Sorry to my pal who passed me the Early Access key. But I'm giving up...

ME: "I quit and uninstalled the game already. I'll share with you why later."

Him: "Home issues?"

ME after some time to pour my feelings out:
"No....Just the game. The 10% EXP death penalty is pure nonsense as it doesn't have other logical things to back it up. I belong to 95% of the player base that are NOT-PRO. So, death comes to us significantly more often than pros like yourself. Previously, my oil/gas grenade merc can survive better. But unable to clear map fast enough. Also, when comes to fighting boss, it's a real drag. But at least, it stayed alive to fight and eventually win. So, I re-spec it following a popular guide to make it better. Explosion Shot with a unique helmet that changes fire to lightning and shock damage, and with Herald of Thunder, able clear screen as fast as you, or close. The only thing I lost is the 1K over ES which is from the helmet you graced me with. From the reconfiguration, my armour rating actually went up. But it's like non-existent. As fast as I clear packs, I now die as fast also. Died back-to-back losing 30-40% exp and per T15 map only gain 1-2%. I die from all the nonsense one-shot. Not as much as from boss as this build can down a shocked boss very fast. My HP is still as high as before, just that the ES is halved from re-spec-ing. This morning, I released a monster pack from essence prison, and rolled away trying to create some distance before throwing the explosive shot from afar. Out from nowhere, off-screen some more, suddenly came out a bone spike similar to the witch's bone spell. My HP full 2.5K, ES 500, the same 75% all resist. Still instant death. I got higher Armour rating than my previous re-spec, I think from 20% to 40%? So how much are all these nonsense mobs dealing? 5K? Then no one will be able to play. Anyway, if a typical non-pro player like myself is not having fun from all these excessive punishments, then this game is only meant for pros like yourself and I'm out. There are a few things I wish for the change to lessen my depressing game play experience, and hopefully you will find it reasonable. Here goes.

1. Wiping of earned EXP should only be limited to the current map you're running and died in. It should not wipe away your effort from previous successful runs. If you gained 20% on that map, you die, all gone, fine. Don't touch my previously earned % on completed maps. Imagine if I fail studying master degree, and my gained knowledge from previous diploma and secondary and primary school needs to get wiped too. Extreme comparison maybe, but is it?

2. Want to still punish us on death by wiping 10% off EXP regardless the character level? Then:

2A. The Omen of Amelioration is as rare as Divine Orb, in fact, even more. I have 800hrs in, only 2 found and kept in my stash. Not everyone got high rarity find, wearing gears for staying alive is already hard enough. I think rarity find % don't affect Ritual Favour Menu. Just pure luck. Your Atlas skills can make omens appear more often. But not "Omen of Amelioration". I have plenty of other nonsense omens I don't really use. They should make "Omen of Amelioration" appear in every ritual menu so we can work towards preparing ourselves consistent death insurance. To make it even fairer, this particular omen will only appear, and guaranteed appear on Ritual Maps Lvl 80 and above. So, people don't abuse farming it with Lvl 1 WS to open Ritual maps. Fair? I don't want to use my 2 omens now as I want to save these for when I'm perhaps Lvl 95 and above. But since I've quit, nvm already...

2B. 10% EXP gone by whichever boss/rare/mob that killed you? Ok fine. When you respawn and go back and head on with the same mob again, if you can win, then recover back that lost EXP by 75% similar to the omen effect. If that mob is already dead because it was a double KO, or you were killed by burning grounds or some other elements of the map, then, your soul/spirit will be hovering there, and you can run back to collect it to recover the lost EXP. If you quit, exit or give up the fight, then sure, that's 10% exp lost forever. Give people a fighting chance. Or GGG still remain stubborn to drive 95% of player base away?

2C. Killing any boss or rare must award EXP by % rather than a fixed integer number. Because when they kill you, they don't erase your EXP by a fixed sum according to their potential EXP gain upon conquering them, but rather, a HARD 10% erasure of EXP. So, if you're fighting a boss using T15 WS and above, killing it should award you at least 1% EXP or the fixed-number exp, whichever is higher, but minimally 1%. It would be fair if a Lvl 99 character conquers 100 big deadly bosses, he levels to Lvl 100. It's just a number anyway as currently, the poweful-ness of the character don't scale with our levelling. Just another passive skill. ONE skill only. It already won't matter at that point. It is also not like a rewarding levelling that follows this dream mechanic = example, Lvl 90 to Lvl 91, gain 2 passive points, 91 to 92 gain 3, 93 to 94 gain 4, 94 to 95 gain 5, 95 to 96 gain 6, 96 to 97 gain 7, 97 to 98 gain 8, 98 to 99 gain 9, 99 to 100 gain 10 passive skills. Then sure, it will make the entire levelling feel of 90 to 100 a REAL rewarding push since it's so punishing. But at this moment, it is just pure nonsense designed to depress people and discourage them from playing.

