Zeitzbach

How exactly do these people define challenges? Difficult fights that feel unique to tackle or just a bunch of damage sponge like some terrible MMO raid? None of these changes will make the game anymore difficult or unique, just a terrible damage slog. My 2nd playthrough team is Ranger - Chanter Sera - Pal/Fig Gina- Druid Takehu - Ran/Wiz Maia and PotD is still a joke without me really using any of the "Nerfpls" skills. This list doesn't affect me in the slightest but unless the hardcore who thinks they own PotD can define the fair powerlevel for each class that keep unique and defines a challenging game that also isn't a boring slogfest, the day these people start whining about ranger dealing damage will arrive.

Some are disappointed but some are also content. Fun is subjective and it's why one side should never assume they have the front seat. Nerfs are absolutely needed but complete gutting until it becomes hardcore Watcher Must Die no skill allowed mode? lolnope.

Even after these things being nerfed you can still have fun in story mode thank you. Or how about the 1% just go mod their own games instead of assuming the backseat position of a developer. I'm even stomping PotD with Ranger anyway so none of these even matters to me. But of course the entitled Hardcore gamer will probably complain about it after 20 nerfs or so. Go play PoE 1 solo trial of iron on a naked ranger if the game isn't hard enough for you at the moment. Obsidian won't base their whole game direction all over the 1%. It's why they're taking time relooking at PotD instead of dropping the nerf hammers in a few months.

You have to mod the game so cheatcode don't disable achievement. I'm just saving and loading to make sure the book drops now on my 2nd playthrough.

Balance is important but also making sure the game is not only fun to the minority hardcore player is way more important. Outside a few nerfs, I rather they make PotD hard through careful combat design and not some random number mumbo jumbo that affects the game in general. Like, most of the nerfs being discussed are proposed that the game is balanced around "Solo PotD" build type. That's like, what, 1% of the playerbase?

Yeah, this. To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure why people are singling out POE 2 for being too easy. I wouldn't be able to name a crpg that's harder than POE 1 & 2. Because it's new and people keep increasing expectation as they play new games. cRPG hasn't really been well known for its difficulty because this kind of playstyle only gets you once because you lack information. It's like how Darkest Dungeon is hard because you have to be either extremely unlucky or have bad comp. The moment you know what you're getting into and always stick to the same playstyle, it becomes derps easy. PoE is no different, 1 or 2. PoE 2 just give the player more freedom and the hardcore player hates that. Majority of the changes demanded are more of a "I want PoE 2 to be PoE 1 again, just with flashier graphic".

We also seems to forget that some of the strong skills can just be moved to enemies to spice up the challenge. There's a reason why fighters are so frustrating to fight because they use double unbending too. The only problems are the AoE gibbing the enemies. Solution? Sigils. Implement more bonus stat sigil for the enemy, like armor increase or "Defense against AoE" buff. THey already have anti AoE code on Ranger skill anyway. Again, just give the Ranger enemy ability to use concussive tran. Try being immortal after that because they can actually deal with overbuffing for once. There's already Target: Has Inspiration on the AI menu so it's not even hard to add that. Create situations where players have to adapt. That's how you make game harder and still fun, not tedious.

Did it slip by mistake with that one tunnel in Old City ruins. As it completely break my interface, kek.

