Comparing PoE1 and PoE2: pacing, progression, and tradeoffs

The more I play PoE2, the more I see its upsides. Weapon impact feels better. Skills have more weight. The graphics and moment-to-moment combat are more engaging. On that layer, PoE2 is an improvement.

The problems are mostly systemic.

In PoE1, the campaign has a sense of agency and flow. You can generally move toward the next objective intuitively. In PoE2, zone layouts are more ambiguous, which adds cognitive friction. Navigation takes more attention without necessarily adding more meaning.

Item progression also feels more constrained. In PoE1, you find a base, use alteration orbs until it’s decent, then regal and move on. In PoE2, you transmute, augment, throw it away, repeat, then regal if you get lucky. Exalted orbs are more common than in PoE1, but still rare enough that power stays relatively low during the campaign. That technically creates more engagement with crafting, but in practice it feels more restrictive than empowering, especially since rare drops themselves feel less frequent than in PoE1’s campaign.

The passive tree feels broadly similar, but PoE2 leans harder on tradeoffs and downsides. That makes choices feel less rewarding. You’re often choosing between penalties rather than building toward strengths.

The campaign pacing is also very different. PoE1’s campaign is something you can reliably complete in an afternoon once you know it. PoE2’s campaign feels much larger and slower. Even if you optimize, it doesn’t feel like your run time will meaningfully improve. Rerolling becomes a multi-day commitment instead of a single-session one.

That said, the slower gameplay itself is growing on me.

I played PoE1 today and tried Glacial Hammer. The build feels strong in terms of damage and impact, but clear speed is always the bottleneck. That’s true in both games. Because of monster density, skills are effectively evaluated by clear speed first and everything else second. Bossing builds exist, but clear efficiency dominates the meta because it dominates currency generation.

PoE2 currently feels more open to experimentation, and it does look like you can “make your own build” more easily in the early phase. At the same time, there are already builds abusing mechanics and producing runaway screen-clear DPS. If that isn’t addressed, the same pattern will repeat: some skills will become non-viable simply because the game has to balance around zoom and trade-driven inflation.

So PoE2 is improving the feel of combat, but it hasn’t yet resolved the core tension that PoE1 had: in a trade-driven economy with high monster density, clear speed sets value. That makes a lot of design space illusory.

PoE2 is better at being a game moment-to-moment.
PoE1 is better at being a system that doesn’t fight the player’s time as much.

Right now, PoE2 feels like it’s between those two identities.

I've had this feeling since the start.
PoE2 feels better to play, but PoE1 is more fun to play.

PoE2 has a way better outer layer (WASD, story, atmosphere, graphics, animations, sounds, effects, general feel of using skills), but is missing the great inner layer that PoE1 had. (Constant feeling of progression, lots of skill variety, very few restrictions, lots of options for both offense and defense)

This basically results in this weird state where I like playing PoE2 more, but I have very little fun. Meanwhile I have more fun in PoE1, but it's kinda boring to play.

What experimentation? Only a select number of skills in PoE 2 do damage and you are greatly restricted by the weapon you use unless you play as a mage. The game's character building is mostly on rails.

I think a lot of this is that the game is being designed to start straight out of Clearfell instead of after 10 cookie-clicker acts, which is how the last 10yrs or so has conditioned people to play poe.

The campaign in poe1 is tolerated as a speedbump on the way to an endgame loot casino for a lot of poe1 players, new and veteran, where some of them enjoy cosplaying as a God for 2 weeks and the rest are mostly slot machine addicts.

When you go into poe2 with this same mentality, and the speedbump is much larger, it's going to feel annoying for a lot of those players because of the conflict with established expectations and the fact that there's extra friction between them and what they actually want to do - which isn't to engage with a challenging ARPG, as much as they claim it is.

If developers acquiesce and say "lets just give those people what they want - everyone is a God!" - the people looking for a challenge will get bored and leave the game, and soon after that the entire aspect of Godhood altogether loses any prestige, and the only people left playing the game are just loot casino addicts convinced they're video game professionals, and the occasional god-cosplayers who get bored after two weeks of the league because, well, there's no prestige or appeal to it once you actually achieve it.

Appealing to those kind of players is not designing a game, it's a skinner-box trap, and we already have poe1. This is why any new addition, league mechanic, or adjustment to poe1 from here on out that is not in alignment with the concept of "accessible / increased lever pulls at a casino" will never be accepted by the poe1 community, and worse, if it adds friction, will be heralded as "the developers have no idea what they're doing" and we'll hear it on the forums from bunch of irate addicts who've just had a larger speedbump placed between them and a hit.

As for the much more present, explicit, and numerous sources of opportunity cost in poe2 compared to poe1, it's necessary because there's 9 skill slots that can be fully linked instead of 1-2. You can build your character to fully-power-up 1 or 2 skills in poe2 and the "opportunity" costs will prevent you from doing it alongside 7 other skills, which you will likely have to find someway to turn into support or utility/buff skills.

It's not so different from poe1 in that regard, just instead of being structurally limited by only being able to 6-link and fully utilize 1-2 skills because of the structural gear dependency, it's designed to use explicit opportunity costs baked into other areas of the game.

It's a psychological perception issue - it feels worse to have the opportunity for something taken away than it does to have never had the opportunity or been aware of it in the first place, and I believe there will be way more opportunities in general that will exist in poe2 in the future despite this higher prevalence of explicit opportunity costs because this design allows for a lot of flexibility and interesting potential - and adjustment.

I think there's some kinks they need to iron out with the progression but I don't think they should take away the fact that in poe2 the game starts right out of Clearfell, not after an afternoon of mindless campaign meandering so you can be a God at the loot casino for two weeks. We already have that game.

It's only experienced as "fighting your time" if you're not currently enjoying the present - you're focused on some far off carrot and you're tolerating the present.