Consider me depressingly discouraged. But maybe a blessing in disguise as I have 800 hours in such a short span since I started playing. Time to attend to other real life matters like fixing up things and getting some other things done at office and at home.

Brother, I truly thank you for your Early Access key. I was really into it until I bought the pack myself and passed my pack's key to my buddy too. As it has the same Diablo 2 Necromancer character, the Minion-Witch. So we can re-live our Diablo 2 co-op moments. But he quit first, because GGG took away his ability to have strong tanky Skeleton Warriors to protect him on 0.2.0 update. And no matter how he re-spec with new support gems and passives, he cannot find back his balance. I don't blame him. In fact, he found more happiness from The Sim 4 with all the expansion packs. He's happily designing houses now lol.

I played on even he quit. But today, how I died, that finally is the final straw. And dying back-to-back especially by something off-screen, like a bone spike thingy, no way I can anticipate that and dodge roll away. There's plenty more other nonsense in the game that kills you that way. I'm done bro. I am truly sorry.

I WILL come back, even if nothing changes, to see the proper Act 4 and 5 and 6 story line completion. As I have shared with you before, the story writing in POE2 is top notch. But won't touch the endgame anymore. It had broken my heart too badly already.

OR, if GGG somehow miraculously grow some compassion and feel for my hardship trying to navigate through endgame content, and implemented one of my above suggestions, then, yes, I will come back. You know me brother. Anyone who put efforts and listen, deserve my $$$ support to see it grow."

Congratz GGG, one lesser player. And hope the remaining pro-players are sufficient to contribute to your salary.

I know how you feel, they killed my minion builds too, i have 3. One is level 87, the other 94 and the last one 96. I also invested almost 800 hours just to see them get destroyed just like that without any consideration at all for my time and work. I'm 55 years old but my patience and tolerance hit the wall with this. Bring back 0.1 this is a Arpg not dark souls

I played this patch for about 20 hours (~200 hours with first patch and ~4000 hours on PoE 1) and my "sixth sense" (in addition to the constant crashes and rollbacks) made me quit and uninstall.
And since then I've been reading ONLY negative feedback and on Steam it's still "Mostly negative".

Your post is 90% similar to many others I'm reading.

They just had to update Path of Exile 1 with new graphics and animations and we wouldn't be here talking about it.

Always easy to walk away from things that were free :)

That’s great you can clear the screen so quickly but it sounds like your build doesn’t account for crowd control. So when your char fails to clear the screen - you’re dead. So your loop should look like “CC, (possible damage multiplier), primary Damage, Payoff”.

Take a break, then come back and add a layer of crowd control to your build so you won’t die as much during mapping.

My heart also broke with this patch but I did come back after some changes. Just needs better loot drops and a few minor updates and I think some of us will be back in a few weeks.

I recommended to wait few weeks/months.
maybe GGG will back on the track.

All true. To the asshole that said "It is easy to give up on things that are free." I paid for mine, and still I am stopping all so.
It's like devs want us to give are whole life to play one map, with minimal progress in any direction. On that I say, no thank you. Hard pass.
If this is how devs imagine for a beta test to look like, I am scared to think how the game will look like when it is ready for full release.

"

ShingoYabuki#8098 wrote:

I WILL come back, even if nothing changes, to see the proper Act 4 and 5 and 6 story line completion. As I have shared with you before, the story writing in POE2 is top notch. But won't touch the endgame anymore. It had broken my heart too badly already.

Haha. What story writing? The 'story' is just another generic mumbo jumbo. The production value is better if that's what you meant.

And good, don't touch endgame - it's not for people who give up without trying to figure out what they're doing wrong.

"

Germany27250#8163 wrote:

I know how you feel...

I'm 42, and can only take so much punishment from any game. Diablo 2 wasn't as punishing as this. There's EXP lost in it's endgame too, but other features are properly in place to balance it off. Resistance, Mana shield, HP, Armour, Agility all works logically. Nothing can actually kill you if they are off your screen already. Everyone knows you don't go Diablo/Baal run in Hell mode if your resistance is negative. But in POE2, big deal 75% resist? lol.

And wow, you must love an army following you around. Sorry to hear that all your effort got voided too.

I mean, if they want to impose major changes that affects players like yourself, then, they should at least offer viable alternative and prove that, for example, Minion builds, are still playable if we reconfigure it in certain way and etc. Also, it is not like Minion builds clear endgame maps and down bosses like those Monk skills that zoom across the screen and literally erase everything anything.

Come on, just have another league where it reads "Ruthless" or "Brutal" and leave the punishing mechanics there, with better rewards or whatsoever. "Standard" shouldn't be like this, not even Endgame. I'm sure one of my point 2 suggestions can easily even out the depressing gameplay experience, won't it?