Good afternoon Gamers, There has been a lot of discussion around the act 2 update, which has been a little polarizing to say the least. I have been trying to think about the actual reasons the community is so divided and why so many dislike act 2 and where I stand on it myself. The talent tree and new character seem to be pretty positively received and the t2 items seem overall liked but frustrating some in the way they are implemented, basically invalidating t1 entirely for long time players, while creating an arbitrary loot grind for newcomers. I think the items are fun and offer a unique form of scaling compared to other games in the genre and open the door to customization even further than t1 had been. However I think I am still torn on act 2 itself from a gameplay perspective and I think I have figured out what it is for me that makes it feel off, and perhaps these are things that are also dividing others as well.

First and probably the easiest thing to point to is density. Monster density in the ARPG genre is always a hot topic dividing players between the camps of the adrenaline enjoyers enjoy more methodical combat with fewer but more threatening enemies, and the dopamine junkies like myself who just wanna click button and watch mass genocide unfold across the hordes of hell. While both types of encounters have their place in any ARPGlike game, the heavy focus on frequent elites with heavy rush down and large aoe in act 2 while having drastically lower density of trash compared to act 1, which while having plenty of elites and projectiles to deal with, the focus was clearly more on the power fantasy. The switch from one style to the other we have seen happen in games like Path of Exile's Archenemies league saw less mobs and incredibly tanky and difficult elites, over all the league was not one of the more beloved by the player base and prompted devs to spend several leagues back pedling on those changes. Where this bridge starts to feel more awkward in DMD is when you finally grind up good gear, talents, and solid blessings, the elites fall over just as easily as the trash and what you are left with is, IME, up to 10 seconds of 0 to 3 mobs on the screen. Being over powered in act 1 felt rewarding, while to me feeling overpowered in act 2 feels incredibly underwhelming and more trivializing than satisfying.

Which brings me to my next and probably biggest point of contention, Checks. Every game revolves around some kind of check for encounters, trash clear being a flat or rising DPS check, Elites being either a skill and dps check, and bosses generally being Skill(Reaction), gear(DPS Defense) and Knowledge(Mechanics, Timings and DPS windows) checks all wrapped into one, Building characters being a knowledge check of its own of course. These are all standard fair in RPGs as a whole with slight variation and usually if your DPS is high enough you can bypass other checks. The problem I see is the whiplash in what checks are important. While the Knight always had builds and gear focused on survival and reflecting damage, this was more a niche than a standard, meanwhile the other classes would focus on our ranging, weaving in and out with dashes, or just nuking tankier targets, it always felt like taking damage was either a conscious choice for reflect or a failed check on the players part. A highlight of the survivors/bullet heaven style of games has seemingly always been that all damage is avoidable either by our dpsing or dodging mechanics, act 1 you can do no hit runs on any character fairly reliably given you have the dps and mechanics. However in act 2, the first boss thrown at the player has a massive AOE damage zone that heavily punishes melee for trying to DPS leaving your only options as tank it or run in a circle till you have a DPS window(imo this is fine, I just think he is a little to tanky to justify it as a first boss encounters core mechanic), on top of that he can curse the player with a variety randomly rolled debuffs and then follows up with an AOE damage multi hit rush down move that WILL immediately rush you down again when dashing away. What this causes most players to experience, especially while trying to grind up decent t2 gear, is a defense check where the player takes unavoidable damage and just has to out gear it to survive. These checks while not uncommon in ARPGs, are fairly uncommon, if existent at all in other survivors games, and in both instances are often reserved for climactic encounters such as campaign, act, end game bosses depending on the game in question. Which again is very different from the boss design of act 1. Honorable mentions to the Insect sentinels and their twitch reaction ground beams, the Laser cats that slow you, and the over all focus on cover tactics to avoid damage by hiding behind pillars, be it laster cats or the latter 2 bosses. I don't have a ton of extended thoughts on these, just other examples of dramatic shifts in game play and pacing with how you approach encounters.

As a side note, legendary blessings seem a little too common and takes away from the excitement of getting them to a degree that almost becomes a frustrating when you don't get one or two.

My conclusion and TLDR to this long winded post is this. New players are being met with an abrupt change in pacing and difficulty after a single act 1 clear, and long time players are being told that everything they have learned and been conditioned to expect has been dramatically slowed down and altered in the style of encounters they will face. I forgot to mention XP both being lower combined with the lower density earlier as a major shift but I do feel this attributes to the division as well.

Sorry if this is a little long winded and ranty, I am enjoying the game, but I think the Check system being dramatically different is a major factor that I'm not seeing talked about and would love to hear others thoughts on the topic. Games still fun, but frustrating in ways that can often feel lame.

Or maybe I'm just salty because I got surrounded by slow laser cats in a way I couldn't hide behind the pillar and was forced to take a big hit of damage.

TLDR: We swapped from Avoidance to a blend of avoidance and high durability, slower scaling, lower density and higher difficulty in select encounters. Also cover tactics in a game that previously felt incredibly power fantasy focused even on low gear, in a genre that is incredibly density focused.