We welcome First Impression posts! Please be nice to those posts.

In the current state of PoE2, getting to the end of Act1 is all I could stomach.
It looks nice, plays nice, but my god is it slow and boring.

- The boss fights feel unrewarding, tedious and extremely favouring ranged classes.
95% of the boss loot is either something my class can't/would never use or utter garbage. (+% physical damage on a weapon that doesn't do physical damage? really?)
Concerning boss mechanics: If I'm in melee range, I'm constantly in danger of being oneshotted by a shotgun effect skill or a large AoE around the boss. That is if I'm even allowed to get into melee range. Sometimes the boss just spills poison on the ground all around him that melts me in seconds, so I can just twiddle my thumbs while spamming dodge rolls. Meanwhile ranged characters just stand one screen away taking little to no damage from anything and doing their full dps.
Okay, let's say I've mastered dodging every move the boss throws at me. Why do I have to do it for 10 minutes? I've seen everything the boss has to offer 50 times already.
I've maxed all skill gems available for my mace/shield warrior, yet the best dps skill I have is my auto-attack? Is that intended for warrior class?

- The drops in general are just awful.
End of act 1 and I don't even have a single ring or amulet. Not one dropped.
Every single weapon that I used had to be crafted from a white base with whatever absolutely miniscule amount of orbs I could drop. Yes, I did every optional fight, explored every map, opened every chest. This is not okay.
The main reason why I quit playing PoE1 is the need to replay the same old campaign EVERY. SINGLE. SEASON.
The fact that we now have to do it twice aside (oh joy), I am absolutely not willing to revisit areas I've already cleared to grind for nearly non-existent drops. Save that kind of grind for endgame, campaign has no place for it.

- Leveling of skill and support gems is so much worse than in PoE1
Literally nobody asked for this change. Tying RNG into skill progression feels incredibly bad. I can play for hours and not get a single skill upgrade, just because I got unlucky, all the while my character level and monster level is going up. So effectively I'm getting weaker as I level up.
Thanks, but no thanks.

Think I'll just wait a month or two while keeping an eye on patch notes, before trying again. Honestly, if I could I'd refund the 50+ pack. In its current state I'm sure as hell won't be recommending PoE2 to anyone.

It would be waaaaaay better to fix low fps. PoE1 runs so much better and so smoothly, that PoE2 looks very very bad in comparison. I’m playing on Xbox series s and getting 27-40 fps is not a good UX. I tried to lower graphics settings but the game becomes absolute pixel mess on low settings with 60 fps. PoE1 in contrary looks awesome and runs super fast with occasional fps drops in very crowded situations and spells. PoE2 by default gives me around 27-40 fps and goes lower in combat. I understand this is Early Access, and I hope the game will be optimised better for actual release.

I like the game in general. Though orbs drop very rarely, and yellow gear is also very rare to drop, but in the interview developers said they would fail if a player cannot spend many exalted orbs by the end of act 1.

I love POE 1 and I'm glad it is still a game ! POE 2 ... so far is a big mess... :(

Let me explain more :

- Slow movement with no real "speed" skill.
- Rolling relies on I frame awareness, and would be okay except that the attack patterns of enemies doesn't working with your roll cadence.
- Bosses are cool but very BOOORING because you basically deal no damage and they have tons of HP
- Enemies are very fast while again, you are slow as ****
- Enemies are damage sponges - the whole game feels like you are in PoE 1 in The Twilight Strand and hammering your first enemies with a stick and 1 skill.
- Skills are just not fun - most of the ones I have tried are SLOW - feel sluggish and unfun. I wind for an attack while mobs are hammering me , just to deal 5 dmg and then need to roll, drink potion and try again.
- The skills lack freedom ... you are locked into a set of skills and most of the time you need a way to stun enemies just to be able to perform your killing skill (while ofc rolling)
- This is not dark souls...please don't turn POE into Dark Souls....
- Of course a lot of zealot supporters of POE 2 will hate me and call me "noob" , "get good" etc. while they KNOW I'm right about the stuff mentioned above. Yes I know POE2 is not POE1, but god damned, don't make it a totally different game. So far POE2 is less fun than ... DIABLO 4 ... Hate to say it :(


I don't mind buying the game, just because I got 300 gold that I will spend in POE 1 ... If PoE 2 fixes its "unfun" aspect I will for sure come back, but for now - log off

unfun

i cant believe what they put in the game.

