[FEEDBACK] Streamers, endgame, impact of inflation and mental conditioning of the player base

Total hours played: 1141

Some of the problems I will talk about in this post are partly solved in the campaign, but not in the endgame. I will also give some suggestions that would make combo-style fighting more rewarding.

I saw a post on GGG's community forum, and it seems more and more players are sharing this point of view:
"Is this what good and engaging combat should look like, GGG?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVEnbS6i3S4

I bought PoE2 for two reasons: graphics and its promise of slow, methodical combat.

After ~10 months, the endgame feels like the opposite—closer to PoE1’s swarm grinder design than the deliberate, combo-based ARPG that was showcased.

PoE1 is fundamentally an ARPG swarm grinder. Swarms are the baseline encounter design. It throws dozens or hundreds of enemies at you at once. Progression depends on high kill counts, and survival comes from screen coverage and defenses, not tactical combos. Mechanics like Breach, Ritual, and Legion reinforce this.

PoE2 (as showcased): supposed to be slow, tactical, combo-driven. That design cannot coexist with swarm grinding, yet the current endgame pushes it back into the same model.

WASDDoS plus parry/block (pronounced "was DDoS" 😂) = WASD, Dodge, Sprint

WASDDoS creates a new paradigm: combat should test player skill, not just builds. Time investment should matter. Someone playing 14 hours/day should clearly out-skill someone playing 14 hours/week, even with the same build. But right now, combat skill is irrelevant. High movement speed trivializes WASDDoS. The Rhoa shouldn't even exist in a game like PoE2.

Where is the combat skill in Conner's or fubgun's or ruetoo's build?? The build skill and the experience they have from PoE1 is crystal clear, but there's no combat skill, we're just blowing up screens.

What we are seeing is not the failure of players but of design direction. Streamers and PoE1 veterans initially tried combo-based builds but quickly discovered they did not work as intended. Finding themselves in familiar swarm-grind territory, they reverted to what they knew: demanding more speed. GGG responded, but in doing so, has pushed PoE2 back toward PoE1’s philosophy, away from the slower, more tactical ARPG.

Swarm density can exist occasionally, but it should not be the baseline. Take Act 2’s terracotta soldiers: it works because they are weak, there’s no boss, and the spectacle feels thematic. But contrast that with a T15 delirium mirror stacked with ~15 abyssal pits, hundreds of mobs, temporal bubbles, hasted rares, freezing beams, mana-draining effects... and green men, doing green things on green ground. In that chaos, “combo” is the last thing on my mind. There isn’t even time to identify what enemies you’re fighting. Situations like this push players toward speed, not tactical combat. I can't even pause and hover over the rare monsters to read their their identities, neither hover over them after I die. It's very hard to learn what actually killed me. It's like a sniper did it.

This explains the mental conditioning of PoE1 players and streamers, who also influenced new players: in a swarm grinder, speed is the most important. Before patch 0.3, rampant inflation and gambling-like crafting forced players to reach T15 maps as quickly as possible just to keep up. Items like Omens and Audience with the King reached absurd prices. Players couldn’t afford to experiment or learn through failure, The builds had to be strong and fast from the start.

Today, with inflation better controlled, deterministic (and amazing) crafting, cheaper entry into pinnacle bosses, and room for multiple attempts, the atmosphere is more relaxed. That means the pinnacle bosses themselves should be tuned harder, with more health and mechanics, because the economic pressure that once forced speed-first gameplay is no longer as dominant.

This is why every system change echoes across the whole game/ecosystem. You can’t simply ask for “more loot” or “harder bosses” in isolation—PoE2, like PoE1, is an ecosystem with its own economy, cycles, social dynamics, influencers, and evolving meta. Its design choices ripple outward, shaping how players approach not just combat, but the entire game. This is why a lot of players went for LA Deadeye; mental conditioning from the previous 2 patches.

