POE2 Mapping doesn't feel like POE2

*People recommended that I post this over from the poe2 subreddit so that GGG sees it, so if you're seeing this twice, that's why!*

I've absolutely loved the core gameplay of POE2 through the story. The slower pacing, the focus around skill based engagement instead of just offscreening everything. It has felt genuinely satisfying to play a build that has to interact with the content on a moment to moment basis and where split second actions are more impactful than simply the numbers on your character sheet. Sure I know that my mercenary isn't optimized for clear speed, but I don't care because it's fun to play! I was incredibly excited to see that engaging experience continue into the new atlas.

I've deliberately avoided spending too much time on reddit/avoided spoilers so that I could go in as fresh as possible, and man was that a shock. It's like my character was plucked out of POE2, and dropped into the 1 shot clearspeed meta world of POE1. The movement speed of most monsters is through the roof, and white mobs routinely half health from off screen. I was expecting a difficulty spike when moving to maps, and was genuinely excited for it, but this transition back to POE1 was not the experience I was hoping for. This is further underscored by the fact that bosses are so rare on the atlas.

I pressed on for a while thinking "ok let's check out the league mechanics though!" and was quickly disappointed to find that they were the same thing, only dialed to 11:

Breach - Instantly swarmed and you either have the clear speed to deal with it, or you don't.

"Well ok, but Breach has always been like that. Maybe some of the others are more involved"

Ritual - Instantly swarmed and you either have the clear speed to deal with it, or you don't, but this time you can't run away if you do manage to dodge out of the pack.

"Ok so I'm not going to bother with Breach or Ritual. How about something that by design should fit with POE2's formula better!"

Expedition - Momentarily not swarmed, until +100% base move speed monsters instantly swarm you and you either have the clear speed to deal with it, or you don't.

That was the extent of my mapping. 15-20 maps in has now been enough for me to know that while I love the core concept of this new atlas, the moment to moment gameplay isn't for me. I've already experienced this end game for the past 10 years. It's a waste of such a good system that they've designed for them to not push that system into the end game, instead leaning on what feels like a copy and paste of all of the same design choices from POE1.

We're still in early access, so there's plenty of time for this to be ironed out. Maybe it's just a symptom of the rushed timeline that they had to get a fully fleshed out end game before EA launched. Either way, I can't get enough of the core game you've built GGG. Let it breath, and let POE1 stay in POE1!

I have mapped to around level 93 so far and im really enjoying my mapping experience.

Breach is my absolute favorite game mechanic i have about 6 nodes speccd into the breach tree for the 40% density etc and the XP on a tier 18 map is sooooooooooo nice and fun to blast.

My actual main concern with mapping and endgame in PoE2 is that it feels extremely punishing on "half decent builds". Dying in maps can almost "ruin" your map pool. So if your build dsnt feel strong enough to comfortably map without dying, you can quickly get a bit unlucky and burn all your higher maps.

I have a friend who is relatively new, and his build is ok. It can kill bosses, it can map in general but he dies here and there, and ive had to just donate him a bunch of maps when he gets unlucky/dies a few times and all his relevant maps are gone with no returns.

Over time, this will cause a even more people to just funnel into the meta builds. A bit less relevant in a beta-demo early access scenario, but still the issue in the end. This also seems a bit unforgiving towards an entire archetype that relies on "not getting hit" will but will die when eventually getting hit like an evasion character. It just seems to go against the idea of GGG does not want you to die at all or you lose ur entire map/bosss.

Im not a fan of ritual myself in general. Also my mapping experience has been extremely different since i invested into league mechanic points and understand the tower system well, planning my pathing ahead of time to min-max tablets.


EDIT: I NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED A MAP TAB THIS IS UNPLAYABLE AND I HAVE 4 TABS FULL OF MAPS AND I HAVE HAVING TO TAB BETWEEN THEM TO DEPOSITE THINGS AND CLEAN UP STASH. PLEASE GGG WE NEED MAP TAB PLEASSEEEEEEE

I just hit maps today and learned the hard way that dying in a map means you lose the map. That's a big no-go for me, not in a game with a ton of one-shot mechanics, monster on-death mechanics, terrible roll mechanic and no movement skills. Immediately logged out.