Path of Exile 2: The Shadow Pay-to-Play Loot Box Simulator

You are right!

- third-party sites are running wild - this ruin this game and GGG budget
- Trade running gaming + inflation
- missing account bound ruing this game
- XP penalty - ruin amount of players (simple they run away from PoE2)
- the worst on the World crafting - this is gambling
- Waystones - ruin this end game
- too many lawnmower one button gears (Monk, Sorceress lighting)

Besides: Game is Fantastic! I really enjoy, much better than Diablo franchise

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BigBeuss#5956 wrote:

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BrewskiesBrew#0748 wrote:

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BigBeuss#5956 wrote:

as long as there's ppl to buy there will be rmt i don't see what's the enjoyment in that but it is what it is. But stating you can't progress without it is total BS.

Respectfully, you're missing the point.

I’m not saying you have to RMT to play. I’m saying the game is fundamentally imbalanced in a way that strongly encourages it — especially for solo players.

All the official marketing, trailers, and skill previews showcase solo gameplay. One player. One build. That’s the image being sold. But in practice, solo players are stuck in a lower gear tier compared to optimized 6-man loot parties — and that’s by design.

When you run in a coordinated group with aura stackers, magic find, and quantity buffs, the loot tier is objectively better. The economy reflects this — high-end gear (worth 10+ divines) comes from these groups. Meanwhile, a solo player might get a single divine in 20+ runs. You can’t out-progress a well-oiled loot party. And unless you’re part of one, you’re forced to either fall behind or turn to outside sources.

There’s a serious disparity here. One that’s never acknowledged, never explained, and certainly not shown in any official content. If the game’s true meta is 6-man juice squads, then label it as a co-op game. Stop misleading players with solo-focused showcases if that’s not how progression is realistically achieved.

If that doesn’t click with you, that’s fine — maybe it’s because you’re part of a loot group or running with bot teams yourself. Either way, dismissing this as “BS” just shows you’re not playing the same game the rest of us are.

I play solo and found ways to farm my currency (i used sekh mostly but there's other strat). If you trye to loot divine running maps obv you're not going anywhere.
That said maybe there's some issue to fix with the gp drop rate but i won't know never played in gp. But i had never feel like i should go and buy some stuff with real money and tbh i despise ppl who do so i mean it's a grind game what's the point if you remove the grind lol.

I get that you’ve figured out a solo farming strategy — that’s great. But you just proved my point without realizing it.

You had to rely on niche strategies like Sekhema runs and currency flipping because the core loot system doesn’t support consistent solo progression through regular gameplay. That’s not balance — that’s survival through exploitation of edge cases. You’re playing around the system, not with it.

And yes, you may not feel tempted to RMT — but that doesn't erase the fact that the economy is shaped by people who do. When 6-man optimized loot squads flood the market with high-tier gear, solo players are priced out unless they 1) grind way longer, 2) get lucky, or 3) buy currency. That’s not an opinion — that’s visible in trade listings, global spam, and the actual drop disparity.

Also, this isn't about skipping "the grind." It’s about making the grind meaningful for all playstyles — not just those in meta juice squads. The game promotes solo play, but underdelivers unless you contort your strategy or join a cartel.

If you enjoy your grind, more power to you. But don’t dismiss the imbalance just because you’ve found a workaround. Most players expect the gameplay loop shown in trailers to actually reflect in-game progression — and right now, it doesn’t.

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I get that you’ve figured out a solo farming strategy — that’s great. But you just proved my point without realizing it.

You had to rely on niche strategies like Sekhema runs and currency flipping because the core loot system doesn’t support consistent solo progression through regular gameplay. That’s not balance — that’s survival through exploitation of edge cases. You’re playing around the system, not with it.

And yes, you may not feel tempted to RMT — but that doesn't erase the fact that the economy is shaped by people who do. When 6-man optimized loot squads flood the market with high-tier gear, solo players are priced out unless they 1) grind way longer, 2) get lucky, or 3) buy currency. That’s not an opinion — that’s visible in trade listings, global spam, and the actual drop disparity.

