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

I absolutely love the game. I prefer its cote gameplay over poe1. I hope GGG wont waver in front of what I think is a very vocal minority.

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5Spooky3Me#5140 wrote:

I've got to disagree. PoE2 is the first ARPG I've ever played that wasn't just mindlessly spamming the same ability over and over. Having to display a little mechanical skill outside of the skill tree to kill something is like breath of fresh air. Luckily, PoE1 is going to be supported for the foreseeable future.

The thing is you can always twink or farm the same content more to get more gear. I dont mind it being hard in the beginning or having to grind a bit for that. It is an ARPG after all. If you want a game to practice sheer mechanical skill for something like this, I suggest the video game called Kill Knight. (Not Dark Souls)

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bachgaman#6713 wrote:

It's amusing to see people who, just a week ago, were complaining that POE1 is too complex theoretically, now flexing that the mechanical difficulty of POE2 is the game's greatest advantage. It's obvious, though, that theoretical complexity > mechanical complexity, as even a monkey can be taught to time a dodge correctly.

That was before they found out that they don't have the mechanical skill xD

The majority of PoE1's difficulty was in the complexity and buildmaking. But you could skip all that by following a build guide, as you could skip game's mechanics by overstacking stats, be they defense or offense. Quite a few people play PoE1 that way, and when they easily plow through a game that's considered difficult, it provides an illusion that they are great at it.

Now, PoE2 is here, and the difficulty starts in act 1, where you can neither build guide your way through it, nor overstack stats to ignore the game's mechanics, and so quite a few people have a horrible case of cognitive dissonance from the game, because they found the hard way that they aren't all that good at the game.

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FreeLookMode#1750 wrote:

I am sick to death of every game trying to be dark souls. I've heard people saying that POE1 was "hard" in the beginning. First of all, no it wasn't - not like this.

I'm just gutted. It's such a disappointment.

True poe 1 in 2013 was not really hard mechanically. Brains tend to forget, especially when it is already more than 10 years ago. Some people just need to rewatch some old trailers from 2012-2013 to see it.

Part of the difficulty in POE 2 is it being an absolute pain to handle the controls. I use classic poe 1 controls but they are not always that responsive. I tried the play oldschool but you are kinda forced to use the spacebar for dodging. The entire game is balanced around it.

Well the lore and artstyle are great. That is a positive.

The game is growing on me, but it does have some glaring issues, as an early access game should have.

The progression isn't smooth at all, and the access to dropped gear, currency and tools to make your gear/experience better, are all too low - at least up until the point where I am (act 2, level 20).

I've seen countless posts, streamers or whatever that all something like "once you get a good weapon/gear, your experience will be better". But getting a good weapon/gear isn't a matter of course at all when rare items aren't dropping and the vendors aren't selling any gear with affixes I want/need.

In other ARPGs, PoE 1 included, you don't have to be "lucky" to feel good, because the progression is smooth and (to a certain degree) balanced.

So this game's biggest issue right now isn't the flow of combat, click to move, WASD or the difficulty. This game's biggest issue, is gear acquisition.

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Xyel#0284 wrote:

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bachgaman#6713 wrote:

It's amusing to see people who, just a week ago, were complaining that POE1 is too complex theoretically, now flexing that the mechanical difficulty of POE2 is the game's greatest advantage. It's obvious, though, that theoretical complexity > mechanical complexity, as even a monkey can be taught to time a dodge correctly.

That was before they found out that they don't have the mechanical skill xD

The majority of PoE1's difficulty was in the complexity and buildmaking. But you could skip all that by following a build guide, as you could skip game's mechanics by overstacking stats, be they defense or offense. Quite a few people play PoE1 that way, and when they easily plow through a game that's considered difficult, it provides an illusion that they are great at it.

Now, PoE2 is here, and the difficulty starts in act 1, where you can neither build guide your way through it, nor overstack stats to ignore the game's mechanics, and so quite a few people have a horrible case of cognitive dissonance from the game, because they found the hard way that they aren't all that good at the game.

What is hard with fightning boss for 10 minutes? Clearing the same mobs over and over is hard? It's just super booring and annoying.

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Xyel#0284 wrote:

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bachgaman#6713 wrote:

It's amusing to see people who, just a week ago, were complaining that POE1 is too complex theoretically, now flexing that the mechanical difficulty of POE2 is the game's greatest advantage. It's obvious, though, that theoretical complexity > mechanical complexity, as even a monkey can be taught to time a dodge correctly.

That was before they found out that they don't have the mechanical skill xD

The majority of PoE1's difficulty was in the complexity and buildmaking. But you could skip all that by following a build guide, as you could skip game's mechanics by overstacking stats, be they defense or offense. Quite a few people play PoE1 that way, and when they easily plow through a game that's considered difficult, it provides an illusion that they are great at it.

Now, PoE2 is here, and the difficulty starts in act 1, where you can neither build guide your way through it, nor overstack stats to ignore the game's mechanics, and so quite a few people have a horrible case of cognitive dissonance from the game, because they found the hard way that they aren't all that good at the game.

1. What does it mean to "plow through POE"?
2. Mastering the skill of dodging boss attacks doesn’t make you a good player—don’t flatter yourself. It’s not such a challenging technique that you can sincerely take pride in managing to learn it.

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Phrazz#3529 wrote:

The game is growing on me, but it does have some glaring issues, as an early access game should have.

The progression isn't smooth at all, and the access to dropped gear, currency and tools to make your gear/experience better, are all too low - at least up until the point where I am (act 2, level 20).
...
So this game's biggest issue right now isn't the flow of combat, click to move, WASD or the difficulty. This game's biggest issue, is gear acquisition.

Yeah, the game ramps up the difficulty much faster than you get the gems/gear you would like to have to deal with it - on the example of my witch - there was this point in late teens/early twenties levels, where encounters started having some serious mob density, but I just didn't have a proper AOE skill to deal with it, and I couldn't get a spirit gem to upgrade the SRS either, so my power lvl dropped to the floor.

A bit later, I dropped a lvl7 uncut gem, which solved the AoE problem, and then I finally got an SRS gem, and got back to plowing through stuff with ease, but that patch of me getting slaughtered left and right with no way to deal with was a problem design-wise (since it's the exact same spot you're mentioning, and I've seen quite a few people mention early act 2 as well in this context).

Oh, I'm having a lot of fun, actually. I'm ready to move on. A little friction never killed nobody.

I personally enjoy it, but man if you don't have the correct build, bosses take so long to kill. They also feel more like mini games instead of actual fights, memorize the pattern and press dodge at the correct times, then use 1 or 2 skills and repeat. Using skills feels really fun, but having to dodge every few seconds really slows the fights down. Dying a few times is fun, dying a lot on a boss really feels slow when it just comes down to missing dodges on long fights with multiple phases. but, most of this game seems to be based around timing dodges, so this is probably intended?

I tried a summoner build, and found myself never using tank summons as most enemies simply ignore them, and they don't seem to effect bosses at all. I don't think the game can actually support tank summons since so much of it is based around dodging. I don't mind going all in on damage skeletons, but then why have melee skeletons as a skill? I tried fully using melee skeletons to block corridors and enemies just jump over them most of the time so i went back to damage skeletons that clear faster.

Zombies and corps based spells cant be used on bosses for the majority of the time as there are simply no corpses to use, so after a while i simply stopped using them in favor of other spells.

Overall i'm having fun and the game definitely feels unique, i'm just having trouble finding a use for a lot of the skills.