Why Casual Gamers Don't Play POE2

Party-based loot farming rewards desperately need a significant nerf.

I like how certain ppl here doing straight gatekeeping.

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stkmro#2432 wrote:

The main reason why poe2 is the KING of arpg is precisely because the game is extremely difficult, very hard to learn and very hard to master, extremely challenging and requires a lot of time not only to play the game, but also to do research online at youtube, twitch, reddit, discords, forums, etc.

The game cannot be made easier anymore because if the game becomes too easy, then poe2 will lose its crown among the competitors.

The casual players and the lesser people and the unworthy people should not play poe2 if they are incompetent and lousy. If they are not good enough or too lazy to put in the time and the effort to learn, then they should go elsewhere and go play other games like last epoch and diablo 4 instead. If they are not good enough and still want to stay in poe2, then they deserve to be at the bottom of the pyramid. They are not good enough and that's why they cannot complete and win the content, example the pinnacle bosses, the trials, etc.

They are unable to repeatedly farm the bosses and accumulate wealth in the game. Example, those players who achieve the ability to complete the trials will be able to repeatedly farm the time lost jewels, the exclusive unique items, the soul cores, etc. They are even able to provide service for other players as trial carry to earn extra currencies.

Those players that are lousy and subpar should just accept that they are inferior and unworthy. They cannot achieve anything significant in the game and all they can do is complain complain complain all the time like whiners and crybabies.

Yes, one of the big advantages of PoE / PoE 2 is its complexity, but if the game doesn't have a broad base of paying players, it will be difficult for the king to live long, and then it will be "the king is dead, long live the king."

A reasonable balance needs to be struck so that the game remains complex enough but also attracts new players. If the complexity is too high, the game will lose its appeal, as it should still be fun and not a second job. If that were the case, I could go to the stock market and do exactly the same thing: accumulate wealth and trade with profit and benefit for my real life. The pyramid of players will always exist, as in normal life, but if GGG were to refer to the majority of players as "lesser, unworthy people," then even whales wouldn't be able to save it.

The developers themselves wanted and promised that the game would be easy to learn and hard to master without the need for third-party tools, and they are really not succeeding in that. And personally, I find it worse than in PoE 1, because it is obscured by various words for conditional or triggers, and PoE 1 is much more straightforward in this regard without the ability to measure or calculate the real impact on either DMG or defense.

Another thing is that the king has low build variability, and not every skill can be used as primary damage dealing.

Rarity is so irrelevant to this discussion. I stopped reading after that nonsense.

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katsukai#1184 wrote:

Your Equipment Finds During the Campaign Won’t Carry You Into the Endgame.

i start using trade only in endgame. all campaign with radom items that not even have 6 mods and i consider myself as casual. seems like skill issue

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Gryzzex#3752 wrote:

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stkmro#2432 wrote:

The main reason why poe2 is the KING of arpg is precisely because the game is extremely difficult, very hard to learn and very hard to master, extremely challenging and requires a lot of time not only to play the game, but also to do research online at youtube, twitch, reddit, discords, forums, etc.

The game cannot be made easier anymore because if the game becomes too easy, then poe2 will lose its crown among the competitors.

The casual players and the lesser people and the unworthy people should not play poe2 if they are incompetent and lousy. If they are not good enough or too lazy to put in the time and the effort to learn, then they should go elsewhere and go play other games like last epoch and diablo 4 instead. If they are not good enough and still want to stay in poe2, then they deserve to be at the bottom of the pyramid. They are not good enough and that's why they cannot complete and win the content, example the pinnacle bosses, the trials, etc.

They are unable to repeatedly farm the bosses and accumulate wealth in the game. Example, those players who achieve the ability to complete the trials will be able to repeatedly farm the time lost jewels, the exclusive unique items, the soul cores, etc. They are even able to provide service for other players as trial carry to earn extra currencies.

Those players that are lousy and subpar should just accept that they are inferior and unworthy. They cannot achieve anything significant in the game and all they can do is complain complain complain all the time like whiners and crybabies.

Yes, one of the big advantages of PoE / PoE 2 is its complexity, but if the game doesn't have a broad base of paying players, it will be difficult for the king to live long, and then it will be "the king is dead, long live the king."

