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

I've been playing ARPGs for over 20 years, and yet here I am—one-shotted by a boss in Act 2. It’s a humbling reminder that even with all those years of experience, there's always room to learn and improve. Now I’m back to farming gear, devising a strategy, and diving deep into the game’s mechanics. This isn’t a game where mistakes are forgiven; it demands precision, adaptability, and intelligence.

What strikes me the most is how the game mirrors its art in its gameplay. The beauty of its world is haunting, almost melancholic, and reflects the suffering I feel as I navigate its punishing but fair challenges. Every death, every setback, feels like a lesson—one I’m determined to master.

There’s no way I’ll complain about the difficulty. This is exactly what I want: a true test of skill and resilience. To those who feel frustrated by the challenge, I say embrace it. The reward is not just in the loot or progression but in the growth you achieve as a player.

Back to the grind—I’ll find a way through. This game isn’t about giving up; it’s about rising to meet it on its own unforgiving terms.

Slow movement, poor clearing skills, no rewards from extensive fights.
It's okay to repeat a fight and learn mechanics knowing that you'll get something but thank you for the 10th level one skill gem and the shard + two white gear items.
Rerolled act one at lass boss thinking which is not balanced. Raider is also freaking weak, slow and where loot ?

Elder ring much ?

Feels like everything is just there to slow you down which is not fun.

+1

If this is indeed the intended experience, they should have called it a different name, and made the control and system changes to PoE 1 as well, and keep the "dark souls hardcore game" as a separate thing.

I love WASD and controller support on PC. I like the gem system in its idea, having only utility support gems for the most part, and keep the damage scaling as part of gem level, gear and passive tree. I love the look and the sound of the game, the enemies, the boss design.

I initially thought the dodge roll to be cool, but as I got to act 2 to the end, it got very boring very quickly, not being able to dodge through small corridors, having to pull and kite mobs so you can make your way through.

I wanted to play a physical spell witch, which was ok in the beginning, but got very bad in act 2. The bosses are fine, they just take too long too fight. I don't understand how someone can defend a boss fight which takes 5-10 minutes. This game doesn't have boss fights which are that interesting. I've gotten all of them up until act 3 in 1-3 tries, but I never felt like I've mastered anything, the mechanics are confusing at first, so you die, then you dodge the things and that's it, there's nothing special here. Even if act 3 somehow introduces better boss fights, I don't see how someone can call this game "hard but not tedious".

Boss fights as ranged just devolved into circle strafing and holding down a button, with the occasional doge. I never had fun while I did it, and I got no reward out of doing it.

Trash mobs are way way wayyyyy too tanky, and some rares have the same problem as Poe 1, they are boss level of annoying. Also, they are not highlighted like in PoE 1, for some reason.

Using skeletons early feels like a sick joke, did someone actually try to play the game that way? They die way too fast, and it takes too long for them to respawn. Its ok for it to be intended that you would need other spells, but then why go minions in the first place? Why all the physical spells that witch can access just suck and have no scaling?

Why can't we buy uncut gems? I've wanted to try another build before ascending, but I didn't have enough skill gems to do a full switch, and 0 support gems available. I'd rather have the good old system of just buying what you need.

Where are the item drops? Why do the dropped rare items have at most 3-4 affixes? I swear I never saw a dropped item with 5 affixes. Why are there so few rare items? I saw maybe 20-25 in 10 hours of play. How are you supposed to generate regals?

Where are those famed crafting items they kept mentioning? I saw 2 essences, a few runes, 3 exalts in 10 hours. What are you supposed to craft with these? You know how many items I've augumented trying to get +spirit on them, so I can run one more skelli?

Early game melee feels really weird, not good at all. I heard that the damage gets better, but controlling Leaping Slam or whatever its called feels really bad. Dodging boss attacks at point blank range is very inconsistent. I felt that PoE 1 melee leveling was actually fun and engaging, with PoE 2 I have to stack armor and resistances and pray that the hitboxes are not wonky for that boss.

