What makes this game fun or not to you? Genuinely curious

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Aim_High#3562 написал:

What I dont like


Builds
. What if I want to play ice sorc that blizzard or shatter enemies or turn to ashes, electrocute using thunder. Pure necromance with horde of minions that deal with shit instead of me. Probably I will be able to but here is where we go in circles, it's nowhere near as efficient as LS and inflation will move forward while I slowly try to catch up with meta op optimised builds, and won't be able to get as good gear to keep up because Crafting and Loot.

you can have 1000 divine gear on any build, LS just better for 1 divine

Really appreciate all the replies — honestly it’s comforting (and a little sad) to see that a lot of folks are feeling the same way. Seems like the core gameplay and visuals are solid for most of us, even great in some areas, but the fun just isn’t sticking long-term because of the systems surrounding it.

The loot being basically nonexistent post-campaign, crafting feeling like you need a PhD in RNG, and the economy punishing any experimentation — it all lines up with how I’ve been feeling. Minions or non-meta stuff just feel awful right now, and yeah… 100%. I want to live that fantasy of a brute spectre horde crashing through mobs, but right now it’s just not viable or satisfying.

And then you look over at Lost Epoch players — they’re getting loot, they’re crafting their own gear, they’re having fun. Even if I don’t personally love the look or feel of LE, I get why people are playing it. You get to log in and just play. Not micromanage trade site tabs and pray someone answers a whisper. Not feel like you’re grinding out another shift at a second job.

I'm still hopeful. I really do want PoE2 to find its footing and become something amazing — the bones are there. Just… please let it start being fun again. Hopefully we hear from the devs soon with some real commentary or changes, because for now, I think I’ll be sitting this out and watching from the sidelines.

Would love to come back when the game starts respecting my time a bit more.

Likes:
Superior controls/animations
Big skill tree/Stuff to experiment with
Attempts to reduce faceroll builds
Attempts to avoid making the game easy

Dislike:
Too much limitation e.g., you must use a specific melee weapon for every melee skill
Designed around dodge-roll too much. (lack of guard skills) https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Guard_Skill
Virtually no instant cast abilities beside invocations

I like the campaign.

I like the combat, maps, and enemies.

I sort of like the changes to the Atlas and Tower/Tablet mechanics.

The Passive Tree is OK, Stash, Hideout fine.. Loot 'design' is ok'ish.



The rest is just plain bad.

Trials are just torturous, Expedition just plain sucks as it's only purpose is to support the Recombinator.. which also sucks. No Crafting to save us from a hamstrung RNG loot table, and the most archaic 'Auction' system in modern gaming.. "The Hunt" is a Temu "Torment League."

The gameplay I like here will not keep me playing PoE2 'as is.' ARPG games are coming in hot every year and PoE2's selling points, as they appear atm, aren't enough to compete in the 'projected'
broader market.

I love the gameplay, it's the peak of any ARPG. Class design, voice acting, sound design and just the campaign in general are all fantastic. It still has the passive tree like POE1 which I love.

Only things I don't care for are the 2nd set of trials you have to do for ascendance and the lack of end game content which I know will happen in time and while I really enjoy the campaign, I would like it to be shorter...

Likes:

- Quality gameplay
- Visuals are incredible
- The layered abilities that synergize (both in effect and visual/sound) is great
- Diverse minions and challenges
- I like the ability to "choose your own difficulty" in maps with the juiced up mods
- I like the idea of having a carrot to chase and i don't burn out content as fast as many players, so I always have a carrot
- The game feels challenging but I also feel powerful
- Soundtrack is great
- I like feeling like top end loot is hard to get. I think people need to be careful what they wish for here. Too much of a good thing can be bad too. (but it would be nice to have a way to target bad affixes)
- among a lot of others!

Dislikes:

- The trial system sucks. I hate honor and it feels cheap.
- Mats are really difficult to get and limit a persons ability to progress without finding Divine orbs. That can lead to gear check walls that just feel bad.
- One shots out of nowhere. Seriously, there are so many effects that this should never happen without giving the player a chance to react. You wanna keep standing in the purple after taking a good shot? that's your business, but dont kill me because 300 dudes are attacking me and i have a million effects and cant even SEE what hit me...
- Bosses reliance on one shot cheaty bastard tactics. Seriously. It feels bad to lose because you mistimed one move in a 10m fight. A good fight needs push and pull
- I'd like to see more things to do besides maps in the early end game. There could be tiers to the end game bosses!
- among a lot of others!