If combat slows down, then progression per encounter must increase, or the game risks feeling like a slog. Fewer monsters should mean stronger monsters; less loot should mean better loot. Right now, PoE2 advertises “slow, meaningful combat” but still uses PoE1’s loot treadmill math. Instead of mowing through 50 trash mobs for a single rare drop, this reward should come from smaller groups of tougher enemies. At the same time, is it really necessary in T15 irradiated maps, for a magic or rare monster to drop a rare item in the form of: 2x Suf: T5 T7 | 2x Pref: T6 T8 ?

Pinnacle bosses also need to reflect this philosophy. They should reward XP and serve as the best opportunities for combo-based play, requiring skill and timing rather than disappearing in 1–6 seconds. Each boss could emphasize different mechanics: one rewarding AoE chains, another punishing ability spam, another demanding a finisher. They should feel like difficult puzzles rather than DPS checks. For example, the Arbiter should frustrate not just with damage, but through unpredictability. Entry costs must remain low, because mastering these fights requires repeated practice.

Finally, combos themselves must matter. Executing certain chains—say, applying multiple ailments—could improve loot rarity, increase XP multipliers, or trigger special rewards. Right now, tactical play is unrewarded, so speed dominates. And pressing two or three buttons doesn’t automatically create meaningful engagement. In fighting games, combos involve timing, precision, and extended chains.. PoE2 also has the WASDDoS system, which separates it fundamentally from PoE1 and opens the door for true combat depth, if the systems are designed to support it.

In a recent interview, Brian Weissman suggested that players should rewire their brains and play PoE2 as if they were controlling an MMO character. But if that’s the vision, why are nearly half the players riding Rhoas, firing arrows in every direction, rendering WASDDoS meaningless? As long as enemy density, pacing, and loot economy stay tied to swarm-clearing, “meaningful combat” will always be drowned out by the need to clear fast.

Weissman also admitted he hadn’t reached the stage where the game “feels fast,” to which Ghazzy and DM laughed that "No one has". But that’s the point: PoE2 was supposed to be a slow, methodical game, not fast in the same sense as PoE1. At the same time, they are very experienced PoE1 players, so they knew the solution: speed.

In games like Dota 2, success comes from timing, execution, and seizing small windows of opportunity. Builds matter, but so do discipline and practice. When Jonathan Rogers spoke of “slow, methodical combat,” I expected that kind of gameplay: a system where practice and precision pay off. My point is, even if I copy a streamer's build 1:1, in DotA2, I would not have the same results if I lack the combat skill.

Instead, after all the campaign learning, endgame often collapses into one-button gameplay, with little active engagement. If maps primarily drop junk loot and almost no currency (as in early 0.2), players are forced to run more and more maps just to roll the dice for a divine orb to keep up with inflation. But if monster power and pacing were adjusted, and loot plus currency tuned correctly, the pressure to endlessly grind maps would drop. With deterministic crafting, PoE2 let players recover from failed attempts or pursue upgrades without being trapped in a cycle of speed farming.

For my group, the breaking point was the lack of combat engagement. Four of my friends quit back in 0.2, frustrated that the supposed depth of PoE2’s combat ended up reduced to holding down a skill button, but mainly blowing up screens... which is such a 2015 concept...

Today I decided to ignore guides and streamers, forget the meta, and play PoE2 with fresh eyes. I started a Monk run, deliberately slow and methodical, exploring and interacting with everything. To my surprise, it worked beautifully, at least for a while, and I felt genuinely rewarded for approaching the game this way.

Time played: 90 minutes
Zone cleared: The Hunting Grounds
Level reached: 12

One of the reasons I could take my time was the new crafting system. Without "external" pressure to rush maps or chase inflation, there was no FOMO, and the game felt more relaxed. I set rules for myself: no auto-attack spam, every killed pack had to end with a finisher (Killing Palm or Rolling Thunder with Power Charges). Rolling Thunder had the support “combo,” and I limited myself to two hits of the same type before a finisher.

Act 1 actually supported this style well. Lower monster density and large zones gave me time to mentally rehearse combos between packs, and remember, I don't have to rush through the campaign, because I could craft later some pretty good items. But mechanically, things felt a bit off. Power Charges lasted only 15 seconds, and Killing Palm, though it has a dash, functions as a culling strike, so it’s awkward to open with. Queued attacks also created clunky moments: if one of my opening auto-attacks crit, the second hit would still resolve before I could trigger Killing Palm. It seems melee struggles here, while a spell caster might not have the same issue. Over time I adjusted, but the learning curve was clear.

