General Feedback

Hello. I played over 1k hours in 0.1.0 patch, and I've put in a few hundred hours this patch, 0.2.0. I have 2 characters in end game right now. Lvl 80 witch hunter Merc, galvanic shards. Lvl 91 Amazon Huntress, lightning spear. I'm not particularly a casual, but I'm not a pro or a steamer. I do play games though. I'll try to keep each section brief.

The campaign for me is a mixed bag. Take into consideration most of my feedback for this particular piece, is from the initial few days of the og patch. The drops are few and far in between, even with picking everything up to sell or deconstruct. Of course this helps a lot compared to relying on raw drops, but then it's a bunch of tedious back and forth to town for very little pay off. The vendors also help, but it's also heavy RNG, as everything seems to be.

The bosses were, in a word, sponges.. I don't mind grinding end game, but I don't believe grinding campaign should really be a thing, at the very least, not normal. That's just my opinion. I do like most of the areas, at least through act 1 and act 2. I read that act 3 was modified and I hope it is in a much better spot now.

The boss that stood out the most as a problem for me is jamanrah? Mostly the end where it's basically a DPS check because there's so much going on, you get caught in a corner and the boss just mobs you. I think it's kind of a poor design, especially if you want casuals to play this game.

Slow and meaningful game play.. this is not a thing. You have to balance both sides in order to do this and so far, basically players got nerfed. I think that's why this patch was so poorly received. It also seems like with all of the positive notes added, like infinite respawns on a T0 pinnacle boss, was also met with a boss buff. I don't remember reading notes that referred to boss buffs, but maybe it's just the nerfs.

The co op play is horribly unbalanced. I feel constantly punished for playing with a friend. Most games 1.5 or 2x difficulty with an extra person where Poe 2 is somewhere in the 3-5x area. This is just a guess from how bad it feels, especially bosses. I suggest a rebalance in this area if you're seriously trying to market to casuals.

Another interesting thing about co-op gameplay.. my friend was playing gas/ oil grenade and I couldn't see a thing. I was dying a lot from dumb stuff I normally avoid just because I couldn't see. Please consider putting in an option to turn off party visual effects/ minions/ etc. it's hard enough to avoid everything on the ground when I can see.

The trade is one of the most frustrating parts of this game. You're basically forced to do so because 1 exalted orb will easily buy you something way better than you could ever hope to make with a div, potentially more. It's exacerbated by the low drops, so you only have a few ex to trade or you can rng slam and pray for like 2 pieces of gear. Price fixing and bots are pretty rampant and there's no shortage of scammers. I'm not sure the best implementation, but a new system should be tested. That's not even mentioning the insane amount of rmt, and that's glaringly obvious. Not sure if that's a positive or negative for GGG, but I'm not a fan personally.

The crafting is almost non existent. It's far too much RNG, although I wouldn't mind as much if I had more resources to craft with. The omens and essences are neat, and they are helpful, but they're still pretty rare (not as rare as 0.1.0) and very costly if you choose to purchase. This has moved into a better direction so far, and would like to see how it develops further.

End game mapping.. I really like the upgrades on some things. Visually, it looks much better. Pathing node to node is much better. I like the tower improvements, but still find myself skipping all the content on them when I do one. I like doing 3 tablets at once and getting a large area of coverage. I'm not sure the respawn system is perfect, but it is better so far.

Corrupted Nexus.. I like the idea, but I haven't been focusing these at all. I'm still on like tier 6? Because I just want to map to a tower, get the juice, and run the juiced maps. I think this falls to the Atlas being extremely uninteresting to me. Cleansed nodes are cool, new monsters, neat. Fracturing orbs, still heavy RNG and basically don't drop (got 2 so far over 30? Maps). I don't feel a need to get the points. This is also due to

The new maps! You get atlas points for completing these the first time. Really, I got like 10 points on my atlas for doing these maps and I didn't even care to get those points. These maps, for the most part, are really cool. I mean, man, I wish they showed up more often. I also wish we could just never see vaal factory or sun temple ever again haha.

