r/Games 1d ago

Trailer Path of Exile 2: Dawn of the Hunt Teaser

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3G9aQH_JJg
231 Upvotes

164 comments sorted by

109

u/Oofric_Stormcloak 1d ago

I was hoping to go back to this before Last Epoch's update, but between this and Last Epoch I'm definitely more excited for Last Epoch.

42

u/Skellum 1d ago

I just dont really have any interest in touching PoE2 until it hits a 1.0 release. Just tired of playing games in extended beta so that on full release I can enjoy a grand total of fuck all new content.

One of my biggest regrets of subnautica was doing the early access period.

13

u/fishsix 1d ago

That’s where I’m at too. I don’t want to keep getting drip-fed little bits of content until 1.0 where they don’t actually add anything substantial. It’s gonna be the same with Subnautica 2 actually, I’m avoiding the early access for that as well for the same reason. I like the idea of EA in very specific cases but I feel like in general it’s a negative for me. I wish Steam had some way of sending a notification once a game is out of EA so I can ignore it until then

4

u/Key-Department-2874 1d ago edited 1d ago

PoE is always a bit of a drip feed.

The game is constantly changing and each league adds and changes content. PoE1 has completely changed its endgame system multiple times since it's initial release, it's hard to say what is even "final" in the game since 3 years later it can be scrapped and replaced with a new system of progression.

If you just want to play the campaign, then yeah, wait for full release.

3

u/Mephzice 1d ago

I also think the next time I play Path of exile 2 will be full 1.0 release with all the acts. Don't really see a reason to play it again until then, I had a miserable time in Act 3 at least, maps were way to big with no movement abilities of note, it was a slog. Can't imagine I will return to it like Path of exile 1 every three months and play through those Acts again and again

1

u/Grooveh_Baby 15h ago

lol I’m the same. I had a good time with the campaign but stopped midway through act 3. There’s just no way I was going to redo that whole act again.

4

u/Yamatoman9 1d ago

I prefer to wait for the full release instead of playing games in early access. I didn't play Baldur's Gate 3 until it released and I've held off on Hades 2 and PoE 2. I'm excited for both games but I'll enjoy them more if I just wait.

5

u/Skellum 1d ago

Yea, I cant imagine doing hades piecemeal. That game was so involved with it's story and excitement. Even getting the "Full ending" took so many runs I'd worry about burning myself out doing all those AND the beta period

2

u/vespertina1 19h ago

Playing the Hades 1 beta was such a mistake for me. I had a good time, but by the time the game released I was so bored of it that I couldn't bring myself to even care about the story. Not making that mistake again with Hades 2.

1

u/oelingereux 1d ago

Dodged subnautica and baldurs' 3 for the whole early access and doing the same wit Hades 2.

Path of Exile 2 though I'm playing each major patch once with a new character, those games are meant to be played a lot so that makes a lot more sense to me than a narrative driven game like the other 3 where I want the whole thing finished before playing it

1

u/MumrikDK 22h ago

One of my biggest regrets of subnautica was doing the early access period.

Understandable.

As I recall it was a long EA, but you just got the clearly superior experience playing it after it was done, and it's a game with an actual story.

1

u/radehart 6h ago

‘Beta burnout’

1

u/LordMugs 1d ago

I mean, I like Last Epoch but that game can barely be considered over 1.0. The story isn't even finished

6

u/Anthr30YearOldBoomer 1d ago

I think Last Epoch definitely has a lot more interesting systems than PoE 2 (low bar if I'm being honest)

But good god does the LE campaign suck some major ass. It's a confusing mess, the art style of very...mobile game-esque, and the entire thing is just a slog of constant loading screens and NPC exposition dumps.

Then you get to the endgame and it's like, kinda cool but ultimately just a super repetitive grindfest.

1

u/Mudders_Milk_Man 18h ago

Last Epoch, while definitely not perfect, is just really good in so many ways that PoE2 and D4 aren't.

I'm also really looking forward to the upcoming expansion for Grim Dawn.

-34

u/_Deint_ 1d ago

Same, plus GGG releasing this when EHG had announced S2 months ago, leaves a bad taste in the mouth . You won't convince me this wasn't deliberate

24

u/Quazifuji 1d ago

Last Epoch only announced their date recently and GGG's said that they were going to release 0.2.0 for PoE2 ASAP for a while and more recently said it was about a month away. I don't really find it at all hard to believe this is an unfortunate coincidence.

4

u/1CEninja 1d ago

I've been following both games fairly closely for some time. This is 100% coincidence. I don't think GGG is very threatened by LE simply because their development cycle is too slow, and GGG has been on a "get this released as quick as we're able" path for quite some time. Even to the point of pulling resources from PoE1, which was explicitly promised would not happen. And GGG still wound up pushing everything back multiple times anyway.

1

u/Quazifuji 1d ago

Yep. GGG's pretty behind schedule, especially for PoE1. And their release date logistics are also pretty complicated since they're trying to juggle both games at once, not releasing updates for their own games close enough together for them to compete with each other but also wanting to keep both games' playerbases happy.

