My feedback to the current state.

Hey everyone! I want to provide some feedback from my personal more of a casual style player point of view regarding the current patch - after all that is what early access should be about i guess.

Please note that this is not an agitation to change the game in any way, simply providing my oppinion.

The stuff i enjoy:

The economy (and I must stress out that this is from a casual point of view): During the campaign I dropped around 20ish exalted orbs, which allowed me to get some decent starter gear (usually for 1 to 2 exalts) that fixed most of the itches, helped me fix the biggest issues with resists and try running some maps. I have realized that while in Path of Exile 1 i usually find 3 to 4 chaos orbs in campaign, which allows me to buy 2 to 3 decent items and still I struggle in the endgame start, the campaign in Poe2 had me buy almost 10 decent items going "casually strong" to my map device. Not sure if I was extra lucky or not, however i am glad that it went this way.

Async trade. This thing is a total gamechanger and I love it. Not because I am lazy, not because i have a social anxiety about interacting with people, but because it brought tons of cheap prices into the economy. Before the async trade as a casual player if I wanted to buy some starter ring for 1 to 2 exalts, good luck, i would have to PM 20 people from the website, get hit by website rate limit, wait, hit another 10 people and then someone would finally trade it to me after 15 minutes of despair. The same goes for other small stuff like small tier waystones etc. Love this.

Endgame: I like the compromise you did in endgate maps where if I kill the boss, the game shows me the remaining rares and mechanics that i can do and I do not have to roam the huge maze-like maps searching for those. I think that it is just a patch to bigger overall issues with the map designs, but for me it at least does not make me want to unistall the game after roaming the huge maps endlessly searching for the last rare, so that is a point for you for at least this.



The stuff that confuses me:

Combo style gameplay.
If there is something that I was looking for, it was the promise of combo style combat. For the first time ever i tried to play melee (even after being warned by all my friends that melees simply underperform in both POE1 and POE2) cause I loved the idea that I use some skill to prime my enemies for stun and then bonk them with my boneshatter for a huge damage.
It did not take me a long time to find out that it was just a dream, because while I was trying to dance in super long animations around the enemies desperatelly trying to survive, trying to do my combo, the rude enemies did not care and being zoomier then a rabbit on a cocaine and hitting like a truck they tore me to shreds before i managed to even prime them for stun. I now get the laments of the melee players - i can tell you that pushing a button, watching my character go into 2 second animation knowing that before i finish the animation and do some damage half of my healthpool will be gone - it is super frustrating. I have not in the past and propably will not play melee in the future so i do not personally care, but for the sake of your melee playerbase - help the poor bastards a little.
Long story short i accepted the reality, went back to one button build and let my dream die.
The message of this is not to make fun of the meme meaningfull combat - i really like the idea of combo style gameplay, however at the moment it simly does NOT work and i think that you have a long way to go and lots of tuning to make it work - but i root for you and hope that you can pull that out. My wish is that you do not force it to the people who do not care about it and let them zoom zoom mindless one button builds, however i get that it might take lots of balancing those two playstyles to get it right.

Scaling defense x scaling offense
I feel that it is very easy to get a ridiculous amouts of offensive power, while getting at least decent defenses is very hard - again, this only promotes one button screen cleaning builds instead of some meaningful tactical play, which makes me sad. And what I really need to stress out here is that i do not see anything wrong with one button screen cleaning builds, the most important thing for me is the freedom of choice. If someone wants to play one button screen cleaning build, hey, let them, I am happy for them! I personally would just like to have the choice to take the more defensive, more tactical approach which in the current state of the game is heavily punished.

Campaign.
Let's face it. First time I ran the campaign i was in awe how wonderfull it is. Second time i enjoyed discovering new stuff. Third time i kind of enjoyed discovering the stuff i did not discover during my first and second playthrough. After that? The campaign becomes a chore. I do not like chores. I like the idea that i saw on youtube that told me to think of the campaign as a tracker to see how i improve league afer league and make a challenge to run the campaign faster then the last league - however the campaign is still to long, the zones are unnecessarily huge and I suspect that some are simply made to piss us off (hello Matlan Watereways), not to mention that the monsters are in my oppinion simply overpowered. Love the mini-acts at the end, it seems that the gameplay flows much better there, but the first 4 acts definitelly need lots of tuning in my oppinion.

