POE2 isn't "Hard." It's unfun.

I hate hearing the standard "git gud" reply for things like this.

The game is actively NOT fun to play. I have beaten every boss I've come up against so far; and though there are a few that feel somewhat unfair, they are doable. The problem is that it's SO slow. I don't expect to beat a boss in five seconds every time I play, that would be just as unrewarding. I should NOT be spending five minutes on a rare mob because it has health regen, however. There was a mini boss I took on that took nearly ten minutes because it would shield, summon mobs, then disappear and reset energy shield. This pattern repeated far too frequently to be able to do meaningful damage. I wasn't in any danger of dying, I finished the encounter with only 3 flasks down. The fact that it took literally ten minutes, though? That isn't fun. It's boring, uninspired, and only serves to artificially inflate play time.

Skill leveling does not have a marked improvement on damage dealt, nor does "better" gear, which drops far less frequently than it should. The only things that make meaningful changes in combat are things like attack speed, cool down reduction, et cetera -- and even those don't feel like they help with damage dealing, it just makes the actual combat feel marginally less glacial.

Those who are trying to diminish the concerns of those who find this to be too radical a departure need to look inward. Is it truly fun to spam a dodge roll for ten minutes in hopes of progressing? I don't feel like defenders of this new direction for PoE truly think the game is great, I think they just don't want to admit how bad it feels after looking forward to it for so long.

I think PoE2 lacks fun. It's so arduous. So far for me PoE1 7/10 PoE2 4/10

The game is fun. Better then POE1.

Campaign needs serious work. I am in low level maps still, so I won't speak on endgame, but I cannot be bothered to level another character with that campaign this way. Walk forwards three steps, fight a white pack. Have another white pack run in before you even start moving again. Rinse and repeat. I don't understand how this is supposed to be their dream game. They want us this slow, against enemies this fast. We can't skip mobs without huge risk. The areas are massive in size and mostly empty. I constantly get 60%-70% of a zone done and just think, "yea, I should be in another zone by now".

And I haven't gone for my third trial yet, but my goodness are people I know raging about the new ascendancy system. I despise sanctum and liked the old ultimatum, and have used sanctum twice to ascend. That should tell you a lot of what I think about the new system. Ultimatum has many of the mods from the old game, from when we were literal godslayers. We are not currently godslayers.

"

Corwynt#2039 wrote:

...Ultimatum has many of the mods from the old game, from when we were literal godslayers. We are not currently godslayers.

This one is especially noticeable because ultimatum mods were originally balanced about characters being fast and having movement skills... we got neither right now, and some of the mods feel even stronger than they were in PoE1

You will hit the dodge button until morale improves.

Just killed the boss, dropped an unique- finally an upgrade for my weapon (possibly) after 21 levels of zero drops.

Game spawns 30 mobs, kills me, deletes loot.

Oh, the Boss is also gone. Now please reset instance and walk back there.

Thanks for nothing I guess

Oh BTW- whoever had the idea to use Sanctum for the Trials should get a special place in hell

I am kinda OK with the general pace of the game, but the bosses destroy the fun for me. I'm broke because my mid-build, which I loved playing, took 10 minutes to kill a boss. I used all gold and most of my currency to convert to a meta build, which I don't like playing, but now I can kill a boss in 7.5 minutes, still 5 times too long for it to be fun and not tedious. I went through the first three acts and can't muster the will to go through it again.

God bless devs that they spared PoE 1 of this fate and split it into two separate games. Otherwise it would be a tragedy seeing one of my favorite games of all time to amount to something like this. Happy for people who like it. I definitely know which one I'm sticking to. It seems that devs have greatly surpassed my every single concern that I had about PoE 2 before EA and even found new ways to surprise me. At this point even D4 seems more fun even though I'm a big critic of that game, and I feel like this is objectively the worst ARPG I've played in my life in terms of fun and enjoyment, and it is extremely lacking in every aspect that makes ARPG genre fun for me.

"

Corwynt#2039 wrote:

Campaign needs serious work. I am in low level maps still, so I won't speak on endgame, but I cannot be bothered to level another character with that campaign this way. Walk forwards three steps, fight a white pack. Have another white pack run in before you even start moving again. Rinse and repeat. I don't understand how this is supposed to be their dream game. They want us this slow, against enemies this fast. We can't skip mobs without huge risk. The areas are massive in size and mostly empty. I constantly get 60%-70% of a zone done and just think, "yea, I should be in another zone by now".

And I haven't gone for my third trial yet, but my goodness are people I know raging about the new ascendancy system. I despise sanctum and liked the old ultimatum, and have used sanctum twice to ascend. That should tell you a lot of what I think about the new system. Ultimatum has many of the mods from the old game, from when we were literal godslayers. We are not currently godslayers.

I'm in Act 3 in the Tomb. My char is in constant danger of dying by white mobs which 2-3 shot me with poison. It's an endless crawl, desperate of finding the next checkpoint.

Just wasted my whole money and currency on trying to get an update for my equipment since I still have most of the stuff from Act 1. This game is just a slog, slow, unrewarding and with design decisions which are truly insane imo. I don't get it why "crafting" is so random when it was already 10 times better in POE 1 and to implement Sanctum, which is one of the most hated game mechanics in POE 1, baffles me to no end.

Don't get me wrong, the game is nice, but the drops are just crazy low, everything is again rng on rng on rng. Played D2 recently again and even there you get upgrades to your gear all the time (at least in the beginning)

Here you get a slap in the face and if something drops, they take it away from you if you happen to die from some stupid post death boss mechanic