My Review of PoE2

Preface:
I've played Path of Exile for over a decade. I love PoE. My favorite builds in PoE 1 are SRS, Flicker Strike, & Righteous Fire w/ Scorching Ray. I've gotten many other builds to 95+ and have enjoyed many leagues of PoE. The things I've always loved about Path of Exile that other games don't have are build flexibility (insane number of ways to play) and end-game agency (you can choose to do whatever end-game content and league mechanics you enjoy the most).

My PoE 2 Expectations:
At first, GGG purported this to be an expansion on PoE 1. We were going to get major graphics and content/campaign overhauls. That was an amazing notion. It was literally originally announced as "Path of Exile 4.0" https://youtu.be/gENl7XuQyNQ?t=1015 and the announcement trailer ended with a giant phrase: "One Game | Two Campaigns" and Chris Wilson went on to illustrate various mechanics and make statements about them that GGG has completely done a 180 on. Don't take my word for it. Watch it for yourself! I really wish they'd stuck to this original plan and commitment to the very people who supported them.

Eventually, at ExileCon 2023, it was announced that PoE 2 would be a separate game, with the excuse that "the scope of PoE 2 has continued to grow and grow [...] This thing is just freakin' huge [...] There was a point where we realized that our plan to replace PoE1 with PoE2 would essentially be getting rid of a game that people love for no real reason." and that's where I should've come to the realization that I've recently come to by simply playing the Early Access of PoE 2.

Anyway, I continued with expectations that the games would be separate, different, but PoE 2 would still carry the spirit of PoE 1. After all, they're making this game for us PoE 1 fans, right? Riiiight?! lol

My PoE 2 Experience:
So here I am, with all my friends I shared keys with, ready to play a game I'd been waiting half a decade for since it was announced. I decided to create a Witch with the notion of playing a minion build. However, as soon as I saw that Essence Drain and Contagion were both in the game, I thought to myself "Sweet! I can make an ED Contagion build!" The points where I had the most fun was killing campaign zone bosses with friends after 1 to 10 tries depending on the boss (these were our first characters and we weren't really trading in the beginning, so practically SSF).

Then it all started to go downhill:
I eventually realized that ED/Contagion wasn't going to work for end-game. In end-game, the only thing they're good for is adding chaos debuffs to give Dark Effigy more attack speed to proc quality chaos res reduction. Yes. They take entire build-worthy combos in this game, and turn them into support damage or support mechanics. How absolutely sad and pathetic of a regression is that?

I chose bloodmage because huge crit base and leech. I had to unspec from bloodmage until I got my third ascendancy because the leech doesn't work to make up for life costs unless you're over-leveled (pretty stupid IMO) due to their brilliant leech resistance mechanic. By the time I was in the endgame, my ED Contagion witch had turned into a Crit Hexblast bloodmage, which is great for 1-shotting literally everything thru T18s except bosses. It was when I was forced to switch to Hexblast that I started to realize that only select skills in PoE 2 can be used as primary damage skills, and that the set of builds without chase-uniques is incredibly reduced from PoE 1. I know this game is in early access, but with the patterns that currently exist regarding these skill "tiers" or level thresholds, it's clear that the level 13 skills are going to define the primary damage skills, and chase-uniques are needed to have build agency beyond those. It's terrible. It ruined one of my favorite aspects of Path of Exile (build flexibility). Another regression.

I'm unhappy with the game's inconsistency. Regardless of how your character is built, a fully juiced T18 can be extremely easy or insanely difficult. I run them all regardless, but it's so inconsistent that I can do a few easier maps, be chilling and chatting with friends while I farm, then run a hard map and suddenly a super-speedy mana-leeching rare starts chasing me (I have to swap to a pure bloodmage staff when they have both movement speed and mana-leech aura because it's literally impossible to get out of its aura to gain mana to use a spell), I kill it, then die from its on-death 1-shot that I was sure the devs put an end to for good back in the mid-years of PoE1. Another regression.

