A bit disappointed at the current feeling of the game

I'm just gonna leave this here, since it's a thread for early access feedback. I'll preface it by mentioning this is my opinion, and perhaps it's different from what the rest of the community has to say, and maybe a lot of people will disagree. I'm just reporting my own thoughts on the game.

I consider one of the main factors of ARPGs to be loot. There's just a really great feeling when you find an item that particularly fits your build. And there's another feeling - the one you get when you find an item drop that would fit that OTHER build so well, the lightning mage that you've been thinking about while playing your current spin2win warrior, or the super mobile life leech rogue that you've been thinking about while playing your current summoner. It gives you incentive to continue playing, and it gives you replayability.

The other important aspect is pacing. I won't make a new character if it's slow to level, because I'll get bored until I reach endgame. I think we all play our current character with the thought of what it will be, not what it is. We're thinking of the synergies at high level, we're thinking about what skills will be best, what items will drop, etc. But pacing can kill that thought. The slower the pace of the game, the more time people spend in the early/mid-game, the less people actually want to reach endgame. It's not a question of difficulty, it's a question of boredom. Having said that, there are of course some things that can make gameplay less boring - interesting side quests for example would help (however this doesn't add replayability), but the main thing is the addition of random things. Encounters, events, bosses... things that will appear in playthrough#1, but not in playthrough#2. Think of a roguelike - no two experiences will be the same, that's why people keep making new characters. You only need to take a bit of that 'random' and insert it into an ARPG, and you have replayability. And this loops back to the random item drops.

I think the current version of PoE2 has weaknesses in both these aspects. You start off very slow. It's not difficult. Difficult is another experience - it's one that you can overcome by practice. PoE2 early game is just slow. And this wouldn't be a problem if it could still maintain interest by dropping that interesting item that you'll want to roll another character in order to use. But in the first few hours of the game, you're experiencing neither a fast enough pace to keep you motivated to continue, nor do you get varied enough loot to incentivize you to roll that new char. The early game for me is atm just... boring. Annoying. Feels like something I have to get past to reach the good part. Not like an obstacle that you need to surpass, something difficult that you need to use your brain and/or your reflexes to beat - just a normal-feeling road that's longer than you wish it would be, and with nothing along the way to make the journey interesting. A normal road would be fine. A long one isn't.

My 2 cents is that this game direction takes a step away from ARPGs. It may be intended and hell, it may even be what the community wants. Personally, I still want to have fun along the way to the end-game, not just when I reach it. I'll be coming back to PoE2 in the future, probably more than a few times. And I hope I can find more joy in it in the next iteration. But for now I'll play games which are more fun or interesting. And this is not intended as an insult to PoE2, just as a... fact I suppose. Because there are other games out there that provide fun throughout the experience not just towards the end, and if the goal of gaming is to have fun, I prefer to not walk a long road to get to the amusement park.

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strbits#2582 wrote:

I think the current version of PoE2 has weaknesses in both these aspects. You start off very slow. It's not difficult. Difficult is another experience - it's one that you can overcome by practice. PoE2 early game is just slow. And this wouldn't be a problem if it could still maintain interest by dropping that interesting item that you'll want to roll another character in order to use. But in the first few hours of the game, you're experiencing neither a fast enough pace to keep you motivated to continue, nor do you get varied enough loot to incentivize you to roll that new char. The early game for me is atm just... boring. Annoying. Feels like something I have to get past to reach the good part. Not like an obstacle that you need to surpass, something difficult that you need to use your brain and/or your reflexes to beat - just a normal-feeling road that's longer than you wish it would be, and with nothing along the way to make the journey interesting. A normal road would be fine. A long one isn't.

Yeah, I resonate with that sentiment, especially when starting the game FRESH with 0 items/currency in stash. Obviously, it's a very different story once you can twink your new chars.