POE 2 Feedback - very long thread

Every section will have a TLDR if you don’t want the whole context as I typed A LOT in this review
TLDR: Game is fantastic, would 100% recommend just needs some adjustments. Some systems need tuning/tweaking, and some things are just missing but won’t be a huge detriment to the experience. For it being an Early Access/Beta it’s phenomenal!

My gaming background
TLDR: I’ve played a vast number of games that require a lot of farming, have layers of rng on top of rng and have severe penalties when you die or make a mistake.

First, I wanted to give some context as to who I am and what my previous experiences are as I think those are all the biases that we live with and could be helpful in determining what feedback is useful or not.
Like most of us in the community I’ve played a plethora of games but here are the ones that I’ve spent ridiculous amounts of time in.
1. WoW for many online years being a mix of a hideout warrior (did a ton of trading) and a regular player (did a lot of the content both pvp and pve).
If I were to add up my played time between all the characters it would easily exceed 2 years of online time, this is a super complete MMO and while I haven’t played it in the last 10 years roughly it was a pillar of my gaming life for a long time.
2. Tibia for about 4 years, this is a game that is extremely punishing and requires full on concentration as the only moment you are not in risk of dying or being killed is when you are inside your house (if you are fortunate enough to have one) the higher the level you go, the more punishing any single death can be, sometimes putting you behind a whole week worth of work. For the people that understand how much of a feat this is: I played mostly solo and went from level 1 to 1000 and had over 20k charm points along with 125skills and 20 ML as a paladin. Unfortunately, this game doesn’t have an /played but I’m confident that it would have been close to 2 years of online time on that single character.
3. Looter Shooters
The First Descendant, even though it’s a new game I played well over 500 hours of it.
Warframe I played well over 500 hours as well.
Borderlands 1.2.3 if I add them up I’m well over 1500 hours.
4. Ragnarok Online, another ultra grindy game that honestly at one point it kinda required that the player spends money just to keep up with the upgrades that they come out with every month and that’s when I decided to stop playing. But this was back when I was in University and had no other responsibilities than keep up with my grades, so I probably also had an online time of 2+ years on the multiple characters I enjoyed. My focus was PVP and played a priest (notorious for not being a good farmer).
I did play a lot of Diablo 2 about 20+ years ago and I had a ton of fun (unfortunately I can’t recall or quantify how much , went to diablo 3 for a couple of months and REALLY wanted to like it but it just didn’t click for me and I tried all the classes but it just… wasn’t a real successor to diablo 2.
That being said, I never played PoE1 and to be honest I’m kind of upset I didn’t based on how much I have played PoE2 and how in-depth systems are and how everything comes together in the characters I’ve played so far.
The only reason that I was able to play close to 200 hours of PoE2 is because I have been unemployed for a bit and hopefully that ends this week and I’m honestly kind of sad because I really want to play so much more but I also must pay the bills.
If I list everything, this alone would be an essay but I think these give a lot of context as to what I enjoy and what I’m willing to work through in a game as well as it should be clear that I love having a very powerful character within the means of my time.

General observations for PoE2
TLDR: I played with controller out of choice and while it’s a very good implementation, it has some issues. For who has played any of the games I have played you will find many familiar systems, some that you will love and some that will remind you of the frustrating things why you either stopped playing those games or kept on pushing through because it was rewarding to overcome the odds.

