Identity

A little history on me to know where I'm coming from to establish credibility. I've played D1, D2, D3, PoE and have tens of thousands of hours spread across them. I have chased ranking on ladders and held successful raid groups in MMO's ranking in top spots for their respective servers.

With that in mind I've come to the conclusion that PoE2 has a fundamental problem with it's own identity and is unaligned with the community and player base that supports it's development and longevity. I'm not going to rain a million examples on you saying you are bad or that the game is bad because in my opinion the game is fundamentally good at what it's trying to do. What I will do is give one prime example that outlines the fundamental issue that PoE2 has.

Identity is the problem and the solution. I first suspected this to be the main issue in development and likely hints at the systemic development issue that's causing a lot of problems but also is creating genuinely great experiences as a result. For proof of this we need look no further than the chaos orb to find the shadow of the problem.

What is a Chaos orb?
What does the chaos orb do?
What is it now and how has this influenced identity?


A chaos orb is a currency item that manipulates a rare item and can be used to represent value during a trade or spent at a crafting bench to fund a craft.

A chaos when used on a rare item rerolls that rare items affixes.

Path of Exile 2 has changed this item and by extension its function which in turn has changed its value and identity. This sequel has merged crafting bench functions into it and removed the old rng mechanic, replacing it with a generic harvest craft effect removing an affix and adding an affix. This item is no longer a chaos orb. In the real world there is a saying, "We call a spade, a spade." In path of exile a chaos orb is not a chaos orb. Please reconsider this in the future, it's kind of annoying to think that we spent a decade looking at, using, trading with, accumulating an item which our entire trade league experience used to establish value around and see it changed (Albeit to a stronger item with much higher trading value. Not a bad thing) into something completely different with the same name. This item in particular should be called something different, with a different graphic. It is not a chaos orb. I do love this currency item and how it interacts, but it is an item with a mistaken identity, and this points to the main problem I have with Path of Exile 2, it's confused about what it is. I love a lot of things about Path of Exile 2, but this is one among many grievances that I have.

Other things to consider...
I loved Lab... Why put 2 types of content that only a subset of players want to do as a core and mandatory requirement for ascension...

Why force illusion of choice decisions into places they shouldn't be (Good example is ascendancy points, yes there is choice, but not really.)

Stop making the same mistakes Blizzard made with D3 and remember what made PoE great... Please, there is a lot of potential here and has had some great improvements over the old PoE gameplay and general design, but remember what PoE is.