I feel like they limited support gems to one of each per character just to justify or make room for the Gemling Legionnaire ascendancy. Again, they're ruining one of my favorite aspects of Path of Exile by decreasing the build flexibility. I'm stuck playing a single ascendancy if I want that flexibility back? Really? Why would you gate 90% of skill setups behind a single ascendancy? Who thought this was a good idea? I feel like someone found a strong support gem for all spell skills and they "fixed" it by limiting support gems to 1 for any character class that might use only spell skills. Another regression.

We were told so, so, so many times that GGG wanted uniques to be "build-defining" items. What a #^%&ing joke. Over half of uniques in PoE2 are leveling fodder, not even worth using for more than a few levels, even after the latest patch to buff them all. I guess what they told us about uniques in the past were just empty words.

The ability to choose your endgame content is no more. You have to do the maps between you and the next destination on your atlas. Sure you can "choose" between these 10 random maps or those 10 random maps, but what if I don't want to play random maps? What if I want to play my favorite map? What if I want to farm my favorite boss? Too bad. Play your randomly generated set of content or leave. Another regression.

I've since leveled 2 other characters through the campaign. Those were alone with twink gear (invoker and gemling), so they went fast and easy, making the campaign no longer as interesting as it was on the first playthrough, but just a slog of content to reach a crummy endgame with little agency with regards to viable build decisions or endgame content.

The skill tree is literally just finding the optimal nodes to make your current Tier-13 skill good. It could be dumbed down to a "normal" ARPG skill tree and the game would hardly change. Jewel slots being better than nearly every notable node just goes to show how basic everything else on the tree is. More mechanics were removed relative to PoE1 than were added. Build possibilities took a nose-dive. More regression.

Last gripe: Why are towers a thing? Make it so when you do a map that's close enough to fog of war, you get a precursor tablet slot upon completion and have it reveal more area. Even after more towers were added, why were they so different and unrewarding compared to all other maps to begin with? More regression.

At the end of the day, I feel used. I feel like all of the support I've given to GGG has been spit on and set aside for some polished Tencent turd that abandoned too many things that made me support them in the first place.

I want what you promised in 2019

I want Merc and Druid in PoE1

I want a new campaign in PoE1

I want more interactive bosses in PoE1

I want you to expand on the game that stands for all the reasons we supported you over the past decade

I don't want something you arbitrarily decided to give me, while gaslighting me by calling it "a next gen Action RPG". It's not "next-gen". It's a different style of ARPG. PoE 1 continues to be the most advanced ARPG in the genre, and I no longer believe in whatever your "vision" is for the genre, because I'm seeing too much regression to call it "progress" or "next-gen".

Edit: Also would like WASD movement in PoE1.

+1

Seriously I cant disagree with anything in the post. I can just start listing the things removed or broken. This release is making some of the worst leagues look like a teaparty. I find it funny that one of the things they said they wanted to reomove, "zooming builds," is what dominates the endgame of POE2.

But lets face it ... there is one glaring flaw to POE2 that just overrides the rest. It is BOORING. Grinding random maps over again, no ability to put the content I want on the map. Forcing us to do ultimatum or sanctum so that my level 75 warrior still only has 2 ascendancy points. The campaign is super long, making it foreboding to level alts, the endgame is mind numbingly boring.

They could have retooled delve for endless endgame.
They could have allowed us to change ascendancies.
They could have not forced us to play the 2 LEAST popular league mechanics to ascend.
They could have made the atlas skill tree better.
They could have scrapped some stupid ideas like not letting me pick brutality on two physical skills that need it.

Instead they put in some hair brained ideas that were designed to encourage diversity and the ENTIRE POE2 playerbase with few exceptions is playing one of 5 or so builds.

What I want now is a new league for POE1 because, frankly, they blew it.

-- Signed: A Liberator of Wraeclast Supporter

And to the Fanboy coming on to trash the OP and me, we dont care. You will while and quit at the first or second league reset. You will drop off the game and those of us who have been with Path of Exile will be the only ones left in the end.

Looks like they have managed to make a game that neither the poe1 zoomers want nor a new audience that craves deep combat.

This game doesnt seem to please anyone and will wither away as soon as the hype and copium wear off.