One of the main things that caught my interest in testing out PoE2 was the fact that it would be crossplay and controller friendly. A lot of my friends play in PlayStation or Xbox and it’s always the main issue in picking out a good game to play together. When PoE2 was announced to come we had been playing Baldurs Gate 3, TFD and some other random games that had cross platform and we were all SO excited because it just ticked all the boxes of what we wanted.
I’m not a big controller guy but sometimes there are games that I definitely want to play with a controller, like Deadpool, Hades, Dishonored and some other titles. So I decided since it had been a while since my controller got some use, this would be a great opportunity to put it to use so I immediately started to look for some games to practice my controller skills on and get back to snuff.
Curse of the dead gods ended up being a game that was sitting in a bundle I got for something else and it checked off all the boxes (short game, designed for controller, isometric view, action genre) so I installed it and played A TON, little did I know it would be essentially trial of Sekhemas in a different skin.
The Ascent was another one that got my attention and I just couldn’t put it down after fixing some issues I had with the default controller settings and ended up playing a sniper/precision weapon user (something I would have never thought I would do on a controller)
All that being said, controller in PoE2 is about 75% there, it’s pretty decent but has some issues that I will address further down.
In PoE2 I kicked it off with the ranger (it’s my favorite class in most games so it was kind of a no brainer for me) and then in tandem leveled a sorceress focused on cold spells, moved on to a pathfinder ranger focused on poisons and then did a mercenary that was truly just a monk with a lot of attributes so I have gone through the campaign a lot and there is good reason for this.
For those who played Diablo 2, this campaign is heavily inspired on the D2 campaign but just on a newer engine. Way more beautiful, better voice acting, better sound effects, better art, better storyline… basically Diablo 2 on steroids and in my book that is the biggest compliment an ARPG can get.
For those who played a lot of MMOs, get ready to get your creative juices going because this has tons of gear that is cool and will definitely get your build crafting brain going, lots to do and as much variety as any MMO out there.
For those who play looter shooters, if you are not married to the shooter part… this is the game for you, oh boy will it have loot, oh boy will it have grinding and oh boy will it have packs and packs and packs of monsters.
Lastly here I want to share a story that I felt was (maybe) unintentionally replicated in PoE2. My dad went to Turkey on vacation and travelled through some underground tunnels and caverns that the natives lived on during times of war. He told me so many stories about how they would use those narrow spaces to hurt their enemies and be undefeated, keeping their homes safe and their population pretty much intact. While I was going through Dreadnought, these stories were conjured in my head and I felt like it was such a great map even though everyone hates it (and rightfully so), my dad passed away 2 and half years ago so I think that was what made it an even deeper experience for me. I still remember this first experience every time I was headed towards the end of act 2 so I want to congratulate you and thank you guys for making something that hit so deeply emotionally for me.

Positives
TLDR: The campaign is definitely refined, endgame is way faster, but I don’t mind that. The reward for being a hideout warrior is insanely higher than playing the game, would love to play a lot more but unfortunately my gaming time is going to be significantly reduced once I start the new job

The campaign is SO DAMN GOOD! and I totally understand it’s incomplete so I’m looking forward to seeing how this time travel plays into the next acts and what they are going to be like, the new bosses and everything in between.
I have seen you all are aware of the hitboxes that are a bit off in some bosses and such so I’m sure those will get fixed, the flow of combat is amazing and with all my characters I always felt very good.
Once you hit endgame as a new player it is a bit overwhelming, like drinking water from a firehose but I’m all for that so I started to work through maps and such, had a great time and started to learn the systems little by little as I explored the capabilities and limits of my character/build. There is so much to choose from and while I like that, the systems in itself have many other issues that I will address further in the review.
Trial of Sekhemas and Chaos as another set of systems to explore and use to profit/level is great! This is probably the content that I have done the most of as it’s very simple go in kill stuff pick a path or debuff and carry on. These have issues as well but we will address those further down.
Being a hideout warrior is WAY more profitable than blasting maps and requires way less effort. This is to be expected and most economies suffer from this even in real life. So essentially I’m happy that the game has actual economies and inefficiencies that the smart can profit off of.
I do like the fact that I can keep on doing Sekhemas and Chaos, becoming specialized in them and them being profitable. Good Job there!
I have played a lot of PoE2 and looking forward to play more of it, sessions have been long sometimes and they have not been tedious which has not happened to me in a LONG time. Most of the games after like 3 hours of doing some repetitive things become tedious, this has not felt like that at all.
I’m so excited to keep on playing and going through all the things that will be added, pretty sure I will be addicted to this game and I’m all for it. Fantastic job so far! On to the not so good parts

Negatives
TLDR: Some bugs (expected as EA), endgame systems need better progression that don’t require sacrificing player power, some adjustments to trials and magic find. Trials of Sekhemas needs a bit more revisions and controller needs a fair bit of more features to come up to snuff.

