Context: I played PoE1 early on after release but dropped it for quite a while before getting more heavily into it after Blight, at this point around $350 spent, 3500 hours in game, and several leagues with 40/40 playing SC Trade, especially over the last 2-3 years.
I had been pretty pessimistic about a lot of PoE2's coverage from ExileCon 1 through early/mid 2024, with the focus on trying to make some sort of super slow Souls-like that I had no interest in. However, over the course of 2024 coverage as discussion seemed to back off from this design philosophy more and more, I fell for the hype and jumped in for Early Access. After playing for a few weeks, I'm walking away with the same feeling as the first couple times I tried to do a random build I found on the forums or on Youtube - completely baited.
Here's a list of feedback points, both major and minor:
- **Melee sucks.**
For years, GGG has said that PoE2 would fix all of the intractable problems with Melee. Somehow, the earliest version (presumably most true to "the vision") completely failed. Getting new animations did not fix melee, despite Jonathan saying it would for literally _years_.
- **Visual Clarity might be worse than PoE1???**
I wrote this in a forum thread in Aug 2023 in reaction to GGG failing to address visual clarity or other systemic problems at ExileCon2 or the media appearances following it:
*Visual clarity and “what killed me?” are both problems in PoE1 that were much smaller problems 10 years ago when PoE1 was slower and less busy. Their answers for why these won’t be problems in PoE2 are that the game is slower and less busy, while also acknowledging that they’re building a foundation for 10 years of power creep because that’s kind of the nature of the genre. So… what’re you doing from the beginning to take advantage of your past experience with 10 years of power creep to avoid the same exact problems of visual clarity and “what killed me” in the long term for PoE2? They’re not thinking that far ahead, and that’s a problem.*
This failure wasn't a failure of the game as built. It was a failure of production staff to plan accordingly to find a solution for a foundational problem in PoE1. At least in PoE1, the background wasn't trying to compete for our attention the way it is in PoE2.
- **We were lied to about on-death effects and one shots**
The reason that we've been told for years in PoE1 that on-death effects and one shots were necessary because they were the only ways to kill the player. PoE2 was supposed to solve these problems (like above, not through systems but through "better design"). Instead, they came up with more ways to kill us (good) while maintaining the on-death effects and one shots.
- **Opening the map shouldn't have a loading screen**
If the cost for "everyone has a procedurally generated world map" was that opening the world map has a loading screen, the cost was too high. "Cool" design should never outweigh user experience.
- **Losing vendor recipes wastes time and limits options**
Vendoring gear in PoE1 would accomplish the outcomes of both salvage and disenchantment, but instead we're forced to go to two places to do this. I got a 20% quality flask on a drop, but it was a bad base type, and I couldn't vendor it or salvage it for a Glassblower's Bauble, making that drop worthless. Losing the possibilities for vendor recipes also eliminates player QoL/flexibility in the form of down-levelling gems, getting easy MS boots, or assuring yourself basic low-level weapons. This was a net loss for players, and it was done in a way that slows players down in town.
- **The Well is a trivial problem but indicative of contempt for players**
The well was a concept that Chris Wilson specifically wanted in PoE1, but couldn't justify because players would call it out (correctly) as time-wasting "gotcha" design. Putting it into PoE2 doesn't change that. (Bonus: it also demonstrates that "we'll certainly not make the same mistakes as before" is a bad plan in the long term.)
- **"Crafting" is terrible**
There is no crafting. Transmutes & Augments are just creating an extra drop. Telling us we won't need to swap runes was straight up refusing to acknowledge the reality of the game. Essences aren't plentiful enough to meaningfully fill any void in the system. Every decision made with crafting throttles player flexibility and problem solving... which just forces us even harder to engage in trade.
- **If massive zones were fun design, they would've done it in PoE1**
When you're hard-locked to walking at 5 mph (maybe 6.5 mph if you have some +MS boots) and the zones are all 50 miles wide, getting anywhere sucks. If it were fun design to make us walk forever before getting to the "good part", a massive walk would've been implemented years ago in PoE1 for Elder, Sirus, Maven, Exarch, and Eater. It's poor design, and GGG's design decisions in PoE1 show that they know it.
- **Levers are unjustifiable**
If this were cool and fun design, it'd be implemented for switches in PoE1. It's not. It's another example of "cool" and "challenging" design that comes at a huge user experience cost. It's really reminiscent of how GGG has fought QoL and UX improvements kicking and screaming for literal years, until finally relenting in the wake of Kalandra & Archnemesis.
