PoE2 is Mediocre at best, I think Everyone Should have a Rational Evaluation

After casually bumping on the BlastCast last evening and hearing about PoE2 and Casual Players, I figured perhaps you'd find useful to have a perspective from one of them.

I am an ex-gamer, I can now play only casually (1-2 hours max and not always, bit more free in weekends). I have family, work a full time job, study, do sport and a 3 months old daughter. The only reason for why I am writing this is because I am at home on parental leave.

No doubt the game had great success, but I would love to see where these numbers comes from. My speculation, is that a very large portion comes from PoE1 and that what we see is hardcore fanbase that moved from PoE1 to PoE2. More specifically, from dedicated launcher to Steam. I would be very curious to see total numbers, from all platforms, and how they changed since launch.

I think the game a severe imbalance in classes, there are some straight OP and some really undercooked, like the crossbow mercenary (try to shoot for a bit and you'll know).

I'll start with the obvious, why the crashes. Do you think I have time to waste every day to restart my game/pc several times? I'll rather play D4 or LE that at least they do not crash.

I did not engaged at all during the full campaign with any whatsoever system, the only thing that I was doing was saving for a respec. How the heck did you think that it was and acceptable price. Still, I think is ridiculous spending and at least a cut by half is needed. I will not waste a week just to do a respec, I will just play what allows me to respec easily.

I do not understand this celebration of mega passive skill tree, I see in front of me overengineering and complications just for the sake of it. Overwhelming majority of points are uninteresting and most of the blocks could be summarized in just a couple of points, leaving room to go around way more (speaking of flexibility). Everyone with a little bit of brain could overdevelop something, but you're not the best just because you did it.

The crafting system is flat-out garbage, it is a rip-off of a gatcha system. I would be happy to know from a developer stand point what is so difficult on understanding the simple concept of "I want item X with a-b-c stats, walk me through it with deterministic functions that overtime creates it". My personal interest is to have for each piece of gear the stats that I like the most, which means add/remove them and then level them up to highest possible value. Full-Stop.

I did not find any unique that spark interest in doing something with them, I only heard now that there are a couple flat-out broken and all the rest useless.

I do not understand why there are points in the endgame maps without anything interesting going on in there. This is for me just pure waste of time, just as much of losing all progress for a one-shot death after 20min of exploring one map.

Why I lose my exploration progress all the time during the campaign. This is nonsense, you have the ability to create new instance so what's the point here.

Why I cannot seamlessly swap between mouse/keyboard and Pad, this is basic thing doable even in D4 and the layout of the UI does not change. Please make the right pad like a free cursor by pressing it at least, this would be helpful.

Also, why I cannot hide quests on the side with Pad? Where's the button here?

Why the map takes ages to load all the time.

How is it possible that there is no Auction House in-game, this is something of 10 years ago. The usage of an external browser is just ridiculous in present time and a relic of the past, I would have expected this not even to be a thing. Be wary, it is irrelevant how well designed or integrated is, the point is the entire existence outside the game itself and a complete waste of time the entire process of purchasing. If I see the item, I want to buy in that moment and that's it. What is this nonsense of sending whisper and then party and meet and wait again, Lost Ark had it already years ago, really and LE has one perfectly functional.

Also, this bartering system is unique but irritating and yet again another waste of time. I personally prefer a universaal currency that we can all refer to such as gold like in countless other games. And please do not mention real money purchase defense, if I wish to buy something with real money I will regardless of what it is. I you do not want to incentivize me to do so then remove the irritation triggering it. TL:DR I do not RMT I just uninstall and play something else.

Why do I need to identify items, again another pointless waste of time from 20 years ago. I want to see the full item and decide whether to pick up or not in that moment, not having to be a mule all the time.

Also, where is the microtransaction for a quad-tab on my character so I can continue playing and not stopping after every map.

What are all these affixes that are totally irrelevant? And why there are some that literally overlap? Examples: light radius (who cares really, this is waste), magnitude / penetrate / aggravate. This is another pointless over complication just for the sake of it.

Forget about having a casual audience that stick with it long-term, with all of these annoying plagues all the time at every single step of the game. Also, why do I have to redo the entire campaign with an alt and have literal no catch-up assistance to make it easier and more pleasant? Again these are things that I would have given as granted after hearing about the tales of GGG.

Also I do not see on steam any new meaningful announcement about patches and improvements sine 16th of December, any news?

In conclusion, I find a false statement to say that it is this overwhelming success, there are clear cracks and hope that the honeymoon period is finished and we can finally have more objective and rational discussion.

If it is my time and my money that you would like, then it has to be worth it in full and based on the statement above I am not really sure I will go for PoE2 other than something else.

Regards, hope this helps as I invested my small free time for this instead of playing.

+1

Totally agree and I have the time to play it hours a day, but I wont.

I dont care if its EA and things can change, it clearly shows the Concept and the Idea behind it. It feels like what Hollywood is doing these days to their great movies to make them "better", no new Ideas and medicore by best for high cost and expetations.

I dont have to like the Game because I want to.

Still cant belive Poe1 got neuterd and (for the moment) abondend for this bloated mess.

