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

"

8valve#1162 wrote:

I actually like how hard it is. Diablo 3 and 4 got boring fast because they were too easy to the point where I was mindless grinding until I would fall asleep.

PoE 2 keeps me on my toes and makes each boss fight feel like an accomplishment. Makes me want to keep playing.

Please do not lower the difficulty.

"keep me on my toes" is not how an ARPG should be period. That's the problem, it's not just boss fights that require you to treat it like a job, it's the entire game right now.

Since Elden Ring is open world, I'll use Dark Souls 3 as an example. Check out the maps for any major DS3 area, and that area would probably take me 1-1.5h to clear first time, since I need to be careful to avoid death and Miyazaki's trademark gank squads, on new characters or NG+ it's much faster. So with a map like that, I clear it once, kill between 30-50 mobs (I actually counted during a lot of DS2 and DS3 areas), kill a major boss, mostly 1shot the boss, even with Nameless King/Frieda/Midir/Gael level bosses I never get stuck for a few hours, usually between 5-10 attempts or less. Once you're done, voila, a sense of achievement and you can call it a day, since for DS1-3 a single playthrough can be as fast as 15-20h even if you do all the bosses.

With PoE2, every map is a chore, the maps are massive, you get hundreds of mobs per map as is ARPG standard, but you're constantly on your toes fighting giving 80-90% of your "serious attention", can't just mentally go afk and cruise at all. So every map takes at least 20-30 mins (a lot longer for casual players) to full clear and then you have a tedious boss fight that doesn't make you feel awesome even when you defeat the boss and gives you no loot. Unlike Souls games, with an ambitious ARPG like poe2 you have an endless amount of maps to run, it's just so mentally exhausting. It's on par with vanilla WoW in terms of tediousness during the levelling process. Obviously the campaign bosses will all become endgame Atlas map bosses, and since 1 death will lock you out of that map as Jonathan stated, I fear the whole game will be just as tedious and unrewarding.

In any MMO or RPG with a serious endgame, the campaign aka the levelling process is secondary, let's not kid ourselves otherwise. Soulslike are hard and slow progression/wise because there's no endgame, once you defeat Radagon/Elden Beast or Consort Radahn it's NG+ or a new character. ARPGs like poe1 and D4 retained players through the League system. How on earth can anyone, no-lifers excluded, stomach going through this tedium every 3 months, let alone on more than one character?

Never forget that poe2 as a game is ultimately just another commercial product competing for your entertainment time. No lifers actually matter very little for a f2p game like this, most MTX money come from casuals who feel good about the game and feel good when they buy supporter packs. A lot of casuals would be feeling pretty miserable right now.

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z3mcneil#3966 wrote:

Never forget that poe2 as a game is ultimately just another commercial product competing for your entertainment time.

And as history tells us, great and incredibly successful games are all pursuing some specific playerbase instead of trying to please everyone like most modern AAA-class kibble.

Games that are just "for everyone" are at best mildly commercially successful while draining developer's reputation.

"

just_dont#6539 wrote:

"

z3mcneil#3966 wrote:

Never forget that poe2 as a game is ultimately just another commercial product competing for your entertainment time.

And as history tells us, great and incredibly successful games are all pursuing some specific playerbase instead of trying to please everyone like most modern AAA-class kibble.

Games that are just "for everyone" are at best mildly commercially successful while draining developer's reputation.

Yeah so if you had built a successful game and found that passionate fanbase that loved your game then your next move would be to...

Crap out a slower Diablo clone in an attempt to steal the 3% of their players they retained?

"

just_dont#6539 wrote:

"

z3mcneil#3966 wrote:

Never forget that poe2 as a game is ultimately just another commercial product competing for your entertainment time.

And as history tells us, great and incredibly successful games are all pursuing some specific playerbase instead of trying to please everyone like most modern AAA-class kibble.

Games that are just "for everyone" are at best mildly commercially successful while draining developer's reputation.

This is categorically untrue. As it happens, 90% of my gaming time in 2024 went into Elden Ring, Baldur's Gate 3 and Black Myth Wukong. All some of the best-selling AAA games of all time, and all of them pleased hardcore gamers and casuals alike. It's possible to have depth and be hard, and still make casuals feel like they're having fun instead of wasting their time.

"

Gkek#1581 wrote:

Yeah so if you had built a successful game and found that passionate fanbase that loved your game then your next move would be to...

...make a different game that caters to somewhat different playerbase to attract even more players?

Naaaaah, they totally should just make a carbon-copy of PoE1 with new graphics.

"

z3mcneil#3966 wrote:

This is categorically untrue. As it happens, 90% of my gaming time in 2024 went into Elden Ring, Baldur's Gate 3 and Black Myth Wukong.

Not a single one of these games tried to please everyone. In fact, all of the abovementioned had plenty of whiners claiming they don't like particular mechanics, the difficulty, and things like that. Whine about Elden Ring was heavens-shattering, for instance.

You have a nice way to completely disprove your own argument, sir.

"

just_dont#6539 wrote:

"

Gkek#1581 wrote:

Yeah so if you had built a successful game and found that passionate fanbase that loved your game then your next move would be to...

...make a different game that caters to somewhat different playerbase to attract even more players?

Naaaaah, they totally should just make a carbon-copy of PoE1 with new graphics.

You have zero business sense.
Anyone with basic knowledge of business knows it's easier to retain a customer or get repeat business than it is to get a new client.

The entire advertising industry works around this principle.

They are either gambling on hitting the casual audience jackpot or just stupid. If they hit that jackpot, it won't last because that audience by nature is flighty and attracted to the new shiny thing.

If in the process of chasing that you blow up your core audience that you built for over a decade then you have failed.

Loving the difficulty and pace of this game. Never played PoE1 so don't care, but the boss fight encounters are a lot of fun, please don't change to be another steamroll game (a la D4)

I wonder how many complaints are made by people who rolled Warrior (like me), while I can explode the packs of mobs thanks to chainprocs of stun and boneshatter, my autoattack (and it's not even auto - if it were auto, i'd be able to concentrate on moving instead of trying to clunkily do both) is the highest dps skill and also the safest choice. It literally takes 10 mins to kill many bosses in A2 (the stun resistant giant guy, last boss of the act that has unavoidable sword slam attack), half of my gear is still magic and they've already nerfed some skills I hadn't even reached

"

Gkek#1581 wrote:

You have zero business sense.
Anyone with basic knowledge of business knows it's easier to retain a customer or get repeat business than it is to get a new client.

Yeah, that's why those Assassin's Creed games are finally dead.
They went with a "great business sense" route, and they did quite a great business. Until it died.

In game dev industry you either make great games or you die. Simply repeating your old successes always ends in diminishing returns. There are NO exceptions.