PoE2 All Time New Lows

Long time PoE1 fan wanting to give my feedback now that my motivation to ever play this game again has been killed.

I just spent around 6 hours on the weekend setting up a Stone Citadel with a friend. Waystone quantity on the towers, 615% waystone T16 map, we enter kill a few rares and he randomly gets insta-popped with 10k shield and 2k HP, then a few seconds I get instakilled. Nothing around, no issues clearing any content to this point. All that time and effort of 2 people wasted. This is the worst I've ever felt playing a video game. Is this the goal for PoE2 because I consistently feel bad playing this game.

Bad design decisions(in no particular order):
1. 1 portal maps
2. Needing to clear the map of rares before it's complete
3. Maps are full of clutter and garbage
4. Maps are labyrinthine for no reason
5. Atlas doesn't feel like progression, it feels like a chore
6. Adding on-death effects to every rare is tedious and annoying
7. There is no crafting outside of Omens
8. Uniques across the board are bad(both ends of the spectrum)
9. Having to find skill gems to level up is the most brain damaged decision next to Jeweller's existing
10. Support gems can only be used once per character limiting build variety.
11. Co-op sucks now.
12. Being pushed around by enemies and allies.
13. The dodge-roll is absolutely the dumbest defensive mechanic you could have added as a universal mechanic. It actually needs to be unbound lest you accidentally press it in juiced maps and kill yourself.
14. Can't revive team mates in maps.
15. The skill tree has been neutered to offer no real choice.
16. Waypoints, why can I not teleport to my hideout from half the campaign? Why is it so hard to teleport to specific places once you've completed Act 3?
17. Precursors are a worse scarab. Let me run the content I want without needing these towers.
18. Precursor tower maps still suck to run.
19. Ascendencies being tied to the shittiest mechanics from PoE1. I actually would like this person to be fired.
20. Every map not having a boss.
21. Not being able to pick & choose maps so you can avoid the ones you hate or focus the ones you like
22. Needing to spend currency to gain skill points to make things like ritual not suck is stupid.
23. Ignoring 10 years of experience from PoE1 while making PoE2.

That's just off the top of my head. I am sure there's much more I am forgetting.

I also don't like being lied to. In the early access promo video you said you want people to craft and experiment. Still waiting on the ability to do either of those without rerolling or being richer than god. Before that it was the change to shipping in Settlers("This is actually a buff!"). PoE1 won't be affected by PoE2 development. So is this a continuing trend? Should I expect GGG to continue lying going forward? Speaking of dishonesty, when are you going to ban [Removed by Support] account. It's only bad when the poor people break ToS?

Buying the early access has been the only purchase I've made from GGG that I've regretted.

In PoE1 you can expect to have highs and lows throughout the game. In PoE2 it feels like a free fall 99% of the time.

Well obviously we all expect and enjoy different things.

I would disagree with most of your point:

1. 1 portal maps
- Totally fine. I get 1 life and if I die I have to restart in like 99% games.

2. Needing to clear the map of rares before it's complete
- No problem, why not? I clear 100% mobs anyway. Why would I leave them?

3. Maps are full of clutter and garbage
- PoE 1 is played by looking at minimap 100% of time. Finally this forces me to look at the actual character footing. I prefer this.

4. Maps are labyrinthine for no reason
- Yea, I don't enjoy it either, but it's not an issue.

19. Ascendencies being tied to the shittiest mechanics from PoE1. I actually would like this person to be fired.
- These are hard and create a struggle. Which is good. Ascendancy should be earned and obtained only when you are strong enough. I'd like to see a patch that would remove the possibility to buy these as a service, which kills the challenge.

I could go on, but there is a clear direction you are looking to and that is classic PoE 1 style. Zoom-zoom quickly rush destroy everything don't stop me zooooom.
Yeah, I don't like that..

I don't mind a struggle, the game is easy enough already which kills the fun. Mashing one button to clear whole screens in endgame.

There is a substantial playerbase (me including) who prefers the methodical, slower gameplay that PoE 2 is heading towards. I don't want to force everyone to like this, which is why I think it is a brilliant idea to keep both PoE 1 and PoE 2 running and the games being different enough.
So far, PoE 2 is too fast in the endgame.. and I'd wish that to slow down.

Your entire post can be boiled down to "I like it so it's fine." Just do that next time so it's easier to ignore you.

At 615% increased waystone drop chance, perhaps you over juiced your t16 map.

Toughest poe veteran 😂

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I just spent around 6 hours on the weekend setting up a Stone Citadel with a friend. Waystone quantity on the towers, 615% waystone T16 map, we enter kill a few rares and he randomly gets insta-popped with 10k shield and 2k HP, then a few seconds I get instakilled. Nothing around, no issues clearing any content to this point. All that time and effort of 2 people wasted. This is the worst I've ever felt playing a video game. Is this the goal for PoE2 because I consistently feel bad playing this game.

I mean, you could have really deadly mods on your waystone, it's hard to know without seeing the waystone. There are mod combinations that are considered impossible to run - not literally impossible, but impossible for 99.9% of builds.

Honestly, I think that if you're getting burned out right now, it's time to put the game on the shelf for a while. It's really not a finished product, and shouldn't be considered like one.

I generally agree with your sentiment, and, the game is far from perfect. Still, I'm liking it up to the endgame and played hundred of hours so far. It's obviously in "beta" state though, and it seems like the game (and the endgame, obviously) was rushed to make it to their Dec 6 deadline. The Atlas as it is feels kind of bad, forced and limited. I hope they change this, and even bring an alternate Endgame system that isn't map/Atlas related so that we can mix it up.

19 Ascendancy trials : Yeah. I liked the first two runs, but played ranger initally so I didn't really see the issue with honour at first. Hated the Third/Fourth trials. It's probably because we're missing the original third trial which will probably not feel as overtuned as the current ones. Overtuning the fourth one is okay though. It's supposed to be a challenge.

11 Endgame Co-op sucking : The current endgame "one portal" looks like it's punishing an entire group for a team mate failure. Could lead to useless/pointless friction between people.

Point 14 simply is due to point 1 : It wouldn't be fair to have groups being able to revive their team members while solo players simply lose their map. I don't agree with the decision, but they said they had no intention of changing that for now.

I really don't mind 2 and 20 : Killing rare, especially when they appear on the map, isn't... hard or really tedious outside of a few very odd combinations. I wouldn't like every map having a boss, so I really don't mind.

Point 10 about Support gems being limited to only one copy (excepted Gemling): I like the concept as it forces us to make decisions and not simply slap the BIS support for every skill. However, it's very limitative right now. It doesn't help that we're very limited skill-wise due to the 6 missing classes, and most probably, many support current missing : Some very specific skills/weapons scenarios aside, the weapons we currently have don't pair or mesh very well together, and our current skills end up using the very same support gems partly because of that. It doesn't help either that many skills are underwhelming.