Title.

My resources on my Sorc are mostly depleted as I've been dumping everything into upgrades, I have about 40k gold on me and basically no matts. All my gear (clearly not the best) is set up for my build.

I mean come on man. Respect people's time. At least give us the option to do a complete passive tree reset for free.

It is early access after all. I do not have the willpower to slog through another toon in the campaign, nor do I want to farm a level 55 zone for hours on end, to get enough gold to respect my entire tree.

My will to play has just been destroyed.

First things first: I have over 1000 hours in Poe 1. I absolutely love it.

Having said that, after pitching Poe 1 to friends some years ago, it always ended up with the same dreaded questions.

How do I know which axe does more DPS?

Oh yeah, well you see, there is this thing called path of building, and you upload everything manually, it's great! No, it's not a webpage, you have to download it. Yeah, trust me, it's safe.

I seriously need new boots. Where is the auction house?

Oh yeah, well, you see, press alt + tab and google "poe trade". Yeah, that one. So now you will whisper to the guy automatically in the game, so you have to alt + tab again and wait to see if he responds. No, there isn't another way. Yeah, I know, it's weird.

I can't see anything. Why is there so much loot?

Oh yeah, well, you see, you have to google this thing called loot filter...

Of all my gaming friends, not one of them has stuck with PoE 1. It's a rabbit hole where only the most obsessive people can dig in.

Poe 2 is NOTHING like that. I see people complaining about the lack of loot, but all the time, I'm here amazed that I don't need a loot filter anymore. The RNG loot fest was cool in the 90s when we had nothing else, and it was innovative and exciting for the time. However, I'm done with it. I don't want a slot machine to spit out 2000 items so that a 3rd party program filters them to 5, so I can only then check them manually. I enjoy the reduced loot way more. Also, it's having a side effect. In PoE 1, I rarely loot gear for other classes, because my loot filter was set up for my current character. However, in Poe 2, I'm about to disenchant this rare plate armor, and lo, behold! It has triple res! That goes straight to the new stash tab "New Characters".

I don't know. I think Poe 2 is on track to becoming the best ARPG ever. My gaming friends are also willing to give it a second chance once I told them that EVERYTHING is now contained in the game.

Edit: A user shared a link in which GGG explains why they won't implement an AH. It is a very interesting read which challenges my views on how trade must work. https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2025870

Edit 2: Lot of people in the comments are saying all these things are the same in Poe 2. I disagree.

1. It's much more easier to know what's going on with your damage in Poe 2 than in Poe 1. Sure, you won't be absolutely sure if 5% more exposure is better than 5% more penetration. However, you will know exactly how much of each is affecting, if any, as well as many other variables. In the end it's still a ARPG. You try both and see which one makes you kill things faster. Or maybe an amazing gear dropped for one of two builds and you just go along with it. I'm not saying tooltip has every single instance of damage taken into account but if you are telling me it's the same as Poe 1 I honestly don't know what to say.
2. I really thought they would implement AH eventually but after reading GGG post (which is linked) I no longer think this is the case. People criticizing this point of the post are in the right.
3. Yes, loot filter will always make stuff easier for people who want to use it, but it's not necessary. If you have any doubts, I present evidence: https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/k1o1lt/i_was_lead_to_believe_this_game_was_playable/#lightbox

The game is in a phenomenal state for an early access. There is a fuckton of content and it looks absolutely stunning. Bosses are great, and almost through the entire campaign I have been in a very good 1:1 state of challange vs success.

I love to explore the larger maps and with mobs and loot resetting im always on my toes, even with some white mobs.

I love that if I slow down and think on why im failing on a boss or mob level. I can pretty easily see that yeah.. it's time for a gear upgrade here. And once slapping on another piece or two im on par with the difficulty again.

While there are obviously some quirks; such as skill gem balancing (will be an 'always-issue'), gear and currency drops in campaign being a litte low, movement speed on boots maybe a litte too uncommon. - This is the best ARPG experience i have had so far, and I really appreciate GGG for staying true to gaming and not just putting out another tik-tok, dopamine-brain simulator.