-monster are damagespunges
-no rewards at all
-attack--->dodgeroll every second
-i cant believe they put sanctum into POE2 I CANT BELIEVE IT!
-skill system is somewhat boring!?
-bosses are way to hard. if i wanna play a souls-like game i will but poe2 is an ARGP? i hate souls-like games but love ARPG.
-it feels like they tried so hard to put everything into the game and now its nothing. it so blend.
-the movement speed over all feels so slow. W A S D is terrible.

right now its 5/10. even other titles in that genre are better at that moment.

Not sure this post finds somebody in the endless flow of feedback but I need to write it.

I feel absolutely terrible after 2 days playing the game, devastated by the gameplay.
The graphics, the music, the light, everything is stunning and well deserve my money, but I had absolutely no fun at all.
I spent 22h trying to level up as a warrior. almost 12h to finish the act 1, I don't count the number of times I died, without knowing or understanding what was wrong.
I upgraded my gear,put armor, elemental resistances, life, life regen etc.. to see my life dropping nearly instant because of zones of I don't know what on the ground. Nearly no mobility, so slow…
I search for examples of competences to combo, switching my passives and competencies, trying to improve… a little bit. Grindings zones in the manor to try to level up 1 or 2 levels more to make the fight manageable with the first real boss. I tried to make the most of my few hundreds hours on POE 1 to improve but it’s too much for me. I began Act 2 but I gave up when I realized that it will be a cut and paste of act 1 again and again.

I had probably too much expectation on this game. I was so disappointed by D4, I wanted to believe that this game would save my motivation for ARPGs but I simply lost 2 days of my life, being frustrated not being able to have fun.

I’ve seen streamers playing warriors so it is actually possible and I’m probably not a good player, but how can this lead to so much frustration? I didn’t even have the courage to restart with another class.

I will probably go back to POE1, waiting for things to calm down. I want to love this game but for the time being I will try to heal and wait for better time.

I'm having blast with poe 2 so far. You've nailed so many things right and addressed my biggest concerns from first poe - combat feel and visual gameplay clarity. Not only that but you've completely exceeded my expectations.

I've completed second act and everything up to this point was just glorious - level design a story with all the details scattered around, art style, visuals, sound effects, music, enemies and boss designs, difficulty, pacing. I also like how you streamlined certain systems or game mechanics. For example at fist I was confused there are no life nodes on the tree, but on the second thought I actually liked the idea of investing into various defenses instead.

However, there is one aspect that is not quite right yet and that is drop rates. The promise was that you will be able to craft and upgrade gear as you progress through out the story, but that wasn't the case for me. For example I haven't seen single regal orb in the whole act 2 (got only few shards not enough to combine them into single orb). I was also unlucky in regards the gear. I've invested points into ES/evasion nodes but have been dropping good stuff mostly with armor :) Also sockets are too rare for me to be able to add sockets to my gear to fix resistances etc. Gambling helped a little bit, but it's also quite expensive so you can't offer that very often. In any case, gearing up during leveling process without trade, doesn't seems to be sufficient enough. My impression is that crafting is actually easier in poe 1. You don't get as many exalted orbs, but you can at least craft couple of rare items. I believe this might be the source of frustration for many players wh

Other than my bad luck, the game is dream come true!
Thank you very much.

My profile: General ARPG enthusiast, longtime SSF POE supporter (spender) and player (so I enjoy learning how to maximize what I get), enjoy roguelites and combat-skilled games like Dead Cells.

