Game is too punishing for a Casual players.

"

Kachechka_DDD#2310 wrote:

Revamp XP loss: Instead of losing 10% of total XP, players could lose only the XP earned within that specific map. For example, if you farmed 30,000 XP running this map, you’d only lose that amount upon death.

Absolutely agree with this revamp suggestion.

agreed

"

xxn1927#3319 wrote:

I feel much safer in this game than I ever was in PoE1. Active block and dodge roll make me no longer feel like a sitting duck as I was in PoE1. For this alone, the game is way easier than its predecessor (and I hope they kill it that way).

Also, we don't encounter mobs with 500% speed, insane health regen, elemental immunity and what not. I can't imagine going back to the first game.

I guess you aren’t in maps yet

I've put 100h into poe2, and upwards of 3k hours into poe1. At this point I feel like I can share a somewhat reasonable opinion of what I find the worst steps backwards from poe1.

I hated the lab because I hated investing 20-40 minutes into a map that could wipe my progress through one little mistake, but at least I only had to do it once and it was mostly my fault. I despise the (endgame) trials: they're much longer, much harder, much more luck dependent and honestly they feel like a copy of former league mechanics that were among the more disliked ones (and don't get me started on honor). And I mean, this is a forced always-online game. My connection isn't always the best...

Losing loot and monster spawns on death: Why? Why take away the catharsis of killing the monster that killed you, the feeling of overcoming a challenge, the joy of learning how to deal with something hard? Why show loot that you're about to lose? "Bet you'd love to have this! too bad!" is not a fun experience to have every single time you die, it feels like bullying :p

One portal per map: same complaint as above, but additionally it also causes bad emergent gameplay for me: leaving hard league mechanics until I complete the rest of the map, then backtracking is not fun. Perhaps if we could have a checkpoint to teleport to ... or better yet, at least 2 portals.

All in all I find this game too frustrating to consider investing another 3000 hours into it. The majority of my time is enjoyable, but the few frustrating moments really take away from that too much for me. I think the game will improve, especially with the introduction of the second half of the campaign (maybe the trial there will be a lot more fun?) and I'm looking forward to it.

"

Toforto#2372 wrote:

"

diablofdb#3816 wrote:

I think any good game needs to be challenging and punishing in some extents.

That's just your opinion, and you clearly don't understand what a casual player seeks in a game if you think every game has to be "challenging" and "punishing".

This game is going to start bleeding players like crazy, either because they hit a brick wall in campaign(but most will just reroll and enjoy the nice campaign as much as they can to get that 30$ value out of their purchase) or when they hit endgame. This thread is just more proof of how horribly this game is designed for new players and casuals. And even for veterans of PoE with thousands of hours this game is just worse than PoE 1 lol


This is only the beginning, the player numbers are gonna plummet in the coming weeks.

maybe this game is not meant for casual players then?

"

diablofdb#3816 wrote:

maybe this game is not meant for casual players then?

That's a horrible idea if you want to make enough profits to sustain a live-service F2P game. Make it too "niche" and "hardcore" and you end up with a dead game. They need to hook casuals in and have systems and parts of the game that are fun for them, and just put a bunch of optional extra content in endgame for other people.

The point is, GGG wants this game to be more casual-friendly. All the videos on every skill gem explaining it, all the underlined words in text in the game that you can mouse over for explanations. Those are good attempts but atm this game is completely failing to be "more accessible to players" as it was advertised lol

its okay that its punishing for casual players, it was intentionally designed to be. For sure lots of things need tweaking and even some rethinking and doubtless some of that will happen.

Until then adapt, game it out.

"

Toforto#2372 wrote:

"

diablofdb#3816 wrote:

maybe this game is not meant for casual players then?

That's a horrible idea if you want to make enough profits to sustain a live-service F2P game. Make it too "niche" and "hardcore" and you end up with a dead game. They need to hook casuals in and have systems and parts of the game that are fun for them, and just put a bunch of optional extra content in endgame for other people.

The point is, GGG wants this game to be more casual-friendly. All the videos on every skill gem explaining it, all the underlined words in text in the game that you can mouse over for explanations. Those are good attempts but atm this game is completely failing to be "more accessible to players" as it was advertised lol

this is a terrible argument, the souls games are notoriously hard and are massively successful.

D4 exists why place POE2 into the same niche of casualized ARPG when it can live in its own (current) Niche as the gamers ARPG?

"

alhazred70#2994 wrote:

"

Toforto#2372 wrote:

"

diablofdb#3816 wrote:

maybe this game is not meant for casual players then?

That's a horrible idea if you want to make enough profits to sustain a live-service F2P game. Make it too "niche" and "hardcore" and you end up with a dead game. They need to hook casuals in and have systems and parts of the game that are fun for them, and just put a bunch of optional extra content in endgame for other people.

The point is, GGG wants this game to be more casual-friendly. All the videos on every skill gem explaining it, all the underlined words in text in the game that you can mouse over for explanations. Those are good attempts but atm this game is completely failing to be "more accessible to players" as it was advertised lol

this is a terrible argument, the souls games are notoriously hard and are massively successful.

D4 exists why place POE2 into the same niche of casualized ARPG when it can live in its own (current) Niche as the gamers ARPG?

You're making comparisons that don't make sense. Souls games are one-time purchase products. They make all their profits from selling the game to X amount of players and then move on to make another game.

PoE is a live-service game. A free one at that. If this game can't generate enough revenue then it literally can't be sustained or kept running anymore. So it either gets shut down or monetized to be like a mobile game.

A "niche" f2p game that keeps getting new content every 3 months doesn't exist unless its a literal charity.

"

SilentTheGray#2578 wrote:

"

diablofdb#3816 wrote:

I think any good game needs to be challenging and punishing in some extents.

Yet Elden Ring exists and appeals to more casual than hardcore players. Amazing how they did that without having mechanics that intentionally punish players. Almost as if, making content challenging INSTEAD of punishing IS the solution.

Huh? That's not entirely true. Don't forget that, like in every Souls Game, you lose your souls when you die. And you have to get back to the point where you did die. That's not always in a boss room. Sometimes you get teleported way back and have to do alot to regain your souls. And if you die again, then they are lost. I guess every souls player felt the frustration of losing 6-digits. maybe even 7-digit souls at some point in the game. And very often, bosses are so hard, you had to give it 20-30 tries before beating him. Not having game knowledge is also punishing, because alot of good upgrades and weapons are hidden and not found while going through the main quest. And lets not forget brutaly placed enemies and traps that easily kill you, if you wasn't careful enough. And if not the enemies kill you, it's the environment. Ah, and then there are quests you sometimes fail without knowing why you failed them (to far ahead in story, killed a related npc, didn't do something in the right order). I think the Soul-Games are VERY punishing (and also challenging).

Soul-Games are supposed to be punishing. They punish you for not being focused all the time and you have to redo alot of stuff when dying. The same principle applies to PoE2 now. Didn't read the attack carefully? You may get one-shotted, or be lucky enough to have 10-20% of your life left. Didn't see the ranged or spellcaster enemies? Prepare for an incoming barrage of deadly stuff.

Not saying that PoE2 could use some QoL features and balancing here and there. But I think the complains are a little bit exaggerated.