i'm giving up - DEVELOPERS PLEASE READ!

hello,

i'm a veteran of many ARPGs, with hundreds, if not thousands, of hours in titan quest, grim dawn, the diablo games, and even cheap knockoffs like torchlight. i enjoy the standard gameplay loop of finding random loot and sorting through it to create a powerful build. but path of exile 2 has broken me, and i just uninstalled it.

i mostly enjoyed path of exile 1. my main problem though, was that a "normal" playthrough in the standard league contained little leftovers from all the previous leagues, but not enough to feel complete. for example, i'm sure delving was a great mechanic when it was the main focus of a league, but in the standard league i could never find enough of the special currencies needed to make the most of it.

but path of exile 2 makes the cardinal sin of breaking the core ARPG gameplay loop.

see, in most ARPGs, you get the best loot from battling the most difficult monsters. this means your brain is flooded with adrenaline from the big boss battle, then it gets a little dopamine hit when you see that sweet, sweet loot drop.

but in path of exile 2, no matter how many rare items a boss may drop, most of them will be complete trash, and only worth a tiny artificer's shard back at camp. and once you collect 10 rare items to complete a single artificer's orb, it only means you can add a 3rd random affix to a magic item, which (because there are so many different affixes, and each has many different levels, and each can still have high/low RNG rolls), means you often end up with a trash affix that ruins an otherwise decent magic item.

in other words, there is no dopamine hit after the adrenaline you get from battling monsters. instead, you MAYBE get a tiny dopamine hit when you're calmly back at camp gambling with orbs, but most of the time you just get disappointment. this makes the game feel more like a slot machine, or an EA lootbox game, because powering up is more based on RNG than on actually defeating enemies.

and to make matters worse, the "unique" items are generally complete garbage. instead of being objectively better than magic and rare items, "unique" items tend to have mostly standard affixes with just 1 or 2 "gimmicky" affixes that force you to completely change your gameplay style. this might be interesting if you didn't completely out-level that item after a couple of hours, but mostly it just leaves me feeling disappointed when i find uniques.

and the worst part is the trading system. so instead of getting rewarded with good loot by actually playing the game, you can just browse a list and choose exactly what you want instead. the worst part is that it breaks the value of exalted orbs, because using them as-intended by crafting your own items often wastes an affix slot by giving you "increased light radius", but using them on the marketplace could easily get you a whole game-breaking piece of equipment instead.

i stopped playing diablo 3 because their marketplace made the exact same mistake, but somehow it's worse in path of exile 2 because the power spike you get from trading items is so much bigger than what an exalted orb can get you in-game. i prefer to play the solo-self-found league for this very reason, but since the game is still balanced for people who trade, and despite stacking "increased rarity of items found" affixes on ALL my equipment, i constantly found my equipment was under-levelled for the monsters i was fighting. and this wouldn't be so bad if fighting monsters was more fun, but they mostly just shamble towards me while i back away and slowly chip away at their overly-long health bars. and refer to the above point about loot being disappointing to understand why i stopped playing this game.

i'd also like to add that levelling up is often underwhelming. i've played all 6 character classes, and most of the time gaining a level just feels like a chore. often the newly available skills just aren't fun to play, and the improvement to earlier skills is too small to notice. despite having many uncut support gems, i often ran out of useful options to use them on, and just left several skills unsupported. the passive tree just gives something boring like a tiny percentage boost to a very niche game mechanic. and since this is the only time that vendors refresh their stock, i have to pause what i'm doing and return to each of them; but mostly i just end up buying trash to salvage instead of fun stuff to equip.

when fighting monsters doesn't yield rewarding loot, and levelling up doesn't give you a rewarding power spike, and the best way to get better gear is to buy it or gamble, what's left to enjoy in this game? if you watch youtubers play, even they don't seem to be enjoying themselves; they just mindlessly click the "kill all enemies" button, then leave most of the loot on the ground.

i really wanted to like this game. i respect the developers for trying to keep things fresh and make this game really unique. but it just doesn't scratch the same itch that other ARPGs do.

i'm currently downloading grim dawn again to see if there's anything in the DLCs i missed the first time. despite the non-random maps and less emphasis on crafting, that's a game i keep returning to, because it's just plain fun.

thanks.
-az

+1

+1

Finding loot should be fun.
Alternatevily crafting should be in a state that loot drops will still be useful and fun.

