Absolutely disapointed -- This game is hard, and not in a fun way.

I've been playing PoE for years, and I have thousands of hours in the game.

Today I played PoE2 for ~5 hours and rage quit.

I failed to kill the act1 boss 10 times, i have 22 deaths, and honestly........ it's NOT FUN.

The reason why I love PoE is that i DO NOT HAVE TO BE ZIZARAN to enjoy it.
Let's be honest, i've played for thousands of hours and I'm NOT good at it.

Do you know how many times I've killed Maven without being hit by the memory game? 0. I've never been able to dodge it with all the beams. It's a matter of skill. But you know? it never mattered because i had my freaking 6 portals. And by getting a lot more gear than what the GOOD players need, I can finally do it. In softcore of course.

And in the campaign, I can try to kill brutus multiple times. On a brand new character I was never able to pass the second map without being killed by Roas at least once since the rework of act 1. I just can't. I try. I'm NOT GOOD. It didn't matter, because i could progress anyways!

The "dodge or die" mechanic is boring to me. I do NOT play souls games because they are boring. There are other people that DO like that. It's totally fine, but it's not the gaming i like. PoE2 feels a LOT more like "souls" than PoE1 IMHO.

That's why I rage-quit. Because i'm tired of one-shots and having to re-do the whole thing again. Because of losing progression. I'm barely in act 2 and i'm already tired of this.

I understand your decisions, but they are not fun for me. I don't even want to make another character right now to see if it changes anything. Because I won't be able to dodge the mechanics; and therefore I won't be able to play it.

It's a shame :( I was beyond excited.
I have suggestions, but I don't think they matter, because you went in a completely different direction than I'd like.

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EDIT:
When I created this post I never imagined it'd have more than 100 pages.
I want to make something clear: I LOVE GGG. They gave me PoE1. Best game ever.

I Believe i realized why it's SO DIVISIVE
* There are people who like the progression on GEAR/CURRENCY (like me)
* There are people who like the progression on "getting good"

PoE2 shifts A LOT from PoE1 in this regard. PoE1 you can get to the endgame and get a little bit of currency with almost any build as long as it makes sense.

My first PoE1 character was a minion build without understanding the tree. Sure, I made a lot of mistakes, but i finished the campaign and got a couple of chaos orbs... and then i could buy some things... etc

With PoE2 the choices i made didn't let me finish the campaign on 25+ hours. That got boring to me. I'm bad at mechanics.

PoE1 lets you ignore the mechanics for a lot longer WITHOUT GEAR NOR PLAYING WELL. PoE2 you need either one or the other :) and from act1. <== this is what is making a lot of people not like the game.

I believe that a SUB-PROBLEM of this is the WASD. I don't like it. But it makes the game substantially easier. But it's boring to me...

I think it's TOTALLY FINE to have this difficulty, but LATER IN THE GAME, when I can FARM $.

GGG: I believe that if you shift the difficulty to LATER (not making it easier per-se, but making it easier AT THE BEGINNING), you can please both type of players. OR, making it so you can grind gear on the campaign, but I doubt it, because item level restrictions, etc. ==> I'm totally fine with having to grind $ to buy my next upgrade to beat X boss. But for that I need to be on maps. Grinding gear on the campaign would "never" work IMHO

PLEASE LISTEN!!!! over 100 pages of people WANTING to love the game.

+1, suggestions won't matter, they know what they went for and had elites playtesting this but they won't pay the bills. Target a wider audience or die right here, make it fun instead of tryhard

POE-2 feels completely antithetical to everything that made POE-1 great.

I'm not saying it's necessarily a bad thing because there will be a demographic it caters to, but I feel like branding it as a POE successor was the wrong move. Opinions will probably be very polarizing once the dust settles.

I'm suffering through it to see if things improve but it hasn't been fun at all.

Why is melee still totally a disaster? Why do bosses at level 4 have 100% more health than necessary?

I agree, never died up to the first boss, the game was never hard, just... tedious. Constantly rolling around indefinitely while dealing with spongy enemies.

Eventually i got to the boss, on my way down his dungeon i was already bored out of my mind, trying to skip stuff rather than kill it. Got to the fight, brought him to 20% then died cause of no more flask since the phases with unavoidable damage, and, granted, maybe some mistake too, had left it drained.

When i died i just pressed Esc, Exit path of exile. No way i was gonna waste another, what felt like an hour, slugging it out with yet another damage sponge while spamming dodge roll. Fuck all that. Then i instantly realised that logging back on tomorrow i'll have to descend through the dungeon again, yeah, i don't think i'm gonna log on at all tbh.

I'm thankful that someone gave me a spare key they had no use for cause if i had spent even 30$ for this snoozefest i would have been thoroughly annoyed.

"

ilyatha#5908 wrote:

Why is melee still totally a disaster? Why do bosses at level 4 have 100% more health than necessary?

melee is fine if you don't play as melee, think fire trap with 50% success rate of setting a trap, it pulls very good. melee attack is only for bosses

+1 op
I'm currently stuck on the wolf boss, and honestly, if PoE 2 launches in its current state, I won't be playing it. The gameplay just isn't enjoyable. Even if I manage to defeat a boss, it feels hollow—I've wiped on almost every boss at least once, and none of the victories have felt rewarding. It honestly feels like the internal team has been using hero editors for testing, which makes the entire game feel unbalanced and frustrating.

I can't seem to beat the Devourer on SSFHC, my minions are really brittle and I was even using the skill that makes the little minions to help kill it.

What's the secret? I was rolling all over the place. My minions die in like 5 secs, then I have to wait 7 sec for them to revive. This was even with 1 point into +health on minions + the damage nodes before it. Everytime I run or roll away from the Bosses' damage my minions run with me so they stop attacking. Makes it rather hard to minion this Boss. Why even have minions at all if their leash is so short?

I have yet to get to level 5. Died a bunch of times.

I played POE2 today and the whole time I was wishing it was POE1. I like that the game is bigger (endgame). I do not like dodge roll. I hate that mobs just ignore my minions and just come to target me. I hate that the skill casting feels like a slightly tuned up version of Diablo4. Where you feel like you are waiting to cast.

I don't play dark souls. I don't play Diablo4. I do play POE1. I am leaning towards not playing POE2.

PS. I could get into EA 2 times based on my spending with GGG. For feedback I wouldn't feel inclined to spend my money on this game. I am sad. Mostly sad that POE 1 development and leagues suffered for THIS.

Edit* POE2 does not feel like a successor to POE1. It feels like a demented love child of Dark Souls and Diablo4 that takes decorating tips from POE1.

Having a blast! No time to cry on forums, sorry :D Yeah 3 deaths so far, just finished Act1, loooving it, already crafting more than ever during act 1 in PoE1 and such.

Oh btw for those who forget: Its an Eaaaaaarly Access <3