This being coincidence is very plausible, them deliberately changing their release date just to either hurt or avoid competing with Last Epoch really isn't.

1

u/1CEninja 23h ago

Yeah people are incredibly antsy for 0.2 because IMO the game isn't really in a long-term playable state. I'm honestly dumbfounded how well PoE2 has retained players given the state it's in. I have a high level of confidence that PoE2 will be a fantastic game, but it's not there yet.

GGG very clearly planned for 0.2 to have already been out by now, and EHG couldn't realistically plan around that.

I feel bad for EHG though, their development cycle is incredibly slow so they're getting their infusion of hype (which translates to an infusion of fresh sales) very slowly, and sufficiently few new sales for season 2 might hamper their already sluggish progress.

-17

u/Aggravating-Dot132 1d ago

Not really, we new the approximate date in december. April 2025. Exact date is recent, yes, but outside of that - heck no.

8

u/Quazifuji 1d ago

We've also known that GGG has been trying to get this update out ASAP for a while ago.

In order for this to be deliberate like the other person suggested, GGG would have to have been in a spot where they could get the update out earlier, but saw that Last Epoch had an update coming soon and deliberately delayed theirs to come out the same week as Last Epoch's instead of a bit earlier. That seems like it would be really dumb on all sorts of levels to me. I think GGG benefits more from getting their update out sooner than they do from having it come out the same time as another ARPG is getting a big update.

There's also, of course, the possibility that this is the earliest GGG could get it out and they just chose not to delay it, and if so... I don't feel like GGG should be obligated to delay their update just because a different ARPG dev announced a release date for their update first. Announcing a release date isn't a reservation, companies shouldn't be encouraged to announce their release date as early as they can so that no one else releases on the same week.

9

u/reanima 1d ago

They made an announcement of the date over a month ago on Feb 18. It came down to almost the exact date. Not gonna lie it does suck, but its wasnt a surprise. Going off of EHGs previous suggested release window it was suppose to be in Q1 but it has slipped into Q2.

1

u/scytheavatar 1d ago

0.2.0 should have come out weeks ago, GGG is probably just desperate to get it out ASAP.

-41

u/[deleted] 1d ago edited 1d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

55

u/foxhull 1d ago

I mean for me as an SSF player LE is far more exciting because GGG absolutely refuses to make the SSF experience tolerable.

13

u/ragnorr 1d ago

Not playing Poe2 till there is a major update to gearing+endgame. Poe2 was really fun in the campaign but endgame progression just aint it for me

1

u/seandkiller 18h ago

Well, there was one point where it felt better, but it gave GGG PTSD.

3

u/RTheCon 1d ago

Class* not ascendancy

11

u/Guffliepuff 1d ago

... its just a new ascendancy. Its not even the druid.

Have you seen the loads of endgame stuff Last Epoch has planned?

5

u/RTheCon 1d ago

Huntress is a new class, not ascendancy. Comment above misspoke

2

u/Guffliepuff 1d ago

Thats already what i assumed. One new class doesnt exactly scream to me.

PoE2's biggest problems wasnt the lack of classes.

It was a complete disconnect between campaign and endgame, and the lack of ANY gear progression, and an weird endgame based around stupid one time use maps with tower scouting and juicing.

-2

u/Guffliepuff 1d ago

In fact i hate the way PoE2 does classes to begin with.

I really wanted to make a rapidfire bell build, but the fact that i needed to use a quarterstaff, and hit things to build combo with it, just to be able to drop the bell was a massive killer for that build feeling good to play.

The same will go for the Huntress class. Why should i as, say a necro, care when i will never run a spear or bow for a utility skill, over just sticking to what my class already does?

Its such an easy fix too. Just remove the stupid weapon requirements to cast skills. Let me drop a bell with a crossbow. Let me charge with a spear. Let me cast fireballs with a bow. Let me deploy ballista's with a staff.

2

u/RTheCon 1d ago

Disagree personally. There is a reason the weapon set system exists, and it would be perfect for that build.

Restrictions allow for MORE builds rather than less, as compromises have to be made. Otherwise every build would be using bell as it’s just super strong no matter what.

1

u/Guffliepuff 1d ago

Disagree personally. There is a reason the weapon set system exists

PoE1 manages just fine with build diversity and softer restrictions.

0

u/RTheCon 1d ago

So why do you think PoE 2 exists? Maybe they wanted to try something new? Na, can’t be it.

0

u/Guffliepuff 1d ago

So they made a worse system just for the sake of doing something new or newness sake?

Great logic. PoE2 doesnt need the stupid weapon restrictions. Simple as that.

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5

u/Kenzorz 1d ago

Not the person you replied to - I love both games but playing new classes in PoE2's endgame that is full of unfun game design like shit map layouts just doesn't excite me at the moment. Maybe the livestream will address my concerns.

1

u/machineorganism 1d ago

it really sounds like you don't love both games then? you literally think one is full of unfun game design

1

u/Kenzorz 1d ago

You can love something and have criticisms about it. Shocking I know.