"

inspecktadeck#3108 wrote:

Looks like they have managed to make a game that neither the poe1 zoomers want nor a new audience that craves deep combat.

This game doesnt seem to please anyone and will wither away as soon as the hype and copium wear off.

It might just. Devs saying PoE1 would keep getting full support while PoE2 would be a different game were just bait and switching. At least that is a very real possibility, unfortunately.

"

LVSviral#3689 wrote:

"

inspecktadeck#3108 wrote:

Looks like they have managed to make a game that neither the poe1 zoomers want nor a new audience that craves deep combat.

This game doesnt seem to please anyone and will wither away as soon as the hype and copium wear off.

It might just. Devs saying PoE1 would keep getting full support while PoE2 would be a different game were just bait and switching. At least that is a very real possibility, unfortunately.

No league for POE1 in 6 months. Doesn't look like they are serious about POE support.

"

LVSviral#3689 wrote:

"

inspecktadeck#3108 wrote:

Looks like they have managed to make a game that neither the poe1 zoomers want nor a new audience that craves deep combat.

This game doesnt seem to please anyone and will wither away as soon as the hype and copium wear off.

It might just. Devs saying PoE1 would keep getting full support while PoE2 would be a different game were just bait and switching. At least that is a very real possibility, unfortunately.

Oh and there is plenty of zooming going on in POE2. Its just not interesting zooming.

Heya,

Long time supporter/player had some issues with my former account thanks to my letting my nephew use it some time ago, hard lesson learned, but that was MY fault, this old dog (63) won't be doing that again, lol.

Just a bit of background as the quick look up won't reveal the actual years played, etc.

This is probably the best post that I've seen so far about the game, the developers' actual promises, and the reality of the changes they've made to now. To say I'm disappointed is an understatement, and the many friends that I've made playing and different guilds with, the VAST majority feel the same.

The chat was a disaster, the arrogance and lack of knowledge was breathtaking, and yeah, the idea that many folks actually paid money to beta test a VERY unfinished product all the while the same BS with crashes, loading and the like hasn't improved one bit seems ridiculous.

The underpinnings of PoE2 and PoE1 *seem* like a ton of things were NOT learned, and just like in PoE1, are not being acknowledged and talked about, not being fixed, and just kicking that can down the road. (just wanted to highlight some issues you didn't touch on)

I have and do play the Diablo games, BG, etc., looking forward to the 21st, trying the new Marvel game so many are leaving this game for currently, and will migrate back to see what the state of PoE2 is eventually. I WANT PoE2 to be outstanding, we'll see what comes of all this, Would love to have another decade plus of seasons to look forward to.

Thanks for the post, take care.

Note that in this video there were already bosses and maps in almost the same form as now.
What have they been doing all these 5 years?
An atlas? They just put holes in it randomly.
Bosses? Yeah, but there's still not enough bosses.
New skill stones? Ha seriously they're 10 times less than in poe1.
New classes? Yeah, there's a couple new ones.

I mean, either they lied to us that the development is going on (and in fact there were 2-3 people working 2 hours a day).
Or they are so worthless that for 5+ years have done so little, so broken and so negligent?!

+1 more poe 1 content please

"

Kraythax#2592 wrote:

+1
They could have retooled delve for endless endgame.
They could have allowed us to change ascendancies.
They could have not forced us to play the 2 LEAST popular league mechanics to ascend.
They could have made the atlas skill tree better.
They could have scrapped some stupid ideas like not letting me pick brutality on two physical skills that need it.
-- Signed: A Liberator of Wraeclast Supporter

+1 to that.

I'd rather be delving than be doing this atlas, and delve isn't even my favorite mechanic.
Changing ascendancies is needed if they want us to go crazy with testing and exploring without getting super burned out on the campaign. Yes, it's great for first characters, but then it seriously causes burnout for subsequent runs.
In hindsight it wasn't as bad as I thought but I still would rather do something more like lab in PoE1.
Yea the divided mini-tree system isn't cool. I bet it was way easier for them to manage changes on than the PoE1 tree, though.
Yea I'd like to put controlled destruction on ED and Contagion, but noooooo this is "next-gen".