ExileCon 2023: Path of Exile 2 Q&A

A question and answer session hosted by Octavian, with Jonathan Rogers, Hrishikesh Sidhartha, Rory Rackham, and Mark Roberts. Recorded at ExileCon 2023.

[@RegalOrb]

I love how when GGG does a Q&A it feels raw and real, like it's gamers speaking to other gamers, not some corporate entity.

[@Lightgrenadez7777]

It's because they are gamers just talking to gamers. Best example to contrast it against is D4s developer chats. Blizz are in damage control. Everything they are saying is either justifying a decision. Or justifying why they can't/won't put something in or out of the game. Everything is a carefully monitored, rehearsed answer. Because they are already on the back foot. And they can't make another mistep. This Exilecon Q and A is someone being asked a genuine question. And someone giving a genuine answer to that question directly. Because they want the players to be informed based off the answer. Not trying to hide something bad or make something seem better than what it is. With rehearsed marketing speak. Let me give an example.. Q: Why did you implement system X GGG: we implemented system x. Because we found when We did option A, then B happened. But if we did option C. Then D happened. And we think that D is better for player experience. BLIZZ: Here at blizzard we have over 400000 people designing diablo 4. It's the most immersive player experience. We have more dungeons than any other diablo title. Or. Yeah we are working on it. Not much we can do about it right now. You'll have to wait. 1 response answer the question, the other response deflects and distracts you with something else. As long as GGG doesn't do something blizzard level of stupid like fucking up stash tabs. They are going to have one of the most successful game launches ever with poe 2.

[@aaronyeh3652]

I love pooping in my pants and sitting in the warmth

[@hby7768]

@@Lightgrenadez7777 the problem I shese guys are trying tome a game for gamer. Over at MS/blizz, the game is created for the corporate overlords not the gamers and you can tell the developers aren't trying too make a fun game or a fun gam that players want

[@Corusame]

Its refreshing watching a Q&A with devs that are actually passionate about their game. Makes a change from a certain other ARPG.

[@andrew5821]

29:24 "I was not expecting applause for light radius" lol

[@SimbaXp]

I hope they make the campaign in a way where you can tackle the acts quests, except the last one in whatever order you want so every new run will be different from the last one.

[@Adamas_83]

I love how refreshing this is. To see devs being open and as honest as they can be about their game is a breath of fresh air. There's a reason GGG has gotten so much of my money over the years.

[@SuperFluidFerroFluid]

Offscreen oneshots from spiker goliaths no longer existing,. This alone will be game changing! So exciting!!

[@scottcampbell9456]

Marks closing comment was perfect, i love this Team/Company.

[@francisstranieri2067]

You guys are amazing, thanks for your passionate work! Would be awsome if you could let people reset their passive skill / atlas tree more easily, that would be more welcoming to new players and let players test more different things instead of just waiting for the late game to spend tons of caos on orbs of regret to test new things (you could also do it already on PoE1, letting more orb of regret drops early game).

[@scottcampbell9456]

If you dont have acess to a craft bench, those vendors are going to have be soo OP.

[@32graphics]

I think that in order for the company to be more attractive to players, it is worth adding something to it that will affect the build. Something like "Deal with the bandits." It might be worth thinking about the Act tree.

[@fadiornmage8739]

would you consider Item Rarity to apply to mod tier and waitings on rare item drops?

[@troyrarehale2517]

WILL there be loadouts so we can damage types on the fly since there will be so many different resistances against you, convenience is king. A nice round number like 10 should do it.

[@depremere3991]

19:20 yeah i liked the campaign too, for the first 2 times that i did it. Not so much after 30 runs, or if u want to reroll for the 3rd time in a league

[@BungerOverheat]

You're 95+ on SSFHC I presume?

[@deansong]

Will there be a new UI?