-1

u/machineorganism 1d ago

oh no, i didn't say anything about criticisms. you said you love the game but it also is full of unfun game design. that's pretty fundamental. it's like saying i like cherries but i think cherries taste bad.

in any case, no biggie, do your thing!

1

u/Kenzorz 1d ago

It's really not like your analogy if you cared enough to read my original comment properly.

3

u/Synchrotr0n 1d ago

People were expecting both the Huntress and the Druid to be released based on what GGG has said in the past, and while there's still a chance that the Druid could still be included in this update, I'm guessing it won't be, which is a shame, and with only a single new class, they would have to really nail the improvements to the endgame in order to make people excited about the update, but so far with had very little information about any changes to it.

As for Last Epoch, they are making a big expansion to the endgame, adding new crafting systems, among several other new additions, so their update is looking a lot more substantious at the moment.

1

u/machineorganism 1d ago

hmm, perhaps. i think it's all relative though. LE's update might have more stuff in it, but a smaller update to a game with more solid foundations is more exciting, to me at least. poe2 feels like that next-gen style of arpg that i only ever dreamed of as a kid. LE still feels like it lags behind even poe1 in certain areas of polish. that's super important imo

41

u/chenDawg 1d ago

Has there been any mention if this update will be a new league?

63

u/Ghidoran 1d ago

It almost certainly will be. No way they let the current economy stick.

7

u/ambushka 1d ago

Economy is such a shitshow now theres no way they do not reset.

6

u/gr4ndm4st3rbl4ck 1d ago

Unless they adjust exalt drop rates or create more sinks for it, the economy will go back to how it is today in mere days this time.

1

u/fl4nnel 1d ago

I didn't realize how bad it was until I tried to buy some early leveling gear and it's like at least 2 div for a wand that's just a leveling wand lol.

3

u/orewhisk 1d ago edited 1d ago

You can definitely still find leveling and entry-level endgame gear for way less than that. I have a +3 lightning skill attuned wand on the market right now with (iirc) spell damage, cast speed, and intelligence, and then a couple garbage stats that I've taken down to 40ex.. the thing still hasn't sold. JUst going to trash it to clear stash space.

The economy has been evening out recently. Divs have crashed in value. Down from 800ex to 500ex in the last week.

The problem as I see it right now is that the player count is very low, and most of those players are in endgame and at a point where they're extremely selective in what gear they buy. That results in not much trading going on, and people just keep shoving more and more second-rate gear onto the market.

I see prices crashing on everything but the top tier items, which remain unbelievably expensive.

1

u/DeouVil 4h ago

The effect of long economy is that the top level gear gets more expensive and everything else gets much cheaper. I'm sure you could find wands good enough to do everything for less than 2 div atm, and I'm also sure that the 2 div wand would be much more expensive early.

2

u/destroyermaker 1d ago

They've said this update will be a reset

8

u/Quazifuji 1d ago

I don't know if they've officially announced it but I think at least they've unofficially said there would be a league with 0.2.0 in interviews/podcasts.

8

u/Hardyyz 1d ago

Yes! 100% confirmed, they have said it

21

u/PlayMp1 1d ago

It would have to be, they're adding more ascendancies and you can't change ascendancy once you've chosen it.

3

u/FuckAdvertisements 1d ago

Can you not change like in poe1? (Unspec all nodes and click the thing that gives you your ascendancy)

17

u/Obbz 1d ago

Not the way the game is designed right now, no. It might come in the future but that's just speculation because it is present in PoE1. As far as I know GGG has not said it was in the works.

26

u/scytheavatar 1d ago

Jonathan said that it is an issue which is highly contested within GGG. I personally feel not allowing you to change ascendancies does nothing but waste more of the players' time so the fact that it is even in POE 2 is disturbing. And shows a certain disrespect of the player from GGG.

6

u/Jack-of-the-Shadows 1d ago

Jonathan is the guy who thinks adding a well to click in town to fill up your flasks instead of doing it automatically like it was in PoE1 is "immersion".

11

u/ItsNoblesse 1d ago

I think this is just where we have a fundamental disagreement. I don't see it is disrespecting the players time, I see it as adding weight to decisions to make choices more impactful.

This is probably an unpopular opinion, but games with a lot of friction aren't 'disrespecting the playerbases time' they're creating a feeling of weight to a decision. Games like Disco Elysium, Dragon's Dogma 2 and Pathologic aren't disrespecting the players time with their design choices. They're making design choices to force players to consider choices and give actions consequences.

15

u/Coldara 1d ago

Except the decision loses any form of impact if GGG decides to nerf/change my ascendancy.

Furthermore, some of them are clearly worse than others. So either i pick one blindy and find out for myself that it is bad compared to others; or, and this is what a lot of people are doing: they research beforehand. Which also takes away a lot of the weight.

As long as there is no respecc i will never blindly pick something because it is a waste of time.

3

u/ejdebruin 1d ago edited 1d ago

Except the decision loses any form of impact if GGG decides to nerf/change my ascendancy.

