End game is frankly, not good.

First off let me start out by saying that the Campaign for Path of Exile 2 is incredible, especially after the patches that fixed the most glaring, but obviously not all, issues. I also want to say that everything I am about to say is obviously my opinion which I am entitled to, as anyone is welcomed and entitled to disagree.

Putting the incredible campaign aside, one of the main reasons that I purchased early access is from what I saw in the End Game Content Reveal video shown before release. The limitless potential of what could be found on such a large scale of content.

I cannot express the disappointment end game has been. For context I have 193 hours. My monk is level 91 and I have 3 characters between 15-17. So I have been on tier 15 maps since the 22nd of December. My first agitation with end game was what many have already vocalized (so I will not spend a great deal of time discussing this) which is 1 death maps. Many others have discussed their disdain for this absurd, half thought out punishment mechanic. I almost quit around tier 4 maps but thought I will just adapt and overcome and perhaps things will improve and for the most part I was able to adapt to this punishment mechanic. My average moved from 1 death every 3-6 maps to 1 death every 20+ maps. This was largely by adapting my build and play-style.

Then my next agitation. I have spent almost two weeks of clearing the end game map looking for the citadels. Couldn't find them for the life of me. I watched videos on what to look for which is absolutely so, so stupid that I need to do this instead of having a MINIMAL instruction of what to look for.

All of this would be mostly forgivable if the content of end game was enticing enough. It's frankly, a pretty boring gameplay-loop. It's just not enough for the level of punishment systems in place. It feels like to me like the game in it's current state is literally designed to burn out players.

I saw some streamers playing and their citadels are like RIGHT BESIDE their starting position. On a 27 inch screen, after finding the iron citadel, I dragged from end to end to measure the distance of how far I went to finally find it. 11 full drags, fully zoomed out, of my end game map on my screen. And I didn't go one direction and find it. I was expanding out in multiple directions trying to locate these things.

So I find it. My first citadel, the thing I was so determined so see, hoping that this experience was going to be enough to keep me from quitting after the monotony gameplay-loop I've been grinding through. I clear the whole map, I'm at the boss.

I have capped resistances, including chaos. I have 2k HP and 2.8k energy shield, 70% evasion. In one move that I mis-timed, I'm dead. Okay, fine. I'll grab another tier 15 map and retry. Oh wait, here I come to find out that if you fail a citadel once, YOU CAN'T USE ANOTHER MAP TO RETRY. You're just fucked. Almost two weeks of searching for this thing, and you are completely locked out of retrying, not just losing a map.

This is absolutely ridiculous. I beat all the achievements of Dark souls 1, 3 and Elden Ring. I enjoy difficulty. I enjoy overcoming friction. This is not that. This is punishment for the sake of... what? What feeling am I being expected to feel?

Until this is patched, I quit. I'm not fucking spending two more weeks of this empty feeling end-game to finish this. I cannot express how disappointing this end game is.

Whilst it appears likely that OP wrote this after their demise at the citadel, and perhaps was still seething while writing, the criticism is valid - and I agree..

"

All of this would be mostly forgivable if the content of end game was enticing enough. It's frankly, a pretty boring gameplay-loop. It's just not enough for the level of punishment systems in place. It feels like to me like the game in it's current state is literally designed to burn out players.

We are all familiar with the feeling of being in a dopamine defecit. With how much stimulation we have in our lives these days, most humans in advanced societies live in the sate of one.

What I believe OP is describing is just this. The rewards, are not enough to bring us back to stasis, or above balance. The dopamine hits are so mild, few and far between, whilst the punishments so constant and damning, we find ourselves in a constant dopamine defecit in end game. It just, simply put, does not feel good.

The solution is somewhat simple: decrease punishment, increase reward.

The only time I really felt low in poe1, was towards the end of an progression stage, just before a new level of power.

In poe2, I pretty much feel low 95% of the time. The only thing that I disagree with Op, is that I felt this way throughout the majority of the campaign as well.

I played some poe1 today, and it was glorious.

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I enjoy overcoming friction. This is not that. This is punishment for the sake of... what? What feeling am I being expected to feel?

They've missed the mark, it would seem.

Bump.

Honestly a lot of rage just comes from lack of game knowledge.

You got one shot by a boss because you have no idea what you're doing.

In 6 months, people will be doing zero damage boss fights blind folded.

There are some rare attacks that are unfair, or have misleading hit boxes.

Majority of boss wipes is just lack of player skill and lack of game knowledge.

