No longer wanted to play

POE2 is great if you hate POE and like souls games.. i've already said screw this. This isn't POE

Thoughts from over 9k hours in POE1 and a great love for the game, including many private leagues and enjoying SSF recently.
Completed first 3 Acts as a Blood Mage, utilizing Ice skills.

I completed the 3 Acts and Ascended twice. I'm not sure if I'll continue my Blood Mage or not. The mandatory first ascendancy node felt disgustingly punishing and I actually got rid of it at about ~level 33. It felt better to be UNASCENDED than to have my spells cost life that early on... Investment into Vitality, 6pts Recoup on tree, and Life regen on 2 gear pieces was not sufficient for sustain. Did NOT enjoy this experience specifically.

Cons:
Both methods of Ascension.
It's not a difficulty or a tuning knob situation, but rather the ideology. Having the capability to skip these two league mechanics came with tolerable downsides in POE1. That capability has been removed with no compensation. My ultimate power gains are gated behind content I do not enjoy doing. They feel punishing and, at times, insufferably frustrating.

The lack of phasing on dodge roll.
I found myself surprised this was the functionality of the dodging, surely I must just be hitting a pebble. A handful of deaths later in A1 and it's clear that clearing 1 screen at a time, taking 3 steps forward just to kite back 4 steps while the mobs charge me. Fear of being overwhelmed forces my hand to clear everything. I understand it's a mentality shift from POE1, and that's okay, they're diff games. But coupled with my next point, it made my experience feel draining with effort.

The size of zones is too large.
I thought one of the early reviews was being hyperbolic and clearly mistaken, when they claimed it took 25min to clear 1 zone. No way they were accurate, right? Unfortunately...they were accurate. I can handle the quest objectives being a bit obscure, exploration being encouraged. But the time spent with checkpoints being too few and far between to feel meaningful zonewide progress. It left me bored, at times, and at others immensely frustrated if I died after clearing ~80% of a zone. That's a long runback with a lot of respawned creatures to re-kill. Big bummer.

Pros:
Atmosphere is outstanding.
The music, ambiance, lighting, shadows, you name it. The entire world transforms with the environment, and it feels great. The polarity of the different acts, the variety between the zones throughout each act. The underground caverns and caves versus the aboveground temples. Excellent variety across the board that kept it feeling fresh enough, albeit wishing the zones were ~50% smaller.

Map indicators are a nice breadcrumb to chase.
Actually found myself enjoying the habit of checking zones to learn what objectives may lie inside that weren't quests. Should I hunt for a specific boss before I proceed thru the next door? Do I need to go disenchant before diving deeper to find the next 2 loot bags? Was a fun mini-puzzle to encouraging exploring.

The new gem system feels great.
After some small growing pains with attribute stat understanding of power:number of socket ratio, the process felt amazing. The ability to swap supports freely with new gems, regardless of color restrictions on gear. An extremely nice change from POE1 and a revolution on a system I would've never imagined. Great stuff here.

Bossing feels great, in terms of design.
The fluidity of combat was outstanding as a ranged caster. Finding when to weave melee-proximity for my blasphemy damage windows, versus peppering and setting up from range. Really enjoyed the pacing, the music, the voice lines, voice acting. It was outstanding experiences, combined with unique performances across the different mob types.

"

eldheim#2436 wrote:

With 5k hours in POE1, I had been counting down minutes for POE2 for the last few months.
I've never been so hyped for a game since D3 was announced.
After playing about 15 hours yesterday I went to bed -and when I woke up today I had no urge go come back to it at all.
That is incredibly sad.

I made good progress, I'm at the start of act 3. Hardly died.
By my gameplay was mostly made by constant backtracking and dodge rolling, and doing very little damage against even white mob's giant HP sponges.
After 10-15 minute boss fights I'm rewarded with a scroll of wisdom and two useless blue items? Yeah, no thanks.

This game is way, way too slow. I don't mind that it's difficult. I mind that its BORING. Engaging in mobs are basically shoot and run backwards until mobs are dead, then backtrack to next pack.
At lvl 30 I realized I needed a lot more survivability to counter this. By then respecking a single point cost me 500 gold. Really?!
For a brand new game were you want to encourage build exploration, you basically lock players into uninformed first choices by insane respeck prices?