Overall, I'm having a great time and I don't feel scammed or cheated in any way. A lot of hyperbolic language gets used in todays internet and we are all feeling like we have been scammed by life, but I do genuinely think GGG is trying to put out a great experience and it's just missing the mark at times.

I'm one of those thoroughly enjoying the game. I mean, I spent 80h so far (yeah, I know, some people have invested even more), but quite frankly, I think if I'm still playing after 80h (and I intend to carry on), the game is really worth my time. That said, I understand it's not for everyone and I understand there are some issues that even I find somewhat frustrating. So here's my two cents.

Positives
- Skills not being class-specific: I played D1 to D4 for countless hours, and as much as I love them (especially D2), I prefer the old RPG approach that everyone can learn a skill. I enjoy thinking of potential builds and mixing them up. Mercenary with minions? Sure, why not? I want to see if I can do a tanky witch with a weapon while being supported by minions. Or maybe a gish Sorceress, blasting enemies with a sword, shield and magic. Perhaps they're not feasible for endgame, but I just love having the option to try and do this kind of stuff. I don't want to be forced to play a necromancer that can only learn necromancy, or a warrior that can only learn battle moves.

- Gameplay: It's hard and challenging, but that, for me, ends up being something that encourages me to try even harder. Maybe it's an adrenaline kick, who knows, but I genuinely enjoy overcoming challenges after redoing my skill set. Sometimes it's a bit too much, but overall it's a pleasant experience for me. I remember trying to beat Doryani in Cruel difficulty, being useless, redoing my character and beating him without difficulty once I had reassessed my options. It's a great feeling when you overcome these challenges.

- Atmosphere: I've got to say that I'm not too much into the lore of the game, but I love the scenarios and I love the music. It's a visually appealing game, and even though I still want to kill the mobs, having such an amazing artwork is important for me when I play a game.

- Hideout: Big win for me, I've always loved the idea of having a base in games like Diablo. Being an old Ultima Online player, and barring the obvious distances, having the opportunity to customise a hideout is a big win for me. Also, it's not just about the sheer cosmetic part, but I have, for example, organised my hideout in an efficient way, so it can also be an asset.

- Atlas: It's obvious that there's still too much to do about it, but quite frankly, I love the idea of simply doing self-contained adventures while cleaning a map, in the style of old RPGs. It gives you a feeling of being part of a world, and although at the moment it's still quite simple, I can see its potential. I can't wait to see more of it.

- Crafting: There's something I just enjoy about collecting crafting materials to create items. I don't think the system is perfect at all, and the grinding potential can become a burden, but there's so much to think about when collecting crafting materials to do your preferred item. I'd appreciate less randomness and some more certainty, especially for players that can't put 500+ hours, but overall, once more, so far I'm having fun crafting items and collecting ingredients. I'm a hoarder.

- Big stash: Once more, I'm a hoarder. I love collecting stuff.

Negatives
- Loot and items: I remember playing D3 on Torment 16 and getting several uniques and set items with ease. That's something I wouldn't want to repeat. But I think there can be a reasonable balance. More important than that, I think uniques have to be meaningful. I've seen lots of builds already using rare, crafted items for bonuses that will always offset most uniques. Also, I know this isn't a competition between casual and hardcore players, I really dislike that dichotomy, but it's important to try to find a balance between scarce loot and obscene loot that satisfies both parties.

- Unbalanced mobs: There are some clear issues with some mobs. I was just literally blasted by the sun priests quite recently with their super powerful beam attack. Also, there are some monsters like that scarab, or some Faridun, that for ranged characters or minion based characters are just a pain. I understand the need to keep a ranged character on its feet, rather than just sitting idle without any real danger, but there are some ways to deal with it that are more elegant, and enjoyable, than others. For example, ranged attacks or things that explode under you? Sure, I'll have that, it's only fair. What I genuinely don't enjoy is when some of these fast mobs will just literally have you running in circles until you kill them, because they fixate on you and that's it. It's not that it's no possible to do, it's just that I don't find it funny, more like: here we go again, dodging nonstop until my minions kill the guy. This is just an example, but my point is: making something challenging and fun is the real challenge, and I think PoE2 would benefit from rethinking how difficulty is addressed; don't make things easy, that's not the point, but make the challenge fun, rather than tedious.

