Path of Exile 2 Won't Make Diablo 4's Mistake with Trillions of Damage
The team responsible for Path of Exile 2 is very careful about giving players powers. For this reason, we won't experience trillions of damage in the game, as was the case in Diablo 4.
One of the greatest pleasures in hack'n'slash games is "breaking them" with incredibly powerful builds. The satisfaction that accompanies us when we defeat a strong boss with one blow can be immense. Sometimes, however, the situation gets out of the devs' control to such an extent that the inflicted damage becomes absurd. This was the case with Diablo 4, but it won't happen in the upcoming Path of Exile 2.
In PoE 2, we won't deal billions of damage
At least that's the assurance given by Jonathan Rogers, the creative director of the game. He recently appeared on the Tavern Talk podcast, where he explained why he thinks this won't happen.
PoE 1 obviously did get pretty crazy, but at the same time we had a lot of years—like a lot of years—where things weren't like that. Our numbers don't scale as fast as some games' do and they don't go quite as exponential which means we're not going to have to be worrying about trillions of damage or anything like that.
The dev said that the team is very careful when it comes to giving players powers. They would rather it be a pleasant increase, not one that ruins the game. For this reason, the numbers in PoE 2 will be significantly lower than in Diablo 4, which will greatly affect the readability of the clashes. We won't encounter the colorful absurd values that pop up in the fight and cover a significant portion of the screen.
It's worth reminding that Blizzard tried to change something in this matter with the release of Vessel of Hatred. Unfortunately, it wasn't entirely successful, as shortly after the launch it turned out that the new class – the Spiritborn – was capable of dealing up to 235 trillion damage. According to Rogers, in the case of PoE 2, such a need should never even arise.
I don't think we're ever going to have to do a numbers squish or anything like that.
This topic is constantly alive at the Grinding Gear Games headquarters, and the team continuously exchanges notes about the size of the damage dealt. Rogers, however, remains optimistic and has conveyed that the studio is reaching a level of control that it will be able to sustain.
Path of Exile 2 will be released on December 6 in Early Access.