A reasonable balance needs to be struck so that the game remains complex enough but also attracts new players. If the complexity is too high, the game will lose its appeal, as it should still be fun and not a second job. If that were the case, I could go to the stock market and do exactly the same thing: accumulate wealth and trade with profit and benefit for my real life. The pyramid of players will always exist, as in normal life, but if GGG were to refer to the majority of players as "lesser, unworthy people," then even whales wouldn't be able to save it.

The developers themselves wanted and promised that the game would be easy to learn and hard to master without the need for third-party tools, and they are really not succeeding in that. And personally, I find it worse than in PoE 1, because it is obscured by various words for conditional or triggers, and PoE 1 is much more straightforward in this regard without the ability to measure or calculate the real impact on either DMG or defense.

Another thing is that the king has low build variability, and not every skill can be used as primary damage dealing.

Not adding much here but +1. Very well spoken and I agree with all of this.

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katsukai#1184 wrote:

After playing for a while based on my own experience and watching other content creators, why this game doesn’t really grab the casual gamer is quite simple.

Your Equipment Finds During the Campaign Won’t Carry You Into the Endgame.

A lot of people expect that the loot they find during the campaign will carry them through the entire game. This is rarely true. Most players may end up with one or two Divine Orbs, or possibly a unique item worth a similar amount, but they don’t know what to do with them after completing the campaign. Some players simply quit and don’t bother engaging with trade mechanics or learning crafting systems to make effective use of the currency they’ve obtained.

The Rarity Stat Gatekeeps How You Build Your Character and Your Overall Enjoyment of the Game.

If you struggle to find currency and wonder why other players are more successful, it’s often because you don’t have at least 150% item rarity from your gear and Waystone modifiers. Without this, you are effectively handicapping yourself and will perform significantly worse compared to players who can run builds stacked with item rarity.

Personally, item rarity is a horribly toxic stat that should never have existed in the first place. The game should be about making your character as strong as possible—not forcing you to care about a stat that directly dictates how much loot you’re allowed to have.

The Crafting System Is Overly Complicated, and New Content Continually Bloats It Further.

A game design that requires players to read spreadsheets and external guides because its core mechanics aren’t properly explained in-game is a serious issue. Due to the two problems above, many players are afraid to spend their currency. Failed crafting attempts have major consequences and, given how the economy currently works, can lead players to quit altogether.

Ironically, players with large amounts of currency are more willing to take crafting risks, while those with very little cannot afford to experiment at all. This backwards design only pushes players away from engaging with crafting.

People Turn to RMT Because the Game Doesn’t Respect Their Time.

Because the crafting system has such a steep learning curve and effectively amounts to gambling when it comes to min-maxing, some players simply avoid the hassle. Instead, they spend real money to buy currency so they can skip the process entirely and purchase items from the market—or at least feel they have a safety net that allows them to learn crafting without the fear of falling behind or hitting a progression wall.

im honestly more confused what GGG sees as CASUALS, cuz everything from POE2 screams a lot of things but CASUAL isn't one of them for sure.

i feel like they are severly overestimating CASUALS, (not difficult wise of gameplay) but mostly cuz 0 gets explained, 0 hands are been given out by the game to "help" and "understand" how things works.

we have the "specific gems" that are "recommenmded" but every build i see thats meta (NEVER) uses the recommended gems lmfao

Crafting is NOT easy.

Sure, at the "right click orb, item changes" level, crafting is easy. So is cooking, if your definition is "I can set something on fire and technically it becomes food".

Actual crafting in PoE2 is a minefield of tricks and sequencing:
- You buy a base with the "wrong but useful" affixes just to get a better starting position.
- You use omens to steer outcomes (expensive ones, because of course the good steering wheel costs more than the car).
- You remove specific or random mods, juggle rerolls, and if you do it in the wrong order you can absolutely brick the item and start over.
- Without omens, you burn more currency and more time because you're retrying the same step like it's a slot machine with extra steps.

Years ago in PoE1 I literally programmed crafting simulators to brute-force different methods and estimate the cheapest approach based on current prices. It wasn't perfect, but it usually confirmed the obvious truth: half the time it's cheaper to just buy the item than to craft it. And the real kicker isn't always currency, it's TIME. Some of you treat time like an infinite resource because you're still young enough to believe in fairy tales.

