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

I’m loving it so far but it is a tad on the difficult side, mostly because of the very limited ways to get better gear. Crafting currency is way to uncommon. I don’t understand how it is remotely possible to max res in the campaign for example, items that add sockets are very uncommon. I still run some gear from act 1 in act 3 which made ultimatum ascendency boss hell on earth.

Don't feel bad. I don't even think it's hard and the game still isn't fun.

All the people saying stupid stuff like "Get good" are just idiots. The game is slow, unrewarding, and a chore to play.

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Gkek#1581 wrote:

Don't feel bad. I don't even think it's hard and the game still isn't fun.

All the people saying stupid stuff like "Get good" are just idiots. The game is slow, unrewarding, and a chore to play.

This.
I had no problems finishing acts without dying. But I have thousands of hours of experience. I can see why people die all the time. For new players this game is a horrid experience.

Regularly dropping a common crafting component, a scroll of wisdom and a couple of magic items from brutal act boss fights are laughable, from a game that is supposed to reward with loot.
If you take loot out of these types of games, there is very little left.

Running around maps for half an hour looking for a small quest objective is the anthesis of fun.

It feels like a chore to play, completely unrewarding. No space to experiment with gear, gems and currency

I actually like how hard it is. Diablo 3 and 4 got boring fast because they were too easy to the point where I was mindless grinding until I would fall asleep.

PoE 2 keeps me on my toes and makes each boss fight feel like an accomplishment. Makes me want to keep playing.

Please do not lower the difficulty.

It feels pretty amazing. It was quite a long time ago I've experienced a game where e.g. a 2H weapon swing felt like a 2H weapon swing and not some flailing with a styrofoam stick.

I'd take it over PoE1 weightless and twitchy tempo any day.

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8valve#1162 wrote:

I actually like how hard it is. Diablo 3 and 4 got boring fast because they were too easy to the point where I was mindless grinding until I would fall asleep.

PoE 2 keeps me on my toes and makes each boss fight feel like an accomplishment. Makes me want to keep playing.

Please do not lower the difficulty.

It isn't about "difficulty"
I think I died to one random boss maybe 6 times and that was the most I struggled.

The game is slow, boring, and unfun unless you suck at the boss fights and like grinding it out to feel like you did something.

If you played lost ark or a game like it at all the boss fights are all laughably easy.

I like it so far, tho I havent had time to play a lot. I like the scarcity of drops = that drops have value. I like that rare encounters are memorable and dangerous. It feels more like early PoE 1 years, not the epilepsy inducing mess that it has become.

Tho I'd agree that 'trash' mobs take too much time to kill and/or are too plentiful / don't drop enough for the effort.

Yeah this game is to hard it’s not even fun , really hoping they would ease up on it with POE2 but nope it’s worse , just frustratingly not fun what so ever , definitely refunding this game.

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8valve#1162 wrote:

I actually like how hard it is. Diablo 3 and 4 got boring fast because they were too easy to the point where I was mindless grinding until I would fall asleep.

PoE 2 keeps me on my toes and makes each boss fight feel like an accomplishment. Makes me want to keep playing.

Please do not lower the difficulty.

"keep me on my toes" is not how an ARPG should be period. That's the problem, it's not just boss fights that require you to treat it like a job, it's the entire game right now.

Since Elden Ring is open world, I'll use Dark Souls 3 as an example. Check out the maps for any major DS3 area, and that area would probably take me 1-1.5h to clear first time, since I need to be careful to avoid death and Miyazaki's trademark gank squads, on new characters or NG+ it's much faster. So with a map like that, I clear it once, kill between 30-50 mobs (I actually counted during a lot of DS2 and DS3 areas), kill a major boss, mostly 1shot the boss, even with Nameless King/Frieda/Midir/Gael level bosses I never get stuck for a few hours, usually between 5-10 attempts or less. Once you're done, voila, a sense of achievement and you can call it a day, since for DS1-3 a single playthrough can be as fast as 15-20h even if you do all the bosses.

With PoE2, every map is a chore, the maps are massive, you get hundreds of mobs per map as is ARPG standard, but you're constantly on your toes fighting giving 80-90% of your "serious attention", can't just mentally go afk and cruise at all. So every map takes at least 20-30 mins (a lot longer for casual players) to full clear and then you have a tedious boss fight that doesn't make you feel awesome even when you defeat the boss and gives you no loot. Unlike Souls games, with an ambitious ARPG like poe2 you have an endless amount of maps to run, it's just so mentally exhausting. It's on par with vanilla WoW in terms of tediousness during the levelling process. Obviously the campaign bosses will all become endgame Atlas map bosses, and since 1 death will lock you out of that map as Jonathan stated, I fear the whole game will be just as tedious and unrewarding.

In any MMO or RPG with a serious endgame, the campaign aka the levelling process is secondary, let's not kid ourselves otherwise. Soulslike are hard and slow progression/wise because there's no endgame, once you defeat Radagon/Elden Beast or Consort Radahn it's NG+ or a new character. ARPGs like poe1 and D4 retained players through the League system. How on earth can anyone, no-lifers excluded, stomach going through this tedium every 3 months, let alone on more than one character?

Never forget that poe2 as a game is ultimately just another commercial product competing for your entertainment time. No lifers actually matter very little for a f2p game like this, most MTX money come from casuals who feel good about the game and feel good when they buy supporter packs. A lot of casuals would be feeling pretty miserable right now.