Why POE2’s Direction Is Worrying for Veterans and Newcomers Alike

The Vision is still going strong it seems. We'll see if that lasts until full 1.0 release.

As someone that never touched PoE1 but is a veteran ARPG player since D2 launch, I always regretted not picking up PoE1 when it released and later it felt like I missed my timing and didnt wanna start when PoE2 was already under development. Played Lost Ark meantime, then some PoD (every couple years). Decided to wait for PoE2 release and immediately give it a go.

As soon as I booted up during 0.1, the game absolutely sucked me in. The story was interesting, the graphics look good, the skills feel good. The game not only looked but it also FELT D2-ish which is basically gods gift to humanity for ARPG veterans.

It is EA alright, which means there is certainly room for improvement but it was amazing to see how much 0.1 already offered, including endgame and pinnacle bosses. Before I knew it, it was end of March and I had 200h+ as a fully working adult put into the game which hasnt happened since I believe D3 season 1? And D3 was kinda bad compared to D2 already. That means in short: You did an amazing job with 0.1 already and laid a solid foundation for the future. I was convinced that this game could become the new titan of ARPGs given all the promising aspects already in the game. The only remaining issues were artificial slowdowns, lack of speed for certain classes unless they got Temporalis, armor not working, crafting being a lazy RNG fiesta and mapping even at T16-T18 not feeling like they drop enough loot considering even creating a single T16 map costs around 30 exalts, 10 regals and 10 vaals on average which means they need to drop at least that much loot to even break even.

But ok I thought these issues will surely be addressed, pinnacles will be buffed and some super OP builds nerfed to not be able to one shot T4 pinnacles which is completely fine. Also we still have 3 more acts and tons of classes to come so I was super hyped....

And then 0.2 launched. And it made my worst fears come true: The artificial and absolutely needless slowdowns in the game are there intentionally. They were not "slip ups", they are there because you WANT the player to be slow. You describe this as "meaningful" but thats not what it feels like to most players. Fast can also be meaningful. The argument that movement speed makes combat optional is invalid already when looking at ALL the endgame activities: They involve combat in some shape or form, so you have to fight something and some point. But what movement speed does is give you a flexibility of when to fight and when to back off. It is only good for the players and sure you have to make sure its not OP. But thats part of your job sry. D2 accomplished it 25 years ago, so can you. Artificial slowdowns, having enemies be 3x as fast as you and work in souls mechanics like parry which were designed for combat against single or a small number of enemies directly contradicts the classic D2 ARPG formula of dispatching of several hundred mobs quickly and looting a lot. You can still make that difficult mind you. But remember one thing: DIFFICULT DOES NOT EQUAL SLOW.

The anti-synergy between souls mechanics, artificial slowdowns and clunkyness with the D2 formula of clearing areas of hundreds of mobs quickly when farming and only having a slow down when fighting a boss (this change of pace makes bosses feel really meaningful!) is the death of an ARPG for me. It simply doesnt work together. Please listen to the community and make the game more fluid and optimize map layouts, character movement speed, enemy movement speed and endgame farming content in a way that it is still hard, but doesnt force us to stop, wait and waste our time for no reason.

Bumpity Bump, spot on

Great post! Btw, how did you see your steam library displayed like that? I can only see mine in one vertical column list.

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Here’s my Steam profile, just to put things in perspective:

Also, does anyone know how you properly quote someone in a long thread like this? When I first click on the "Q" button, it doesn't put their post in my draft; it's functionally the same as clicking "post reply". Then, I only have the last page of posts that I can quote (at this stage the Q button at least works). Thanks in advance!

It's like the original poster predicted everything about 0.2.0 and he did it back in December last year.

The games a hot mess at the moment. Even with all the 'fixes'.

(And this is only the steam versions)

Just to chime in here. Anyone trying to say that Path of Exile 2 is more Souls-like. It's not. If it were, it would be a better game because it would have better design. I'm not saying that Path of Exile 2 should be actually Souls-like, but it absolutely isn't, and based on 0.2 if they are trying to make it like that, they are failing miserably.

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LW187#4876 написал:

Please listen to the community and make the game more fluid and optimize map layouts, character movement speed, enemy movement speed and endgame farming content in a way that it is still hard, but doesnt force us to stop, wait and waste our time for no reason.

WELL said !!! you are absolutely spot on in every regard. let's hope they can get this all tuned correctly because it's really just a few changes away from feeling like a great game as is/was D2 (BTW, you didn't mentioned Project D2, give it a chance if you haven't, it combined PoE1 with D2 and they will have a new ladder soon).

to be honest I'm not sure if it's because I play the ranger/huntress, there's a lot of movement speed mods in that area of the tree, I take every single one and with tame beast and haste aura I'm at 35% move speed which feels pretty good in this game. it's nowhere near what D2 feels like with some of the builds on there where you literally sprint like an olympian gold medalist but it actually feels OK for this game. not sure if the other classes have as many movement speed options in their respective areas.

Please don't listen to community, game design is not a democracy.

Also, anyone who uses "community" as an argument for anything is wrong by default, and neither honest nor capable of providing valuable feedback. There is no consensus on a single issue in the "community", if you don't even get that, how are you supposed to get what is good for the game.

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rhorains#6760 написал:

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LW187#4876 написал:

Please listen to the community and make the game more fluid and optimize map layouts, character movement speed, enemy movement speed and endgame farming content in a way that it is still hard, but doesnt force us to stop, wait and waste our time for no reason.

WELL said !!! you are absolutely spot on in every regard. let's hope they can get this all tuned correctly because it's really just a few changes away from feeling like a great game as is/was D2 (BTW, you didn't mentioned Project D2, give it a chance if you haven't, it combined PoE1 with D2 and they will have a new ladder soon).

to be honest I'm not sure if it's because I play the ranger/huntress, there's a lot of movement speed mods in that area of the tree, I take every single one and with tame beast and haste aura I'm at 35% move speed which feels pretty good in this game. it's nowhere near what D2 feels like with some of the builds on there where you literally sprint like an olympian gold medalist but it actually feels OK for this game. not sure if the other classes have as many movement speed options in their respective areas.

I did play project D2 as well:) Its great, somehow I stuck more around in PoD but its really just personal preference. Both are great mods of a great game. Its basically taking the solid base that was D2 and further refining it, making new skills or buffing underperfoming stuff while slightly adjusting completely OP stuff without killing them. As it should be.

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7. The Gem System Isn’t Fun

I'm actually begging GGG to completely ignore this post. Actually, maybe it should be against the rules to make a long list of completely unrelated points when they should be separate threads. I can see why some people might prefer a faster pace which I guess is the first point of the list and makes this thread popular. But demanding PoE2 be a PoE1 clone is just nonsense.

Indeed , Potions and Gems work different in PoE2 than in PoE1. I don't see this as a problem. And this is actually the first time in a lot of Forum weeks I see this point be made against Gems. Support Gems in PoE2 aren't the deep mechanic from PoE1 but they have the advantage of being much easier to learn and explain and adapt. This is a good system. And if you prefer the PoE1 way, well, that's good to. But maybe some PoE1 players just wanted PoE1. Which is nice and all but already exists and is going to remain playable and even get updates.