Mechanical Skill (Dodgeroll) and Intellectual Skill (Build Theorycrafting) exists on a spectrum.

This is the core, jarring problem with the vision of Path of Exile 2.

Mechanical Skill (A): dodging attacks, reading animations, predicting enemy behavior, precise positioning, etc.

Intellectual Skill (B): understanding deep systems, theorycrafting, optimizing builds through math, and leveraging complex interactions to create extremely powerful characters.

You can imagine A and B as two ends of a spectrum or slider: when you lean heavily into one, the other naturally has to give.

You cannot have a game that leans heavily on Mechanical Skill while still maintaining a high importance on Intellectual Skill.

In simplest term, the more a game requires Mechanical Skills, the less importance of Intellectual Skill, and vice versa.

For example, in Dark Souls, players can finish the game at SL0 with zero upgrades, and even complete entire playthroughs without taking a single hit. The game is designed so that intense Mechanical Skill alone can carry you through all the content, effectively bypassing any need for Intellectual Skill or buildcrafting. This works for an action game. But it raises the question: what is an ARPG like PoE without its buildcrafting aspect at the center of its attention?

In Path of Exile 1, the design philosophy places the slider roughly at A = 0.1, B = 0.9. The game heavily favors intellectual mastery, its deep systems, open-ended buildcrafting, and complex mechanics allow players to create characters so powerful that, at the high end, they trivialize encounters with billions of damage and near-immortality. This is part of PoE’s identity: its challenge and reward come from understanding and exploiting its ever-growing and ever-changing systems.

From the outside, non-PoE1 players and even Johnathan on records, often dismiss it as a “brainless game” that simply blows up multiple screens of monsters. But that’s not the case. The fact that players can clear screens instantly and achieve godlike power is derived from PoE1’s philosophy of leaning heavily on Intellectual Skill. Once you master its complex systems, you can achieve overwhelming power. That is the point. And this is the true reward of clever buildcrafting in Path of Exile.

Path of Exile 2 fundamentally shifts this balance. With “meaningful combat,” mandatory roll-dodging, animation-reading, and a large emphasis on moment-to-moment execution, the slider moves sharply toward A, Mechanical Skill, roughly A = 0.6, B = 0.4. As Mechanical Skill becomes a core requirement, Intellectual Skill naturally takes a smaller role in determining player power.

This shift alone shows that PoE2 is no longer the same type of game as PoE1. It moves away from deep intellectual buildcrafting and toward a more mechanically demanding action-combat experience, catering to a different kind of skill expression.

Again, I genuinely believe that the people developing PoE2 do not fully understand what made PoE1 successful. They are trying to reinvent the wheel without understanding what made the wheel work in the first place.

I think the replies to your last topic already spelled this out for you, but here we go again. PoE2 is still PoE. I honestly have no idea how you are still missing this. PoE1 has always required some mechanical skill too, at least before power creep completely outpaced the content and made most mechanical skill basically optional, since you can just face-tank everything or nuke it before it even twitches. You are still new, sure, but you are mixing up things that are painfully obvious to anyone who has actually spent time with the game.

PoE2 is brand new. Of course it does not have the decade of bloated content PoE1 has stacked up. The PoE1 you are playing today is unrecognizable compared to launch PoE1. Back then it had nowhere near the theorycrafting depth, the absurd interactions, the broken builds, the layers of systems, none of that existed. Meanwhile PoE2, even in early access, already offers more build flexibility than PoE1 had in its first several years.

And this whole narrative that dodging and timing every roll perfectly is the single most important skill in the game is exhausting. People talk about it like if you do not execute it flawlessly, you might as well uninstall. You can already make PoE2 builds that erase bosses before they have even finished their intro animation. Mechanical skill only matters when your build is weak. Same story as PoE1, where mobility skills and power spikes let you ignore half the danger anyway. So this dramatic claim that it is turning into Dark Souls is wildly overstated.

