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

I’m jumping into this thread to share my two cents. Full disclosure: I haven’t read all 80 pages of comments, so I’m not sure if this has already been said or whether my thoughts will resonate, but here goes.

I haven’t played much of Path of Exile 1, but I’m a seasoned ARPG player coming from games like Diablo 3, Diablo 4, and others in the genre. I also love Dark Souls and other Soulsborne games—they’re amazing in their own right.

That said, my expectations for Path of Exile are very different from what I expect from a Soulsborne game. In PoE, I’m looking for an experience similar to PoE1 or Diablo: the chance to craft a unique and powerful character, clear the screen with satisfying explosions, and get that dopamine rush from discovering cool quests, engaging stories, and, most importantly, exciting gear (not to mention gear that actually matters).

My main issue with the game isn’t necessarily the gear—or even the lack of it. It’s the way difficulty is designed. Soulsborne games are hard in a smart way. Their challenge comes from clever mechanics, unpredictable boss patterns, and the need for precise execution. Here, however, the difficulty feels frustrating and unfair.

Take bosses, for example—looking at you, Lachlann. They often kill me in a single hit while my damage feels negligible. I’m stuck endlessly dodge-rolling and chipping away at their health, which doesn’t feel rewarding or meaningful. Worse, it’s hard not to feel like I’ve made a terrible mistake with my build. But after watching YouTube guides and comparing my setup with other players—specifically as a Monk—I realized my build is very similar to what others are doing.

This kind of difficulty isn’t fun. It’s not fun to feel underpowered. It’s not fun to spend five minutes dodging, landing minimal hits, and then getting one-shot. If the goal is to make the game hard, focus on smart, engaging design—not lazy mechanics like reducing player damage, inflating boss health, or cranking up their damage output. That approach feels tedious and uninspired.

Right now, the game feels schizophrenic. It’s trying to straddle the line between being a Soulsborne-inspired experience and a traditional ARPG. And honestly, it shouldn’t be a tough decision. The majority of the player base is here for an ARPG, not a Soulsborne clone. Focus on what PoE does best and lean into that identity.

“Feedback as a seasoned player and a mid-30s father with limited time: I enjoy the mob density and overall difficulty, but bosses, especially the Act 1 final boss, are a nightmare for melee classes. The time-to-kill and difficulty feel massively amplified because 75% of the fight is spent spamming one button—dodge. It’s not engaging or fun, and melee feels heavily punished compared to ranged. It took me 16 hours of play, reaching level 20 on a monk with good gear, to finally beat it.

If the grind is going to absorb this much time to hit max level every 3 months or however long a season lasts, this game clearly isn’t designed for anyone with a career and kids who value their family time. The artificial time sink, gated by the heavy reliance on dodge-rolling mechanics, makes it even worse. Please consider rebalancing both the difficulty and the time commitment to make the game more accessible for those of us with limited time but a passion for playing.”

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Craimasjien#7172 wrote:

It’s trying to straddle the line between being a Soulsborne-inspired experience and a traditional ARPG. And honestly, it shouldn’t be a tough decision.

It's not a tough decision, PoE 2 should stay exactly the way it is and if you want the "traditional" ARPG experience, you can go back to PoE 1. No reason to have two very similar live service f2p games competing with each other.

PoE 2 is NOT DS, so being intentionally that way is stupid and nosense.

Well, at least we are gonna see it sinking like Titanic.

GGG you die a hero or you live long enough to see yourselves become villains

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Summoner#7705 wrote:

It's not a tough decision, PoE 2 should stay exactly the way it is and if you want the "traditional" ARPG experience, you can go back to PoE 1. No reason to have two very similar live service f2p games competing with each other.

I'd have to add that PoE2 is EXACTLY traditional, it's PoE1 that nowadays belong squarely to "modern one-click ARPGs".

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Summoner#7705 wrote:

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Craimasjien#7172 wrote:

It’s trying to straddle the line between being a Soulsborne-inspired experience and a traditional ARPG. And honestly, it shouldn’t be a tough decision.

[...] No reason to have two very similar live service f2p games competing with each other.

I fully support you here. And I would be totally fine with it being more difficult, I'd praise it for this if it's done the right way. But the tedious way "difficulty" is implemented right now is simply not fitting. That's why I called this game schizophrenic, as it has no idea what it wants to be. Either make it difficult in a fun way or be the traditional ARPG. But whatever this monstrosity should be I don't know.

Souls games are action role playing games (arpg). Think about Nioh.

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Summoner#7705 wrote:

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Craimasjien#7172 wrote:

It’s trying to straddle the line between being a Soulsborne-inspired experience and a traditional ARPG. And honestly, it shouldn’t be a tough decision.

It's not a tough decision, PoE 2 should stay exactly the way it is and if you want the "traditional" ARPG experience, you can go back to PoE 1. No reason to have two very similar live service f2p games competing with each other.

Exactly this - why does everyone just want to play the same game over and over and over? There are little differences between PoE 1 AND D3/D4 - yes PoE is far more complicated road but, eventually all of those games become purely concerned with speed and nothing else - great, if thats what you want but that isn't what D2 was and it isn't why I got into ARPG's.

I was enjoying the game and was fine with the bosses until I fight the Act1 boss, that kind of encounter where execution is needed doesn't belong in a normal difficulty setting, it belong in maps as pinnacle bosses (and even then, the fights aren't enjoyable).

WASD is REQUIRED for these kind of bosses, your mouse is not reliable enough for what's required to beat that kind of encounter, your standard ARPG User Interface (mouse based) is pretty much obsolete now, you need WASD now in order to progress and get less frustrated by bosses which require EXECUTION (something that's not supposed to be important in ARPGs).

I heard Act 2 is way worse, so I can imagine having to deal with these clown encounters later on in maps.

I've been here since 2012 Closed Beta.

You're now declared as Closed Beta.

Bye.