Poe2 Feedback after reaching endgame

Well, since the game crashed during ultimatum trial (and lose the progress and the token), and I am getting unable to interact with the map device because of a bug, and I am not able to go into my hideout since I have yet to unlocked it … lets take some time to write some feedback. ^^

First, Congratulations GGG !!
You have made a magnificent game. The art, the music, the animations, the gameplay , the new skill system, the rework of the crafting and so on. It is … so good. So well done in every part of the production.
Some may remember the discourse about Baldur Gate 3, as some game developers commented that players should not expect this kind of quality, as it is an anomaly, rockstar nonsense, etc.
As a novice game developer wannabe, I must confess that I did get a similar feeling. ^^
How the hell are you supposed to make a game this good ? How do you compete with that game ? This raise the bar for the genre, and feel like a step up in every regard.
There are issues of course, and I would address the ones I have, but I want to make clear that I love the overall experience. It is what I love from PoE1 but without the issues (some new ones, but they can be fixed).

I play a monk, with Acolyte of Chayula ascendancy (the dark edgy one). I finished the campaign in normal and cruel difficulty and did some maps, and I am level 68.

Melee
Melee feels … pretty challenging in the first three acts. Then right before the end of Act3, I gained access to new skills (shattering palm strike), and decided to try some changes. And then it “clicked”. I understood the way to weave in and out of the fights, when to use this skill or this one, how to control my position to then control the positions of the monsters (and the position of the bell). It was like a puzzle that I was misreading. I also understood the roles of each monster type in a pack, and what to look for.

What I would suggest it to give access to all the “movements” skills (as Stampede for the warrior, and shattering palm for the monk) much much earlier. Theses moves serves as an opening, to properly engage with a new pack and take control of the fight.
For the warrior there is shield charge earlier one but why not also stampede, and leap slam ?
For the monk, we have killing palm, but I really did not think of using as a “opener” move, while shattering palm is exactly made for that function. Maybe I am not that smart, but it was also because the attack speed was really not there.

Body blocking.
I see many people talking about it. This is part of the difficulty and I did get punished and eventually learned to properly deal with it, and now I never allow myself to get surrounded. When I see that I am able to get surrounded and step back before it, and use defensive move (mainly wave of frost for monk) to control the fight. So I am not really for just permitting to give phasing during dodge roll. But I do think that in Act 1 , we are missing the tools (mainly skills and supports) to properly deal with that.
EDIT: This was addressed in the most recent patch, you rocks guys !!


Zones/Campaign
As many as said …. this sometimes feel a bit tedious. The maps are huge and you can easily miss what you are looking for because of the fog of war. Not finding the exit, and walking back across an empty map for several minutes, because you miss a turn …This is just not fun. This lead to “hug the walls” of the map, much more than PoE 1.
Not enough checkpoints on some zones. Well the first campaign is always the most painful because you learn the game, the mechanics, the zones. But I am pretty sure there is some zones in Act3 where you can add one or even two checkpoints.

Overall I would say that we are not progressing into it at the same rate as of PoE 1. Like at all. And this is great, the game is much more engaging, and there is a ton of cool stuff to find in the zones. But I also since we should take a step back and really considerer what can be done to be a more fun experience. I dont want to zoom in it like flash, with two quicksilvers flasks. I just dont want to walk across a empty zone after I clear 95% of it, and did not find the exit. Maybe it is skill issue on my part, and someone can point me on how to improve it.

Suggestion
I watched Asmongold suggesting that we could teleport between checkpoints discovered and it seems a good idea given the different pace of PoE2.
EDIT: This was addressed in the most recent patch, you rocks guys !!

Loots
I dont want the game to be like PoE1, where it is unplayable without a loot filter, and where almost no items found matter, because you craft them with crafting techniques taking years to properly grasp.
But I sometimes feel the progression is blocked, and I dont have a path onward. Yes even with checking the vendors in town, I know that.
More than more loot, I think we need more currency to craft the loots. I got like 3 exalted orbs, and 4 alchemy orbs during the campaign. Not really the best to experiment crafting.
I have also drop very little jewels (3). None of them is useful for me.
I also had tons of runes, and very little artificer orbs.