And the claim that the devs do not understand what made PoE1 successful is frankly absurd. PoE2 is not trying to be a one-to-one clone of PoE1 with a fresh coat of varnish. It is a new game built on the same story, world, and core ideas, not a museum replica. Diablo 2 is nothing like Diablo 1. Diablo 3 is nothing like Diablo 2. Diablo 4 is nothing like Diablo 3. Were those dev teams confused about their own franchises? Obviously not. They made new games with new identities built on the same lore. That is literally what sequels do. They evolve instead of photocopying the previous entry and pretending it is innovation.

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VoidWhisperer42#5989 написал:

You can already make PoE2 builds that erase bosses before they have even finished their intro animation. Mechanical skill only matters when your build is weak.

So the whole "meaningful combat" is thrown out of the window when players power level reach a certain amount?

This solidify my claims above. Mechanical Skills and Intellectual Skills exists on a spectrum.

The fact that PoE2 boast about it's "meaningful combat" and try it's hardest to shape the game to conform this vision is idiotic.

Have you read the latest PoE2 patch note? They are doubling down on "meaningful combat" by reducing packsize by 40% and increasing monster health by 40%.

Soon you will have your Darksouls knock-off that you so Skillfully parry, dodge and comboing on a white mob. The game that you so desire and so vehemently defends.

All I can say is that the #1 best feeling in POE2 was when I returned from a break to play abyss HC league, and the second I got Rhoa Mount, I no longer had to dodge roll anymore because I could play like POE1. I could even strafe effectively! It felt so good!

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nagisanzeninzz#2697 написал:

This is the core, jarring problem with the vision of Path of Exile 2.

Mechanical Skill (A): dodging attacks, reading animations, predicting enemy behavior, precise positioning, etc.

Intellectual Skill (B): understanding deep systems, theorycrafting, optimizing builds through math, and leveraging complex interactions to create extremely powerful characters.

You can imagine A and B as two ends of a spectrum or slider: when you lean heavily into one, the other naturally has to give.

You cannot have a game that leans heavily on Mechanical Skill while still maintaining a high importance on Intellectual Skill.

In simplest term, the more a game requires Mechanical Skills, the less importance of Intellectual Skill, and vice versa.

That's an interesting analogy and I follow you, but it's not correct. And I'll explain why.

"Mechanical Skill and Intellectual Skill share a relationship, because the better the player is at one, the less they have to rely on the other"
- This is a true statement.

"You can't have a game that requires both a high degree of Mechanical Skill and a high degree of Intellectual Skill to succeed"
- Is not a true statement.

What you really mean to say, is that if a player is able to beat game with no "Intellectual Skill", then if they were to apply "Intellectual Skill" the game would then become so easy, that their "Mechanical Skill" is no longer required"

But this isn't quite right, because you are excluding the scenario where both are required to succeed. By assuming that the player could complete the game with "Mechanical Skill" alone, and no "Intellectual Skill", you are assuming a game that is already so easy to complete (mechanically) that it requires no additional help from "Intellectual Skill"

But what if the game was too hard to complete with no "Intellectual Skill"?
What if the game was too hard to complete, even with a little "Intellectual Skill"?
What if you needed some of both?

So, the 'mechanical/intellectual' distinction is a false dichotomy, and the two are not mutually exclusive.

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WhisperSlade#0532 написал:

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nagisanzeninzz#2697 написал:

This is the core, jarring problem with the vision of Path of Exile 2.

Mechanical Skill (A): dodging attacks, reading animations, predicting enemy behavior, precise positioning, etc.

Intellectual Skill (B): understanding deep systems, theorycrafting, optimizing builds through math, and leveraging complex interactions to create extremely powerful characters.

You can imagine A and B as two ends of a spectrum or slider: when you lean heavily into one, the other naturally has to give.

You cannot have a game that leans heavily on Mechanical Skill while still maintaining a high importance on Intellectual Skill.

In simplest term, the more a game requires Mechanical Skills, the less importance of Intellectual Skill, and vice versa.

That's an interesting analogy and I follow you, but it's not correct. And I'll explain why.