1) We do have to take items into account because it affects how the class play after a certain point and weapon classes are especially balanced around using them as only magic and pure skill scale with level and benefit from higher base damage. Perk of playing a single-ranger. Other class can't just pick up a rifle, shoot down a squishy, switch to a dual saber, dash in and spam Heart of Fury for AoE damage. Majority of them can only do half of that. Either pure melee, Pure range spell OR mixed melee tanky. Don't even need the 50k gun unless you want long-range single target damage. The triple ice bow that inflict AoE on crit is also op on ranger because of their high accuracy allowing them to abuse the proc way better than most classes especially with bounce so you can't just cross that off the list because Monk exists. https://i.imgur.com/5dEKDse.png Done with a single AWS at level 14. Can't wait for Twin shot in 2 more levels. Money is also inflated in this game anyway. Don't even need to abuse the fish merchant. Hunt a few high level bounty around and that's already enough money to upgrade the bow to legendary. Weapon user are expected to have legendaries by at most level 14 anyway if they want to be able to keep up with casters. Any earlier than that and casters can't compete until they unlock T9. 2) 200 easy crit shot at mid-level isn't weak especially when you consider it also bounce for 150 ish more. Most Druid/mages only have Tier 5 spells and will do around 150 assuming they empower-crit. Throw in 7x normal Evasive Fire that deals 70-90 damage every 0.5 seconds because it has no recovery time and you can see how ridiculous the ranger dps can be. Empowering the skill isn't even the best choice on ranger anyway and you only use it to gip the squishy bosses. Just empower the char for resource point and spam more evasive fire because it has no recovery. Evasive fire also scales with PL not with gear so it deals more damage as you level up. Imagine it 20 where it can function like a single-target salvo for bosses if you're willing to dash in the same location 15 times, just a bit behind because it's not empowered. It's great being able to deal both sustain damage and burst damage at any range. 3) Pets are trash because they don't scale well even if you pour tons of talent on em. Also, ranger weapon do work with melee weapon too unless stated other wise, like Evasive fire only deal damage with ranged and the T8 skill is either melee only or range only. The +20 accuracy full attack strike? Work with Dual-saber just fine. It's a 1-bond spell for easy double crit against whatever ranger marked with minimal recovery time. The only thing the top broken pick atm really has over single-ranger is the infinite life buff that can easily be denied if they just give the enemy ranger concussive shot that -30s off all buffs. It's not even hard to code this because the game use the same AI system we have. The only thing we have atm is the Risen mage using Wall of Draining and that's lolwhatajoke.

Solo ranger is a ranged assassin who can later spam the spin or double shot depending on whether they need single-target or AoE damage. That's at level 11 when I went to get the book of storm. She's lucky her companions are pierce-immune skeleton and I haven't gone around to get the triple shot bow yet that can hit them. If anything on Ranger that do need buffing, it's the pet skills. Their scaling are terrible because all physical damage at the moment need item to be useful. The rest? No. Ranger are nowhere near trash single-priest who is only useful for 1 single skill. Edit: Also, turns out you can just use Accurate Wounding Shot with Sabre anyway and deal huge dps with melee if needed in the early game. Erase skeleton so fast.

It actually feels like they are intended because at level 19-20, majority of the small encounters just bog the game down, the kind of encounter Obsidian been avoiding. Those are like "Skip" button to use instead of spamming Hail storm. Salvo, however, needs a nerf because it's being used to kill bosses that are supposed to be meaningful. The fairest way is to nerf its penetration so it is weak against high armor opponents.

But Dual Wielding Paladin been around since PoE 1 though with full attack on Flame of Devotion too. The rule of solo build is to always play something tanky or can skip fights so no because Single-ranger don't have any of those cheese. The only exploit you can use with solo-ranger is to hit someone and run out of the aggro range with evasive fire which doesn't work in forced encounter in small map.