The biggest negative for me personally is not being able to manage inventory using mouse and keyboard while playing in controller, that hot-swap is probably hard to implement but it’s so, so, so, so needed.
Controller targeting is pretty good but sometimes the focus fire looses focus very easily and some other times it’s stuck like glue as it should. Clipping to way off on monk when you use the bell, it will go to the bell no matter what type of targeting you have turned on at the time making it hard to navigate with controller on the monk sometimes. On sorceress some spells just don’t target as you would expect it and just adding a press and hold keybind would potentially solve that, for example if I want to do a frost nova from another spell instead of my own location.
Looting with controller is horrid… I’ve had to remove the spells and auto attacks from the A button so that I can somewhat loot if there is combat or start a shrine. This is not crippling for me personally but I can see how it would be a problem with some more button intensive builds. Additionally there is such a thing as loot clutter that makes controller feel way too inefficient to even compete with being able to click and loot directly what you want.
Having so much useless loot makes it so I’m practically forced to use a Loot Filter (still not doing it but feeling like I’m just gimping myself at this point) and then I have to sort through loot with a sliding bar because I’m trying to play on controller which is just… not fun.
Not all endgame systems have a good way to progress them, boss tree progression felt so natural it was crazy to me how some of the other ones are not like this. Breach and Delirium are OK, you get the fragments and then use them to go to a boss, but expedition and ritual are just an rng fest and it’s so counter intuitive to the other methods.
Furthermore, whenever I do get enough shards for a key or an invitation or a logbook they are so expensive that it almost feels mandatory to sell them in order to gain character power because if I die while doing the uber… well I lost it and now it’s not only a huge money consideration but also another penalty. I will provide suggestions for all of these items.
Mapping… I have a love/hate situation with it as it is. The fact that I spend an hour setting up maps to then run through them in 5 mins is so not rewarding and while I appreciate the depth of the system it also has gotten old for me really fast. Hence why most of my endgame has steered towards Sekhemas and Chaos trials just because I don’t have to think about it much, just play, kill and select the least bad path to success. However, those systems also have issues that I will provide suggestions for as well.
Magic find is a huge topic in the community, I don’t think there is much I can add to that other than suggestions in the next section.
Why when I press Y while manipulating the stash in Sekhemas or Chaos my stuff goes to the ground? It makes no sense that every other place in the game when I use that keybind, items are sent it to my stash. Controller has so many downsides that this just kinda feels like an additional kick in the nuts lol.
Expedition bombs need revision, 50% of the time I can’t even place bombs where I want them because they turn red on an area that is clearly intended to be bombed or the bomb highlight doesn’t even move in the direction I’m aiming. Maybe expedition would be more playable once this is fixed but I think it has deeper issues than that.

Suggestions
TLDR: Adjust the way atlas progression for specific activities is achieved, modify what magic find affects and do some adjustments ASAP to controller