- Server stability: I'm a big fan of the game and I dislike people blasting it for no reason, even though I have my own view of some of its issues, but the one thing that it's difficult to forgive is the performance and stability issues. It seriously requires more work. I've lost a djinn barya, an ultimatum and two waystones due to server issues, and that's genuinely annoying. Moreover, sometimes the game stutters, whether it is server stability or loading mobs; it becomes a real issue when fighting bosses.

- Crafting: I said I love hoarding and crafting, but still, I think the system could be better. Some of the percentages when merging items are just way too low. Same for the regal shards. I would very much prefer for a crafting item to be rare but, once obtained, having some degree of control and certainty. But I understand this is more wishful thinking than anything else.

- The XP penalty: I don't die often. Just today, I did two bosses and five maps and I didn't die a single time (lvl 75 witch). I'm not the best of players, but I can manage. Still, the few times I've died only to see a loss of 10% of the total experience needed, that's really frustrating. Quite recently I got blasted by some sun priests in a very tricky map and I died a total of four times before quitting the map. Sure, there has to be some form of penalty for dying, but this is quite discouraging if you want to try some challenges. Do I risk going for a higher challenge when I can lose my hard earned XP? Some people will say: that's risk and reward, mate, but at the end of the day I'd say: it's a game after all. Dying and having to do a boss again is already a pain, and I'd even accept an XP penalty, or even better, a loot penalty: you don't get as good loot if you didn't beat the map without dying. But the 10% seems really harsh to me, and it doesn't really add anything to the experience.

- Microtransactions: As an Early Access player, I'm happy to say I'm supporting GGG and their product. I like it, that's the most important thing, and I even paid for some extra coins to buy more stash space. However, in my honest opinion some of the prices are just quite discouraging. A hideout for 300 coins when 300 coins is $30? I could buy a game for that. That really puts me off buying anything, quite frankly, and I've played ESO, Old Republic and D&D online and spent lots of money in minor cosmetic things because they were worth $3 to $6. I think it's not only about unfair prices, but it's also going to put so many people off spending money in cosmetics and supporting the game. I'm happy to spend the equivalent of a pint or two every now and then to make my character look cooler, but if I have to pay 30 quid, I'd rather buy a whole game.

Conclusion
Overall? I'm having a blast with the game. I seriously haven't enjoyed an ARPG like this in a long time, and I've played lots of them (D1 to D4, Titan's Quest, Victor Vran, Sacred, Grim Dawn). My main point about the game, however, is the following: it's still Early Access. If this were the final state of release, of course there would be plenty of reasons to be concerned, but quite frankly, it's obvious that the game has so much potential and that some of the issues just require the game to be polished. And even like that, I'm still playing it nonstop. Well worth the money I paid for it.

There you go, that's my take on it.

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RedCorsair#2371 написал:

Campaign 8/10.
Some maps have bad design (too large in terms of complete time).

Endgame mapping 5/10.
Atlas tree needs more significant perks. 2% of rarity/quantity is a joke. it have to be at least 10. also atlas tree needs few perks of "your maps have +1 to mobs level". at least 5 of this.
fix oneshots from white mobs! got one-shotted with spear throw by white hyena-centaur while having 4k hp and 81% evasion! add "mobs deals XX less damage" perks in atlas tree
10% exp loss at death is cringe due to 99% of build are trash. make death nullify gained exp on that map plus penalty to exp 10% for 3 next maps after death (stacks up to 90%)

Endgame pinnacle 0/10.
pointless waste of time because of 99% of loot is garbage (nerfed to ground).