Rangers absolutely don't need a buff. People keep saying the class is weak so I'm running PotD with single-ranger as my main. I'm just sitting in place spamming Evasive fire to get rid of all level 10 - 16 contents. Use 47k Cp rifle. Boss is an enemy mage? Mark. Empower Accurate Shot. Bam. Over 200 crit damage, dead in one shot. Spam evasive fire some more. It's so OP to the point I sometime forget to control the mages because I was killing everything too fast. I'm waiting to see Post-level 16 come to fruition now. Buff, shoot, Evasive to the backline, use the pet line-prone to knock everything down, swap to double saber and just AoE spin everything to death. Laugh if you crit and the Gatebreaker perma knock down everything. Can't every class do that type of damage? I think what sets OP stuff apart is in the first post, like being immortal/tanky/endless resources/etc. Not every class can deal both ranged and melee damage on-and-off while also CCing which is Ranger new selling point in PoE II. Most of the other choices are pure melee or pure caster. It also helps Evasive fire is a positioning tool so I am able to destroy mid game by getting into Serafen range, make him cast Empowered Amplified wave on me then Evasive fire right into the enemy team for a giant explosion. So much synergy because mobility moves that deal damage are never bad when they are spammable in every possible game. And the immortal/endless resource etc are problem caused by enemies not having means to deal with buffs. PoE 1 also suffered from this issue and it's why the game become ezmodo on PotD once you are able to CC-immune, Defense scroll + devotion buff every fight to guarantee you will win all the dice roll while throwing CC in between. PoE II is still the same thing. Nerfing isn't the answer. Giving the enemies tool to fight players is the proper answer.

Rangers absolutely don't need a buff. People keep saying the class is weak so I'm running PotD with single-ranger as my main. I'm just sitting in place spamming Evasive fire to get rid of all level 10 - 16 contents. Use 47k Cp rifle. Boss is an enemy mage? Mark. Empower Accurate Shot. Bam. Over 200 crit damage, dead in one shot. Spam evasive fire some more. It's so OP to the point I sometime forget to control the mages because I was killing everything too fast. I'm waiting to see Post-level 16 come to fruition now. Buff, shoot, Evasive to the backline, use the pet line-prone to knock everything down, swap to double saber and just AoE spin everything to death. Laugh if you crit and the Gatebreaker perma knock down everything.

+PL pretty much translates to +damage, accuracy and duration. +10 PL is +100% damage for most of the abilities. And yes, I can't cover all the stuff with 1 list, just the most obvious things. They should be iterated on. Damage should be balanced between abilities and PLs. One PL 9 ability should not do 5x the damage of another similar ability. The goal is to get to a balanced state where all abilities are viable alternatives, not where one is an "I win" button and all others are trash, so that you actually have meaningful choices. Then leave those skills as high damage and nerf something else. For example, introduce channeling spell and turn Meteor into one. Can't move while using it. Also increase how badly it attract attention. With its mid-size cast range, it turns into a "If I use this all the gunner will be on me" type of spell. It now has a weakness. And turning from +PL to +damage/acc/duration make it so that spells like Missile don't get extra projectile while still dealing damage. I don't even like Meteor. I prefer Salvo with Maelstorm. Impressive Maelstorm isn't on the lsn't on the list. That skill alone removes all non-boss fight frm the game. And if the skills do too much damage on boss... How about giving boss actual amount of armor rating? Armor rating is easy -25% total damage per underpen. Make it so that players have to use armor reduction skill for once. Try this change On PotD.... ENEMY HAS 25% MORE ARMOR. Squishy can still be killed. The tank and boss? Suddenly no longer get 2k damage per high-tier skill unless you debuff them.

While some nerfs are warranted, nerfing and gutting majority of the stuff just because a small group of the player base want it to be hardcore isn't a good business and design direction. If anything, majority of the nerfs suggested are really lazy with just "Just drop the damage" because all it does is making the 2nd strongest skill become the next "Braindeadopgamenofun" button of the game. With this kind of nerf, it will just become a DPS contest. Even I can make single-Ranger somewhat op if you know what you are doing in the number game. Grab the legendary dragon fire arquebus from the Uzo gunsmith at Brass citadel. Upgrade it to +50% burn damage and active that is +75% action speed for over 20 seconds. Mark, Empower shot for easy 200 damage at level 8 and just spam Evasive fire at my own position for easy 70 damage every 0.5 seconds until I run out of resource. Take some different approach with the nerfs that do actually add strategy to the game. Number change can only go far. For example, if + PL is such a major issue with empower then just turn it into +% Damage, Accuracy and duration instead. Much easier to balance that way too if you don't have to avoid dealing with skills that get too much power for leveling up.

