End game is miserable

End game is a miserable slog and is the epitome of GGG having 0 respect for your time. And is likely going to be what drives me away from playing game. Here are my issues with it.

Map Sustain I think this is the #1 issue for several reasons. And has so many points to it that contribute to how horrible it is. The obvious being just the drop rate for even whites are awful. You can very commonly often not see a single new waystone for several maps and the few that you do, you only get for that level or MAYBE a level above which doesn't help me when I am doing tier 2 and I need 5+ for the quest.

I understand there is a few things you can do to sort of help this like only using good maps on bosses and etc. But it's far too difficult to get out of the tier 1 hole. Especially since the game does nothing to teach you about any of this and its usually too late that you reailze you need to look up a guide to min/max map sustain. And even then, the few things that are in your control don't really help you get out.

Then even if you do get a challening map, all it takes is one horribly telegraphed mechanic to kill you. It can be difficult at times to push those higher maps or even just a regular maps as just random bullshit kills you. And I get what the solutions are to this. IE: Over level, fix resistence, get better gear, etc.

But end game doesn't make any of that easy. If you die then you lose 15% of your XP, so even with the awful XP you get from being forced to do weaker dungeons, one mistake can set you back hard. So over leveling isn't really viable, it just keeps you down if not can potentially put you in a worse position.

Loot drops are trash at lower levels you really can't get a whole lot of chances at upgrades to your gear so that you can fix your issues. This goes with currency as well, because you don't have enough to afford a decent upgrade that either are going for extremely inflated prices or you hear no response because there is so many people trying to scam you. Trading is just straight dogshit right now. And good luck if your doing SFF. Then you gamble away all your gold and still don't end up with anything.

So unless you got exactly what you needed on your gear and you are running a very optimal build. Endgame is designed to keep you down with no real way out of a pit. You cant level, you can't farm for anything, and you cant trade, so you are just fucked.


There are lot of ways they could fix this, like making the current tier you are at on your quest avaiable to buy as many as you need as a white, removing the XP penealty, making drops overral less garbage and worthless, dealing with the countless bots and scammers, etc.

The game in so many ways just has no respect for your time because there isn't a reason for things to be this way other than I guess GGG thinks people will look back and say "Wow! I spent 500 hours on PoE2!" when most of that was so much time wasted doing really tedious shit. I am not having fun trying to dig myself out of this sustain hole I am in. Why is map sustain even a thing to begin with? Why not remove them and just give modifiers and let me rank up in difficulty via another means?

Doryani should just sell infinite copies of white maps tiers you've already completed. That way you'd have to reforge 3 to get the tier you are going for.

Map sustain is not even an issue, use your tablets people!

"

Mashgesture#2912 wrote:

Map sustain is not even an issue, use your tablets people!

Tablets only drop on certain maps (basically the ones that have the mechanics), so it is easy for people to follow the "save good maps for when the towers have tablets" advice you see in various places, and therefore not get tablets. They also don't provide a huge boost to things, typically.

And map sustain is an issue. Problem is, if you have a bit of bad RNG, you're then forced to use bad maps, which get you fewer drops and/or death. So you can get stuck in a downward spiral.

There's also a problem that, for more casual players, currency is limited, which limits how far they'll upgrade the maps. But if you don't build up enough waystone mod...

That said, I think all they really need to do to fix the issue is to quit dropping maps that are way, way lower than the one you are currently on and instead drop appropriately leveled ones. If I didn't get level 1, 4, and 5 maps while running a level 10, map, but instead got 9s and 10s, I'd be doing fine. But there ain't nobody that wants a level 1 map when they are capable of doing 12+, while being forced to do 10s due to overly slow map progression.

Map sustain is definitely not an issue. It seemed reasonable to me that you would want to trans/aug/regal every map. Doing this alone got me to T15 with never being short on maps. I used tablets in every tower. I died a *lot* on the way there. Buddy had the same exact experience. We often reached 85-ish and gave up on seeing endgame "league content" and didn't find enough citadels so we made new characters. I have 5 that made it to mapping and he had 3. No issues with maps.

We're bad and we still had no issues. I don't see how map sustain can possibly be an issue when we are swimming in the things and failing a bunch of maps in the process.

Map sustain is terrible even with all the atlas points taken as well & the odd useful tablet , I am down to my last t14 despite being in t15's...Doryani is useless , the drops make no sense T2's dropping in T15's , Xp loss on death just feels unneeded, there is no competitive ladder in this game so why punish causals just looking to make max level. Elites for the most part drop junk , most chests are empty , any special events cause massive lag (Delerium, Breach , Strongboxes, Expedition all laggy frame killers) For a game labelled 2 this just feels like a more punishing unrewarding 1...and I enjoyed 1 immensely.

To me, it feels like we went backwards with the atlas of the sequel.

We had a working system, lot of content to run, various previous league mechanics we would opt in or out of and somehow, some reason they decided to reinvent the wheel, making this worse.

I know it's been thrown around a lot, but the endgame really does feel like my time and effort isn't being respected enough and it sucks, cos i want this game to succeed, to be the best that it can be and right now we just ain't there.. yet.

make sure you got atlas specced to see more waystones, try not to die. and if you want to go to higher and can't find any, craft them. you buy 3x tier 1's and smash them into a tier 2, take 3x tier 2's and smash them into a tier 3 etc etc. at this point gold becomes your bottleneck so you can pickup more yellows and build that up if needed. get at least 2 mods on your map to see that waystone % chance to drop, eventually hitting it with regals to make them rare waystones, and eventually exalts... and distills.... and corrupts... they're also putting in more boss maps/boss tablets, which bosses really helps waystone sustain.

"

FruitLord#0833 wrote:

Map sustain is definitely not an issue. It seemed reasonable to me that you would want to trans/aug/regal every map. Doing this alone got me to T15 with never being short on maps. I used tablets in every tower. I died a *lot* on the way there. Buddy had the same exact experience. We often reached 85-ish and gave up on seeing endgame "league content" and didn't find enough citadels so we made new characters. I have 5 that made it to mapping and he had 3. No issues with maps.

We're bad and we still had no issues.I don't see how map sustain can possibly be an issue when we are swimming in the things and failing a bunch of maps in the process.

And yet is is an issue. There's a reason that this stuff is brought up in post after post, and it isn't because you and your buddy are the worst case scenario. I don't die that much. I am using tablets. And of course you trans/aug maps, that's a bare minimum. And yet, here I am, without maps at my level to do (9+), even after taking a second character through it.

This game has tons of RNG, and that means players will get hosed due to bad luck.

It is something they could fix pretty easily. I think all they have to do is quit dropping waystones way below the level of the map we're on. If those were drops of a useful level...

"

Chaogod#6305 wrote:

End game is a miserable slog and is the epitome of GGG having 0 respect for your time...

The game in so many ways just has no respect for your time because there isn't a reason for things to be this way other than I guess GGG thinks people will look back and say "Wow! I spent 500 hours on PoE2!" when most of that was so much time wasted doing really tedious shit. I am not having fun...

I couldn't agree more, i was so excited to make a bunch of characters and try new things, but basically lost all the desire to do that. i mean, why would i want to slog through all this again and be punished for playing an off meta build? I hit level 92 today and basically have lost all interest in continuing. its not just an insane grind, its also very tedious and rather unfun grind.

side note, i dont think anyone, should have to play over 300 hours to get one character near max level, even if they are playing less than optimal.