It's not necessarily a bad thing to have that carrot, but in that situation, those people need to realize that they don't really like playing a challenging ARPG. They don't really like recreational problem solving. They don't really like the journey of trial and error and experimentation and discovery. They only like having the carrot - being the God.

It feels bad to have easy access to God-status taken away when you've been using it to navigate a loot casino for 10 years.

PoE2 doesn't have an identity crisis, it knows exactly what it is - a challenging ARPG with that carrot on the stick. And with all things challenging, it can still be mastered and made to look easy.

The people confused about what it is are only confused because they are a)Here for the loot casino and HELLOOOO - why are they making it so hard to get there??? are they dumbb?? It makes me not like the gammeeeee and/or b)I just want to wreck shit, why do I also have to learn shit? No learn! Only wreck!

It IS confusing when the game you're expecting to play is not the game you ARE playing. That doesn't mean the game is designed poorly. It means it's designed for players who like a different game than what you've expected.

They also addressed the density issues this patch - which I think have been going over pretty well since it seems like no one's noticed... lol

Overall, I really don't agree with the "identity issue" that get's parroted. I think it's just a lot of players who are used to an easy god-cosplayer or easy-access loot casino finally being forced to play combat or engage with mechanics finding it tiring to do so in order to become a god and enter the casino.

PoE2 knows exactly what it is. Some people are just upset about it because it's not PoE1.

"

I think a lot of this is that the game is being designed to start straight out of Clearfell instead of after 10 cookie-clicker acts, which is how the last 10yrs or so has conditioned people to play poe.

Thanks for the thoughtful response. I think you’re right that PoE1 and PoE2 are optimized for somewhat different experiences, and that expectation mismatch is part of what people are reacting to.

Where I still disagree slightly is that I don’t think PoE2 has fully escaped PoE1’s structural incentives yet. It borrows a lot from PoE1 at the system level: high monster density, trade-driven economies, screen-clear scaling, and early meta convergence. We’re already seeing screen-clearing builds and campaign leveling metas emerge, which suggests that efficiency and clear speed are still going to be dominant forces regardless of the game’s stated identity.

That’s why my concern isn’t really about whether the game should be harder or slower, or who it’s “for,” but about what kinds of behavior its systems will eventually produce once novelty fades and everything becomes optimized.

I also think it’s a bit unfair to reduce PoE1 players to “casino players.” The same economic and compounding incentives that existed in PoE1 still exist in PoE2, so similar pressures toward optimization and farming are likely to re-emerge even if the early experience is more demanding.

So for me the question isn’t “should players have to engage more,” but “what happens to engagement, diversity, and resentment once the challenge becomes routine and the optimal paths are known.” That’s the long-term part I’m most interested in.

"

Brazosrr#2416 wrote:

The more I play PoE2, the more I see its upsides. Weapon impact feels better. Skills have more weight. The graphics and moment-to-moment combat are more engaging. On that layer, PoE2 is an improvement.

The problems are mostly systemic.

In PoE1, the campaign has a sense of agency and flow. You can generally move toward the next objective intuitively. In PoE2, zone layouts are more ambiguous, which adds cognitive friction. Navigation takes more attention without necessarily adding more meaning.

Item progression also feels more constrained. In PoE1, you find a base, use alteration orbs until it’s decent, then regal and move on. In PoE2, you transmute, augment, throw it away, repeat, then regal if you get lucky. Exalted orbs are more common than in PoE1, but still rare enough that power stays relatively low during the campaign. That technically creates more engagement with crafting, but in practice it feels more restrictive than empowering, especially since rare drops themselves feel less frequent than in PoE1’s campaign.

The passive tree feels broadly similar, but PoE2 leans harder on tradeoffs and downsides. That makes choices feel less rewarding. You’re often choosing between penalties rather than building toward strengths.

The campaign pacing is also very different. PoE1’s campaign is something you can reliably complete in an afternoon once you know it. PoE2’s campaign feels much larger and slower. Even if you optimize, it doesn’t feel like your run time will meaningfully improve. Rerolling becomes a multi-day commitment instead of a single-session one.

That said, the slower gameplay itself is growing on me.

I played PoE1 today and tried Glacial Hammer. The build feels strong in terms of damage and impact, but clear speed is always the bottleneck. That’s true in both games. Because of monster density, skills are effectively evaluated by clear speed first and everything else second. Bossing builds exist, but clear efficiency dominates the meta because it dominates currency generation.

PoE2 currently feels more open to experimentation, and it does look like you can “make your own build” more easily in the early phase. At the same time, there are already builds abusing mechanics and producing runaway screen-clear DPS. If that isn’t addressed, the same pattern will repeat: some skills will become non-viable simply because the game has to balance around zoom and trade-driven inflation.

So PoE2 is improving the feel of combat, but it hasn’t yet resolved the core tension that PoE1 had: in a trade-driven economy with high monster density, clear speed sets value. That makes a lot of design space illusory.

PoE2 is better at being a game moment-to-moment.
PoE1 is better at being a system that doesn’t fight the player’s time as much.

Right now, PoE2 feels like it’s between those two identities.

poe 2 is no different than poe 1
all good builds are one button builds
fast and over-stimulating end-game on T15 you did not know what even is on screen
there's no place for synergies

unless poe 2 don't have any balance in power gain-curve and we skip from T2 to T10 and power creep is so massive here so there's nothing to do after few days.

i see the theme where poe 1 players are so loud and game is casualized and toned to just one button fiesta and entire core identity of poe 2 is washed out

the fact you think "you can experiment" mean you are not part of the economy and not trading.
using build that is 100% less efficent is not an option if you want to be part of economy and trade.
and it's not 100% less it's more of 1500%. And leeching is massive issue for economy now