Another thing - mostly painfull in the campaign is the lack of customization. The whole progression is very gear dependent and gear is very scarce, in the current state of crafting any early game crafing is basically non existent. What i liked when playing POE1 is that if I drop a nice item with lots of resistances, but lacking needed attributes, i can just spec a +30 int / dex / str node on a tree and swap the gear, feeling that i have some upgrade, the same for resistances etc. The tree in POE2 seems heavily focused on damage only, so there is very little choices to swap my gear and I am stuck in Act 4 with a helmet from Act1 simply because it has the dexterity i need. I have played my fair time in both POE1 and POE2 to be able to get what I need on trade or help myself to somehow function, but I can not imagine the suffering of SSF players, not to mention the absolute confusion new players who do not have all the tricks in our pockets must feel - i think that this would deserve a little love from the developpers.

Map designs
I do not understand why most of the maps both in campaign and in endgame are maze like like narrow noodles with so much impassable stuff (trees, rocks, pillars, you name it) it almost makes me feel claustrophobic. Also given how strong and fast the monsters are, the amount of impassable clutter like trees and rocks only adds another layer to the difficulty of trying to have some meaningfull fight and it promotes just a one button explode whole screen builds just to be able to finish the campaign / map, because if I delete them before they can reach me, they can not pin me between a tree, stone and a wall and stunlock me to death while i desperately mash my keyboard and nothing happens.
I am not sure if this is correct, i feel that since the first early access you have improved the map designs a little, but to me it seems that it is still not enough.

Crafting
The current state of crafting that is basically augment an item untill you fill all the mods is in my oppinion lackluster and a huge disappointment to me. I am absolutelly sure that you guys are cooking some amazing stuff to come in the future with future updates, however since this is a feedback to the current state of the game, the truth is that the ways to craft at the moment are simply sad.

The stuff that makes me wish people from GGG to step on a lego to feel the same suffering I do:



Playing the game seems like living with my mother again. You get the nice things but there always has to be the price. Every nice thing you give us has to have some downside. For example: Love the sprint that was added to the game. Is it not enough that I can not fight while sprinting, is it not enough that the sprint is clunky so i have to bump to every random tree and spring again? No, i have to get downed by some small yellow monster off screen shooting an invisible projectile at me.

Another example is the number of map portals (very controversial topic, I know and I apologise, just stating my personal oppinion). Is it not enough that If I go to a harder map, I have to spend more of my valuable time clearing it, because the monsters are stronger? And if I die in this map, I am punished by wasting my time? No, to add to the suffering, I get less portals for trying a more challenging map. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that you tried to listen to the community and added at least the number of portals scaling with the number of modifiers on the map, but again, this is the GGG way - "You will get the nice stuff you want, BUT …". I would much prefer to have my 6 portals every time.

Another example - number of tablets being dependent on the number of mods on the map, which means even bigger chance to just brick all the good stuff i use to run the map if I die.
I get that you want to promote risk - reward decision making, but i personally do not think that this is a good way to do that, this is just frustrating.

No map choice is an annoyance that I would very much like to see addressed. We run hundreds of maps in the endgame gameplay. I love that. However I would like to have a chance to choose what layout I play. I simply can not find a way to enjoy the dungeon like maps, on the other hand even after dozens of hours i still am in awe every time I enter any woodland or jungle themed map how beautifull the map is and I am happy like a little baby :)



Overal I think that the game is slowly moving to a right direction. I can't shake the feel like GGG is intentionally throwing sticks under my feet - I understand that the game is not about clicking a map device and getting the best gear and stuff for free, there has to be some challenge to progress, however most of the stuff that the game presents as "challenge" seems to be artificially created frustration instead of a real challenge. I am sure that this is just due to a lack of content, since we are in an early access and a huge part of features and mechanics is not implemented yet. Maybe some communication from GGG where the game is going and adressing the player feedback would be nice to clarify and calm the playerbase.

I wish you good luck and I am looking forward to what the future will bring.