PoE 2 Isn’t a Souls-like — It’s a Casino Where the House Always Wins

Putting Souls-like anywhere near a sentence with Path of Exile is a disrespect to souls like genre...

As much as you hate to admit it, the thread title is right, it's an extremely bad design/vision.

You can argue the "house always wins" is incorrect, as you do have people who hit the lottery either with mirror drop or some 100+divs worth in slot machine drop, which will alter their season's experience significantly.

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Abusaksak#0859 wrote:

But now the situation is different. PoE 2 is a brand-new game, still in development, and it doesn’t yet have a solidified community around it.

It really does though, and a big portion of it are PoE1 players. I know you don't want to acknowledge that this community exists because you're not personally part of it - but it exists.

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Glowie_Zigger#5018 wrote:

Pretty dangerous move, and there's nothing other than pure speculation saying that it could happen. They make a lot of money with the system they have. Despite how people feel about the devs for whatever reason, they obviously care a lot about their games and I know this is not a path that they want to go down

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I hope so. They did say that PoE 2 won’t be the same as PoE 1, so honestly, anything is possible at this point.

I’m the kind of person who prefers to expect the worst and be pleasantly surprised, rather than expect the best and end up bitterly disappointed, lol.

Once again, I really hope I’m wrong — but after playing this 0.2 patch, it’s hard not to feel like that’s exactly where things are heading...

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Kerchunk#7797 wrote:

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Abusaksak#0859 wrote:

But now the situation is different. PoE 2 is a brand-new game, still in development, and it doesn’t yet have a solidified community around it.

It really does though, and a big portion of it are PoE1 players. I know you don't want to acknowledge that this community exists because you're not personally part of it - but it exists.

I played PoE 1 (I'm on console), and in many ways, PoE 2 should actually take inspiration from it, while still aiming to be a challenging game.

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Abusaksak#0859 wrote:

And while you bring up roguelikes as an example — ironically, most modern roguelikes have persistent progression.

I didn't "bring up roguelikes as an example" dude.

I brought up roguelikes because this is the game the original Diablo developers constantly said they were inspired by:



That look like Diablo to you? But that's the game they took inspiration from, and, yes, they even acknowledged borrowing mechanics from it.

This entire line of criticism is just absurdly off-base. GGG has never claimed that PoE2 was a souls-like game or that they wanted it to be a souls-like game or a souls-like experience.

They said they took inspiration from the genre. And unless you want to start drawing the same kinds of comparisons between the screenshot above and Diablo 1 & 2 as you are trying to draw between PoE2 and Elden Ring (or pick I don't care), then you just have to accept that this angle of critique is nonsense.

There's no way that an ARPG can be a Souls like game, because monsters comes in endless waves that render some mechanics useless, parry any one?, there's no such a thing like "tactical combat" out of bosses.

Apart, ARPG must be a loot fest that will make you stronger until YOU are the monster, only bothered by some bosses.

Also, in souls games, the penalty is lost once you miss the runes recovery and you have endless tries and learning process and you are always kindly rewarded after overcoming the obstacles.

PoE2 is a total failure in any experience after Patch 2.0 but frustration and boredom.

ARPGs are ARPGs, period, and no vision is going to invent anything new, so please, just stop calling it ARPG and deceive your customers.

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Kerchunk#7797 wrote:

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Abusaksak#0859 wrote:

And while you bring up roguelikes as an example — ironically, most modern roguelikes have persistent progression.

I didn't "bring up roguelikes as an example" dude.

I brought up roguelikes because this is the game the original Diablo developers constantly said they were inspired by:



That look like Diablo to you? But that's the game they took inspiration from, and, yes, they even acknowledged borrowing mechanics from it.

This entire line of criticism is just absurdly off-base. GGG has never claimed that PoE2 was a souls-like game or that they wanted it to be a souls-like game or a souls-like experience.

They said they took inspiration from the genre. And unless you want to start drawing the same kinds of comparisons between the screenshot above and Diablo 1 & 2 as you are trying to draw between PoE2 and Elden Ring (or pick I don't care), then you just have to accept that this angle of critique is nonsense.

I already replied to you about the Souls-like aspect — they said they were inspired by it, and you're just repeating what I already said. And the mechanics are clearly becoming more and more Souls-inspired with dodging, positioning... and now parrying.

That said, I have a question for you: do you really think 0.2 is better than 0.1? Do you believe the game is perfect as it is?

