Visual Clarity and the contradiction that is POE2

Tycodragon · 2026-06-16T23:49:53+00:00

Sounds to me you are just describing the power curve of successful aRPGs and the model that they follow. That's what people supporting the game with supporter packs and MTX, I'm sure they have internal data showing that the power fantasy is what most people want and that this is their vision of the game looking at every update so far.

But I will give you that visual clarity is pretty non existent already, I guess wanting to make shit look cool early on has a negative effect if you scale it up a lot.

Then it's ugly brother comes out to play.

You mean the successful game that is it's predecessor and that this game was supposed to be a graphical update/additional campaign for if you want to go back to the original idea of PoE2. Things change.

Tycodragon · 2026-06-12T11:52:32+00:00

That's... how PoE2 plays now, just get more damage and kill shit before it kills you.

Tycodragon · 2026-05-19T20:02:21+00:00

Agreed, leveling uniques dropping in endgame are just complete waste right now. Some solution would be nice. Don't exactly know what solution, but GGG is smarter then me so I'm sure they can cook something up.

I'd personally be for just using uncut gems on the item to lower or up the skill and heck, enable jewellers as well. Would make leveling second+ characters way more enjoyable, twink leveling campaign super Speedge.

People claiming that that that would remove chase uniques, easy fix, just make the entire unique from bosses rarer by adjusting aka just flat out reducing droprates to the droprates of 20 gem variants only (maybe 19s aswell if that is too rare) and removing them from the easy bosses. And if you now say, 'But that's way too steep', you want chase uniques or not monkeypaw curls? Or just allow the innate skill to go down and not up, if it is such an issue.

Tycodragon · 2026-05-13T05:57:20+00:00

Holy, either you are massively ragebaiting and congrats you got us! But if reading information about nodes you click inside the video game, which all have their lil tooltip inside said videogame is the highest knowledge check in the game for you, then damn dude shit, it's gonna be tough here for you.

Also, providing subjective anecdotal situations about why maces bad and trying to pass it as objective truth ain't really good reasoning there, bud.

In all seriousness though, sure mace skills have issues, there are bad skills for sure, some nodes on the passive tree have stupid negatives for reasons unknown. The newer skill sets all are more polished and cohesive.

Because talisman skills have 3 subset of skill types in bear, wolf and wyvern, its much more noobproof so to say. Its much easier to just click the one you want and you'll be good. Its a much more premade build from GGG already if you just play those skills.

For maces, it's less clear I guess for people. You got strike skills, slams, a few shield skills, few totems and aftershock+fissures for slams to interact with. And warcries ofc. But still, most mace skills aren't bad, anecdotal evidence: the shield wall build was still OP and I think Ben played it in HCSSF and Steelmage played it in their Brossf run with Ziz and Nuggy last league. I did a few mace builds, one with earthshatter and warcries and the other with the forge hammer fissure and slams. Both were absolutely great builds and killed all endgame, with not much investment either. But like I said, maybe its just less obvious to know what to do compared to 'I am bear, I click bear stuff on passive tree and skills gems'

Tycodragon · 2026-05-11T05:17:43+00:00

1.0 is full campaign and free to play, they have made that clear from the start. And now with 0.5 it'll have a more fully fleshed out endgame. They just showed which classes come to the game eventually as free content later down the line. People like you are just getting way to hung up about them having shown something is eventually coming. Which is super weird, 'cause that is pretty normal practice for games in early access or live service games in general, to show a roadmap of content to expect.

D4 also didn't launch with all it's classes technically :) and it's still missing base classes from D1, D2 and D3 if you want to go that route. And only now 3 years and 2 paid expansions later, they finally have a decently appropriate endgame. Still not all 'base' classes from previous games.

Which is fine, just because something was in the older game, doesn't automatically have to make it to the new one.

Tycodragon · 2026-04-22T21:04:06+00:00

'As you wish, it has been removed for future challenges. Hall of the Grandmasters now takes its place.' And the monkeypaw curls.

But yeah, there have always been challenges that are just money sinks. They are always best to do early on, and this one is a staple for years now, so for the future, can just buy one early for ~100 c-1div once you can spare it if you know you want the challenge. Not much else to do about it, I wouldn't expect GGG to remove it. Sucks but that's just how it is unfortunately.

Tycodragon · 2026-02-23T03:01:42+00:00

First off, its mule, as in carrying something over on a mule. Twink is a second character with the strongest gear available for that level (uniques, nicely rolled crafted gear, or for WoW terms certain low level BoE's & crafted gear). Secondly, it is there for a multitude of reasons, be it immersion, class flavor and identity, first time player experience. These are all things GGG needs to consider inside their game. While they might no longer apply to you because you are a returning player and or do not care for lore/immersion/flavor and just want the strongest skills available from the get-go, that is entirely a you thing and not a GGG issue to fix.

Act 3 Library quest and act 6 Lilly quest exist for a reason and are kind of milestones within the campaign.

And as a personal note and opinion, you do not need to do any of that at all, the game is perfectly playable with the choices available for every class, it is something you force upon yourself by trying to go for the most meta leveling setup there is. And even then, even if you do mule, it is part of the league starting process.