+1 I gave it 200 hours I felt it did not deserve. It does not get any more interesting or starts feeling like anything that even resembles an ARPG.

+1. The game is too punishing and not rewarding enough Decrease punishment or increase rewards.

to anyone getting multiple divines an hour: You are a statistical anomaly. That is not the experience of the vast majority of players.

Gods i actually read it.

Just for your peace of mind OP, just quit the game. to yours points:
No, they won't change the passive tree to something simpler, its simple already.
No, there will not be an auction house. Its not about whats possible, but what the company wants, and they don't care for an AH.
No, gold cost is negligible later on, early on, please invest at least a minimum amount of brainpower in your build(funny, your mentioned its redundant anyway, so why needing respecc?)
No, you clearly have an advantage with your second char. You have currency and oh so "useless" leveling uniques.

And balance issues in an early access game? Crashes? who would have thought -.- I know, you don't care that its EA. Magically you think you deserve some finished game now. But the forestall you, even poe1 is nowhere near balanced so i won't hold my breath for poe2. Crashes will be fixed, we will see what they decide about the death penalties etc.

And the crafting system? there is currently no real crafting system, just stupid slaming and some omens. It feels, dare i say it? unfinished... like this game is in EA.

Also a little advice: Opinions are not facts, so don't present them like they are, it makes you look weird.

"

tsunamikun#0433 wrote:

Gods i actually read it.

Just for your peace of mind OP, just quit the game.

You are toxic, literally like poison.
Just for this part of your initially answer.

In the way you answer, in the way you say your opinion you are toxic.
You're one of the many people who writes "take a break", "it's an ea", touch the grass", "skill issue".

If you don't have anything USEFUL and you don't think as other people or you don't like the feedback other people have just don't write anything.

"

tsunamikun#0433 wrote:

Gods i actually read it.

Just for your peace of mind OP, just quit the game.

The poison buildup is strong in this one. Pure juice of toxicity. Sheesh...


Thanks OP for provide a unbiased feedback. You are not alone.

the answer to most of this is 'fRicTi0N!!'

I don't necessarily have the same complaints, plenty of others to go around. The game was interesting enough to put 200 hours in, but I don't see myself playing leagues on this at all. Campaign far too long, and it's not even finished yet.

long story short this is a 200 hour game, not a 10,000 hour over 10 years ARPG.

+1 i find it amusing how white knighting is blooming and literally anyone who bother to criticize this dung ball is instantly labeled as noskill, typical redditor etc.

Tbh from my casual point of view, losing progress completely on campaign map or atlas map is the worst. For sure id name few other, but its in my top 3 bs ever encountered in any arpg.
POE1 got some flaws but progressing campaign and experiencing maps was way better and imho 6 portal thing was best to learn and improve oneself in endgame.

some of the rants are understandable, some aren't, i'll try to give your answer with my opinion as a new poe player, i've tried poe1 once but lasted very little in the game.
First rant: number of players, at last who cares where the players comes from? it has zero impact in the game and it's more a curiosity than an important thing
-classes: of course there are unbalances, it takes a lot of tuning to balance things out and that's what an EA is there for. I went blind on first run and managed to go up to tier 12 and my build was a mess. I agree there are so many layers and confusing things that could be pruned off and made it simple but is not THAT tragic, it takes some time to understand the system but is not complicated, this answer to your concern of a "mega passive skill tree", you have to learn to choose, the game does not suppose for you to get everything, but choose your path and make adjustments on the way, it's all about reading.
-for respec I agree it could feel a bit costly but gold gonna be pretty much worthless soon since you gonna drop more than enough.
-crafting: it looks bad, it is indeed a pile of rng layers but that's what made the game good and long lasting in the first place, if you can have a good item soon and without failure then it's not entertaining anymore, what you are asking for is just a plain "craft this and then power it up" but poe is not meant to be this way, and for good I say.
-uniques: there are many uniques that are only for leveling up characters, and uniques that are so good people gamble for it hundreds of exalted, you just haven't find it yet, which is good, if things are easy to obtain are not entertaining anymore, see above.
-load time: probably your issue, never had issue here and my pc is not optimal.
-Auction House: maybe the only thing I fully agree here, an in game AH could make things simple but seems like they had some issue with that and probably we never gonna see it in the game, still you talk about the trade site like it's totally unusable which is not the case, yes it's more time consuming but still decently implemented.
-bartering: is the base of poe, and we actually have currency that people value like gold or money: exalted and divines, it's not that hard to understand the economy with the due time.
-id items: oh come on this is just 2 second of your time, you don't want to mule? use a scroll and drop it if it's not good.
-affixes: well there are some useless crap and that's just to add some difficulty to roll good items, i find it ok in the game.
about the false statement and tinfoil hat things well that's just speculation. You seem a little bit toxic there and probably this is not the game for you, it's ok, not everybody has to like the game but make speculation just because you don't doesn't makes you right.
many of your rants are understandable but seems you like a lot easier and faster rewards than this game gives, and with the little time you have it's probably not the best game you could play.
and well, don't push that your time is so precious, it just devaluate the time others put into developing this and playing this.