PoE 2s shortcomings hurt cause they came at the price of PoE 1 improvements - Emotional Rant

I'm starting to think these are Blizzard plants. It's more than a coincidence that they all seem to have zero supporter packs and no chars from the last POE 1 league. Sus...

I understand your feelings OP. 100%. On one hand the game has lot of good stuff about it.
On the other the design is to make as much friction as possible for the sake of friction.
Huge empty maps, slow movement for you (the mobs are still extra fast), loot scarcity, overpowered monsters and a super punishing endgame loop.

Obviously the game is in EA but some things will not change as it is GGG's new core philosophy
(aka The Vision).

Somewhere between the "4.0" announcement and PoE 2 announcement a lot of people were hyped out and bought supporter packs that basically helped funding PoE 2. Then we slowly started getting these hints:

"The game is going to be slower"
"The game is going to be harder"
"The game is going to be yada yada yada"

Then we got Ruthless and now we are here with PoE 2 being PoE 2.

That's not how you conduct business.

People will swallow that pill, but GGG lied once and they will do it again.

They said PoE 1 is still there for us to play but it won't be. We are already having delayed leagues and I am willing to bet next league is going to be really bad and after the next league GGG will just allocate a skeleton crew to PoE 1.

A lot of people playing PoE 1 won't buy any supporter packs (at least en masse) because it would mean giving money for PoE 2, GGG will start getting less money from PoE 1 and in a year-year and a half (maximum 2 years) it will probably enter maintenance mode and die out without any leagues / bad leagues like Diablo 3 did.

That will be the death of the only ARPG that was fun to me personally and as such the death of the genre in my eyes. I will still play PoE 1 while it lasts and when it's time to say goodbye I will leave with a broken heart.

"

just_dont#6539 wrote:

"

jekoder#4150 wrote:

it's like history eventually repeat itself, in 2013 a small indie studio make a game that eventually overtook the throne of previous king of ARPG diablo, and 2024 the kingslayer became the king that sits on the throne waiting to be slayed, because he became big and arrogant and has to bestow his vision and rule on everyone, just like the previous one

Hate to burst your bubble, but Diablo was never even in danger of losing the "king" title.
Yes, number-wise it's by far more notable game than all of the so-called "slayers" like GD, PoE, and others.

Even all these "hardcore ARPG fans" that are appalled by D4 still bought it in the first place (personally, I decided that I'd simply won't be buying D5 if it won't return to ARPG roots, but that's just me).

I mean I consider myself a hardcore arpg player but I didn't buy d4 at launch because I had zero trust in blizzard(bought D3 though), but I know if i bought it i'm still going to have a lot fun with it before all the frustration kicks in just like poe 2

yeah if u run only by the numbers Diablo is still a far more superior game, but we all know game is not really measure by the numbers, because that will make honor of kings and genshin impact the greatest game ever XDD

I'm seeing deja vu because I experience same vision/arrogance talk from wow dev, diablo dev, and now ggg, when they all start to ignore player experience, when player explicitly tells them we don't want this they turn a blind eye.

and I have the perfect example for this in poe 2, which is the well in the town, it was there for one reason and one reason only, the vision, there are literally zero reason why we have to go back to town and click a well to refill our flask when we already have auto filled our flask everytime we teleport back to town in POE 1, it is only there because their "vision", and player are not in it

"

Etvein#1213 wrote:

I understand your feelings OP. 100%. On one hand the game has lot of good stuff about it.
On the other the design is to make as much friction as possible for the sake of friction.
Huge empty maps, slow movement for you (the mobs are still extra fast), loot scarcity, overpowered monsters and a super punishing endgame loop.

Obviously the game is in EA but some things will not change as it is GGG's new core philosophy
(aka The Vision).

Somewhere between the "4.0" announcement and PoE 2 announcement a lot of people were hyped out and bought supporter packs that basically helped funding PoE 2. Then we slowly started getting these hints:

"The game is going to be slower"
"The game is going to be harder"
"The game is going to be yada yada yada"

Then we got Ruthless and now we are here with PoE 2 being PoE 2.