This is version 0.1. I get it. They did a lot of good things. The foundation is there. But I'll take my bow for now, and come back later, hopefully they fix it.
I don't ever want to experience act 1 and 2 like this ever again.
Not for another character, and not for another league.
It simply wasn't fun and rewarding.

This is EA. It's <50% of the content prepared. It's your fault for blowing your load on the launch day. The game doesn't come out for 6 more months. Chill.

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yy90732#5386 wrote:

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Seystuff#5465 wrote:

This is 100% a guess, but I get the feeling that the problem is that the game is designed in such a way that you're meant to grind A LOT before every major boss, in a "do every map N times" where N is a two digits number.
I get why that'd be the case, specially if you look at poe1 endgame player behaviour, but doing act maps over and over is the real reason d3 sucked (y'know, besides RMT).
I think some changes are in order and not even that many. But to be honest, the disenchant system is way too rigid, way too stingy and way too boring. It's kinda wild that you're still getting 1/10th transmutations by the end of act 2 and then you get a billion augs and transmus, but no longer matters cus now you need good yellows....

I agree, there was a moment on act2, I just 1 hand casting spell to mobs, get killed, respawn, repeat.. until I get level up. I was questioning myself at that moment, "why did I play this game again"?

The real shocker is when you realize ...
that is optimal game play...

I did the same thing out off spite at one point ..
Just revived walked forward at the mobs till i died saying ..weeeeeeeeeeeee
isn't this fun.....

Until I saw i just maxed out my exp gain......

If the intention of the devs is that you use a guide to play the tutorial (campaign in an ARPG)... well that's a bold choice cotton...

"

Robique#7038 wrote:

There seem to be two groups in the current player base and active forum users.

The drastic minority of sweaty and toxic elitists that are not capable of understanding how other people might have fun in a different way than them.

Then there's the second group, that can actually see what this game in its current state is: a boring slop, with no balance, no prior playtesting done, badly designed bosses, horrible skill progression system, an ARPG with non-existent loot... I could go on, but sadly there's only so many hours in a day.

Remember guys, if you don't like the game leave your feedback, don't play and don't spend any money. Vote with your wallet.
Hopefully the devs will realize, that catering to a tiny minority of their players is not a good business model.

There seem to be two groups in the current player base and active forum users.

Those that don't agree with me, and they suck for many reasons.

And then there's those that agree with my opinion, they're super chads.

That's what your post reads like :D

Personally I think both groups have fair points, it's just different perspectives and different kinds of players. Time will tell which one's the intended audience for PoE2, if GGG change things to be easier or keep to the current difficulty. I've enjoyed the game so far, it's harder to play than PoE1 for sure but still manageable if using all the tools available to a player. I hope they find a good compromise to let the game be more appealing to the more casual playerbase while retaining what makes it interesting for the other players in its current state.

"

schattenwulf#3873 wrote:

There seem to be two groups in the current player base and active forum users.

Those that don't agree with me, and they suck for many reasons.

And then there's those that agree with my opinion, they're super chads.

That's what your post reads like :D

LOL ... very astute observation. I fall into that habit myself -- people that drive faster than I do are maniacs ... people that drive slower are idiots and should get off the road :)

"

schattenwulf#3873 wrote:

Personally I think both groups have fair points, it's just different perspectives and different kinds of players. Time will tell which one's the intended audience for PoE2, if GGG change things to be easier or keep to the current difficulty. I've enjoyed the game so far, it's harder to play than PoE1 for sure but still manageable if using all the tools available to a player. I hope they find a good compromise to let the game be more appealing to the more casual playerbase while retaining what makes it interesting for the other players in its current state.

I may be wrong but I think there's a flaw with some of your reasoning. Specifically "still manageable if using all the tools available to a player". I find two major faults with that line:

1. RNG plays a role and if you don't drop reasonably useful gear or hit on your crafting then you're in deep trouble. I cut my deaths by over 50% just by dropping a random rare weapon that had "%damage" on it.

2. I am all but convinced that a lot of the difficulty one group seems to have [but others see zero problem] lies with there is a fine line in how quickly people react to stimulus and anyone below the critical reaction time will have massive issues while people above the line would actually want the game to be less forgiving. Example: If you're 1 step inside a boss AoE you take full damage ... if you reacted the tiniest wisker earlier you're 1 step outside and take no damage. That severe binary is crippling to those that are a whisker below average and for those more than slightly above average they wonder what all the fuss is about

Unless you get oneshot by something (which may be a gearing or build issue), that difference between reacting just in time or getting hit only matters if you do multiple mistakes back to back. Which I'd say the game should be allowed to be punish you for? If doing mistakes doesn't punish you, there's no reason to play well.

