Why PoE 2 is failing.(My unprofessional, nerdy, worthless opinion/Rant)

I would like to start off by saying i love PoE 2 for the most part and play it fairly consistantly on xbox.
That being said THIS IS A RANT on several endgame issues, which is entirely opinion based.

The first issue is a lack of a trade board. The trade website works, atleast for console and i know they have plans to update it, but until a trade board is added, the more casual player wont trade and cant get to further endgame without hundreds of hours of SSF.

The second issue is the endgame defensive statistics. Either you are instantly popping the hoards on the map, and you are being instantly popped, or you cant instakill mobs and you still get instant popped. Once you hit T10 - T15 maps its even more apparent.
The updates to having multiple portals/Trys and stuff is great, but without SERIOUS further balence this game is just gonna continue to bleed players.
This is probably the biggest problem the game has and why it cant keep a good player count. There isn't enough passives between 1 and 75 to get the damage you need to clear AND have the defensive nodes to survive. Again getting the gear on console to even attempt lategame is horrendous.
The endgame gameplay is so unfun and frusterating that it went from one of the most popular games to dead real fast. Especially among my friends, many of whom wont even considering trying out the game again even once it gets further updates/full releases.

Challenge is good in a game, and i throughly enjoyed it throughout the campaign, but if i wanted to be graped by my game for endless hours, i would go play darksouls or elden ring. Atleast the gameplay in those games is more balenced then here, and thats saying somthing.
If they made armor or evasion a bit more effective or atleast drop the damn damage on quite a bit of those enemy abilitys / attack rates, or atleast make it so that cant just repeat spam insta kill abilitys.
This gameplay loop is either really boring or really frusterating, i have yet to truly find the middle ground of having consistant fun, and most people that i know quit the game because of this endgame loop and not being able to get the gear to do anything. Again most of them wont use the trade website.
The Atlas map is great and i love the idea of what they are doing with it, but the gameplay balence needs to be fixed first!

The third biggest issue they need to address is the duping / Economy. 2000 exalts for 1 divine orb?!! I think thats all that needs to be said there.

Before abybody says anything about my gear, im well aware of what i need. I have maxed out resistances, and my damage is so high i damn near insta kill rare mobs on maps, but i also get insta killed as well. I have top tear defensive items for my amazon build(Spent well over 3K exalts on gear) and still have the same issue. Im not the only one either, most of my friends have the same issues, none of which were as apparent or present in PoE 1.
We have used guides, researched fourms and many of us were PoE 1 veterans(Excluding me, played it a bit, did not make it to endgame in that one.)

Some solutions to this might be adjusting the defensive ratings for players, adjusting the damage of the enemies, or just flat out raiseing the base stats on items.
As for duping / the enconemy theres no real easy solution to that besides patching the duping methods, resetting everyone/New league and hoping more arnt found.

All in all i want this game to succeed, i want the player base to grow and i love this game. Its sad when people would rather play the 15 year old Poe 1 which they've already been playing for almost two decades rather then a new PoE 2 experience, by damn near 8x the player count. I just wish the devs actually spent more time listening to there players or even just playing there own game them damn selfs! I bet if they played through SSF and tried to do their own endgame content, they'ed make changes far more rapidly.

I dont really expect anyone to read this, or agree with it and No im not edumacated. Im Just poor retarded dude wanting to rant about a game that he likes on the internet.

I could respond to every point you've made, but overall, your thesis is simply incorrect.
The game is a massive success. If you believe that current player count alone determines whether a game is 'dead' or not, then you're either being dishonest or you don't understand the business model they've been developing for—what—10 years now?

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sojin9000#8809 wrote:

I bet if they played through SSF and tried to do their own endgame content.

Have you even read the Steam store page for this game? The in-game economy is a core pillar of its design philosophy. SSF is not something they even care about.

I think most complaints over trade could be solved by adding methods of crafting desired gear, making players less reliant on trade. Would also make less people despair over inflation in the economy.

If poe2 turns into 'auction house surfer' I'll be pretty disappointed.

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Direfell#7544 wrote:

I think most complaints over trade could be solved by adding methods of crafting desired gear, making players less reliant on trade. Would also make less people despair over inflation in the economy.

If poe2 turns into 'auction house surfer' I'll be pretty disappointed.