Campaign bosses were great and it’s good to see them in maps every now and then but it seems like builds are forced to go into aoe mode after finishing the campaign because its pretty much all you do. Would be great to have something like a Boss trials or rush mode where you fight more bosses.
Controller press and hold keybinds would solve a lot of the class mechanics related issues and target clipping. For example if I’m tapping then the bell is not an auto target, if I’m holding the button now the bell is auto targeted, if I’m holding the nova comes out of the ice balls instead of my character vs if I tap it comes out of my character. There are more examples and I wouldn’t mind elaborating if necessary.
Having cleaner drops would help a lot with looting on controller, less things to sort through would make it easier to navigate, maybe even adding a hotkey to not display white and blue gear could work but I do think it’s more of a volume of useless loot issue than a controller issue. Hotswap to m+k is pretty much mandatory at this stage, sorting through stashes is just cumbersome with controller and in a PC I should not be forced to use a clunkier thing if that is what I’m gaming with.
Endgame system progression should not be tied to economy, meaning if I get an audience with the king it should not be a decision between do I sell it and get character power or use it and experience potential frustrations with it and regretting not have chosen character power because maybe I died and lost the whole thing.
All endgame systems should have a clearer progression, the fact that I can do 50 expeditions and be unlucky and not progress it makes it potentially a worse mechanic for a portion of the players. Being able to trade for the logbooks doesn’t make this any better, it makes the situation worse because again power vs progression compromise.
Rarity on gear is a great stat, it just seems to be working incorrectly. If it increased the amount of rare gear that drops that would be fantastic, still a good stat but not so good that now it’s mandatory because the way it seems to be working currently is if I get an exalted to drop, with rarity it has a chance to become a divine. So effectively if I don’t use magic find it’s hurting me to the point where I might as well gimp my character to get more currency and trade.
A lot of people might see the above and just say “just don’t trade” but trading I think is integral to the game, other systems can be more encouraging to use than just simply trading out of them or having to forcefully make a decision of power now vs potential power later, that is not engaging gameplay in my opinion.
Lastly visual clarity… I NEVER thought I would say this about a game: The game is too pretty and full of visual magnificence. The problem is that it becomes near impossible to differentiate things so the enemy effects should have priority in visuals, my effects can have some opacity, so I know it’s there and hitting but not quite hindering me from fighting back. This would also help with spells that look the same for monsters and players, the opaque one is mine, the other one is my enemy, and I should dodge it.
Going through doors can be the death of a character because there is no consistent opacity through walls and sometimes you literally can’t see your character, therefore any ground effects and well RIP. This opacity on walls needs to be increased significantly so it’s way more aggressive when you get near anything that could limit visibility of your character.
Sekhemas, while it has probably been the one thing I have done the most… it has a fair bit of issues. My point of comparison is Curse of the Dead Gods as it is pretty much the same game with some important differences. Every single run I did in CotDG was overcomeable and 99% of the time it was me not being skilled enough to complete the run. If I compare that to Sekhemas, it’s more like 25% of the time I fail a run that I can say it was my misplay; my suspicion is that it’s due to how some things become mandatory to complete the run and how afflictions are way worse than boons.
For example: the last boss if you don’t get the movement speed boon the only other option is using something around the lines of blink because 35% move speed with some fairly bad placement of the hourglasses you are dead. The equivalent affliction of a boon is usually stronger and quite honestly sometimes you can brick the run just because you can’t see what is ahead (except 2 rooms) and some of the afflictions will just invalidate your build making the run impossible to complete.
Granted there are some strategies like the 0 cost merchant strat that is very effective and will almost guarantee that you end up with a bazillion boons, it doesn’t make sense that the only way to viably consistently do the trial is either being super overgeared and/or having the high end best strategy and everything else is not quite skill dependent.
Trial of chaos is a bit more sensible in making you feel like you always have a fighting chance but it does have another set of problems. Too many floor effects which then adds to the visual clutter and lack of quality so it can spiral pretty fast and the fact that you can’t tell what kind of room comes up next can also make your choices devastating. If you have too many things chasing you then the escort room becomes practically a test of time if even possible to complete.
To close off, I love the game and the fact that I have written out these many words is a testament as to how passionate I have become in just a short month or so. There is something magical in this and there is a great baseline, unfortunately I’m not a balancing expert and I’m sure there is a lot of pieces of balancing that someone else could help you with but there seems to be a lot of disparity in power between classes as well. I think you guys have a lot of potential in PoE2 and I’m looking forward to all future updates and new features… hopefully, some of the ones in this feedback.