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

First, I'd like to thank the GGG Community, and their Support!

Feedback:
Still playing the Campaign. Enjoying!

Design/Gameplay Feedback:
1) Continue innovating FPS technology, this category is in the science graphics card technology. Default settings FPS was going up and down from 120+ to 20 or lower when I had graphics power saver on, (a lot of power saving settings are by Windows default these days!). Anyway I have an older gaming PC, which I understand is most likely the majority of my issues. Resolved by disabling power saver on g-card, and turning Vsync on and using some lower settings. The game tends to get hammered by lots of effects, (this would be a primary LONG TERM research area), as well as general encounters throughout the game. Just some ideas to remember here, nothing specific! As you probably know best! (:

2) Server can change based on who enters an area first, via grouping party. If we select US Realm, for example, and we host the group, then it should ALWAYS be based on the hosts realm, and not per who zoned in first. This brings to mind the following (see 2A) below:
2A) In the group listing, allow a filter by realm option. I'd like to see groups with the lowest latency. Side question, I do not think that Open NAT helps this game with how many groups you see? If open NAT would show more groups in the listing available, then by all means I would ensure that my NAT was open! Which brings to mind, wouldn't PS5 want open NAT anyway? How would that affect the game then from the console point of view vs PC, as I think we all group together now IIRC from POE 1? I do not know, consider however, explaining continued in design below in 3)...
3) More emphasis on smoother grouping! The idea goes into the design level, what can be done to make grouping smoother, maintain full groups, and fill empty spots as easy as possible?
4) A guild finder tool?
5) PVP!
6) Inventory (Stash) sort, which would auto stack shards. Search highlight tabs containing items that match the search query string.
7) Passive skill tree save template, refund all, smoothening of build swapping.
8) Listing items for trade 1 by 1 is time consuming, maybe a dropdown option upon listing, "List all items of the same?", as you're list one? Just an idea!
9) Buffer overflow error Windows:
Set the game as high priority and received 2 buffer over flow errors, not sure if it was due to high priority or not?
10) Groups listed with "players 5/6" have never been joinable. It says error: "Your party is full."

That's all that I have thus far, thanks continued and glhf! (: XD

Act2 Mawdun Mine, Explore Traitor’s Passage, Ascend Deshar,


What I generally miss with the zones I've played through now in act2, are things that can be broken, can be by hitting, or kicking, pushing things! This will make the zones more alive and an interaction with the environment that makes it significantly alive.


things in the environment that can be opened, such as chests, graves, bookshelves, wells, pots, stones, lumber, benches, glasses, jars, dead bodies, carpets, furniture, statues,. Then it can be fun with some surprises that are hidden in these breakable things, can be traps, monsters that are spawned or elites.. I definitely believe in something more in exploration for the game! Its so brutally beautiful, you stop to look at the actual environments and walk corner by corner for exploring.

My two cents -
Not a hardcore player, I'm on my 30s now, been playing since 2017. So have this in mind. I'm tired.

I just had this happen to me minutes after doing maps, level 73, Monk, around tier 6.
Considering I need to play other stuff too, it's really heart-crushing when you can barely get enough drops for high tier waystones, and you have to manage with Tier 1 or 2; I put a tier 3 Waystone and manage to do almost the entire map, so far I got around 10% exp... remember that number... because I had to backtrack to the single Rare mob with "minions" lying around in the corner (chill bubble aura), funny thing is died 'cause yea... can't move within since I'm melee and stun-locked by minions. As I said, heart-crushing.
Lost the 10exp I managed to do from one map... multiply that experience by whichever number you prefer, 'cause is basically that the entire time, plus you lose the map.

The Good:

+Visuals and sounds, always top-notch, plus the story is going towards a really interesting lore, Sekhema, Doryani, etc.

+WASD, like playing a Survivors game, never would've thought I would play an ARPG using it over Mouse.

+New classes and skills look awesome, Monk and skills like Tempest Flurry feel good to play.

+Goodbye Chromatics, seriously thank you for that...

+Most of the Bosses are fun and cool to play against.

BUT... We need to talk about the HUGE ELEPHANT in the room...

