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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The zoominess and lack of challenge is why I consider Diablo 4 to be an embarrassment to the franchise.
Diablo 1 perfectly nailed the atmosphere and brutality of fighting demons for its time. A freakin’ masterpiece of a game.
POE2 bringing that feeling back with a modern touch to it is great, but I fear it’s just going to get the same power creep that POE1, D3/4, and other recent iso-ARPGs do as they update.
its funny when people use this argument for calling games bad. how dare a game be easy enough for casual players to enjoy
I think the argument itself is valid. Given that whether games are good or bad is essentially subjective in any case, if you do not enjoy a game because it is too easy, then for you the game is bad.
I’m in this boat too.
If a game chooses to make itself “accessible”, then fine, but if it’s to the point of becoming mindless, it becomes points off for me.
One of my favorite cases of a game both hard and accessible was Celeste. That game had some crazy challenges in it, but it also had an assist mode that could give you everything from slowing the game down slightly to straight up invincibility.
Yeah, don’t you guys have phones!?
If you have to put words in people’s mouths, it’s time to question how solid your argument really is.
You could equally have put the words “How dare a game be so easy it’s boring”
in his mouth, and maybe understood the position better.
oh no i know that well myself too. there are games i find too easy to bother with. but i dont tell people who enjoy those games they are shit people for enjoying them, like every diablo 2 player ive ever met when they learned i like diablo 3.
…But he didn’t do that? He called the game bad not the players, that’s a completely different thing and you just seem to be bringing your own baggage into this.
He really shouldnt even do that. Should call the game not something he enjoys based on what hes looking for. Objectively Diablo is a good game it is very popular and has made a substantial amount of money. However it does not have what a lot of people are looking for so for them it is no good. Generalizations are the sign of a horrid argument and should be avoided.
D4 isn’t even just “casual friendly” though. It’s braindead friendly. I’m a very casual player. And heck I usually play crafting survival games on an easy setting to relax and build cool bases. And even I think D4 is way too easy. PoE 2 isn’t hard. It’s challenging. Something the gaming industry needs more of again. Not braindead like modern diablo, but also not hard like the souls games.
I argue in favour of easy mode (and hard mode) for Souls and Elden Ring. You don’t know what you’re talking about, sorry.
I’ve said this about POE 1 for years. I don’t get the time to grind out hundreds of currency to buy the really good gear. After 5 years of playing I got a top tier drop and it changed the game, went from a terrible grind to a fun playing experience, with one single gear change. They keep adding more league stuff to make it harder and harder (Hardcore and now Ruthless), I just wish they had an option for a “Causal League” that allowed people like me to just have fun and play the game like the Hardcore gamers… Read more »
For better or worse, Diablo has been pretty zoomy for a while. Even in 1 filling the screen with Chain Lightning was a thing (though the Warrior didn’t have that experience).
PoE 1 also had an early game that could catch you off guard when not paying attention. My first Marauder playthrough was like that. I caught up in no time, but it cost me dying a few times to some rare monsters in the Fetid Pool (not even a boss). With PoE2 I’ll wait a while for the game to release and mature a bit. I still have a few characters in PoE 1 to play.
In PoE 1 it is vitally important to keep your defenses as close to on par with your offense as you can. As it is very easy to fall for the glass cannon trap only to run into enemies specifically designed to shatter you.
PoE is not the kind of game that I enjoy playing. However, if I did, I would most definitely name my character Edgar Allen.
No shot it’s not taken already. Too obvious. Names like that disappear first.
I was online during the launch and was within the first wave of stable servers. Literally pasted the name “Xerababadubuth” into a box, and it was already taken. Like, what is the chance that there is another person in paid EA who knows an obscure LitRPG and decides to use one of the names from it for the character.
(I mean, ok, this one is pyromantic succubus demon, and one of the classes in game can become that, but still…)
Path of Exile 2 is the game I’ve been waiting for my whole life. I am so happy with it.
I have to say, I didn’t enjoy Diablo 4.
I don’t know what it was about it, as the wife and I enjoyed Diablo 3 couch co-op a hell of a lot. Leveled all the classes, blasted through the endgame. It honestly dominated a lot of our evenings for several weeks.
Something about D4 simply didn’t vibe with us. It felt really hollow, and boring. The story was alright, but it didn’t feel like it had any love put into it at all.
The body blocking issue will be addressed in the next patch. During the dodge you’ll have minimal body size (to better squeeze through enemies) and the ability to push aside small monsters.
The loot should also become better. Items and currencies share loot pool with raw gold, so devs will limit the gold part to maximum of half of the drops on kill.
