The state of PoE feels really bad right now

I have been coming to play PoE usually every season, once in a while i might skip a season if i am just not in the mood for it at the time. But overall i have been playing the game since it was in beta.

I have always felt that PoE has never been in a "GREAT" place balance wise, but right now it feels worse than i have ever seen before.

It feels like instead of opening the game up for everyone to play, with every patch or balance change, they continue to force out any form of casual play. With each patch i find it harder and harder to "play what i want" and instead i am forced more than ever into finding a premade broken build because the endgame is BALANCED assuming you are using these builds. It is basically IMPOSSIBLE for a new player to come into your game and play it and make it anywhere near mapping on their own. It literally is unplayable for someone who doesn't either have previous experience with specific builds, or going online to look up specific builds.

I used to do pretty fine on my own just making good choices along the way, but now it feels like thats not good enough anymore. You need to have knowledge of all these special enchants, special uniques, super-specific target farmed mods, etc in order to get most builds to take you far.

How the hell does this game expect any new players to stick around more than a few Acts before they realize that they can't "just play"? Even before you get to the end of the campaign the game is already throwing enemies at you that can take minutes to kill or that can one-shot you with a single bleed stack before you even have time to use a bleed cleansing flask.

Today i got one shot by a normal mob from a normal attack that applied a bleed stack. It wasn't a rare pack, it wasn't an elite pack. Just a normal enemy gets one hit in and i die within one second. And its not like i am forgoing defense. I have capped resists, and 75-80% phys defense, HP on all my gear, and good amount of HP nodes. And still i find myself this league just getting oneshot randomly ALL the time by stuff that didn't feel dangerous.
God forbid you walk into a rare mob with the Treant mod and stop moving for one second, your just gonna get bombs that spawn under your feet that you can barely see and die before you even begin the fight.

So many of the rare enemy mods in this league just feel like unfun bullshit. Its just tons of random shit spawning underneath your feet, or enemies that reflect corrupting blood on you. I happen to be playing a build that uses a "hit and move" playstyle and i STILL find it to be too much. I cant even begin to imagine how stupid it must feel to play channeling spells right now. How can you possibly build up an incinerate when you die if you stand still for more than 2 seconds most of the time now?

I managed to put together one of the highest early game DPS builds i have ever used this league and yet somehow i still am running into rares sometimes that just take over 1-2 minutes to kill. If it takes me this long with this good build, how is a new player going to have any chance in hell of dealing with this with a lesser build?

It feels really strange to me that they buffed armor recently and then directly afterwards they buffed enemy damage to make their previous change completely redundant.

This reminds me heavily of Diablo III at launch. The game felt very similar to this. You would just randomly run into a rare pack that would one-shot you and there wasn't much you could do about it.

Is it just me or does it feel like monster quantity went up drastically this league? Or maybe last league? I skipped last league so i am not sure when the change happened. But when i came back this time i was astounded by how many more enemies there are all the time now. Maybe it just feels that way because a lot of them take longer to kill? But it feels like i am getting completely surrounded everytime i move a few screens.

The balance right now is absolutely horrendous.
I'm sure it feels "fine" if you are using a guide and following instructions on how to play every step of the way. But that is not how games are supposed to be played. And especially not how they should be EXPECTED to play.

The BURST damage of enemies in this game needs to be toned down heavily. Its not like things that one-shot you shouldn't exist. But you run into that danger way too often now, and it is not well telegraphed. The fact that is isnt well telegraphed is probably the worse part. There isn't really any way to tell what attack is going to tickle you vs what is going to destroy you. Sometimes there is an explosion under my feet and i cant even notice that i took damage. And sometimes there is an explosion and i instantly die.
The graphical telegraphs of dangerous attacks needs to be made MUCH more apparent. And the frequency of enemies with these types of attacks needs to be reduced.

Also the effective HP of some rare enemies and bosses needs to be reduced. There are way too many enemies that are just giant meat-tanks now. It is clear that the developers have balanced enemies around "assuming" that their players are all following super meta builds. Which is a bad way to design a game. You don't design the core of your game for the top meta players. You design it for the casual player, and then add in content that the top meta players can get into later (endgame mapping and super bosses). The campaign should NOT be designed assuming your players are all pre-proficient at the game.

Stroggly disagre.

Theirs profesonal plyer base, wich is balancd eficienly market tradging. PoE is weigthed so actully god plyers intrest make niche. Not evry gamerization is for cazualized plyers only.

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XRuecian wrote:

It is basically IMPOSSIBLE for a new player to come into your game and play it and make it anywhere near mapping on their own. It literally is unplayable for someone who doesn't either have previous experience with specific builds, or going online to look up specific builds.

Have you ever tried to "just step into hell difficulty" in d2 without knowing exactly what you do?

Good memories with D2, farm act 1 ilvl 85 area for grief and fortitude base; then rush to Act 3 and special chest farm for the high runes. Once Grief + Fortitude is done, it's all easy street. All of this in PlugY of course.

Farm a laying a hands and you're all set ;)!

Sorry to say that but maybe this game is just not for you? I mean.. Playing since beta and I see in your achievements like 0 endgame achievements.. Not even killed breachboss.. That's why your opinion won't matter. This game was never casual friendly and never will be cuz it's not diablo

I agree with many of your points, however ggg is very thick headed and insisting on turning this game into a dark souls arpg mixed with their own personal try-some-mechanics arpg sandbox and making fundamental changes that have not been fully tested or are straight up bad ideas every single league and then leaving it bare bones and unfinished in the core game.

Even most of the no-life players i know have either already quit or are just afking in their hideouts for trades. Game is on a downwards spiral ever since the 3.15 debacle and tbh i have not much hope left when i see what chris says in the pre-league interviews versus whats actually happening in the game after because it does absolutely not match up most of the time.

If they wanted people to experiment they would make respeccing free. Everything is supposed to be painful and clunky according to the vision.