[@Sharkey007x]

holy mess! PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAASE give a freaking death recap! Just even a "this is the last few damage instances, their amounts, and type(s) and who did it" so we can learn

[@reddevil15506]

Will Path of Exile 2 have an increase in camera distance or a better camera angle from the first as that game literally makes me nauseous after like 10 minutes of gameplay and I wish it didn't Couse I liked the game.

[@nater8410]

16:45 i love that look is's like team project and everybody is looking for that smart guy to speak up

[@feluto7172]

Dream blunt rotation

[@rickklein5136]

Rogers sure does like, like to hear himself talk 😆

[@Gamma8827]

Is there any possibility of add gender selection in poe2?

[@scottcampbell9456]

I hope so. Most other arpg games do it, it can't be that hard.

[@markusk3015]

Need more Maps :)

[@joseusve]

Aprox 2025 out ?

[@ChildishGabito]

2024 June

[@joseusve]

@@ChildishGabito mean .. complet.. maybe 2025 ?

[@Ivhen]

@@joseusve Beta is the full game and it will be the equivalent of a league long.

[@bluemoondm8629]

@@bard634 no, June 7th 2024 is beta.

[@ChildishGabito]

@@joseusve if you mean by official release then yeah prolly 2025

[@zoteshgaming5812]

Imagine drinking everytime they say "Like" Or " You Know"....

[@diabloomega425]

diabloomega ps5 love the game. Can't wait for poe2

[@Maethendias]

no rip lab

[@Maxtraxv3]

@26:25 ima forget everytime.

[@ArturFlintchannel]

41:55 - Yeah, Maraketh who doesn't like automatons from Eternal Empire. I wonder why... P.S: I don't wonder. It's obvious. P.S(2): Two things I hope GGG will fix: - Regeneration and oneshots, bringing good-old days before 3.0. - Making PoE for 5% "hardcore" 24/7 players since... No, not 3.14, but from 3.9 (actually, from 3.8 But Acts 1-3 were kinda cool revision in difficulty before 3.9 and *BOOM!* x3 hp, x6 armour to all mobs...)

[@drunkagain2]

Shouldn't you have a team to update the poe1 art assets to look good like the new poe2 ones will?

[@hby7768]

resources are finite

[@gamikhan9087]

It really shows they are passionate about it but I wish they would have a bit more understanding for qol things for newbies, free respec until maps would actually retain so much players, if you got an argument why everyone should be forced to do story with every character, why not facilitate people that want to build their own stuff as a first player, it doesnt hurt anyone. For speedruns just have no respec%. For other modes such as ruthless just have it desactivated. In any case, for normal playthroughs it will show more skill expression of pros, will give a playground for new people to understand how stuff interact between each other, will expand the possibilities, and wont hurt anyone, really cant see why they refuse things like that. Personally I would also hope they would put more consideration into wording, or atleast have it written somewhere, knowing which multipliers are additive or multiply between eachother is a nightmare, not to talk about what modifiers even work with certain things. You literally can have like 20 different sources of fire boost and as a player with no experience you know nothing about how they interact, which ultimately means you just have to mindlessly follow a guide yes or yes. They have to walk this thin line of qol that are needed to be a better game, precisely because they care so much about the "integrity" of their game, is the reason I think they dont see these glaring problems that turn off a lot of people. It is not like these things are impossible to do. Another thing is flasks, pretty much everyone uses a macro for poe 1, their solution is better than not doing anything, but why not allow a keybind to press any number of the flasks at the same time, removes macro, makes it legal, all builds will still have 2 or 3 flasks that you constatly have to press, either make them automatic, or atleast let me legally macro those 3 flasks, it is actually so ridiculous and over the top to think that it would be a net lose for the game.

[@al_bert_5923]

Боже, они добавили субтитры. Спасибо

[@TURBORES]

о чём базар в кратце? о пое наверно? лол

[@revoktorment440]

Keeping the awful trade system, yuk...

[@Alekov_]

Love that they trying to incentivise players away from 1 button spamming builds.