Yup, it's not "hard" it's just tedious. Also, wasd is not revolutionary. Balancing melee and skill choice would have been, but... oh well.

"

NeverWraith#5405 wrote:

Yup, it's not "hard" it's just tedious. Also, wasd is not revolutionary. Balancing melee and skill choice would have been, but... oh well.

Their WASD is revolutionary, for how bad it is.
It is all just bowing down to the console gods, that is the only reason we got this new movement system at all.

It feels like a massive step backwards and the best thing GGG could do is give us back normal PoE 1 gameplay and get rid of "shoot while moving" and the dodge roll.

For a game that repeatedly swears on D2 as its genre defining game it is very much unlike D2 in pretty much all aspects that made D2 great.

Imagine taking the pinnacle of action rpg's and removing the action.

"

galaga#4225 wrote:

I've been playing ARPGs for over 20 years, and yet here I am—one-shotted by a boss in Act 2. It’s a humbling reminder that even with all those years of experience, there's always room to learn and improve. Now I’m back to farming gear, devising a strategy, and diving deep into the game’s mechanics. This isn’t a game where mistakes are forgiven; it demands precision, adaptability, and intelligence.

What strikes me the most is how the game mirrors its art in its gameplay. The beauty of its world is haunting, almost melancholic, and reflects the suffering I feel as I navigate its punishing but fair challenges. Every death, every setback, feels like a lesson—one I’m determined to master.

There’s no way I’ll complain about the difficulty. This is exactly what I want: a true test of skill and resilience. To those who feel frustrated by the challenge, I say embrace it. The reward is not just in the loot or progression but in the growth you achieve as a player.

Back to the grind—I’ll find a way through. This game isn’t about giving up; it’s about rising to meet it on its own unforgiving terms.

I've played all the ARPGs in the last 10 years, and this is the first one in which after 10 hours of play I actually felt like I gained nothing as a player. I have thousands of hours in PoE 1 and Diablo 2, and recently even gave Diablo 4 a try. Diablo 4 had very weak bosses overall, but they didn't overstay their welcome. PoE 2 as it is right now, is not a difficult game, is a tedious game, and there's a big difference. At least that's how it appears for people who have less than average RNG luck and chose the wrong starting character / skill. Banging your head against the wall can be fun, but I rarely felt joy about the gameplay the past 24 hours.

"

galaga#4225 wrote:

I've been playing ARPGs for over 20 years, and yet here I am—one-shotted by a boss in Act 2. It’s a humbling reminder that even with all those years of experience, there's always room to learn and improve. Now I’m back to farming gear, devising a strategy, and diving deep into the game’s mechanics. This isn’t a game where mistakes are forgiven; it demands precision, adaptability, and intelligence.

What strikes me the most is how the game mirrors its art in its gameplay. The beauty of its world is haunting, almost melancholic, and reflects the suffering I feel as I navigate its punishing but fair challenges. Every death, every setback, feels like a lesson—one I’m determined to master.

There’s no way I’ll complain about the difficulty. This is exactly what I want: a true test of skill and resilience. To those who feel frustrated by the challenge, I say embrace it. The reward is not just in the loot or progression but in the growth you achieve as a player.

Back to the grind—I’ll find a way through. This game isn’t about giving up; it’s about rising to meet it on its own unforgiving terms.

What you are describing as fun to you, feels like a tedious job with no rewards to me..
I don't play a game to "grow as a player" but simply to relax and have fun blasting stuff.
It's not rocket science, but you sure want to make it sound like it is..

Someone in another thread posted this thought....

We need to redo this every season...... :|

"

Ironhide75#7617 wrote:

You know this harder, slower type game already exists in POE1 as ruthless mode.

Those who want that kind of game experience can choose it, those who do not, can elect not to play Ruthless.

Why maintain two games?

I can't enjoy PoE 1 combat mechanic regardless of the difficulty and speed, the same way you can't enjoy PoE 2 combat mechanic. This is why.