Director: 'We don’t have to worry' about Diablo 4’s game-breaking damage figures.

Action RPGs can be complex, but players are simple. They want power in any way possible, even if that trivializes the game. Every Diablo 4 season, there's been something that does more damage than is necessary. Blizzard has to play whack a mole to keep the game balanced without causing everyone to get upset.

Jonathan Rogers, the game director of Path of Exile 2 joked about Diablo 4's ridiculous numbers of damage when explaining why he didn't think that his game would have this problem on a recent podcast episode of Tavern Talk, hosted by streamers Darth Microtransaction & GhazzyTV.

"PoE 1 was crazy, but we had years where things were not like that," he said. "Our numbers aren't as high as some games and they're not as exponential, so we don't have to worry about trillions of dollars in damage or anything else like that."

Rogers said that the team is "careful", when it comes to giving power increases which feel good, versus power gains that break the game. One, the numbers in PoE 2 is much smaller. Diablo 4 has 200 intelligence, while an item may only give you nine. This makes the numbers more visible during combat so that players don't have to squint in order to see which attack has more zeros.

"I don’t think we're going to have do a numbers squash or anything like that," said he, possibly referring to what Blizzard attempted and failed to achieve with the Vessel of Hatred extension. It was only a partial success: Diablo 4's damage numbers were lower than before, until you reached max level. There are a thousand different ways to increase them again. PoE 2 isn't like that. It has the slow-paced combat you'd expect from a soulslike. You won't be teleporting around dungeons leaving a trail of dead bodies behind you.

Grinding Gear Games is still evaluating the situation. Rogers says that the team is constantly arguing about how high to set the numbers. "Together, I think we reach a kind of middle ground where we don't let things get too out of hand."

Diablo 4 is a game that I enjoy playing with broken items. It's not a MOBA in which balance issues ruin the experience of everyone else. Sometimes you want to see huge numbers. GGG's desire to prevent PoE 2 becoming a "flavor of the month" action RPG is understandable. It's inevitable that players will identify the best and the worst, but keeping the gap between them small is admirable. It's not fun to spend hours on a build only to see someone else rip through the game because of a bug. I hope that nothing like this happens during PoE 2 early access. However, I can't guarantee I won't jump on the bandwagon if it does.
PoE 2 will be available in early access from December 6.