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

"

nyllexd#5170 wrote:

+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

I agree with you 100%.

Challenging content vs. Punitive content.

Challenging content stops you in place until you learn; possibly (a) boss mechanics or (b) improve your build/stats to power through. Challenging is wonderful. It creates great memories if you play alone or even better with friends and family.

Punitive content sets you back. It creates frustration and makes players doubt the devs intentions; i.e. incompetence or malice?

Being stopped in place is frustrating... but it feels rewarding when you surmount the challenge and conquer the encounter.

Being set back... so that you have to spend more time just regaining your footing/lost XP/lost Waystones feels punitive and almost petty on the devs' part.

When D4 had no endgame content to offer, they did everything they could to kneecap players' progress: XP nerfs, Monster Buffs, Dungeon XP nerfs, Scaling nerfs, Class Nerfs. None of that made the game harder; D4 is and always will be much easier than POE2 or Last Epoch.

It just made the game more frustrating.

I truly agree with what you said and I wish that people said it more: elitists don't pay the bills. Real people with real jobs with limited time to play pay the bills. The general audence pays the bills. Imagine coming home from a hard shift and being "set back" instead of just "stopped in place". Imagine that feeling for a moment and ask yourself, "do you like your time being disrespected?"

And if that is the kind of game POE2 wants to be, then by all means that's their right and prerogative. It's their vision and I must accept and respect that.

But by a POE1 player's own admission, POE1 players can't handle POE2.

Yet it's the POE1 elitists and stans who are clamoring for POE2 to become more like POE1 instead of trying something new.

I say this as a lvl 90 Titan. There's pain. There's frustration. There's a rewarding sense of problem-solving. I love this game, in spite of its flaws and I want as many people as possible to enjoy this game and get into it. I want it to be something that appeals to a greater audience, as you said. Or it'll die right here, just as you said.

Fair points and, after rethinking, maybe you are right. On other hand sometimes Im not sure if a bit of punishement isnt good. In d1 and i think d2 too, if you died you droped all loot in place, sometimes even forcing you to abanodon it, because it was to hard to get it back. That made the game really emotional. Now im not saying its the right solution for POE2, but something small but at the same time significant enough to maake you really want to avoid death might make it emotional.

On other hand, i will be honest, we played this weekend with my friend and died a few time to a boss before we killed it. It felt fun and rewarding, but if we would have lost xp to the boss (it was still campaign) would it have been fun? Rethinkign it, i think it would be worse. The result could be that we would began overleveling before each boss, fearing to loose xp, and the fights would be much less fun. Yeah in the end im changing my opinion, i Agree with chalenging , not punitive.

My personal opinion is that we should have an “easier” mode than what we have now.
More drops, lower experience penalty, lower enemy damage and durability.
Changing the size of the map is not realistic, but changing the parameters seems realistic.
As much as some people like the current difficult game, there are some sad PoE enthusiasts who can't keep up with it.
If the concept cannot be changed, we have no choice but to seek a way to live with it.

"

In d1 and i think d2 too, if you died you droped all loot in place, sometimes even forcing you to abanodon it, because it was to hard to get it back. That made the game really emotional. Now im not saying its the right solution for POE2, but something small but at the same time significant enough to maake you really want to avoid death might make it emotional.

In D1 and D2 you perfectly knew what's happened and why you've died. In POE 2 this happens mostly in first 2 acts where things are still slow. And after that it just a mess.

I actually quit the game for now. I couldnt get pass Viper Boss. Although I could probably beat her in 20 tries or so. I just felt like that would be a waste of my time. Will probably return if they tune down the difficulty a lot.

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I actually quit the game for now. I couldnt get pass Viper Boss. Although I could probably beat her in 20 tries or so. I just felt like that would be a waste of my time. Will probably return if they tune down the difficulty a lot.

