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

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Sqarpi#7850 wrote:

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Nothv13#0740 wrote:

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LifeIsADream01#8363 wrote:

To be honest upfront, I didn't bother to read all of the replies, but I think that OP gave up to quickly. Once your build gets going (around act 3 for me), the game gets allot easier. And at this point, going into maps, everyone is already zooming around. So to me the game is not fundamentally too hard, it's just more of a learning curve/adjustment to get used to the bosses and mechanics in the beginning (especially coming from POE1, where we knew everything already. P.s., if you run act 1 and 2 with levelling gear (from a previous character), it becomes trivial.

See, this also run counter to their goal. POE2 was supposed to be easier for beginners to get into. For POE1 is was the overwhelming skill tree and confusing socket and skill system that kept people away. They somewhat solved this (still see people say the passive tree is too complex), but replaced it with a rough starting gameplay experience requiring a higher learning curve which will also push people away. People will stop before getting to act 3. This is the issue with making a game that relies on getting to end game to hook players and having hard starts. Make the beginning easier, and make the endgame harder.

I do not agree. First one was hard, because you had so many mechanics that it was overwhelming for newcomers. Now it is hard, because of the difficulty level, which IMHO is fine. I was playing PoE not hardcore, but rather from time to time (I had like 900 hrs) I have great time in PoE 2. My friends, which gave up on PoE 1 after few hours are having fun as well. Challanging is good. Dying is good. For me, that game is in very sweet spot. I don't want to go back to PoE 1 anymore. And I think that is why GGG wants to have these two games moving forward alongside. Becasue they know, that PoE and PoE have difference target audience, which again IMHO, is completely fine.

Anecdotes. History continues to show that hard starts will push people away just as much as confusing mechanics. POE1 is in fact direct evidence of this as it started out harder in beta and changed to draw in a larger and longer term playerbase. They then added ruthless to POE1 and it has pretty much zero playerbase. Even streamers that loved it don't play it anymore.

POE1 and POE2 have the same target audience, which is why they are working to get all MTX from POE1 into POE2. The gameplay loop and goal is the exact same as POE1. Run league farm endgame get loot. In both, the loop makes the campaign inconsequential being nothing more than an annoyance. That is the gameplay loop of both and why they said they need people to reach endgame to keep them.

GGG can say all they want about how they want to develop the games side by side, but they have already admitted to cannibalizing staff from POE1 for POE2. They are not a huge studio and they certainly have not doubled their workforce to handle two games. Even much larger studios put live service games into maintenance mode to run the newer live service games. Hell the difficulty in this game I would call a false difficulty since if you get good gear it becomes no harder than POE1 beginning. If you get screwed over in gear and drops you suffer and there is nothing you as a player can do to counter being unlucky.

I like the idea of the difficulty, but history shows hard starts are counter to long term success in live service games. I want POE2 to pull a POE1 where its grows throughout the 10 years with its peak player numbers being 10 years after release rather than a helldivers 2 where people loved it for difficulty and then it fell off a cliff as people got tired of the continuous nerfs to keep said difficulty.

The game is definitely hard....
Every player has to decide for themselves whether this is good/great.
The fact is that nobody wants to go through this difficult and tough campaign all over again every season. Not even the skilled players!

The first time this challenge may still be fun.
But not again and again and again!

As soon as there's a new season every few months, players want to get through the campaign quickly and move on to the endgame!

If GGG does not react here, the number of players will shrink from season to season!

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

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Raidboss_Aj#9936 wrote:

Game isnt too hard. ppl are just used to games that they dont need to think anything.
Dont listen the vocal crying minority and nerf everything to be too easy. Challenge is good and it keep the game going. Balance stuff is case of its own, but dont make this another diablo where everything is changed to suit the needs of forum crying ppl who just dont bother to learn the game.

The game and it's difficulty is absolutely fine. This is coming from a PoE1 player.

You casuals need to stop complaining and go back to playing Diablo IV.

I can see an argument made for perhaps only having to do the campaign once for each class when seasons are released rather than every season but that's about it.

The people who enjoy the game and it's difficulty feel strongly about not wanting it tampered with.

The challenge of the first playthrough is real and amazing. I had to learn boss mechanics, farm a bit for some gear and levels, and learn the zone layouts a bit. Happy they buffed drop rates because that was my main concern. Now on my second character I beat the first 2 acts in 5.5 hrs with 3 deaths only because I'm still not perfect at the boss fights. I can already see myself beating these first 3 acts in less than 6 hrs deathless, especially once they implement the checkpoint teleports. The game is so fun. I'm fully engaged and pressing a bunch of skills to handle different situations. The bosses are amazing and well telegraphed. Sick of people saying the Count mist phase is undodgeable, he dashes 1 second after his voice lines end. This is a prime example of people not paying attention or unable to learn a new game. Please don't change the combat or gameplay difficulty. Get item progression into a good place, make crafting the right amount of accessible, and people will love this game for years and years.