Is it not possible to criticize certain aspects where they clearly missed the mark? I honestly don’t understand — what exactly are you trying to defend here? Could you explain that to me?

+1 OP.

I agree with you on all the points.
Most especially the Loot question.

I'm baffled as to why GGG has deviated from the premise of "Risk/Reward" which was quite well implemented in POE1 as increasing quantity and quality with more mods added. Add mods and scarabs and mechanics to a map and you get more loot.

A natural and predictable method.

Changing that in POE2 to having quantity and quality as explicit and crucially limited effect modifiers was the sign that GGG fundamentally misunderstands what loot is why players want it.

The fact that RMT gangs are rife in POE2 is a sign that GGG has (perhaps) unwittingly created a shortage of currency and the RMT vendors are moving in to meet the demand.
Were loot in a much better state, where a Joe average player could get a DIV and a handful of Chaos/Exalts by just playing the game as intended, then there would no market for the RMT vendors to address.

In the end though GGG is shooting itself in the foot financially with their "Vision" of Player Poverty, in the sense that players would rather spend $$ on RMT to get the currency they need to progress, than giving that $$ to GGG for Microtransactions / Stash Tabs / Hideout gear.

So GGG has to make that decision: Do they want the $$ or not?
Do they give their customers and players what they want or watch the actual money go elsewhere?

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Abusaksak#0859 wrote:

Heading Toward Pay-to-Win?

On top of that, with how things are shaping up — the RMT spam, the unrewarding grind, the massive nerfs — it’s starting to feel like we’re heading toward a disguised pay-to-win (or pay-to-go-fast) model.

I've had this suspicion because on a game based on wiping your inventory every season, the only players that benefit from this extremely scarce loot/currency are the RMT sellers and nobody else.

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Abusaksak#0859 wrote:

That said, I have a question for you: do you really think 0.2 is better than 0.1? Do you believe the game is perfect as it is?

Of course the game isn't perfect as it is; it's incomplete, unpolished, unbalanced, pretty buggy, and poorly optimized.

I think where we might differ is that I wouldn't expect a game in its 2nd major content patch of an extended Early Access period to be anything other than what I just described. If there's anything about the game I find borderline unacceptable right now it's the persistent crashing some people (not myself) are experiencing. I think for a paid EA they do owe people a product that can at least run reliably.

Is 0.2 "better" than 0.1? On the balance I would say no, probably not. I do think there are many things about 0.2 that are absolutely improved over 0.1:

- All rares visible on minimaps is absolutely enormous; game-changing adjustment that has gone relatively unacknowledged. It makes maps so much faster and basically eliminates any need to backtrack (almost making checkpoints redundant)

- The new Unique tablets are amazing. The one that lets you access all maps within the range of a tower is another revolutionary change that I haven't seen anyone acknowledge; the fact that you can hop over mountain ranges and lakes/rivers so your progress toward a citadel isn't interrupted is h00ge

- I think the League mechanic is being undervalued and largely ignored; I find it to be fun and challenging. And especially if you can notice a wisp without activating it, you can be strategic about timing and force them to travel longer distances which makes for bigger rewards -- the bonuses are huge; I think I've gotten more drops from wisp possessed rares than I have from map bosses at this point

- The changes to belts and the Charms are great and promise a lot for the future

- The new multi-tiered rune system is I think being given little credit; it really allows for a lot of customization which eases the pain of upgrading specific slots (e.g., it's easier to "fix" your resists when you upgrade an item that throws them out of balance)

- I'm absolutely loving Tame Beast and I think everyone who is just farming Haste Aura companions to boost their DPS are missing a lot of fun possibilities; having a companion with Shroud Walker that jumps into enemy packs opens up a lot of possibilities with things like Temporal Bubble, Hinder Aura, etc.


...but, ultimately I would just say again that even if 0.2 were just objectively worse in every way I wouldn't be too worried. I think a reasonable person looking at what they're doing and understanding the point of Early Acess should be open to the possibility that the journey from 0.1 to 1.0 is not necessarily going to be a steady increase in quality and that one patch that isn't quite as good as the last isn't the end of the f'ing world.

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EffKayZA#1861 wrote:

Do they give their customers and players what they want or watch the actual money go elsewhere?

Hello. Customer and player checking in! I've contributed more to support PoE2 than I did in total for PoE1 (which was a lot). I feel like I have to keep reminding people that your personal tastes and preferences are not representative of the entire player population... that doesn't seem like something I should have to explain this often.