I played through A1 on a lightning Sorc and didn't enjoy my damage and perpetually getting swarmed despite best efforts. I saw Wudjo post a crossbow build, and went to the end of A2 with that. The disparity in these two weapons/classes being able to punch out big damage, or create breathing room with CC, in between dodging was monumental.

I grew tired of the crossbow character after not being able to upgrade the weapon for so long that the enemies started taking way too long to kill, despite being upgrading passives and other items in my control.

Pros
-Art direction - my favorite of any ARPG at the moment
-Crunchy combat, slowed down was cool, I like having a dodge roll
-More engaging story than recent AAA competition
-Thanks for an ID-all
-Much prefer the flask/charm system of POE2
-Conceptually like the new gem system compared to before
-I actually like that you don't put too much survivability on the passive tree, that means we're picking build-tweakers more.

Cons
-This game's loot and power curve seems like a faucet that drips rusty water every hour or two. Most importantly, without great luck from gambling, the enemies outpaced me and not in a challenging way, but a tedious way. Wasn't fun compared to other ARPGs I play (D2R, D3, D4, LE, Grim Dawn).
-I didn't get much currency to play with crafting across my 16 starter hours. Methods to finding or craft upgrades for my most important damage dealing item straight up failed me. Gambling is cute, but expensive.
-Scrapping, disenchanting, selling is annoying
-Traversing giga-maps with slow movement options is agonizing, like from a lost time. I guess moving like a snail caused me to look at the beautiful landscape art more.
-The ratio of required dodge rolls and how much damage you can put out is clearly going to bias certain damage profiles
-Don't care to attempt melee classes with the enemy design
-Getting swarmed can be managed with some skill but clearly favors certain damage and CC options, and not being able to roll out is lame
-Respec costs combined with a glacial pace lead me to not want to experiment, so better just play it safe with theorycrafted power yet again

I think the only way the game has for my own fun curve is up, so I take this as my time to step back.

First Impression was "This is really good" until it came time to ascend.



Second impression I'll keep to myself.

So far the game is just boring and slow. There is no excitement in playing, fills like work. The progress through the maps is very agonising, step by step, no real action only endless kiting.

"

Masaru_Edori#0476 wrote:

Not sure this post finds somebody in the endless flow of feedback but I need to write it.

I feel absolutely terrible after 2 days playing the game, devastated by the gameplay.
The graphics, the music, the light, everything is stunning and well deserve my money, but I had absolutely no fun at all.
I spent 22h trying to level up as a warrior. almost 12h to finish the act 1, I don't count the number of times I died, without knowing or understanding what was wrong.
I upgraded my gear,put armor, elemental resistances, life, life regen etc.. to see my life dropping nearly instant because of zones of I don't know what on the ground. Nearly no mobility, so slow…
I search for examples of competences to combo, switching my passives and competencies, trying to improve… a little bit. Grindings zones in the manor to try to level up 1 or 2 levels more to make the fight manageable with the first real boss. I tried to make the most of my few hundreds hours on POE 1 to improve but it’s too much for me. I began Act 2 but I gave up when I realized that it will be a cut and paste of act 1 again and again.

I had probably too much expectation on this game. I was so disappointed by D4, I wanted to believe that this game would save my motivation for ARPGs but I simply lost 2 days of my life, being frustrated not being able to have fun.

I’ve seen streamers playing warriors so it is actually possible and I’m probably not a good player, but how can this lead to so much frustration? I didn’t even have the courage to restart with another class.

I will probably go back to POE1, waiting for things to calm down. I want to love this game but for the time being I will try to heal and wait for better time.

In saying that, OneManaLeft and Jorgen (streamers) both had great difficulty with their Warrior classes.
When I checked Zizaran he was doing quite alright.
Fubgun is melting bosses with his deadeye.

Pretty sad state for the melees, truly. At least make them tankier, so we can hold the battle for longer while doing small dps