I don't want to play Ruthless.

It's not so much the limited drops and the limited currency, I'm sure those can be adjusted with hotfixes in the future. It's the dodge roll and the lack of movement skills. I just fought Jamanra and had to dodge roll 6 consecutive times to avoid a 3 melee hit combo, followed by another 2 hit melee combo then a laser. Give us back movement skills please, and leave dodge roll on a 4-6 second cooldown. It seems too powerful when timed perfectly and I am completely able to avoid a boss mechanic that probably should have hit me, based on my positioning, its also needed too much during a boss fight and feels like I am dodge rolling more than attacking. The boss designs are great but only having dodge roll just feels like I'm playing Elden Ring. Also the crafting in POE was a huge draw for me and many of my friends, the gutting of crafting feels terrible; slamming items and hoping for the best without any determinism (except fossils) feels bad and something I would expect from Diablo. Alteration spam is fine with me, I think the only thing that absolutely had to be changed was chance orb - scour spam.

For the EA, we should have the gold cost of respeccing greatly reduced, I shouldn't have to spend hours farming to be able to respecc the passive tree in an early access beta that's purpose is to test and give feedback. Let us respecc for free for at least very cheap so we can all try every build in the game over the next few months. Also, since I am on the topic of gold.... selling items to vendors in town feels like it doesn't belong in the POE world. It's quite tedious to walk around to each vendor in an attempt to maximize my profit by going to the salvage block first for socket currency, then another vendor for regal shards or augment shards, then selling the rest for gold. I suggest to take away gold from vendors and just have each vendor give the appropriate currency as they did in POE1. The vendor recipe system was useful for experienced players and intuitive for new players. New recipes would be interesting, augments for blue items, regals for rares and chance for uniques as it stands now makes sense!

The map isn't intuitive, the skulls with the symbols, what reward do I get from each boss? Is that skill fully greyed out or is it still lit, have I killed that boss already or not? The above/below ground button seems like a hidden menu, the below ground areas should be tied into the main map. The passive tree could use a little pruning, there seem to be too many junk nodes that are there to just take up space. Lastly, I have to say that the gem menu is really bad and I miss the old system. Gems felt like they had personality and weight as you dropped them into your armor and you clicked to level them up every time, now it feels like I am browsing through an online menu which thematically doesn't fit the fantasy.

Monster design, combat, art, sound, story are all absolutely top notch so far. I can't wait for POE2 release and I hope it sets records, but I feel that the way the game is now has probably scared off the casuals and frustrated semi-casuals. The things that need to be fixed aren't easily adjusted with a tuning knob, there are some fundamental things that need to change for the game to be at it's best state.

You're talking like they patched POE. You can still go and play POE to have your movement skills and no dodge roll and 500 items on the screen at one time. There's a reason why they're running both poe and poe2 along side each other. And as a casual this game is far better than poe is for me where you have to spend insane hours speed clearing maps.

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You can still go and play POE1

This is the most unlogical thing to say to someone. The thing is, POE2 EA in it's current state pretty much ruined both games.

Noone really feels like they want to go back to POE1, because they like xyz in POE2 too much. And they also don't feel like they want to keep playing POE2, because they like a lot of things in POE1. Previously we only had POE1 to rely on and we liked it how it was, now none of the games seem to hit the right spot anymore.

I don't like the ruthless taste POE2 currently has, but that doesn't mean I want or HAVE to go back to POE1. I don't mind not having movement skills, crafting bench. I don't mind having to start boss fights all over. I like the checkpoint system. I love the graphics and I like area & boss designs, the new atlas. Like there's SO MUCH to love about POE2 that you're just not getting from POE1 anymore.

We're in a state where going back to POE1 feels like taking a step back and missing out of a beautiful game, but staying in POE2 feels like hitting your head against the wall.

Anyways, IDK, I can pretty much bare with a lot of the ruthless aspects of POE2, but sadly I feel like I'm drawing a line at 1 portal maps and Sanctum. But I also don't feel like 6 portals and Lab is more inviting, because I like to looks and feel of POE2 way more.

If you see what I mean...