That's not how you conduct business.

People will swallow that pill, but GGG lied once and they will do it again.

They said PoE 1 is still there for us to play but it won't be. We are already having delayed leagues and I am willing to bet next league is going to be really bad and after the next league GGG will just allocate a skeleton crew to PoE 1.

A lot of people playing PoE 1 won't buy any supporter packs (at least en masse) because it would mean giving money for PoE 2, GGG will start getting less money from PoE 1 and in a year-year and a half (maximum 2 years) it will probably enter maintenance mode and die out without any leagues / bad leagues like Diablo 3 did.

That will be the death of the only ARPG that was fun to me personally and as such the death of the genre in my eyes. I will still play PoE 1 while it lasts and when it's time to say goodbye I will leave with a broken heart.

Where I disagree with this take is.. on the very first video they have shown is of POE2.. the exact same day they announced it.. it was CLEAR it would be slower and harder. They start it showign combination of skills and you can clearly see the pace being much slower. Why so many decided to ignore what was clearly being shown?

GGG never lied about the game. They always shown footage presenting what we have now!

"

Urza_Mechwalker#7393 wrote:

Where I disagree with this take is.. on the very first video they have shown is of POE2.. the exact same day they announced it.. it was CLEAR it would be slower and harder. They start it showign combination of skills and you can clearly see the pace being much slower. Why so many decided to ignore what was clearly being shown?

GGG never lied about the game. They always shown footage presenting what we have now!

Before they showed any clips, before Ruthless, they announced 4.0 and said they were working on it. This was the start of PoE 2 development and it was supposed to be as you can see PoE 1 update.

In the end it's a different game that is way slower and way more punishing.

So basically it was like:

4.0 -> Ruthless (secret pre alpha testing kind of) -> "PoE 2 is going to be slower" announcements - PoE 2

So where is the 4.0 that they announced?

"

Teigo#1907 wrote:

The good first:

I looooooove the new look, the story, the music, the feeling.
Absolutly amazing.

The bad:

I find myself pretty angry at the whole PoE 2 Situation right now. The game is not fun to play for me. There is so much that is not an early Access but a fundamental design issue for me.
The Ascendancys are absolut trash to go through. I knew so upon reveal and I was proven right. Combat and Gameplay feel so punishing and unfair at times, I lose all interest in trying again when I fail an encounter. Losing Loot cause of a BS death also feels like a kick in the balls each time.
The duration of the campaign makes me not wanna replay it longterm. Im already annoyed with PoE 1s campaign length.
I could go on.

What really bothers me however is how angry I feel about it. So I took a break from the game and reflected a bit. Why am I so invested into this that am emotionally affected by it.

Than it came to me:

PoE 2 did cost us PoE 1 improvements.
There is so much to mention here.
We were promised so much with PoE 4.0 and later 2. It was supposed to "FIX EVERYTHING BAD ABOUT 1".
Than came the reveal that it wont be the same game anylonger...
That alone made me uneasy cause promised changes wouldnt come to 1 anymore by default. This was never adressed by GGG to my knowledge.

And now we have the EA: All the years of enduring and missing out on the promised features/fixes for 1 are at full display.
I wont sugarcoat this, im absolutly pissed.

This isnt fair towards PoE 2 at all. Absolutly not. And im sorry for that.
But I cant help it. Im feeling dissapointed and empty.

I accepted that PoE 1 wont get changed cause 4.0/2 would fix most issues I had with it. Just had to wait.
I accepted that PoE 1 was made slower etc to get more in line with 2 (or the "vision").
I accepted that the games wont be the same anymore in hopes that 2 would blow me out of the water.

I got absolutly nothing for this trust in GGG.
Thats how im feeling right now.
I feel ignored as a player and my time invested disrespected.

And its all not fair. I neither direction.
And im sorry.

I really hope the game(s) will adjust in ways that keep me hooked. But I will take my lessons finally and play accordingly.
I have to take my own responsibilites for this back in my hands and act accordingly.

