PoE 2 Will Be a Masterpiece But... - End Game Review After 200 Hours Played

[@Blastwire]

lovin the hd video quality, unstretched resolution and picturesque background dslily!

[@teluspirate]

makes it hard to watch imo lol... but thanks for making the comment for me, 2006 wants their web cam back

[@eastcow]

it’s fine. the content and feedback is gold here, the visual is negligible. ❤

[@danielholz3433]

@@eastcowomg mr friendzone

[@Mike-Dynamike]

@@danielholz3433it’s not about friendzone it’s about not crying about something not so important.

[@eastcow]

@@danielholz3433 dude i'm here for the game. she could have posted it as an email, the info is still valid.

[@OneOnDruryLane]

Lead Backend Engineer on Last Epoch here :) Thanks for the kind words about our crafting! Love this video too - I'm an 86 Infernalist just hitting T15 maps atm - and I agree with almost everything here

[@silentrage6881]

So... is 9 days for a response ticket normal even with new launch?

[@silentrage6881]

Still no response to support email

[@Almethese84]

it's a shame she said "One of the few things Last Epoch did well is" Instead of not being rude and saying "One thing I really liked from Last Epoch is." LE does a lot of things Best In Class so thanks for the work you're doing!

[@dslily]

@@Almethese84 why would you come to an opinion video if you dont want to hear my opinion? sugarcoating words does nobody any favors lol, i think LE has incredible potential and a good base so i hold it to a high standard

[@kekplexis]

@@silentrage6881 you know that it's not lead engineer's job to reply to the support tickets, right?

[@Scorptice]

100% agree on uniques, they went three steps back on their design

[@Sephiroso.]

It's possible when we have all the missing skills that some of the useless uniques we currently have won't be as useless. Either way they dropped the ball as they knew ahead of time what weapons/skills they'd have ready for EA release and should have done a better job at making sure the uniques they had matched well.

[@steveo7778]

Most reviewers I've watched want runes to be removed from sockets some way, even if they need to be destroyed. This would help with resistances.

[@jamesrochester2459]

This is the best of these EA "reviews" I've watched. Concise well reasoned points. Not needlessly long. I think the PoE 2 map system is actually ideal for offering both types of experiences - maps dense with easy monsters that allow Poe 1 style zoom farming, and lower-density but more demanding maps with PoE 2 style gameplay. There could be regions with more of one or another for players to stay in or barrel through depending on their preference. Similar to what the Boss attribute on maps is supposed to do for bosses currently, though doesn't do very well because the bosses die so fast us people who enjoy fighting them aren't satisfied.

[@CommitJungle]

I instantly tried to swap from 1080p to 144p and back to 1080p 10/10 video

[@dslily]

that means it's working

[@p3rpNZ]

she has to blur herself out so you can concentrate on the words

[@waylanddavick9459]

@@p3rpNZ ROFL. Can't argue with that logic.

[@paulc5389]

PoEs biggest problem is itself lol. During normal campaign they set the bar super high with the boss fights. Overcoming the challenge felt amazing. Boss maps are the exact opposite of this. Even if a boss was challenging it wouldn't feel good it just feels bad when you die full stop because you only get 1 attempt. There's no challenge to overcome either because their either is no challenge or because you don't have the opportunity to overcome it. Boss maps would be a lot better if they were the only thing in the map, that's it.. just a boss to defeat. Except it was actually challenging but you get to keep trying and you have to defeat it to complete the map. The waystone system isn't sitting right with me. I can see a massive problem for new and/or casual players that don't instantly take to maps in that they won't sustain tier 1 and will run out of stones. Sure you can buy them but if people are spending gold on them and still struggling they're just going to quit. And we should want end game to be accessible to these people. Further, needing to use another stone if you fail a map doesn't work because if that map is killing you and you've lost its events anyway you're just going to throw a tier 1 in it instead and cheese it. I'd like to see the stone system changed so that normal maps don't drop and they just drop double affix magic. Having to use orbs on normals is kind of pointless anyway and isnt adding anything. Then allow people to run a map without a stone and if you do its just a tier 1 normal map. That way newer players can't run out of attempts. But, make it so if you fail a map you don't need to use another stone BUT the map remains locked to the stone you used on it but resets and you lose the events such as ritual etc. Bring back the feeling of bosses from campaign. Also, as well as doing some balancing for power creep end game.. makes the tiers go way way way way higher so the top players can compete for highest tier achievements on a ladder. Whilst everyone else will be fine doing lower tiers anyway. Think greater rifts from diablo 3 but with maps. Also the lack of introduction and explanation of end game is really bad. I get there is a lot going on but at the very least signpost people to their website for a good guide on each of the mechanics when they get to end game. I'm fine with it but I can imagine a lot of people trying PoE for the first time, loving the campaign then getting to end game and not having a clue what is going on. In short the end game new player experience is really really bad and other than pinnacle bosses lacks any challenge and/or removes that challenge so you can't overcome it. And in closing, for the love of whatever you worship make it so when you get to maps you're given a buff that increases your movement speed when you haven't been in combat recently.

