Why POE2’s Direction Is Worrying for Veterans and Newcomers Alike

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LeFlesh#9979 wrote:

No. You are making the same mistake thinking those two things are inexorably bound together. They are entirely independent.

Essentially? Sure. In a PoE environment? Not a chance. Hell, the last five leagues of PoE 1 never went core. If you wanted to experience those, you had to play the leagues. Standard league never got anything but some drip feeds several leagues after. Hell, it almost became the norm; a league giving us temporary power, just to remove said power when the league ended to hinder power creep by not adding the mechanic to the core game.

Look, you can like it or not. I'm not judging you for wanting to play in a permanent environment. PoE 2 will be 99% centered around seasons and season mechanics will not come to standard regularly. EVERY balance decision will be made with temporary leagues in mind.

Deny this at your own risk, but I'm telling you that you will be very disappointed. It's their freakin' business model.

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LeFlesh#9979 wrote:

More F R E S H'r mind-virus posting. Update the game world with actual novel content, not needless character wipes.

You do realise that updating the game by adding new layers of mechanics would still require you to beat campaign once again so you can understand the additions in a more sandboxy environment? Adden layers of complexity affect the balance of the gameplay as a whole - numbers are getting reiterated, additional challenges can be applied. So if you log with your current character after half-a-year and realise that its impossible to do anything cuz you have no anoints/catalysts/enchants for example and you cant even get to the content that yields anything to you without huge step back in the current progress (read map tiers) - youre most likely to simply close the game and say that its a shitshow now. Even old games that are receieving dlc/content updates are being replayed from scratch, because the properly designed campaigns should also help you to become introduced and adapted to new mechanics, so your build can make sense at the endgame.

I played PoE 1 less than for ~1 hour in total (just not my cup of tea). My last favorite ARPG was classic D2 20+ years ago, everything else didn't keep me as attached for more than a couple of hours. Lost Ark doesn't count, since for me it was more of a dress up game for characters than actual playing. So when I speak about PoE 2, I want everybody to understand from what perspective I'm coming.

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Kaukus1#7461 wrote:

1. Slow Doesn’t Mean Better
The combat in PoE2 can feel fluid and rewarding, with mechanics that encourage skillful play. But everything around the combat—like movement, preparation, and pacing—feels unnecessarily slow. Removing movement skills like Flame Dash or Leap Slam doesn’t make the game more challenging; it just makes exploration and backtracking tedious, especially in large maps.

Frankly, exploration feels fine, now especially since GGG added teleportation between checkpoints.

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Kaukus1#7461 wrote:

2. Difficulty Isn’t About Tedium
I keep hearing that PoE2 is “more difficult.” But is it really? True difficulty isn’t about inflating enemy health pools and dragging players into tedious, repetitive loops of poking, retreating, and waiting for enemies to finally die. That’s not engaging—it’s exhausting.

Heavily depends on play-style and chosen skill set. At some point I was playing exactly like this due to chosen skills, but eventually changed them into something that freed me from poking, retreating and waiting for enemies to die all the time.

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Kaukus1#7461 wrote:

3. Flasks and the “Vision”
Yes, flasks now refill on kills, which is better than the original PoE2 reveal. But the addition of refill wells still feels unnecessary and redundant. The whole system feels like a solution to a problem that didn’t exist in PoE1. Instead of adding depth, it just slows down the pacing.

Doesn't feels to me as tedious as you describe it.

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Kaukus1#7461 wrote:

4. Crafting Is a Mess
No deterministic crafting is a joke. The devs say they want us to craft more, but how? Without reliable tools like crafting benches or alt rolls, crafting feels like throwing currency into the void and praying for a miracle. The lack of control isn’t engaging—it’s exhausting.

Yep, this one is too annoying. I have no faith in RNGesus, thus I trade for new stuff with exalts I find.

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Kaukus1#7461 wrote:

5. Drops and Vendors
If you like the current loot drops, more power to you. But even if you do, they’re still poorly designed. Vendors have been given more power, but drops feel so sparse that crafting currency barely exists, especially in the early game.

Agree with this one as well. Pretty much forces me to use trade instead of crafting, which is the opposite of GGG's original intent.

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Kaukus1#7461 wrote:

6. The Skill Tree Is Disappointing
The new skill tree looks like POE1’s tree but feels hollow in comparison. The nodes are uninspired, and the restrictive layout makes it harder to create unique or unconventional builds. The inability to travel across the tree freely stifles creativity.

I like current Passive Skill Tree as it is right now, as it is allows me to modify the play-style in a way I want, without much penalty.