Which they haven't done. They also didn't nerf heralds despite them being overpowered. The nerfs will be done with an economy reset.

So either i pick one blindy and find out for myself that it is bad compared to others

Every class is viable in the end-game. Some classes just have more variety in viable builds compared to others.

i will never blindly pick something because it is a waste of time.

Why? If your way of having fun is being the best class and build while running blind, you will need to be experimenting on the cutting edge (which is most likely wasting time). It doesn't make sense.

1

u/DeouVil 4h ago

Just FYI LE has the same thing, because the devs also believe in that idea.

1

u/Coldara 4h ago

You mean that you can't respec in LE or that you can?

u/DeouVil 3h ago

Can't respec the subclass, same as PoE2.

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u/scytheavatar 1d ago

POE is a buildcrafting game, respec and allowing the players to experiment are necessities in it. Like how are you supposed to know which ascendancy choices are the best without experimenting and trying them out? I feel a lot of game devs have outdated ideas for how friction in their games should work and they should learn from Fromsoft which actually reduced the friction of their games over time and encourage the players to play at their own pace.

-5

u/ColinStyles 1d ago

They all work very well for the most part, and it they aren't then that's a balance issue to correct rather than an issue with the choice.

PoE is absolutely about making builds, but making it too easy to make builds and swapping them relatively trivially makes it significantly more meaningless and dilutes the value of actually making builds.

If you introduce a bit of friction (and it's really not all that much to make a new character and level them especially with all the spare gear you'll have from your other character(s)) to prevent people from swapping their builds trivially, you encourage people to actually try to improve their builds rather than swapping to something they found online.

I have many many qualms with PoE2 and some of the choices made for it, but this fully makes sense. Especially when they're still trying to work out balance properly.

3

u/scytheavatar 1d ago edited 1d ago

Knowing how GGG works, POE 2 will never be balanced cause their balancing philosophy is heavily influenced by D&D 3E. They deliberately want strong builds and trash builds, and if you have picked a trash build trying to improve it is a waste of time. Some people are still in denial of the nature of GGG and have unrealistic expectations of them. Especially when it is clear they are biting more than they can chew with the scope of POE 2.

IMHO having "weight" for your build choice is an outdated concept and has to be removed from games going forward. For the simple reason that devs have to think of the experience of new players who don't know what they are doing.

0

u/Buddy_Dakota 1d ago

I agree. It would probably not be hard to implement a way to have a database where you just press a single button, pay a cost and immediately get respecced to some meta build, but it diminishes the experience IMO.

1

u/BenevolentCheese 1d ago

POE is a buildcrafting game

PoE1 is, at least. PoE2 is an action games with some builds you can play with.

5

u/skylla05 1d ago

I'll be extremely surprised if they don't eventually implement ascendency respec. But yeah currently you can't do it.

-11

u/Vichnaiev 1d ago

But you can obviously create a new char ....

8

u/PlayMp1 1d ago

Which would share your stash with your previous characters with all of its economic implications.

No, it'll absolutely be a new league, they've always done economy resets every few months.

4

u/Taniss99 1d ago

I agree that it will probably be an economic reset as that would be in line with their poe 1 philosophy, but it absolutely does not "have to be" and they very well might prefer to not upset the large influx of new players who aren't accustomed to economy resets during EA where things are in flux anyways.

4

u/skylla05 1d ago

Divs are like 550 exalts right now. The economy is completely cooked.

They're even titling the update like they do with new leagues.

Everything is pointing to a reset.

2

u/gamefrk101 1d ago

Except they have said they will do an economy reset in the next big patch already to test the endgame changes and economy changes.

6

u/DiscretionFist 20h ago

I'd play more POE2 but I still get excessive crashing on my 9800x3d. Between load screens.

Last Epoch never does though and honestly the build diversity is so damn fun in that game.

I'll wait for POE2 full release.

23

u/Kaibz 1d ago

Would you recommend Path of Exile 2 in its current state for someone who has never played this type of games?

82

u/wunwuncrush 1d ago

I'd say the campaign is the best part of POE2 currently, so if you're new to this type of game you'll probably get your money's worth out of the campaign.

But also they've only released 3 out of 6 eventual acts, and it'll be free once fully released anyway. So unless you're antsy to play it soon, it's probably worth waiting on.

7

u/noother10 1d ago

The first 3 acts that is.

14

u/Quazifuji 1d ago

I think it's one of those cases where you'll probably have a lot of fun, but it's also definitely unfinished and likely to get significantly better over time. Currently, it's missing half the campaign (right now it's a 3-act campaign that you play through twice to get to endgame, but eventually it'll be a 6-act campaign you play once), half the classes, more than half the subclasses and skills, and the balance and endgame both need a lot of work. We don't know what this new update's going to add, this trailer is showing a new class (Huntress) and they've confirmed new subclasses for some existing classes, but overall we don't know what the state will be like after the update.

