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

I disagree with not all, but most of what you said. Also, you don't speak for everyone so maybe change your dramatic title.

Lots of people did not like POE1 and for that reason I don't think its a useful benchmark especially since for both games to coexist, differentiation is needed.

Pacing - That's a hard disagree from me. Everything is on adhd twitchmode now a days and its become utterly boring. When I experienced the slower more methodical combat I immediately thought "about effn time". If they change this it will be a major disappointment. Judging by the concurrent count, there's a lot of us that feel this way.


Difficulty. I don't think this game is difficult. Once I learned my character and abilities difficulty dropped significantly. At first I found it frustrating, but I was being impatient and in the end I appreciated the steep curve. Its easy to swap out skill and sup gems or to farm necessary resistance. I do not want 1 build face-rolls. I want to find my own solutions to challenging problems. In D4 the only reason I tried a different build was to stave off boredom.

POE1 gem and skill tree was a complete turn off. I do not want to need a study guide to play a game.

Conversely, I went into POE2 cold and figured everything out with relative ease. No guides,no youtube, no forums. I was able to figure out which resistances I needed, what abilities work and when.

Crafting and drops needs improvement. Full stop. Agreed

Don't touch the campaigns. Its a good story and the world is interesting. I don;t know how having a long campaign stop you from having fun. You're still progressing.

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I Want to Love POE2, But It’s Hard
As a veteran, I want to see POE2 succeed. I want it to be different, but it also needs to respect the core systems that have kept players invested in POE1 for years. Right now, it feels like GGG is prioritizing their “vision” over what actually works.

To the newer players defending these changes without understanding their long-term impact: you’re not helping. Ignoring valid criticism isn’t supporting the game; it’s enabling bad design. Constructive feedback is what helps games improve. POE2 has the potential to be great, but it needs to address these issues before it alienates the very players who’ve been its foundation for years.

Its bad design for you. POE2 is my GOTY. The challenge could be increased actually.

You want a bigger skill tree, faster combat, a shorter campaigns, easier bosses and an easier game. You have that essentially, its POE1. You do realize that's what you're asking for, right?

And new players can't express themselves because ...we're contributing to a bad design? Maybe this game is for new players.The market is already inundated with 1 click facerolls. I want them to dig into difficulty. I want to be challenged. If you're having to back up and poke then build differently. I've played war and merc and the only time I was forced to run and poke is when I forgot that POE2 is not a Diablo clone and that I have to meet the challenge. That challenge is part and parcel to the depth for whole demo of players and its been sorely lacking in ARPG.

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jollydiablo#0370 wrote:

the only time I was forced to run and poke is when I forgot that POE2 is not a Diablo clone and that I have to meet the challenge.

Hey! Run and poke can be a fun and engaging choice of playstyle!

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jollydiablo#0370 wrote:

I want them to dig into difficulty. I want to be challenged. If you're having to back up and poke then build differently. ... That challenge is part and parcel to the depth for whole demo of players and its been sorely lacking in ARPG.

Couldn't agree more.

This post echoes almost all of my concerns with the current game state. I haven't played in a couple of weeks because I failed my third ascension and it completely demotivated me from playing the game.

I had 3.8k/4k honour pool going into the third floor- had 600 by the time I got to the boss due to scarcely visible on-death mechanics and traps designed for WASD movement. Don't even get me started on the movement and auto-aim mechanic. Lost to what I think was a tornado? That spawned on top of me.

Wasn't the sanctum one of the least-played mechanics post sanctum league? Why would they make it a core mechanic required to ascend? I'm personally taking a break at least until they come out with a balance patch. I tried to just put my head down and get through it, but it's just too much of a slog in current state.

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Samy355#3220 wrote:

If i compare POE2 to the earlier stages of POE1 where it had the same situation of repeated acts with higher difficulty. I dont think POE2 is worse it would be a bad comparison to compare POE1 Final Stage after many years to the first Month of POE2 Early Access. But overall i hoped for a bigger change between POE1 and 2. At the campaign i felt they made it better then POE1 as, for me, i found much more currency and the boss fights felt better (basicly more fair) then in POE1 where it was digital total easy or unbeatable with current gear. In POE2 you could much easier compansate bad gear or level. But in the Trials and Endgame it switched to be much more annoying then POE1 ever was. Those one Try Runs to a Trialmaster Boss or the Citadels or anything Endgame based are just annoying and they give no motivation or fun to do them. If i fail i feel annoyed and frustrated. Even if i whin i only feel some kind of releave but no fun or real joy because it was just pain to go over that border. If there would be a difficult task which in the end is fair and the struggle to pass the task feels like a "game" and makes fun it would be nice. But those one Try mechanics and those gamble mechanics (f.e. get the right 3 parts of the trialmaster key) are not fun never even when i run them with a overpowered char and have no difficulty they dont make fun they are just annoying. I hoped those mechanics would be less or gone on POE2 for the first half of the game it was but the Endgame brought all of the garbage back and added another level of gamble + frustration to it.

