Bad gear progression design for campaign (not endgame)

Key problem: Players (especially new ones) struggle to progress gear and eventually quit or heavily rely on trade. Reduces/ruins the gameplay experience.

In poe1 there were numerous quest rewards where NPCs gave unidentified rare items as additional quest rewards (on top of passive tree skill points etc.)

In poe2, getting a rare item for a specific slot is challenging due to:
1) Lack of orb of alchemy drops throughout the campaign.
2) Lack of regal orbs; players can disenchant all found rares to acquire shards but it still ends up being very scarce.
3) Lack of gold to use gamble NPC and low odds of acquiring rares this way.
5) Lack of guaranteed rare drops from monsters (perhaps fixed? I heard they buffed this).

With the more 'ruthless' challenging gameplay poe2 has over poe1, I think removing unidentified rares as quest rewards was a mistake, especially when it comes to rings and amulets.

In addition to the previous 5 points, what amplifies this issue worse is the lack of orbs of alteration, scouring and very low orbs of chaos drop rates. Together this significantly exacerbates the standard deviation of finding a meaning full upgrade. Here's an example of how many 'checks' you have to go through:
1) Did the monster drop a magic/rare item?
2) Did it drop a rare in the type that works with your character?
3) Did it drop useful modifiers to be an upgrade to replace current gear? If bad mods, no orbs of scouring and chaos possible, dead item.
4) If its a good magic, use regal and hope for 3 great modifiers, if fail, dead item.
5) If its a good rare, check trade if its worth gambling exalt for a 4th modifier or would you be able to trade for an even better item for only 1 exalt?

90% of the time you can just get better value trading your exalts than using them. Therefore this game overly relies on trade for players to progress rather than actually playing the game. I have friends who quit poe2 because they felt forced to use trade and it broke the fun and immersive experience.

Improve gear progression options in the game to stop funneling players in trade. This is an ARPG, not a trade simulator.

Agreed, I've been playing a few characters this season because it felt pretty bad early on; on the main one I've been playing I'm almost at the end of normal act 3, most of my gear is from the 20s/low 30s. I've been buying things from the vendors anytime I see something that might work, but nothing ever hits. I only have enough gold to gamble a few times, I've regaled and exalted a few things and seem to mostly get things that don't matter/worse than what I have. There's too many stats to balance early on for so much rng to be involved.

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louiscardinal#3024 wrote:

Therefore this game overly relies on trade for players to progress rather than actually playing the game. I have friends who quit poe2 because they felt forced to use trade and it broke the fun and immersive experience.

You are entitled to your own definition of "actually playing the game," but choosing to exclude trade from that reflects your personal preference, not some objective definition for what does and does not count as "playing the game."

I agree the game needs more robust and effective crafting mechanics for the people who like to take that approach to gearing, but I personally prefer to just trade more often than not. The interface is clunky and AFK folks can be annoying, but I still find using a weighted-sum search to find precisely the set of stats I'm after much more efficient than fumbling my way through stacks of various currencies to RNG my way there. And honestly I know people love to meme on it but I regularly have pleasant interactions with the people I'm trading with.

Again, not saying it's objectively better and I know I'm in the minority - but saying that trading isn't playing the game is just goofballs.

the point here is that the game isnt giving players the tools needed for progression and forcing people to trade

saying trading isnt playing the game is just goofballs is being pedantic

the game is supposed to be a challenge right? would you say paying for a carry or buying gear negates that challenge? technically its still playing right

the OP just wants the tools to play the game and progress without 3rd party bs
i tend agree with him