[To GGG devs and dev leads] 0.2.0 Endgame comment

Several patches for 0.2 and the controller UI is still lacking all the conveniences in KB+M. Sheesh...

I've given about 2k hours to this game and while I've had a lot of fun with it, it is tempered by the all the negative UX designed into it, so much so that I consider my opinion a little below neutral at this point.

To say PoE2 is severely flawed is an understatement. We keep coming back because its good parts are really good but the friction I experience after playing a dozen or so hours leaves me feeling I've wasted my time (yet) again.

It is easy to see that the game relies heavily on its archaic trade system. Without participating in it, there is no way to build a character that can tackle the endgame, much less enjoy all the pinnacle content.

No amount of grinding, even if it's in the thousands of hours, will yield the necessary drops in order to break the economy, power and defense ceilings that are designed into this game. I.E., you need to trade in order to thrive and it'd be okay if you all at GGG control the economy the way governments do in order to control the runaway inflation that happens in every league you has ever released.

But you always choose not to do so and so your games are only truly enjoyed by those who know the beats and get in on wealth of a league early on. This is exacerbated by Guilds that magnify the gaps since their collectives basically amplifies the flaws of the game that exponentially reward the "rich" and leaves the "poor" behind, with the coin being the time and effort investments players pour into this struggle you at GGG call a "game".

You "fixed" drops in 0.2.0g so I logged in today to see if I come out of it feeling rewarded. I've played for about 14 hours today, on 2 of my characters and my verdict is: nope, not rewarding at all.

You intentionally broke magic find and that's not big deal for me, but the drops are still underwhelming. More gold? Whoopiedo. Exalts and regals finally dropping? It was ok before 0.2 so you don't get kudos for fixing that.

Your lead Jonathan said that you all want to make "stuff taken from the ground mean something" vs. what can be bought in trade etc. So far, after all the changes, drops for most of your player base are meaningless. Only the elite players and active guilds enjoy "meaningful" drops and so they remain your only active player base it seems, if stats published online are anything to go by.

There are so many gaps in the UX. Tutorials for the campaign are ok but the endgame is lacking in this regard. In "fixing" the map system and towers, you introduced flawed quests that break on character death. Before 0.2, for all the players' complaints, it worked. One can progressively get to Tier 15 easily just by following the instructions e.g., complete Tier 11 maps -> Atlas points.

The current quest to explore a Corruption Nexus doesn't explain you need a map that has adequate modifiers before it can be used to traverse the Nexus. A KB+M players apparently can hover over the button to get a tooltip, but these conveniences are nowhere for players using a controller. How many of your player base do you think are using controllers, GGG?

Anyway, dying while doing this quest breaks it. Even after beating the boss, the quest does not register as being completed. And so, in good old PoE2 fashion, players have to plod over the gigantic map in search of another corrupted nexus area. How is this good design? Are you even playing your game right now, GGG?

My latest character just finished the campaign where it was fairly easy due to the overtuning of the Huntress for the campaign. But entering the 0.2 endgame was brutal since there is no way during the campaign to really shore up resistances and defenses without grinding hard and for low level items to boot.

After about 100 hours of grinding, after reaching level 70, my character hasn't gained any XP since the XP loss mechanic you all love so much keeps taking my progress away and it'd be okay if you all didn't mess up the drops so I can buy my way out of this trap you all made, but drops sucked since 0.2 and the economy has already ballooned to the usual ridiculous levels.

I have a lot of gold, a lot of essences, a lot of the 1st 2 currencies, about 10 regals, and 10 exalts. I sold my 1 Divine Orb to buy Greater Jeweler Orbs to nudge the power ceiling a little but the results are almost the same. Meaningless drops with no deterministic way to reasonably address deficiencies in defense.

GGG it's obvious that when you "give" you also take away. And when you take away, you seem to want to be stingy instead of being generous in the name of your players' fun. You push for RNG everywhere.

Your leads don't seem to play the game, but if they do, it's likely they're boosting else they'd see all the things players are complaining about in every forum PoE is being discussed on the internet.

I understand making a game like PoE is very complex thing, but you all went in on PoE2 wanting to make it challenging and it is evident that somewhere along the way, you all strayed toward a punishing experience over a rewarding one.

You never considered baking into PoE2 reasonable ways for players to work on their character's defenses, especially on their own. You all gatekept this behind walls that require trading or socializing with strangers. Ziz made that comment on his interview of your leads that if you all gave defense to players, they can survive and learn your game enough to appreciate it.

But it's been 3-4 patches and it's stingier than ever getting the adequate gear to even pass lowest tiered maps. All the while the sadistic tactics and mechanics baked into maps are still there. No amount of skill and reflexes can mitigate these bad design choices that love to punish and reward very little.

And don't get me started on the graphical bugs that crept in in the 0.2 patches. You all love your ground effects. Well it'd be fine if players can see them, you know. Position vs. enemy projectiles were actually tight and great in release 0, but you all seem to have tweaked these, increasing their AoEs so characters are always grazed by them and I believe that these increases turned some projectiles actual AoE attacks that will of course ignore Evasion. Sheesh.

Energy shield is still King. No fixes for Armor and Evasion. Evasion is retarded in the way that it does nothing against Slams, AoE attacks etc. unless Acrobatics is taken and even then, it's bugged AF LOL. Good job btw in increasing the penalty for Acrobatics. Why not just remove it from the Passive tree, eh?

I.E. Defense is crap and the only people that get to fix it in a "deterministic" way for their characters are the smallest part of the player base.

Last Epoch absolutely beats your game in terms of itemization and meaningful loot. If you had their systems in your game, people would love PoE instead of having Stockholm syndrome after logging out.

Sorry to go at length on this. I just wanted to share how much time your designed game wastes for average gamers like me. I'm sure that's not how you envisioned your game to turn out, but it is what it is.