A casuals SSF experience

Greetings Exiles,

I wanted to voice my thoughts on the current state of the game in terms of being a cusual SSF player. I have seen many posts here, so let me define my terms:

- Less than 15 hours a week, usually 10h

- Maybe 90-120min sessions at a time

- i severly dislike trading, thats why i SSF.

TL:DR: This game as of right now would not be recommended for the 30 euro asking price, certainly not for the higher ones, but i would say go ahead for a free to play experience.

Now let me go further into my arguments:

# Currency Mechanics

Why are currency in the game given the same name, yet have their functions changed? A Chaos Orb now reforges the item in removing one modifier and adding a new one, while PoE1 reforged the entire item.

Don't keep the same name, and change their function so i have to retrain my knowledgebase. If you want to change a function of an item, please build a completely new item instead.

# Item Mechanics

Why is the Tiersystem reversed in Path of Exile 2, while keeping the terminology? Again, dont change the system while keeping the same terminology! It has worked perfectly fine to go from random High (worst) to Low (best). Now we start at low (worst) with a random High (best).

Also why is there no ingame Information Compendium on what effects exist, in which tiers, in which strengths? Why do players have to rely on external sources, and ONLY on external sources, to lookup which strength each tier of effect has, on what itemlevel it is available and on what bases? Why is there no ingame function to lookup the necessary data?

# Gear and Damage Calculations

Why is there no clear formula to be looked up ingame on how damage or armor calculates? Why is there no clear summary of base+any modification in a nice list to show you what every single modifier on your skilltree, gear and every other influence has.

Why are we forced to rely on community tools later on outside of the game, as path of building will surely make its return.

Why is there no plain text summary on how damage and gear is calculated so that we can make a educated decision with ingame tools only.

Why is armor and evasion a percentage now, without clear explanation on what that percentage means? Does a 50% Armor mean i am reducing 50% of incoming damage? Why are we gearing Armor and Evasion as Values, but we get a percentage as a summary? Please GGG, clear up the visual indication on what each value does and how much effect it has!

# Vendor Mechanics, Physical/Magic Vendor Currency

Why is the currency exchange completely missing from the magical and physical vendors in the game? As a SSF player, i have a extremly hard time to get a currency upgrade that i maybe desperately need. In PoE1 i could have, if i needed, trade in overstocked currency to get a alchemy orb, trade in overstocked jewellers to get a fusion. As of writing this, this function is completely missing in the game.

Why is the currency exchange market locked to Standard only and excluded in SSF? You can easily explain lorewise that a "state-funded currency exchange" does exist ingame, and you could even make this without destroying the "Solo" aspect of the game, just have a set price that updates each week by the average of last weeks currency sales.

Give SSF players some way to exchange currency! As of now we have none available to us.

Why is gambling restricted to unique kills? Why is the amount you can gamble restricted to the "amount" of unique kills you perform? This severly limits the gambling exchange to gain gear on current, or alternate characters. The unique amount is shared between characters and not unique to each character.

If i want to use my high gold amount to severly boost my new level 6 character with some gambling, i should be able to do so without restricting it to unique kills. Nor does it severly impact the currency recycling because it is a 10:1 exchange rate of items.

Remove the gambling limit entirely. It should have never existed. Double that for SSF.

# Mapping Mechanics

Why is the endgame currently exactly the same as Path of Exile 1? The argument i see is that it is "a placeholder" for the new PoE2 endgame.

If that is the case, then why is the most important inventory function, the Map/Waystone Tab, not part of the early access release? Why is the CORE inventory management tool not available at release of EA? We are talking about a multi million dollar revenue company, this is not their first product to be released.

Why are players not given the Option to skip the entirety of the story and instead introduce a "Level 0 Waypoint" that will feature the same mapping system without the influence of the atlas, and instead with the influence of the campaign, i.e: Defeat 3 Bosses to gain 2/24 Weapon skill points etc.

Have a "Gatekeep" Level 0 Map that enables true mapping, or have a progression system to unlock true mapping.

Why must we with every single character slog through the entire campaign without being given the option to reach the endgame a different way? Players will without a doubt skip every single text and aspect of the story campaign to reach the engame.

# League Mechanics and Campaign Mechanics

Why are 7+2 PoE1 Mechanics recycled into PoE2 and we get zero new league mechanic featured in PoE2? Why must we experience "Essence, Strongbox, Shrine, Ritual, Delirium, Breach, Expidition" all over again, stripped down to a ghost of their former self?

Why do we have 2 old mechanics, Sanctum and Ultimatum, now introduced as Ascendency Gatekeepers.

Why do we not have a single new "Path of Exile 2 Mechanic" available to us? We are seeing a 100% recycling of content, yet we have not been given a entirely new, exciting and refreshing mechanic in the game.

Why is there a massive desert and starvation of Mechanics in the Campaign? They barely exist. We see Ritual as a Story mechanic, yet we dont get to loot it.

Instead of recycling 9 mechanics you already had, why didnt you give us 5 new ideas, new mechanics, new experiences to give Path of Exile 2 an actual identity? The current gameplay identity of Path of Exile 2 is a Path of Exile 1.5.

# No Combat Log and Death Revelation

Why is there after 10 years of Path of Exile still no Combat Log? Why is there no way to research the cause of your HP drop, of your death, or your One-shot?

Why is there absolutely no information on what ended my character in a thanos snap?

There is not even a "cheat", a community tool, that can record the incoming combat log to explain us on what we did wrong.

If i die and i dont know why, how can i fix the problem? If i dont know whats wrong, then i cant fix it!

GGG, with all due respect, give us a detailed summary of our death, and/or a combat log that can be exported. But i dont WANT to export it, i want it to be a ingame source of information so i can further my knowledge and remedy the problem i just faced!

# One Death per Map, Full Respawn per Death

Incredibly Frustrating. In a game that seems to value high incoming damage, that features one-shots everywhere, you can't continue where you left off. You are not even given the slightest amount of chance to recover dropped loot. You can't even pay yourself back into a map with gold!

Same with the campaign experience. While i do like the checkpoint system, why does the entirety of the map respawn? It makes rerunning to where you were untimely stopped an absolute chore.

I cant even take revenge on the Disgusting Existance that killed me!

# SSF in this Economy

There should be a unchangeable SSF Mode that cannot be reverted to standard. This SSF Mode should have massively increased drops, currency and give players the ability to progress without spending an absolute excessive amount of time to advance in the game.

As of now, SSF feels like a thing "a streamer would do" and not a casual homebrew player. The game in its current state severly hinders your way to progress, gear and advance as a casual SSF player.

Currently, i can't in the best of my mind recommend this game to a casual player. While Path of Exile 1 has been the most casual unfriendly game that there is, then Path of Exile 2 could be called a Extremist Anti Casual game.

For Free, surely, try the game. For the asking price of 30 to 100 euros... No.

Thank you for reading, stay alive exiles.