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Kaukus1#7461 wrote:

7. The Gem System Isn’t Fun
The new gem system isn’t engaging. It’s clunky, and the fact that gems don’t stack just highlights how half-baked it feels. The uncut gem mechanic might seem interesting, but in practice, it’s just another layer of grind.

For me gem-based skill system, where I can shuffle skills the way I want is one of the most entertaining parts of the gem, where I can try out various combinations and see what result am I getting without a loss. If anything, it deserves preset feature that allows to change gem combination during battle (or at some other time). And if all gems were stackable and usable from the get go, imagine what kind of passives GGG had to give Gemling Legionnaire to make this class feasible/desirable.

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Kaukus1#7461 wrote:

8. The Campaign Is Too Long
Some players praise the longer campaign, but for leagues, this is a disaster. Every league, we’ll have to slog through this overly long campaign multiple times. POE1’s campaign is already considered a chore by many veterans, and POE2’s is shaping up to be even worse. A longer campaign doesn’t mean better retention—it just means more burnout.

Agree on this one. Campaign should be done one time (maybe normal once + cruel once) and that's it. This is why I won't be doing any leagues and will just be patiently waiting for league mechanics to be transferred to standard league.

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Kaukus1#7461 wrote:

9. Ascendancies and Trials
Why can’t we change ascendancies anymore? Is this supposed to be a challenge? It’s just restrictive for no reason. And Trials… who thought combining Ultimatum and Sanctum mechanics was a good idea? Trials are tedious, clunky, and far from enjoyable. It feels like GGG took the least-loved mechanics and doubled down on them, which is baffling.

Totally agree. Especially with every class getting 3 ascendancies on release, players should have capability to switch them at will, just like other passive skills. Yeah, it should cost some gold, but not too much. And trials should be less punishing - at least allow player to replay it until it is complete. Same with maps and endgame - single death and everything ends? GGG uses wrong approach, especially since anything can randomly one-shot you.

Dude, thank you for highlighting these issues, I loved POE 1 and was hoping POE 2 would fix the problems with POE 1 , but it seems like they added more problems.

I don't have a direct issue with the direction of the combat of the game, but I agree that some abilities and actions are just slow for now obvious reasons.

Also the removal of movement skills while making the map larger was not a smart choice at all, also leap slam and shield charge are really bad to play with and do not help with movement anymore.

Another thing I want to add was trading, trading is such a chore in both games, and I hope that they would add a full fledged auction house, not just for currencies but also for items, as having to DM people just to get an item is just the worst experience I had with POE in general so far.

Another thing I hope for was providing ways to make character building and crafting more accessible, I don't mean by reducing the depth for them, but to at least provide some clearance on how to make good working builds, as a build heavily relies on both skills of choice, passive tree and items crafting. You need to somehow know what would work fine with what and how to finally get a functioning build. Now this would be difficult to pull off but at least provide some indicators

Like for example, indicators for desired defensive stats for each level/map tier, or when adding a support gem/aura/herald skill, to show you how it will affect the current skills exactly, for example some support gems say they support this skill, but not all of it, lets say if the skill has an on hit part and an explosion part, that support will affect only the explosion part, it should say so.

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Phrazz#3529 wrote:

Essentially? Sure.

That's my entire point.

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Phrazz#3529 wrote:

In a PoE environment? Not a chance.

This is POE2. GGG's creation of a sequel at all instead of just more leagues is tangible evidence to the contrary.

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LeFlesh#9979 wrote:

This is POE2. GGG's creation of a sequel at all instead of just more leagues is tangible evidence to the contrary.

As I said; deny it at your own risk. You are free to believe whatever you want. The moon landing was fake, the earth is flat and PoE will not be centered around temporary leagues.

There is no risk. Why did GGG make POE2? Why not just spend those resources on more leagues in POE1?

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LeFlesh#9979 wrote:

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Toforto#2372 wrote:

You do realize that if they delete leagues the game is instantly dead right?

More F R E S H'r mind-virus posting. Update the game world with actual novel content, not needless character wipes.

The game you seek in your mind is not the game GGG is going to deliver no matter how much you push back against the 1 vets with vitriol.

GGG have their way and that's the game you're going to get complete with 3-4 month wipes for new content and largely unsupported "Standard" mode that you can play in but where no one has any sympathy or respect for your obsolete toons

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LeFlesh#9979 wrote:

There is no risk. Why did GGG make POE2? Why not just spend those resources on more leagues in POE1?

because 1 is hopelessly broken, completely unfixable.

I have felt for a year that their ultimate plan is to let 1 die it's deserved, bloated death.

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Querker#1809 wrote:

updating the game by adding new layers of mechanics would still require you to beat campaign once again so you can understand the additions in a more sandboxy environment?

That is a dubious claim. Additions could incorporate means for new/returning players to catch-up/acclimate.