Suggestion
More currency. Even in shards if necessary.

Skills
In for skills, I had more than enough skills gems to upgrade the ones I have, or try new ones. But for support …. I was always too short. And this is not something that you can fix with the vendors if you have bad luck.
Same for the jewellers orbs. So far I found 3 for giving additional slots. And I am level 68. The skill given by the ascendancy (Into the breach) is already having 4 slots open.
How do I fix this ? By trading only ?
And for many skills, upgrading them past a certain level is useless and only increases the manacost. Why would I level up further than 14/15 my tempest bell ? So she can take another hit ? But she is already vanish from duration before taking the hit limit, and the level upgrading dont upgrade the attack damage.
Same for the differents palms strikes. Leveling up Hand of chayula dont affect the malus on the curses inflicted only the damage of the attack, which are non existant.

Suggestion
We should be able to disenchant skills and support gems, to obtain jeweller orbs shards (I know that for now they dont exist). We will obtain shards depending of the levels of the gems. Anything below 15(or whatever you want) we give lesser jeweller orbs. Above it will be greater jeweller orb shards. And for the Perfect Jeweller ORb (6 links), you can not obtain it with disenchanting, making in it still a very valuable drop.
The idea is to have a path onwards, and not be forced to trade if you have bad luck like I did.
And make the upgrade of the skills really do something, even for utilitaries skills.

Trials
For some the worst league is kalandra or necro, or something else. For me it is sanctum. As a melee enjoyer, sanctum is an heresy. The more I engaged with it, the more I hated it. If tomorrow it is removed to the two games, I will see it as a net positive.
Having us force to interact with it for something as important as the ascendancy …
I did it anyway, and I had the boss being bugged and body-pushing the character into AOE.
Well at least we have ultimatum. Which is completely overtuned, and has not be properly tested I am certain. I too have taken the energy shield node, and then encountered the boss with so much ES that I was not able to kill it. And I was perfectly capable of killing the final boss of Act3.
Many of the choices/malus are … made for endgame content, with a clear risk/reward structure. Having the ascendancy lock behind something you cannot beat without behind massively overleveled is bad because you need it in order to progress in the maps.
I completely agree with Ghazzy here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnCcDFdmcX4
Oh and I got crash during the trial.

Suggestion
This is not some endgame content that you can specialize into if you like. You are forced to do it to advance.This need to be doable without being 10 levels over it.

Endgame
Well, this is the part that pushed me to write everything down.
So far, during the campaign I would say that my experience was like a 8/10 for the first two acts, and then go to 10/10 when I had some gears, and a better skills setup.
Then the endgame. And it drop to like 5/10.
I need to engage it more, and have a more … complete experience. But the first impression is pretty bad.
I precise that I dont want to be able to zoom like PoE1. I hate the zoom meta state of PoE1, and always feel like the combat was the lacking part. Once I nearly complete the build that I wanted to play, I stop playing the league, because the gameplay feels boring and monotonous.
I dont want the PoE2 maps to be a snoozefest, where you just walking in and the monsters are dying everywhere, with so much VFX that you can not see anything.
I dont want to change the difficulty of the maps, but I think the completion method need to change.
Having to track down every single rare mob, in a huge labyrinthine map lead to again “hug the walls” of the map, and having the map overlay always open to be sure to not miss a turn, a corridor, to avoid having to walk back accross the entirety of the map.
This do not feel difficult and engaging. This feel tedious and unnecessary. This feel like progression is inexistante.
PoE1 has a very dynamic and engaging progression, but a boring combat/gameplay. This is pretty much the exact reverse.

