Things I do not like about POE 2:

1.) Lack of deterministic crafting options / farming places for crafting materials.

- I want crafting recipes so that I can fix my resists / make my weapons actually useful while leveling. I need that to be consistent. I just do not care about any reasons as to why that isn't a thing in the game. If the end result isn't fun to me, I really do noy care why it is the way that it is. It makes no difference to me.

- This game isn't fun to play when you're getting one shot because you have crap resists, or when it takes too long to kill anything because you can't get a half decent weapon to drop. It sucks when you have bad RNG and can't fix your gear. It feels like you just have to go aimlessly wander around till you get more currency to throw down the drain or like you have to use the trade site... like there is no hard end to it... and that isn't "Inviting."

2.) Forced Combos, Skills being tied to Weapon Types, and Stat Requirements.
- If a skill doesn't work well on it's own, then using it dictates that you also use another specific skill which limits the players creativity to come up with their own combos. This feels like a step back from POE 1's skill gem system.

- Skills being locked to a specific weapon type also limits a players ability to choose once they have decided what weapon type they want to use. This is mostly an issue for melee, as most spells don't care if you have a wand or a staff -- and they're all int weapons anyways so even if they did, you could easily run two weapon types. But I can't use quarterstaff skills as a STR stacking Mace user unless I also have enough Dex to use the weapon AND the skill. This heavily limits the number of skills I have to choose from... and potentially impacts the defensive layers I want to use such as which armor types due to stat requirement. It's just not well thought out if the goal is build freedom -- which is largely why POE 1 was such a good game.

- All in all I think the current weapon/skill system is actually a bigger fundamental problem than a "bad end game" because there isn't much point in even playing the end game if the core of coming up with a build is so limited that it doesn't feel like there are enough builds to even want to do the end game. As a melee enjoyer -- this is actually the biggest reason I don't really want to even play anymore -- and why I personally was so demoralized when it became apparent that swords/axes weren't coming in .5.

3.) Combat Pacing.
- I love the idea of slower more methodical combat; however, there are some fundamental design aspects that go into making slower combat actually work -- and those concepts are only adhered to in the beginning of POE 2, and on some boss fights. Mainly, you need to regulate how many enemies are on the screen at once. If there are too many enemies, then it feels like garbage for my character to have slower pacing - when the enemies don't.

- Another factor that plays into combat pacing are the rewards. If the reward for clearing a zone is some useless rare item and a crafting item that has a 75% chance to do nothing useful, then it doesn't make sense for players to participate in a slow methodical combat. The only thing that makes sense with that reward structure is speed and efficiency.

- If efficiency in clearing content is required in order to meaningfully participate in the reward structure of the game -- then abilities that are not efficient at clearing the content become a trap -- and that isn't inviting to new players, or people who enjoy the slower combat. It's a huge jebait and it sucks.

4.) I want an actual f***ing combat log so I can actually see what killed me -- so that I can understand why I died without having to record my screen and watch it back in slow motion/speculate.

5.) Build Defining Items piss me off. Take the new Face Breakers. They look like a lot of fun, but there is no guarantee they'll drop.. and if I want to use them, I'll have to make another character and farm currency. Because they're new, they're going to be expensive. So my incentive to come back to the new league and try them out is almost immediately gone.

Look at the new Shield. It looks cool -- but it also looks like you need to be level 84 to use it. Why on earth would I want to spend 83 levels playing something I don't want to play, so that I can start playing with the new cool thing after my character has already lived a full life? I assume it's also a drop off of one of the pinnacle bosses.. so I need to make a whole entire character first. To me that makes absolutely no sense. I'm probably only going to play 1-2 characters before I burn out of the league anyways.

That doesn't make me excited. If anything it's a slap in the face because there are no actual new things to start the league with unless I want to play a Dex build or some stupid minion build.

6.) Body Blocking in this game is still so unbelievably frustrating. Rolling really needs to let you clip completely through enemies. It's fine for ranged cause if the mobs get to you it's because you messed up, but when you're melee getting body blocked is just aids. Personally I'm exhausted with developers making 100% of their design choices based off of what is fun for ranged -- then busting out all the monkey's paws for melee. "Oh We gotta make sure the animation for this attack is REALLY slow cause it does a little extra damage, so it's gotta be super risky to use... meanwhile the ranged DPS are totally fine having fast attacks, that do a ton of damage and access to incredible defenses."

