Do any POE 1 players LIKE the changes in POE 2? All systems are just worse :/

I guess they were too afraid of changes

It was their chance to iterate on previous concepts but all i see is poe 1 players saying the same thing, about how they bought back many things the community didn't like to poe 2, which honestly is extremely disappointing

I am one of those new POE2 players that went back and played POE1. What makes it hard to digest for a new player are the sheer amount of mechanics you can engage with. Half the time I had no idea what the objectives of some of these things ever were. Some were fun, others were tedious.

The passive skill tree was a monster to ingest but really did have many more options for build customisation. I didn't use any outside resources in my playthrough and managed to navigate the tree and put together a nice little ice build that was quite effective (until it wasn't...)

It was endgame where POE1 lost me. It seemed like I was coming up against too many mobs that had tags that directly countered my build. The cold/freeze resistant mobs I could whittle down, but I started seeing mobs that reflect status ailments and this made it not fun anymore. Choosing to engage with mechanics would drop multiple elite mobs with tags that hard countered my build so I started skipping things to the point where I started skipping everything and racing to bosses. I just couldn't do it anymore so I gave up after a few days of mapping.

POE2 I made it further into mapping, but it also feels tedious. Most mechanics here I also don't engage with because nearly all of them one shot kill my character on the spot and the map is failed. One portal maps encourage safe gameplay, as does exp loss on death. Fix both of those and I would engage with all of the content

To me POE 2 is way better and it´s still early access - I feel people keep forgetting that.

- Arc 1, 2 and 3 are way more interesting.
- Boss designs are way better
- Not having to link sockets together to get the right colours and links, just so you can have the right support gems, is way better and more fun, as now you can grab whatever gems and support gems you want, depending of requirements of cours.
- Graphics are way better.
- Unusual classes like Druid and Huntress are exciting.

I´m very excited for POE2 and i´m looking forward to see the game evolve and i wish people would stop being so dramatic.

I played PoE 1 since release and it's a great game, but I think PoE 2 is already much better and the potential is insane.

I didn't play the newest PoE 1 event because I don't care about PoE 1 now that PoE 2 exists, and I doubt that I'll go back even for new leagues, PoE 2 is THAT much better IMO.

This seems to be the general opinion too as I tried countless times to get my friends to play PoE 1 with me - I think they were turned off because they thought it was weird that you put your skill gems into your gear. I also always disliked that, but played anyways.

Now that skill gems are no longer part of gear a lot of my friends that wouldn't touch PoE 1 are playing PoE 2.

There are a ton of subtle changes that really make a huge difference, like the skill gems example, including better graphics and smoother gameplay.

Regarding penalty of death on softcore, hardcore players don't seem to have an issue with much greater penalty so it seems to be a mindset or skill issue.
The game needs to have content that is challenging even for players that have mastered the game including having a deep understanding of it's complexity. I don't understand why some players think they should be able to experience that gameplay without deserving it. If you nerf the game because some players complain about getting one-shot then what about the hardcore players that think the game is too easy?

I like some of the things the sequel is doing, like the story is for an example much more enjoyable overall, at least for now.

Expedition though sucks and i don't understand how they managed to mangle it into the ground so hard.. it's one of my favorite league mechanics in the first game, along with Syndicate and Incursions and but here, yeah, either they're placeholders with their functionality or someone at GGG thought that we needed few more garbage vendors sitting in the hideout that occasionally show up in your maps to remind you how much better they were in the first game.

Atlas is also not great, imo, they had a system that worked well but decided to reinvent the wheel for whatever reason and now it feels like they are trying to ram a square peg into round hole.

Essences also are pretty crap.. seriously, magic items with one desired affix?

There's also no crafting, call it what it actually is aka gambling and bad gambling at that, slamming orbs into gear is not and will never be crafting.

I'm sure some of this will improve in time but right now, it's frustrating.. the core is still there and it's solid but it's surrounded by some badly bungled systems and who knows if people will come back later, once things get smoothed out as you only get one chance at first impression and what's here, now, isn't that great as the gaps are too big.

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LordMordeth#6639 wrote:

Expedition though sucks and i don't understand how they managed to mangle it into the ground so hard..

Yeah, somehow it's ironic that the only old PoE1 league mechanic that at least somehow fits into the new "slower gameplay" narrative is the most unrewarding.

poe1: recently removed sextants to reduce pre-map friction.
poe2: added towers to add +500% new pre-map friction.

shrug.

Even if they actually fix skill balance and build disparity, the new shiny tedium in mapping and crafting department is a "no, not again" impulse when considering returning to play. Poe2 already inherited excessive out-of-combat clicks with old loot/inventory system from poe1, and new atlas has bad QoL on top of that.

And trying to ignore towers means no loot.

I haven't been enjoying the atlas. Dislike that progression for certain mechanics is locked behind defeating a boss. Especially simulacrum or crux. In POE1 all I had to do what beat maps with certain conditions. Made it easy to set up the content I wanted to do. Now I have to fight a boss I don't care to do more than once 4 times. Wasting my currency for the chance.

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Assababud#2808 wrote:

Now I have to fight a boss I don't care to do more than once 4 times. Wasting my currency for the chance.

It is the roguelike nature of the game, do the same thing enough times to open new ways to move forward. For a roguelike as Cult of the Lamb it is fine, for an ARPG as PoE it is just silly.


While PoE 2 Developers hang on to the idea of blending soulslike, roguelike, gachalike to the games formula, it will sink and stinky. Just make a pure ARPG loot oriented for Sin sake.

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Chacruna#2474 wrote:

Regarding penalty of death on softcore, hardcore players don't seem to have an issue with much greater penalty so it seems to be a mindset or skill issue.

I don't play HC because I don't want hours, maybe dozens of hours of effort deleted because I either made one mistake or the game lagged.

This is the same reason why it infuriates me that I lose hours of progress in SC when I make one mistake or the game lags.

I'll never understand this mindset of "sure, it's perfectly fine to lose hours of progress because the game decided a rare mob with every hard counter mod for your build was a good idea to randomly put together"

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LordMordeth#6639 wrote:

Expedition though sucks and i don't understand how they managed to mangle it into the ground so hard.

Yeah, they definitely nerfed the hell out of it.

Tujen was a boss in POE1. There were several leagues where that dude sold me my first divine which helped jump start my build and push be 2-3 tiers further into maps.

Now it seems the one and only reason to do expedition is to get logbooks for a chance at fighting the boss.

because it's certainly not about getting gear and/or materials from the vendors.

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Echothesis#7320 wrote:

poe1: recently removed sextants to reduce pre-map friction.
poe2: added towers to add +500% new pre-map friction.

It's not just towers that add friction, it's the entire design of the atlas from the beginning.

I've been farming breach. There are many maps where breaches are wasted. Maps like crypt, augury, vaal foundry, etc.

So I have to clear to towers, clear the towers then clear any of the maps I don't want to get my breach/boss/iradiate tablet buffs.

I spent 3 hours last night doing this.

Just to spend 1 hour playing the maps that I actually like or are conducive to the content I'm focused on.

They really should give us the ability to mark maps as completed if we don't want to play them.

Or redesign the atlas so that zones have a theme. Go toward this zone to get all the vaal maps, go to this zone to get all the wide open maps, etc, etc.