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

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Kaukus1#7461 wrote:

6. The Skill Tree Is Disappointing
The new skill tree looks like POE1’s tree but feels hollow in comparison. The nodes are uninspired, and the restrictive layout makes it harder to create unique or unconventional builds. The inability to travel across the tree freely stifles creativity. And the absence of masteries? It’s a huge loss. Masteries gave builds flexibility and depth, allowing players to specialize and fine-tune their characters. Without them, the tree feels rigid and unexciting. Even basics like Life nodes, which helped define different defensive strategies, are missing, limiting creativity in ways that hurt the game.

This 100x

- Attribute requirements are way too high
- We get too little stats per passive point allocated
- Too many travel nodes

So... either play exactly what your class is "designed for" or give up

Played a lot of sequels, all of them take the core principles of the predecessor and expand upon them.
PoE2 seems to have been developed by a group of people who had played other dungeon crawlers (arpg my butt) and seen PoE but didn’t understand it.
PR and promotion before indicated a PoE but better game, what we have is a PoE with most of the game gutted out (no crafting to mention, weak passive tree, atlas tree that’s newer to PoE but has also been stripped down…all of these are core features of the GGG dungeon crawler).
The loot is weak, the atlas is a mess (seen guild members with 5 citadels and others with none in sight, both types with similar maps ran), server lag isn’t gone but it’s in the best state I’ve ever seen in the history of GGG yet one shots and random mechanics kill players from afar without the mob being even visible.
The argument for 1 or 6 portals, the xp penalty or not, the ruthless loot or a softcore mode rages on in forums like a pair of 10 yr old siblings squabbling.
The arguement for how much holidays a company is entitled to continues with bigoted comments like only US has national holidays off ( utterly untrue I can name uk,France and Germany by personal experience also follow that pattern but individuals can and often do use personal holiday entitlements to pad out the break).

TLDR the game lacks direction, the users are divided and the forums are bordering on toxic… and yet silence (whether a fully staffed or skeleton crew) from its makers. Anyone want to tell me that with forums like they are that JW hasn’t had a zoom call or 2 with people?

+1

If i compare POE2 to the earlier stages of POE1 where it had the same situation of repeated acts with higher difficulty. I dont think POE2 is worse it would be a bad comparison to compare POE1 Final Stage after many years to the first Month of POE2 Early Access. But overall i hoped for a bigger change between POE1 and 2. At the campaign i felt they made it better then POE1 as, for me, i found much more currency and the boss fights felt better (basicly more fair) then in POE1 where it was digital total easy or unbeatable with current gear. In POE2 you could much easier compansate bad gear or level. But in the Trials and Endgame it switched to be much more annoying then POE1 ever was. Those one Try Runs to a Trialmaster Boss or the Citadels or anything Endgame based are just annoying and they give no motivation or fun to do them. If i fail i feel annoyed and frustrated. Even if i whin i only feel some kind of releave but no fun or real joy because it was just pain to go over that border. If there would be a difficult task which in the end is fair and the struggle to pass the task feels like a "game" and makes fun it would be nice. But those one Try mechanics and those gamble mechanics (f.e. get the right 3 parts of the trialmaster key) are not fun never even when i run them with a overpowered char and have no difficulty they dont make fun they are just annoying. I hoped those mechanics would be less or gone on POE2 for the first half of the game it was but the Endgame brought all of the garbage back and added another level of gamble + frustration to it.

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Kaukus1#7461 wrote:

3. Flasks and the “Vision”

im so glad flask piano was removed, it was attrocious to play unless you had mageblood. charms are the way to go. having it automated anyways was a good decision

tbh I agree with everything u said OP, but u forget to mention some vestigial mechanics they still haven't moved on from like no interface customization

Disagree with almost everything. Put in 300 hours into poe2 already, it will easily beat the past 10 years of poe1 for me.

I am a fan of the vision, and I like ruthless' direction.
I despise speed / power creep. I like things being impossible. I love trial of sekhemas.

But you and I are different. I have as much time you spent in elden ring and DS3 instead in Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin challenge runs. I hated the casualization of the souls games. So obviously GGG is not targetting the same audience, but I am an old player and the slow direction of PoE2 is for me, just like ruthless was for me.

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Kaukus1#7461 wrote:

Utility flasks were something unique in PoE1, setting it apart from other ARPGs. They weren’t just about healing or resource management but offered strategic tools to adapt to different situations. While they weren’t always needed in every fight, they added depth and flexibility, letting players fine-tune their builds for specific challenges.

Late to the conversation, but flasks definitely needed changing. They boiled down to:

*Life flask IF you needed it
*Quicksilver flask
*Defensive flasks (armour/evasion/resistance)
*1-2 actual utility flasks (phasing, onslaught, freeze immune, etc).

And all of these you wanted automated anyway. That's why Mageblood was the best item in the game, and nearly every build wanted one (improved flask effect AND 100% uptime). Even without it, you usually had flask automation, because rolling them manually was terrible, and added unnecessary key presses for buffs you wanted up 100% of the time anyway. With PoE2 trying to have character press more keys instead of being 1-skill ponies, having these buffs automated by default is a no-brainer.

Charms need to remain as they are, as conditional buffs you spec into, with some improvements:

1) 3-slots at endgame, always.
2) Variety and more interesting options, but that will come with time and development. This is still early access, after all.
3) CLARITY. I find this to be a MAJOR issue. The game doesn't tell you when your charm is out of charges or when it's full, so suddenly you get surprise frozen because you didn't realize your thawing charm was expended before.
4) We can discuss whether the point of them should be to have weaker but constantly acting buffs like flasks used to provide, or stronger limited use options. Personally, I think they ARE more interesting as the latter, but I am also a consumables aficionado in games.


Also on gems, the new system is MILES better, though acquiring 6-socket IS kinda hard. The old system completely restricted gear flexibility, and rolling orbs is painstakingly unenjoyable. You only do it because the game drops so much currency you can afford to get that many. What's the difference between looting 1000 orbs and having to roll them all, or looting 1 that does the exact same thing, once and forever on that specific gem? However, I will say that at the very least the game should reward you with a single Lesser, Greater and Perfect Orb at certain levels.

+1 OP

yeah, mostly agree with OP