Sources of Fatigue in POE2's Design

I love the game - lots of good to say, but I'll stick to productive feedback. I've gone ahead and listed down all of the 'fatigues' I've encountered during my time with POE2. I feel pretty confident in the list below. Overall I think there's a lot of great additions to the formula, but I want to focus on campaign-based feedback. For reference, I'm co-op 'self-SSF' - have plenty of characters, and at least one full campaign run through in co-op. I also don't like giving feedback without offering a solution, so hey - hopefully someone enjoys this read.

1. (Design) Act 1 feels more polished than the other two acts. This mainly comes from how consolidated Act 1's layout is. The first zones out of the Act 1 hub sets up expectations for quicker, tighter areas - and the rest of the Acts do not follow that structure.

2. (UI/UX) Map load. Something as simple as this adds up. Why is the map something that needs to connect to communicate to the server? This pain point might harm future league mechanics if GGG is planning on doing something modular with their campaigns.

3. (Game Feel) Sharing systems between traditional m+kb / wasd / controller result in frustrating compromises. This comes about mainly, in combat targeting. Giving players more control over methods of targeting would be a great next step. (ex. Cold Snap on controller)

4. (Game Feel) Aiming at enemy feet instead of their bodies/heads with WASD took me until the end of Act 3 to finally adjust to. Surely there could be a way to allow me to adjust where my cursor is aiming with some sort of Z-height.

5. (Game Feel) Missing ranged abilities feels frustrating. The lack of feedback on when a projectile 'misses' due to accuracy, combined with [4.], led to a friend switching off crossbow because it 'didnt feel right'.

6. (Design Decision) Campaign 'power-farming' not enjoyable. Getting stuck at a boss because of a gear/level/gem check is fine. Going back to a previous area to grind up gear/levels/gems feels more demotivating than it should - mainly because grinding previous areas can feel inconsistent or slow in gear/level/gem progression. I hope future league mechanics assist in this area.

7. (Feature) Dying shouldn't just be a death screen. Dying in campaign and then watching your friend backpedal off screen away from the mob that blasted you is boring. I can't even watch the fight, I just have to sit there. Additionally, dying and not being able to grab loot near you is even more frustrating. The best solution I can see tackles both issues - if we could walk around when dead as a ghost and 'spectate' (pick up items as well). I understand implementing this comes at its own scope, but I see zero downside.

8. (Fundamental Change) Sudden feature removal. Co-Op gameplay is engaging and fun. Party rez is such a great feature. A friend stopped playing because he couldn't rez me in end game content. Why strip away that fun?

9. (Map Generation) Great variety! Time to hone them in. There's a lot to unpack here. On paper the fact that zones can change two to three times per area is amazing, but in practice this change of scenery does not revitalize me as much as it should - especially on long and linear stretches with no side objectives. Some maps are great. Some aren't. The main fatigues with maps comes down to:
a. The amount of dead ends and their maximum potential for backtracking
b. The lack of implied directionality within the environment itself
c. The lack of directionality correlated to our in-game map

10. (Map Design) The amount of overcomplicated intermediary levels with little reward feels excessive. I miss things like the Dried Lake and Blood Aqueduct that serve a simpler, quicker purpose. Additionally, intermediary levels feel a lot better when they have /rewarding/ side objectives, or act as crossroads for branching paths. Mastodon Badlands is an immediate example of a map that doesn't achieve either. Act 3's Jiquani's Machinarium is an example of a successful intermediary level (<3 Blackjaw, my beloved).

11. (Map Design) Act 2 is linear. Giving players the ability to tackle Act 2 maps in differing orders does not make up for each mission's overwhelmingly linear goal, yet maze-like design.

12. (Game Feel) I stopped playing melee minions to wait for something like Convocation to return. Don't get me wrong - I like chokes. The dreadnought is a great last zone. Path of Mourning's narrow rooms and bridges feels great. I enjoy when the mobs get stuck at chokes. On the inverse, I can't imagine how difficult it must be to get spectres operational, given some of the tight corridors you're creating.

13. (Design Decision) The immediate jump to 'one life' in POE2's endgame is overtly intimidating to new players - especially to those that arrive at endgame with terrible gear and no resistances. Surely the tiers of maps can make deaths/rez's 'cost' more portals as you go up. It feels artificially gatekeepy - but I understand the sentiment of wanting to incentivize maximizing survivability for highest tier maps and bosses.

14. (Currency Tuning) Alteration orbs aren't 'gone'. Example: Staffs and wands come with abilities. Wanting to use that cool ability limits you to only picking up that particular base type. Picking up and checking every wand of that base type is the Intended Path, but I sell the failed wands to fuel my gambling for wand base types. I am, essentially, just running it down for a blue rarity wand with modifiers I like, before slamming it. If I'm understanding things correctly - this is what GGG was trying to avoid with orbs of alteration, right? As it stands now, this is just a clunkier, more frustration version of alting on a base type. I feel like removing alt orbs hurts SSF playstyles far more than it would trade, which is what the change was targeting. And, if the goal is to use gold in place of a system like alt orbs, could I maybe 'scour' blue gear at a campaign vendor for X gold as well?

15. (Item Tuning) Implicit skills on wands/staffs feels unfinished, and juicing them doesn't feel as good as martial. Speaking of wands in [14.], it feels like casters are missing the QoL of their own Whetstone / Artificer Orb / Rune system. I get that Arcanist's Etcher is pretty much a GCP so they're rarer, but it feels like you get way more mileage out of them on the sceptre than a wand/staff. Artificer Orbs not being used on wands and staffs is also a bit confusing. As the system currently stands, I've given up on a silly Withered Wand setup for leveling because it's simply too difficult to chase/juice. I imagine this issue will only get more frustrating as the base type of wands/staffs becomes larger. Martial feels great in comparison, though. Which is such a surprise to have that sentiment flipped from how I felt in POE1. I understand that the tradeoff is that wands/staffs can technically last your build much longer - but again - the fancy new implicit skill on caster weapons takes a pretty hard hit for this tradeoff, and that makes me sad.

[ Final Point ] The game will get even better - I have no doubt. Most of my feedback here are fatigues that will no doubt soften with age and refinement. However. I want to stress here - My favorite part of POE2 was getting to see my friends engage with the genre. It clicked. They got it. They liked it. POE1 couldn't do that. That being said, for everything POE2 has done, the design decisions around end game are still too daunting. The lack of portal lives and removal of the rez system in end game has turned my potential fun of playing co-op with my friends into another solo endeavor - perhaps forever. It's simply too steep of a change straight out of the act structure.

Fantastic feedback.

I agree with the gist of what you have, and sort of wish they didn't have this EA so that we could see what their true intention is before everyone got all bent out of shape. There is some incredible potential here, and I hope they do not squander it.

And like you, I got incredible satisfaction from seeing my friends that slept on POE1 in favor of Diablo finally come over and see the brilliance behind what GGG has done for the genre. So it hits even harder when they complain about difficulty or something else that's entirely in scope for change during the EA.

A huge point I haven't seen enough on forums or videos is the performance of the game itself -- it is incredibly good, like... I get better FPS and stability in POE2 than I do in the first. This lets more folks enjoy the game on all the different systems out there, and including consoles out the gate was awesome too. The game even runs on a steam deck, albeit at 30-40 fps on low settings with FSR3, but it still runs.

Having more folks in the game is definitely going to drive some design decisions, and I hope more folks take some time to write solid criticism like you have here.