Concerns about what the game wants to achieve from the perspective a newbie

Hi all,

I am new to PoE 2 but I have thousands of hours in other ARPGs (Grim Dawn, Last Epoch, Diablo 3&4, Titan Quest...).

I am currently 36 hours in with PoE 2, going in blind, not looking up anything.
I am playing Invoker and it is relevant for me to mention the above as it might influence my experience a lot.

My issue is: I die... a lot... playing through the campaign.

In this ARPGs, it's a given that you will die during your first playthrough. But it typically does not happen when you have the audacity to tank 2 auto attacks from white mobs 30mins into the game. It usually happens when you learn mid/late game bosses.

I am concerned about what type of game does PoE 2 want to be. If the answer is slower gameplay with more deliberate moment to moment decisions (à la Dark Souls) it might not be the game for me.
If you and the game are trying to answer "one shot or get one shot, that is the question", it might not be a game for me.

It seems odd to me that you are expected to dodge things with a button with no cooldown as the trade off is that you might have to deal with unfair sequences of things to dodge. And you are epecially punished playing melee.
Perhaps adding a CD to the dodge roll would be better if it allows to account for this when designing other aspects of the game.
And it might actually fit better with the slow and deliberate gameplay philosophy than the current situation.

It also seems odd to me that I died a few time expecting to finish mob(s) but the wind up time of most of my attacks gives too many opportunities for death. It feels like I am stuning myself for 0.5 to 1sec every time I try to do anything and have to decide between cancelling the attack animation with the dodge roll or flipping a coin and finding out if me or the monster is going to die.
Animation cancelling is a fun skill ceilling element but is supper frustrating when playing slower attack characters where the trade off is dealing 0 damage or dying.

It seems odd to me that you are given a sprint but the trade off is that if you get hit by anything, you are stunned for more time than necessary to get killed.

The main reason why I only clocked-in 240hrs in PoE is the potions pianoing. I find myself using both health and mana potion on every single pack in PoE 2. Is it just a consequence of my poor build or is something that is expected? If so, this might not be a game for me.

Watching a friend play, it seems to me that the difficulty is majorly imbalanced when comparing melee vs ranged.

Considering the quality of the game and huge potential, I am going to try making a ranged character once I am done with Act 4. Perhaps this will transform my experience and views on the game.

I know it's all just a skill issue and I need to get better at the game and stop crying. But I am really interested in hearing feedback from people with a different and more constructive perspective :)

Cheers

You won't finish Act 4 by the sound of it. i don't mean that in a bad way, but if you are not happy now you'll be catatonic by Act 4.

It's not the game for you right now at least, me either for the most part.

Try a Deadeye by following a guide before quitting, you'll see just how big the gap is between terrible and OP. balance is way off, GGG know that though.

"

Barthord#7630 wrote:

Hi all,
...
Cheers

u r not supposed to sprint if there are mobs
it's designed to be used for back-tracking areas u have already cleared faster

"

Die_Scream#5464 wrote:

You won't finish Act 4 by the sound of it. i don't mean that in a bad way, but if you are not happy now you'll be catatonic by Act 4.

It's not the game for you right now at least, me either for the most part.

Try a Deadeye by following a guide before quitting, you'll see just how big the gap is between terrible and OP. balance is way off, GGG know that though.

I am too stubborn to quit :) I will definitely try to finish it!