POE 2 Feels Unfriendly to New Players

I’m newer to the game and only played one PoE character in Settler’s. I’ve played the hell out of other ARPGs, have 5 90+’s now and did most of the +4’s long ago. I don’t want to play another character anytime soon. I sure as shit won’t play this seasonally. I’ve stayed on Standard since .1 where I at least have some fun items. I can’t get friends to stay interested no matter how much I carry them.

I see player count being mentioned and I’m sorry-I don’t find it all that impressive. I thought this game was going to appeal to a broader audience and it doesn’t. The only people that defend it are either:

1. Diehard PoE fans in general.
2. Masochists that want everybody to be as miserable as they are. This is whom I feel GGG is really catering to. They swear they love the game but as with other titles in the genre they live on the fucking forums defending said titles instead of playing them. I have like 2-3 posts on forums for games I enjoy as much as they say they do this one. They are full of it.

I think there will be one spike in player count (maybe) at full release and that will be all she wrote. Numbers will never come close to it again.

To their credit they have improved optimization this go round. I don’t “hate” the game, but it’s very easy to get tired of it. I echo OP’s sentiments and as a new player myself I will either be 1. Leveling 1 character at release. 2. Just dicking around on my EA lich because I have gear that makes it fun.

For me, the game feels like this:



Not saying it's SUPER difficult for me, but I agree that the start and endgame are really hard, while the mid-game is quite doable.

The reason is: Your character starts with no equipment or gold at all. So you're at the mercy of miss fortuna to get at least some useful equipment here and there, fitting to your stats. Like blue stuff with life/res on it. But if you're unlucky, it not rarely happens that you run around with level 4 stuff mid or at end of act 1. Especially amulets and rings drop really rarely in early game, leaving these slots entirely open and unused. The biggest problem though is, if you dont find a decent weapon for you. Damage is one of the best defensive stats, because a dead enemy can't deal any damage at all.

I think the curve should look like this:



To achieve this, the game needs to be more generous with equipment at the start of the game. Like getting useful pieces of equipment though sidequests with decent stats/modifiers on them. And in 10 levels or so, these items would start to lose value anyway, but they would give players a smoother experience at the start of the game. The good thing about this method is, that you don't need to tweak the monster stats.

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Paragon1#4769 wrote:

POE 2 Feels Unfriendly to New Players

for me looks like this Souls ARPG focus only on minority fanatics players and GGG wants leech them from money by micro.....looks like GGG do not care casual players , beginners at all.

The friends I got to play refuse to keep trying the act 2 boss.
The general feeling is ( and i can't say that I disagree) is that the game should provide you with everything you need to finish the game (this specific example being act 2).

Changing your build for 1 boss seems convoluted. Having to rework your tree or farm for gear is "unreasonable".
Is this the type of game for them? Don't know. Probably not but you can't deny how unwelcoming this game is to new players.
The game doesn't tell you a good resistance target or what your damage should be.

If you can roll through an act with even minimally challenging difficulties, having a hard break at a boss is dumb.

This is a huge bummer for me because playing any game with these guys is fun.

i responded to the wrong message like an idiot.

D2 had the best leveling / difficulty / time investment curve for campaign hands down.



Hack and slay from the start. Eventually you will make your first encounter with death by rakanishu or a swarm of ghosts in the tower or andariel and it sets the mood of the game but its not difficult or it doesnt feel like a slog like in poe.

idk the whole pacing is so off in poe2 , the whole animations are so slow the rolling on the floor , it just does not click for me.




Elden Ring Campaign with poe 1 endgame is not what i call innovation.

PoE 2 is a POE1 mod that got out of hand.

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Skyvortex#7923 wrote:

The friends I got to play refuse to keep trying the act 2 boss.

I quit for several days after dying to Jamanra, not because I died, but because I thought the death was unfair and unavoidable. I posted this on another thread: I think Asala needs a voice line like, "Shelter with me!"

My main point of agreement with this thread is just the class balancing. It feels like each class gets one build catered to and the rest is just clunky or bad. Like lighting monk early game feels easy af most of the time (until you get unlucky and squish). You just poke until low, grab a charge and clear the screen with next slam. But you try and go cold and suddenly it feels like trash, trying to put down an ice crystal and than perfectly place yourself to proc it. Or you try and use combo via the skill or the stupidly recommended support gems and suddenly you're an auto attack monk because for some reason the class that gets recommended combo support has no strike skills to build combo with. I'm hoping that each classes eventually gets 2-3 easy to intuit early-mid game kits that just kinda work out of the box for new players to latch onto. But right now, man it feels like a class is lucky to get 1 mid game kit that works and doesn't just fall off a cliff randomly.

I think fixes the classes comes down to 3 bits:

Better support recommendations: This might be the easiest if also the most subjective. But for example the Monk combo example above, simply recommending a better support gem would prevent that noob trap. So having someone interface with the community and editing the the recommended support gems to what people actually use might go a long way by itself.

More built in support: Right now each class is sort of an island due to draconian weapon restrictions. This means they have relatively few tools so when a class has a glaring omission, like an early game spam-able strike skill for monk comboing, adding in a skill to fill that gap would be nice. Obviously this takes work though so it becomes a matter of priorities.

Less restrictions: Right now many skills seem to only be useable by a single weapon type. Creating the "each class is an island" feel mentioned above. It means they essentially have to make a whole slate of skills for each and every weapon which takes more work than just sharing more skills. I'm hoping once each class gets released and has at least one functional out of the box build noobs can latch onto, that they go back and loosen a lot of the weapon restrictions and in the process create the 2nd and 3rd our of the box archetype for each class.

"

Skyvortex#7923 wrote:

The friends I got to play refuse to keep trying the act 2 boss.
The general feeling is ( and i can't say that I disagree) is that the game should provide you with everything you need to finish the game (this specific example being act 2).

Changing your build for 1 boss seems convoluted. Having to rework your tree or farm for gear is "unreasonable".
Is this the type of game for them? Don't know. Probably not but you can't deny how unwelcoming this game is to new players.
The game doesn't tell you a good resistance target or what your damage should be.

If you can roll through an act with even minimally challenging difficulties, having a hard break at a boss is dumb.

This is a huge bummer for me because playing any game with these guys is fun.

There is still the original PoE. =^[.]^=

I'm looking at these posts and I'm wondering if we're playing the same game. It's beyond outrageous... especially that the game got RIDICULOUSLY easier too to the point where I'm unable to die to act 1 bosses anymore whereas the first time around it was really fun and engaging since I actually had to TRY and I would die when I messed up.

Also someone showing a graph that the game gets harder in the lategame? since when did anyone have that experience? Literally one shot everything or freeze the boss in time space before they can do anything is the experiences I've had on anything I've played in lategame... what the actual F. And if that doesn't happen well, you get one tapped yourself by some after death effect just like in PoE1.. that's not difficulty... that's just trash design ported from PoE1.

And just like in PoE1.. since the balance is trash, on death effects and shit like that is the only way they could think of to add "difficulty" but that's not really difficulty when you can't see shit from the billion monsters on screen, is it? Which by the way, the billion monsters is also something they perceived as difficulty instead of actually making combat difficult and engaging with each enemy or small pack of enemies. A normal game would've made the enemies you face themselves tougher not just add more and more of them mindlessly. Not only does that fix the god damn clutter and VISIBILITY issues people are oftentimes talking about but it also just makes for a better game experience.

I'm tired. So tired of this.

I can't wait for a proper title to come out that doesn't have this kind of community. Sadly a PoE1 community that GGG has nurtured for many years into self-diagnosed handicapped gamers that seek to one-button one-tap everything or less. Sad, really sad.