[@dangarcia1617]

I'm having alot of the same issues and sentiment about the end game. There's almost no incentive to do anything at a certain point if your punished so hard you cant level or gear up

[@Sephiroso.]

I like your idea with being able to run a normal map without a waystone defaulting to a t1 waystone map. Let's them eliminate t1 maps from dropping essentially and also gets rid of issue of less skilled players potentially running out of maps to run completely.

[@Luftgitarrenprofi]

On death effects should be very obvious. As in the mob "carrying the bomb" should be burning brightly or something obvious akin to this and when they explode, monsters should be damaged by them too. That way it's both a potentially punishing mechanic if you ignore them, but also rewarding if you utilize it properly. The only purpose on death effects have ever served in any ARPG is one shotting you for not paying too close attention when farming, seeing a valuable drop and attempting to loot it quick. It's effectively the prime sadist mechanic.

[@SmaskysButler]

Hundra procent!

[@impact7014]

Campaign is great and feels like PoE 2. After you get some gear in maps it reverts to PoE 1.5.

[@motherpigeon1582]

Campaign feel good for you? Wouldn't you prefer bosses to have more than 1 skill so it does not look like dodge>right click>dodge right click?xD

[@Alcadeias90]

@@motherpigeon1582 bosses so far have had a bunch of skills, what are you talking about?

[@mikes2106]

@@motherpigeon1582 Yeah this is false they have a ton of abilities unless you're cheesing them with one of the op meta builds.

[@motherpigeon1582]

@@Alcadeias90 Define bunch.

[@Smeature]

⁠​⁠@@motherpigeon1582often like 5-10? I just googled some random bosses that I remember enjoying. The wiki page didn’t show the moves of all the bosses but Viper Napuatzi for example has 10 moves on the wiki. Count Geonor has 12 moves listed on the wiki. Searing Exarch from PoE 1 has 8 for comparison and that’s if I include the default attack and count summoning the flame wall and pushing the flame wall as 2 separate moves.

[@AsmodeusClips]

Glad to see people agree that the end game is too accelerated similarly to PoE 1 👍 Would love to see the end game with similar pacing to the campaign, rather than the PoE 1 end game.

[@Hazzy994]

I’m about to do what cartman did and freeze myself to make these next 6-12 months go by

[@Zemlja_je_ravna]

The endgame lacks the same level of excitement, it’s essentially the same as PoE1, just more tedious. Personally, I find the gameplay most enjoyable in the first two acts, where the player’s skill and ability combos truly matter. The gameplay is more methodical, and mechanics like dodge roll actually have a significant impact. Later, though, it becomes about being overpowered and quickly clearing everything with a single ability. Boss fights are the best part of the game, but it’s annoying that not all maps feature bosses. The bigger the map, the more time you waste running through it, and less time spent enjoying the boss fights or content that’s more fun.

[@lucagenovese7207]

Agree

[@AleksandarV18]

What gets me is why do sooo many uniques have down sides with really really bad upsides at least in poe 1 in campaign uniques were huge increase in power here u arent even hyped when one drops.

[@paulc5389]

I get the feeling its being done to make you self limit how many you use without actually imposing a limit. They either have a unique downside or their normal stats just suck. But if thats what they're going for they need to have build defining unique mechanics on all of them.. some do but some just straight up suck lol.

[@owlmostdead9492]

Just being able to change runes would make getting res much simpler. With how runes work now, being non removable, I have to constantly change my entire equipment in order to rebalance things every couple of upgrades, it's the most annoying shit ever. Especially when you rolled an amazing item but now that item is the cause of lacking 20+% of a certain resistance.

