Why POE2’s Direction Is Worrying for Veterans and Newcomers Alike

As before in the patch notes thread I made a summary of the comments. I'll do the same here.

So these 4 images represent most of the comments in this thread. Of course, it's not 100% accurate because it don't account for the same person posting multiple times etc. It's also chatGPT compiling the information, so take it with a grain of salt. Either way it should summarise everything pretty well.

New PoE player here (coming from D4)....

The OP is spot on. That post puts into words exactly what I have been feeling, despite not having played PoE 1.

Particularly the Drops and Vendors section.

I am 55 hours in and have not even finished the 3rd Chapter for the first time (that is crazy). But, the progression and loot (especially the crafting aspect) feels very, very slow. And that is not something you want in a game like this. It is so slow, in fact, that it is making it hard (read: frustrating, not challenging) to create viable build and progress. This should not be how it is in, what I would consider to be, very early game. the first half of the campaign should be pure fun and progression, not a grind.

Here's what the OP said in that section, just as a reminder:

"

5. Drops and Vendors
If you like the current loot drops, more power to you. But even if you do, they’re still poorly designed. Vendors have been given more power, but drops feel so sparse that crafting currency barely exists, especially in the early game.

Low-level progression suffers the most, with players struggling to find basic resources to make meaningful upgrades. The early game should feel rewarding and set a strong foundation, but instead, it feels barren. Later on, the problem shifts entirely, creating a different set of frustrations that make progression feel disconnected and unrewarding at all stages.

I want more ability to add rune slots and modifiers to gear and weapons.

Thanks for the post OP.

PS - I am absolutely LOVING the game though and I am very hopeful the balance the loot, progression, and build diversity and this game will be INSANE.

first of all, welcome to poe.

personally i dont like the change to gold and vendors. its a game about killing monsters and looting them to get better gear and orbs to craft better gear.
the fact that half the loot is replaced by gold and we have to check the vendors every level to get some upgrades feels wrong. i simply want to loot or craft my gear. but drops suck so i have to buy from vendors. and crafting sucks so i have to buy it from tradesite. that sucks

"

Kaukus1#7461 wrote:

1. Slow Doesn’t Mean Better

2. Difficulty Isn’t About Tedium
3. Flasks and the “Vision”
4. Crafting Is a Mess
5. Drops and Vendors
6. The Skill Tree Is Disappointing
8. The Campaign Is Too Long

9. Ascendancies and Trials

I disagree with 3, flasks only really resulted in piano game and in using automated at endgame. If they modified charms so that they could roll mods that would do similar things to the old flasks (like onslaught/movespeed) then there would be little issue. I mostly just think that the flask limit should be determined by the belt BASE(as in belts should have advanced and expert) and not by some vary rare affix.

I agree with 1, I can refer you to Holocure, in that it is VERY fast paced, but relies on a LOT of dodgeing. You can have a fast game with a lot of enemy attacks and also have said attacks be reliably dodgeable.

I agree with 2, most of the difficulty in this game is from players being undergeared for their current boss, not from the boss itself being hard. It seems balanced around the top 10% of builds when said builds get LUCKY on their loot.

I agree with 4, mostly because the crafting currencies like essence are WAY too rare, we are talking about the atlas passives only giving you a CHANCE of them instead of guaranteeing at least one per map. We should have a massive excess of Transmutes, augs, Regals and Alcs - because we are going to repeatedly slam them on bases until we get something worthwhile.

I especially think 5 is bad, not only are loot and currency drops way too low, they are also affected by "rarity" in a way that does not make sense - "rarity" is actually item quantity from PoE1 but way more overpowered.

I agree with 6, some things are completely missing, like non-ailment DoT. Too many of the nodes are generic, nothing referencing slams or combos or ammunition etc.

I disagree with 7, mostly because I like not needing sockets on my items anymore, supports are extremely common and we can get the skills we like easily. Uncut gems spawn like candy so you are unlikely to ever not have them. The grind only exists when trying for very high level gems.

In responce to 8:The length of the campaign is mostly due to zone size being about the same as PoE1 zones when the player has around a tenth of the movespeed. They just have to lower zone sizes.

I agree with 9

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_ZLoBny_#7128 wrote:

"

MEITTI#3999 wrote:

Its not a fallacy. It happened in Blizzard games. It happened in WoW and it happened in Diablo 4. Now both of those games are ruined. Because Blizzard listened to players like you who simultaneously want a rollercoaster ride but then want to actually skip the ride. Campaign is an integral part for the game.

That's BS. Having the option to skip campaign on second/third/hundredth character did not ruin the games. WoW also lets you pick whichever campaign you like more (so you can level 1-60 in Northrend if you liked WotLK more than other expansions for example) or you can ignore questing altogether and just spam dungeons from 10 to max level.
WoW is still the most successful MMO in the market. And I don't see it changing any time soon.
D4 is one of the biggest ARPGs ever (you can call it a failure as much as you want but they still sold more than 10x amount of copies than poe 2 EA, and companies care about making money more than making universally-loved games, that's simple reality of business). Yes, the game has its own problems but none of them are related to campaign being skippable on alts.

I bet that if PoE2 had an option of leveling through tier0 waystones which would scale with player's level 1-60, a lot of players would use that option.

Here's the issue.

Wanting to skip to end-game is just showing you that the rest of the game needs work.

The solution isn't to put a 'skip feature' in, like WoW has with buying a high level character. The solution is to go and make that leveling experience more enjoyable.

People need to stop asking for the easy solutions. Ask for the game to be better, not to skip half of it.

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Nilaos#3809 wrote:

I think there are plenty of people who got interested in PoE2 precisely because the gameplay model diverged from the typical ARPG style, where you just run around the map clearing everything with one click. I'm one of those people, and if the final version of the game ends up being just a reskin of PoE1, it will mean the end of my journey with this title. In my opinion, the best option would be to give us a mode where the gameplay is significantly slowed down—not turned into a "Souls-like," since it's still an ARPG, but adjusted in such a way that it brings out the best of both genres. The question is, how feasible is this?

Otherwise, I can't help but wonder about the point of making PoE2 into a copy of PoE1, especially when PoE1 not only will continue to be supported but already offers more than PoE2.

You haven't hit maps yet, have you. They are the same game in the end. Except POE2 wastes your time more. Rolling does not make a souls-like.

"

Akedomo#3573 wrote:

Here's the issue.

Wanting to skip to end-game is just showing you that the rest of the game needs work.

The solution isn't to put a 'skip feature' in, like WoW has with buying a high level character. The solution is to go and make that leveling experience more enjoyable.

People need to stop asking for the easy solutions. Ask for the game to be better, not to skip half of it.

Character boosts are stupid in my opinion (I have like 5 boosts laying around unused that were included from buying expansions and I don't plan to use them ever) but I wasn't talking about them anyway. I was talking about having a choice whether you want to level through BC, Pandaria, Legion or Shadowlands (I know there are people who liked that expansion). Or ignoring quests and spamming dungeons. Or doing pet battles. Or PVPing. These are all valid options to level in WoW, some are faster, some are slower. And not everyone wants to do the endgame grind (M+/Raids/Rated PVP), some people enjoy leveling characters over and over. I have a person in my guild who has over 30 alts and he just enjoys playing the leveling game.
Same with ARPGs. Alternative ways to get to the endgame are good. Idk why people argue about having options. You can still do campaign if you like but let others do whatever they want to do if it's more fun for them. Games are supposed to be fun and not endless chore, repetition and punishment.

+1

+1

+1000000

Listen to people like the OP, otherwise the game will not surpass Poe-1 and will remain far inferior. We want more and better, not more tedious and worse.