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

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.

Just give the elitists Ruthless and be done with it