[@jasonma4525]

If you design the endgame with one portal only, with bosses having different phases and mechanics, that is very punishing. Players will try to avoid being punished and play builds that oneshot the bosses without doing the phases and mechanics. Not that complicated to understand, at least GGG will understand and change it after the holidays.

[@memorabiliatemporarium2747]

Main problem I have with the game is that when you get to the endgame, the combat devolves into PoE1. The thing that was supposed to set both games apart and they don't seem to know how to evolve it.

[@chiefinasmith]

There isn’t a way to evolve it. That’s the whole point of an ARPG. Make a powerful build and live out a power fantasy.

[@memorabiliatemporarium2747]

@@chiefinasmith Wrong. You just lack imagination. You can make the game work like a top down Devil May Cry, where skill is required to display your character's power, instead of gear and numbers, setting a divide between good and bad players. Reduce map size and make beefier monsters with several phase changes. Add another dimension to the maps, requiring platforming and making the scenario an interactive part of the gameplay... There many, many more such ways.

[@fsbroli3]

​​Poe is an arpg not an rpg with a short story, it requires hundreds of hours per league and no one wants to play some slow paced tactical game for that amount of time. ​@@memorabiliatemporarium27474:11

[@NoRhythm-im2oj]

​@@memorabiliatemporarium2747 This is just not a arpg anymore, i want to live out that power fantasy of getting legit overpowered and run though the game this is what made d3 and poe1 soo good for me

[@rubikmonat6589]

Yeah, like why have a delirium mirror where you have to zoom to keep up with the fog? Just have the map go delirious don't force me to zoom.

[@NickyByloo]

I think the best builds need to be scaled back in the late game, but for early game the difficulty curve needs to be lowered a bit to scale better towards end game where needed for the more constrained characters. PoE2 needs less of PoE1's screen clearing blitz mechanic, but to be more like PoE2's early game with emphasis on tactical roll and mouse and player position combat mechanic.

[@lucagenovese7207]

100%

[@razorend22]

I keep telling people it's PoE 1+1. It's insane how fast you can get super strong, to the point you don't even see the mobs because you're exploding entire screens and you're not even sure what bosses do because they're perma stunned/frozen/electrocuted. The latter is just sad because the boss fights are actually amazing. They should make the bosses in the end game have like 10x more life and do like 25% -50% less damage so it becomes a war of attrition, where you can't instakill them and you have to learn the mechanics and play well because you're gonna run out of flasks (but they don't 1-tap you either). The fights shouldn't last 3 seconds, where you either burst down the boss or die in a nanosecond. They should feel more like fighting Count Geonor for the first time with shit gear

[@francoisturgeon1176]

i keep tellng people LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL yeah sure buddy

[@Watch_Derek]

I agree with what you want, but I think the issue is that when you give them giga HP, the gear/build difference becomes so much more apparent. I can get through maps okay, sometimes bosses can take a minute or so. A guy I'm in a discord with just deletes the bosses straight up. Our builds and gear are that different even on the same map tier. So when we get to a boss that's made for his build to take a minute on, now mine would take 10 minutes?

[@OryoSamich]

I was really enjoying the slower playstyle and the focus on staying alive in poe2 when people weren't really sure what's good and not. At this point people are just poe1 speed in poe2. Also, the perma ccing of bosses should not be a thing at all.

[@vexmyth0clast]

This video is straight from 2008 😂

[@Sidnv]

I agree with your general sentiment. Potential masterpiece that needs significant reworking of the end game. My biggest concerns right now are honestly the progression systems. Far too many of the mechanic metaprogressions are locked behind tier 14+ maps, and are locked behind bossing. Progression systems are a huge part of the fun of live service games, and not being able to meaningfully engage with most of these systems in tier 1-13 maps is a big part of why they feel flat (along with the lack of impactful mechanics early on and the hyper concentration of loot in late reds). I also think some of the power from these extra trees should be tied purely to mapping. Having say rebalanced trees with 14 points, 6 of which come from steady completion in maps and 8 locked behind the pinnacles would be a lot more engaging, and would put a lot less pressure on your first builds to always be good at bossing.

[@WikiED]

You know crafting could be prob way better if we could have a vendor remove all modifiers from an item, essentially getting a new base to craft on instead of looking for another white item. Grinding currency to craft feels so much better than digging through heaps of white bases for the one you need just to have it brick in one craft. maybe have vendors sell white bases? idk

[@ansizfark]

It's kinda funny that the boss fights seemed a lot harder the first time in normal and a lot easier seeing them again in cruel.