The UGLY HUGE ELEPHANT


+How long have you've been developing Path of Exile as whole?....over 11 years? and we're still dealing with:

1) THE WORST TRADE SYSTEM IN THE FREAKING HISTORY OF MANKIND - (seriously I don't need say anything else here, bots are no longer excuse they are a reality, so bear with it, player interaction doesn't count either, 'cause it sucks major horse balls)

2) Performance issues (this with league mechanics like Delirium and Breach are terrible, always happened, and now it's in POE2), is the same shader coding garbage system... some players with crashing entire PCs, and sometimes shaders and textures not loading, specially on maps (invisible enemies for some seconds...) - and I have it installed into NVMe -

3)Leveling, while the campaign is interesting, doing it TWICE per character is not, I suppose you're fixing this by making the Acts 4, 5 and 6... but please consider chopping the maps and make them shorter... remember "we no longer have a +40% movement speed spammable flask on your back"

4)Endgame, if you're considering releasing this system... think about it more than twice...Waystone sucks, maps are horrendous, lots of backtracking (for all rare mobs), Towers are boring, lack of variety, passive skill trees suck, the lack of monster packs is gigantic in comparison, you can barely make any xp from maps after level 70.

5) Melee and HP... I don't have to say anything, only that there're lot of videos of players with a Witch over 13k ES and negative res on all elements, scratching balls. My Monk with all his will trying to reach over 2.5k HP, almost 70% res on all, and still getting one-clapped by whatever is within range.....
Also there's not a single f*cking "Maximum HP" node within sight! WHAT IS THIS SKILL TREE??! WEAPON SWAP SPEED?! WTF?!

6)The big "why?" without answers:
A) only two flasks, one of them forced for mana...;
B) Support gems limited to 1 Skill gem... (and supposedly you wanted POE2 characters to use more than one single click-skill build... while I can only have ONE skill use a 25% ATTACK SPEED SUPPORT???);
C) A dodge skill for all classes that sucks, is slow, can't get you out of mob cluttering (play Witch Infernal if you want something useable);
D) No Alteration Orbs = more meaningful drops?? I don't see the math here if all I get for drops are dogshit Uniques and barely any worthy rares... again, the trade system can't help with this MEDIEVAL atrocity of a progression system;
E) Ascendancy, I'm pretty sure I don't need to say anything, but still: You put Sanctum and Ultimatum for Ascendancy Trials??? WHAT IN THE LIVING F*CK ARE YOU SMOKING!? - DON'T BOTHER TWEAKING THE NUMBERS, DELETE THIS GOD-FORSAKEN LEAGUE MECHANIC AND PUT A RANDOM QUEST TO KILL X BOSS 4 TIMES AND JUST CALL IT A DAY, IS A CORE BUILD ASCENDANCY, NOT A FREAKING 50 DIVINE ORB'S WORTH ITEM!
D)MAGIC FIND, WELCOME BACK...
F) F for 1 Portal for maps... on Bosses too...the most concerning part is that somehow one of you looked at this and thought "looks like a nice idea, let's put it on the EA and maybe release it"...
G) All monsters reset within the instance after death... this for leveling is a pain in the butt.
H) Charms suck, since many other enemies have certain attacks or effects that count as whatever shenanigans i.e "Corrupted Blood" or a slowing chill that's neither chill nor slow (because the "Slow Charm" didn't do jack-sh*t against those mobs spamming the water crap everywhere in act 3...) very annoying and nonsensical.

I) The worst of all, you're charging $15 for an Early Access for basically "beta-testing" the game (which is your goddamn job btw), I was expecting this to have "some minor issues" and address the missing content within those 6 months you mentioned... but I can't imagine you GGG releasing this game "FINISHED" around 6 months, there're a sh*t ton of problems that will certainly turn me away from the game you release it like this. Let alone pay, I asked for a refund when I bought the Ogham Supporter Pack out of hope, I got access to POE2 because I wasted my disappointment on you for years, since I put money worth of a Top Tier Supporter pack from years back... which you never bothered to upgrade, looking nowhere near as good as the latest minor skins...just saying, never paid for any supporter since you released Incursion Legue, you've been going over your "vision" for WAY too long) -

Overall? This doesn't feel like POE2, is POE1 but with all the nerfs you always wanted but never managed 'cause otherwise the game would've fucking died...
Basically the game ramps up in Act 1, and then goes to sh*t after Act 2 onwards...

Ending my rant. Because this is all I got from your "new game" right now, hate.
So chill the f*ck out with your "vision" GGG. Not as many will see it through.

Your casual Dad gamer. Not sure if anyone will see this but this will be my current feedback about the game so far. I will post my dislikes/would like to see changes and then my positives about the game.

My current dislikes: The following are my most critical.

- The entire mapping system feels like its missing its legs in order to
start running;

- Losing Experience. Its a game, not a job. Let's have fun.

