Grinding Gear Games continues to find itself on the back foot with regard to Path of Exile 2 and its disastrous Dawn of the Hunt release, which has arrived with about as much welcome as a wet fart in an elevator thanks to overtuned monsters, undertuned minions, and overlong campaigns – all of which the studio has been working to correct.
As one might anticipate, these mistakes for the early access OARPG were discussed in a livestreamed interview with game director Jonathan Rogers and game director Mark Roberts hosted by influencer Zizaran, which garnered some honest remarks from the devs.
“There were some blatant fuck-ups, speaking bluntly,” Roberts said. “We’re firing from the hip a lot here and stuff like that we’re like, ‘Let’s just get it in there, let’s try it out, and see how people think and if it’s bad we’ll just undo it.‘”
Rogers also explained that the intention wasn’t to nerf things into the ground but to try to keep combat challenging and meaningful. “I can absolutely tell you that our goal here was to nerf the things that were trivializing the endgame before you’ve even managed to get your items and stuff like that,” he said. “[If] we want the combat to be more engaging then that means there’s a smaller target; it puts more pressure on the balance to be right.”
Meanwhile the efforts to dig POE2 out of the dirt continue, as GGG plans to apply improvements to a number of classes with a particular focus on the Sorceress, a new type of support gem, an extension in length for delirium encounters, and an investigation into slowing the speed of certain monsters, among other things. Tweaks are once again planned to arrive “over the next few days.”