Your opening statement would be perfectly fair IF they had learned nothing in the last 10 years.
This game was originally supposed to be an expansion (which I feared would just expand the mess Poe is I ), I was delighted when they announced it would stand alone as that meant they could restart from scratch with 10 years of lessons learned and not make the same mistakes again.
Sadly they have, prime example was energy bar used to be like it is in poe2 and customer complaints got it changed to the large expanding crescent (yet now that’s back to the thin line).
The endgame is stale but will improve as they add mechanics. The campaign is backwards and should start easy and end hard but does the opposite.

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Kaboinglefop#0955 wrote:

Disagree with almost everything. Put in 300 hours into poe2 already, it will easily beat the past 10 years of poe1 for me.

I am a fan of the vision, and I like ruthless' direction.
I despise speed / power creep. I like things being impossible. I love trial of sekhemas.

But you and I are different. I have as much time you spent in elden ring and DS3 instead in Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin challenge runs. I hated the casualization of the souls games. So obviously GGG is not targetting the same audience, but I am an old player and the slow direction of PoE2 is for me, just like ruthless was for me.

Also an old player at 58 yrs old, and I also don’t mind the slower play, but dislike the balance and loot systems

Great points, well said, well written. You've listed many of my frustrations. I am worried with the current retention of the game that GGG won't take the criticism seriously. The game is performing so well across all platforms as far as player retention. This retention will soon fade as I feel the majority of players aren't experiencing the end game. I have around 8k hours in poe1 as well and I really want to see this game succeed but there are some core fundamental issues that seem like it's their vision and I don't see changing.

Thanks for the write up.

I've been following feedback posts everyday and this is by far the most well thought out and well written feedback to roll across the forum. GGG not only needs to read this but study and implement. everything in this post clearly outlines both mine and many other players frustrations and concerns. post needs to be at the forefront, the first thing they see. bump this post.

Constructive feedback should always be listened to, as i thought that's the point of forums like this.

Personally, i think the rare need to be sorted out better. I actually went from the start of act 2 to cruel without even seeing a single rare. I'm lvl 52 and i'm actually using a lvl 28 weapon and a lvl 12 ring because nothing is dropping. I know it's all about RNG, but no one is that bad for drops ( apart from me from the looks of it lol )

Overall sentiments I'd agree (Merc traditional lvl 63 [I finally finished a single map Tier-1 in the end-game/late-game w/ my Merc -- used Cloak of Flames so I could bypass most armor passive nodes, and just focus on fire resis -- re-spec'd quite a bit trying to get hyrid {Freeze} melee to work, but in the end, just went traditional Grenades {could path to Ranger for Bow/Poison perhaps but again no interest}]; Warrior melee lvl 54; and Witch minion lvl 21 -- no real interest in any of the other classes).

Though, I think when new classes are released I will still try them out (like Druid/Templar/Marauder [mainly melee-based]) also, so I cannot judge that yet at least.

Personally, I still have 1 more build to try on my list that I think is still worth exploring, i.e. trying Cloak of Flames for my Warrior (bypass armor nodes at least [yes, they can nerf CoF later, but it is what it is]) -- perhaps that may make enough of a difference for some improvement.

(Re. the 1 Tier-1 map I completed on my Merc, I echo the same [negatively mainly] things as many folks say about mapping/end-game basically -- no interest at all in mapping more to Tier-1+. Again, no need to echo the "rate 1-10 on end-game" threads [and general community/YT/Reddit/etc] general [negative] sentiments, but for brevity's sake, I rate end-game 1/10 [for that 1 map I completed] for the experience. I just have to agree w/ the majority here [I believe], unfortunately [again, just seems like poe1 clone end-game and very uncooked for it to be in poe2 -- folks can just play poe1 for that I feel {maybe breach/delerium/etc is diff but again no interest}].)

Personally I prefer the more slower pace, but some things are very unbalanced.

And slower pace doesn't mean low mob density, it just means less speed than 6 attacks per second.

-Doesn't mean you can't have 3 atacks per second :)

-They focused too much on skill combos which is good, but they forgt to add more nodes that allow for Melee+Summon, Melee+Bow, Melee+Cast, Bow+Cast playstyle.

-Hybrids in general.

-Maps need more frequent fun things like strongboxes, rituals, abysses, breaches, legions etc.
They just need to TONE DOWN THE POWER OF THESE MOBS. Breach ones are just too fast and deadly, spawn too fast.

- 6-links on all gems are good but pointless if I can't use multiple supports on them.

- Especially the ones that support spells.

- The Critical support gems are terrible. Too situational or you have to get 20% LESS crit chance for 100% damage bonus, making them inconsistent.

- The critical chance/bonus nodes on the left side are awful and too situational... or you trade crit for the downside of less %mana and increased mana costs, IF THOSE WEREN'T HUGE ALREADY...

- Pacing and mob density is just not good yet. The mobs aren't complicated enough and give too little reward for the time you spend walking to each pack.
They should increase the drops accordingly to the lower mob density.