Feedback from casual gamer

Hello dear PoE creators,
this is coming from casual aRPG gamer that enjoyed the Diablo series as well as PoE1.
Sorry in advance for the lengthy post.

I really enjoy PoE2 graphics and the level of detail and thoroughness that was applied to the PoE realm.

These are my gripes with the game:
1. game is unnecessarily too difficult, bosses have very interesting dynamics but it is not possible to defeat them on 3rd, fourth, 20th encounter. Let me explain, I played sorceress and all was going fine until I encountered fallen Consort and her Male twin - each in their own tombs - I was level 9 at the time, went with damage passives and just little bit of energy shield, and I was not able to beat their strategy just trying and trying in a row.
Then I thought maybe you need to grind the levels, get at least 2-3 levels up, get more passives and then try - and this did the trick.
This was the first moment I thought why is this game so difficult: yes one can see the telegraphed moves, but it gets progressively difficult as the boss fight progresses, and casting on lvl 13 is very slow, I did not take casting speed increase passives since I wanted to make more damage.

With this complex a game, you should have enabled gamers to choose how challenging an encounter should be. My sorceress is a glass tooth pick, I see no mayor passives that would make her more durable, spending one single point to just +3% casting speed increase does not seem worth it to me.

At the moment I don't even have any spell to teleport out of danger, I get surrounded by enemies where dodging just does not work - why chars cannot dodge through enemies?

Someone correctly compared PoE2 as dark souls of aRPG and this is to my very big regret, the truth.

2. Why didn't you implement better inventory management?
Game like this is as much about killing mobs as it is about collecting loot. You've developed much more playing subsystems and each requires new items, new gems etc. but you have left ancient inventory management, why o why? 8 slots for great hammer, really? why? is this great hammer supposed to be real-life like stuff, and casting lightning storms and fire walls etc is not? it makes zero sense to me that in a full fantasy world like PoE you leave more realistic inventory management? Why?
Should it not be just list/mesh of of all items, in categories, every item the same space, you can have 1 great hammer, you can have 1000 greathammers in inventory - it should NOT make a difference. The enjoyment is not in going back and forth to town hub just to offload, at least not to me. I keep constantly rearranging stuff since there is no auto arrange, no compact inventory to squeeze one more staff, all in the same very limited inventory space. Similar applies to stash which should be bottomless pit and tabs should be per item type like gems tab, weapons tab, currencies tab etc.

3. Passive skill tree is so daunting that it really needs guidance from you, the designers of the game.
Let me explain, there are so many options, so little understanding what is better, for instance should I go with 10% more spell damage or +5 intelligence? Which will make me kill monsters quicker? If I go intelligence route, I do not have levels enough to activate damage increase too - absuredly high amount of nodes for just levelling.
The way the tree is now, char should get with each level 20 points to invest in the tree, not measly one level, cmon devs, what's that pls? I tried and tried levelling and after 3 new levels, managed to take higher fire damage node and to some damn luck and 10 retries managed to take care of tomb consort (all mid act 1).

It feels like I just enrolled to first hour of 6-year medical college, not game for enjoyment. Maybe that's just me.

Having no real penalty for dying does not give much to the player - I keep not progressing since I cannot beat the boss, then all the mobs resurrect on the map so I can grind the more for another measly +3% quicker casting speed? Really, and that would make me good enough to beat next boss? I think not, I tried, it was not enough.

I understood that PoE2 is single-player game and that gamer should be able to play the game single, without other players help. You have made it punishingly tough.

Then I thought maybe I should play as warrior - what a joke, my warrior was not even able to kill the first semi-boss of the first act (not the one on the beach but further in the next map) - I was unpleasantly surprised that I can kill more bosses with my sorceress then with warrior who needs to get close, stand in more AoE dangerous grounds, is not more durable, does not have quicker dodge or something other to compensate for not using ranged attacks.

Why is there no completeyl- free option to respect passives? Since it is soo complex, so unknown what is better, what is not, why can't I respec every time I go to town? And it will progressively cost more gold? Why?

I just wanted to be good enough, be strong enough to kill the mobs, slowly, carefully, on my own, and not die every few steps, and when encountering boss, die 2-3 times, manage to do it on the 4th try without grinding 5 levels in between or respeccing for that boss in particular.