[@charlesdarwin4146]

Movement speed DOES feel shit because the map size is so absurdly large. If the map was smaller and you can finish it in like 3 minutes people wouldn't even complain that much. And on top it feels double as bad, because Jonathan said in interviews more than once that skills with CDs on them don't feel good. And wow, guess what Shield Charge has a 3 sec CD and Leap Slam an integrated "FU because we can" - delay.

[@MicroGW2]

Gaining too much power too quickly is an issue with opening a public trade system with a million other players.

[@_Freariose]

It's a shame GGG never game up with a system that let you get a specific modifier you need on a piece of gear... Like the ability to slam a specific resistance at like, a bench of some variety. Shame the technology just isn't there... On a more serious note, I think making the game "balanced" for streamers makes the game a slog for others. You mention the whole playing for 3 days and then stomping map bosses/early pinnacles, but that's in streamer playtime. What takes someone who plays the game like a job, or really plays the game more than a job even, will take other people so much longer. It is true that right now there seem to be people happy to still be slogging through the campaign on like act 3, but I'm not certain that's going to continue to be the case for the majority of the player base once we start having to repeat the grind every 3 months. Time will tell, but I know I can already tell for myself that the current state of progression is going to feel ass to repeat for leagues. It's like when we used to have to grind the old masters before betrayal up, and how the game improved 10x when that got canned.

[@chiefinasmith]

Last Epoch’s crafting system is leagues above PoE’s. PoE 1 was already primarily RNG, unless you were very well versed on the crafting mechanics, and they just doubled down on that by removing orbs of alteration. They say they want players to craft throughout the campaign but it’s quite literally not possible. I played through acts 1-3 cruel the other day on a new toon and had 1 exalt drop. That is not sustainable.

[@joshuaclouthier4405]

They could fix early gearing issues by adding the PoE 1 crafting bench. In addition to being able to add resistances/attirbutes to your items, it was fun to find and collect the crafting recipes anyway. I'd like to see Divination cards make their return

[@guilhermearaujo5868]

Or allowing you to replace runes

[@TheZackzable]

How about getting a rune that gives life - which scales with character level. Lv 10 10 HP, lv 50 50hp...and make it so you can do more often. Artificer orbs are useless. While leveling you won't find any and by endgame you need at most 10...so straight up remove it

[@Kacperskid]

They said Divination card will be added at a later date

[@circaen]

You had me until you said collecting recipes. Naw, never ever bring it back. Burn it down.

[@Hjutner]

Runes are suppose to be the crafting bench replacement, and the biggest issue with runes is you can't replace them currently, if they were it would go a long way to helping fix some issues

[@tobynye3543]

I think you’re right with the endgame bosses, they should show up earlier for the difficulty level they’re at and because the boss fights are so fun, it’s a shame they appear so late. Also the thing I miss most from Poe 1 is being able to swap the res type on gear. So many times I’ve hit some insane slams but it’s unusable unless I replace my rings but oops then I’d need to also replace my helmet, just to re-balance res.

[@MrFugean]

100% my biggest fear with poe2 is that it will become a prettier poe1.. I totally agree with you

[@Kuzka_]

Then they have to change the base of the game. Because, just think about it, if you take a character from poe2 and put it in a map in poe1, what's the actual difference? The player is slower, and that's it. Monsters are just as fast. I kid you not, I have more fun in ultimatum and sanctum than maps, because at least I do something specific than just randomly walking, and areas are much smaller compared to huge maps.

[@eastcow]

yep though especially in the end game, but i have no idea if any ways to innovate poe2 endgame to differ from poe1. i wish so too but i can’t think of any good ideas myself

[@young_heart]

I hope that exactly that happens 😂

[@eastcow]

@@young_heart yep it's not the worst. but something new would be cool as well.

[@tf259]

I don’t mind it personally, I would just like the crafting to be more like epoch’s system

[@garhong9125]

On the resistance point, I think while it is rng which res you can try to cap in the campaign, capping is also much less necessary now, which I like. I've found that having ~30 res in PoE2 campaign feels almost like having capped res in PoE1 just due to stuff not hitting you as hard. I actually prefer what they are doing in 2 and making it not mandatory to cap res so early. What I'd like to see perhaps is for the vendor to guarantee sell each of the ele res rings. That should be more than enough for people to get through the campaign.