[@jvghetto6363]

дайте мтх

[@Shinji-Studio]

thanks to not doing another bullshit hack and slash where the base on the game was how you can spam the same skill 99% of time after put your brain off and cut 4 of your fingers...

[@Experternas]

here's my question for PoE devs. Will you remove those boring puzzles in the game that is not at all the same as hack and slash arpg? Like for me, trying to figure out the timing from one trap to another is like Simon says and my short term memory is so bad so I hate those things in poe1. It's not a key element in arpg games.

[@Maxtraxv3]

@19:55 please less temp minions, they are the worst.

[@5hredu]

Huh

[@salihkizildag]

are we ever going to see some actual gameplay and not act 2 white pack farming? acts are like 2% of path of exile, but we keep seeing stuff related to acts.

[@yammoto148]

Wait no Scion? Are you serious? Like legit with the new engine and the new capabilities of POE 2 the class can be effectively more than an aurabot and you guys decide no we just can't give her, her own identitity. Is Jack of all trades master of none not good enough for you? How about allowing her to combine multiple class fantasies to create her own thing at the cost of some power. That change alone rings flat with me, I get not having a central part of the tree but Scion has to be a thing something in future, because its my favorite class and I do not see how it could not be included in the new game. This alone is going to get me to not play POE 2.

[@deathstar6998]

Yeah legit worst change.

[@fok8810]

KEK

[@fok8810]

Im sure if they could figure out how to do that they would who knows maybe they can add it in an expansion. but id rather all the other classes be good and not limited because of some omnipresent entity like scion always governing game balance yes its cool for poe 1 but it would just complicate it way too much in terms of all the classes they want to create

[@yammoto148]

@@fok8810 But Scion has never governed game balance, its always been an underpowered and underutilized class because it only gets half an ascendancy compared to every other class who gets a full ascendancy. Its also a class that stacks a lot of attributes in a game where there is little to no benefit to attribute stacking. Scion's only use in POE 1 is a currency sink. Yeah you can make powerful builds with them but only under specific circumstances with expensive costs. POE 2 has every tool needed to make the class viable from a low investment standpoint and they just don't want to put it into the game because they can't make a class fantasy with her. Which I feel is a lazy excuse.

[@SuperLordjulius]

You can still play poe 1 I guess, never really had anything binding me to a specific class

[@SticksAandstonesBozo]

I love POE i do... But its so completely unnecessarily complicated. Casual people just have no chance.

[@ShadeAKAhayate]

GGG is still shooting themselves in the foot here. Dividing already not exorbitantly large audience between projects, making a project that is not like one that their audience is used to... There are many recipes for failure and this is just one of them. As for making rolling maps even more tedious, expensive and cumbersome -- that's what their audience will understand, but definitely not support.

[@n91312]

campaign sucks, especially on console. crossplay or remove it

[@PuppetMasterdaath144]

will we be able to use girls that are extremely sexualized or is this the hell dimension where we are not can have such things

[@tkin3044]

completely out of touch with their community

[@Corusame]

In what way exactly?

[@Borealis-Rainbow]

Care to elaborate?

[@krioni86sa]

diablo 4

[@bontukuck]

bad

[@GmodMark]

@@bontukuck Poe, good

[@NemesisX94]

Is very disappointing.

[@markusk3015]

Noobgame 😂

[@krioni86sa]

diablo 4>POE

[@craneology]

lies lies and more lies

[@Borealis-Rainbow]

What are the lies?

[@julianmonakian]

Change the trade on poe1. It suuuuuuucks

[@CatFinder3000]

'hand and wrist strain' lmao what? like its the devs fault you're a child that can't play a video game without hurting yourself? go outside

[@elvis8959]

This company is a Beacon of hope for gaming industry! Bravo bravo ggg

[@Vasily_Alekseyevich]

special thanks for the subtitles for the video

[@G00R00]

tl;dr : cool game

[@ZoryArky]

12:04 i hope that means we can tone down the graphics to similar to what playing with DirectX9_EX enabled us to with the new engine...

