[Feedback] Revert Campaign Difficulty to Patch 0.1, Campaign Is Too Easy Now

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Aelin21#7976 wrote:

buff up the mobs and bosses knowing that we have better gear.

+1

Agree with that as the power creep keeps increasing with every new league.

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Azimuthus#1135 wrote:

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The PoE1 faithful are already, as you put it, married. Pulling them across solves nothing.

GGG said several times they are very concerned with that (bringing POE1 base into POE2). That's why they transfer all POE1 mtx into POE2 for free. Probably they want to shut POE1 down eventually and work only on 1 game.

Thanks for the response and feedback. To be honest, the thought never occurred to me that they would get rid of POE1 as it seems to be unilaterally agreed upon in these forums (and I'm in this camp): POE1 and POE2 are just fundamentally different games.

What I've seen from the forums is "If you don't like POE2 then go play POE1" however if GGG is concerned with bringing in POE1 players to POE2 then this creates a deep problem (serious contradiction / design issue).

The deeper problem (and I'm generalizing so please bare with me here):
1) PoE1 players want screen-clearing power fantasy.

2) POE2 players want difficult, meaningful combat where every battle potentially has your life on the line (not mindless destruction).

Each of these is in direct conflict with one another.

One of the main complaints with POE2 is that it is already drifting toward PoE1 with easier screen-clearing builds. It's a tough nut to crack bringing in both camps to one game without alienating one side, the other, or both.

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It's a tough nut to crack bringing in both camps to one game without alienating one side, the other, or both.

Yes, classic 2 chairs problem.

Mark said they will try to solve this (partially at least) with making a choice in the Atlas Tree between "low density hard mobs" and "high density POE1 style mobs". So it will be up to a player what gameplay style he prefers. Ofc, item drop should remain the same.

Will see soon if they succeeded in that.

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Azimuthus#1135 wrote:

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It's a tough nut to crack bringing in both camps to one game without alienating one side, the other, or both.

Yes, classic 2 chairs problem.

Mark said they will try to solve this (partially at least) with making a choice in the Atlas Tree between "low density hard mobs" and "high density POE1 style mobs". So it will be up to a player what gameplay style he prefers. Ofc, item drop should remain the same.

Will see soon if they succeeded in that.

I guess I've missed that interview. Do you remember, in which one he said that?

But anyway, when it is an atlas tree change, it won't change the campaign at all, right? Cause atlas tree is an endgame only feature.

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Supercow_X#7071 wrote:

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Azimuthus#1135 wrote:

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It's a tough nut to crack bringing in both camps to one game without alienating one side, the other, or both.

Yes, classic 2 chairs problem.

Mark said they will try to solve this (partially at least) with making a choice in the Atlas Tree between "low density hard mobs" and "high density POE1 style mobs". So it will be up to a player what gameplay style he prefers. Ofc, item drop should remain the same.

Will see soon if they succeeded in that.

I guess I've missed that interview. Do you remember, in which one he said that?

But anyway, when it is an atlas tree change, it won't change the campaign at all, right? Cause atlas tree is an endgame only feature.

Not 100% sure but i think it was qa session after 0.4 overview.

We need more end game content, not challenges in game tutorial.

POE2 has quite a lot of problems in meta game, UX and adoption so wasting ba/dev/qa time on campaign balancing should not be even on the table.

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600lbpanther#3839 wrote:

The deeper problem (and I'm generalizing so please bare with me here):
1) PoE1 players want screen-clearing power fantasy.

2) POE2 players want difficult, meaningful combat where every battle potentially has your life on the line (not mindless destruction).

Each of these is in direct conflict with one another.

One of the main complaints with POE2 is that it is already drifting toward PoE1 with easier screen-clearing builds. It's a tough nut to crack bringing in both camps to one game without alienating one side, the other, or both.

It's an odd delusion. POE1 players need screen wide cleaning as a way to keep their sanity in check while grinding. It's the only possible strategy in the world with rules created by GGG.