For what I’ve played of PoE2 (about halfway through Act 1 on Cruel) that feeling of constantly keeping up with the curve sticks around. Every time I find a decent piece loot or resource item it forces me to assess if it would be even 1% better than what I’m running, or if the damage gain is worth the defense loss. I’ve died so many times to not recognizing a rare enemy in time to play it more safe, or to getting cocky and not utilizing all my abilities because I’ve run through a few rooms a little too easily.… Read more »
I played the shit out of PoE 1, and while PoE 2 is certainly an upgrade, it suffers from the same core problems that ultimately drove me out of the first game – too much leaning on completely randomized loot, even into later game, and a frustrating tendency for one-shotting character out of nowhere (i’m not talking boss fights, i’m talking about rare mobs with combos of modifiers that just let the disintegrate you with no chance for a reaction). Which sucks because the game is *almost there* for me. PoE 1 was almost perfect, and it looks like while… Read more »
Really? The first boss was fun but I wouldn’t call it hard. So far the mobs are easy unless you zone out, and the bosses are reasonable.
Cool. https://cad-comic.com/comic/compulsion/
bwahahahahahaa
So true. I hear that all the time in chat.
“Boss X is taking forever, I’ve died a million time.”
“That guy was easy, come on GGG, I thought this going to be hard.”
I’m like shutup dude, just help the guy if it was so easy, don’t tell him how bad he is at playing.
Too deep in Diablo2 at the moment, but i could certainly see myself getting buried into PoE2 at some point (gonna need some more classes first, since i preferred playing a pre-rework Gladiator, or Trap Saboteur), but i fear that PoE2 ends up the same place that resulted in me bailing from PoE … to many mandatory “optional” league side-systems that stuck around, that you had to do not to feel that you didn’t use all available chance of empowering yourself
Got too overflooded with mandatory optionals at about Delve imho
I suspect it’s going to be a bit of a now or never thing with PoE2 again. Coming in as a new player now to PoE1 might feel overwhelming to deal with all those late league extras all at once. But for players who were around from the original state it just meant the game kept delivering a drip feed of easily managed new possibilities to explore.
I had the same experience until I realized that if you get stuck, just run around killing everything else and you’ll find uncut gems and can level up and then things get much better. Still challenging – and boss fights ARE challenging – but accomplishable!
Having a TON of fun so far!
tough love, heh?
Devs will actually buff dodge to push small enemies and being able to pass through the tiniest space. They will also buff some rewards, especially at the start of the campaign and act bosses.
All in all, game will be a tad easier as they get more feedback, but i don’t think it will be less challenging. More like they will iron out some frustrating parts of the game.
Path of Exile 2 is Brand New Early Access. Which means, it’s current form is the WORST it is ever going to be. But it’s already getting QoL patches to increase the friendliness of the game without reducing the challenges to be overcome. Checkpoint to checkpoint teleportation inside zones, increased currency for self empowerment, caps on gold drops to allow more Boss Loot, and a refinement to the roll system to prevent being boxed in. This comic is pretty well descriptive, most people WILL lose against the first bosses of the game a few times. But the diverse move sets… Read more »
… I have never been so tempted to play POE2.
I hate how basically all MMOs have 0 difficulty in leveling up. It makes me feel like I’m paying a time tax to get to the part I want to play. But of course dungeons/raids are multiplayer, and you’re expected to do the easy solo content to prep for the hard content…
If you’re caught off guard, then you’re not playing Path of Grinding right :p
Any comments on the return of Legacy of Kain?
And if the tree eats the corpse it’s iron run mode. Reset save file and try again.
Who goes mountain biking with training wheels?
The same kind of person who goes PoE 2 with full Diablo 4 controls and difficulty in their mind, I assume.
Felt the need to put in my 2 gp on the conversation. Maybe because it seems D4 is getting a bad rap. Diablo 4 had been a blast for me. The only reason I’m not playing it currently is because of some unsolvable bug that has been keeping it from installing/updating on my computer. Before the expansion I was playing every season, even upgrading the pass in order to get the most out of the experience. Blizzard has been doing a wonderful job at listening to their player base, which is why I feel a lot of the comments here… Read more »
Can definitely agree with D4’s loot system. New character: trash mobs for 10 minutes, put on your level 8-10 gear, trash things for half an hour, put on the “best” at a glance level 20-30 gear in your inventory, cruise to 50. Spend 2 minutes gearing up for Lilith so you can unlock World Tier 3… then you can Start kind of actually looking at your gear every half hour or so with a full inventory of legendary and or ancient drops just to smooth the curve a tad… but you really don’t worry about min maxing anything until max… Read more »
is poe2 that harder than poe1?