And right now thats playing something thats fun for me.
And I hate that its no longer PoE right now...

Had to get this of my chest

I feel the same buddy. Im full desapointed with the company, more than PoE2 being a bad game, I lost trust in the company. I dont believe in them anymore. It took years to earn costumer trust, but u can lose very fast.

I think this Ruthless 2.0 is a huge mistake

Yeah, is this a failure of setting expectations on GGG's part, or an issue with OP failing to follow what they said / stuck in wishful thinking ? (Links please.)

"

Maldosam#3663 wrote:

[...]
If they had planned to rest after EA release, or just work on finishing missing content (acts and classes), they're mistaken.
[...]

See, like this — why the hell would GGG have thought this ?
(They went through something similar for PoE1 already after all.)
Where does this idea even comes from ??

"

jekoder#4150 wrote:

yeah, I feel that way too

I may also add they straight lied to our face when they said ruthless is just a side project that won't cost any development cycle, which is totally untrue, they pushed hard for ruthless even when the kalandra league calamity happened, and player didn't buy it, to this day people still couldn't care less about rushless in poe 1

but because their vision(at this stage I'm calling it arrogance), they had to force ruthless onto everyone with poe 2, which completely broke my trust in this company.

the funny thing is the more I reflect on the whole poe 2 situation the more I realize poe 2 is just D3 all over again, it is just D3 of this era, promising campaign,better action,better graphics, but total regression on most of core system compare to the previous version of the game, scarcity and difficulties that manifested artificially and just made everything annoying and unfun, no real crafting other than pray to RNGesus, and to add insult to injury, a objectively worse auction house system as it is still not integrated in game compare to D3 which is a game made almost 12 years ago

and this pile of hot mess cost them 6 year of development time, and guess what? Last epoch is also took 6 years since it's first announcement and LE is a far more feature complete modern game than POE 2, with significantly less resource and budget

it's like history eventually repeat itself, in 2013 a small indie studio make a game that eventually overtook the throne of previous king of ARPG diablo, and 2024 the kingslayer became the king that sits on the throne waiting to be slayed, because he became big and arrogant and has to bestow his vision and rule on everyone, just like the previous one

Ok, now you're the one pissing me off : do you realize that D3 feels to us dungeon runner fans basically ruined by you dungeon zoomer fans ?
You're the new kids in town that took over D2's legacy and turned it into something we can't enjoy because we want our loot to be meaningful and game speed one that our (admittedly aging) eyes can keep up with.
(I'm still wondering where you "came from" : WoW, or were you just 'born' at that point ?)
And now you went and basically 'ruined' D4 for us too with Season 2.

And you have the gall to complain that for once we get a game that is more to our liking.
(And does it need to be reminded that PoE1 started as a D2 clone too and only gradually became faster and easier over the years ?)

And have you forgotten why D3 scrapped the RMAH ?
(I'm still nervous about a full blown one being added to PoE 1/2, but if GGG managed the seemingly impossible feat of balancing gold in PoE2, who knows, maybe they can manage one too ??)

But guess what, in PoE1 we both player types can actually coexist thanks to Ruthless mode, and it would probably be a good idea for GGG to add a Forgiving mode for you in PoE2 : with loot explosions, no monster respawn and bosses not regenerating life on death, more movement speed (or even dedicated movement skills), etc.

----

"

just_dont#6539 wrote:

[...]
Hate to burst your bubble, but Diablo was never even in danger of losing the "king" title.
Yes, number-wise it's by far more notable game than all of the so-called "slayers" like GD, PoE, and others.

Even all these "hardcore ARPG fans" that are appalled by D4 still bought it in the first place (personally, I decided that I'd simply won't be buying D5 if it won't return to ARPG roots, but that's just me).

