No Hate, But this isn't fun.

Before anyone says "Skill issue", "Git GuD" or "Mind the Door" ect. this isn't one of those posts. I'm not spreading hate.
I've played PoE since very, very early in its creation. I had/have zero issues paying $30 for Early Access PoE 2. This also isn't my first Early Access experience or taste of PoE 1 or 2. And I don't feel ripped off in any way.

I, as well as many others have probably ran the original PoE 1 campaign literally thousands of times. Thousands. I will probably do it again at some point, It's generally fun. Sometimes a build hits a snag, but it's always an enjoyable experience.
The campaign story, writing, dialog, ect. Are fine, the first few times. Once you've experienced it... Don't Care, lets kill stuff and find shiny loot!
Then Endgame, Crazy builds, we know the Drill. Fun.

PoE 2 - I as well as many others have Played through the Campaign at least once on every class by now. And probably a few dozen more times to try something new.
I find pacing is horrid. You start off slow, and you finish slow. The entire game is played like you have 5 pounds of mud stuck on your boots and you have to run across huge maps of soft, soggy terrain the whole time fighting off monsters. The Quarterstaff was really a godsend with its built in gap-closers, that really helped with the slow...everything. But still, overall fun enough.

Dawn of the Hunt update. New Class Hype, New weapon type Hype, typical GGG patch notes, nerfs, buffs, tweaks, League mechanic, ect. Pretty standard stuff for anyone who has been around awhile.

I was really excited for the update hoping to try some new builds and skills, as I stopped playing shortly after reaching Endgame on my 3rd character previously. But after leveling this Huntress, I'm just bored. I've ran all these massive area's before. I've already did this crawl to maps and slogged through this horrible campaign. The spear skills are underwhelming, and I've the played other weapons enough. There's only so much you can do with them. And the league mechanic doesn't really add anything that makes me want to see what endgame holds. Chasing glitter balls that buff monsters, that have a chance to drop a new item doesn't motivate me to try anything new.

Build freedom doesn't exist anymore - Every weapon is the same.
Pick Attack skill.
Pick skill that reacts with attack skill.
Pick herald that supports Element of Attack skill.
Quarter Staff and Bow are the same exact thing. Either hit the Bell, Or shoot the Lightning rods. Same could be said for Lightning Ball for the Sorceress.

It's bunk, and I hate it. Personally.

Now, I say all this as someone who has gotten hundreds of hours of play time in PoE2. I feel my $30 was well spent. I have FULLY gotten my money's worth.
As an overall ARPG experience, it was enjoyable enough. And I hope people continue to enjoy it. But it plays more like a Single Player ARPG. Play it, beat it, Put it on the shelf and find something new to play.

Personally, I think PoE 2 feels like Diablo 3 with a PoE skin on it.
Everything feels like a watered down version of what made PoE fun.
And before anyone says "It's Early access, It's not a complete game".
I know. I used to grind The Docks in Act 3 as "Endgame" in early the PoE days. It's not a content issue or difficulty issue. It's a fun issue.

Those of us complaining aren't complaining because we don't understand Early Access. We're complaining because every fun thing that we loved about PoE is missing from PoE 2.

Spot on

Google the cycle of abuse.

I've thought out long rants in my head that i felt like posting, but decided against it.

The above says it all really!!
POE 2 Dawn of the Hunt league has not been fun at all, infact i feel quite deflated with the experience.
Been here since poe first hit the screens and enjoyed it all up till This league.

I suppose the upshot is GGG will potentially end up shooting themselves in the foot
I have donated pretty much all leagues in some form or another, and thats what keeps the game alive. When we move on we take our money with us.

I hope the future changes for POE 2 otherwise this direction will be its downfall from right up there in top tier game experiences and replayability.

I don't understand the point.. What would you consider fun? I've played about 60 hours of POE1 like 5 years ago and I remember finding it boring at one point. People spend a lot of time saying what sucks but don't really comment on waht they want exactly?

More explosions and easier monsters? Is this it?

I thought POE2 was supposed to be something a little different.

"

Kcannon09#2529 wrote:

Build freedom doesn't exist anymore - Every weapon is the same.
Pick Attack skill.
Pick skill that reacts with attack skill.
Pick herald that supports Element of Attack skill.
Quarter Staff and Bow are the same exact thing. Either hit the Bell, Or shoot the Lightning rods. Same could be said for Lightning Ball for the Sorceress.

It's bunk, and I hate it. Personally.

Yep. Everything feels pretty samey in that regard. They added 100 obscure use case support gems before giving me more than 10 spell options for the first 2 acts on my scorceress, and it all feels the same, some not even useful outside the context of something else, like firewall. Firewall does NOTHING (practically speaking) except add fire to other projectiles. Its not a combo, it's an action tax. So many skills are just action taxes for other skills to be impressive, and so many supports are basically "when your build is already done, use this support to squeeze out 5% more damage, otherwise don't bother reading what I do because I'll probably brick you". Come to think of it, that's what most ascendancy nodes are, as well, and at least 10% of the passive points.
As far as weapons go, they have that same issue where the tier usually overshadows the weapon's unique effect, so you just have to move up tiers to stay in a relevant base damage range. Until it isnt like that, like when you pick up the bow base that fires 2 projectiles, and you just roll gas arrow ignition amazon and cheese the whole game like its 0.1.0 and sell everyone loot for the rest of the league.

"

Google the cycle of abuse.