I modeled my playstyle on these videos, which showcase beautiful combo-based Monk gameplay in Act 2:
👉 https://poe2db.tw/Monk

Loot played a huge role in the fun. I was lucky, and I had to "fabricate" my rewards for playing combos.
Quarterstaff: lightning dmg + attack speed
Gloves: phys dmg + attack speed
Boots: 10% movement speed + 6% cold res

By level 10, I had rings adding physical damage. I also had 1M gold, so I could buy some of the items from vendors. This gear made combos feel impactful. Attack speed, and not movement speed, felt very important. Maybe the base attack speed is a bit too low in the early game? The character can get very fast in the endgame, but it's a bit too slow in the very early stages of the game. But the illusion broke when I encountered 0.3's Abyssal Pits. The swarm design simply doesn’t work for PoE2. Combos fell apart as long animations and target-switching undermined precision, just as they would in Breach or Ritual. Fighting swarms felt... off, compared to deliberate combat against smaller groups. I won't even detail the abyss... with green men doing green things on green ground lol.

This highlights a broader truth: if the combo-combat system is implemented properly, I’d want to spend more time inside maps, not less. If the loot treadmill changes from less quantity to more quality, why roll maps fast? But instead, I end up tending to waystones like chores. The real issue with pinnacle bosses wasn’t their strength, per se, but the cost of repeated attempts, which was too high relative to map rewards. If combat skill is meant to be foundational, practice must be affordable. Done right, this system could create nearly infinite depth.

It’s important to repeat: players turned to one-button builds after frustration with combo builds. PoE1 is still great, but its design is consumed. I can understand why many people still love it, that's fine. PoE2’s campaign already shows what’s possible varied, engaging, and fun. The problem is the endgame, where one-button play dominates. That style is only fun until you’ve mastered the “build skill.”

If PoE2 instead embraces true combo builds in the endgame, requiring practice and mechanical skill in addition to build crafting, players wouldn’t just solve the passive tree, skill supports, and item crafts, but they’d need to master timing and execution to unlock their build’s full potential. That combination of theorycrafting and practice is unique.

If GGG would've showcased the one-button builds in the endgame, I wouldn't have bought the game tbh...

So the real question is: do PoE2 players actually love speed, or have they simply been given no other choice?

And why the F is chilled ground almost everywhere?

+1

Also played a freeze + shatter crossbow build at the start of the league and it was great until swarms of enemies made it impossible. So instead of building on to the combo i was forced into galvanic or grenade turret spam with an occasional cluster grenade

I think theres good ideas on how to make it work all over the place. I just hope GGG still wants to make this different from PoE1 and tries out stuff. This is still a beta and the player should accept that its not a full release.

As for your questions at the end, I think its just that the first version was worse, because of missing crafting options and monsters not designed for what the players could do. I still think that a slower version, that still feels rewarding with its loot and such would be appreciated by a lot of players.

Also chilled ground is one of the counters against too much player power, as you can see everyone complaining because they actually need to do something against it. Is it good design? No. But idk whats supposed to be good design to make a overpowered-character-explodes-screens-of-monsters-simulator harder and engaging. You got to put in weird shit that can kill you through all of that speed...

Awesome post +1

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andreull#5435 wrote:

If GGG would've showcased the one-button builds in the endgame, I wouldn't have bought the game tbh...

So the real question is: do PoE2 players actually love speed, or have they simply been given no other choice?

And why the F is chilled ground almost everywhere?

I feel the exact same way, although, if I'm being completely honest... I was ready for disappointment from the start.. the moment I saw them announce minions my heart fell because I knew the way these would be implemented would be indicative of the whole thing. However the first act of 0.1 gave me a lot of hope initially.

I wouldn't be here at all if that didn't happen.

Also can't explain the chilled ground from any perspective lmao.

This game is in a weird place atm and I really really hope the company can make thir showcase and concepts a reality.