I keep seeing this being mentioned, but I wonder why people are assuming this
(Blizzard's production values ? PoE2 is very close though)
it does look like to me that PoE got bigger, or at least about as big as Diablo many years ago already, and now that I checked some available numbers, it does seem to be the case :

"

BlueTemplar85#0647 wrote:

We do have some other numbers if you trust ActiBlizz/GGG :
D4 made $666M in 10 days after launch.
D4 made over $1000M in 15 months, $150M of them from microtransactions.
D4 cost $70, $90 for 'early' access.
So this gives a ballpark for D4 players 10 days after launch, something around 7-9M players. And this didn't increase really significantly after that. (Note that ActiBlizz is quite stingy with discounts, though MicroActiBlizz does have some now.)
EDIT : I forgot about regional pricing though ? Anyway, the ballpark is still probably somewhere between 5M and 50M D4 players...

GGG said they got more than 1M pre-orders one day before launch for PoE2.

(FYI GGG also said PoE1 had reached 2M players in 11 months after release, 3M players in less than 18 months, 4M in less than 20 months, 7M in 29 months, 13M in 70 months : «Successful launches on the Xbox One and in China have more than doubled the Path of Exile player community since August 2017, with over 3.5 million players having played the game’s 2017 expansion, Path of Exile: The Fall of Oriath».)

Those 13M for PoE were 6-7 years ago !

P.S.: I did a 180˚ turn on D4 and pre-ordered it after the 2nd demo because Blizzard nailed (yet again) the feeling of combat from lvl1 on, something that no other (non-Diablo) dungeon runner has managed to do for me... until PoE2.
I might be able to recommend D4 (play Rogue !) if it wasn't for the high price (don't expect a lot of playtime out of D4) and Microsoft-Activision-Blizzard-King being involved (and PoE2 now existing).

----

"

Etvein#1213 wrote:

[...]
They said PoE 1 is still there for us to play but it won't be. We are already having delayed leagues and I am willing to bet next league is going to be really bad and after the next league GGG will just allocate a skeleton crew to PoE 1.

A lot of people playing PoE 1 won't buy any supporter packs (at least en masse) because it would mean giving money for PoE 2, GGG will start getting less money from PoE 1 and in a year-year and a half (maximum 2 years) it will probably enter maintenance mode and die out without any leagues / bad leagues like Diablo 3 did.

That will be the death of the only ARPG that was fun to me personally and as such the death of the genre in my eyes. I will still play PoE 1 while it lasts and when it's time to say goodbye I will leave with a broken heart.

Yes, the expectation should absolutely be of PoE1 being on life support until GGG decides it's time to call PoE2 «1.0».
EDIT : I've seen mentions of «6 months of open beta» thrown around, IMHO this is ridiculously optimistic, it took a year and a half for PoE1, and I would expect at least that for PoE2.

However, I'm not as pessimistic as you on the fate of PoE1 after that (in the medium term). After all, both games are distinctive enough and popular enough (like this whole thread demonstrates) for GGG to keep supporting both.

And, as others have already mentioned, have you forgotten the recent 'sendoff' to PoE1 that was SoK ? Isn't it «the best / biggest league ever» ? One that «finally fixed combat and made respec easy and added currency auction house and...» ?

Long term, it doesn't look great though. PoE1/2 are online-only, so players are already disempowered when it comes to be able to run old versions of the game (mostly single player, and now couch co-op too !)
(with GGG not being good about game performance, and PoE1 now having incredibly higher minimum requirements compared to release),
or to modify it to their liking, as the still alive D2 modding scene keeps showing.

Some are really disappointed while other are incredibly pleased with the change in tone, speed, approach, difficulty. I'm so happy that POE 2 is really different to POE 1. Doing the same thing with only a graphics refresh would have been the big mistake. Then there is the sad reality that you cannot please everyone.

I'll just go over your message bit by bit as it is very long and has some fair bits.