Sure RNG plays a role, but only to an extent. With all tools available I mean: You can use different skills for different situations. Even set up two weapon sets that use different skills - and even use weapon-set passive skill points to differ between two passive trees that support each weaponset differently.

As for gearing, checking the vendor regularly can yield some potent blue or even rare gear if you save up some gold for it. There's also trading with other players, you don't need much luck to get some orb drops that have enough value to get something decent from another player. Can also disenchant trash rares for Regal Shards, Regal Orb having enough value to trade with other players. The trading search is available on the poe2 site. If you only use self-found loot, that's a self-imposed restriction.

Another thing is to try another build that may work better for you if your current isn't doing well. Was trying a monk at first, and tried to go for essence drain - contagion chaos damage build. Felt bad and didn't work well, so I scrapped it and started a cold-focused Sorceress instead. Been going smooth so far, boss dps isn't the greatest but its awesome for clearing mobs. Chilling and freezing is a strong defensive tool. I rarely have to backtrack from enemies, being able to freeze and kill them before they swarm me.

I got stuck on the act 2 boss cause it seemingly had high cold resistance. Did a slight alteration on passive tree with the weapon-set passives, giving lighting penetration instead of cold. Got a double lightning orb + spark skill setup which was enough to do really good boss damage which got me through the act2 boss easier since he died faster. Also made sure to up my cold resistance a bit with some ring I bought on vendor or held onto just in case from random loot. Just an example of how you can use the many tools the game offers to adjust and deal with encounters you struggle with.

The game is mechanically exactly as they envisioned.


Unfortunately they forgot to include fun or reward in their design philosophy.

"

schattenwulf#3873 wrote:

Unless you get oneshot by something (which may be a gearing or build issue), that difference between reacting just in time or getting hit only matters if you do multiple mistakes back to back. Which I'd say the game should be allowed to be punish you for? If doing mistakes doesn't punish you, there's no reason to play well.
<snip>

BTW: TY for the feedback. You are GENUINELY trying to be helpful and you've got a good opinion -- even if I choose not to follow your generally sound advice. :)


... Now to reply to your well thought out post ...


I don't get oneshot by anything and I doubt that even a two shot would normally kill me but it's at least possible. What is a problem though is that even with some investment in "recovery" on the tree and everything I can find on gear I will eventually be whittled down to zero well before my meager recovery can erase the mistake thus making fights an issue with life flask vs damage to boss. When I loose it's generally a very narrow loss esp. if it's not my first time fighting.

As for the mistakes I don't view what I'm talking mostly about as a mistake per-se. A mistake would be to run towards the front of the wolf when he's about to do a breath attack OR to run inside the red circle OR out of a lightning circle. It don't think it's a mistake to recognize danger and move immediately but the recognition / anticipation doesn't quite occur fast enough so you don't get fully out of a red circle or avoid a massive AoE Cleave followup.


As for weapon sets I have a two hander and a mace & shield. Of course the thing that tends to get me aren't really the blockable attacks but the unblockable ones. As for weapon sets I don't see an especially alluring alternate combination that I could easily switch to with what I have access to ... that may be ignorance on my part though.


As for the vendors I do go to them looking for upgrades to existing blue gear and the [very unlikely] chance that they'll have a nice rare that I could slam something onto. I haven't "gambled" much hoping that I would more likely see something decent from vendors though. Still if I didn't get that one lucky rare weapon drop my 5 deaths against A1 boss would have been 30 as my margin one way or another WITH the good weapon was razor thin each time.


Trying a different build -- esp. one better suited to my playstyle is excellent advice. It's 100% my fault [mistake?? LOL] for not wanting to invest more time into getting another character up and going. I'll keep that in the back of my mind if I decide to reinstall the game.


The big problem I have with investing more time in is that I don't like the DESIGN approach that puts what I believe a disproportionate amount of focus on "Dodge-or-Die".


Devil's Advocate: There are similar dodge or die mechanics in PoE1 [shaper slam, Sirius meteor, Atziri flame blast] but the presence of flame dash is a real equalizer OR there is such a massive windup that it's not really an issue to get out of the way.