be honest how many of you cant ssf through acts 1 2 or 3

just curious as to how many people here gave up in the first few acts

Not yet, but the Act 2 boss can't be outleveled to make him doable for this sorceress. I'm not going to replay the caravan 100 times just to hit lvl 40 so I MIGHT be able to survive the one shots Jam is throwing out.

I went through all acts in SSF as LA Deadeye, starting from absolute zero. It was pretty easy, once I figured out why people used Orb of Storms with Lighting Rods ...
I'm going through it 2nd time with Minion Witch and it's much less smooth, mostly because of how wonky minions are, their pathing issues, revive timers, etc.

EDIT: I wouldn't recommend SSF to anyone at this point, there are too many limitations that are impossible to overcome.
If you don't get lucky, you'll end up stuck with the same weapon for 30+ levels.

On my first character, a Sorc, it was tough. I had to tweak my build and gear to get past Act 1, and I tried maybe 15 times on the last boss before that tweak. After the tweak I finished the fight pretty easily. That character is now in maps.

My second char, a Witch, had a much easier time. I'm just now in Act 1 cruel, and I've still died a few times. I literally died 10x less than on my sorc, though.

You might say it was the minions and that Witch is easy to level, but I've started a Ranger now too. Still only most of the way through Act 1, but I've died 1 time on that character, and that was just from not playing attention.

Once you learn the zones, mobs, and boss mechanics, and get into the mindset that you can't necessarily brute-force your way through the campaign with a no-defense build, it gets a lot easier.

It's definitely harder than PoE 1, but that's not a bad thing. If GGG is going to support two different games they need to be different. There are plenty of things about PoE 2 that could be improved. However, the baseline campaign difficulty, if it should be changed at all, is pretty low on that list.

My biggest issue with the campaign is how long it takes to get through it because of the nature of PoE 2 gameplay. I'm hopeful they offer some other, faster alternative to level after your first character in a league.

Depends on the build, I guess? Leveling LA ranger I did not trade a single time before reaching maps - there is simply no reason to do that. Just spam 2 buttons - drop rods and shoot arrows through rods, and you win. Oh, and get a Dualstring bow in Act 2 and Act 2 Cruel with two +20% physical runes in it - that is all gear you ever need. The only class which has actually comfy solo leveling experience for the whole campaign, including 2 trials.

I got to endgame yesterday with my SSF warrior. It did take me two weeks though of playing a few hours a day.

Cruel was definitely easier than normal campaign which says alot about how jank the difficulty curve is.

I checked the stats and it was like 40k kills and 20 deaths.

A number of those deaths were purely to me trying to use sunder, what a trash skill, how silly is it that a skill has a windup of like 2 seconds which in POE time is an eternity and more than enough time to die several times over, add to the fact that it is interruptible where I would try to use it early enough with enough distance between me and the mobs but then the front mob would interrupt the skill and then I would be left wondering, I just sat through a 2 second windup and nothing happened and I'm wondering why I'm now surrounded by mobs. That is the sunder experience.

The only boss that I found was not well balanced was Mektul.

Why would I play SSF if I don't find it fun? Campaign is the chore before getting to the real game anyway. It's something to blaze through as fast as possible.

As a person who only started buying items at the end of act 3 cruel in preparation for maps, SSF-ing the base game is fairly easy if you have a bit of luck - IF. I'm in maps and I'm still using a scepter I bought in act 2 because it had +3 to minion gems on it and 1-2 divines for one with +4 that would be an upgrade for the other stats was too steep at the time.

Crafting just like in PoE 1 is just gambling so I'm not really interested in it past the bare minimum in the campaign. But doing the first 3 acts in what's basically SSF I didn't find the game hard. Yes, it is harder than PoE2, but that doesn't actually make it hard. And I'm writing this as someone who doesn't like souls likes - which I still think this is not one of. It is a different core gameplay loop though and the campaign is not a "solved" game that people with experience can just breeze though in a few hours.

That being said, I joined PoE1 at the tail end of Expedition league and when I had a look here in the forums I found a lot of veterans complaining about the increased difficulty of Expedition league and how they though most people like me - ie, new - were going to just quit at Brutus. Did I die my first 3 times fighting him? sure. Did I quit? No, I went back to town, read the skills Nessa was selling bought a totem and raging spirits, leveled them a bit in lower level maps and went there to Brutus and killed him. I wasn't playing to win, and I wasn't playing to lose. I was playing to have fun. Brutus stomping me was a problem to be solved, not an insurmountable roadblock to make me quit. But for the people that were PoE1 veterans at the time...

Difficultly is relative, but I think a lot of veteran PoE1 players that only follow builds blindly no longer know what difficulty is. If you're usual play style is a wardloop with a defiance of destiny, an aegis aurora and haste, withering step and phase auras always on, you might be a bit out of touch with what difficulty is. IF you can do the PoE1 campaign in 3-4 hours, and mainly play PoE1 you might be out of touch with how long a campaign in a game like this usually takes to complete, especially for the first time, when there's no wiki to hold your hand.


PoE2 isn't a hard game, it does have a shit gambling mechanic the devs call "crafting", and it does require more attention that a 0 buttons poe1 end game build; but if you think PoE2 is difficult you might want to expand your gaming portfolio and try different games, not because I say if but because you've reached the point were PoE1 no longer poses any challenge and your world view has become warped by that.

You can do it.
And it can be fun.

I mean it is fun .... but.
You need to like crafting and you need to pick up many things.

Issue is Inventory is too small for that style of play.
If i can mindlessly pick up things to break down into crafting components.
It will work out.

But that is boring after awhile.
So players stop calling to town and just leave it on the ground.

This game could benefit from pet that just breaks down materials in the field if you will use the materials but would never pick up the item .

The game is not bad when you craft allot!
I mean all of it is transmuted and rolled for gear ..

You will make things that can take you through.
But relying on ground loot right now ... you are going to be lucky or you are going to be hurting.

I play in trade league .. but im SSF i don't know how to use the trade site yet.
I have had several characters to lvl 50 decided ill go to maps on this one to check it out. Its going well but i have 3 characters worth of gear ....

I havent traded once since launch. two characters through the campaign, one to 74 and T5 maps. No trading.