- Dying to after death effects that don't provide enough time to escape or
have eyes on due to all the visual effects. Remove or reduce damage.

- Only 1 chance per map discourages map crafting and playing the Endgame
in general. 6 Portals, 6 chances. Again, it's a game.

- Mazes (Maps) feel like a chore to get through since the layout is
massive which causes a lot of back tracking. In my opinion, a good
layout shouldn't make the player feel like they have to constantly keep
their map open.

- The on ground burning/shocking effects in maps should NOT be on the same
tile as a lever. Moreover, when using the lever it doesn't grant you
immunity to mobs or the on ground effects while locking you into the
animation. Make it so we can animation cancel if you want to roll out
and remove the on ground effects on the same tile as the lever.

- Mobs do more damage than the bosses. Balancing issues.

- Not enough bosses in the maps. 1 Boss per map, a bossing map that
contains multiple bosses or 2 bosses at once. Just more bosses, back
tracking for rare mobs doesn't feel rewarding.

- Higher drop rate of next tier of way stones. Another 30% in my opinion.

- Why does rare chests drop magic items? Magic should drop magic, rare
should drop rare. It's like ordering a Coffee and getting a Tea.

- Charms don't feel special. More crafting options for charms??

- Towers need a boss and the tablets you put in them need to have more
juice for the player to get excited about. Towers feel like hobbit holes
and not a tower I want to ascend. Maybe make the Towers like the Bruce
Lee movie "Game of Death".

- Again, losing the map (after 1 attempt) and the Experience doesn't feel
good and is what makes me stop playing. Especially when getting 1
shotted by an after death effect you either cannot see or don't have
enough time to escape from.

Grinding Gear GAMES. The games part means the most to a player.
Can Grind all year long, but if the Game isn't fun.
Gamers won't Game your Game.

My Positives:

- Graphics & Art Style are superb.

- Sound effects are so amazing that you can feel the punch in it.

- Story is great. Loving the grit the game brings. Makes it more
immersive.

- Music is perfect. No Spotify while on POE 2.

- Character design is unique and fun. Haven't played warrior yet though.

- My experience in trading has been great. Very smooth to use.

- Hideouts and guild hideouts bring flavor to the game.

- Bosses blow every other ARPG out of the park and its not even close.
Some bosses even make most Elden Ring bosses look poorly designed.
(Yes two different styled games, just my opinion)

- WASD feels smooth & slick. Great job, I'm loving it.

- Game is very well optimized along with the servers. (Client Player)

- Enemy Design / Animations are absolutely phenomenal. Whoever designed
these. Cheers, give yourself a pat on the back and know that you created
the new standard.

I'm sure i have a lot of more positives to mention, but GGG already know
now what they're doing right due to the feedback given by the community.
If the Devs read this, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and enjoy your well
earned time off. I'm excited to see what your team has in store for us.
Cheers!

I'll add a +1 to the punishing and unrewarding aspects of this game being a great reason to stop playing this game, as the ability to improve just doesn't really exist beyond copious amounts of time.

Have failed to the same boss 3-4 times, no real ability to figure out how to beat him without watching videos. Can't find many videos as most builds who post have mechanics to kill the boss in just a few seconds, skipping all the mechanics.

I know one portal was supposed to make your heart race, but for me, after the third time failing to a boss whom I can't seem to figure out how they are killing me, definitely doesn't make me want to recommend the game to anyone.

Witchhunter who wishes they were some ES build. Watching builds of ES players just face-tank T15 damage, while I'm getting 1-tossed by off-hand attacks of a boss in T12 with Max Res and 30-40% Armour and Evasion... mind blowing. Kripp was right, armour is terribly bad.

Impressions

Background

Currently on Tier 1 endgame maps.

-I am a father with limited time for games (though I managed to find time for this one as I was able to use my Steam Deck and was addicted the game). So a little more game time on this one than usual.

-I play a wide range of games, but some of my favorite so far in 2024 have been Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Call of duty black ops, Balder's Gate 3, cyber punk 2077 and now POE2!

-I don't really play this style of isometric ARPG. My only experience with them in all the time I've played games is Diablo 3 (which i disliked), and Diablo 4 (which I also disliked). Was not a fan of the art style, the environments, and the overall tone of the world. As for the gameplay, I found it tedious and lacking depth. When I get to the things I liked about POE2, it will make more sense as it highlights the game play elements these previous experiences lacked.

