All the proof you need that the game is unbalanced

On release day, I and all my friends were having a blast and enjoying the game. The next morning, we were furious.

Why?

Because, based on our assumptions, we thought the Count was deliberately unbeatable and that his attacks would, at a certain point, instantly kill you, because this is a pre-release and that's meant to be a "someday you'll be able to beat him and get to the rest of the story!"

The game was just getting as far as you could in 10 minutes before he "enraged". We were optimizing and building around trying to survive to the "trigger" of the red beam attacks which we assumed just instakill you. We thought the absolutely brutally overpowered enemies in the rest of the game were meant to sort of draw out the limited content.

Look, we are not idiots. Maybe it was our fault for being casual adults around 40 who don't follow every little news story, but learning that there are 2 or 3 more acts available and none of us have even gotten close has made my friends abandon the game and swear to never pick it up again even if they change it. I'm trying with some other classes which are said to be "easier" than my initial pick and doing marginally better, but still, I've never gotten him to under 1/3 health before running out of potions and either being overwhelmed in the add phase or nuked by slightly mistiming a roll on one of his attacks.

I absolutely love this new gameplay but it is clear that enemies overall (1) have wayyyyy too much health, which drag out every fight when the player is still as super vulnerable as every ARPG character is and (2) this results in boss battles being unbearably tedious since you can fight long and hard and a single mistake is impossible to come back from. Enemies also attack far too frequently; most of my deaths come from desperately trying to play keepaway and just being overwhelmed because I never have a chance to stop dodging and kill opponents.

Not even the FROM games are this punishing; despite their reputation, most endgame boss battles in those games last at most 3-5 minutes. I was having 10-12 minute Count Wolf fights, chipping away at him with his unbelievably tight attack windows, only to make a single mistimed or misdirected dodge (or misjudging a hitbox) and dying instantly no matter my build.

I am desperate to like this game but playing it like this is just pulling teeth.

I agree there's some tuning updates needed, but swearing to never pick up a game because an integer might be too high somewhere feels extreme. I hope they reconsider.

We struggled HARD duoing the count on our first characters. I think multiplayer health scaling for bosses may simply be way too punishing. I'm about to get there on a solo character and very curious how impossible it feels.

What classes and how many players, out of curiosity for comparison? We were ranger+warrior, and took hours and some grinding to finally clear it.

Life-wise I'm in the same boat. Nearly 40, I don't follow GGG news nearly as much as I would like to and I definitely didn't do enough reading before jumping in on PoE 2. I'm a super casual PoE 1 players at best, and have typically always been a huge Diablo fan.

I don't say this to brag about it, but as a counter point. I beat the Count on my second try on my Witch. I'm up to I think 21 deaths in the middle of Act 2. The first thing I learned pretty quickly about PoE 2 is that it is not mouse control friendly. It was absolutely designed to be played with WASD or a controller. When I switched from mouse to WASD, I drastically improved my survivability. I'm also okay with dying because I'm learning from my deaths (sometimes not right away, looking at you Balbala - I'm too low level for that fight right now).

Wanting PoE 2 to be PoE 1 with better graphics, newer systems, and more QoL isn't wrong, but PoE 2 is not that. It's not like any other ARPG out there right now. It's a refreshing take on the genre that is asking players to slow down and do a little more thinking about our clicking than before. There is more weight to our decisions, and what we do in the game now which is what makes it so engaging.

As another example for the difficulty, I died probably 6 or 7 times to the Devourer on my first time playing with a Sorceress. I killed the Devourer in 2 or 3 deaths on my Witch, and 0 deaths on my Warrior.

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deviceheretic#3164 wrote:

but learning that there are 2 or 3 more acts available and none of us have even gotten close has made my friends abandon the game and swear to never pick it up again even if they change it

This is actually argument for why the game is balanced and should stay just the way it is. You don't want to try to appeal to this kind of audience. You want to appeal to people who want to spend the next 5k hours on this game, and gatekeep it from people who are seeking a participation trophy before moving on to the next thing.

I'm 50 and don't have a lot of time to play. I chose to play a witch because I figured summoners usually have a little easier time. I was wrong here ha. Having said that I just stayed the course, and got the act 1 boss. I thought it was ridiculous. I think it took me 5 tries to beat him. Little by little I got further until I finally took him down.

I didn't have a good feeling about it though afterward. I didn't feel like wow what an accomplishment. I did that! I beat him!

I thought wow that really sucked ha.

If you find the game difficult and unable to beat Act 1, that doesn't prove it's unbalanced. I defeated the Act 1 boss on my second try as a Warrior. If you're struggling, you need to improve your core game mechanics.

1) Invest more points in defensive passive tree nodes, not just offensive ones.
Try to get gear that increases maximum life.

2) Use your orbs to upgrade your gear as much as possible. Don't just hoard them in your stash. You'll get plenty of them in later Acts.

3) Use skills that synergize with others, and upgrade and support gem those skills. Don't pick all the skills at every level.

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askreet#4736 wrote:

I agree there's some tuning updates needed, but swearing to never pick up a game because an integer might be too high somewhere feels extreme. I hope they reconsider.

We struggled HARD duoing the count on our first characters. I think multiplayer health scaling for bosses may simply be way too punishing. I'm about to get there on a solo character and very curious how impossible it feels.

What classes and how many players, out of curiosity for comparison? We were ranger+warrior, and took hours and some grinding to finally clear it.

We were doing the same, my friend and I. He on a warrior, me on a poison based Ranger.

We noticed, that we were in a group of 4 (2 people not present). It feels like the party scaling is in effect regardless if the participants are present.

There was a boss later on, we couldn't kill after 10 tries. We dropped out of party, and I was like screw it I'll try one more.

I did 3/4 of his health in no time flat. Before I died, we tried again, and downed him in one shot.

So it seems like Party scaling is a little more brutal than PoE 1... and it doesn't only count party members in the location.

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Kazesosa#4543 wrote:

So it seems like Party scaling is a little more brutal than PoE 1... and it doesn't only count party members in the location.

Interesting - we also saw some bugs on day one where we were put in others parties or random people were added to our party. I wonder if during this bug scaling was way off. That would be fun. Yet another reason to let the dust settle before shelving a game forever.