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24

The Rougher Path

December 11, 2024 by Tim

I’m liking Path of Exile 2… or at least, I think I do. I’ll admit, though, that I was a little caught off guard by how unforgiving the early game has felt. TL;DR: Game likes to be punishing.

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I’ve been cruising along with each season of Diablo 4 since launch. It’s great for the occasional AARPG fix where I can just turn off my brain, put on some music or a movie, and mow down thousands of hapless demons for a little while.

POE2 is not that. At least, not so far as I’ve played. And while it’s been clearly designed to feature this steeper difficulty/learning curve, I suspect I’m feeling it more so because I’ve been coasting on all of the little choices D4 makes to facilitate its power fantasy.

Diablo 4 is a zoomy game. It moves quick, you spam through your chosen skill rotation, onto the next group of mobs before the last group as finished exploding in gore. Run run run, hoover up all the shinies, you’ll look at them later when your inventory is full. Nothing slows down the pain train.

I have died at least a dozen times in POE2 due to getting body-blocked into a corner by a bunch of enemies I forgot I couldn’t simply dodge-roll past.

I find I have to be more deliberate with everything in POE2… my positioning, my health and mana pots, my skills. It’s a slower, more methodical vibe, that my D4 muscle memory chafes against.

But there’s something really nice that this pacing does to the early game, which is make everything feel more impactful. Your shots/spells/punches feel like they matter, feel like they hit harder, when you’re not just spamming the screen with particle effects while you bounce around like a tornado.

Each piece of gear at this low level matters more, because it’s a step towards inching ahead of the difficulty curve. And because levels seem to happen a touch slower than D4, and loot is scarcer, you don’t necessarily get that “Whatever, it’ll be obsolete in five minutes anyway” feeling from Diablo’s early game.

I dig a tough game, a game that demands you earn your advancement through learning and respecting its rules. So as much as I was perhaps unprepared to have my ass handed to me so thoroughly, I’m enjoying that it’s not just another Diablo. I’m curious to see how the game’s pace and vibe change as power creep rears its head at later levels, but for now it’s a fun challenge.

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