Absolutely disapointed -- This game is hard, and not in a fun way.

before they tune down the difficulty they should have a SSF hardcore race to level 100 as the game is right now just to see what kind of stress and misery people are willing to tolerate. that is, if they aren't already crazy enough to be out there doing it right now already.

+1 OP

I finally started playing this morning, played for about four hours and rage quit in the 2nd zone because I kept dying to the boss. And I'm dreading firing it up again in its current state - slow, frustrating, and weak. If they wanted to expand the audience to larger player base, I do not think they achieved that goal.

This is the danger with only listening to the Zizrans of the world, they're not getting the average player's perspective. And if this game continues to be tuned for only those who have multiple hours to play per day, it's going to fall off.

Honestly, for how excited I was, I am very very disappointed. And sad.

I just don't get it why some people think that white mobs should take 2-5 hits to kill.

Some monsters like the Eternal Knight are harder than most rares i've encountered.

If i want to play a "Dodge/Soulslike", i play a "Dodge/Soulslike".
I always loved how PoE1 makes me feel powerfull and i don't mean the zoom zoom Meta, i mean meaningful upgrades, auras, buffs, even some cool shit on the Skilltree like +1 additional Proj, Chain etc.

PoE2 is not that difficult, but slow, tedious and doesn't feel rewarding at all.

Not a Diablo like game, not even a POE like game!

Is this some sort of reverse psychology or something? Making the game 10x harder?

"

diego_garber#0088 wrote:

I've been playing PoE for years, and I have thousands of hours in the game.

Today I played PoE2 for ~5 hours and rage quit.

I failed to kill the act1 boss 10 times, i have 22 deaths, and honestly........ it's NOT FUN.

I am teh definition of the average player, I cant do builds in POE1 and kill NORMAL endgame bosses like Elder / Shaper etc. I killed Elder ONCE with a..what was it, explosive arrow build? The one where you lay ballistars and they shot 1000000 arrows for you.

Other than that i have never killed an endgame boss following any other builds or my own. So yea absolute average player, maybe even below average.

I did the POE2 Act 1 boss with ZERO deaths, and was a really fun fight "shrug".

Paying warrior too btw.


I much prefer the way POE2 plays and feels to POE1. I hate the ZOOM ZOOM gota go fast and blow teh whole screen up in 0.01 sec every 0.5 sec lol

Literal skill / gear issue.

This is absolutely accurate. As someone with 3000 hours in POE one over 7 years. This is almost impossible. Why would I want to run from every mob and let them chase me to get to kill one? Why the hell would I do that? Trying to play melee and it is nearly impossible. I am really bummed, great way to keep people playing POE 1 though.

"

ihasz17#0400 wrote:

The game is challenging, and I find that to be a refreshing take! I love that it requires me to pay attention and think strategically. It’s incredibly satisfying to feel a real sense of achievement when I defeat a boss.

Moreover, without the difficulty, the dark tone of the game wouldn’t feel authentic. Monsters are far scarier when they pose a real threat. If they didn’t challenge the player, combat would just become tedious—a mindless chore to farm XP.

For those who don’t share my enthusiasm or appreciate GGG’s original vision: Blizzard abandoned its initial take on Diablo 4 and turned it into a mindless hack-and-slash. Do we really want this game to become another D4?

Give it another shot guys! Im playing Mercenary for example, died only twice in 6 hours.

I sincerely hope that GGG stays true to its original vision and maintains the game’s current difficulty and pacing. It’s what makes this game stand out!

Seriously could not agree more. Please don't water the game down. GGG is taking a novel approach, it's so important. Everyone saying that the difficulty is not rewarding is not trying new things, they are just trying to bullishly force their own ideas onto a system that wasn't designed to accommodate exactly what they're attempting. At least for now. I'm all for more things being viable, but the game should absolutely not be watered down to the point where choice does not matter and everything you try will succeed. Please, please, please no.