Defensive layers. These are all in all, really bad. Like Jonathan mentioned in an interview that "people just like glass cannon builds" and I myself, enjoy them, yes. The real issue is balance and game mechanics. There's no real reason to invest into any defense at all. evasion is pretty spotty even at 80%+.. acrobatics is pretty gutted as is. Armor doesn't really seem to do much. Es still reigns supreme even after nerfs, but I strongly urge a huge buff for defense. I'd like to have a more balanced character, but it's basically impossible right now. The difference between zero investment and some investment is not noticeable. This means I'm going straight glass cannon, baby. Even if it was possible to get defenses feeling good or better, there are still issues.

Overwhelming amounts of ohko, one shots. This is bad game design, imo, and leans heavily back into pigeonholing people to glass cannon builds. If I get 1 shot no matter my defenses, the only option is to dump everything into damage and skirt the MECHANICS. Although I find issue with this, the biggest problem is what comes from this at the end of the league apparently is a huge slew of nerfs to any builds doing damage. So it ends up feeling like I'm not supposed to be tanky and I'm not supposed to do damage either. It's frustrating, and I hope there is more variability, as well as viability in the future.

Chaos res/ damage. Chaos is so overtuned. It's a 1-2 shot whether I invest heavily or not in resistance. That's bad. I took more damage priority wherever I could because of this. The chaos mechanics on their own are not a problem. It's when they're overlapping with 15 other ground effects/ explosions that they become a problem.

Ground/ on death effects.. can we give these a break? Or at least make them do less damage. These are, IMHO, such bad game design. It's lazy and in this game in particular, way over done. At first, sure, it sucks, but after you know all the mechanics, they just become annoying hindrances.

Persisting effects when enemies/ bosses are dead. I don't think this is good design at all. I especially don't like when I killed something and back track minutes later to get blown up randomly. Again, most of these things wouldn't even be problematic, but the downsides are so heavily outweighed. In this instance, experience loss. Again, balance.

Skill gems/ supports.. a lot of interesting stuff here. It really is too bad most of it is so lack luster in terms of use or viability. I feel like everything you can get through normal, should be viable. Not everything has to be even so much as it all has to work. I hope this particular part of the game sees a huge overhaul where I don't get punished for picking the wrong skill with my 1 skill gem just starting out in normal, act1.

Which brings me back to a quick mention.. I tried some blood stuff when the patch dropped and idk if it's cuz I was playing with a friend, or the skills just sucked, but it was not a good time. It SUCKS that I have to play another lightning build again. It's not at all what I wanted to do, but I want to be able to play the game. This was first day, so maybe I just couldn't make it work with the limited amount of gems, etc. Lightning is clearing just fine. Not sure if GGG just loves lightning or if it's just an innately strong archetype.

Sekemas.. I pretty much avoid this. I think afflictions should make it difficult but not break any build. Honor is kind of troll, but manageable if you farm relics and you're a ranged character. Definitely needs some love.

Trial of chaos. I almost always do this one. Some of the negatives are terrible, but glass cannons can blast right through and the pay of is great. Not saying it's working as intended, but for what the game is set up for (glass cannons) it's working as intended. The tornado bird is still the bane of all existence, but if you 1 shot it, it's not too bad.

Excavation.. I think this is the most useless extra end game mechanic, or, my least favorite. You basically don't get anything from it, and I've received 1 log book between all the times I've completed it in this or last patch.

Logbooks.. dude... So basically you never get them and then you basically never get the boss. I do not like that at all. Needs adjustment. Can't even mention the boss because I haven't done it. Maybe bad luck, but too much RNG is bad RNG.

Ritual.. probably my favorite this patch as opposed to least favorite last patch. The circles are bigger, making most of my complaints from last season disappear. More omens come up. I still have only seen 1 decent omen (whittling) in somewhere in the 100-150 rituals completed range, but they exist. Neat.. far more consistent than other end game mechanics now. The extra nonsense (tornado, blood waves, orbs) is still overtuned, but I'm playing full fps lightning spear zon, so I don't care. That's pretty cool.

King of the mists.. feels like every pinnacle got a buff, but this one is less one shots. More like small quick hits n dots and I'm just dead as I notice my health bar is going down. The rooting is **** especially when you want to cover every inch of the ground in some bs. Seems unbalanced unless you want perfect no hit 30 min boss fights. Another gripe, there's basically no reason to do any pinnacle boss anymore since all their drops are pretty lame now. They do drop higher tier stuff on T0, but 100x 0 is still 0, and it feels like getting nothing. But, I grinded for hours to get audience, to beat a boss... Just kidding, I bought one.