[@MrCmagik]

ffs just remove reflect mods and no regen mods. Like, they're way too deadly if you don't notice they're on and affect you (mostly reflect obviously) The amount of times I died from my first rightclick. It's just not fun. Like, I've died less from Uber bosses and The Feared than me not noticing there's a reflect.

[@1Caja]

Skill issue

[@Shaltinanwenor]

Reading hard

[@Onimirare]

there are so many way to deal with these mods, that's like saying fire damage should be removed because all your builds have -60% fire resistance. That's a problem with your build, not the game.

[@KjKase]

When can we play?!

[@samtron364]

June 2024 close beta

[@fok8810]

​@@samtron364:(

[@nilocblue]

This company reminds me of Larian Studios, just a group of talented and authentic devs who built a reputation and earned success by working with and listening to their community. The fans give back when we feel listened to and respected. Kudos to your whole team GGG!

[@nictanghe98]

noo inventory autosort again ?

[@Strill_]

No new previews until November. I'm so desperate!

[@R1DL3R90]

CWDT x8 times minimum nice

[@PChel_009]

Обожаю эту игру удачи тебе:)

[@SnipingDrago]

At 19:00 when they start talking about should we have to redo the campaign for every character, why not reach a compromise and just let way points carry forward from your first character. Seems like a easy win, we still do the campaign just an hour or two faster or maybe certain waypoints carry foward?

[@DanboReviews]

Tbh, this will make people quit faster is my guess. If you can just teleport from waypoint to waypoint, you are then extremely underleveled, die many many times, but not because of an interesting boss fight, but probably because you didn't get enough currency to craft your items, get res capped and any monster will nuke you off of Wraeclast. Imo, the game is called "Path of Exile". The path starts at level 1 on the beach. Now it's up to you.

[@SnipingDrago]

@@DanboReviews This is after you finish your first character all the way through acts each season not before, so it will have no impact on players who are going to quit either way tbh.

[@zottden4970]

Path of Exile 2 will has refound points?

[@GulagMoosefeller]

Leech balance is solved by making it a factor of the current player health % instead of a flat amount.

[@DaCurse0]

That's how it works currently in Poe

[@an0mndr]

Can we find more footage of the guests playing the demo that was available? I've seen the couple gameplay presentations but I want to see more regulars interacting with it

[@Ace-bg5sq]

on the path of exile website is all the gameplay footage i think not quite sure tho if its all

[@phinguyen6399]

@@Ace-bg5sq Do you have the link. I thought all gameplays are from prominent streamers

[@Ace-bg5sq]

@@phinguyen6399you might wanna remove the de. Before the name if you dont want it in german

[@phinguyen6399]

Dont quite catch you here. Can you explain?@@Ace-bg5sq

[@sharker100]

I can't wait for this game. I hope that since they're focusing a bit more on accesibility, that I will be able to master this game better than PoE1.

[@nikkosmit6985]

It won’t be that much easier..it seems almost more complicated with having to think about multiple different tree branches for your weapon swap and also what gems to use to consume spirit and which not.

[@tuclance]

for sure@@nikkosmit6985

[@shiosuke4837]

Have fun with learning a new game, where things are much more complicated than before. Like 9 skills, variations on how to use, weaponswap, new skills/gems/mechanics and a lot more combinations... PoE1 is not that complicated when u invest time in it. Learn each league few new things and u will be better and better. :)

[@ulubione3140]

Im so hyped. This game is free, diablo isnt. Im gonna pay in game for that great art and work.

[@Gushick]

just play poe 1....