But yea, give it time. It will be like "he sword attacked so in 1.32 seconds he's going to turn i to a tornado 4.5 units to the right."

Man, all these posts about end-game when I stopped playing because I hit a point where I was forced to trade to buy a new weapon for my character, and it was vastly more expensive than what I had on me.

Ya'll are lucky.

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Akedomo#3573 wrote:

Man, all these posts about end-game when I stopped playing because I hit a point where I was forced to trade to buy a new weapon for my character, and it was vastly more expensive than what I had on me.

Ya'll are lucky.

Every class can relatively smoothly make it through the campaign and to endgame with basically only found gear, or with found gear + a weapon that costs 1-3 exalted orbs if you are truly super unlucky.

You definitely should have at least a few exalteds to trade for a weapon. If you don’t currency vendor is unlocked act 1 cruel and you can get them there. If you’re saying you can’t buy a weapon pre-endgame because everything is way too expensive, chances are you aren’t using the trade site filters correctly, tons of cheap stuff on there.

If you are still struggling to make it to endgame chances are you made some poor decisions in your passives and skills, watch a few videos on your class, see what others are doing, and adapt some of their strategies (don’t even need to straight copy the build).

OP is 100% spot on. I haven't even found a citadel yet, but just the fact I lose exp, a portal, and a waystone for dying on standard maps is ridiculous and punishing just for the sake of punishing. It's the definition of GGG not respecting our time

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Bletzkarn#5429 wrote:

Honestly a lot of rage just comes from lack of game knowledge.

You got one shot by a boss because you have no idea what you're doing.

In 6 months, people will be doing zero damage boss fights blind folded.

There are some rare attacks that are unfair, or have misleading hit boxes.

Majority of boss wipes is just lack of player skill and lack of game knowledge.

But yea, give it time. It will be like "he sword attacked so in 1.32 seconds he's going to turn i to a tornado 4.5 units to the right."

Completely invalid reply, my dude. How is one supposed to acquire game knowledge if something one-shots you and you have to search for days or even weeks to retry? Look for a video of someone else clearing it? Where's the fun in that? OP is absolutely correct. Souls games can be brutal because they let you retry a boss right away with little punishment other than minor time loss and lost souls. The campaign works because it largely does this too. Expecting players to be okay with the current design because "lol people will be blind killing them in 6 months" is ludicrous, and honestly kind of insulting.

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Bletzkarn#5429 wrote:

Honestly a lot of rage just comes from lack of game knowledge.

You got one shot by a boss because you have no idea what you're doing.

In 6 months, people will be doing zero damage boss fights blind folded.

There are some rare attacks that are unfair, or have misleading hit boxes.

Majority of boss wipes is just lack of player skill and lack of game knowledge.

But yea, give it time. It will be like "he sword attacked so in 1.32 seconds he's going to turn i to a tornado 4.5 units to the right."

Nothing you've said is incorrect, I know his fight decently enough that on my secondary and tertiary characters I first tried him in Act 1. I don't know it enough to no-hit the fight. So you're right, that's where rage comes in.

However, I don't feel any rage at all that I got one shot in the fight. The rage comes from the fact that to retry this, I have to do an unknown amount of effort, that I've already done, to retry the fight. The penalization is the definition of egregious.

Where it stands I'm asking myself these questions:

Do I want to do the work to retry this? - No.

Why not? - The effort does not feel rewarding enough to do it.

Why not? - 1. There aren't enough literal rewards. 2 - The penalization to do it over again outpaces the rewards by, a lot.

What would make me want to do it again? - Literally only if these issues are completely resolved.

Can I find a compromise from these changes being made to want to return? - No. These specific issues would have to be completely reversed.

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Bletzkarn#5429 wrote:

Honestly a lot of rage just comes from lack of game knowledge.

You got one shot by a boss because you have no idea what you're doing.

This an ARPG. Making every boss require a no-hit run is moronic. Geonor's swipe should not be doing 7,000 damage. The fact that you're defending this because nerds will have it mastered in 6 months makes you seem like a clown.

I feel like this is kinda where sweatlord logic comes to fail. Like, anyone defending how punishing this endgame is, is someone that requires a disturbing amount of punishment to feel accomplished in doing anything. I'm not even at the point of considering doing citadels and I feel for OP. It shouldn't be like this. There should be a far more reasonable curve in terms of progression. The fact that some people are finding god tier, abundant loot, and meaningful progression in things like citadels, and some people aren't, should be a red flag to GGG that something is fundamentally wrong with the game. There shouldn't be this wild of a variance in gameplay experience.