7.) The combat is pretty meaningfully affected by what skills you have, and your build... and EVERY single one of the classes/weapon types I'm personally interested in are the ones that aren't in the game yet. It's HIGHLY concerning to me that I don't like many of the melee skills that are currently in the game because they're all slow and clunky -- and the enemies have no problems zerging you.

Personally I am WAY more concerned with the lack of skills I actually enjoy, than I am with the end game. The end game doesn't matter if I don't actually want to play the game to begin with... and I'm struggling deeply trying to get into the game with the skills / weapon types / classes and ascendancies that are in the game right now. Every patch I come back and I feel like I'm back in Clearfell with another Warrior using Basic Attacks... and I just don't want to do it again. The talisman is cool but there aren't enough abilities... I feel like there are only 2-3 abilities for each form that I have any interest in.. and that isn't enough to want to come back and do this again.


I'm so annoyed because this game has a lot of potential.. and it's being wasted because of some really aggravating design choices.

Specifically 3), what it is now: small room, 40 enemies, all running at 3 times faster speed than you do, rushing towards you. Repeat 20 times. That's the Vaal temple and most maps too.

If any meaning was at any point present in the room with us, all of it's traces are long gone.

Everything elese, I'd put my signature under in a blink.

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Kask#3190 wrote:

I'm so annoyed because this game has a lot of potential.. and it's being wasted because of some really aggravating design choices.

This perfectly defines poe 2 imo, a good game with a lot of questionable design decisions.

But i agree with most things you said, especially this part about high level uniques:

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Kask#3190 wrote:

Why on earth would I want to spend 83 levels playing something I don't want to play, so that I can start playing with the new cool thing after my character has already lived a full life? I assume it's also a drop off of one of the pinnacle bosses.. so I need to make a whole entire character first. To me that makes absolutely no sense. I'm probably only going to play 1-2 characters before I burn out of the league anyways.

Why lock interesting skills/interactions behind a lvl 85~90 unique where most players are almost done with their characters? I can accept a high lvl requirement if it was something like Temporalis for example, which is a good unique in a "generic" way.

But it doesn't make sense to me that build defining uniques like Nightfall to have such a high level requirement, this sort of unique shouldn't be a "chase unique" imo.

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Kask#3190 wrote:

Skills being locked to a specific weapon

I like the overall concept, but the execution falls short.

Take skills like marks for example, why do we have so many of them? We could have a single mark skill instead, and you could modify them with support gems to become the other marks live voltaic or sniper.

The whole gem cutting UI/UX is straight up terrible too, if you want to use sniper's mark in your build you have to go to the bow section, but then it won't let you cut the gem if you don't have a bow equipped, you have to enable a setting inside options to let you do that..

Also, a skill like Vaulting Impact should work for both maces and quarterstaffs, and there are many other cases like this, but GGG decided that we need 3~4 variants of the same skill for some reason.
Take crossbows for example, you have 3 variants of the same skill: Armour Piercing Rounds, Shockburst rounds and Rapid Shot.

Same thing for Fragmentation Rounds, Incendiary Shot and Permafrost bolts.

It would be way more interesting if we could modify Fragmentation Rounds to become Permafrost Bolts, this would fix the problem of stacking as many "more damage" support gems as you can too, the focus would be to make skills react in interesting ways instead of the already solved formula of multiplicative damage.

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2.) Forced Combos, Skills being tied to Weapon Types, and Stat Requirements.
- If a skill doesn't work well on it's own, then using it dictates that you also use another specific skill which limits the players creativity to come up with their own combos. This feels like a step back from POE 1's skill gem system.

What combos are you coming up with in poe1? In what way is it a step back from poe1's system , where most builds just use a single skill to build around?

In PoE2, many skills are inherently tied to a specific other skill (think whirling slash+twister) because this results in more thematically fitting, interesting and flavourful combos. If you design skills to combo together in more generic ways, it results in thematically bland, generic feeling combos. On paper it might look like there are more possibilities, but in reality you often end up with one specific combination thats mechanically superior to all others. It gives the illusion of choice. (e.g. shockwave support+cyclone in poe1)

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But I can't use quarterstaff skills as a STR stacking Mace user unless I also have enough Dex to use the weapon AND the skill. This heavily limits the number of skills I have to choose from... and potentially impacts the defensive layers I want to use such as which armor types due to stat requirement. It's just not well thought out if the goal is build freedom -- which is largely why POE 1 was such a good game.

