PoE2 has always had a confused direction.. sadly. What should you do about it?
Sadly, I don't think PoE2 can evolve beyond PoE1 if a major shift doesn't occur, simply because of the many underlying systems that haven't been changed enough to fit it or systems that haven't been removed and replaced by something else entirely if they don't fit it. Systems that were largely ported from PoE1.
Things such as: Evasion, Armor, Evade, Passive block, Minions, Energy shield, Totems, More multipliers on support gems, and so on... So so many of them should have had this treatment if you were realistic about what you were trying to achieve... which leads me to the question.. did you even have a clear direction on what were you trying to achieve? If we look all the way back when the first announcement trailer was made for "PoE 4.0" by Chris... even then the direction was super confused and undecisive. "For years now we've been wanting to make a sequel to Path of Exile but the problem with that though is that a sequel splits the community between two products. It's also hard for a sequel to compete with the amount of content and features the original game has. So we're creating PoE2 as a new campaign alongside PoE1 with a shared endgame. The original campaign is still fully playable, and because it's the same game it will continue to be maintained with all of the updates and game system improvements that we will make to PoE" So, you've always wanted to make a sequel and because you were afraid to start anew basically, you downgraded your aspirations to making a different campaign in the same game instead with a shared endgame. Now why did I highlight the shared endgame part? Because it is obvious this idea has largely persisted in a sense. Even though the endgame isn't shared and the games are separate... the endgame in PoE2 is largely a slightly reskinned incomplete version of PoE1's endgame. So there were never really any kind of innovative thoughts for a completely new endgame fit for a new game to begin with... this is why it feels like two different games. Also, not only did you stifle your own aspirations initially, but you also created different expectations... thus creating an even bigger divide between the two communities. The thing you were trying to avoid. That aside, let's look at what was viewed as a huge success in PoE2 in the end at it's launch. It was not the PoE1-like endgame or most of the things related to PoE1... it was in fact the new approach to combat and largely the first act of the campaign which accommodated said combat better then the rest of the game. (not perfectly, mind you.. but better then the rest). As such, it is more then clear to me what the direction of PoE2 should be about and what they should do about it moving forward. And let me tell you this much, it is not about making PoE2 into a PoE1 copy... "Sigh" Последняя редакция: IonSugeRau1#1069. Время: 25 апр. 2025 г., 01:55:11 Last bumped25 апр. 2025 г., 15:10:19
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The game has two halves which do not mesh well with each other - weak player character vs strong enemies. They should either rework characters and make them strong or reduce the danger of the enemies to make the weak character make sense.
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This is largely something I agree with; In my opinion, PoE 2 at present is an amalgamation of too many ideas from too many separate games grafted onto a PoE 1 backbone and they seem to be struggling to make it work. Even something like the passive tree that was largely brought over in principle from 1 feels wonky in 2. Even with the weapon swap points, it still very much funnels you into something very specific because there isn't enough points to elevate your damage and cover your defences and get your attributes for gem requirements; which feels very at odds with the more combo/skill interaction gameplay.
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I feel very tired after playing for 30 minutes, which should hardly appear in this type of game. There are a large number of monsters, various long-range attacks, monsters rushing from all directions, and various ground effects that should not exist at all. This is almost more exhausting and boring for me than playing competitive or fighting games, because even if I defeat them, I can hardly gain any improvement. Defeating them is meaningless.
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FOr me the fundamental problem is the carryover of the POE1 philosophy of the game getting EASIER the longer you play..
Whatever it is at the start, playing longer should give more challenge, not less. I'm not saying there is no endgame challenge in entire game, but the percentage of the time we are challenged as players gets lower and lower the longer we play, which is turbo boring POE1 style stuff. I'm also not saying the game should be slow.. It's great to escelate speed in order to escelage challenge and APM and focus, but in order for this to be engaging, I need to be making decisions as a player on how to kill enemies and not get killed... not pushing one button as I move towards enemies.. "bad guys over there, me smash" is POE1/2. |
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Totally true.
They wanted to have a Dark Souls moveset, but they forgot that in Dark SOuls you kill mosnters with 1 strike. If they want to have Dark SOuls in POE2, all mobs in POE2 should have 3 HP (5 HP for bosses) to be removed with a unique application of any skill. With 1 mln. HP THE VISION just doesnt work. |
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" Thats a great point. I always think I have new cool build ideas but the attribute requirements and lack of actual defenses other than ES always destroys my hopes and I have to go back to at least a guideline of a meta build and tweak it a bit for my personal preferences. I think the fact that skill gems require that many attributes at all (205 for a LV 20) is way too much and force locks you into specific paths on the passive tree or insane gear like amulets with +20 attr, spirit, +3 skills, +%ES, etc. (say goodbye to 25+div). If you then also want hybrid gear instead of gear that coincides with the main stat of the LV 20 skill gems it becomes a nightmare to balance and find good equipment. At the same time you need LV 20 skill gems as early as possible as its the biggest upgrade to any main damage skill and thus overall clear speed you can get. If we think back to a game like D2 (the gear in PoE is definitely inspired by it), we see the difference that skills dont require attributes, only gear does. That makes it much more flexible what gear to use and how to distribute your attribute points properly and even if your gear sucks you can always put more points into your skill without having to worry about attribute requirements. You already have the Mana requirement anyway as well in both games so shouldnt that be enough of an entry barrier to using a high level skill? |
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" That's also a very good point "Sigh"
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Agreed. There is no focus or direction.
How can you say you want "slow and engaging combat" when you introduce PoE1 league mechanics like Breach, where you pretty much have to clear the entire screen as quickly as possible to complete the content? The item mods we have available are not conducive to "souls-like" gameplay. They don't really alter our gameplay whatsoever - they're just there to make numerical values increase. Where's things like "X% increased melee damage after using a spell" or "X% increased chance to critical strike after maiming an enemy" or "X% chance to reflect projectiles while blocking" etc. Things that would actually alter the way a character would play? PoE1 league mechanics were made with PoE1 gameplay in mind, which is very fast, zoomy/blaster, etc. at its very core. It's literally incompatible with the vision for PoE2. How're we supposed to create unique builds if every ability is tied to a weapon, attribute requirements restrict us from choosing the items and abilities we want to mix and match, 80% of the abilities and support gems are borderline unplayable, and the passive tree doesn't give players the option to do anything besides what their class was "intended" to do? |
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" Oh, even if they implemented that, it would be like ... heres +x% dmg for 3 seconds... but a windup takes fuckin 3 seconds... shit. Just fucking ridiculous these guys. Imagine taking a high paces game like POE1 - and its Headhunter, at 1 minute duration, and bringing it to this slog fest, reducing its duration to 20 seconds... Completely fucking ass backwards. GGG - Why you no? Последняя редакция: JoannaDark#6252. Время: 25 апр. 2025 г., 10:31:42
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