new things, it changed the fundamental game play. PoE has been like that. As people learn these mechanics, they learn how to 'abuse' them or exploit different mechanics together to make some crazy interactions. THAT'S what makes PoE POE.
I think part of why MF seems so OP right now in Path of Exile 1 is that the base power level has been so powercreeped that you can reach a point where you can clear incredibly quickly, be incredibly powerful, and functionally have no trade off to slapping MF on your build because everything dies in one shot anyway. What is the difference between 15m and 20m clearing DPS? A half second longer to kill a wisp empowered abyss rare? Might as well get two Ventors for 20% item quant instead.
Would be nice to be able to use a Gamepad via Bluetooth in PoE PC. On the topic of gameplay outside maps.. how about expanding the Guild feature.. make some Guild specific maps where cooperation is the focus, reward could be multiplayer specific things. Or at the very least, make guilds visible (if enabled via config) in a world map.. GGG should not be so hard-line on making everything in the game tied up to the classic D2 game loop.
Will the WASD-mode contain at "Move to pickup/interact" option? atleast if im using Key-bound-pickup, this wouldnt interfere with normal movement and make talking to people in town easeier As a matter of fackt, id like both system to just work side-by-side
Listening to these interviews is just so eye opening.... These guys sound like "we love ARPGS, we know what we want to make, we know how these games work, we know what core values are needed the most, we know what are the most important aspects of this genre, we know what design elements work the best, we know how to design content, we know how itemization can make or break the games longevity, we know how important depth is, so on abd so forth and on and on anr on it goes... They must get it, they know exactly what they are doing, they are gamers first. Then you listen to a D4 interview, with their developers.... Not a clue about the genre, or any of the above, zero freedom to innovate or try new things, zero freedom or ability to discuss their design decisions, it comes off as just a bunch of marketing employees, sent there to deliver their pre-scripted spiel about how their game is so special!... It's night and day, Blizzard is dead, this is what happens when a group of talented and passionate developers, get taken over and run by suits and investors, who don't give a shit about gameplay or creating the richest, truest gaming experience for the players, with depth and complexity, nope, it's only about "how can we make a product that appeals to the widest audience, and has the built in features designed to extract the most possible $$$ over the longest possible period of time". Just one problem with the above Blizzard, if no one gives a shit about your failure of an ARPG, whose around to spend more money? Oh, and I can promise you one other thing, no way I'm buying your expansion, even if it's $20. Because it won't change the fact, that your game is designed to try and please everyone, and excite no one.
I strongly disagree with MF. The problem is that the BiS gear for builds starts off at reasonable, but still high, prices on the market. MF gear, which is only really an optional element for the top builds (just like he pointed out, 'when your DPS is high enough that you can afford to lose some...'), and usually only really accessible at the beginnings of a league (before the prices jack sky high), ends up being something that only causes massive inflation on high end gear for the top builds along with severe deflation of the lower end gear. All this results in is an inaccessible 'elite' status for the top players, unreachable by the newer players. And, by newer, I mean anyone who is either still copying builds, or in the beginnings of actually being able to make their own builds. The consequence is that we have a lot of players who make the mistake of using mostly uniques that are fairly cheap, simply to be able to have better gear. Don't talk about crafting, because unless you are a pro, crafting is very much a LONG process of learning. And that requires tons of mats, and thanks to MF inflation, those mats get jacked up in price, too. So, newer players trying to learn to craft? It's entirely too expensive, simply because the MF top end players CAN afford those prices easily. MF only really causes the top players who quickly get to the end to be even further up, and the ones who are at the bottom to be even further down. The gap gets blown out of proportion. The only realistic way to bring this back into realistic proportions is to just ditch MF completely. Find better ways of rewarding top end players that actually require more severe challenge. Like, maybe start adding those extra options on maps or whatever content, that we see this league on the Valdo's maps, up to and including the VOID. Want to get those extreme rewards, and go beyond? Face real challenges, not just "I have a broken build that honestly should be nerfed immediately, so I can afford to put on maximum MF and get truckloads of awesome gear and currency without facing anything more difficult than what I already absolutely destroy"
Man i loved it when Jonathan popped off, you can see how happy he is talking/explaining about it. This interview low key makes me hate the Blizzard interviews about Diablo 4 even more :')
If you don't want power levels to be "exponentializing" the first thing to look at are exponential power multiplier mods. Power increases can still feel significant, without an unrestrained multiplicative compounding of damage values. If PoE2 is to be its own separate game, I feel that a lot of people want a more methodical, tactical, uncluttered, good feeling experience. And off-screen glass cannon zoom with many indistinguishable AoE mechanics, just isn't that.
A thing I want from PoE2 is ability to say "wow, that's some crazy good item" every once in awhile when I'm picking up something from the ground. Cause I remember this feeling from D2, but it's almost nonexistent in PoE. Maybe during acts you can get surprised by a nice drop, but since the early mapping you start to ignore everything except good bases that you can slap an essence on. And late game is strictly about crafting. You can never hope to drop a better rare than the one you crafted. And I don't like it at all. I think there should be a good balance between looted and crafted items.
I find it funny them talking about "pushiness" when they probably just mean "mass". I guess the word didn't come to mind when they were first developing that mechanic.
I hate mf gear mechanics. The other gearing concerns ( dps, def, mobility, utility) all feel like tangible improvements of your character. Mf just feels like interactong with the game's rng mechanics.
I mean, the clear answer to why Melee People hate the melee totems (other than the fact that Melee People hate everything at all times, heh) is that they don't want to be placing and upkeeping totems, they want to be DOING MELEE. The totem is a distracting side thing they need to maintain for optimal damage, but it distracts from the playstyle they're chasing i.e. boffing one guy in the face with an axe, then moving to the next face in line. Anything that isn't "I hit the bugger with my GIANT AXE" is a distraction Melee People don't want. Unsure why it's hard to see.
The annoying thing about melee totems: Activation range. Why the hell can I place spells totem on the edge of the screen behind a corner behind a closed door where they can unleash a torrent of projectiles everywhere with 0 risk, 0 interaction with any other mechanic or even have them move with skills like Lightning warp of Flame Dash while Ancestral totems are just stationary buffs with activation range so short you'd have actual melee skills that can reach farther. Make transfigured versions of them: Like have a version of Ancestral Warlord that jumps around aggressively jumps around hunting enemies like the Vaal version does but doesn't have a buff for the player, Or an Ancestral Protector that doesn't give attack speed but moves by dashing around and near the player striking anything that comes too close. Give melee totems identity: Ballistas have their place as a sort of an artillery, spell totems are all about flexibility. Maybe The melee totems should have mobility as their defining feature.
An idea regarding after death effects (specifically dots): Have ignite, poison, corrupted blood, w/e after death dots pool together when the magic/rare pack is killed and cause a little explosion. This at least makes the effects active, we should be able to dodge said explosion, but eliminates them sitting around as we are trying to loot. Obviously this would be new animations and efforts, so maybe it doesn't come in right at launch, but if done appropriately it would be very clear to the player to avoid the ball of fiery/poisony/icy/bloody death forming.
I'm playing down my expectations for time being. There seems to be maybe too much hype surrounding PoE2 and it could cost these guys big time. The reason PoE has had this much longevity is also because there was no pressure on themselves for alot of years. They were able to find the balance whilst there every wrong move wouldn't be put under a glaring microscope like Diablo 4 is. They won't have this luxury this time round.