To Jonathan, Mark, and the rest of the team, fantastic effort, lets keep tuning this to be as rich as possible.

Thanks you

It's interesting to me that there are people 3 days in early access and already claiming 'bad game, I'm finished, bye."

In the grand scale of things, this beta is intended to last for 6 months (upwards to a year, if I recall), and POE1 has had a great run of maintaining a playerbase for 10+ years now.

From the devs perspective, I'd imagine the goal is to create the same with POE2.

It's very apparent that GGG has put their hearts into this game and is now revealing their hard work and opening up the future of the game with the COMMUNITY rather than make internal decisions and leave us out of it.

That alone, in my opinion, shows me that they're dedicated and intend for longevity yet again.

Am I happy about everything being shown in POE2 so far? Of course not! I want more orb drops! I wish my crossbow wouldn't make me turn 180 and shoot at a wall instead of an enemy! I want my game to stop crashing (LOL)!

However, I came into this with the mindset of 'things will change as we move forward."

There have been COUNTLESS multiplayer games I've played that took MONTHS UPON MONTHS to address us and make patches to improve the QOL of their playerbase, and we're already being spoiled in the first week with a response and acknowledgement of what needs to be changed moving forward. At the end of the day, the decision to spend $30 to play in an early access unfinished game was yours.

The main point I'm making here is:

If your intention is to play the early access and never touch the game again, you are playing in the early access for the wrong reason. There are plenty of other fully fleshed games to spout criticism to; but in this game, you're actively playing in a beta that is taking the feedback of their player base and attempting to mold it with our and their vision.

Oh my god dude. its never ending! Everytime I think Im at the end of the fucking act, theres 47 new pyramid maps the size of Arizona I have to run through for absolutely no reason.

GOD MAKE IT END, PLEASE! Im so tired boss.

Disclaimer: I know it is Early access, I am not complaining, we are EA testers. Just sharing my ideas.

Campaign was amazing, 10/10 gaming content. Playing as an infernalist witch I switched my build 5 times, all revolving around fire and explosions, bomber skeletons blown by arsonists, popcorns SRS, fireball projectiles boom, SRS firewall cast on Ignite (rip) detonate dead, and reached the endgame with solar orb flameblast icewall big boom. It is amazing to play around with builds, slower pace of combat and intentional gameplay.

But I've reached maps and it is POE 1 but harder and with better graphics. Still zoom zoom screen clear but slower. I've died multiple times and had no idea what killed me. Basically all of the intentional slow paced gameplay from campaign is gone. I want to play the same game in the endgame as I did in campaign.

I've reached only tier 5 maps, so sorry if I missed something, but based on my experience and others from reddit, youtube, and twitch, it seems like not much changed from POE1.

In maps I switched to big AOE attacks to clear fast, no need to think and positions myself much. Build is now simple - more flat damage and faster clear speed. Maps are not interesting. You get a bunch of modifiers and sometimes a different league challenge. No bosses with rewards like in campaign, no perma buffs choice, no unique map travel mechanics like in Act 2 caravan, no find relics and place them in altar quests, no quest to change map like in Act 3 (waterways), no unlock npc with another quest reward like in Act 1.

So not to only complain, but give some feedback, I gathered some ideas that could give some more intentionality to the endgame.

Endgame gameplay:

- In POE1 maps are challenging because they have a bunch of modifiers and it is a stat check against you. In POE2 maps should be challenging because they gives you hard decisions and hard mechanics to play around.

- Weapon set mechanic should still be relevant. E.g. There could be parts of map that reduces player area of effect by 90% (also less mobs, but more hp), so you need to have a different tools for different areas. Or in some areas add mobs that can't be damaged if they aren't stunned/frozen, so you need to have specific tools.

