The atlas/map system is a downgrade from PoE 1 and not fun for long
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I seriously do not like the atlas/map system. Sure, it looks nice, but that's about it sadly. I don't think I'll be able to play this continuously for years like PoE 1 for various reasons:
1. I'm forced to run maps I don't want to run. This alone is already just terrible and should not be the case. 2. Setting up and stacking towers sucks as a mechanic, I hate it and I don't want to do it. I just want to map. But not doing it correctly is seriously punishing because most of the worth and ultimately fun of maps is behind this mechanic. 3. Running the towers themself sucks. (I especially like not being able to see into rooms, much fun with some builds!) 4. Farming a mechanic you want to play (Breach, Delirium etc.) is annoying because of the points above. 5. Getting skill points for the mechanic(s) of your choice can be extremely time consuming or even somewhat impossible in case of Expedition or Ritual. I'm level 94, 7 days of playtime, yet to see a single boss except Breach. Breach seems the only one that is feasible to do. Splitting boss skill points from the general atlas points is a good idea, because needing a bossing and a mapping tree was stupid and restrictive after all, but splitting map mechanics from the atlas points feels pointless because they are for maps, and in the current state it just feels broken tbh. 6. If you find a special map you may need to do a shitload of other maps to reach it because there are no connections anywhere close for some reason. Takes away much of the joy of finding something, because points above. 7. The one death per map feels oppressive for anything that isn't an ordinary map. Bosses are very rare and really expensive. I still haven't done Arbiter even though I found the 3 fragments. I don't know the boss and I don't feel like wasting it. I know it's stupid but that's just what the game makes me do. I could e.g. NEVER do the Ritual boss even if I should ever find it for this very reason. PoE 1 did all of this better. I could chose what maps to run, I could even chose which maps drop more. There were no towers, I could just spec what I want to get (more) in the atlas tree and that's it. And no need to first get and do the bosses multiple times to even get started with individual mechanics, I got skill points simply by doing all maps once. Essentially I could simply run maps, the core mechanic, brainlessly when I wanted to and it was - or at least felt - perfectly fine. This is not possible in PoE 2. Mapping feels more like a strategy game, and if I'm not doing good enough at it I won't get many rewards at all. Instead I will be running Vaal Factories without anything in it. Or worse: motherfucking delirium Willow, aka the no-monitor experience. I just can't wait to do that again! The overall feel of the game is imho a lot better than PoE 1, the movement, animations, combat, all is really nice and makes me want to play, but the map system does not. Last bumped on Jan 4, 2025, 8:41:28 AM
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Yeah +1 to pretty much everything.
Endgame needs a huge rework, this is not it. Lack of favorite map system is gonna be a big thing that burns people out, on top of the death penalties. |
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" Pretty sure 99% of poe1 players feel the same. Everyone else that never played the first game and want to complain that we need to get good or this is not poe1. Have no idea how the game has been branded to the base. So yeah this is a huge pile of garbage atm. The whole EA is honestly. The graphics are amazing the story was ok the boss fights are just annoying honestly. The way mapping is atm is just trash. When you have to spend 5 mins on pretty much every map back tracking because you missed a rare. |
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" I really wouldn't go this far. The core of the game is there and it's good. Most problems currently are balancing problems and can be resolved by tweaking numbers or skill behavior. Things like mobs pushing you while invulnerable are also no big deals to change. Armor can be reqorked, life can be reworked. But the map system is not just numbers. That's why I think it could be an actual problem going forward, unlike most other issues the game currently has. Running maps in the evening shouldn't require me to first contact my strategist and get briefed on the state of my towers and then lay out my plan for going forward. PoE 1 was just nice in that regard. I could blast some maps with my brain off, or do other "more complicated" content if I felt like it. |
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" What of the core do you find good? To me the core systems in the game almost all feel like trash, the skill tree a downgrade, the gem system a downgrade aside from socket colors, the skills and the "depth" of their interactions a downgrade, the classes being pigeonholed into devloper's preferred playstyle to make it easier for them to "balance" a downgrade, non of the core systems seems like any sort of improvement or innovative game design. But we got a dodge roll WOW so modern just like DARKSOULS...it's trash. I Forgot "crafting" is also trash |
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The Atlas is the very foundation of the endgame and the fact that GGG have got it so wrong is worrying. I honestly don't know how it can be rescued.
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Straying away from poe1 mapping system is such a big fail for all of the points above. It took so long to make it where we can run exactly what we want and block what we dont. Why are we trying to reinvent the wheel? Let me run the map layouts that i like and disregard the ones i dont. Let me choose what mechanics are in my maps. It was all figured out already and they make it so visually complicated and overwhelming with the endless map that is totally unnecessary. Waystones are so stupid compared to maps
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yeah, that's it!! this new tower mechanics doesnt make sense at all.
i like the possibility to upgrade differents skill tree for each mechanic, but we almost can't farm what we want in the map we want! doing t15 waystone and drop t5 waystone, why??? | |
" No, not really. Maybe it's good from a super-loyal PoE1 player's perspective, but from a general ARPG standpoint, PoE2 is a Frankenstein's monster of outdated concepts, poorly implemented mechanics and whatnot trying to walk in several directions at the same time. It's far from "fine" on a core level, let alone good. Sure, it looks nice and sounds decent, but that's the extent of it all. As soon as we look "under the hood", though... Schizophrenic approach to combat - some of the game (read: early campaign) was clearly designed with a careful, deliberate combat in mind. Setting up and maneuvering, timing your attacks, learning enemy patterns and the environment... Act 1, especially, plays nothing like PoE1 or Diablo - it's closer to roguelites/souls-likes. It even tried to teach you stuff like NOT charging mindlessly into tall grass (Farmlands), which was a beautiful touch - and there are multiple moments like that during the campaign. Then you enter the maps and suddenly, it's mind-numbing spamfest with enemy affixes stacked with no sense or meaning, untelegraphed oneshots and whatnot. Ugh. It's as if they started designing a top-down Dark Souls with i-frame dodging, active blocking and all that but then decided to f it all and make a bullet hell button masher. Itemization is awful. SSF plays like a full-time job at a company where everyone hates you - nonexistent rewards and progression, no hope of achieving anything in reasonable time. Trade mode, on the other hand, feels like the entire combat part is little more than a tiresome minigame strapped to the main game which is a web-based marketplace/stock exchange simulator. Your goal is no longer defeating some ancient evil or saving the world - it's now buying low and selling high all day, because every other method of progressing is vastly inferior. Considering the fact that OP is correct about the Atlas being a disaster on top of it all, my take on PoE2 in its current form is "back to the drawing board and this time, come up with a coherent idea first". |
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+1 to OP. already quit because of the awful endgame map system
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