The Path of Exile 2 playerbase got themselves a little treat earlier this week when game director Johnathan Rogers sat down for an interview with Twitch streamer Kripparrian to answer prepared and live questions about the upcoming MMOARPG. Here are several highlights:
- Movement was a major point that was discussed initially. Overall Rogers states the intention to make sure things don’t feel floaty, meaning most skills won’t allow players to move and attack at the same time, though some skills have movement baked in, and abilities that do allow for moving and casting will see movement speed slowed.
- Skill gems will not be class-specific, but ascendancies will be. Each class will have three different ascendancies in order to fit class fantasies and unique combinations that will be easier to grasp for most players. Rogers also states the intention to make builds as open as possible.
- For combat overall and boss fights specifically, time-to-kill will vary significantly if players know the best rotation for their class; Rogers killed a boss in about five minutes, while others were able to take down the same boss in one minute. That said, tuning so far has been solo-focused, but party play will be dialed in during beta testing.
- On the subject of the June 7th closed beta, Rogers states the full campaign and about 60 endgame maps will be on offer, along with most of the game’s classes.
- The complexity of POE2 is trying to toe a line between not dumbing the ARPG down and ensuring new users are accounted for according to Rogers. There are a lot of internal discussions about how best to solve this problem.
- When asked about liked league mechanics that might come to POE2, Rogers noted he likes Delve, Incursion, Ultimatum, and Breach, and that at least half of the original leagues will likely be in the sequel.
- Rogers expects it will take 40 to 50 hours for the average player to beat POE2’s campaign. Additionally, XP loss will not be a thing in the sequel’s campaign.
- Microtransactions – specifically the ability to dye armor – were brought up by the playerbase. Rogers notes that the dye system has been on the back burner as Grinding Gear is focusing on content first and MTX second.
- Hideouts will be in POE2 but don’t expect them to be too divergent from the original ARPG’s version.
There are frankly a boatload more questions and answers in this interview, so fans might want to take some time to either watch the full VOD or a summary video from YouTuber Talkative Tri, both of which await below.