At the moment I am still in mid Act 1, currently on the map before ogham farmlands, the map Frey-something that is all in canopy - trying to cleanse the altars, and the final altar boss is too tough for me. It was not enough that boss is tough, he now resurrects refilling his healthbar completely. Having so much happening on the screen when fighting boss reminds me a little of Returnal with million of killer missiles flying all around the place - how can I, ffs, avoid purple swarms, avoid large pulsing gravity ball, avoid boss stunning me with some root spell, avoid purple totems, avoid ...? and be able to cast slow casting flamewall, slowercasting firebolt. Dodging is slow, AoE activation from the mobs and bosses is punishingly quick. And it is doable by me when there are like 2-3 simultaneous events like these in the arena but when boss spams it to more, I cannot live through it. Why then cannot I spam 40 firewalls, 20 storm balls that are rooted in place etc.? it does not seem balanced at all. All I get is 2 firewalls that cast randomly and a single storm orb (second row of skills, I do not have 3rd row unlocked yet).

These are my thoughts and I'm disappointed to say, I was glad I went with only access to EA, no additional support.

PoE1 was already on the verge of being too tough for me, and PoE2 takes it to insanely difficult level.
I am so discouraged to play more by the sheer force of difficulty - should I try, should I grind? but what for? another +3% casting speed for which I need 2 hours going through already cleared maps? really? it is not worth it... so I decide to exit the game.

At least for the time being...
Needlessly difficult
Needlessly thousands of choices that easily make you weak - from million of different paths it feels to me like only 10 are efficient, I definitely will not be competent enough to piece together which are those 10 efficient levelling paths from millions possible ones.

As much as I hate saying it, to me Diablo IV is much more pleasurable experience. yes simplified, yes repetitive but so is PoE2 when I need to grind grind grind for just +3% casting speed increase... unfathomable to my regressive mind it seems.

Games should be doable,
games should be fun,
games are not lifetime studies or challenging undertakings.
Games should be accessible like DragonAge Veilguard, easy, enjoyable, nice to interact, nice to spend time within their worlds, not die much (every game is so obsessed with killing the protagonist-why? we'll all die in real life , why do I need to die thousand times in game too?).

Guess, u missed all the times when GGG said that POE2 is going to be hard and different from POE1, so they going to keep both games running to please players.

Its pretty clear from what u wrote that most - if not all - your problems r just skill issue and if POE1 was already difficult for u, then it should be obvious that POE2 is going to be only harder.

Thanks for commenting... yes, I'm unable to feel I'm good at this game. I do try to use the right skill with the right support gem with the right weapon with the right other gear but bear in mind that I'm still in Act 1, just after Tomb of Consort with 2 tombs with 1 boss in each.

I even naively thought that killing one boss in one tomb will make the fight with another boss in another tomb on the same map easier since the bosses are helping each other but it wasn't like that. It did not matter when fighting 2nd boss that I dispatched first boss before that fight. Still tough, still retry multiple times even though I do know what I need to dodge, what to evade, where not to stand, when to start casting slow spells.

That is why I will need to wait for pros to come up with guides how to level up, which passive to pick at which time with which weapon that you can find in which map.

I was thorough in exploring all, trying to get +X% resistance as award for some boss, but all that amounted to being as squishy and glass-toothpicky as hell.

And warrior is no better. Conan the Barbarian would be ashamed of such a bloke cccc, all the muscles are just for show and not efficient from the get-go at all. My sorceress (lvl 12 now) died less than my warrior (lvl 5).

I read that players later become more powerful but it should not be such struggle along the way. I can see in sorceress repertoire that there will be some sweet spells later on but I cannot unlock them yet, no lvl 5, lvl 6, lvl 7 skill gem in my inventory. And to get one I need to use low level skill with less efficiency. I haven't even unlocked 3rd spell row on Elemental tab. Eh.

So much struggle, so much grind - to me it feels the game is designed in a way that when you open new map, it is mandatory to go through that same map like 5 times in a row, and then proceed with quest by going to next map/area. Maybe rinse and repeat 10 times, not just 5-to be on the safe side grind 20 times per map as a deliberate design choice...
oh well, it sucks. Others love it, I do not.

I do understand what you're saying with this post but I think your asking for this game to be something it isn't.

If you want the game you're describing there are other ARPGs that do exactly that. This is a much more challenging slower paced arpg which is more movement/roll focussed. A souls arpg like and intentionally so

Diablo 4 exists and is brilliant. Why not play that for a casual yet fantastic game? I have over 750 hours in that.

POE 2 has to be different. It is.

This game is not too difficult.

Test builds, put attention to the gear, learn how new mechanics.

Learn how to play, this game is way different kind in comparing to poe1 or diablo. This is the biggest positive thing in the game.

Game is not to hard to play, just learn how to play.

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BlueBluey#0633 wrote:

X

No. Other than inventory management which I agree, it's left unchanged in time for some reason. Other than that, the game is totally fine.

Your inability to read and think is not a designflaw KEKW
If you want a game that holds your hand and plays itself go to Diablo or poe1 with guides.