Well not really. You have to keep in mind that we already have entire sections of the tree, ascendancy classes, skills etc. that only work with specific unique items. And when you watch the interviews more closely, one of their default answers to solve some issue is to introduce a new unique and thus making trade even more mandatory.

So unless they do a 180 on that design I only see instant trade, smart loot or POE1 loot spam as possible outcomes for this. All 3 would be equally sad in my opinion.

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yunharla3000#5123 wrote:

Well not really. You also have to keep in mind that we already have entire sections of the tree, ascendancy classes, skills etc. that only work with specific unique items. And when you watch the interviews more closely, one of their default answers to solve some issue is to introduce some new unique and thus making trade even more mandatory.

So unless they do a 180 on that design I only see instant trade, smart loot or POE1 loot spam as possible outcomes for this.

Sorry, I'm not aware of this. Got some examples? And its not impossible to find uniques yourself, it's easier than getting a mediocre rare item. Saying something is mandatory doesnt make it so.

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Direfell#7544 wrote:

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yunharla3000#5123 wrote:

Well not really. You also have to keep in mind that we already have entire sections of the tree, ascendancy classes, skills etc. that only work with specific unique items. And when you watch the interviews more closely, one of their default answers to solve some issue is to introduce some new unique and thus making trade even more mandatory.

So unless they do a 180 on that design I only see instant trade, smart loot or POE1 loot spam as possible outcomes for this.

Sorry, I'm not aware of this. Got some examples? And its not impossible to find uniques yourself, it's easier than getting a mediocre rare item. Saying something is mandatory doesnt make it so.

The most straight forward example would be thorns:

- Pale King lifts the restriction of melee attacks so you can actually use them.
- 4 wheels on the passive
- Scavenged plating is basically only juicy when you use the thorns damage

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Dxt44#4050 wrote:

I could respond to every point you've made, but overall, your thesis is simply incorrect.
The game is a massive success. If you believe that current player count alone determines whether a game is 'dead' or not, then you're either being dishonest or you don't understand the business model they've been developing for—what—10 years now?

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sojin9000#8809 wrote:

I bet if they played through SSF and tried to do their own endgame content.

Have you even read the Steam store page for this game? The in-game economy is a core pillar of its design philosophy. SSF is not something they even care about.

Im not determining it by current player counts, but overall player counts compared to PoE 1 . Even inbetween seasons PoE 1 averages more players, however in the first few months PoE 2 had a multitude of more people playing.

Granted it is still early access and when it goes live and F2P it will certainly get a bump in players.

I love the game. many of the complaints i listed are from some of my friends who have now quit the game and have no intention of returning and while i love the game, i also share in some of their frustrations. I sinply felt mabe more people felt the same way and that it was worth discussing which is why i made the thread. Shit even popular twitch streams for PoE 2 are damn near non existant.

Though you do make a good point about them focusing on enconemy being a pillar in their game. However with its current state, most of the people i know on console refuse to even try to use it.
Then quit when SSF doesnt work. Where as some of my PC buddys have no issues.
Out of curiosity which system do you play on, pc or console?

This game did not succeed.

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yunharla3000#5123 wrote:

The most straight forward example would be thorns:

- Pale King lifts the restriction of melee attacks so you can actually use them.
- 4 wheels on the passive
- Scavenged plating is basically only juicy when you use the thorns damage

That's a build built around a unique though. Are you saying thats the only viable build for that ascendancy?

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Direfell#7544 wrote:

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yunharla3000#5123 wrote:

The most straight forward example would be thorns:

- Pale King lifts the restriction of melee attacks so you can actually use them.
- 4 wheels on the passive
- Scavenged plating is basically only juicy when you use the thorns damage

That's a build built around a unique though. Are you saying thats the only viable build for that ascendancy?

Nah, it's just a normal stat on items & some gems, not a particular build or ascendancy. Problem is that you are required to make an entire build around this particular unique item because of how thorns work:

- affix uses the same slots as your defensive layers
- spirit reservation cost for the gem
- only triggers against melee hits
- requires a lot of passive points on the tree

So if you don't make thorns your primary stat by using Pale King it's about as useful as light radius.

Oh and btw, just to jump back to the actual topic. I would agree that any ARGP should be balanced around solo play, otherwise it just become tedious and players will try to find any solution to skip the actual game via trade or carry.