Sorry, my English is not my first language.
I start with Mercenary, a looking fun and adaptive playstyle. I should have know sooner that GGG never disappoint me for something adaptive. Right now I'm at Halani Gate with about 8 Death.
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Mercenary is clunky as hell... well, I mean Crossbow, may be due to latency or anything relate.
But... you have Attack speed, Reload speed and Ammo swap speed (with weapon swap if you want to) ..... 2 more delay than any other weapon!?
Reload speed is also a lie, due to randomly idle after the hotbar say you gain that ammo for like 50-150% more time require to reload.
When you die, reload map, return town or pet your cat, you lose all other bolt reloaded for no reason. Please don't call it real, please get fire as the same who QC this.
Instead of adaptive playstyle, Crossbow is the playstayle that most people don't like. 2-3 button and worst than miner or Contagion. Many of its kit rely on combo skill which require time to proc or randomly proc. Unlike poe where when you combo, you can setup and do it at ease.
To be honest, I still looking for good single target skill that better and less clunky than NORMAL BOLT. ARPG that normal attack is better than skill!? This is beyond new low, it's a new abyssmal.
Also, please change the job for people who responsible to code how Grenade work and QC. They better do something else. It's unreliable to land where you want them to be, in the game where we looking from the top view!? They can drop into the edge, bounce out the upper door beam, not allow trick shot, stuck in the plain sight - etc. The dmg is also lame, not worth the cooldown and time spend to try landing a shot in the first place. Only Gasnade is doing a proper work.
Crossbow for me is nothing unique... it's a jack of handicap. It is not good as melee and bow do far better at range. Nade and cross bow node are weird. Ammunition is badly done and how the fox it pass the QC during play test at this rate?
The only fun is when you can proc the extra bolt over and over. But once you know that .... bow skill can do that with just only mana limitation (as same as Xbow) ... the fun is gone.
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now for the disappoint of PoE2
• The very first one, One shot or hit like a whale for boss. This is not hard, it's just unfair. It's like try to mitigate Soul-style into ARPG which if done better, it will work. But for now it's not.
Lot of attack rely too much on perfect roll due to player are lacking mobility. Movement skill and movement speed is missing and it's a core of PoE. It's feel like playing soul game from bird eye view.
Rolling and some escape skill from Bow are not fluid. It's clunky, slow and have slight delay that PoE didn't have. It's make the combat slow and tedious instead of exciting and flow. TBH, everything in PoE is slow as hell.
Campaign boos hit like no tomorrow, a double miss in short time mean death and many boss attack will do that. I only die 8 time due to I'm playing super safe and being at range.
- 1 dead come from next problem - body block.
- 2 dead from loser king that hard to see debuff stack (remember Deodre sewer fight? that done far better) and just fire the QC person who approve the red/purple curse. I'm playing FFXIV and it's million year ahead to quickly grasp the basic concept of "campaign" boss mechanic.
- 1 dead from stack ice blast with act boss, telegraph to do perfect roll, this is more sad design than soul game.
- 1 dead from 400+ dmg from single mace swing from flame thrower boss in the Act 2 mine. And she swing it 4 times per cycle... I curse the one who design this move, please burn in hell.
- 1 dead with balbaba of guess how to remove the poison lolol oh you know now? get big hit off guard loser.
It's a pile of unfair stacking over and over. While rely on people to use their luck for alternate way to overcome it. Because crafting is severely limit, orb are few and unpredictable and quite rare. Rare drop is low, gold is hard to look for. Basically the player option is going back to Diablo 1, THAT FAR. In PoE you can try craft more life, resist, reroll to get some need status. Here is ONLY LUCK. How low can you goes from here GGG? Don't tell me this is early access. This is your SECOND GAME base on game that you develop for eon. I've been there since Ambush league.
Campaign boss should be campaign level, some hard and challenge, not unfair like end game boss. The move is fine, but the dmg should not be unforgiving when you miss. ARPG never good to use many of soul mechanic, specially one shot and redo the boss all over. It's is call Action RPG for a reason.
• Next is body block. Many monster move very fast compare to our sick monkey exile. Result in getting surround or taking unnecessary damage. Mobility is severely limit and player are far slower than average PoE experience by a mile.
I only have this much problem with body block with only Diablo 2 from act 3 pigma and doll if I'm playing melee class, and at that time I have better clear or reposition skill to counter it. But not with PoE2...
It's not super bad, but happen very frequency to keep me annoy like keeping charge stack.
• Slow pacing is also a thing. I don't hate it and like to cover 90% of map each time so you can guess it. But everything in PoE2 is slow. Progression, speed, combat flow, building up your trick, everything. The option is so limited and require very very very old era of grinding. Some compare to Ruthless which is a challenge, but this is the BASE game.
You call campaign will take long time, it is. It's artificially extend the play time, not by clever design but fake it through slower playstyle, boss fight and grinding for something to fill the gap.
• Minimap detail is also a thing that when open, block the screen and enemy, even at lower setting which served nothing for player to use it.
• Map design is nice, but too many narrow corridor that enemy also can body block you. No body except the mad one like Maggot Lair from Diablo 2 and you try to make it happen again here. Stop it, get some water and wash the filth out of the brain to think about it.
• Who think that one of trial of ascendancy should be Sanctum league base? Give them a cookie, with a mold on top and 5 year stale cashew mix in it to them.
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I like how GGG try to make PoE 2 to be something else. It's a test and risk to do so, but again. Not everything new is good.
But for me PoE2 for now is not worth $30. I would say it's worth about $10 at most to be a TESTER of this successor. Please don't call us player if you release the game in this sorry ass state, I tire of dev who use this tactic over and over in other studio. Funny enough, GGG have credit enough for me to pay to be TESTER lol
It's a heavily downgrade PoE to be almost on par with Diablo 2 with better map detail and swap end game map boss for each unique monster. The story is not that much catch my interest (still reading all of them through) Many of thing make me compare it to Diablo 2 ... TOO MUCH and it's a very very bad sign.
In the end, PoE 2 is a mix for me, will NOT recommend to play at this rate at all cost. Go play PoE 1. Also, if you like to play, do not use crossbow. You are making everything HARDER for you to play handicap weapon.
Edit -> Typo
