Perspective from a POE2 Player Only

At the risk of becoming a someone who posts about videogames, I just had to make this thread. I played POE2 during release, skipped 0.2 Dawn of the Hunt and came back for this most recent patch.

The changes Jonathan announced are more bad than good. Its my strong belief if GGG wants to turn this game into POE1, you're going to get POE1's playerbase.

I really want to like this game. I actually still do, so let's start with the good. Class variety is amazing. Build variety is actually pretty strong this patch, much better than release. I can imagine in my mind's eye a couple more balance patches -- and the variety I can conjure there is very exciting.

The changes making the campaign easier are welcome. I played to about level 40 during Dawn of the Hunt, and it was just impossible to finish. The campaign feels very good. I did quite well during the first 3 Acts -- I think based on previous boss knowledge -- but went into the Act 4 boss blind and it took me a good 2 hours to complete. I loved that I did not have to use a build guide just to play through the campaign. I just had a plan and came up with an idea and it worked well enough.

Crafting is superb, I've never really seen it in an ARPG before but it fits so, so well. The dichotomy of lucky gambling and methodical, researched crafting feels really good. And the fact that they dovetail into each other is adds a whole other layer. Get a bad roll, vaal it and see if we can save it. Very nifty.

All of the post above was a preface to the actual point -- just to show that I'm not a mindless hater. But now, the reason for this post. Fully deterministic gameplay is going to kill this game. Towers may or may not be good. I don't care so much. Dealing with your map layout was awesome. Finding a cool tower layout is awesome, and thinking about the best way to maximize it is awesome. Dealing with a bad tower layout and still grinding it out is awesome. Heck, just looking at the icons on the map and thinking about farming that map was pretty cool. The minimap is just going to seem empty and boring now.

Whether its towers or not, where POE2 is going to get better is a dash of chance and a dollop of determinism. I hope they get away from listening to the min max farmers and streamers. I will probably not play again until 0.5. I've invested quite a bit of time this patch and my motivation to finish this patch is gone. They should really just allow some type of beta-branch where you can playtest the changes. I think they would really get it when they saw how many people switch over to the new changes mid-patch. If I had to bet a vaal orb on it, it would be around the playerbase of POE1.

Tell me how many hours do you play this game poe 2 on average? If it’s less than 3 hours, you think gambling and setting up towers are “awesome”? Are you somekind of a masochist?

I play a lot. I have 862 hours according to Steam. Some of that was sitting online during release so my trades show, but I've done pinnacle content at release and I've killed the King at max this patch.

I can tell you're a POE 1 player just by the way you ask the question. I don't understand why you don't think the set up shouldn't be part of the game. The set up is indeed very enjoyable.

If they want to eliminate set up times, I won't even object, but the way they do it by removing ALL randomness, variation, and strategy from the setup is going to alienate at least as many new players as they gain from 1 crossovers.

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XxxPssySlayerxxX#5201 wrote:

Tell me how many hours do you play this game poe 2 on average? If it’s less than 3 hours, you think gambling and setting up towers are “awesome”? Are you somekind of a masochist?

Tower maps last about 1-2 minutes and affect a large portion of the map. I don't get why people hate on it so much.