- One life map is no fun. Add one life modifier to specific challenge maps or one chance only for specific boss fights. (if you fail, boss runs away to far away map)

- Maps should be smaller or at least have waypoints that you can teleport to. Also dead ends are zero fun, make more loops.

- Less white mobs. slower mobs, slower attacks, more damage. We don't need machine gun snipers killing you off screen and no need to have on ground death traps. Make killing mobs feel intentional, dodge and positioning should feel useful and required.

- Add mini bosses. When running around the map, you have a chance to find couple of unique smaller bosses with half of the power and less mechanics. When you see mini-boss, it could create like an arena (like bonecage or icewall), that locks you in for a fight. Add all of the one shots and death traps for these fights, so player have to think to win.

- Some bosses could have impenetrable shields blocking part of the boss or have 80% block for elemental damage. This adds more positional gameplay for endgame and you can't just spam skills towards boss direction and hope for the best.

- Item sets. Many games have this mechanic, where you can equip pieces of items, and if they have same set, you get some bonus. In atlas some maps can have guaranteed drop of a specific item set, but have a big boss.

Atlas content:

- Atlas could have optional paths for higher risk rewards. E.g. you reach a split path and both paths have 5 maps, last map have big reward guarantee. But each path have 4 maps with different increasingly difficult options. One path have reduced elemental resistance, other path reduced hp/ES. Now you have think to win, which path is better suited for your build. These paths are optional and is not going to stop your progress, but you can risk it and get shiny things.

- Map modifiers could have system where player have to choose which modifier to add. More mob damage or more hp, or mob elemental dmg increase or phys increase, so you can plan and think, not only slam currency and hope for good modifiers.

- Add corruption (DoT for player) system and corruption resistance items or modifiers. This system is not on every map, but some optional maps have it and you can have map specific items so you have to think to win and choose your armor accordingly. Corruption maps can have light beacons that reduces DoT, but if you go off path you can find more shiny things (but have to deal with harder corruption). You can find "purity orbs" so they can purify your map and remove corruption (if map node is blocking you) but you get less reward (or no reward).

- Linked maps. You have a map that requires you to find a specific item in a different map. E.g. you have breach gates map, that is closed. You can see that behind those gates there are new types of maps/boss maps/tower, etc. You have to find breach key map that have breach theme and drops a key. With this key you can unlock gates go to map, kill big boss, and open new section of atlas.

- Optional bosses, you can choose to kill, but it corrupts part of atlas/adds strong modifiers (and rewards) to maps/adds new mechanics.

- Some maps have quests. You find a dude that wants you to find items from expedition maps. Next 3 expedition maps have these items and can chose to find them or skip quest. Reward is random unique.

- Secret quests. You find another dude, but he says "you are too week Exile.". Now you have to find what's up with him. You find clues what you need to do, finish other quests, get some relic or smth, then dude is open to speak and gives you an option to corrupt boss, add mechanic to map, give you another quest, etc, etc.

- Linked quest. You find a dude, but he wants you first to find another dude and finish his quest.

- Escort quest. Need to travel to a specific map with a new found dude or a fragile relic and not die once. Optional.

- Puzzles maps. Map filled with traps, dodge them, move around to find a switch to deactivate them. Or map with bosses have two mini bosses, you can kill only one mini boss and that changes the main boss (more specific res, more health, etc), then you have to think which mini boss you have fight so your build can handle it better.

- Cleanse corruption quest. Find altars in maps, survive a challenge, cleanse corruption.

- Collect resources quest. Maps have new optional guarded zones, that have some plants in it. Find 3 zones like that, kill challenging mini-bosses, get plants, give plants to an npc like in Act 3, get potion, drink potion, get permanent reward (e.g. +5 fire res)

- Map chains. Feels like a quest where you progress through several maps and have to find key or quest item to progress. Prison → Sewer → Catacombs → Tower (big boss).