Quarterstaffs are an int/dex weapon. Maces are pure str.
Even if GGG decided to loosen the weapon/skill restrictions (e.g. allow maces to use axe/flail skills), it wouldnt make sense to allow maces/quarterstaff skills to be used on both weapons. Even in poe1 there are restrictions, you cant just use every skill with every weapon.

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All in all I think the current weapon/skill system is actually a bigger fundamental problem than a "bad end game" because there isn't much point in even playing the end game if the core of coming up with a build is so limited that it doesn't feel like there are enough builds to even want to do the end game.

Not an uncommon point to bring up but I have yet to see an actual good argument for why this is the case. Its true that in poe1, on paper, there exists more build variety due to looser restrictions on weapon/skill combination. However, in practise, the actually viable choices are a small fraction of those options. Using a different weapon doesnt offer a meaningfully different or interesting choice to make when creating a build. If you look at a popular leaguestarter like slams in poe1 for example, the vast majority of builds end up using axes because of their higher damage and better passive tree nodes. If maces suddenly werent able to use eartshatter/sunder for example, I dont think the game would be much worse off for it.

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3.) Combat Pacing.
- I love the idea of slower more methodical combat; however, there are some fundamental design aspects that go into making slower combat actually work -- and those concepts are only adhered to in the beginning of POE 2, and on some boss fights. Mainly, you need to regulate how many enemies are on the screen at once. If there are too many enemies, then it feels like garbage for my character to have slower pacing - when the enemies don't.

Sorry to say but I think this is mostly a skill/build issue. I dont know what skills you tried building around but speaking from experience, maces are absolutely capable of clearing large packs of monsters.

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Take skills like marks for example, why do we have so many of them? We could have a single mark skill instead, and you could modify them with support gems to become the other marks live voltaic or sniper.

We have "so many of them" because they support different build archetypes, isnt that obvious? They have way too much going on, too much functionality, to just put that into a support gem.
I dont know what the point of contributions like this is supposed to be, youre not giving any arguments for why something shouldnt be the way it is, just saying you dont like it currently ?

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Vyend#2601 wrote:

Why lock interesting skills/interactions behind a lvl 85~90 unique where most players are almost done with their characters? I can accept a high lvl requirement if it was something like Temporalis for example, which is a good unique in a "generic" way.

But it doesn't make sense to me that build defining uniques like Nightfall to have such a high level requirement, this sort of unique shouldn't be a "chase unique" imo.

"

Kask#3190 wrote:

Look at the new Shield. It looks cool -- but it also looks like you need to be level 84 to use it. Why on earth would I want to spend 83 levels playing something I don't want to play, so that I can start playing with the new cool thing after my character has already lived a full life? I assume it's also a drop off of one of the pinnacle bosses.. so I need to make a whole entire character first. To me that makes absolutely no sense. I'm probably only going to play 1-2 characters before I burn out of the league anyways.

Locking powerful/flashy items behind bosses/game progression/time investment is a foundational, BASIC PRINCIPLE of rpg games. It gives you something to look forward to and motivates you to keep playing for the reward.
What are you even suggesting here, you just get the powerful item right from the start ?

people be wanting system or mechanic change in poe2 where i just want a female body mtx with tig bitties

I agree and feel the same about everything you said. My top list…

-Crafting as it is right now isn’t exciting at all and tedious af.

-Having to reach endgame to get x weapon or x skill is anti fun. We should have access to every skill by the end of act 1 MAX. And skills tied to a unique should also drop much earlier to make leveling exciting and most importantly less repetitive.

-I don’t like how bleed, poison and ignite work.

-Most skills aren’t enjoyable. Most of them are too similar. Skills tied to a movement are dead on arrival. I don’t mind the combo gameplay but it always feels clunky.

+1 op
I would add terrible servers and/or netcode to the list.

I think a lot of what you’re describing comes from looking at PoE2 through a PoE1 lens and expecting systems to behave the same way.

There's some valid points in there but most of this reads like you are experiencing friction from systems that are not working how you expect them to, not necessarily that they don't work at all.