"Mechanical Skill and Intellectual Skill share a relationship, because the better the player is at one, the less they have to rely on the other"
- This is a true statement.

"You can't have a game that requires both a high degree of Mechanical Skill and a high degree of Intellectual Skill to succeed"
- Is not a true statement.

What you really mean to say, is that if a player is able to beat game with no "Intellectual Skill", then if they were to apply "Intellectual Skill" the game would then become so easy, that their "Mechanical Skill" is no longer required"

But this isn't quite right, because you are excluding the scenario where both are required to succeed. By assuming that the player could complete the game with "Mechanical Skill" alone, and no "Intellectual Skill", you are assuming a game that is already so easy to complete (mechanically) that it requires no additional help from "Intellectual Skill"

But what if the game was too hard to complete with no "Intellectual Skill"?
What if the game was too hard to complete, even with a little "Intellectual Skill"?
What if you needed some of both?

So, the 'mechanical/intellectual' distinction is a false dichotomy, and the two are not mutually exclusive.

I think this a bit hard to grasp but I can prove it.

I don't know about other builds, so I can't say for them. But I'm almost always a Ranger main so I started PoE2 with a Ranger in 0.1.

The first boss I met, which was a green-ish Devourer monster from PoE1 killed me 3 times with it's attacks and slams.

I died due to not having the Mechanically Skills required, sure, it is my shortcoming. But did the game present any way to Intellectually solve this problem? Absolutely no.

Passive points were limited and weak. Gears were difficult to come by. Crafting mechanics and crafting materials were non-existance. I as a player had no avenue to overcome the challenge but to physically dodge the boss's mechanics.

It's also the reason why theres a jarring difference between Act (Mechanically skill heavy) and End-game mapping (Intellectuall Heavy) where in acts you have to play Dark-souls-lite and in End game mapping youve complete building your character so strong that literally everything is trivialized (Just look at LA Deadeye).

The game has a identity crisis, in a paradox and following a false vision. This balance tips widly at different stages of the game, creating entirely different types of gameplay that are still actively polarizing playerbase.

At this moment, right outside of this sub, you can find 2 camps: 1 in zoom-zoom blasting map, 1 in "meaningful combat".

And paradoxically enough, both are not happy with Path of Exile 2.

I can see where you're coming from because you can easily use this theory for every new league.

Mechanical skill is a big win on your league starter until you get into the later stages of the campaign and then maps.

The more you have played each new league the easier it is on your mechanical skills you know what to look out for with bosses and mobs and also your knowledge of what pathing to take on the skill tree and gems/supports etc

Then if you want to make a new character you can get twink gear and literally speed through the campaign in a few hours because your knowledge and setup has trivialised the mechanical parts (i did this with multiple ascendancies in 0.3)

The only issue i can see happening is the balancing act of doing this, can you make POE2 either balance the mechanical vs intellectual or can the game work biased either way?

I would say no and it will always turn into who can build a better character because the RNG is less of a problem

(not that i think that's a problem, i like the crafting of a build, i like speed leveling an ascendancy to t15 then crafting a build out of that to blast the last part of it)

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nagisanzeninzz#2697 написал:

You can imagine A and B as two ends of a spectrum or slider: when you lean heavily into one, the other naturally has to give.

You cannot have a game that leans heavily on Mechanical Skill while still maintaining a high importance on Intellectual Skill.

In simplest term, the more a game requires Mechanical Skills, the less importance of Intellectual Skill, and vice versa.

This is not an universal truth in the way you think it is, and I'll try to explain why.

That scale you estimated depends heavily on how a game is set up by the developers and how much control there is over balance itself.

In PoE2, gear and passive tree is still a huge factor in building your character because that's how the game is set up. There's no way you can possibly compare it with a game like dark souls in which gear plays a minimal role and passive tree doesn't exist. Therefore, by default, mechanical skill alone in PoE2 can never carry you as it can in a dark souls game.

Quite literally, you can't finish the game naked and with no passives like in a dark souls run.