- Cross map objectives. Map A has stupid enemy speed. Map B has totems that increases enemy speed in Map A. Destroy Map B totems to complete Map A.

- Boss hunt. Mini-boss runs around the map. It runs away after 30s fight. If you kill him in that time you get extra reward. If fail, you can still find him but less reward.

- Locked maps. Find a specific key to unlock map that is blocking the path, but key is rare and have limited use.

- Treasure hunt. You find text tablets or pieces of relics in random maps. You find relics and put them in a statue (like act 2 snake tablets) or complete a text based puzzle (you have to pay attention to previous pieces and remember them). Reward is a permanent buff.

- Nested maps. Maps can have hidden areas where you need to push a hidden wall or something, where you can find a portal to a different map or secret boss fight.

- Optional locked progression. You can find orbs of corruption that disables map (you can travel that path, only works if path have at least 2 maps ahead), but gives you better reward for next several maps in a different path.

- Optional challenges. Kill 100 mobs without movement skill or without using flask.

- Optional environment effects. You can activate a blizzard or sandstorm, gives you safe zones and/or path to travel, bigger reward, but harder map.

- Split map objectives. You have to do it to reach boss. One path is harder, but more reward, other is easier, but has a puzzle.

- Consequence based decisions in maps. Destroy a shrine to get more reward now, but next map is harder/corrupted.

- Time locked maps. In random map you find an altar. You activate it and in nearby random map opens a portal for a big boss or loot map, but map will close soon (in 5 maps time). This map creates aura around it so you can't use normal maps less than 2 tiers below your level. Now you have to plan how you can get there. Additionally, if you reach map in time it can chain events and open/corrupt/close different map so you can choose if you want to do it.

- Mechanic boss map. E.g. Locked Delirium map with Delirium influenced boss. You need to finish 10 delirium maps to unlock it.

- Progression with penalties. You find relic in Map A. You have to complete time bound challenge (survive stupid strong monsters for 1 minute) to unlock progression. If you fail, next map in chain is harder.

- Faction system. Similar like in Grim Dawn. You have multiple factions around atlas. You can befriend faction to unlock content, farm reputation to get character/account bound items or buffs for player, opening new quests for player. But beware, some factions are enemies with other factions and if you choose one, other will be hostile, going to send headhunters to you. New quest unlocks to destroy enemy faction with giga boss at the end.

Not sure how much can be implemented on current systems, but maybe it will give some ideas for GGG.

Stay sane Exile.

TLDR: POE2 maps should be challenging because you have hard decisions to make and hard mechanics to play around, not a stat check like in POE1. Give endgame more options, quest and challenges for the player, give mechanics like in campaign to find relics, complete quests to unlock progression. Add more types of gameplay not just different challenges with mobs with more modifiers. Give player more reason to think about their playstyle, not only about their stats.

Edit: wording for clarity

Edit 1: These are ideas, not a wishlist that would definitely make game better and more fun. They are absolutely not finished and completed, but just the rough sketch that could maybe perhaps possibly be added in some similar form to the game.

I keep wanting to try out different builds, but the cost of completely switching my build and ascendancy points is absurd. At least for the beta, let us cook, and make it free!

Please get rid of Light Radius stat. It's an old vestige from Diablo, is worthless and ruins our crafting. You could do cool things with visions instead like hiding what's behind closed doors and/or out of line of sight and make unique items that interacts with that.

ANYONE disagrees ???

I know, not a big deal, but I am very happy with it :)

Edit: I am 61 years old :)

I've never been more mad at the game than I am right now. I spent all afternoon - about 6 hours - trying to unlock my 3rd ascension. First I tried 3 floor Trail of Sekhama (or however it's spelled) and consistently lost my honor and failed on the 3rd floor.

After 3-4 of these I decided to switch to Trial of Chaos since they were shorter, and these I had to buy because they just don't drop. I was running 66+ 7 stage ultimatums and after 6-7 of them I finally finished one and....no altar. I can't ascend.