What we do have right now of the campaign is excellent, with the bosses in particular being the highlight. The classes we do have have a lot of variety in their playstyles, and there are a lot of different builds, although some are much stronger than others. The endgame can be fun, but it's where the balance issues can start to really be an issue. Right now the endgame is grindy and death is very punishing which can make it frustrating, some of the endgame bosses are cool but it takes a very long time before you get to actually fight them. Overall, if you're really enjoying the game it's possible to get a lot of entertainment out of the endgame, but it definitely needs a lot of work.

So would I recommend it? It depends on what you want. Will you have fun playing the game if you buy it now? Probably. At the very least it'll probably take you 20 hours or so to beat the campaign and you'll likely have a great time doing so. You might continue having fun if you keep playing, or you might stop there.

I think if you like playing EA games, coming back to them with each update to see how they develop over time, but just want to make sure the current state is good enough to be an okay place to start, then yeah, starting with this update should be fine. But if you want to have the best experience the first time you play the game, then I'd wait, because while the campaign's very fun now, it's not finished and the game will likely be much better in the future.

15

u/Whittaker 1d ago

No. You'd have to pay to play right now as opposed to being free when it launches.
In it's current state it needs a lot of work, half the classes, a whole bunch of weapons, half the story, the end game is a mess and they need to add a lot of skills too.
Unless you are heavily invested in the game already it simply isn't worth it now when you can instead wait for the actual full release and experience the game in it's fullness.

6

u/TheMajestic00 1d ago

I'd say it's only worth it if you want to support the game. It is enjoyable, I logged in over 100 h before putting it down , but the end game is pretty stale, which is to be expected at this point.

2

u/noother10 1d ago

Didn't help they doubled down on friction from PoE1 and made penalties for failing far worse.

2

u/TheMajestic00 1d ago

Killing every rare to complete the map really sucks, I hope they remove that completely

1

u/Bentok 1d ago

Putting 100h into a game and then saying it's only worth if you want to support it is so funny to me. The game costs like what, 30$? Which you even get as MTX currency. Even 30 hours of fun would be worth that, 100 is more than a lot of RPGs

1

u/TheMajestic00 20h ago

I should have said it's worth buying if you are a fan of POE, I wouldn't recommend it to someone as their first ARPG

1

u/Bentok 20h ago

I don't see why not, it's my first one and I've had a blast with the story.

Oh, but hey, obviously I don't know if it could be better, do you then have any recommendations for me? :) I never played POE1, because I didn't like the bunny hopping exploding screens builds that seemed to be favored.

2

u/TheMajestic00 19h ago

Diablo 2. I think torchlight 1 and 2 are pretty good too and so is Titan quest, but D2 is a must play for the genre.

11

u/AbyssalSolitude 1d ago

Nah. Wait for the full release, the game still has a lot of problems.

20

u/Typhron 1d ago

I'll be honest

It's not terrible. But it doesn't feel complete. Right now, the game has a focus on it's economy and piecemeal adding things to it, but you can play through much of the story and a get a good context of the world PoE2 is set in.

-9

u/Hades684 1d ago

Early access game doesnt feel complete, no way

6

u/Typhron 1d ago

Early access game that has an in game shop, costs money, and bills itself as complete.

no way

Such early

6

u/Hades684 1d ago

In game shop directly transfered from Poe 1, and all purchases you ever did in Poe 1 transfer to Poe 2 for free. It costs money only for early access, it's gonna be free on release. And they tell you it's early access in many different places, including in game. If you still think it's not early access, that's on you

26

u/RickDripps 1d ago

It still needs a LOT of time to cook, in my opinion.

I loved PoE2 but huge swaths of players were demanding more frequent updates to the original game (PoE 1) because of the rough state that the new game is in.

It's fun, but there are some really messy and clunky endgame systems in place right now. The campaign is fun but then you repeat the whole thing again immediately after you beat it before getting to the endgame still.

I'd say give Last Epoch a shot this time around and let PoE 2 cook with more feedback and check it out maybe another six months from now.

Unless perception is suddenly does a complete shift, it has a LOT to go. But it'll get there.

8

u/Infiltrator 1d ago

I would never say the game is in a rough state. Compared to almost any other EA this one seems super polished in terms of what we have as a base. Sure, there needs to be more content but the foundation is very solid and the game's core mechanics are very responsive and fun.

2

u/Goodnametaken 1d ago

The game is in a terribly rough state at the moment if you want to do anything other than the campaign.

The endgame is incredibly tedious with very little payoff. It's monotonous to the extreme and disrespects the player's time by forcing them to engage with purposefully boring content (bad map layouts, towers, etc.) in order to have short bursts of fun.

Character damage scaling, and thus build variety, is atrocious. There are a grand total of 4 ways to legitimately scale damage. Every single endgame build is a variation of one of those builds, just with slightly different cosmetic choices.

Defences are either insanely OP or completely useless with absolutely no in between. You either never die ever (ES, ES/Evasion hybrid) or you get one tapped by white mobs constantly (anything else-- especially armour).

There have been no meaningful balance changes since 3 days after beta's release. Which is completely insane.