"Cycle of Abuse" is a silly argument from a game that never asked you for anything. Pay $30, get Early Access to an ARPG experience. Or, wait for release and play it free. I've never once felt abused by GGG since my account creation in 2012.
I've been disappointed with content updates, sure. But abused? That's laughable.

GGG still has my support, They do a lot of great things. Purchases from PoE 1 carry over to PoE 2... Thats HUGE.

I was fully ready to buy more stash tabs in PoE2, as I did in PoE 1. But GGG said, nah. We want to show our players we appreciate them. Thats easily an additional $20-30 they turned down from 1000's of players.

While I'm left wishing PoE 2 was what 'I' wanted it to be, I can't say I've ever felt abused or taken advantage of by GGG.
I've got thousands of hours out of PoE 1 and a few hundred from PoE 2.
So I can't say I agree with some of these more entitled opinions. But I do think GGG needs to figure out if their making PoE 2, or PoE Too.
Because those are vastly different things.

"

I don't understand the point.. What would you consider fun? I've played about 60 hours of POE1 like 5 years ago and I remember finding it boring at one point. People spend a lot of time saying what sucks but don't really comment on waht they want exactly?

More explosions and easier monsters? Is this it?

I thought POE2 was supposed to be something a little different.

The point is, this isn't fun. I listed reasons why.
I used to be able to start ANY character class, and pick ANY skill and make a build that would work. What happened to build diversity?
Now we get to pick a weapon, pick 1 of the 3 elemental options available, and that's your build.

Crafting used to be fun, now crafting is just Exalt spam items with 2 good mods and hope for something better.

They took the systems that made PoE 1 fun, and watered them down. It doesn't feel rewarding in any capacity.

It's funny how everyone goes straight to "You must want more explosions and easier monsters" like that was somehow an issue I brought up. Difficulty, as stated earlier isn't the issue. There's plenty of explosions. I've made multiple working builds, and played most of the Endgame aside from a few bosses. I'm not looking for an argument, but clearly you didn't read the post.

Honestly Build freedom as kind of felt scuffed from the start in POE2 with how they have locked skills to weapon types and the changes to support/skill gems in general just feels way more restricted than POE 1. It feels like a step backwards in game design, feels more like going the route of diablo 4 vs POE 1. Having to deal with linking sockets in POE 1 is way better for experimenting and changing builds than having the gem linking system in POE 2 where we have to relink gems back to 5 or 6 slots each time we want to try a different skill. The only reason this shit game has anyplayers is the POE name attached to it which it doesn't deserve.

i wont spend 1 sec on league... after this new patch, no chance. i cant even start new char because campain is too long, act 3 is hell on earth.

"

Saruman100#7067 wrote:

I don't understand the point.. What would you consider fun? I've played about 60 hours of POE1 like 5 years ago and I remember finding it boring at one point. People spend a lot of time saying what sucks but don't really comment on waht they want exactly?

More explosions and easier monsters? Is this it?

I thought POE2 was supposed to be something a little different.

Its a fair question to ask, although the answer is not as easy to get across.

You say you played 60 hours in POE 1
60 hours and you became bored? There are a load of players with years under their belts. 60 hours lol
To be honest you probably done the whole campaign maybe once or twice in that time
Yep thats boring as heck after the first time
I joined POE 1 in open Beta, and stuck with it
People would pay folk to drag them through the campaign in around an hour
Campaigns only hold their replayability maybe half a dozen times
End game is where POE excels, or at least should do

Ok, its not the monster difficulty, infact there are ways around a few of them i've found already.
The others telegraph their moves in good time for you to react or place yourself better
But 15 minutes on 1 boss? Just in the campaign with no reward?
Its like jabbing it with a used toothpick!!
White trash mobs almost 1 shotting you in campiagn mode....any more than a handfull of mobs and you arent having fun

It actually feels boring, and the frustration starts the minute you see a checkpoint and you know a boss is coming up

i'm going to go back to your 60 hours poe 1 example again, and you probably completed the campaign maybe less than half a dozen times and you got bored
This campaign is old already on the first run
I have zero appetite to put myself through this campaign again with the direction the game has taken

POE 2 in its present state has almost zero replayability.
No incentive
No reward
Stupid health pools on bosses, coupled with gear starvation and build suppression
I like finding shiny loot
It feels like you are playing Hardcore mode, and a lot of folk do not like playing in hardcore mode.
Games are fun and at my age carpol tunnel and arthritus in the hands is a real thing.

We all are entitled to our opinions, but the proof of this pudding will be in a months time and trade collapses and towns are empty
Act 1 will be like a ghost town as people just wont start a new character to experiment with some off the wall builds

They have taken the fun out of the game.
POE was all about exloding screens, blood and guts flying everywhere
Builds being made with different impacts for different situations
Now its like a herd of geriatrics peeking round corners incase their is a white mob there with time on its hands
I cant see any playability if this is the line they take....not for this old gamer anyways

POE 2 feels like a controlled game

No offence meant to anyone who is enjoying this game.....we are all different :-)

EDIT For time served bragging rights
I've just looked and i been playing since 2013 ish lol
I loved POE 1, even the bad leagues were ok....i remember one league where it all went completely tits up and gg made the decision to let it ride.
Was the most fun anyone had ever had, insane loot, insane builds, map clears with screens freezing up
Path of exile you have consumed prbably many thousands of hours in my life, and i wouldnt change any of it.
But, take a look at where you are taking POE 2 !