The game is currently just darksouls with a POE skin, Some people are gonna love it, others this isnt what we signed up for. Every boss encounter is the equivalent of D4 Lilith, just dodge perfectly or die. Theres no loot dropping to better gear for it and even white mobs if you dont pay attention to them will swarm and kill you. Every monster is dangerous and you have to dodge and pay attention constantly. Its got its own appeal but its not path of exile, and to me its just not fun. I enjoy theory crafting and have rebuilt my sorc a bunch of different ways respeccing to more damage, more tankiness, Fire, frost, lightning, Wand and shield, a mix, anything and everything in between just trying to find a sweet spot of tankiness and dps so i wasnt kiting packs of white mobs down or getting 2 shot by them. after the 4th or 5 time i decided to just try to farm areas and hope for better drops/ crafting materials. Im 3 levels or so up on the area, drops are non existent, crafting materials are non existent because... drops dont exist. You cant sell to the vendor to get crafting mats if nothing meaningful is dropping to sell.

"

prayformercy#0188 wrote:

The game is currently just darksouls with a POE skin, Some people are gonna love it, others this isnt what we signed up for. Every boss encounter is the equivalent of D4 Lilith, just dodge perfectly or die. Theres no loot dropping to better gear for it and even white mobs if you dont pay attention to them will swarm and kill you. Every monster is dangerous and you have to dodge and pay attention constantly. Its got its own appeal but its not path of exile, and to me its just not fun. I enjoy theory crafting and have rebuilt my sorc a bunch of different ways respeccing to more damage, more tankiness, Fire, frost, lightning, Wand and shield, a mix, anything and everything in between just trying to find a sweet spot of tankiness and dps so i wasnt kiting packs of white mobs down or getting 2 shot by them. after the 4th or 5 time i decided to just try to farm areas and hope for better drops/ crafting materials. Im 3 levels or so up on the area, drops are non existent, crafting materials are non existent because... drops dont exist. You cant sell to the vendor to get crafting mats if nothing meaningful is dropping to sell.

The loot drop is the worst.
I had runs where I dropped barely any skill gems in any of A1.
Then recreated character and suddenly drops tons of skill gems.

Then another restart I suddenly get skill gems i havent seen before (aura skill).

The loot is all over the place too.

I understand this game is a step in a different direction from POE1 and it's supposed to be slower paced and more challenging but im finding it difficult for the wrong reasons.

The game seems to require precision inputs to avoid abilities, especially in boss fights, but there is nothing precise about the level of control you have over your character. This is coming from someone who is playing mouse and kb (not wasd) which should be the most precise possible method of input. The game feels extremely janky and I do not feel in control of my character in between the long animations and forced movement during abilities. Rolling feels slow and just bad in general. It becomes less of a reactive counter and I find myself spamming it in most situations. Because of this boss fights, where precise movement is most required, is often reduced to me standing in one spot tanking as much damage with my pots whilst outputting damage in order to get a heavy stun and repeat. If i run around the arena trying to interact with the mechanics, I just take so much damage anyway, and im not doing damage to the boss, eventually running out of pots and failing.

Also, I cant speak for other classes but warriors abilities are frankly awful. They are not fun to play with. Long animations with little payoff all whilst getting obliterated with fast attacks from random white mobs. It simply doesnt feel good to play. It's not fun. It's also not difficult. It's tedious and boring. On bosses im swapping my strongest support gems to my auto attack because for some reason GGG has made your auto attack your highest DPS ability without locking you into garbage animations.

Last gripe, THE LOOT? there isn't any. There's none. No loot anywhere. Does GGG want me to repeat campaign bosses/sections to farm orbs shards? I can't believe they expect that? Who wants to replay campaign sections in an ARPG. I'm finding myself having to do that. Currently resistances are so hard to come by. Im rocking 0% lighting res and if I stumble accross heavy lightning damage i get cooked. This game in its current state is simply not rewarding. This is an ARPG for christ sake????

IDK trying to have fun but it's such a slog I had to turn it off.