Likes

- The art style. Doesn't feel cartoonish. Varied and a bit more realistic.

- The environments. Lots of variety and look great. The world feels alive and varied. Gives me the impression the game can go in many directions and tell many stories.

- Combat in early game feels rewarding because of the challenge. I have to think and demonstrate skill.

- bosses having unique designs and mechanics is really great. same as above, the challenge is nice.

- the amount of enemy and boss variation.

- The passive skill tree. While im probably never going to be great at understanding all aspects of character customization, I welcome it.

- Variety of classes and customization.

Dislikes

- Maps, especially going into act 3 really start to overstay their welcome. Sometimes I was wishing I could just be done with it.

- Having to repeat the campaign. I know this seems to be a normal experience for some of these games, but I did not enjoy it. At first it was fun to blast through everything, but even with a OP build from YouTube I started to find it tedious and less enjoyable as I went further along. I heard many times that people were getting through the campaign in 20 - 30 hours, it took me around 60 - 70. I got to endgame at 100 hours. That's with an awesome build I took from youtube.

NOTE: If I have to do this every League, I most likely wont play (unless that time is considerably shorter).

- Attempting to build on my own was to costly and my characters skills prevented progression until using community builds. Following youtubers helped me to learn and understand passive tree a bit more, but depending on cost, I may never try my own. I would like to!

- Ascension is confusing. First two times were fine. But I was confused about what returning to the trials did. I had no clue how or when I was able to return to get the 3rd and 4th ascension events until i looked it up.

- There was a bug in Act 2 Cruel that made me think I was blocked because the quest to do trails was not updating and was stuck on step 1.

- Understanding game mechanics around currency, skill gems or passive tree nodes is not always clear to me. Maybe people who play a lot of these games have less issue, but I feel like I'm reading a foreign language sometimes.

Closing Comment

You all did an amazing job on this game, and I cant wait to see how it develops into release and further updates.

I’ve played Path of Exile 2 (PoE2) for just under 190 hours, both solo and in a group. The campaign has a solid concept hidden within the chaos, but it’s overly long and feels drawn out. By the time you reach Cruel 1, you already know what’s going to happen. The campaign maps are unnecessarily large, and it’s frustrating to realize you’ve been running the wrong way and have to backtrack all the way to proceed. While group play in the campaign had its fun moments, those were largely due to my teammate and I joking around to get through it.

The new end-of-campaign bosses were thrilling to fight, but in a group, they were buggy and broken. Some bosses even forced us to fight them separately. The boss that stands out most is Zalmarath, the Colossus. In a group, this fight was downright unpleasant—if you weren’t falling through the floor due to glitches, the sword attacks would still hit you even when you were clearly out of range.

Group play, in general, has been a poor experience for me and my teammate. Beyond the loot being absurdly low in groups, collision detection caused us to bump into each other, often resulting in unnecessary deaths and making the single portal system feel incredibly unfair. Dying in games should be a learning opportunity, not a punishment. Speaking of punishments, that’s what the endgame feels like—an endless series of penalties with little to no reward in maps. We're supposed to get excited over bubblegum currency, but without building for magic find, it’s nearly impossible to acquire the upgrades you need for your gear.

Path of Exile 1 (PoE1) was a learning curve for many of us. I play with hardcore veterans who’ve mastered the game and have helped me understand it better. I see their perspective on the simplified passive tree in PoE2. They—and many others—loved the challenge of spending hours calculating builds in PoE1. That depth was fun and rewarding for so many players. Why simplify it? Why take that away? This change alienates the core audience who thrived on PoE’s complexity.

I’ve been playing a minion build since the beginning of PoE2, and the direct-command mechanic desperately needs improvement. The command duration should last longer—whenever I dodge-roll out of danger, my minions return to me even though I’ve directed them elsewhere. Can we please either fix minion pathing or make them Intangibile to one another so they can phase through each other when facing the bane of their existance.

doors, small cracks, small gapes, tiny corridors, you name it, they get stuck in it.

I cant tell you how many times I ran through a tower in maps, then they get stuck at the entrance of the previous room, despawn and I run and get screwed by ton of mobs because mine decided to have a tea party.

Please add back the Map/Waystone stash tab immediately. It’s frustrating to waste one of our normal stash tabs just to store waystones.

Another issue is the rarity of Greater Jeweller’s Orbs. By the end of the campaign, players should see at least one or two, but after approximately 20 hours of mapping, I haven’t seen a single one. The rarity is evident on the trade market, where they cost 1 Divine Orb each (!)—and that’s not even mentioning Perfect Jeweller’s Orbs! This level of scarcity is excessive and needs adjustment.

