"Mottainai" or my take on the state of the PoE 2 EA

Hello everyone !
Forums have been flooded with people like myself who want to give their feedback, so this might just end up getting buried somewhere.

However in hope that this helps building a better PoE 2, i'll write my thoughts on the current state of EA here.

I live in Japan, and here we have a very suiting adjective for what PoE makes me feel : "Mottainai". This is a word that we use when something is "wasteful" (like throwing food away), or about things that have great potential that is not being fully exploited.

To make it clear, i think the game is good, but it could be so much more.

I'm not going to argue about the slower pace of PoE 2 compared to other hack n' slash games, because that is the vision that GGG have for it. I also do not think that the game is hard at all. However i will explain how in my opinion, many gameplay elements are not doing the game a favor when combined with said vision.

So with that in mind, let's get started !

------------------------------------

The Good (so far)

I'm level 33 and just started Act 3. At this point, here are my main positives about the game :

1. The general atmosphere is great

2. The bestiary for an EA is impressively varied

3. The difficulty is in a good spot in my opinion. All the bosses took me 2~3 tries at most so far. Their damage is high, but the patterns are not so difficult to read, so i found the fights to be pretty fair.

4. The VFX and SFX are both great. They are visceral and feel "organic".

5. The game systems are being introduced to the player in a more sensible way than PoE 1 (that is the main reason that made me give up on it a couple years ago) => Though i hope they get more complex towards the end of the game, because as of now things feel quite limited

6. Enemy design is amazing. Bosses specifically are menacing and feel truly epic.

------------------------------------

Killing monsters is tedious

The monsters (bosses in particular) have too much HP, especially when starting the game in Act 1. Or the player damage is too low ... or it's a mix of both. I'm playing an ice mage, put almost all my skill points into offensive perks, and have a weapon that gives me +90% spell damage, +2 to cold spells, +15% cast speed, +20% cold damage.

My whole idea was that "I don't even want to think, and will just put everything into offense, until the game forces me to play a more defensive build". And yet, even building around damage, so far almost every boss fight took me at least 5 minutes of spamming the same 3 spells. And the issue is, since the fights are not technically hard, this only makes them boring.

I would much, much prefer to die a dozen times to a boss because its patterns are difficult to learn, rather than dying only once or twice, but each time have to sit through 5 minutes of spamming the same ability, until i lose my focus for half a second due to extreme boredom and die. Again, i think this applies to the beginning of the game in particular, though i have to say even now that i'm supposed to have a stronger character, i still feel like falling asleep halfway through fights.

------------------------------------

The tediousness is not rewarded

Maybe you think the point above is irrelevant, and that is how you want the game to be designed. Maybe you want boss fights to be long and tedious. Maybe you want the player to feel like they have to work for it.

That would be somewhat fine, if the rewards were aligned with that level of tediousness. In the current state of things, it just feels bad to do a 5 minutes snoozefest boss fight, only to be rewarded with a single yellow. Hell, even the final bosses of each act do not even give a guaranteed legendary. In fact, the only legendary i got so far was from a random monster in a field (and my class couldn't even equip it).

In my opinion, you have to either make the fights shorter if you don't want to give the loot, or give the loot if you don't want to make the fights shorter. It can't be both at the same time, which is currently the case.

------------------------------------

Monster respawn is annoying

I don't think i need to add onto what other people already said in other topics. I understand that this is a standard mechanic in Souls-like games, but no matter how much you try to twist it, PoE 2 is a hack n' slash, with huge maps, some of which have very few to no checkpoints. When i did the whole ascension of the caravan at the end of Act 2, only to die right before the next map, i almost pulled my hair out when i realized i was in for another 10 minutes because of all the monsters that just respawned.

Again, it's totally fine that the vision of the game is that it should be slow, and keep the player on their toes. But in that case, monsters should not respawn whenever the player dies. Having to walk the whole way back to a point already takes enough time.

------------------------------------

The reset prices are too high

Also brought up by other players, so just want to add my voice on that one as well. I think arguing that it's a gold sink is not a valid reason anymore, as there are more "modern" ways to manage the amount of gold moving around.

Again, this is all connected to the tediousness of the game. It's tedious to kill monsters (== my damage is too low) THEREFORE i want to experiment with a different build HOWEVER the reset prices are too high THEREFORE i'm stuck with my crappy build.

Want to keep the reset prices high ? No problem ! But then make "normal" builds strong enough to enjoy the game (not everyone wants to play a 2 skills gimmicky broken build to cheese on the whole game).
Want to keep the fights long and difficult ? No problem ! But then allow the player to iterate faster through builds, so that they can find something viable that fits their playstyle.

------------------------------------

And i think that does it ! These are the things that for me make the game good, but not enjoyable enough to keep playing it much longer during EA. I will definitely keep following it though, as my expectations are high for what GGG will make out of it in the long run !

On a side note, i'm happy that enough people complained about the abusive body block mechanics so that they god nerfed. Now at least when it happens, it feels deserved ! Props to GGG for implementing feedback so early in EA.

Looking forward to what's next !