POE2 isn't "Hard." It's unfun.

I hate to say this but they need to take some pointers from Daiblo 4. Loot drops need to be better especially on boss fights and they need to "sound" better too. The sound is very important. It needs to sound explosive especially when something cool drops. Nothing worse then beating an act boss and all that drops is 10 gold and a couple blue pieces of gear that has nothing to do with your class and hear it land like a little thud. The mob fights feel like a sluggish chore and the roll roll roll roll roll roll roll attack repeat boss fights get mundane after a while. I do like the tree and skills it's just everything else is wha-wha but it is early access so maybe they can fix it up.

I'm enjoying POE2, but the games too hard at times and the reward for defeating bosses is usually nothing. I mean you'll get a few blues and sometimes a yellow. POE1 always gave you drops when you needed them. I don't know how they did it, but they perfected the drop rate so that you get gear right around when you need it. That's not the case for POE2. I hope they fix this because it would make it more enjoyable and not super hard. I like difficulty, but this is too much.

I find everything about POE2 better.
Especially the map layouts in campaign. They were so bad in poe.

Remember, you will never get an experience like poe again because the starting conditions will never be the same.

It's kinda like losing your first dog and not being happy with a better dog b/c he's not what you remember loving.

Love you Nico Man

Personally I don't find it hard. "Unfun" is a good way to describe it, though. It's not that I'm blocked from progressing--far from it, it's just that progressing isn't fun when the gameplay itself isn't fun.

I'm not sure how much of this is the game being unfinished, though. It's surprising to me how many skills are missing. It's like... the core of an ARPG, and a weird decision to make for early access, to omit basics like most melee skills, SWORDS (the most basic fantasy archetype of a weapon), etc. You have a passive skill tree where 50% of the bonuses apply to items that don't exist in the game.

The game will probably get a lot better once all the skills are finished and added in. That being said... what doesn't surprise me is what doesn't "work" for me. My guess before release was that they leaned too far towards "innovating" gameplay, and that's basically what everyone is complaining about. Skill combos necessarily, by design, lead to less player agency as the developer designs a combo you're supposed to use and if you don't you are way less effective. This is what I call "Simon Says" game design. You do what the developer decided you should do or you are less efficient. It's anathema to how PoE 1 was designed.

I suppose in the end that's what it comes down to. PoE 2 is very different from PoE 1 at a basic design principle level. If you liked PoE 1, it stands to reason you may bounce off PoE 2. I definitely do, so far. I enjoy parts of it... but not as much as I'd enjoy it if it was more like PoE 1. It really has nothing to do with difficulty and adaptation, and everything to do with gameplay tastes. Just like preferring Bayonetta to Dark Souls has nothing to do with being "bad" at games.

A fair gripe, I suggest, is that they have put so much effort and time and money into developing a game that does not cater to the tastes of their previously existing audience. Yes, we still have PoE 1, but unless their development priorities drastically change, PoE 1 is just not going to get anywhere near the "new stuff" that PoE 2 gets. It's going to remain a backburner priority for the company, and people are going to wonder "what if" they had catered to their fans instead of trying to invent a new gameplay style.

It's not fun.

I dunno man….I’m having a blast.

It’s challenging for sure, and I have a feeling they will be balancing things over time. But the boss fights actually take some skill unlike D4.

I only started playing PoE1 a few weeks ago and hadn’t even hit endgame yet, but by the time this came out I was nuking giant groups of mobs with zero effort, and bosses were easy.

I dig the challenge level of PoE2. I was having trouble with the two bosses in the cemetery dungeons, so I just went back and farmed a level or two and came back to beat them

Anyway, there are always people loving and hating on every new game that comes out. I say just enjoy the challenge. It’s a mindset thing.

I'm enjoying it.

I get why it might not please everyone, but... the same team doing POE 1 leagues will continue doing so after this POE 2 crunch period. Its not going away, you can STILL play it :)

POE2 Boss Fights

Attack, Attack, Roll, Attack, Roll, Attack, Roll, Attack, Roll, Roll, Roll, Attack, Roll, Roll, Attack, Roll…

1-10 minutes later…

2 Possible outcomes:

1) Dead - (Usually a 1-shot where you missed one Roll) Do it all over again
2) Killed Boss - Get a blue, rune and a currency item

The boss fights are challenging for sure, and beating a boss can feel like quite an accomplishment, but they take far too long for far too little loot. As a result, I just don't look forward to boss fights. I couldn't imagine having to restart a trial from the beginning after doing multiple sections and dying to the boss at the end. How long would that take to repeat?

I feel like an ARPG should give you better rewards based on effort required so I'm not enjoying this as much as I thought I would.

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FreeLookMode#1750 wrote:

Played all day yesterday and this morning. Tried several classes, respeced for more defense, shield, health, offense, everything.

It would be one thing if the game gradually progressed in challenge in a fun way. It would even be OK if as you approached end game there were tiers of encounters that really pushed even the most professional full time gamer to the limits.

If I couldn't defeat that content, I would at least still have a lot of game that I could play instead. This game starts you out on a mission to punish from moment one. It's not fun.

I am sick to death of every game trying to be dark souls. I've heard people saying that POE1 was "hard" in the beginning. First of all, no it wasn't - not like this. I wanted a game the felt like an evolution of POE1 or ARPGS in general. This has totally transformed it into the kind of game that is NEVER fun for me to play, and excludes me from enjoying the game at all.

I'm just gutted. It's such a disappointment.

I'm having more fun in PoE 2 than I ever did in PoE 1.

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Xyel#0284 wrote:

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bachgaman#6713 wrote:

It's amusing to see people who, just a week ago, were complaining that POE1 is too complex theoretically, now flexing that the mechanical difficulty of POE2 is the game's greatest advantage. It's obvious, though, that theoretical complexity > mechanical complexity, as even a monkey can be taught to time a dodge correctly.

That was before they found out that they don't have the mechanical skill xD

The majority of PoE1's difficulty was in the complexity and buildmaking. But you could skip all that by following a build guide, as you could skip game's mechanics by overstacking stats, be they defense or offense. Quite a few people play PoE1 that way, and when they easily plow through a game that's considered difficult, it provides an illusion that they are great at it.

Now, PoE2 is here, and the difficulty starts in act 1, where you can neither build guide your way through it, nor overstack stats to ignore the game's mechanics, and so quite a few people have a horrible case of cognitive dissonance from the game, because they found the hard way that they aren't all that good at the game.

This is the most disingenuous load of crap.