Breach. Holyyyyy, this is not worth doing. At least, at first. You're better off buying a breach stone or 2 if you can afford/ kill xesht, in order to get any sort of drops. This is only above expedition for me because I've gone into the Atlas for it. It drops nothing at first, closes to fast, spawns no enemies. I mean, it. Is. Terrible. This got gutted. It would take days n days to get a breach stone if you don't trade for one or splinters. It's definitely ok ish with points invested.

Xesht. Honestly.. most readable/ dodge able boss imo. Problem is, if you get hit, you're probably dead. Almost everything is a 1 shot, at least for me and any friends. Comes back to balance, defenses, and then the grind to get here to kill him to get some useless amulet. I actually feel really bad for ssf players when it comes to getting splinters to get to xesht. Again, trades for stone to play this, but made breach good enough to where I don't mind doing it now and I've got a stone all my own now.

Delirium... This went the exact opposite way of breach. It lasts forever. I'm always hitting 5 emotion drops. Practically lasts the whole map. No mirrors anymore. Idk. It's an ok mechanic. Just adds density to the map for me. I appreciate the dog being less overwhelming and annoying.

Simulacrum.. the bane of almost any class. It's gotta be. Was overtuned, is overtuned. Somehow only made worse by having respawns so you get get absolutely **** ****** in the corner by every enemy already on the field. I've tried T0 twice now. It's bad. The spawn is bad. The boss leaping from off screen to one shot me is bad. Somehow worse than second phase king of mists, and the screen is just as bad as second phase jamanrah. Why so busy? Why so cluttered? I think this needs a huge overhaul.

Citadels. Even easier than campaign cuz I'm slapping with decent gear on a pretty busted build. Only 50k DPS, and it's really not a problem. The problem is, I went probably close to 150 maps in one direction to finally find one. I would like to see them sooner or more frequently, even if I have to pass them because I don't have t15s or I'm not strong enough. Seems similar to last patch.

Arbiter. Probably the worst boss. Seems like lazy programming. Thing is, why is everything a 1 shot? Makes going full DPS an easy decision and an easy win. Mechanics are cool, but if you're gonna make everything a 1 shot, there's no reason not to pump full DPS and phase mechanics. On top of this, the hall way mechanic is too quick or not as easily visible. I think this mechanic is terrible. The beam into the circle? Why? I only had to see it once to realize I did it wrong and to do the opposite next time, still just seems bad. So I'd say between the grind for 3 pieces, fused with 1 shot extravaganza, plus uniques being weak.. not really a huge point to do this boss either right now. At least for me. Sure people are grinding it for sacred flame, I just don't care, and it was such trash last patch, it didn't get nerfed yet. Hopefully balance is much better next patch.

I'm probably forgetting some stuff, but if anyone from GGG glances at this, please work on balance. Quit "balancing" things towards streamers or the top 1-5% of players. If you have mirror tier items in end game, you should be blasting. It makes no sense to get to that point and just be "ok". Most of those people are no life playing 24/7 and rmt. Don't balance towards that being a standard. Streamers are by very definition not casual. I like slow and I like fast gameplay. The biggest issue that keeps appearing is balance. It sometimes feels like someone is just randomly putting in numbers and hoping it's fine. The true way to balance is not to gut anything, and I still feel like some end game things should be better than anything and a chase. Example, ingenuity was basically bis, no questions asked last patch and now, imo (and I have one so I looked), any semi decent rare belt is far superior. That makes no sense. Too far one way, everything got way over nerfed. Especially mana. Needed to be tuned down, not killed.

Also, for those mentioning souls like. I love those games. They're master pieces of art and gaming. They're balanced, they're fun, they're challenging. Poe 2 is an arpg, the wrong genre. A dodge roll and difficult gameplay is not souls like defining. I wouldn't even call Poe 2 difficult. It's mostly tedious and frustrating in its current state due to being so incredibly unbalanced. Honorable mention, trade sucks.

I hope to see this game get the love it deserves. I was having much more fun last patch, but this patch hasn't been a total loss. It does have its highlights, but so far, the negatives have far outweighed positives.

Please, add your thoughts or overview, but please try to find a positive and a negative to list, even if it's 1 positive and 10 negative. I know mine was negative heavy, and I wish it wasn't.