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

That Act 1 end boss is way overtuned for what it supposed to be. It has multiple phases, attacks that you have never had earlier keep just appearing out of nowhere. Insanely limited area and lots of AoE where you just can't go or it's game over and back to the beach with you.

The cherry on top of this PoE 2 cake is the boss healing between phases. That is pure cringe and I just can't help laughing while witnessing my character doing the very famous "DIESOFCRINGE" Twitch Emote death animation every time. It's like it's deliberately developed to look like that.

But whatever Elden Ring rip-off this game is supposed to be, not even Miyazaki dares to develop bosses that heal to full. If there are any, they definitely aren't "Act 1" bosses, which you should be able to defeat relatively easy.

Yeah pretty dissapointed. Regret buying a supporter pack at this stage. I get they are trying to slow it down but the difficulty is just insane. I can't complete a boss fight, I can't get any loot to drop, and I can't level up. Agree completely with OP.

"

Urza_Mechwalker#7393 wrote:

"

Ironhide75#7617 wrote:

I think it's some what telling that your attitude is that you dont want anyone else to have fun, just you.

No.. what you miss is there is and there has been a game for people that want no skill adn no iteraction for ages. it is called POE1. We that want a game where we need to be awake to play it have been waitign for years! We do not accept that game that we always wanted to be stolen by peopel that ALREADY HAVE their own game.

Come on dude... You know as well as anyone who's been playing POE1 that GGG started pandering to the try-hard crowd, streamers and the souls-like lovers a long time ago and pretty much told anyone who wanted a game with a TON of build variety but more casual gameplay to go play something else.

GGG makes great games but they really have a hard-on for pushing out a wider audience. Path of Exile II is a love letter to the same people that they've BEEN pandering to for quite some time now.

Don't tell people to go play POE1 because they think that POE2 is overtuned and difficult - it is. It's EA and as rough as 80-yr old concrete at the moment.

The try-hard players, souls-lovers have TONS of games they can go play too - Like the many souls-like games already out, POE1, and to be frank - the pushing crowd doesn't dump money into POE's monetization strategy like the filthy casuals do. Who decides who has to go (outside of GGG and people voting with their wallet). It's not me. It's not you either, nobody on this forum.

The OP is right - it's VERY hard to enjoy at the moment for a large enough subset of ARPG fans to suggest GGG take a look at it.

It would be great to see (at least for SSF modes, would ruin the economy in most other modes) difficulty sliders, as seen in many other games (Conan Exiles, etc). I would certainly be less frustrated with POE1&2, and that's something that WOULD appeal to a larger audience, or even micro-instancing w/ friends (with no out-of-instance trade capability). I'm not sure if their databases could handle that, but GGG has pretty great DB's as far as I can tell so probably would be as easy as assigning a hidden instance tag to the players in the instance, then binding that tag to all the gear on said characters as soon as it hits their inventory.

Coming from the clusterf*ck franchise across the hall Im enjoying the added difficulty compared to the other game(s). I just dont enjoy having everything given to me. Granted this is my first foray into the POE world, but loving every second so far.

Id have no issues if it gets tweaked a little more towards casuals, for the love of god dont do what blizz does and make a brain dead casual clicker

I would suggest before anyone says the game is easy, and admonishing others, they should try some of the other classes, particularly melee builds. It's the same old problem, melee sucks, the survivability face tanking, V player dmg output is way off with many skills.

Of course the game is going to be easier if you stay out of range throwing magic lightning, fireballs, arrows et al, that’s just common sense. That’s why most of the try hards only play ranged classes; POE was always easier with ranged/magic and this is no different.

I really hoped POE 2 could move away from the FOTM meta treadmill of poe where everyone and their mother is playing a handful of the available builds, while everything else sits unused. I know its a huge task, and it's clear POE 2 is miles from being able to offer that.

It's early days, and the devs will rely on data collection rather than listening to the vocal minority in the forums to tweak their game. But here we are 12 years on, a new game, and melee focused builds are off to a poor start, once again.

It's concerning to me the complaints about difficulty, because this is personally what I've wanted for PoE2.

And I hope GGG doesn't make any major changes regarding this.

Combat feels extremely fun, challenging but fair, enemies telegraph their attacks well, there's even sound cues. You feel in control of your character all the time.

Only died once in act 1 with monk, so it's actually not that hard, but some people I think just need to adjust to it being very different combat.

I agree with everything you said and I feel the same

Again, that inertia thing, which I assume comes from the WASD crap... awfull.

And yes, I have "always attack without moving" enabled on all manually cast spells. Feels like playing on ice and through sand.

Whoever idea it was (Chris?) ... stop.

"

Hexcaliber#6318 wrote:

I would suggest before anyone says the game is easy, and admonishing others, they should try some of the other classes, particularly melee builds. It's the same old problem, melee sucks, the survivability face tanking, V player dmg output is way off with many skills.

Of course the game is going to be easier if you stay out of range throwing magic lightning, fireballs, arrows et al, that’s just common sense. That’s why most of the try hards only play ranged classes; POE was always easier with ranged/magic and this is no different.

I really hoped POE 2 could move away from the FOTM meta treadmill of poe where everyone and their mother is playing a handful of the available builds, while everything else sits unused. I know its a huge task, and it's clear POE 2 is miles from being able to offer that.

It's early days, and the devs will rely on data collection rather than listening to the vocal minority in the forums to tweak their game. But here we are 12 years on, a new game, and melee focused builds are off to a poor start, once again.

It's the Meta chase that's dragged me away from POE1 and will probably drag me away from POE2 if GGG doesn't wake up. What's the point in the MASSIVE passive tree and build choices when 99.99% of them don't matter!?! It got tiresome to be told (basically by GGG) that there's only a few viable playstyles and you can find all of them by watching the first week or so of the POE streamers (before they get bored, complain POE is too easy and move onto something else for the rest of the season).

The game is challenging, and I find that to be a refreshing take! I love that it requires me to pay attention and think strategically. It’s incredibly satisfying to feel a real sense of achievement when I defeat a boss.

Moreover, without the difficulty, the dark tone of the game wouldn’t feel authentic. Monsters are far scarier when they pose a real threat. If they didn’t challenge the player, combat would just become tedious—a mindless chore to farm XP.

For those who don’t share my enthusiasm or appreciate GGG’s original vision: Blizzard abandoned its initial take on Diablo 4 and turned it into a mindless hack-and-slash. Do we really want this game to become another D4?

Give it another shot guys! Im playing Mercenary for example, died only twice in 6 hours.

I sincerely hope that GGG stays true to its original vision and maintains the game’s current difficulty and pacing. It’s what makes this game stand out!