Hey, that's an interesting way to describe how POE1 got to where it's at...

Delusion is an interesting word and may be apropos to encapsulate this entire conversation.

One definition is:
"A delusion is a fixed belief that is not amenable to change in light of conflicting evidence."

For many a gamer (not including you here) it can be somewhat easy to drift towards something of a delusion when it comes to playing style ("elitism"):

- "POE1 players suck at video games and just want G0d M0de."
- "POE2 players are no lifers who get their achievement from games."

Some people play games to check out:
Combat should be relatively fluid, power should feel good, with the occasional scary moment to keep the pulse up. That's not laziness or being unskilled ... just a way people prefer to play the game.

Some people play games to check in:
Locked in, high alert, every encounter demanding presence and attention. The satisfaction comes from the challenge itself, not the release from it. (PoE2 0.1)

Neither is wrong. They're just fundamentally different relationships with what a game is for. The problem is they're almost impossible to serve simultaneously in the same game — and the retention data suggests PoE2 is currently struggling to hold either group for long (Yes, I know the game is a year or so away from going 1.0 although GGG has moved from creating the "Spiritual Successor of D2 (POE1)" to "Isometric Dark Souls (POE2)" which is a dramatic shift in gameplay).

The check-out crowd finds it too demanding. The check-in crowd watches it drift toward easier screen-clearing builds and feels betrayed. GGG built a game for one audience and is slowly being pulled toward the other. That tension is what every conversation in this thread is really about.

What my conspiracy theory is, is that the game will continue to get easier as more acts are added and the difficulty is pushed towards the later Acts (perhaps even certain bosses disappear from the main campaign and end up in Atlas only). So, there will be more posts about how easy the game is getting.

A concern I have is that there is a lot of talk of Atlas modifications / updates / changes when over 300,000 people tried the game and decided to never return. The path to the Atlas is through the campaign for the new Exile. If they don't like the campaign, they won't see the Atlas.

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GGG built a game for one audience and is slowly being pulled toward the other. That tension is what every conversation in this thread is really about.

Initially they tried to update POE1 (4.0.0) to look better to compete with D4. That was long before D4 release. But when they started the project it probably looked too good for POE1 style gameplay where you don't see anything, you just click the button and pick up loot. And I think this is where Chris started to push his favourite "lets make it hard" idea (he was behind Ruthless mode in POE1 after all). So they started to work in this direction. Early interviews confirm that they had this view across the team, everyone said that the game will be much slower, all loot will matter, etc. But then something changed, maybe Tencent wasn't too happy about that, maybe Mark and Jonathan weren't, and they started to design it as "POE 1.5" so to speak. Chris knew where it all will lead eventually, this is not what he wanted to see at all and so he left GGG to work on his new "ideal" ARPG, at which he is busy atm with his LightPattern studio. From what I gather, Jonathan is behind early gameplay (which should be somewhat "tactical", with obligatory "skill combos" and so on) and Mike works only on the lategame, endgame, and he is absolutely okay with 10000 mobs and killing screens at once. And this is how they "sit" on 2 chairs atm. Campaign, early mapping is for "tactical crowd", and endgame is for POE1 people.

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I guess I've missed that interview. Do you remember, in which one he said that?

But anyway, when it is an atlas tree change, it won't change the campaign at all, right? Cause atlas tree is an endgame only feature.

I think it was in QA session for 0.4 with ZiggyD. I'm not 100% sure ofc.

And yes, this ofc won't affect campaign anyhow.

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Azimuthus#1135 wrote:

I think it was in QA session for 0.4 with ZiggyD. I'm not 100% sure ofc.

And yes, this ofc won't affect campaign anyhow.

Many thanks, I've definetely missed that. I've had to take a huge break for the whole S3 till some weeks into S4. Will watch it tomorrow with a cup of coffee. I love those interviews and the insider views into game development. You often realize how complicated and how much work there is to deveop a game like PoE2.