Also, this isn't about skipping "the grind." It’s about making the grind meaningful for all playstyles — not just those in meta juice squads. The game promotes solo play, but underdelivers unless you contort your strategy or join a cartel.

If you enjoy your grind, more power to you. But don’t dismiss the imbalance just because you’ve found a workaround. Most players expect the gameplay loop shown in trailers to actually reflect in-game progression — and right now, it doesn’t.

Well, maybe it make the inflation faster but I would maintain that progressing to the end game without rmt is perfectly achievable. I also did it in hcssf so it's not like i need to flip stuff for currency (but i obv do when i play trade league). Also as i said if ppl are eagger to buy there will be seller and i'm not sure what the dev can do about it. I guess they could tune down droprate in party. Obv i would love to see a cleaner chat (tbh muting general is always the first thing i do) and tbh any action taken against rmt would be great but it does not impact me that much and i've read this argument many time that rmt is mandatory wich is extremly exaggerated.

I agree with you but I also don't get why people would pay for stuff in an Early Access game.

We'll likely have to restart the whole damn game when it's fully released with new characters it's a waste of money. But when the release does fall through, we will be back at square 1 where these drops are so bad people are buying stuff.

I have been using the same wand for 300 hours of playtime and when I finally FINALLY got a drop that had potential to be better than my equip, I had to use orbs only to get pure useless results, used the orb to delete random stats and add a random new one. Wand is now completely useless.

This is so annoying. 300 Hours of the same weapon my character is much stronger than she should be but not strong enough to progress the way I need to. I am not trying to Pay-To-Win and I do not have a group of people to play with. This game is much more frustrating for the solo players especially if you aren't using IRL money to play the market and get loot.

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EmoSephirothUchiha#5710 wrote:

I agree with you but I also don't get why people would pay for stuff in an Early Access game.

You're absolutely right to question it — but the reality is, Path of Exile 2 inherited the same shadow economy from POE 1, where loot drops are everything, and third-party sellers thrive off group-optimized farming.

It’s not just about people paying in early access — it’s why they feel pushed to. When loot is tuned for cartel-style 6-man juice squads, solo and new players fall behind. And what fills that gap? RMT sites flooding global chat with spam, unchecked. GGG knows this — players have been raising the alarm since launch — and yet, no patch notes, no dev streams, no comments. The only economy issue they even acknowledged was map drops. That’s it.

Meanwhile, the gear market is still saturated with overpriced loot from organized farming groups, and there's zero response to the out-of-control third-party presence.

New players are bailing fast because what’s marketed isn’t what’s delivered. The trailers sell a solo ARPG. The game delivers a coop-driven loot cartel system. And the only ones staying are the hardcore grinders, group farmers, and those who've already adapted to the broken loop.

So yeah — I’m done putting more money in. They got a few dollars from me early on, but not a penny more until something changes. The amount of package support for poe1 and now poe2 proves it, i left poe1 for the same reasons and now in poe hoping for change, nodda. Look at the amount of supporter packs i have under the icon. I would love to pay more and support a game worth my money, but not this one, so im out.

Huge props to the people speaking up in threads like this — even if most replies try to gaslight us into “just dealing with it.” No — we’ve seen the flaws. We’re just not pretending they don’t exist anymore.

- The crafting is many layers of gambling, and tons of RNG.
- It's many orders of magnitute quicker and cheaper to buy things.
- This gives way to bad trading and more third party sites earning money.

Even the new orbs in the new patch add the same gambling, like blocking one affix it blocks a random one etc.

There are many ways to improve crafting (many suggested in the forums*1), improving loot, decreasing magic find*2, etc. so much less people will trade all the time, and go to outside pages (there always be those that will)

*1 Including mine
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3713548

*2 Like the figurine idea here