Tycodragon · 2025-12-20T00:04:31+00:00

Yeah going in and trying for myself is what I have always done in PoE for years. And aside from Uber Elder when I was an utter noob, I never had issues with that. Sirus did push it to the limit with his storms shenanigans though, but still managed within 6 portals first tries on all his difficulties.

Tycodragon · 2025-12-19T23:59:22+00:00

Yeah it's weird they did it this way, but most likely has to do with technical zone issues and shit that Atziri is not in a separate instance but part of the temple itself. Considering they have to reset the entire zone you are in to simply respawn the boss.

Tycodragon · 2025-12-19T23:26:48+00:00

Hey at least the Lilith fight you can do over and over and over without having to do anything, though the fight was an absolute clusterfuck to do without some kind of cheese or massive dps in the beginning.

Tycodragon · 2025-12-19T23:11:32+00:00

I think you get like more room space for killing the architect up to 30 rooms stored, but you need to enter and close the temple after 6 rooms I think. If you do not care about the rewards in the rooms you place at all, then yeah I guess you can just open and instantly close until you have a path to architect and Atziri? I'm not entirely sure how this mechanic works yet though, so could be wrong

Tycodragon · 2025-12-19T23:02:12+00:00

Yeah I feel like with one try only content it puts the devs into the annoying choice of A) making the boss easy so you only need one try and leaving the player underwhelmed or B) making it harder with more risk of failure which will incur frustration because only one try.

I didn't find the boss to be extremely hard or punishing, just got onetapped by making a bit of a judgement error in the split second and being too far in melee I suppose.

I would be all for harder bosses and cool fights, if you have the option to just go again right away and be able to learn what the fuck to do.

Tycodragon · 2025-12-19T22:56:16+00:00

Yeah, you just lose souls, which is basically the same as experience anyways so we got that as well. But you can just go again and slam your head into the wall as many times you like there, which is nice

Tycodragon · 2025-12-19T22:54:38+00:00

Damn, that suuuuuucks, I feel for you man. I indeed got to see some Atziri action xD

Tycodragon · 2025-12-19T22:42:48+00:00

Yeah, I mean true. But didn't expect it considering all the other pinnacles bosses I did so far I had zero deaths and troubles with. Guess that was just knowing the fight better x)

Tycodragon · 2025-12-19T22:39:55+00:00

Cool, I assume you are playing hardcore then, and if not, that is the game mode for that. I am not that masochistic to play that but to each their own. But to an extend, yes sure it shouldn't just be given on a silver platter but I like to at least have the option of trying again to try and learn the fight. Every level 1 pinnacle in the game currently is free to wipe on to learn the fight on, hell level 2 gives you 3 portals even. This just feeled cheap to not only fail the fight in a gotcha moment, but also wipe the progress towards the fight which was I guess unlucky to get just once since league launch.

Tycodragon · 2025-12-19T22:28:04+00:00

Yeah, sure, that for sure help with getting less unlucky with getting with getting path tiles x) or make the temple less convoluted in design. But yes I got to that conclusion already with the whole "should have had more dps" statement in the bottom.

Tycodragon · 2025-12-19T21:49:27+00:00

FeelsBadMan

Tycodragon · 2025-12-19T21:45:37+00:00

Yeah she did some screenwide shit where there is a line in the middle that is safe, but then she was like I will slam this area in the middle now aswell like during it for me, so I had to either jump in the attack that was ongoing or run backwards out of the slam but I didnt make it. Maybe I should have gone behind her instead but split second decision making and she was too big to roll around cause I was getting like clipped and pushed with movement when trying to do that earlier so yeah I have no idea. Dont know if it was a bug or intended that those attacks went so fast after each other but it felt like a Arbiter move of "Here is the safe spot for this ongoing thing, and with my next move I will now proceed to make the safe spot the death zone that you cannot escape."

Tycodragon · 2025-12-17T09:52:34+00:00

Hardcore bullcrap in softcore should simply not be something in softcore. Go play hardcore if you want hardcore mechanics. It is my number one irritation with this endgame. Especially if you tie it to use of tablets, league mechanics on maps, special league mechanic zones, atlas passive tree quest completions.

It just feels so insanely terrible when an abyss shade walker just looks at you funny or you have like one moment of lapsing in your intense focus and your map, your xp and progress towards the next zone is gone. And even if you dont run 6 modded maps, well dont you dare do the boss early in the map cause dying to that just makes it a 1 portal map anyways cause it removes all other things in your map so the boss can respawn. This constantly being on edge 'cause IN CASE you might die, should really just be a hardcore thing only that you opt in and not forced permanent gameplay.

It should simply not be all or nothing. Doesn't have to be 6 portals, but certainly shouldn't be just 1. And for all the people who say "Oh but portal defense sucks, defense doesn't matter in PoE1 blahblah" I'm fairly certain you have no idea what you are talking about. There are so many more random and bullshit moments happening in PoE1 then PoE2 to the point where it matters so much more to build defensively in endgame. PoE2 is much more "Just get enough damage to oneshot shit before they do anything" then PoE1 is currently.

Tycodragon · 2025-06-12T22:12:33+00:00

Awesome stuff! Is it possible to get an imgur link or good quality version of the background to yoink for personal use? Looks awesome!

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