Lastly, the dodge mechanic in PoE2 feels completely out of place in an ARPG. This isn’t a Souls-like game! Dodging has become the central focus of gameplay—roll, throw out a few abilities, dodge again, and repeat until the boss dies. While this might be fine for certain playstyles, it doesn’t align with PoE’s core identity. I play minions, so they often do most of the work, but even then, all I’m doing is dodging. That’s unfair. In PoE1, failure at a boss was a signal to re-evaluate your passives and gear, which made success more rewarding.

It’s disappointing to see an ARPG turn into something it was never meant to be. Just because I enjoy Souls-like games doesn’t mean others do. Watching a game with such potential get bogged down in unnecessary mechanics and derivative ideas is heartbreaking. I don’t want to see PoE2 fail, but if they continue down this path, it’s hard to have hope for its future.

Why are the trials like this in endgame it feels almost impossible to get any more than 4 of the passive points. I'm getting very very tired of completing the first trial and then getting dicked in the second or third. It's very unenjoyable for casual play.

Hi there!!! New to POE, playing POE2 EA - PS5 Couch Coop (Merc & Witch)

We have been playing casually since EA launch, these are my first impressions (most would be for Local-Coop):

1. We (me and wife) love the game, the difficulty, the pace, and the campaign is great, currently on Act II -Dreadnought. (I've played every Diablo game, wife and I played D4 since launch until POE2 Early access)

2. We noticed all the characters are linked to player 1. I am always Player 2 and this makes impossible for me to play with my character if I log in with my own PSN account, which in turn makes it impossible to play with PS Remote Play, as I have it configured to log in always with my own account... In order to play solo I need to open the game with my wife's account. It would be much better to link the character to the account that created it.

3. When opening waypoint screen, blacksmith table, or Act-II map with Player 2, control switches over to Player 1, this is mildly annoying and it can be worked around, but it would be much better if Player 2 can also handle these.

4. Cleaning inventory thru selling/disenchanting/stash/etc takes the whole screen, so in local-coop you need to do it 1 player at a time, spending double the time in town. It would be good to have half-screen interface with tabs, like Diablo 4 does, so we can spend more time playing and less time cleaning. (sometimes we lose the portal/instance while cleaning/rearranging equipment)

5. Trial of Sekhema's boss is quite difficult for local-coop. We're currently level 30 and while the rooms are a breeze, we haven't been able to beat the boss... In forums they say to do it separately because the boss scaling is too high for 2 players.

6. Also Trial of Sekhema: (Note: first try was with Player-2). If we start it with Player 1, the first room remains locked forever and we cannot advance, so we start it with Player-2. But if we die (honor), we see the screen saying we failed the trial, but we're not able to go back to the start of the trial, or to town, or anywhere except exit to character selection, and only on player-2 menu, Player-1 is fully blocked (Tho her minions remain respawning and attacking enemies)

7. Wife's witch feedback: Minion count is complicated, you cannot move the bar to see the full list of minions unless you're editing (spirit spending screen).

Sorry I made a post about it didnt knew ppl were posting their first impressions inside this post.

Im lv50 right now and my only issue is that market feels more like borrowing than buying

I didnt play much poe 1 and I only´ve played 50 hours of poe 2 but for my point of view there is a big issue on market at least at early/mid game and I can imagine this might be an issue at end game too

As I said market feels more like borrowing stuff rather than buying it, as soon as you get 1 Ex you can get a super strong weapon and then you just resell it once you leveled up a bit and get a new weapon, there is no penalty you can spend 10-20 Ex to get super strong gear and weapon at mid game and once you get 10 levels you can sell it again and get stronger gear and sell it for the same price or sometimes even get a little profit from selling it

This also causes another issue: most drops you get during your camping are irrelevant even if you get very lucky and you find an item with very good 4 modifiers it will be trash, you can get a better one with 6 modifiers at market for 1 Ex, there is no reason to invest on the item you just found

I feel this is very unhealty for the game economy and for the new player experiences, the first few days after release it might be fine but after that there is like 1000 low/mid level top tier gear/weapons at the market and new players just keep borrowing them to level up

Well there is a lot of ways they could fix Im not sure which would be the best one but I just feel like beaing able to borrow stuff from the market causes a lot of troubles for the game and there is no way to build an economy when items last forever and can be traded unlimited times