Mostly replying to get this post bumped up because I completely agree.

Had 100's, not thousands, of hours put into PoE 1, as well as a lot of money, and was super excited to dive back in.

And there is so much to love. First little bit, I was back in. Loved it and was ready to open up my wallet. I would prefer to write a post about that...

But I can't get past the difficulty of the bosses. I heard GGG said they wanted to attract new players, I can't imagine this is how you do it.

So unless there are balance changes, I'm out. And I hope there are more players like me that will have enough of an impact to make GGG listen, because there is a lot to love about this game.

And the thing is, Hades solved this problem already. Why is no one doing that? Just create a slider for people so they can adjust the difficulty. Is it really that hard to do?

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SkyPrince30#4110 wrote:

And the thing is, Hades solved this problem already. Why is no one doing that? Just create a slider for people so they can adjust the difficulty. Is it really that hard to do?

A difficulty slider is absolutely and unequivically the last possible thing that I would ever want added to this game. Oh god, please no. That's just asking to kill the game.

You have to be kidding me. The game's economy is based around difficulty. People will in general always gravitate towards the easiest difficulty to min/max leveling, loot, etc. There's a large percentage of people, probably over 50% of the player base, who specifically don't want a difficulty slider.

Get to endgame, rough but whatever, no gear upgrades until late level 40,

Honestly feeling dejected and bored but still treading through it

Get to mapping, die to random offscreen effect that I cant see

Whole map is deleted

They want me to self craft, cool, after transmuting and auging every usable base I find I have created zero upgrades for myself in about 20 hours at endgame

Game is not challenging in the fun way that something like Elden Ring is, its just boring, its like treading through sludge to get to more sludge on the other side.

Update, now they gutted my build and am unable to kill even white mobs to farm the gold I need to respec so just again, more sludge.

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ZozoEternal#3262 wrote:

A difficulty slider is absolutely and unequivically the last possible thing that I would ever want added to this game. Oh god, please no. That's just asking to kill the game.

You have to be kidding me. The game's economy is based around difficulty. People will in general always gravitate towards the easiest difficulty to min/max leveling, loot, etc. There's a large percentage of people, probably over 50% of the player base, who specifically don't want a difficulty slider.

What the heck are you talking about? Many games have difficulty sliders, and with those sliders come additional loot. Diablo 3 had this built in with its Torment difficulties and it was majorly successful. the higher difficulty, the better the rewards. You're literally the only person that would have an issue with this system being implemented.

I gotta agree. I want the game to be easy. And I don't see anything wrong with that. I don't wanna sweat while gaming. I don't need a challenge. And I have nothing to prove to myself, or anybody else. I just wanna spend some time mindlessly killing mobs. This is what ARPG means for me. And this is what PoE was. But this game suddenly wants me to start trying my best every step of the way. And I don't feel like it at all.

I overall like the pace and difficulty as such. I can see why the final boss in Act 1 makes people angry. He is a steep jump in difficulty compared to other bosses and monsters before that point, but it's doable. You just need to adjust or change your spells for him.

The problem arises, when you don't play the optimal way or you need to learn spells and you just don't have free uncut gems for that. Then it sucks hard. You are fighting just to have the luck for it to drop. It would be nice to have some way to work towards an uncut gem (maybe even of lower quality) other way than just through pure luck. Being locked in the setup that isn't good for that part of the game (boss or mobs that are resistant to your setup) isn't fun at all.

There are currently builds that melts everything in seconds and other builds, that should be viable, but aren't, because we are just at the starting line and it just needs many tweaks to get it to a sweet spot.

I play minon build without the use of RS. I feel in Act 2, that my power level isn't up the pair with mobs. I feel weak as lvl 26 on 22 level content and that shouldn't happen. I don't remember when I got a notable gear upgrade. I'm checking up vendors all the time to look for stuff, but I'm unlucky. When I get rare or unique drop, its mostly for other classes, so there is absolutely no dopamine spike when a better drop occurs.

EDIT: At the same time, having to go through such a difficult campaign every time a new league starts is going to be a no go for many players. So either they add a way to skip the campaign all together or they will be forced to make it much easier. First option looks as a much better choice from my point of view.