- **Ascension is a terrible experience, and their league mechanics are worse than PoE1**
I actually really loved Sanctum (one of my 40/40 leagues), and I've enjoyed playing Ultimatum regularly on certain builds, but the implementation of both is outright bad. Sanctum features so much AoE damage and mobs that can ambush with impunity, which is completely incompatible with the design philosophy of the mechanic. It's also a mechanic that requires such specialization that it voids your character, and implementing it as an ascension mechanic was clearly a bad idea. Ultimatum's implementation with running around looking for mobs or cores or between battle arenas is pure padding, and the number of build-countering mechanics betrays a lack of creativity (steal better ideas from PoE1!) and a failure to challenge the player appropriately to earn their ascendancy.
- **Loot isn't good**
Remember how Chris used to tell us about how Loot 2.0 was going to fix all of PoE1's problems, but then they only used it in a few areas and didn't actually ever fully release it and waited for us to forget about it? Anyways, loot in PoE2 is bad, even after the buff.
- **Quest rewards are still terrible**
This is a trifle, but quest rewards were something acknowledged in PoE1 to be not very good, and GGG did very little to make them better in PoE2. One of my favorite ideas here is to re-use the Tiny's Trial mechanic from Betrayal without timers (PoE1's Tiny's Trial shouldn't have them either). Let players craft a weapon of their choice in Act 1, introducing them to crafting currency (50 Exalts and 50 Chaos) and letting them experiment while hopefully being a little better set up for Geonor. Let them do the same thing in Act 2 to make an Amulet, but maybe incorporate better currencies like Essences and Catalysts. Do this throughout the campaign to introduce crafting mechanics and create some bad drop luck protection.
- **Magic Find**
I've harped on it a few times, but this is the most egregious example of a solved problem that PoE1 struggled with for years, that PoE2 somehow refused to learn from. My favorite suggestion that I've seen is to apply MF to maps, but to decrement it for each portal consumed. Speaking of...
- **1 Portal/Map is extremely un-fun**
I quit mapping pretty quickly in large part because of this, and its a pretty inexplicable decision in my opinion. I choose to not play Hardcore for a reason. I pay my XP penalty - why should I lose a map/waystone too? Especially given the lack of visual clarity and a "death log", how am I supposed to learn and get better? This is even worse when it comes to bosses. Sometimes I like to play challenging content, but sometimes I like to mindlessly kill mobs for a couple hours after work. Why am I wrong for not wanting to play a Souls-like game?
- **Mapping feels extremely unrewarding**
My understanding from watching some streamers is that high-tier maps feel rewarding, especially when you're pumping that MF. I wouldn't know, because I didn't grind my way there, but what I can tell you is that low level maps feel like they have no meaningful or enjoyable progression. If I manage to bump into the rares in a map early, I bail early because there's no value left. Grinding 10 maps for a new pair of Atlas points feels bad, especially with 1 portal per map.
- **The new Atlas is a mess**
The new Atlas is a visual mess that is hard to grok its various systems, even before you start building more systems on top of it over the years to come. This is another great example of "cool" design with a terrible user experience... and it's not that cool of a design, either!
- **Dodge roll feels terrible, and no-phasing is only part of it**
I actually love dodge roll in games that have it, and the changes added so far have made it better, but it still feels bad. Dodge roll should feel like a quick, agile action. Instead, dodge roll feels slow because it starts quick for the first third of the animation before slowing down for the final third, like a fat old man trying to get up off the couch. Paired with boss ability tracking, it punishes players for being too quick to dodge, and its incongruent with the fantasy of the move. Think of how kinetic dodge roll feels in modern games like Bastion or Children of Morta. Dodge roll in PoE2 doesn't feel nearly as good because it's been deliberately nerfed to prevent us from moving "too fast" or "too far".
That's a pretty random smattering of complaints, both large and small, but its most of the stuff that really bothered me over the last month.
One of the best things about PoE1 over the last couple years is that it is increasingly trying to make an effort to respect the player and their time. Inexplicably, PoE2 doesn't seem to have taken many of these lessons and has made a specific effort to be disrespectful of everyone's time, and while that's not true of all of the game's failures, it's the most egregious foundational problem. Strangely, it almost seems to have disrespected its developers' time as well, in the way it has refused to learn lessons from its predecessor, meaning that time will need to be spent on fixing problems that have already been solved.