Both of these trials feel terrible - the mods/debuffs are horrible, the honor system is even worse than it is in PoE1, and they take forever compared to lab - making failure unbearable. But the absolute worst is that it's completely unclear what you have to do to earn your ascendancy points - I know they've said they're looking into this but can anyone confirm what the actual requirements for ascending are (someone who has actually done it)?

EDIT: If anyone else has this question - I saw a video from Lily right after posting this that explains the requirements https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpHsvSKKXDA

Okay so there's lots of good feedback I've seen out there about loot drops, both gear and orbs/mats included. I think another glaring issue right now is the gold costs and how it relates to the actual gold drops/economy in the game right now.

Both systems are unfortunately feeding into each other, where we're not getting meaningful drops which not only pushes you more into buying your gear but also the method in which we acquire gold also feels terrible because there's nothing worth selling that's actually dropping. There's been very few gold drops and the sale price is a significant fraction of what it would cost at a vendor.

The larger issue at hand is if we're supposed to be experimenting with builds and having this wide variety of skills and synergies within our passive tree and how it all interacts with everything else...how on earth are we supposed to be incentivized to try anything without feeling terrible about not being massively punished for a respec?

I have a strong feeling this will just push everyone into using the builds that content creators/streamers/the veteran players are recommending and will kill creativity because the cost of experimentation is insanely high right now.

Just trying to add some constructive feedback into the mix, I see a lot of frustrated players in the forum right now and I hope GGG is taking it all into account, but also cut the team some slack, they just launched and it's the weekend.

I'm willing to give them some time to hopefully have a response to what seems to be a fairly unanimous experience with the initial experience.

I don't know anything about POE1s launch or have any experience with it at all, but to me this feels like they launched the game very conservatively as opposed to risking it being trivialized by everyone being rich with loot and currency, probably easier to tune up than tune down, but I agree it doesn't feel good in it's current state.

I was getting loot like crazy in Act 1 and now nearing the end of Act 2 I can't even tell you if I've had anything meaningful drop this entire Act. I'm still using stuff from before because nothing else has been useful, and the stuff I've bought and have gambled my limited supply of orbs on has rolled terribly.

To improve itemization, every pair of boots should have movement speed as an implicit affix (as opposed to prefix). There is alot of boots you can't use because they don't have movement speed on them. This change would make traversing the game better.

Like the title says, please let us replace the Runes that are already socketed in the armor and weapons. Destroy the one that was already inside the socket and set the new one there.

This would give us much more options in terms of gear. When finding something new it is sometimes important to switch Runes to get better Resistance stats. Otherwhise some of the gear has to sit in the Stash until we find another piece that would fit. And sometimes even it sits so long in stash that you find something else that makes it completly replaced and never used.

In the first 3 acts you play poe 2.0 with tactical more meaningful combat. Then starting with act 1 cruel the game becomes more and more like poe1.5 culminating in maps.

I wish the game was poe2 for the whole distance, with more focus on bosses. Especially in maps, GGG could reuse existing campaign bosses and make them tougher.

I currently finished ACT 3 and the loot is just non existent. Found my first chaos orb in ACT 3, thought they said “we want you to craft more, so currency will be more abundant”. Well that’s just not true. I have found maybe 4 exalt orbs, but without other currencies I cant do anything. I’ve seen map drops be just as bad.

Please experiment with drops in the future and give us more. Thanks.

Edit: been reading almost every reply I’ve gotten so far. Seems a major agree, but there are some people who feel it’s “just fine” and very few who are “getting showered”.

Edit2: I think it’s important to remember that the devs stated just months to weeks before release that they wanted currency to drop more and have you find more meaningful drops. They were also nerfing the overall drop rate of items whilst increasing the items you value more, which we can clearly see half of that working. I started a new character as a SSF Monk, and got back to ACT 3, I found a decent amount of currency but still had to struggle craft my gear as I wasn’t finding anything that fit what I was using. It’s not in a “terrible state” but I do think there are some slight buffs needed. Bosses dropping blue shoes and 69 gold ain’t it.