Trading on the other hand is too powerful and easy.
With few clicks you can just improve every piece of your gear.
Something that would take 50h+ of playing the game.

+1

"Finding loot should be fun." 100%

I made a similar post the other night basically sharing the sentiment. Worst loot/crafting system of any game I have ever played in my 33 years of existence.

Core gameplay and sound design is top tier but its completely ruined once you hit that brick wall of impossible progression due to literally every single item being actual trash for the level that your character is on.

+1

I completely agree with OP. I tried to level a second character a week ago and had problems with the campaign. Not the difficulty, but the total boredom of the whole experience. Everything in this game is disappointing. I got the character to lvl 65 before I bored out. I did not get any divine orb or perfect jeweller's orb. Okay, they should be very rare. But I also didn't get a greater jeweller's orb. In my 300 hours of POE2 I got 2 greater jeweller's orb. Seriously GGG? Is that what you call fun.
The only way I could gear my character was with stuff gathered with my other character and by trading. I spend around 100 exalt RNG-ing stuff but that of course lead to only "gain 4 life on kill".

I also started Grim Dawn again. Pfff, how satisfying after the POE2 agony. I wanted POE2 to be good. I know it is only early acces, but the fundaments of the game are so flawed that I wonder if it will ever be a fun game for the majority of players.

It seems like you don't understand the fundamentals of the game, the loot, the crafting, and why it's good.

I guess it's too easy nowadays being brainwashed by games like Diablo 4 giving you only perfect items for your classes and uniques every two chests. I don't think it's a good baseline to compare anything to.

In PoE2 you have to think how to play, what to pick up, and how to craft ; and a invest a little time, effort, attention and patience, for well deserved rewards. I know that's hard and exhausting, but that's how it is.

"

Liondrawing#0797 wrote:

but path of exile 2 makes the cardinal sin of breaking the core ARPG gameplay loop.

see, in most ARPGs, you get the best loot from battling the most difficult monsters. this means your brain is flooded with adrenaline from the big boss battle, then it gets a little dopamine hit when you see that sweet, sweet loot drop.

and to make matters worse, the "unique" items are generally complete garbage. instead of being objectively better than magic and rare items, "unique" items tend to have mostly standard affixes with just 1 or 2 "gimmicky" affixes that force you to completely change your gameplay style. this might be interesting if you didn't completely out-level that item after a couple of hours, but mostly it just leaves me feeling disappointed when i find uniques.

The most difficult bosses in this game do drop some of the best loot...
Ingenuity, Adorned, Temporalis, HoWA etc all drop from the endgame bosses.

Most of the common uniques are designed by players, and are often made for what level they start dropping for.

"

McHuberts#7978 wrote:

+1

I completely agree with OP. I tried to level a second character a week ago and had problems with the campaign. Not the difficulty, but the total boredom of the whole experience. Everything in this game is disappointing. I got the character to lvl 65 before I bored out. I did not get any divine orb or perfect jeweller's orb. Okay, they should be very rare. But I also didn't get a greater jeweller's orb. In my 300 hours of POE2 I got 2 greater jeweller's orb. Seriously GGG? Is that what you call fun.
The only way I could gear my character was with stuff gathered with my other character and by trading. I spend around 100 exalt RNG-ing stuff but that of course lead to only "gain 4 life on kill".

I also started Grim Dawn again. Pfff, how satisfying after the POE2 agony. I wanted POE2 to be good. I know it is only early acces, but the fundaments of the game are so flawed that I wonder if it will ever be a fun game for the majority of players.

You express exactly what I think, 100%.

Unfortunately, they will only understand this: the sound of coins in your pocket, and whether or not you play their games. When that sound stops, then they will understand.

GGG. And immediately return the team to work on Poe-1, we want a league. Keep your promises, or we will talk (with the sound of coins and playing Grim Dawn)