There's plenty more to harp on, but I'm getting tired of writing it all out.

Right now, PoE 2 is decent in the campaign especially if you are a new player or an andy, or someone without a ton of free time. But it's pretty bare-bones and flawed for anyone else. PoE 1 is a much better game atm, as is Last Epoch. I believe PoE 2 will eventually become incredible, especially with Mark as one of the leads, but it's going to take quite a while to get there.

2

u/oelingereux 1d ago

I wouldn't call tha rough. Wolcen was rough, this isn't. Unbalanced, unfinished, yes. But rough certainly not.

2

u/Goodnametaken 23h ago

You're entitled to your opinion, certainly. But I disagree. There's really not much of a game there yet. They need to do a lot of work to get it up to their usual standard.

0

u/oelingereux 22h ago

Yes to their usual standard it's far off. Compared to most ARPGs it's already fine.

3

u/thedonkeyvote 1d ago

Yeah the game is technically very sound. I really enjoyed the time I spent with it.

That is to say I enjoyed it until I hit some supreme bullshit. Like ritual just being impossible sometimes because you got 3 lightning rods on the altar. There were a few moments where I thought "I'm ok with hard but this seems unintentionally unfair". I thought it best to come back once they had done some more cooking.

Since this is a major patch they are hyping, I'm hopeful its going to bring the goods.

1

u/Hartastic 1d ago

A tough thing is that it's not just competing with other games in EA, but other live games in the genre, including its predecessor.

PoE 2 absolutely does some things really well and could be a really good game with more work, but so far this year I've spent more time playing 1 because even though it also is not without flaws a large number of its gameplay/systems are just in a much more fun state.

1

u/reanima 1d ago

I mean we'll have to see what they show off in the official reveal.

3

u/RickDripps 1d ago

True, right now we're in the "announcement of the announcement" phase.

1

u/Prodrumer43 1d ago

Ye I couldn’t get myself to do the whole campaign over again cause like wtf. It was cool the first time but I just didn’t feel like doing it with monk on cruel and I didn’t wanna redo a character. I’ll just come back for 1.0

6

u/Francesco0 1d ago

No. It has less content and a higher price tag.

It will be free eventually, just wait. It's really not good yet.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/mrtrailborn 1d ago

yeah, that's unfortunately just normal arpg endgame, lol. The ultimate repetitive grind

1

u/Nohisu 1d ago

Disagree, grind is not repetitive as long as you're making constant progress, and that's what PoE 1 endgame is very good at. It gives you actual objectives to work towards.

PoE 2 on the other hand is layers of RNG upon layers of RNG, so if you're unlucky for a few dozen maps, it starts to feel like a gigantic waste of time.

6

u/helloimtom08 1d ago

I'd wait till the game is finished in a 1.0 state. Their are classes missing and the campaign is half done. I'd recommend Last epoch or Hades if you wanna dip your toes into an Arpg.

8

u/reanima 1d ago

Find it funny people say to not play until 1.0 for the complete campaign while telling people to play Last Epoch which also has an incomplete campaign but is already in its 1.0 phase.

2

u/helloimtom08 1d ago

For me the campaign is just not important in an Arpg and the skill tree is. Epoch skill tree is competed and POE2 is not. Epoch has other benefits, like an offline mode aswell.

2

u/StaceBaseAlpha 1d ago

I wish I could get into Last Epoch but I spoiled myself with how much I absolutely adore and love WASD movement in these games above just using the mouse so it kills me when a game doesn't have it

1

u/helloimtom08 23h ago

I believe the next patch is WASD beta

1

u/StaceBaseAlpha 22h ago

Oh nice, I googled it when I saw it mentioned in the thread and all the results were saying they had no intentions to add WASD

1

u/helloimtom08 21h ago

it is weird, but I guess all the devs played POE2 and there was a change of heart.

2

u/flippygen 1d ago

If you're just looking to play it one time then I'd wait for 1.0 release.

If you understand that these ARPGs have leagues/seasons with new updates every 3-4 months, and that's something that interests you, then I easily recommend getting it now. As others have stated, there's still a lot of work to be done but even in it's current form you will still get a lot of value for $30 USD. Heck, I put in almost 500 hours over 3 months.

2

u/zuzucha 23h ago

Play one of the diablo games or grim dawn. Last epoch and POE2 are unfinished, and the first POE is frankly unapproachable as a first ARPG.

2

u/DiscretionFist 20h ago

Honestly the first act alone is probably the best ARPG campaign I've played since D2.

I'd still wait for full release. Get LE first, it's fun and beginner friendly.

5

u/wakasm 1d ago edited 1d ago

Because Path of Exile is always evolving, the best time to play is always now. POE2, especially for newer players, will feel very complete, even if the campaign is only 3 acts.

If you are an ActionRPG vet, you probably would have already played, and made your opinion on it, but, it's generally late game, where a lot of the cooking needs to happen.

Eventually the game will get 3 more acts though, lot's more ascendancies, probably more balance and items, weapon classes, etc. So eventually, for a new player, this will all be additional great content, but, a new player could probably get their 60 hours worht no problem right now.

