My honest thoughts after 2k Hours in Path Of Exile 2

"

enslavedemperor#5410 написал:

Temporal Chains -> you don't like then you don't run it, simple as that, as you said is not dangerous in terms of death occurrence, but rather making you what it says it does: slower.

"

AiMWARE_iSo#9941 написал:

Hey GGG,
I wanted to share my experience with PoE2 and what I think is really good/bad right now.

First, I’ve been playing Path of Exile since the console release (Synthesis) and have played around 12,000 hours from this league onward in PoE1. I really loved playing PoE1 from the bottom of my heart. Sentinel was a tough time, but I don’t mind that. The Uniques, builds, crafting, and overall gameplay were so well balanced and awesome that I never considered playing anything else. To describe it more: a PoE1 league holds much more value for me than a GTA VI release.

Then PoE2 came out. The hype was unbelievable. The gameplay in my first hours felt fantastic, and the environment was beautiful. Sure, there were some problems, but it was early access, so I didn’t mind.

I don’t want to dwell more on League 1, because the game state today is quite different.

Patch 0.2 dropped. My friends and I looked at the patch notes and realized, “Oh oh, this looks like Sentinel smash hammer 2.0.” But we didn’t really care because, yay, new class!

When the patch finally dropped, the horror journey began. But I won’t get into issues that are already fixed (like no loot in the story).

Most of my criticism targets the endgame, so let’s get started.

#1 Map Rolling

I really, really hate rerolling maps in this game. In PoE1, you could alc, vaal, and go, and have your quantity/rarity into the implicit. How does it work in PoE2? Just buy 500 maps, alc them, exalt, and maybe you get +quantity and doubled rarity. If not, the map is basically trash (these maps are worth 120+ exalts on the trade market).

Eventually, after 400 maps, I finally rolled double rarity + quantity and could put my map into the map device. This leads us to:

#2 "Atlas"

I don’t understand what this failed monolith copy from Last Epoch even is. Let’s not talk about it, since it’s early access-related and can change every league. If I could choose the map layouts I want, that would be fine.

So I put my high-end juiced map into the map device, started the "Steppe" map, and began walking through it — until I encountered:

#3 Map Mods

Why is my character barely moving??? OH NO, I didn’t notice Temporal Chains!!
Seriously, what is this mod in PoE2? My 60% MS has dropped to -4%! This is ridiculous and should be nerfed or removed immediately. It doesn’t check skill, it doesn’t make the map harder — it’s just unplayable and boring to crawl around with -4% movement speed.

But the -4% movement speed didn’t come alone:

#4 Performance

While progressing through the map with -4% MS, I encountered my first lag spikes. I started throwing my Lightning Spear, and then lag started, like hell.

I pressed options on my controller to change the upscaling mode from NIS to Bilinear, and I could finally play — with Minecraft graphics. It stopped lagging, but I couldn’t see anything. And no, this isn’t a console issue, since other games in this genre handle this smoothly.

I’m not too mad about it currently because of early access, but I really hope these lag issues will be gone in a few leagues.

So, with Minecraft graphics and -4% MS, I entered my ritual encounter on the map, which brings us to:

#5 Ritual Encounter

I started clearing the ritual but couldn’t see anything because of the Bilinear settings. Still, I managed to clear it — or so I thought. But the encounter wouldn’t end.

There’s a stupid ground scorpion that spawns if you run directly over it. This is no fun. Please, make ritual encounters instantly attackable.

I cleared the rest of the map and Ritual Encounters, opening the ritual. OMG — a MIRROR OF KALANDRA FOR ZERO TRIBUTE! (Not really, but you get the idea).

I put my imagined mirror aside and went back to my hideout. After pondering it for hours and thinking about what I could do with it, I came to the conclusion:

#6 Crafting

Currently, there’s no crafting in the game — only gambling. There’s not a single item on the mirror market I would consider mirroring, so I decided to sell it and start a new build. This leads us to:

#7 Build Diversity

I sold my Mirror of Kalandra and started looking for new builds I could try with my currency, but there are none. Every build I check out looks boring and slow (except Lightning Spear on Class XY).

After hours of watching build previews on YouTube and Reddit, I thought: If there’s no genuinely viable endgame build out there, I might consider buying one of the chase uniques to push my current LS character to new heights. But then I realized:

#8 Chase Uniques

There are none. Temporalis? Nerfed into oblivion, unplayable.
Adorned? Also nerfed (-12 jewel sockets on the tree, yup). Maybe usable with Tabula? I haven’t tried it yet, but it could be interesting.
Rite of Passage? Cool, but come on, it’s just a charm.
Headhunter? It’s just 40 divines, not rare enough. But hey, we’ll take one.
Kalandra’s Touch? Yeah, let’s mirror those 1c rings. Nah.

In PoE1, my goal every season was to acquire a Mageblood — nothing special for many in our community, but it’s pretty hard to get one on console at league start, since even trade leagues are almost SSF.

Once I got my Mageblood, I could try so many beautiful, viable, and fun builds — I can hardly imagine the same here. It feels like every unique is trashy and not worth grinding or farming for.

#9 Final Thoughts

Path of Exile 2 has so much potential, but right now it’s really, really bad. There’s basically nothing to grind for. Maybe I’m just playing too much and these are personal feelings, but still...

The game has such energetic environment design, but all that energy is lost if I have to play with Bilinear graphics to avoid lagging like crazy.

Why are there no build buffs during the league? Nobody would blame you if you buffed weaker builds (everything except LS) during a league. I can’t imagine anyone saying, “Dude, why did they buff my build??” It’s early access — just open Visual Studio and buff all other skills by 50%, whatever. I promise nobody would care (maybe some RMTs, but they’re irrelevant). This would also speed up development in early access.

We’re in 0.2 after 6 months — what’s the plan for 1.0 after 30 months?

Please, GGG, do something to make PoE and PoE2 enjoyable again. I’ll keep trying out new builds from Jungroan and others, but please…

"

Kotolino#2642 написал:

Another important point: If players stop purchasing RMT from Chinese sellers, they’ll simply abandon the game and move on to something more profitable.
These sellers only stay as long as there’s demand. The moment the player base stops engaging with them, they’ll move on to another game, leaving this one in a much healthier state.
This is a critical step if we want to see real changes!

For me, this game has surpassed the disastrous launch of Diablo 4’s "Vessel of Hatred" expansion, which made the same mistake with Spiritborn and ended up becoming the worst ARPG season I’ve ever played.
Right now, I’m having much more fun in Diablo 4 and Last Epoch, and after all the feedback I gave about the 1% class builds—which was completely ignored—I don’t know if I’ll give this game another chance

"

Kotolino#2642 написал:

What they’re doing to this game is outrageous!
After months of waiting, Bloodmages finally got a fun build—only to be mercilessly nerfed. It seems like the developers don’t understand the importance of build diversity or player enjoyment.
Now, there’s only one viable build, and anything outside of that gets immediately weakened. Instead of encouraging creativity, they’re restricting it.
My advice? Go to Steam, leave a negative review, and request a refund. When the devs see numbers dropping and money disappearing, they’ll finally wake up and make real changes. We need more builds, more buffs, and actual game design work!
They always wait until they start losing before taking action—but this time, the community can force the change before it’s too late.