Is this game Hardcore-friendly?

[illinar]

I like to start blind in HC mode (I assume it is possible here) but in PoE 1 some bosses felt unfair or at least like attacks were impossible to avoid going into them for the first time. One of the bosses killed me on such playthrough. In other but also PoE-like game (I think it was called Diablo 4) boss difficulty compared to normal fight difficulty is like 10-20 to 1. Total BS. Does PoE2 feel more fair and balanced in that regard? Or do devs expect you to die on bosses repeatedly?

[GhostofWar]

Yes, it's completely hardcore friendly you'll love it.

[Drakesdragon]

some of the hardcore player even start at standard now, just play standard first, hardcore later

[Shatro]

You will definitely die multiple times during the campaign. Go with Standard first. just for potential server issues alone.

[puLzen]

Devs expect you to die repeatedly

[=Ost180=Hoshinohi]

Originally posted by illinar:

I like to start blind in HC mode (I assume it is possible here) but in PoE 1 some bosses felt unfair or at least like attacks were impossible to avoid going into them for the first time. One of the bosses killed me on such playthrough. In other but also PoE-like game (I think it was called Diablo 4) boss difficulty compared to normal fight difficulty is like 10-20 to 1. Total BS. Does PoE2 feel more fair and balanced in that regard? Or do devs expect you to die on bosses repeatedly?

You basically want to know if people who yet do not even finished the main story and the bosses there can give you insight about whether you will die or not to bosses they never met before. So in this regard I would say no blind hardcore without beeing familiar with new mechanics and overall gameplay is probably a bad experience for you. while the game offers lots of new ways to deal with challenges and some rules will probably stay the same like allways with more challenging games of the genre like high life and resistances are king + the mechanics to dodge attacks like in a Dark souls game you will face punishing attacks and ganging from normal mobs that will force you to adapt on the fly. If you insist on giving it a try I would recommend you to play softcore like you would play hardcore so you can decide for yourself if you died by something that was on yourself or because of something you had no influence on like serverlags or bad designed game mechanics. For example the final Kitava fight in PoEs story or the fight against Dominus had mechanics you wouldn't be able to anticipate by default and which most likely would kill you as a result i think PoE 2 will have plenty of those as well which you might lack the initial understanding of how to counter. Even normal mobs could be like this when I remember the kitava Gargoyles which have one attack that would be undodgeable for example while all other attacks of them are you wouldn't even understand why you died in the first place before experiencing it multiple times.

[illinar]

Originally posted by =Ost180=Hoshinohi:

Originally posted by illinar:

I like to start blind in HC mode (I assume it is possible here) but in PoE 1 some bosses felt unfair or at least like attacks were impossible to avoid going into them for the first time. One of the bosses killed me on such playthrough. In other but also PoE-like game (I think it was called Diablo 4) boss difficulty compared to normal fight difficulty is like 10-20 to 1. Total BS. Does PoE2 feel more fair and balanced in that regard? Or do devs expect you to die on bosses repeatedly?

You basically want to know if people who yet do not even finished the main story and the bosses there can give you insight about whether you will die or not to bosses they never met before. So in this regard I would say no blind hardcore without beeing familiar with new mechanics and overall gameplay is probably a bad experience for you. while the game offers lots of new ways to deal with challenges and some rules will probably stay the same like allways with more challenging games of the genre like high life and resistances are king + the mechanics to dodge attacks like in a Dark souls game you will face punishing attacks and ganging from normal mobs that will force you to adapt on the fly. If you insist on giving it a try I would recommend you to play softcore like you would play hardcore so you can decide for yourself if you died by something that was on yourself or because of something you had no influence on like serverlags or bad designed game mechanics. For example the final Kitava fight in PoEs story or the fight against Dominus had mechanics you wouldn't be able to anticipate by default and which most likely would kill you as a result i think PoE 2 will have plenty of those as well which you might lack the initial understanding of how to counter. Even normal mobs could be like this when I remember the kitava Gargoyles which have one attack that would be undodgeable for example while all other attacks of them are you wouldn't even understand why you died in the first place before experiencing it multiple times.

Ok, thanks for the feedback. I was considering watching boss guides, but outside of that playing HC, however I'd hate to die to lag. Second option was to, yes, play SC like it's HC, definitely less tension but if game is hard I'll go for it. PoE1 was waay too easy on a ranged character I played so I had to go HC, I'm glad they increased the difficulty.

[illinar]

Thanks everyone. If someone goes HC, please tell me how it went! :)

[Minmataro]

Play with WASD controls then yea.

[illinar]

P.S. I just saw clips of people dying in HC.. MonkaS

[Balm]

It's much less hardcore friendly than POE1, you don't have gem vendors and drops are extremely lacking, so getting 'safe' gear setups is even more tedious than before.