[@Green_Corsair]

Exploding big fat guy is the worst. It's so slow that even if I remember there was something that explodes, I'm on the next pack already when he explodes and I'm often standing on top of him.

[@Straggler8]

I really enjoy the Tier Items - I hope they will expand on this and you'll get a bit more drops of them in higher tiers, they make Chaos Orbs actually fun to use. I also think, that Alteration Orbs should be back in the game in some capacity - having only Augments and Transmuts feels a bit off

[@veritaseru]

Most of the problems in progression are due to lack of crafting tools Gearing/crafting is in a HORRID state. An immediate 30% fix would be to make an orb that removed runes and cores from sockets, even if it meant losing that socketable. Not being able to swap out runes for resistance fixing is AWFUL. That aside. Crafting is dead. Took 3 days to find 32 weapons worth of crafting. Used transmutation, augmentation, regal on everything Got 2 items with 2 decent mods Exalt slammed them dead Reforged ALL items 3 to 1 Got another 2 items with 2 good mods, used 3 chaos to reroll and bricked them. Reforged 8 more rounds with 0 usable items. Getting 1 nonusable essence every 20 maps No fossil crafting No bench No harvest No metabench crafting Mapping literally only to buy half decent gear with the few exalt that do drop is horrendous. All this after ascendancy power gated behind 2 awful mechanics for melee, even with the patch.

[@Exzeph]

I agree with you on mods, especially how depending on which Bow skill is in question Pierce is either a nice to have or a bricker. Makes it a bit punitive to branch out on your own and try and deviate from following a build guide.

[@TheChristopherStalken]

POE 2 feels nearly like a direct clone of POE “with updated graphics” to me. You can’t ask a formula 1 mechanic to build a family car and not end up with a hot rod. They literally don’t how to not build POE 1 it’s all they’ve ever made. The campaign monkey VS end game boss is the perfect example. No true power scaling just false difficulty being marketed as “player engagement” Don’t install 1 shot mechanics and call it engaging. Make actual mechanics to work with. Blackjaw could have three or four shrines that you can lure him to hit that greatly weaken him then swoop in for the kill. Make dodging his instadeath slams worth dodging rather than just dodging for the sake of survival (like fight by a shrine and when he slams it’s destroys the shrine and he loses a large portion of health “now that’s pod racing or some such nonsense”)

[@kaine8981]

blackjaw isn't unfair though, you just need to be better at dealing with each of his moves, you can dodge behind him to avoid the triple slam and the fire ball into the spin is extremely telegraphed. If the argument is to have more mechanics than in your scenario his health needs to be way higher so that the fight isn't trivial and you have to engage in the mechanics

[@anamicro5818]

Getting 1 attempt at the Arbiter of Ash is one of the dumbest things that i've seen in this game ...

[@cry5388]

Yeah I want new league mechanics different from Poe 1. Mechanics only Poe 2 can do. Think that will make the game feel more distinct.

[@ludovicmaignan3234]

I feel the same . Poe2 seems like poe1 in endgame. So what the point of it

[@flint9080]

I think I agree with 100% of what you said. The endgame does feel like POE 1. I thought the game was supposed to be less dense and more purposeful. However, in endgame there are too many mobs to have more than a two-button build. I think they said that they had the POE 1 staff port over to help finish with endgame, if that is the case it defiantly feels like it. I would want less mobs, that grant more XP, more loot, and are tougher. And those mobs should hit less hard because a white mob should not be one-shotting you unless you are seriously under geared. And yeah crafting feels like a craps shot. Get extremely lucky or brick. If boots, get movement speed or brick. If weapon, get phys or brick (mostly). If other gear, get res or brick.

[@motherpigeon1582]

Statement was the endgame is lackluster which is true, we have 3 options and that's it.

[@newax_productions2069]

im glad endgame feels more like PoE1 and not the campaign. Endgame should not be a gigantic dodge fest constantly, it should be one shot mobs and sprinting through.

[@stoplosinglilboy1461]

​@@newax_productions2069 that's how poe1 should be not poe2 imo but I just think they should have mechanics for both keep breach the way it is but then change old mechanics or add new ones to be more tactical. But I think they should keep a few mechanics for ppl who just wanna slay out and kill a ton of mobs

[@Luftgitarrenprofi]

​@@newax_productions2069 those are not mutually exclusive. You could have trash mobs that you one shot and magic/rare mobs that feel like purposeful encounters that force you into a couple mechanics while having drastically increased health. Right now all mobs but map bosses are one shots in maps and even map bosses are to the stronger builds.

