So many people trying to play the game exactly like PoE1 and getting upset that they die or that bosses take a bit to kill. I hope GGG sticks to their guns with the pacing they have cooked for this game and doesnt make any drastic balancing change due to it.

Even nuking a build. It’s completely ok and understandable. It’s going to happen a lot. We are basically beta testing. It’s literally what we signed up for.

Having a respec cost is good for testing. We need to know how the gold cost feels. Is it too high, too low, is having one at all too restrictive, etc. are all important questions. So it’s good it’s in here.

Having said that, however, I do think for early access we should get a free full respect everytime there are massive balance changes like the one we just had.

I think that’s a happy middle ground where we can test respec costs and we won’t feel bad for testing builds and finding something op.

Edit: as someone pointed out I think you should be able to change your ascendency as part of the free respec

Edit2: well I can’t respond to comments. I got banned for 2 weeks because someone called ME a d**k rider… so thanks for the comments I guess

So I managed to reach the Atlas, then this. Minions.. but still wtf. I'm glad I play a Titan with pretry good % all res. Thank god I'm slow af but I can tank some dmg lol

I've always wanted to get into PoE, I like complex games, play the owlcat crpgs, deck builders, a lot of older arpgs. Yet I could never get into PoE1, so much that I couldn't ever finish the campaign, and that's after maybe 5 or so attempts across many years.

I could not get on with the stupid materia slot system. As a new player it just felt like crap to never be able to upgrade gear without breaking my build. The passive tree always looked awesome to play around with, but I just didn't see the appeal of farming the same area over and over just to get some chromas and jewel orbs for a CHANCE at getting the right sockets and links so I could progress.

Separating gear from skill use might be the best thing GGG has done for my enjoyment of the game, but they went further and now because of the keyword system, a lot of different skills interact with eachother in fun ways to mess around with.

So far the challenge feels about right. I had my first death towards the end of act 1 in that fraythorn village or whatever in the trees where you get a spirit gem skill. I'm really liking that bosses have mechanics that you need to read and think about.

Also folks be saying this is a dark souls, I've played all the fromsoft games and having a dodge roll doesn't make it a souls like. Souls games dodge rolls have I-frames and the dodge roll in poe2 doesn't have them.

Anyways, game good. Cheers.

This is an interview that came out when Last Epoch released, and trade was again a hot topic: https://youtu.be/RskRFwgoQ5g?t=6946

I remember watching this interview back then, and being so hyped to have proper trading in PoE2. The discussion on trade in general starts around 1:48:26...

"I don't want to have any excuses, if players are not enjoying something we need to find a way to solve that problem. So we will solve that problem. We will find a way."

So... When will trade be solved? I thought a heavy tax of gold that is untradeable would solve this issue.

I’m starting to believe that people have (as a good thing) gotten so immersed into early access POE2 that they forgot its early access and that this is relatively normal to meet so much frustration.

While critique is the entire purpose of this phase of the game, its starting to get to the point where the passion from the players is spilling into aggression and offensive statements about the development of the game despite it being a practically very premature and different game.

Imperfection was expected and expectations were definitely already exceeded for a lot of people. We’re just getting to the point where you want to play so much that the slight imperfections start to consume you. But don’t worry things will inevitably get even better and more fun. Don’t worry too much friends. Enjoy that we’re able have what we have now. Give full on critique when necessary and chill. If things don’t get better on full release then at least we’ll be all together to complain again hehe.

Everyone is complaining. Everyone is saying the exact same thing over and over.

You FORGOT it's EA and not a complete game

You FORGOT they went on holiday.

You FORGOT that game development takes time.

You FORGOT that everyone has already posted about checks notes endgame, ascendancy, body blocking, map portals, or whatever your mind body blocks you into not being able to counter with the systems.

You also FORGOT that you are playing their creation, not yours. Let them cook!

Let's be positive, it is Christmas after all.

I got 90 hours out of an EA game and enjoyed every minute of it. I'm consumed with trophies and achievements and for this game to not have ANY and have me dump this much time into it, is quite a feat.

I say GOOD JOB GGG, if this is where early access started, we are in for the best arpg of all time.

I've absolutely loved the core gameplay of POE2 through the story. The slower pacing, the focus around skill based engagement instead of just offscreening everything. It has felt genuinely satisfying to play a build that has to interact with the content on a moment to moment basis and where split second actions are more impactful than simply the numbers on your character sheet. Sure I know that my mercenary isn't optimized for clear speed, but I don't care because it's fun to play! I was incredibly excited to see that engaging experience continue into the new atlas.

I've deliberately avoided spending too much time on reddit/avoided spoilers so that I could go in as fresh as possible, and man was that a shock. It's like my character was plucked out of POE2, and dropped into the 1 shot clearspeed meta world of POE1. The movement speed of most monsters is through the roof, and white mobs routinely half health from off screen. I was expecting a difficulty spike when moving to maps, and was genuinely excited for it, but this transition back to POE1 was not the experience I was hoping for. This is further underscored by the fact that bosses are so rare on the atlas.

I pressed on for a while thinking "ok let's check out the league mechanics though!" and was quickly disappointed to find that they were the same thing, only dialed to 11:

Breach - Instantly swarmed and you either have the clear speed to deal with it, or you don't.

"Well ok, but Breach has always been like that. Maybe some of the others are more involved"

Ritual - Instantly swarmed and you either have the clear speed to deal with it, or you don't, but this time you can't run away if you do manage to dodge out of the pack.

"Ok so I'm not going to bother with Breach or Ritual. How about something that by design should fit with POE2's formula better!"