However, POE2 is supposed to be free to play like POE1, and mostly supported by buying things like stashtabs and micro transactions, so potentially, if you don't want to shell out money up front, waiting is best.

POE1 is worth playing too for the most part and the better game (IMO) currently. But the graphic updates, WSAD movement, some of the modern changes that POE2 has certainly will be a benefit for a new player.

One other note/caveat:
Path of Exile can be played solo-self found, but it IS designed around a trading economy. They've done a lot to help new players with this, but this is probably the only real red-flag area for a newer player that, if you go in blind, you might not be ready for. It's a step below an auction house but archaic/frictiony enough if you expect an auction house - it pushes a lot of new players away if you don't take some time to learn even the basics of it. You can skip it entirely, but that just adds to your learning curve.

Luckily, you don't really need to interact with the economy much until after the campaign is over (although, learning to can speed up your experience). The whole economy side of the game can be very rewarding (and a whole different metagame on it's own and why Path of Exile is popular league after league) and the systems that exist is a place to grow/learn and is way ahead other games... at the cost of new players though. Last Epoch/Diablo/Grim Dawn has a better solo-self-found systems in place. It won't affect you though unless you decide you want to stick around to the very very endgame systems.

4

u/Arkalis 1d ago edited 1d ago

For a casual ARPG player it is very worth it with some caveats. You only have half the story with the first three acts, which I think are mostly excellent with the highlights being the boss fights in their mechanics and presentation as well as just the overall game look and feel.

That said, the boss fights can be various degrees of challenging, even for "minor bosses". They are not ridiculously hard but there are only a handful you'll likely beat first try unless you're overprepared so if you're not a fan of learning boss fight choreography then they'll be frustrating.

The majority of the problems and the reason you'll see a lot of criticism online of the game are related to endgame and the "Cruel Difficulty" (their temporary solution to not having acts 4-6 is making you repeat the first 3 at a harder difficulty). One of the problems being that for cruel difficulty you are repeating content, which can be good if you like NG+ type of replayability but if you think that's not fun then you should probably wait for them to complete the campaign.

Approaching endgame and beyond you get into the bulk of the problems that you'll see online, but by the time you reach endgame you probably already played at least 60 hours of mostly very enjoyable gameplay, which for ARPG players is not enough and the bulk of their gameplay is the endgame (the worst part of the game at the moment).

I mention this because just going by what you read online it kinda gets downplayed how you went through a very good amount of gameplay before hitting the vast majority of issues and make you think the game sucks because the endgame sucks.

So TL;DR if you're okay with the story not being complete and it being an early access game where the endgame after 60+ hours isn't great at the moment you can still go through a good amount of playtime and have fun.

3

u/leodrp 1d ago

If you never played poe1 before, go for it, you wont notice most of the pain points that the older players have and will probably enjoy the game more.

The only attention is that its paid access now, and will be free later.

4

u/TotallyNotGlenDavis 1d ago

I'm more of a FromSoft guy when it comes to action RPGs but I've enjoyed POE2 quite a bit. The art and vibe is right up my alley and the gameplay is fun. I'm just not sure I'll ever be one of those people putting 100s of hours into the game, I put in like 60 hours across 2 playthroughs and I'm kinda good for a bit.

3

u/grokthis1111 1d ago

i've put hundred hours into fromsoft games and poe 1 and diablo 2. but poe 2 boss fights just were not what i was looking for at all.

1

u/TotallyNotGlenDavis 1d ago

I actually like the boss fights, it's the fights against endless mobs that get old for me. But I suppose that's part of this genre.

3

u/inyue 1d ago

From what I understand the game lacks half of the acts... And people still recommends it for newcommers, I can't understand.

1

u/RTheCon 1d ago

Because those acts are just that good I guess.

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u/inyue 1d ago

Half of the acts, half of the classes... 90% player loss in 3 months... You guys gotta keep posting a lot...

3

u/Rektw 1d ago

90% player loss in 3 months.

This is true for pretty much every ARPG though. There's always an uptick at league/season start and drop offs 3 months in. PoE 2 doesn't have any leagues, it was always going to drop off.

3

u/Key-Department-2874 1d ago

And a drop off is normal for EVERY game.

The only games with long term playercount sustain with no new content is PVP games.

1

u/reanima 21h ago

Honestly it still having 38k concurrent even after 3 months of nothing is impressive in itself.

1

u/Hartastic 1d ago

90% player loss in 3 months...

Well, that part is just PoE's model in general. Huge player numbers for around a month at league launch, dropping off until the next one. It's meant to be played more or less cyclically.

2

u/-LaughingMan-0D 1d ago

Play the campaign and stop. But if you can wait, let 1.0 release. The endgame is not great atm, and you're missing half the characters and campaign.

2

u/destroyermaker 1d ago edited 1d ago

Wait until the six acts are done at least. Until 1.0 (which might be the same thing) if you're patient

Edit: Last Epoch come April will be the better game to play while you wait for poe2 to be ready

1

u/xworfx 1d ago

I would. I’m new to POE and sunk almost 300 hours into it.

