Addressing your Early Access Post-launch Feedback

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Iwormkai#7419 wrote:

Bloodmage rework when?
Awful Ascendancy, I regret making my first experience in Path of Exile 2 worse than repeatedly getting hit by a truck.

wait, you don't enjoy speccing into an ascendancy notable that bricks your character, gives you 5 life regen and makes your spells cost 100-200 each?

what are you. sane?

In Path of Exile 2, two-handed weapon combat feels way too slow, even slower than in Souls-like games with giant weapons. Each swing takes forever, leaving you wide open as enemies hit you multiple times before you can land a single blow. Boss fights get frustrating because the screen is filled with dangers before you can even land your first heavy attack. The passive skill tree also has nodes that lower attack speed, making an already sluggish playstyle even worse.

The skill gem system is another big issue. If the right spheres don't drop, you're stuck with no damage and no useful support gems, which rarely drop in the first place. This creates a huge imbalance and ruins the flow of gameplay.

The passive skill tree is a clear downgrade compared to PoE1. There are barely any good synergies for specific builds, and the ones that exist are weak and scattered across the tree. Many passives are useless or just bad, and some even have negative effects that outweigh any positives. A lot of important passives from PoE1 are missing, and there’s no real depth or strong mechanics in the tree. The design is worse overall, with many empty spots and poorly thought-out choices.

The interface is also less user-friendly and informative than in PoE1. Important data is missing, and unnecessary layers of info just get in the way, making it harder to navigate and understand your stats.

Ascendance in PoE2 are weak, boring, and lack any unique mechanics or significant damage boosts. Most of their abilities can be found in the regular skill tree or support gems, making them pretty much useless.

Itemization is another huge problem. Finding decent gear from drops is nearly impossible, and crafting is even worse. There are no resources to craft what you need, and even if you had them, the random system is unforgiving. I’ve been stuck in Act 3 still wearing blue items because the necessary yellow ones don’t drop. There’s no gold for gambling, and crafting feels pointless because of the sheer randomness. The gear progression is frustrating, to say the least.

Overall, PoE2 has a lot of issues.

I haven't experienced the memory leak + the stuttering (at times) I've had with another ARPG.

I haven't had any issues with action keys acting weird due to my connected HOTAS as with ... another different ARPG.

Enjoying roaming around discovering these larger maps. Felt like a god, after defeating, a mini boss having a (blue) weapon drop with two additional dmgs and a ring of life regen.

Thanks GGG

Please add controller and mouse hotswap asap. Its not modern to restrict this in the caracter menu. Most people use both at the same time to fight with controller and manage inventory, Skill trees, trading and so on with mouse.

PLEASE, DO NOT CHANGE THE DIFFICULTY OF THE GAME

Honestly, as Asmon said, Golden Era has begun. Balance changes, QoL improvements, jada jada. It's the vision that counts and you guys outdid everything. IMO the biggest hype train ever that has actually bombarded itself off - the Diablo 2 that every Diablo 2 player has ever needed. Lots of love to you guys. Oh, forgot to ask, can early access apply for GOTY? Just state it's a pre-release DLC and you're golden.

About map size and traversal related changes, I think movement speed in combat is fine as it is, but out-of-combat movement solution is needed. In long term getting a mount would be cool, and the game already has some MTX for out-of-combat movement. Besides, there’s an abandoned Rhoa sitting somewhere in Deshar. We can’t just leave this poor creature all alone; maybe it could come with us?

Overall, I’m glad to see that you’re carefully working on changes, and it’s been cool to see what has been prepared so far. Even if it doesn’t feel perfect, that’s what early access is for, after all.

Loving these changes! They definitely are a step to the right direction.

However, I think there are still some gameplay changes that need to be implemented ASAP:
- Honor system has to go, at least in the Ascendancy runs. It is way too punishing for melee characters, as it still is and was in PoE1. I think that removing it only for the characters that are not Ascended would be the best way to make things work. That way, sanctum enjoyers could still play as intended, while others will not feel bad about having to run the not fun mechanic and being punished for playing melee.

- Ultimatum needs to be nerfed. I think that the fastest solution for now would be to add 1-2 seconds to a new mobs' respawn delay. That way, it would be possible to kill a pack and still have some time to pull the levers there and not get swarmed and stunlocked.

- Add some rewards to the unique monsters in the acts, maybe a guaranteed rare jewellery item or something like that. That would improve league start experience.

- Remove the deletion of loot & respawning of mobs on character death. That is not fun at all, you already are punished by having to run the unnecessarily huge maps AND have to kill everything again. It's just tedious and has no gameplay benefit to it.

- PLEASE make an option in the settings to disable or make smaller the bosses' HP bar that is shown in the top part of the screen. In some boss fights it covers the boss and makes its attacks less visible and less predictable. Personally, I would've disabled it if I had the option to do it or switched to a lesser bar (like the one that can show your character's or minions' HP and can be toggled on/off in the settings).

- Add Blight <3

Thank you GGG!

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- Honor system has to go, at least in the Ascendancy runs. It is way too punishing for melee characters, as it still is and was in PoE1.

I actually think that honor system just needs rework. Like it could consume honor when you are drinking potions instead of just taking hits, that way your sustain and ability to back off when needed would actually matter. Like I mostly had no problem with first ascendancy as ranged class, but what if I'm deciding to do something silly like thorns build, it would be just impossible.

Very good changes.
Unfortunately, I still feel like boss loot is very underwhelming.

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Regal orb drop rates increased around 40%

40% of 0 is still 0...

Sorry, jokes aside. Still feels like I get 0 regals. The only ones so far are from disenchanting rares.