"

BlueTemplar85#0647 wrote:

Ok, now you're the one pissing me off : do you realize that D3 feels to us dungeon runner fans basically ruined by you dungeon zoomer fans ?
You're the new kids in town that took over D2's legacy and turned it into something we can't enjoy because we want our loot to be meaningful and game speed one that our (admittedly aging) eyes can keep up with.
(I'm still wondering where you "came from" : WoW, or were you just 'born' at that point ?)
And now you went and basically 'ruined' D4 for us too with Season 2.

And you have the gall to complain that for once we get a game that is more to our liking.
(And does it need to be reminded that PoE1 started as a D2 clone too and only gradually became faster and easier over the years ?)

And have you forgotten why D3 scrapped the RMAH ?
(I'm still nervous about a full blown one being added to PoE 1/2, but if GGG managed the seemingly impossible feat of balancing gold in PoE2, who knows, maybe they can manage one too ??)

But guess what, in PoE1 we both player types can actually coexist thanks to Ruthless mode, and it would probably be a good idea for GGG to add a Forgiving mode for you in PoE2 : with loot explosions, no monster respawn and bosses not regenerating life on death, more movement speed (or even dedicated movement skills), etc.

1) I played Diablo 2 when it just released and was playing it for the last 20 years. Please stop the notion of D2 being slow since it was never slow, ever and there was no meaningful loot. That's a lie unless you played offline.
For the most part D2 loop was like that:
Campaign rushing to A2 -> get TP staff (unless sorc), rush the rest then farm uniques -> sell uniques for high runes, buy build defining uniques -> farm more -> get Enigma -> zoom -> farm more -> cube craft accessories

In offline it was pretty much the same but on players 8 instead of trade.

D2 also had a bunch of movement speed skills (Paladin aura, Sorc TP, Burst of Speed for assassins, previously mentioned TP staff, run/walk speed items with up to 40-50% increases etc.)

Also JSP was what ruined D2 and not the younger generations.

2) We complain because every ARPG on the market is to your liking. Last Epoch is diablo like, Grim dawn is diablo like, TQ is somewhat diablo like, Diablo 4 was diablo like. But we only had PoE 1 for the deep mechanics and zoom-zoom and well D2R to an extent.

3) D3 RMAH was a mistake, I'll just leave it at that.

4) I absolutely agree, 10000%. When they are done with EA they can add "Merciful" mode or something with movement skills, bench crafting and all the 4.0 things we were promised. Except we both know they won't do it.


5) I won't be touching on all the money topic as I am not knowledgeable enough

"

BlueTemplar85#0647 wrote:

Yes, the expectation should absolutely be of PoE1 being on life support until GGG decides it's time to call PoE2 «1.0».

However, I'm not as pessimistic as you on the fate of PoE1 after that (in the medium term). After all, both games are distinctive enough and popular enough (like this whole thread demonstrates) for GGG to keep supporting both.

And, as others have already mentioned, have you forgotten the recent 'sendoff' to PoE1 that was SoK ? Isn't it «the best / biggest league ever» ? One that «finally fixed combat and made respec easy and added currency auction house and...» ?

Long term, it doesn't look great though. PoE1/2 are online-only, so players are already disempowered when it comes to be able to run old versions of the game (mostly single player, and now couch co-op too !)
(with GGG not being good about game performance, and PoE1 now having incredibly higher minimum requirements compared to release),
or to modify it to their liking, as the still alive D2 modding scene keeps showing.

6) Maybe you are right, but as a live service game with regular league updates, bug fixes, new mechanics and new *stuff* in general - it will be dead.

Edit: added a small part

"

BlueTemplar85#0647 wrote:

"

Maldosam#3663 wrote:

[...]
If they had planned to rest after EA release, or just work on finishing missing content (acts and classes), they're mistaken.
[...]

See, like this — why the hell would GGG have thought this ?
(They went through something similar for PoE1 already after all.)
Where does this idea even comes from ??

A few moments later...

"

BlueTemplar85#0647 wrote:

EDIT : I've seen mentions of «6 months of open beta» thrown around [note: as in GGG announced 6-12 months], IMHO this is ridiculously optimistic, it took a year and a half for PoE1, and I would expect at least that for PoE2.

:p :p