Expedition - Momentarily not swarmed, until +100% base move speed monsters instantly swarm you and you either have the clear speed to deal with it, or you don't.

That was the extent of my mapping. 15-20 maps in has now been enough for me to know that while I love the core concept of this new atlas, the moment to moment gameplay isn't for me. I've already experienced this end game for the past 10 years. It's a waste of such a good system that they've designed for them to not push that system into the end game, instead leaning on what feels like a copy and paste of all of the same design choices from POE1.

We're still in early access, so there's plenty of time for this to be ironed out. Maybe it's just a symptom of the rushed timeline that they had to get a fully fleshed out end game before EA launched. Either way, I can't get enough of the core game you've built GGG. Let it breath, and let POE1 stay in POE1!

Maybe it's my 20-year-old wow muscle memory kicking in, but damn. If you haven't tried it yet, you really should.

This is Path of Exile 2, and it plays VERY different. I know it may feel weird to use your currency and vendors, but that is why drops are sparse. You need to craft your gear upgrades with your currency. It is okay, you will get a lot more. Also, actually use your gold for trading with vendors. Seriously, they are actually useful in POE 2. I see many people complaining that something needs to be like this or that in POE 1. But we have both games, let POE 2 be it's own thing, not just another POE 1. The moment I stopped trying to play this game like POE 1, the more I started loving it.

Act 3 Chimera boss casually dropped me a div. Some players are reporting that more gear is dropping today and i can also feel it.

Edit: Giveaway is over, all keys used.

1) Account needs to be 30+ days old
2) To participate, just leave a comment

I'll be giving it out by tomorrow. If you win, I'll reply to your comment and DM you the key. If it's not claimed within a few days, I'll send it to someone else.

Good luck exiles!

I see a lot of complaints/feedback, much of which is relevant and I agree with but it's always followed by "and this is why the game will die".

So I think it's worth mentioning, even with these rough edges/issues 3 weeks later and the avg player count is still over 300k. PoE1s highest ever peak was 228k and that game was free.

So, while they do have some issues to iron out it shows that the core concepts of more punishing, engaging gameplay appears to be holding peoples attention.

There has been a lot of feedback over the past week both constructive and not so great. But I have noticed a large amount of the extremely negative comments are made without understanding what an early access game is. Path of Exile 2 is not a complete product and you should have known that when getting into it.

There are still 6 classes, 24 ascendencies, 3 acts, tons of bosses, and tons of content still to be added. GGG have made more changes in the past week than most companies do in a month. I have seen so many comments acting like this is the final product and there will be no changes to the game addressing the feedback.

I would hope GGG posts a roadmap detailing what feedback they are looking into and if they will address it or not. Also a rough timeline of when we can hope to expect future updates. A lot of the complaints are coming from a place of uncertainty and having the information available would be very nice.

So far, I've liked every act to a reasonable degree (on my deadeye, not my warrior), but compared to act 2 and 3, Act 1 blows it out of the park for me. It's absolutely, hands down, the best act out of all of them.

Act 1 keeps the amount of content to a smaller degree compared to the following two, which for me makes it WAY more enjoyable, and doesn't make it feel like a daunting task, unlike how Act 2 and Act 3 can. It just feels like the perfect amount of content. The size of the maps, and the rewards (like the books of specialization and permanent buffs) were done perfectly, and I hope that they bring over some of those aspects into the other acts at some point.

I also just really like the way act 1 looks. It just looks the coolest, and I hope that acts 4-6 end up carrying a similar theme. I would love to see like a grand castle/capital city (something sort of like windhelm in skyrim), or a snowy mountain, or a mystical old growth forest, etc. Something different from sand and jungle, which don't feel very fantasy to me, which is what I hope for coming into these games. I'm an artist, so finding inspiration in games that I like it always awesome, and I personally don't really get that from deserts and jungles. I'm pretty confinement in the fact that they definitely don't make their games in order to inspire artists though haha

thats it thats the entire thing... L mechanic not fun insanely time consuming spend an hour+ to get nothing out of it

edit: Anyone that thinks its about the difficulty clearly doesnt understand the issue so lets clarify... its about the TIME required. Failing isnt the issue the difficulty isnt the issue its a matter of it taking 30 min to an hour every single time you fail for not even the last ascendancy points and you get nearly nothing out of it. just a giant time waste and everytime you get close you feel like you can do it and you spend another hour for nothing.

That’s all I’m here to say. Ever since the Div was introduced as the premier currency it feels as though the trading market has turned into a large bubble where every trade involving a piece of armor or weapon that has “good” stats (not even perfect, or great) is priced at 1 Div orb. Even the subpar rolls are priced at 30,40,50 exalts because people see similar items priced at a Div and think that they can sell their gear for a price that’s close to it. The reality is that 97% of the offerings on the trade website are not worth it. I really hope that at some point prices start returning to normalcy as more players earn drops and begin circulating some of these items into the trading market because the current prices of items just feels crazy and not worth it for most items.

Just from reading feedback about the beta, I feel like a lot of people are asking for changes that, even if they don’t realize it, would make POE2 more like POE1. Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of valid feedback, and the game definitely needs adjustments. But I keep seeing suggestions for changes that feel like they’d slowly turn POE2 into POE1 with a new look.

For example, I sometimes see people asking for POE1 loot explosions, POE1 mobility, change the passive tree to be more like POE1, etc. Of course there's a middle ground to all this though.

It’s not everyone, but I think some people who don’t like certain systems in POE2 might just want POE1 with some tweaks. I really hope POE2 can stay its own thing instead of going backward as GGG intends.

Anyways just rambling. I have no doubts that GGG will handle it well like they did with POE1.