My three pain-points for POE2
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Kind of fell out of love with POE1, but like everyone else I got hyped for POE2. Loving the game. Enjoying my time in early access but as with all titles... I feel if money is exchanged in some form, its a soft launch and POE2 could have used more time in the oven before launching into even early access.
My three main issues with the game: 1. Skill Gems / Skill choice: I see a lot of skills but I don't have a lot of choice. Whether I load up a sorc or a witch, at level 1 my choices at the start (and for the next many hours) are generally either arc/spark, or some sort of minion. Hell, I dont think you can even run with a basic fireball until skill gem level 9 unless you find a staff. And I like that skills are native to some weapons, but then Im forced to use THAT weapon type if I want to run with that skill until the skill gem level opens up. My suggestion would be to move a lot of the skill gems that come later into early game so we have more to work with. The same issue applies to support gems. Theres nothing interesting. Cant really explain it any better. I simply feel limited in choice and gated into a small handful of skills for the first 1-2+ hours of a new character, at minimum. In POE1, in 1-2 hours youre potentially in act 4 with dozens of choices. 2. Campaign zones & mob respawn on death: As if the game isn't slow, grindy, and punishing enough (which I love compared to POE1). But a part of my soul dies when my character dies no where near a waypoint and I need to re-clear...everything. In the campaign. I understand that you want to throw this medium-core stuff into endgame. I welcome it. But while Im getting through the campaign, I don't want to be hindered by re-clearing everything. It becomes more soul crushing than dying 15 times to a boss. Please re-consider this. It isn't fun to reclear, it isn't "difficult". Its simply annoying and demoralizing. I dont think it serves a purpose. 3. Ascendancy: Take your pick of streamer and listen to their feedback on this. People didn't like lab in POE1. You took lab, made it longer, made it frustrating, and in ultimatum's case, made it nearly impossible for your 5/6 and 7/8 points. People are spending hours doing this. I see it all day in chat. This isn't "my" gripe. Its a lot of peoples. Kripp and Ziz had some choice words for it I believe. And I think it was Mathil that said (correct me if Im wrong) the idea behind it is good but the actual content just doesn't fit with what we are doing. We are blasting through a game and have to deal with frustratingly out of place and overtuned modifiers that we cannot mitigate. I would make a bet that most people aren't going for their 5/6 and 7/8 points. GGG has the data, they can see if we are. tldr; you've made ascending, the one real thing that separates the 'classes' and makes things interesting, a toxic task to go through. Please re-think this. Just my two cents. While Im enjoying my time (more than I have in POE1 in the last 2-3 years), Im beginning to get bored because of the painpoints above. Last bumped on Dec 12, 2024, 12:49:12 PM
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I'm with you on the ascendancy. I got my 4 points and will not even attempt the last again. I just spend an hour doing sekhema for 5/6 points only to get gibbed by a gastrap that I didn't know existed. It swallowed my 1k honour within 1.5 second and I was like 4 or 5 rooms from final boss.
I am legit shaking from anger and disappointment right now. Until they either ditch that stupid honour system or we get something else to get ascend points from, I am done trying with it and will see how far I can go with just the 4 points. |
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Let's take a mechanic only a fraction of players liked (Sanctum) and put it as a mandatory thing in PoE 2 !
When Sanctum came out, I did predict this would be the trials in PoE 2. People laughed at me, and must say I hate to be right. Last edited by leto2626#2588 on Dec 12, 2024, 11:11:22 AM
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" Sanctum for ascendancy really pissed me off, and then I did trial of Chaos and it was ungodly difficult and I was even more annoyed. I absolutely despise Lab in PoE1, but it wouldn't be terrible if the traps were removed. In PoE2 it is just absolutely horrendous to ascend, and if you get terrible rooms for Sekhemas as melee your honour is just clapped by the end. That's not a good system IMO. Why not use a similar system but ditch the stupid honour mechanic? Ultimatum Trial of Chaos is absurdly overtuned. I have like moments of really enjoying PoE2 and then I interact with a certain boss or system and I am back to feeling entirely frustrated again. So much about I love and so much about it is just ungodly irritating. |
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Agree with all of your points OP.
I'd take the lab over this ascendancy aberration every day of the week. |
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How about making your 1st point to be to post on the correct PoE2 fourn?
Steps: Click forum Index Check PoE2 EA section Post this in general discussion there (for PoE2) so it will reach the actual audience. Good luck. |
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I have to say, I generally agree, but I would like to expand on things:
1. They have only half the classes and less than half the skill gems in. (And for some god forsaken reason, even basic skills are locked behind leveling up.) But it is also down to the design. In PoE 1, you have 1 main skill, and a couple supports. So 1 new skill is an entire build. In PoE2, if it's not interacting with 5 other skills in some degenerate way, it does particularly pidly damage, and so isn't even a skill. (Like seriously, what is rain of arrows, when it's sexier cousin that actually synergizes with other skills is available from level 1?) 2. Fully agree, honestly. Especially with the zone layout being extremely long, circuitous and mazelike, when all you want to do is get to the objective. The extreme monster density and bullet spongy nature. The HP suggests that it's supposed to be intense fight after fight... but the density is what you'd expect when you're supposed to be mowing them down with reckless abandon. (Also, the fact that every single area is more claustrophobic and filled with infinite speed wolves that will always be able to surround and gang you when you stop feeling like the monsters are worth killing.) 3. And...mostly agree... I tried Sanctum, hated it, and never played it again. Never had to until PoE 2. The design is a shit ton better than original sanctum, and I find it much more palatable, personally. These trials have definitely got some balancing work to be done. That's expected for an early access. I legit thought that there would be 3 options you'd get to run for you ascendancies so that if you hated lab, you didn't have to run it 3-4 times every single character. And I 100% know that many people, hated lab... but had to do it anyway. And eventually just became numb to it. Last edited by ShacoFinder#3077 on Dec 12, 2024, 11:50:10 AM
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" I totally agree. They should open up the skill gem choice more. All the gems scale in level. Let people use what they want. I can understand why they did this. They wanted to gate the choices to make it more approachable for new players so they don't have to pick from 20+ different skills right at the beginning. Also it makes them get a sense of "wow" when they unlock a cool new ability. This is only true for the first 1 or 2 play-throughs though. I think they can solve this by just having only the default gems for that level show initially. Unless you uncheck "show recommended". Another possible solution would be to have a "Veteran" mode where you can things are level locked on the first play through, but after you beat the campaign you can enable it for other play-throughs and it lets you use any skill gem from the start without level locking. |
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A knock on effect of this level gating system is that you can't get a low level version of the higher skills (as far as I know). Like how can you get a level 1 gem that is unlocked by tier 13/14+ ?
If you wanted to run a low level version of some off class skill for utility reasons but the minimum level of that gem is too high it can prevent you from doing this because of stat requirements. I actually want to do this on my character now. I wanted to run ball lighting on my monk for extra shocking / lightning exposure, but the minimum level is too high for my stats. Maybe when you cut it, it could start at level 1 and you can just level to the level you want? |
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some good points. Mobs re-spawning and sanctum (although I think it's not too bad), I hope GGG considers addressing these two issues, although I think they will just make sanctum easier. The former issue is exacerbated by the huge zone sizes.
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