Path of Exile 2’s first main patch of the 12 months will arrive later this week, with developer Grinding Gear Games saying it’s going to handle a number of widespread complaints concerning the sport, with extra enhancements to come back. One of the massive sticking factors for gamers has been endgame maps, which director Jonathan Rogers says it goals to make “extra rewarding” by tweaks to loot and monster numbers, and the texture of the endgame generally. The factor is, although, that a number of the stuff individuals are complaining about can also be the purpose of the sport.
This patch will imply gamers can now try endgame bosses greater than as soon as, and can guarantee there are much less lethal explosions that seemingly kill you out of nowhere. All of these issues can be welcomed by gamers, however the largest criticism stays the truth that you get one probability at endgame maps.
This aspect of Path of Exile 2 is unforgiving: Die and also you’re booted out of the map, dropping XP and any loot drops you have not but grabbed. And whilst you can restart the map on the Atlas, you will want a brand new waystone to enter it, and you will lose any modifiers that it initially contained. In some ways in which is smart for a sport of this nature, a genuinely excessive stakes looting problem the place it could actually all go flawed straight away. But some simply do not like sinking hours of time into one thing and dropping all of it like that.
“We did talk about rather a lot about whether or not we wished to return on one portal or not,” says Rogers throughout an interview with streamers Darth Microtransaction and GhazzyTV discussing the patch. “I believe it comes right down to the truth that it could simply not really feel the identical. The complete ‘demise really mattering’ factor is definitely essential.
“We have been speaking concerning the pinnacle boss and the dialogue got here up ‘ought to we enable portals all over the place, ought to we be permitting checkpoints all over the place’ and we finally determined we actually do not need to go that approach if potential. So to begin with we check out this pinnacle stuff, ensure that it is one thing the place you might have true financial worth you need to protect: It takes time to get there and that issues.”
Rogers says that for the sport to work “you need to have some degree of failure being potential” and if gamers have been allowed a number of alternatives you merely do not “fail in the identical approach… I’m not likely a fan, I a lot favor the entire ‘one demise’ factor.”
As for the XP penalty and whether or not that is too harsh, “a part of the considering round that’s that it is retaining you within the place the place you are purported to be, as in in case you’re dying on a regular basis you then’re in all probability not able to hold going up the ability curve,” says Rogers. “But possibly that is the flawed approach of it.”
With all that mentioned, GGG’s Mark Roberts acknowledges that the endgame proper now shouldn’t be fairly hitting that candy spot of danger and reward the studio needs. “Right now there are too many penalty axes,” says Roberts (thanks, Polygon), “so in case you’re dying on a regular basis, you are not gonna get supplies, and thus you are not going to go wherever… and likewise an ‘add insult to harm’ factor [with the XP] the place you are simply not levelling.
“I believe they’re only a bit too extreme when all mixed collectively, and I additionally suppose that the very begin of maps is simply too tough, I believe we must always ease into that a little bit bit, convey that down a bit then ramp the issue up.” Roberts says the uncommon monsters and the weird mixtures imply gamers are consistently having to regulate their ways and the variety of completely different mixtures imply “there’s nothing to essentially take from one map to a different.”
The devs say they will be watching how the brand new patch performs out and focus any larger modifications on the sport’s subsequent league (season), which is able to include extra substantial modifications. But it sounds just like the “one demise” precept is right here to remain.
“It can be good in case you may simply spin one other map and nonetheless have the ability to try this content material,” says Rogers. “But sadly we won’t try this as a result of it could open up too many financial abuse issues, the place such as you fail the map deliberately since you need to farm the gadgets in the remainder of the realm. So it’s extremely tough for us to give you an answer as a result of I actually would like that, actually, in case you may re-do a map with out having all the issues that with the ability to re-run a map would really trigger.”
“I personally need to hold the one portal and alter the opposite axes and see the way it performs out,” ends Roberts, “earlier than compromising on the one portal. But yeah, it’s kind of difficult, it actually is the case we have mentioned it so many occasions earlier than [PoE2] got here out we knew ‘individuals are positively gonna complain about this’ and we all know and we’ve not discovered an answer.”