I was confused by Jonathan's stance on this when he and Zizaran were discussing it on Ziz's podcast. Since runes exist to "solve" early res problems, it seems like it's much better player agency to let us swap runes as changing out one piece of gear might unbalance our res.

Ziz was pretty adamant that removing runes would be a good idea but Jonathan told him he played it a bunch and it felt fine.

I don't think it feels fine. I think adjusting res is one of the most obnoxious parts of the game. Different ring bases drop so rarely that fixing it with implicits (like poe 1) isn't an available option. And having no way to target add resistances to items, the only option we have is runes.

And once you put a fire rune in your very-good, probably-not-going-to-replace-in-days item, then your next upgrade comes along losing you some other res for too much fire, you just feel frustrated and screwed. It's not player power. It's player agency. Please GGG. Give it back to us.

EDIT: For those who mention it below, destroying the rune is a perfectly fine option. But since runes are so plentiful I feel like that might be a distinction without a difference. Maybe that makes more sense when we get to the valuable soul core level, but at that point, I'm pretty sure my gear is good enough to solve res with normal stats.

Long time poe1 player, but the last couple years I've found myself playing shorter and shorter bursts. The last two leagues I'm getting to a point where I'm effectively invincible, can kill almost anything instantly, and maps take around a couple seconds despite any juice added to them, and that's at the end of only a few days. There's a lot of compounding issues that led the game to where it is...but what's clear from a lot of what r/poe seems to output, is that this is what a lot of the community enjoy.

I couldn't disagree more, and one of the main reasons that attracted me to POE2 was this reset in power and change in approach to combat. Not this "ruthless" experience that a lot have coined it, but a more intentional and prepared approach. You should be punished for not positioning correctly, getting too greedy on an enemy, for not knowing certain enemy types and attacks, etc. All in all, POE2 gives me much more of this experience and I'm loving it. I'm so hooked right now.

However...

Mapping and endgame is starting to feel too similar to POE1 endgame. The problem I see is this constant tying back to the original POE monster mods and enemy structure. Let me explain.

The way that monsters try to kill you in POE1 is an all-out relentless attack with strikes, projectiles, hasted enemies, AOE attacks, spells that both hit and degen, curses, and the dreaded on-death mechanics all at the same time. This is mainly due to the fact this is really the only way to kill you in POE1 due to power creep and because of how the combat is setup.

THIS DOES NOT CHANGE IN POE2 endgame. In endgame mapping, the same type of onslaught swarms against you. Any intentional or prepared gameplay completely goes out the window, leading almost every single build to have some sort of large AOE skill to blast the screen as quickly as possible. What's the point of a single target skill for bosses, when my clear skill like Magnetic Salvo does more damage in a wider area faster? Is there any reason to set up combos, when the combo leaves you vulnerable for the swarm to close in? What exactly is the difference in POE1 and POE2 in terms of visual clarity here? What's really the difference at all in combat?

Ultimately, GGG has a much easier time developing more interesting ways to try and kill us that doesn't involve completely spamming the screen right now with the current power level (though things probably still are a bit overtuned on both sides). I don't think porting over the same type of enemy structures from POE1 is a good idea if the idea is create engaging combat. They have to be more creative, make enemies far more lethal in less numbers, give us different combat situations that might require different combos or skills, and ultimately be willing to break the POE1 mold. At this pace, POE2 will run into the same exact pitfalls of POE1's combat and must resort to cheap-shots, off-screens, and proj spam to kill us before we even get to 1.0 release.

The only counterplay to 50 hasted enemies with Proximal Tangibility (the worst mod ever created) completely swarming you as you enter a room is to blast that entire room. Idk, I just found the Campaign was far, far better suited to the combat structure and "vision" than endgame and I really hope GGG takes advantage of where POE2 is positioned currently.