[@newax_productions2069]

@@stoplosinglilboy1461 then say bye bye to end game and most players. Power fantasy is what keeps people playing, removing it hurts the game. You think you want it that way until you're level 100 still unable to kill rare mobs because they are scaling with you.

[@darrenyorston]

Good review Lily. There are off course things we would all wanted changed in the game but I think there are some aspects most people would agree with. Such as your comment about essentially one shotting bosses in end game. I think this is solvable by having phases that require skill to survive. I feel the campaign is better, or has the potential to be better than POE1, once they add in the missing acts. This uber and uber uber concept is very poor. Its developers trying to gas light players into not recognising that developers essentially didn't bother to create new content. Nothing should repeat in the game, no boss should appear in different locations with a different name, all content should be unique. One concern I have is that the campaign seems tedious. Its definitely slow but it borders on by a chore. I appreciate the game is EA but I spent 25hrs in Act 2 Dreadnaught trying to increase my DPS from roughly 400 to 700 so that I could survive. The game should get harder as you progress. At the moment it doesn't feel that way. I don't get dodge roll at all. If you're playing melee, sure, its thematically consistent and works with the style of game play. But for mages or archers its thematically stupid. Create a different avoid skill, one that reflects the ranged nature of ranged classes. Why the hell would an archer roll? Get up and find your arrows snapped or spilled all over the ground. As a thought why not give mages a shield effect that when you use the roll key it pushes you away from enemies the same distance as roll? The game is meant to be an ARPG; make skills thematically ROLL PLAYING, not just generic.

[@miramichi30]

It's a problem because you need to be super powerful if you've invested a couple mirrors into your build, or otherwise what's the purpose of grinding?

[@RaptureSR]

The crafting is just not there yet. It's just a gambling system, which can be fun, but it's not really crafting. Crafting systems need both chance and choice to be engaging in ARPGs. POE is too far in the direction of chance at the moment. Slamming stuff is fun and can be a dopamine hit when you get something good, but we need that baseline of interactivity before the RNG hits. Putting a bit of work into an item to make it usable, then having the option to send it to godhood with a good roll or the trashcan with a bad one is where it's at. This makes it so that getting starter gear (stuff with basic res on it) isn't a huge pain that makes early-mid game a slog, but there's a lot of room to grow in terms of scaling into the end game. Last Epoch nails this perfectly. You have choice and chance involved in creating the items, and everything is balanced in such a way that you can get the basic necessities from crafting without getting in the way of dopamine hit from getting a god drop off of a boss or just a random mob.

[@royalecrafts6252]

Last epoch gets a lot done in a very very good way, poe devs has just traditional mentality

[@evilpotatoman9436]

Camera greenscreen is so poor quality it evolved into something special! Tho srsly some of us do have OCD, even 0 greenscreen with a garbage bin as backdrop would be an improvement!

[@Dani6220]

I really like poe2 and cant wait to see the updates they come out with. My personal issue with the game is that i havent found a skill or a couple of skills that give me the satisfaction i want from an ARPG. the first 100 hours were so much fun. Campaign felt so fun. But the skills that i tried using in maps, just ended up feeling lackluster to me.(not dmg wise, just the general feel). So i am really excited to get more skills to play around with!

[@maxnibler6090]

Im in t14/15 maps on my higher level character and i just think maps feel empty. Running a bad map feels terrible. I had way more fun progressing so im just gonna create new characters. I probably wont kill the pinnacle boss anytime soon but getting there just isnt fun imo

[@fishergabe]

last epoch crafting is the gold standard imho

[@cernunnos_lives]

I totally forget this isn't everything. Wow if this isn't all the classes, then balancing the rest will take an extraordinary amount of work. I'm impressed by how fast GGG has been working. I just found this channel thanks for your uploads.

[@sprEEEzy]

Great review, agreed on many points!

[@Travesty9090]

One little gripe I have is that +gem levels on gear is way too powerful. If you get an early +2 levels on your weapon you're gonna be using that for like 30+ levels unless you find another +gem levels weapon.

