'We don't have to worry about trillions of damage': Path of Exile 2 is trying to avoid Diablo 4's game-breaking damage numbers, director says
Action RPGs are complex and players are simple: They want power any way they can get it, even if it completely trivializes the entire game. Just about every Diablo 4 season has had something that does way more damage than it should, forcing Blizzard to play whack-a-mole to keep it balanced without pissing everyone off.
Jonathan Rogers, game director of Path of Exile 2, jokingly acknowledged Diablo 4's ridiculous damage numbers when explaining why he doesn't think his game will have that problem on a recent episode of the Tavern Talk podcast, which is hosted by streamers Darth Microtransaction and GhazzyTV.
"Look, 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," he said. "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."
Rogers said the team is "careful" when it comes to giving players power increases that feel good versus power increases that break the game. For one, numbers in PoE 2 are much smaller. An item might give you nine intelligence to Diablo 4's 200. This helps keep the numbers legible during combat, so players aren't trying to squint to see which attack had more zeroes.
"I don't think we're ever going to have to do a numbers squish or anything like that," he said, possibly referencing what Blizzard tried and failed to do with the Vessel of Hatred expansion. It was only partially a success: damage numbers are lower in Diablo 4 than they were before until the moment you hit max level and have a thousand ways to ramp them back up again. PoE 2 doesn't work like that, and seems to have the kind of slow-paced combat encounters you'd normally see in a soulslike. You won't be teleporting through dungeons with a trail of bodies in your wake.
It's still an ongoing consideration for Grinding Gear Games though. Rogers says the team has regular back and forths about how high the numbers should go. "Together with that I think we come to some kind of medium ground where we don't get things too out of control."
Personally, I love trying broken stuff out in Diablo 4. It isn't a MOBA where balance problems ruin the experience for everyone else. Sometimes you just want to see big numbers. But at the same time, I can appreciate GGG wanting to keep PoE 2 from becoming a flavor-of-the-month action RPG every season. Players will always identify what the best and worst is, but trying to keep the gap in between those things small is certainly admirable. It's never fun spending hours working on a build to watch someone else barrel through the entire game due to some bug. I hope nothing like that crops up during PoE 2's early access, but I can't promise I won't hop on the bandwagon to try it out if it does.
PoE 2 will launch in early access on December 6.