Many players (myself included) kill viper-boss on level in under 45 seconds, with no trouble, with a strong build. I struggled a bit with her the first time on my ranger (maybe 4 attempts?), and on my monk I froze, stunned and dumpstered her.

The issue you're having with POE2 is that there is at least a 20x power difference locked up in your build (gems, passive, gear), and if you don't take the time to extract it, the entire game becomes harder.

There is no way to fix this by nerfing bosses, because there will always be someone who doesn't take the time to improve their build. If they nerf the bosses so nobody ever gets stuck because of this, it wil be even more boring and easy for those of us who understand the build math (or who follow an OP builds).

Some games approach this by adding simpler "stat check" bosses, that are really easy, but have an obvious end timer, which communicates to you that the only way to progress is to improve your dps... Forgemaster is a good example of a boss like this, and maybe he needs to be required instead of optional. Or maybe we need more bosses like this to gate people and teach them to improve their build, before they reach a boss like viper that can be overcome by a combination of mechanics and build.

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KuroSF#6521 wrote:

"

I actually quit the game for now. I couldnt get pass Viper Boss. Although I could probably beat her in 20 tries or so. I just felt like that would be a waste of my time. Will probably return if they tune down the difficulty a lot.

Many players (myself included) kill viper-boss on level in under 45 seconds, with no trouble, with a strong build. I struggled a bit with her the first time on my ranger (maybe 4 attempts?), and on my monk I froze, stunned and dumpstered her.

The issue you're having with POE2 is that there is at least a 20x power difference locked up in your build (gems, passive, gear), and if you don't take the time to extract it, the entire game becomes harder.

There is no way to fix this by nerfing bosses, because there will always be someone who doesn't take the time to improve their build. If they nerf the bosses so nobody ever gets stuck because of this, it wil be even more boring and easy for those of us who understand the build math (or who follow an OP builds).

Some games approach this by adding simpler "stat check" bosses, that are really easy, but have an obvious end timer, which communicates to you that the only way to progress is to improve your dps... Forgemaster is a good example of a boss like this, and maybe he needs to be required instead of optional. Or maybe we need more bosses like this to gate people and teach them to improve their build, before they reach a boss like viper that can be overcome by a combination of mechanics and build.

I agree that everyone has not unlocked the potential and thus game is so much more difficult. However, that in itself is an issue. Content is either too hard or just trivialized when u unlock the 20x power. I am sure u would agree that the challenge needs to be where its challenging and engaging and there is both risk and reward. Rn it is like either only risky or risk is just trivialized by crazy power.

Moreover giving so many thing are gate kept, economy being in shambles, not every class having equal access to rarity makes it very difficult for some classes to even unlock that power. And this realization for most people is coming after spending a good amount of time on their build.

Not a good feeling. It feels like i am slogging to get something that will solve my issue but will leave me just as dissatisfied (personal opinion take it with a pinch of salt).

"

I agree that everyone has not unlocked the potential and thus game is so much more difficult. However, that in itself is an issue. Content is either too hard or just trivialized when u unlock the 20x power. I am sure u would agree that the challenge needs to be where its challenging and engaging and there is both risk and reward. Rn it is like either only risky or risk is just trivialized by crazy power.

Actually, I don't agree.

Diablo4 is this kind of game, where the power is bounded in a 2x range at a given level and "typical" build, and it's incredibly boring.

I personally love the mathemtically challenge of wrangling with POE2 builds, trying to find where the damage is, and extract it... which is why I didn't have trouble with these bosses. If they took this away, the game would be a stupidly faceroll tomagochi game like D4 or POE1 following a build guide and I wouldn't play it.

I think POE2 is substantially better than POE1 because respec costs are low enough that I can enjoy figuring these things out myself within the game, instead of within Path of Building.

In fact, for me. POE2 would be even more perfect if every character was given a completely random passive-tree, so we couldn't even follow builds, and the only way we could excell was to figure out how to make *our* passive tree work with *our* drops on an individual basis. One can dream.