Classes and skills -8/10
yes, negative
half of ascendancy points are useless.
1 meta build and others are not worth playing. is that "the vision"?
99% of spells underperforming. unmodified cast time should be removed completely. every skill should be usable as main damaging ability. if i want to run and spam comets - it just have to work.
melee abilities should deal left hand damage (they are not).
melee abilities should be faster (they are slow)
spear melee abilities have too weak multipliers to be effective
spear melee abilities slow as 2h mace abilities
they nerfed grenades. grenades, karl!
add quiver to crossbow!
add weapon and offhand to demonform
rework bloodmage, witch hunter.
un-nerf abilities/perks, un-nerf unique items, buff other uniques.
bring jewel slots back!
etc.

I'm playing poison arrow witch hunter which i made myself and am doing all of the content efficiently besides the end difficulties of pinnacle bosses. Have literally seen nobody play this and no guides on it. Its people not experimenting and just following meta guides then complaining there is no diversity.

Personally I really like the campaign. I get side tracked while playing because I think of build variations that I want to play. Yet for me that means I want to go make it and play it from level 1 up.

The issue for me is once I've done the "campaign twice" and I get put into end game I find it boring fast. I don't really know why and I can grind maps out fast enough. However, if "end game" was how the game started I would have quit two weeks into early access back in December.

So I run a few maps to see if anything interesting drops and then I go play a "experiment character."

Besides end game the drops are just bad and often non existent. I get they have holidays or whatever this week, but this "drops" patch should have been a priority. It's also to the point that when you see how little drops and how many people are complaining about it. How is the market so saturated with Divs? etc Certain places seem to have thousands and thousands of every type of currency within a few days. I mean I know "how", but it just ruins the game which is the same as every other game "online".

Oh and 0.2 introduced a lot of "nerfs" that didn't have to be put into the game. Mostly to combat builds from 0.1. Yet lightning spear being a great example of why? It's just forcing a certain type of build instead of having more options.

Granted you can make variations on LS by going with Deadeye or Blood Mage... but previously you had more options that weren't all based around one skill.

The concoction changes were just mind boggling as another thing I don't like.

Oh and I'll add in about "end game". This is a combination of two things:

1) The maps are bad (get stuck on a lot of things which limits movement) or they are made in a way that it's hard to see.

2) The drops are crap.

I have been "mapping" on three different characters. Out of what seems like a stupid amount of runs I've had ONE that had decent loot. Which all came down to what looked like a Slot Machine lockbox that you could use 4 times. Even then it wasn't great loot, but I at least got some currency.

Beyond that I've gotten 1 (one) thing I could use. 2 or 3 things I could sell through the trade site. Everything else gets dismantled or sold. Also can't really do much with crafting because there is no where near enough currency to bother with that and actually trying to gear.

Every piece of gear I'm using now because I sold the one drop I used for a while. Every single piece has come from the trade website. When you find someone listing something for a price you can manage.

1. I enjoyed the campaign for the most part. Towards the end, I noticed the power spike on enemies & when I did die, it was from just being 100-0'd in an instant. Despite wearing good gear & all my resistances being 70-75 (minus chaos). Did my first map today, barely got through it. Being a squishy melee, its very hard to go in for attacks & found myself relying a lot more on my 'backup ranged skills' to be a bit more safe. During the campaign, I was deleting everything but this changed in the last 2-3 zones of the campaign & was furthered when I did my first map. Not sure whats up with the defenses, but it feels like evasion is pretty awful (I mix with es).

2. Drop rates suck. I've had to currency exchange things I don't want to, just to get exalted orbs. I got less than 10 throughout the entire campaign from drops & I had to exchange 3 chaos orbs & a greater essence of torment, just so I can have some wiggle room for upgrading gear. Exalted Orbs were by far my biggest rare drop. Felt like I got more uniques than exalts.

3. Bout to do my 3rd ascendancy..hate the system. Disliked it in 0.1 and still do now. In 0.1 I wasn't able to get my 3rd ascendancy done & then I'd go multiple levels without being able to retry b/c I needed a new trial token. It felt really bad being locked out from getting the ascendancy points. And even more frustrating to spend 1hr+ in there & die in the 2nd last room on the 3rd floor, to some flame gauntlet BS that your character's frame is edged into and is nearly impossible to see with the camera angle.

I feel like I'm bout to hit the wall a lot of others are hitting/speaking about. Which is more or less the end-game and all the problems that lie in it.
Hope I'm wrong but not feeling confident based on what I saw.