So then, by default, Path of exile 2 will always have at least 50% "intellectual requirement", as you put it. Although I think it's grossly overstated how smart you have to be to make an overpowered build in this game... alas, that's a different topic for another time.

The thing you're really advocating for, whether you realize it or not, is not having proper balance in the game. In other words, the scalability difference of a smart and informed choice compared to a less informed one is insanely big. And this is where the issue really comes from.

By default, of course that someone smarter and with more experience will have a more powerful character in any game that has a minimum of systems to allow it.... and that's not the issue... the issue is the actual power difference it allows for. And right now, because of how more multipliers work in PoE2, the power difference is insanely big... and this remains a huge issue.

Another way to think about this would be that... in PoE2 you need at least 50% intelligence to even be able to play into the mechanical aspect of it. And that is how the game should be looked at.

If you let theorycrafting outscale mechanical skill completely due to a lack of balance... the end result is that you have fun only during theorycrafting, leaving the rest of the gameplay a hollow husk that you will get bored with quickly.... which is exactly what happens in PoE, and retention numbers are showing this aspect precisely.

Not to mention that the "intellectual" part can be outsourced and therefore eliminate the fun aspect found within it completely (A certain billionaire figure showcased this quite well), and theorycrafting isn't even done largely ingame.

Mechnical skill however, can't be outsourced in that same way, which means the game will be at the very least as fun as the mechanical skill required allows it to be. The importance of the mechanical part cannot be understated... as well as the importance of balance.

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IonSugeRau1#1069 написал:

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nagisanzeninzz#2697 написал:

You can imagine A and B as two ends of a spectrum or slider: when you lean heavily into one, the other naturally has to give.

You cannot have a game that leans heavily on Mechanical Skill while still maintaining a high importance on Intellectual Skill.

In simplest term, the more a game requires Mechanical Skills, the less importance of Intellectual Skill, and vice versa.

This is not an universal truth in the way you think it is, and I'll try to explain why.

That scale you estimated depends heavily on how a game is set up by the developers and how much control there is over balance itself.

In PoE2, gear and passive tree is still a huge factor in building your character because that's how the game is set up. There's no way you can possibly compare it with a game like dark souls in which gear plays a minimal role and passive tree doesn't exist. Therefore, by default, mechanical skill alone in PoE2 can never carry you as it can in a dark souls game.

Quite literally, you can't finish the game naked and with no passives like in a dark souls run.

So then, by default, Path of exile 2 will always have at least 50% "intellectual requirement", as you put it. Although I think it's grossly overstated how smart you have to be to make an overpowered build in this game... alas, that's a different topic for another time.

The thing you're really advocating for, whether you realize it or not, is not having proper balance in the game. In other words, the scalability difference of a smart and informed choice compared to a less informed one is insanely big. And this is where the issue really comes from.

By default, of course that someone smarter and with more experience will have a more powerful character in any game that has a minimum of systems to allow it.... and that's not the issue... the issue is the actual power difference it allows for. And right now, because of how more multipliers work in PoE2, the power difference is insanely big... and this remains a huge issue.

Another way to think about this would be that... in PoE2 you need at least 50% intelligence to even be able to play into the mechanical aspect of it. And that is how the game should be looked at.

If you let theorycrafting outscale mechanical skill completely due to a lack of balance... the end result is that you have fun only during theorycrafting, leaving the rest of the gameplay a hollow husk that you will get bored with quickly.... which is exactly what happens in PoE, and retention numbers are showing this aspect precisely.

Not to mention that the "intellectual" part can be outsourced and therefore eliminate the fun aspect found within it completely (A certain billionaire figure showcased this quite well), and theorycrafting isn't even done largely ingame.

Mechnical skill however, can't be outsourced in that same way, which means the game will be at the very least as fun as the mechanical skill required allows it to be. The importance of the mechanical part cannot be understated... as well as the importance of balance.

That's alot of words to basically say nothing. I can prove my point mathematically but im too lazy atm.

Getting old.