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KuroSF#6521 wrote:

"

I agree that everyone has not unlocked the potential and thus game is so much more difficult. However, that in itself is an issue. Content is either too hard or just trivialized when u unlock the 20x power. I am sure u would agree that the challenge needs to be where its challenging and engaging and there is both risk and reward. Rn it is like either only risky or risk is just trivialized by crazy power.

Actually, I don't agree.

Diablo4 is this kind of game, where the power is bounded in a 2x range at a given level and "typical" build, and it's incredibly boring.

I personally love the mathemtically challenge of wrangling with POE2 builds, trying to find where the damage is, and extract it... which is why I didn't have trouble with these bosses. If they took this away, the game would be a stupidly faceroll tomagochi game like D4 or POE1 following a build guide and I wouldn't play it.

I think POE2 is substantially better than POE1 because respec costs are low enough that I can enjoy figuring these things out myself within the game, instead of within Path of Building.

In fact, for me. POE2 would be even more perfect if every character was given a completely random passive-tree, so we couldn't even follow builds, and the only way we could excell was to figure out how to make *our* passive tree work with *our* drops on an individual basis. One can dream.

i did that too early on. but as i progress further there no amount of respec that is going to unlock that power without meaningful gear upgrades and that part of the game is totally screwed up. Either i play what gives power easily or i don't progress. to give u an eg. i am playing merc. i am at lvl 88. i am still using the crossbow i got for 5ex at the end of campaign. to upgrade that with even a slight bump i now need 10+ divs and then too it will only be a slight bump. my only choice is to abuse grenages (which i refuse to do) , and turn my build into a boring one click thing or just wait for something to drop that is exciting.


I too have 4k hrs on poe and i understand what u are saying and may be we enjoy different things but i don't see balance in the game.

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i did that too early on. but as i progress further there no amount of respec that is going to unlock that power without meaningful gear upgrades and that part of the game is totally screwed up. Either i play what gives power easily or i don't progress. to give u an eg. i am playing merc. i am at lvl 88. i am still using the crossbow i got for 5ex at the end of campaign.

I read this as a request for "every builds to be viable" which I simply don't agree with.

I'm an 84 Monk, and I'm playing SSF-style. I'm technically playing in trade to co-op the campaign and donate gear to my IRL friend, but I have not bought or received anything.. in fact, I've given away gear to several people who have needed help on the discord.

Most of the valuable gear upgrades I use have been crafted (a few dropped, and two bought from expedition), and I've altered my build significantly three times, to unlock new levels of power.. because I'm trying to kill maps and bosses, not play a role-play-meme. I will play whatever builds makes the bad guys go boom.

In maps, other than a few bumps where I needed to tweak my passive tree or farm resists, I've been more gated by waystones and completing my atlast quests than by content difficulty. Not that I've never died, but I'm now on 1/10 T12, and I struggle more to sustain T12 keys than to actually complete T12 maps.... using a weapon I crafted at least 15 levels ago (because it got absolutely goated craft luck).

I do expect at some point to run into another wall in the content, at which time I'll probably try to do what I did the previous times, which is use a combination of trying to run easier waystones and making strategic choices about taking risks right after I level (so I don't have much XP to lose)

I can't imagine a world where I could *trade* and have trouble assembling the gear I want. It's all so cheap compared to how many EX and regals I have dumped into failed crafts.

That said, one thing I have come to realize about POE2 is that the incredible amount of randomness, combined with mathematical complexity of the build system, means people who are unlucky and/or just don't figure out the build mathematics can easily have a horrible experience compared to people who are lucky and/or understand the build mathematics.

The build math part will probably be worked out by people following builds (just like i've helped several monks by giving them my builds to follow)... however, the lucky/unlucky issue is one that's really tricky... How many players should "lose" or have a bad experience just because they are the ones who happen to be repeatedly unlucky? It's a really tricky question.