[@hby7768]

nothing is free, even air

[@123cxzaqwe]

It sounds impressive. May I ask, i didn't hear, will we still need an item filter for poe2 to minimize the view of all items that drops? Or has an idea finally been discovered? Cheers

[@shiosuke4837]

I mean its poe. I think they will inplement a system where low lvl items can be disabled in a certain way but later on u can specify ur loot on ur class etc (I hope like Last Epoch or something)

[@crazyjak56]

They haven't said it directly, but it looks like they're trying to minimize the crap by having it drop as gold or items that are at least tradeable.

[@Popper1992]

the crafting sounds like its gonna be way harder now not good for normal poe players

[@tagnati5585]

I think the opposite

[@peterbotlik3]

Vision crafting.

[@CriticalComplainer]

Wow... they confirm that they still have 0 interest in overhauling / automating trade. FML

[@divideby000]

The PoE trade system is one of the biggest gates preventing entry for new players in the whole game.

[@pramadanaagsha3943]

They confirmes it multiple time already.

[@vita_pulchra_est]

it is an Action RPG afterall, not a Merchant RPG. As a player I'd rather deal with frustrated Lv74 players consistently playing than Lv20 capitalists buying off the market stock of headhunters dictating how much I should grind based on the price they want me to pay this week. Where's the fun in that?

[@divideby000]

@@vita_pulchra_est why have trading at all if it's going to be such a pain? Plenty of those players who might hit lvl 74 have dropped out far before then because they're not willing to stand around trying to sell items or exchange currency.

[@SimbaXp]

They said countless times that trade is horrible by design because they don't want it to be the efficient way to gear up your character. (even though it happens when you get rich later in the trade league)

[@bungbung7006]

no ruthless plz daddy will be angy

[@flandrinelextensionniste6490]

Grey guy interrupts his colleagues when they answer, it's rude.

[@Maxtraxv3]

@34:10 make sound like you have to be a hard core math engineer by end game... that doesnt sound like fun to me.

[@Hellz69]

44:11 Change is terrible. Should have kept POE 1 mechanic. Enkindling Orb fixed pianoing but i guess there are a lot of pathfinders :"D

[@williamtess3660]

Theres no reason to piano, in poe1 the flasks themselves were generic buffs like granite giving armour but poe2 flasks theyve basically moved the reactive mods onto the flask itself. They also really like the opportunity cost idea of having weaker flasks for the sake of automation so I would expect there to be some auto trigger condition mods or currencies

[@Sophexis]

really sad to hear that push the campaign thing.... its one of the things that demotivate me to play instead of play more.... sad to see that diablo 4 is actually an improvement, and thats saying alot from a game where the devs are still learning what they want to do XD

[@RhebelGaming]

I love GGG. The only thing i don't agree with is being forced to complete the campaign. On the first playthrough yes, but on new characters there should be a lvl cap on lvl 70 to be able to go to maps for example instead.

[@Shaltinanwenor]

Funnily enough I'm the complete opposite, I like the story progression & on twinks it always feels great to do in a couple hours when the leveling gear gets stupid To each their own tho, your opinion perfectly valid too

[@ThaPinkGuy]

​@@Shaltinanwenor I'd rather pay someone to boost me through the campaign than do it again. The last league I seriously played was Heist and that was a hilarious buggy mess. Ritual I quit after beating campaign, Ultimatum I quit in Act 7 and in Scrouge I did half of Act 1 and never logged in again.

[@Kuryux]

do we have a date or just yadda yadda?

[@ChildishGabito]

june 2024

[@TehBrownie]

WTF thought this was new content. Just a reupload of exilecon WHAT THE

[@TheBloodworks3]

POE is already overwhelmingly confusing and nearly impossible for new players to thrive in who are of average intelligence. League mechanics, crafting, builds, currency, and endgame require way, way, way too much of a time investment to learn from poorly created super long/boring/confusing/ADHD medicated endless multi part player guides/videos. Why make POE2 so challenging to play as well? I watched all the best players at ExileCon get their asses handed to them. If it was that tough for them then what about the average to below average players? You have a great looking product in POE2 that appears to be too difficult for me and millions like me to enjoy.