Suggestions
Have differents objectives types. Kind of like Kirac Missions after all. They can be difficult and having to complete difficult encounters, and have some some subobjectives. Like killing 4 rares and succeding the ritual encounter. Killing the essence mob, and activating 4 differents levers on the map.
When you kill a rare mob, the location of the next closest to you is indicated on the map. It is already the case when the monster count go below a certain count. Just help us a bit instead of having to kill everything
Only some special rares on the maps count as completion.

Death in maps
Hum I am for the maps to be challenging and keeping us on our toes. But this feel a bit too far. Especially since clearing a map is really not that fast. It is not done in 30s, or even 2 minutes. Depending on the layout, this really take time. I am curious to see the completion time of the others. Maybe I am undergear, but as pointed above, having loot is also a issue.

Suggestion
Allowing us to use the portals. But the map reset entirely just like in the campaign. You must succeed in one shot, but you can have several trys.
Or we resurrect inside with a checkpoint and the map reset.



Breach
Breach was pretty much the same as PoE1 (with better looking monsters). But we are not the same as PoE1. The expansion and closure should probably be slower.

Hideout
You must complete specific endgame maps in order to unlock your hideout, and have the ability to trade, or at least to sell items.
Why ? Just why ?
Of everything that I have listed, this is the most glaring/incomprehensible issue for me.

Access to pinnacle boss
Well, I am pretty far from it, so we will see. But I am really worried.
Given what I have see, being able to reach the last tier of the maps will take much longer than PoE. And also the amount of time it take to farm the access to one (like getting breach splinters to create a breachstone), will take not just 1, 2, or 3 hours of farming but much longer than that.
If we only have ONE death allowed, with not resurect/reset inside the map against a pinnacle boss, and we need to run something like 30, 40 maps in order to gain access for each try …
When you die against a boss in Elder Rings, you can retry it almost immediately. So you can become attuned to his movements. At first you are clumsy, but eventually you learn how to dance with it. Because you can continuously try it.
To put it into perspective, if you are a filthy casual like myself with a job, and play only a few hours in the evening, this could mean days between each try on the boss.
That cant be the case, there must be some information that I am missing.

I agree with the OP x1000%. I reached Endgame after walking through Act 1-3 cruel. The first three acts we're spectacular since the bosses and character power levels were well tuned.

Acts 1-2-3 in Cruel difficulty with a monk was a formality.
Pretty much face tanked everything, unless I got 1 shot by after death blasts or large Chaos AoE effects.

To me the maps feel just plain boring. So little to do, drops are scarce, so what's the point of the grind? The loot?! Surely not...

The drop rate of low level waytsones within the low tier maps is ridiculous.

I dropped 12-13 waystones in the campaign after hitting Lvl ~65.

I got only 2 to drop WITHIN those 12 maps, and that was also using rare waystones with 160% chance to drop... I mean, if you have to farm the campaign to be able to grind the endgame, IMHO, its a failure by design.

Right now, it feel to me like the game as features there only to make sure that the available content is actually engaged with, rather than being popular because its truly Fun. (Trials for example).

What's rewarding by completing a map/Challenge where the sole goal is to avoid being hit by mobs?
If I'm playing a 5000HP Tank that is BUILT to take hits and mitigate damage, why punish me for using that build?

This feels like I'm being pigeonholed into specific builds that are required to be able to go further into REQUIRED mechanics/trials.

I also agree that the Skill Gem @ higher levels aren't worth it, the mana cost is just there to somewhat artificially choke the DMG output by not having the resource to use it constantly. same with the Gem quality bonuses.

To me endgame feels exactly like D4 did/does.

Cheers.

Ascendancies being gated behind two controversial system is a very questionable decision! We ran a poll on our Discord ranging from +2 0 -2 in the like scale for both Sanctum and Ultimatum. With nearly 40 votes, every was negative.

Why is critical character progression gated behind gameplay feature so strongly disliked?

Hideout, I get the reason for unlocked through maps. But man that feels so bad, you unlock it way too long into the game.

Wrong sub-forum, this is for POE1. https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-forum/2213