The "A" in "ARPG" stands for "difficult"
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After the first day, PoE2 leaves me a little dissatisfied overall. But I'll start with the positive things first:
- Mega atmosphere! - Great sound! - Crisp skills! - Super hit feedback! - Everything is very coherent! As far as the pure style and technical implementation goes, I have absolutely nothing to criticize about PoE2. The game is simply great, both visually and technically. So it's all the more unfortunate that FOR ME it's not really fun, or only in rare moments. I have divided my problems with PoE2 into 5 points: 1. the campaign is too difficult Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against a difficult endgame, crunchy bosses in the later stages etc.. I don't think that does any harm. But in the campaign it's just wrong. The first time you play it, you play it to see everything and take your time, okay. But after the second char, the campaign only serves to get to the endgame. Let's be honest, nobody plays PoE in the leagues because of the story! And it's no fun to get stuck on bosses in the story in Act 1 because you can't progress without them. Then going back, changing skills or farming 1-2 more levels is just not fun. GGG has also done so much to make the game more accessible for new players. Which I think has been a great success at many points. But inexperienced players probably won't even finish Act 1. I don't see how this get someone hooked to the game as a new Player. 2. this is not an ARPG / Hack & Slay For me, ARGP means running through hordes of enemies and destroying everything! I want to feel powerful, I want to destroy the opponents, the faster the better. That's what ARPG means. The “A” should stand for "action" and not for "difficulty" or "tactics". At least not in the campaign. The endgame is a completely different matter. Even normal enemies take too long to kill. It simply has to feel more fluid. Other games, but especially PoE1, do this much better. Again, not talking about endgame here. 3. it's not rewarding When you kill a hard boss, after multiple attempts, and then get a Scroll of Wisdom, a gray and a blue piece, it just doesn't feel like it's worth the effort. For one thing, it doesn't feel good when you only just manage to beat the boss after several attempts and then you don't even get anything halfway useful. The loot from rare monsters is usually much better than that from bosses. You are tortured by the bosses during the campaign, simply because you have to. 4. it is slow and spacious The perceived speed is just too slow for me. Skills take too long to cast, you run too slowly and everything is far away. You have to run and search long distances and there is usually a greater distance between enemies. If you're only moving in slow motion, it gets annoying at some point. The fact that there are no movement skills that at least give you the feeling of speed or are more "snappy", makes the problem even worse. 5. movement Dodging is a nice idea, if it were just a feature. But it's actually essential to use it. With bosses anyway. But I have three problems with it from my point of view: - Dodging is too slow and too short. Even with it, you often can't get out of the way in time of bosses attacks. - The style as implemented in PoE2 is more suited to a Souls-Like than an ARPG. Whether well implemented or not, it just doesn't fit the game for me. - Enemies block the dodge. You constantly get stuck on enemies or you can't get past them and are then pushed further into a corner, which most of the times just means death. If you HAVE to work with dodging, then it should work better. It's just frustrating like this. That's my first experience. It's a really great foundation. But in my opinion, too much of the genre has been overlooked here. In terms of gameplay, it's clearly not a PoE for me and especially not an ARPG. That's just my personal opinion. If you enjoy it otherwise, I'm happy for you. ;) Have a great early access all! Last bumped on Dec 8, 2024, 8:25:38 AM
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Agreed
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I completely agree with you, you should post this review to steam as well.
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I agree with this - it's frustrating to see some truly AMAZING improvements and have so much of the gameplay feel the opposite of fun.
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Actually, now that I have progressed some, I'm going to roll back some of my "too difficult" criticism and say it's pretty close to spot on...as long you keep in mind you're not playing 1.
You do have to farm gold/equipment drops early and often but you get much stronger defensively with minor gear upgrades in armor, with life regen of any kind and dodge rolling very frequently. Offensively, passive nodes you wouldn't bother with on 1 make a difference in 2, such as the 10% increased of whatever relevant damage. The game is fun and challenging. |
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" I think there is a fine line between "challenging" and "frustrating". And for me, in terms of my post, they are sadly more on the latter side. And also, I agree with most of your comment here. Just not for the campaign. Farming in endgame is fine. The difficulty can be much higher once you completed the story-line. But not before. Keeping in mind that we have to play this in every league, probably even multiple times. Just don't feels right for me personally. And I like that you revised your previous opinion of it. Good for you! |
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ngl, I was super hyped for this ... played 40 mins on warrior then uninstalled and sent a ticket to see if I could get a refund.
This is Ruthless 2.0 + dark souls mashup. If they make an "easy / standard mode" maybe I'll give it another shot. Hopefully, some people enjoy it the way it is but it's not my jam and I'm gonna bow out of this one. |
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" 100% agree |
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" Well, that's maybe a bit hard, but I clearly see why this is totally different from the expectations. It's the same for me, clearly not genre-typical. |
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" The main difficulty issue is that white mobs are damage sponges. They don't die in like 3-4 hits, which now makes the magic/rare mobs able to damage you while you have to deal with adds. They are what make most bosses difficult (at least so far, I'm in A2) because you get swarmed a ton. I think early bosses hit way too hard, especially when there's not really a whole lot of counterplay or preparation that players have to start with. " This is my biggest problem with the game. I've been nearly full-clearing every zone (like 85-90%), and I drop NOTHING. I'm level 17 and I'm still rocking an ilvl 2 wand and an ilvl 4 shield. I have one piece of gear from the act boss that's a magic ilvl 15 belt, the rest of my gear is ilvl 11 or under. I had a friend give me one rare, and I found one myself. In the entirety of Act I, that's just unacceptable. There's no equipment to farm. And gold is so sparse and costs are so incredibly high to start with that this is not the answer, it's a workaround, at most. There is a core piece of the loot-based ARPG that's missing from the game and it's incredibly noticeable. " I wish I could agree. I really, really want to like the game. I've been a fan since the original Diablo, sunk tons of hours into that, Hellfire, and thousands into D2/LoD. Probably thousands more in D3. Almost 10k into PoE 1. I couldn't even force myself to play through Act I of PoE 2 last night when I was prepped to play all night through today. I've been forcing myself to continue in hopes that it gets better, but from what I heard, the difficulty spikes in A2 and A3 are both ridiculous, so I'm not really looking forward to it like I'd hoped. I really do hope they take player feedback to heart. Because there is a lot to like, and it's so close to being a masterpiece, but they've repeated mistakes from PoE 1 while missing the things that made PoE 1 fun. |
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