POE2 Will be a mega hit if you complete the vision

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sidtherat#1310 wrote:

most people drooling over POE2 are still in campaign, loving the visuals and the pacing of act 2

problem is - this is an ARPG. game you play repeatedly over long time. campaign might be great (tbh it was boring.. and definitely too lon) - and sense of exploration etc is strong, new combo skills are interesting albeit very 'premade'

but once you get to lvl 70 or 80 you realise that the 'bling' is kinda.. gone

there is no more novelty, you have all the skills and supports unlocked, you have your one-two combos you repeat every 10 seconds and thats it. with support gems being pretty much tailor-made per specific skills the skill-support creativity is mostly artificial, everyone use the same 2 main ones, maybe interchanging the 3rd link. because only such choice makes any sense


people praising the challenge, romantic vision of skillfull gameplay and whatever seem to not know how current endgame looks like - it looks EXACTLY like POE but simpler and much slower. but you mow the mobs the same, if at lvl 80 you need any form of tactical combat then.. upgrade your gear

average time to blast map boss is like 10 seconds? no skill involved there. you do the same combo you do vs rares - but you do it twice or thrice. while the campaign might have been called 'difficult' (but that WILDLY depended on your luck with drops) - the maps are.. the same. and it couldnt have been otherwise because no ARPG can survive expecting people to kill 10 mobs a minute or having 10 minute fights with map bosses - when you are expected to do 100 or 200 maps. it just isnt realistic expectation.

most of the campaign's 50 or so hours is also heavily padded by dreadful, maze-like boring maps with deadends + bad character mobility + hide-and-seek objectives

so, enjoy the campaign experience as a one-time game. but endgame - it is POE, but much, much slower and devoid of pretty much any depth (at this time)

it will take years to polish it to a state where rough edges arent seen. and that assuming GGG is going to ease on the 'vision' somehow (crafting is a f.. joke right now, drops are ruthless like, ascending options are beyond ridiculous). then there is the bland as f.. passive tree that took POE several years to get to the place it is now (it is actually great)

you kill POE and expect people to play POE2 only - you better have something of similar quality. POE2 has potential but as a product - judging it by people NOT in love with it - it has engaging (to a point) campaign and several major systems not ready for use. and not that much replayablity because new character requires dozens and dozens of hours to re-play the campaign. and that is when people say 'f no'

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Wolfpox#1645 wrote:

I was going to make a similar thread, but I agree so much with the original poster that I'll just reply here.

I am an Eternal Supporter (one of the early PoE1 $1000 supporters). I believed in GGG's vision of the original game because although it was very risky and controversial at the time, Chris Wilson had a vision that created a huge design space for creativity, and refused to submit to the haters back then (people forget how misunderstood it was).

Since then you guys have gone beyond anything I imagined back then.

PoE2 is reinventing the genre and is now the industry leader. People are trying to drag it backward, but it needs to go forward. The game feels artistic, satisfying, deliberate, chunky, and story-driven, which are all things that can be destroyed quickly if the game devolves into mindless speedrunning and casual "have it your way" gameplay.

Path of Exile 1's original vision was madness, chaos, spamming, godlike power, and "over the top" scaling of everything. Clearly you guys fulfilled that fantasy. But Path of Exile 2 needs to be about grounding, achievement, skill, world-building, and "investment" -- in the sense of care, appreciation, and logic. The real money and success is in establishing a new standard that everything ELSE will be judged by.

In short, Reddit was wrong about PoE1, and they're wrong about PoE2.