TIME is exactly why people say "casual". I've got maybe 5 hours per week. That's not "I refuse to learn", that's "I have a life and the game is competing with it".

I've put plenty of hours into Guild Wars 2 and still enjoy it, but that's an MMO. It leans more on world discovery than deep character progression. ARPGs are the opposite. PoE2 doesn't really do "world discovery", it does "character advancement", which is great. That's why I'm here.

And overall, yes, I like PoE2 compared to PoE1 (which I played for about 10 years). It's more casual-friendly. I just wish it was more.

PS: Give us different tiers of the campaign/endgame experience.
- A normal tier that is actually onboarding-friendly: learn basics, mechanics, gearing loops, without needing a PhD in "What order do I press the buttons".
- An uber tier where everything is brutal for the people who want Arbiter-style pain as a lifestyle choice. First pass easy-ish, second pass takes real effort. Great.

Also, the death punishment is dumb in its current form. "With an omen I lose 2.5%, without it I lose 10%." Cool system. Very motivating. Definitely doesn't feel like paying a subscription fee to make the game less annoying.

And it's not even a teachable death most of the time. There's no killcam, no damage breakdown, no clear "here is what killed you", just "you died, here's your bill". That's not learning, that's a parking ticket.

If you want consequences, fine. But do it in ways that make sense for long-term players.
- Normal tier could remove XP loss entirely.
- Uber tier can keep it if you insist.
- Or at least make it sane: lose only the XP you gained in that specific map. If I earned 1% on that map, I lose 1%. Not "surprise, you lost the last hour because a screen-full of particles sneezed on you".

There are plenty of solutions that are casual-friendly and long-term-player-friendly.

Right now the pattern feels like "big hype week 1-2 of a season, then a population cliff dive". Is that really the plan? I doubt it.

I'd say the issue is more about how the game doesn't do a very good job of letting you know why you're struggling.

Getting through the campaign is doable and not too challenging with most builds (although melee does get an unfair disadvantage most of the time), but there's so many ways to mess up with the gear you use, and for someone new it's almost impossible to know what you're doing wrong by just playing the game itself.

Unless you already know how resistances, defences and gear modifiers work, it's really hard to know why you're dying a lot. Could be that you should be stacking more resistance. Could be your gear having low base stats or bad modifiers for your level. Could be that you've picked too few defensive passive skills. Could be that you keep getting hit by attacks you should be dodging out of. Or it could be that your dps makes the fights take too long, so you keep dying by attrition.

That's what makes this game hard for casuals. It's the lack of knowledge. Casuals would be perfectly capable of playing this game if they knew how it worked, but right now you need to google it to learn how it works. Which isn't something most casuals will take the time to do. Instead they'll keep trying, get frustrated, and quit.

I think the best thing they can do for the game is to add helpful tips similar to how they recommend certain support gems for certain skills. An opt-out setting that gives helpful gear/build/gameplay hints along the way. Something that tracks your resistances, defences, damage and behavior, and gives you dynamic suggestions based on it.

Getting hit a lot?
"Make sure you dodge out of the way off attacks. Avoiding damage is just as important as dealing it."

Dying to elemental damage that you have low resistance to?
"Elemental resistances is an important way to keep yourself safe from damage"

Entering a zone where your defences are too low to comfortably fight mobs/bosses of that level?
"The defences of your gear are poorly matched against the inhabitants of this place, you should increase them"

Having a low average dps for your level?
"You're not dealing a lot of damage. You might need to improve your gear, use different skills or allocate more damage nodes on the passive tree."

It wouldn't have to be exactly like this of course, but I think this style of helpful in-game information is exactly what casuals need to not get stuck or frustrated in the game. If they additionally made it easy to understand how to follow up on these tips, some basic, intuitive, repeatable and not too grindy ways to improve the things that need to be improved, then I think most casuals would find this game much more approachable.

And the best part? People who already know how it works could just opt out, the same way we opt out of tutorials on a new character.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this thread with their thoughts and feedback. I’m honestly surprised by how much engagement it got. I hope GGG notices the points being raised, and thanks to everyone for keeping things civil. Even if the thread comes across as negative, the goal is just to help the game improve.