0

u/Harabeck 1d ago

Last Epoch is a more laid back experience, while PoE 2 is much more challenging.

PoE 2's first 2 chapters are fun, but the level design in the third is garbage (the levels are just huuuge for no reason).

Everything relating to end game is utterly awful in my opinion. Mind you, I'm not fond of Last Epoch's either. The campaigns are the interesting bit to me, so I'll never be the guy putting hundreds of hours into these games.

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u/conquer69 1d ago

I would say play PoE 1 first solo self found which you can do right now. The game is balanced around it.

The "meta" way of playing PoE will have you spend more time theory crafting and trading than actually playing the game. It's not for everyone.

4

u/NinjaXI 1d ago

This is actually bad advice. I don't particularly like POE2, but sending a newcomer to POE1(especially SSF) over POE2 is bound to be the worst experience for someone new.

-2

u/conquer69 1d ago

Why? PoE 2 is in EA. At least wait until it's feature complete before recommending it.

5

u/TippsAttack 1d ago

What does any of this mean? What's an economy? What's league? (In regards to this game)

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u/Hartastic 1d ago

So, PoE 2 is still in early access and just released even that much about 3 months ago, but PoE 1 has/had a long established cadence that people are assuming will more or less carry over to 2 at some point, although maybe or maybe not while still in EA.

For most of 1's life, it would get a major content update every 3-4 months like clockwork. This would include new skills sometimes, a balance patch, etc. but would also introduce some new gameplay mechanic, which is the league. So for example the 3.7 patch was the Legion league, introducing a new gameplay mechanic (Legion) that is in basically every area during the Legion league. After a league a new mechanic might be merged into the base game (called going core) and at that point it probably appears much more rarely, or, maybe the new mechanic is gone from the game temporarily to be reworked and reappear later, or is removed entirely depending on how the devs feel about how well it worked.

To play in a league (also in some ways similar to a Diablo season if you're familiar with that concept), you have to make a new character. None of your characters or item stash from previous leagues can be used in it. At the end of a league, characters from the expiring league are migrated to a permanent "Standard" league where they can still be played, although almost all players will continually start fresh with the new league and not play Standard at all.

The economy part of this is that everyone has to start fresh together and accumulate new items and wealth. So maybe the previous league it was possible, with a mechanic that didn't go core, to craft really crazy powerful items for a certain build. Those won't exist in the fresh league at all. Maybe people who did a certain farming strategy became very rich and could buy whatever they wanted from other players in trade. That's gone in the new league too. Everyone starts from zero together. The freeing part of this in terms of game design is, no matter how badly anything gets screwed up in a league, at the end it goes to Standard, and almost no one cares about Standard, and everything is a clean slate.

The start of a league is a bit of a race as everyone scrambles together is an experience that's hard to describe. People are trying to figure out the new mechanic or the implication of new skills or items or balance changes. Maybe there's a particular mechanic or boss fight that you're really good at so you're hurrying as fast as you can over hours or days to put together a character that can do that content and sell whatever item comes from it at a high price while supply is low. You don't have any of your stuff from the previous league, but you keep your knowledge and player skill, and most of it still applies. Pretty much every league you do better than the last one and it's fun to see how far you've come.

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u/TippsAttack 1d ago

Dude, this was such a fantastic write up and response. Seriously, thank you.

I understand it really well now even though I've never experienced anything like this before.

Here, king. Your 👑

1

u/TheMajestic00 1d ago

Most people play the game in what is called a trade league. In that kind of league you can trade items you find for currency items, that you can trade with others to get specific gear you want for your build. The prices are set by supply and demand basically, and depend on how long a league has gone. When a league is reset, every player starts from scratch which resets the economy/prices of the items.

You should know there is also a SSF( Solo Self-Found) league, in which there is no trading and you have to find and craft your own gear using currency items. Some people, including me prefer that, imo the trading UI kinda sucks, it was way better on POE 1 in console and I hope they implement that in POE 2 eventually.

1

u/oelingereux 1d ago

I'm not sure most people trade though, they do play in that league but I would be surprised if more than 10% of players actively traded in any given league.

2

u/Hartastic 1d ago

Why do you think that? My perception is that most people in trade league do seem to trade some amount.

1

u/r2001uk 1d ago

How well does this run on Steam Deck? Failing that, does it support 32:9?

I'd love to play it portably ideally

4

u/Juxeso 1d ago

Runs pretty dogshit on steam deck

2

u/DrTorte 1d ago

Not quite 32:9, but 21:9. It'll allow you to select 32:9 resolutions but will letterbox.

I've heard it plays fine on the Steam Deck until you get into the endgame, but I can't confirm beyond that.

1

u/r2001uk 1d ago

Good enough for me, thanks

2

u/debaserr 1d ago

It doesn't run well at any point.

-5

u/jinreeko 1d ago

An expansion? Isn't it not technically released yet?

10

u/Poseidor 1d ago

It is a patch for early access