How about we give enemies better skills if it can be helped. For example, all the nerfs aiming at buff skills can easily be negated by just making enemies use -beneficial duration skills which is extremely scarce yet every class can easily gain access to one.

The difficulty has a lot to do with all the problems in the game. Quests feel shorter, stakes lower, rewards less satisfying, character building less meaningful and indeed the world too open. Just waiting for the potd patch to hit so I can start my second playthrough. Thing is though, I had Tekehu, Pallegina and Maia in my party on my first playthrough and having them bring the point of view of three factions into many quests was so good that I actually feel like I have to have them on the second playthrough too, since the factions are such a large part of the game. With that in mind there is always only one spot to swap around in my party. No Sera? HOW COULD YOU?! Also turns out the map all over the world also have their own special dialogue if the faction-based party member are involved, such as Maia seeing an old face or Tekehu enjoying the beautiful beach with Serafen and complimenting how Deadfire isn't such a terrible place after all. RIP XOti, Aloth and Eder. You three were forgotten by the writers.

It's mainly because the game is too easy right now. This game limit your freedom the same way D:OS 2 does, by throwing enemies too hard for you to do anything about. Like in D:OS2, the number is so bloated you can't do anything if you are under-level without cheesing. In this one, Level 16 steel preacher can be fought at level 8-10. You really can't limit anything when the game is like that.

Just did the quest but as ranger with 13 diplomacy skill check with Galawain worship background. Turns out this kind of quest not having a peaceful ending is normal. After all, these people are all "You're either with me or against me" fanatics. It's way more unnatural to have a peaceful ending with them. Remember that this quest does start with them releasing a bunch of animals to kill the civilians in Sayuka.

You pretty much get +1 to them for doing their quests and another +1 for agreeing with them or making them laugh for a few dialogue (like 5-6?). Only Aloth is hard because he's bugged.

There are so many golden lines hidden all over the place. Gotta read em all.

One of the most troublesome part about open-world is that players are free to explore and play as they want which make it very easy to disrupt and miss majority of the game writing. This is kinda why majority of the open-world ish game always have some kind of inflated stat leash to keep player from exploring too much or make the main quest a no-1-care zone. Having experienced my 1st playthrough, I finally have a general idea of how the game should really be played to get the full experience. I stop doing quests too early and start doing all the faction quests with all 4 faction-based companions presented. Eder pretty much has his own little world anyway. Xoti is over the moment you release the lantern soul and Aloth is like Eder but slightly tied to Huana quest. And the game is just so much better. Companions constantly bicker because of their clash in beliefs and slowly open up to each other because they actually get to travel with each other and not stay on the boat which also affect some of the choices at the end of the game. Quests no longer end out of the blue and more options are open because the companions are there to offer help and serve as the eyes for the faction leader. It's a shame this isn't something player will really notice on the 1st playthrough outside some random weird conversations popping up at the end of the quest if they decide to switch companions for a moment.

grab a quest from Aeldys (You get a missive frm her sometime after you kill Benwett) or Dereo first. If you do that, you will be able to get to Undercroft without hostiling the enemies as they work for Aeldys. Don't forget to grab Huana quest from the prince as well as Delver's Row and Undercroft is linked to Takehu and Huanu. You will miss a lot of stuff for not doing the quests in Takehaka without all 4 faction-based companion present. Accept everything until you can't accept anything, then do the quests. Kind of a harsh requirement if you're on the 1st playthrough.

Maia jumping on my list to be behind Serafen after traveling with her around. It's like a sitcom. Serafen is the funny and can be wise sometime one. Pallegina is the serious dad. Maia is the mother. And Takehu is the one they all take turn saying "TAKEHU NO!" except for Serafen. And so many harsh and witty one liner. "Hard to find A pirate with an office instead of a ship. Sorry for sanking your" Maia you don't need that rifle, you're killing people with your words.