[Feedback] Path of Exile 2 Desperately Needs a Mentorship System

Disclaimer:
Path of Exile 2 is shaping up to be a fantastic game. The mechanics are rich, the combat feels impactful, and the visual and atmospheric tone are on point. However, it’s also incredibly difficult to understand without prior experience or extensive research—unless you’ve played PoE1 for years or have the time to dive deep into external guides and theory crafting, the learning curve can feel brutal.

This post is not a request for the game to be made easier. It’s also not an invitation for veteran or hardcore players to dismiss the idea on the basis of “just figure it out”. While your depth of knowledge is appreciated, many of you no longer experience the game the way new or returning players do. The barrier to entry is real, and the perspective of someone who’s already fluent in the game’s systems can’t speak to how overwhelming it truly is for a fresh set of eyes.

This feedback is about bridging that gap—not simplifying the game, but creating better pathways for players to grow into it.

This isn’t a complaint about difficulty or challenge. This is about accessibility of information and the overwhelming learning curve. Most people don’t drop PoE2 because it’s bad—they drop it because they have no clue what’s going on or how to engage meaningfully with the systems. To a new player, it feels closer to a soulslike information wall than a guided ARPG experience.

I’ll give a concrete example: I had 15 friends (made on the game or actual friends) trying out PoE2. Out of those, 12 were ready to quit within days, saying it wasn’t worth playing because they didn’t understand how to progress or why the game felt unrewarding. It wasn’t about difficulty—they just didn’t know what to do, how to build, or how to interact with the map system.

Only after I personally sat down and ran a full-day "mentorship" session with them—walking through how mapping works, what mapping atlas routes matter, and how to actually make currency—they started to click with the game. Suddenly, they weren't just surviving—they were enjoying it. That’s 80% of a small sample group that would’ve quit purely from lack of guidance.

Now zoom out to the broader player base. Every league or season, we see 250,000+ players at launch of the season, but within three to four weeks, that number plummets to around 50,000 (STEAMDB information). I know that the streamer effect may cause people to be playing a game just because that streamer plays, but this retention is almost terrible. That’s not just natural churn or casual disinterest—it’s a massive drop-off that correlates with the exact same problem: players don’t know what to do, and there’s no structured way to learn.

The Problem: Player Retention and Knowledge Wall
It’s no secret that PoE2 sees massive drop-off in player numbers just weeks after league or seasonal releases. We go from ~250k to sub-50k very quickly. Why? Because people feel lost. There’s no onboarding path for the complexity this game offers.

The global chat is unreliable as a resource (South America, I don’t know if EU or USA servers are better). While there are helpful players out there, most of the time it's filled with memes, trolling, or cliques that aren’t welcoming to newcomers. What PoE2 needs isn’t just better tutorials—it needs mentors.

Proposal: A Structured Mentorship System
Introduce an incentivized mentorship program, both in-game and through supported platforms like Discord. This idea isn’t without precedent. Dota 2, one of the most notoriously complex games out there, implemented a coaching and mentorship system where experienced players can guide newcomers through matches, explain strategies in real-time, and even earn recognition for their efforts. What’s more, the community actively participates in this structure because the game acknowledges and rewards mentorship. Coaches receive commendations and visibility, and new players have an easier time staying engaged because they don’t feel lost or abandoned in a sea of mechanics and jargon.

Path of Exile 2 could benefit immensely from a similar approach. With proper tools to connect teachers and students, along with meaningful incentives, the community can become part of the solution rather than a bystander to player churn. If a game as brutal and competitive as Dota 2 can foster a thriving mentorship culture, PoE2—with its deep complexity and cooperative potential—has even more to gain.

Here’s the breakdown:
• Teacher/Student Tags: Players can opt in to be marked as “Mentors” or “Students.” Mentors could qualify through a mix of playtime, build success, past seasonal participation, or community approval. Once active, teachers would be rated by their students after each session, focusing on clarity, helpfulness, patience, and toxicity level. These ratings would help surface the most effective and community-friendly mentors, while discouraging toxic or misleading behavior. Over time, high-rated mentors could unlock exclusive rewards, badges, or visibility in the mentor directory.
• Party System Learning: A teacher can take up to 5 students under their wing, running real content (maps, bosses, crafting sessions, trade reviews) in real-time while sharing strategies and gameplay insight.
• Multiple Topics: The mentorship isn't just about maps. It could involve:
o Build theory crafting and live editing
o Market advice: how to price-check, what stats matter, and what “value” means
o Crafting demonstrations
o Efficient leveling routes
o Passive tree optimization
• Platform Integration: A Discord-like companion hub would massively boost coordination. It would allow for scheduled “classes,” VODs, resources, and even filtered matching based on mentor specialties (e.g., trade-focused vs combat-focused mentors).

Reward Structure (With Safeguards)
To make this viable long-term:
• After each session (e.g., 1h / 2h / 4h), both teacher and student fill out a quick feedback survey (obligatory, punished for not filling, actually don’t know how, I’ll let this for GGG).
• Teachers are scored on clarity, helpfulness, and toxicity. Students are rated on engagement and receptiveness.
• Based on feedback and accumulated mentorship time, mentors receive rewards—cosmetics, currency bundles, map boosters, etc.
• Students get symbolic rewards or progress boosts to motivate completion.

This encourages positive community interaction, helps close the info gap, and keeps new players engaged.

Bonus Effect: Reducing Community Toxicity
Ironically, the very existence of a post like this will probably attract a toxic comment within the first 15 replies—proving the point. A mentor system promotes empathy, collaboration, and patience—values that could go a long way in shaping a healthier PoE2 community.

To the Hardcore Crowd
Before some of you chime in with “This will ruin the game” or “hand-holding isn’t PoE,” please consider:
• You’re not the only audience PoE2 is trying to reach.
• Gatekeeping only accelerates player churn, not mastery.
• If you love the game, you should want more people to stick with it—and become future veterans like yourself.

Mentorship isn't about dumbing things down. It's about offering optional support for those who need it, not forcing it on those who don't.

No thanks.
Some games did that and its just getting worse.

Those mentors are usually just a bunch of entitled assholes that spread nonsense and random 'from irl' propaganda with no consequences

LAME. "Big Brother" for learning to play a game, you serious? Apologies in advance for this rant. I love POE2 but this just hit home on so many levels.

How about Dev does some work on their tooltip information like when you look at gear you can actually see how it will impact your char vs. having to use a 3rd party tool like Path of Building to really see before buying something.

That is piss poor design.

How about remove endless one shots
Mitigate the endless stuns/freezes that even charms dont work like they are supposed to. I sport stun/freeze charms still get stunned/frozen and charm will show 2/2. WTF

How about fix Armor?

How about fix the game so ES isnt the GLOBALLY required form of true defense in like all builds.

How about GGG do their balancing on more than just tricked out 100th level chars and then later only then realize they screwed up. Abilities/DMG/Mobs should be scaled for the whole range of a characters experience not just from the perspective of unobtainium.

How about an Auction House? If not that how about making items have list fees so the market can't just explode to 1000DIV asking prices. It cracks me up just how crazy some of the poor quality of life stuff exists in this game at every facet but if you want to list an item for 1000 Mirrors OK. They need to do something about that and the China effect. If they had auction durations that would end this whole bait and switch market too. If you feel something is worth 10DIV you should have to lose something for the GAMBLE of listing it at that price. Seems everything else is gambling why not this too? At least this one would protect the market from exploding.

How about banning RMT and keeping the economy from this crap?