[@LaughingSkull451]

For some skills, it doesn't do anything. For example: most of the crossbow skills.

[@mchonkler7225]

Damage greater than +skills on my ranger build.

[@theo008]

It's similar when you get a +1 in PoE 1. Also, as mentioned before, some builds don't even benefit from plus level to gems.

[@Mike-Dynamike]

It’s only true for minions build. If you play mage or attack skill it’s not so long before you can get a better weapon. I bought a new bow to my friend because he didn’t whant to remove his +2 to skills and he was surprise the new weapon was doing about double damage.

[@sephrinx4958]

Yeah it's heinously op, also ass fuxkw your mana pressure.

[@ThaGamingMisfit]

PoE 2 is too much "You can't have nice things", in all aspects of the game you feel they want to punish the players, I honestly think this will ruin long term gameplay.

[@asluckdespairs]

The lack of mechanics endgame is is absolutely a game design issue, the atlas system is bad. Forced to run bad layouts and pray to rng that you get a good layout AND it has any mechanic on it. I've got over 7 days /played farmed t15s for most of it. And I have not found the rng nodes to unlock the arbiter. Not one. I'm not even 1/3 of the way to fighting a boss after about 5/played days looking for it.

[@implosesgm]

Out of everything bad they did (some that doesn't even have a justificative, cuz it already exist in Poe1 and it's better) Poe2 level design are the worst i've ever seen in my life. I'm constantly backtracking a cleared map with nothing to do, no extra mov speed and no functional mobility skills if not circling the entire map again just to kill that last rare mob and "complete" the map. (which is also a BS system). if i list all the maps, one by one, 70% of them are a poorly designed circle/maze layout with no conections in the middle, 20% are "not that bad" and only 10% (if much) have a great designed layout. Idk what can they do, but there's no way it'll keep like this.

[@maxxvii2037]

Sorry i got distracted by the Shrek on the background what did you said?

[@classicsmajor9699]

To your point about getting resistances early on that's partially a problem with the new skill tree. In PoE1 you could take resistances on the skill tree then drop those points as you geared up and needed more damage or whatever in maps. However that's no longer an option because PoE2 devs took away a lot of player choice.

[@db3413]

We mosdef need an audio que for on death effects

[@trill1987]

Poe2 boss fights have already peaked they can't get any faster only flashier, they gave you one movement skill; this means the entire flow of the games speed is based around the players dodge roll. Not sure how people think the fights are gonna "get better" that's it folks end of story. If it was any faster it would be imbalanced toward the player, any slower and you'd have to check if your game froze.

[@TujRk1Sh]

Its early access, stuff will change and improve, that's why these feedback vids hopefully reach the devs. I'm having an absolute blast so far. POE2 by far exceeded my expectations. Its a diamond in the rough at this point.

[@josefplacek4200]

I feel like resistances are also way more mandatory than in PoE1 - Especially Chaos. Anything under 50% chaos res is usually instakill and 75% is good enough to not die instantly... in most cases. It´s crazy when we cant target craft res.

[@orun713]

How do you feel about strongboxes? I don't think it's something I have seen anyone mention and they feel awful compared to POE1 to me. They take ages to spawn enemies now and don't feel rewarding.

[@stephenblackie-fu1sr]

Kinda it does take ages

[@legalizemarinara]

My real complaint about strongboxes is the damn smoke. You can't see anything (especially on the ground) so it feels really frustrating to take damage and not be able to see what the hell it's from.

[@Vjqybrpfyzn]

Every league mechanic except breach is waste of time. And breach is overtuned. There is no middle.

[@newax_productions2069]

Strongboxes have never been rewarding, they aren't in PoE1 either.

[@ThePapaupa12]

@@newax_productions2069 not in poe1 ? then you don't know how to juice them literally made multiple mirrors each league from strongboxes lol

[@Dreamchosis]

pretty lame watching people vs arbiter of ash and the boss doesn't get to do any mechanics

[@Kuzka_]

The game needs smaller map locations period. People don't realize how big areas incentify players to build into everything that makes you move faster and stop less often, while it should be a tactical and methodical fight. It's ridiculous, but I prefer sanctum and ultimatum to maps, I just hate how punishing the mods are, and if they were a bit weaker, I think I'd rather buy entries for those mechanics than run maps...

[@Kay-1234]

i tried killing an act 2 boss for my friend and it took longer than killing a 2 man HP T15 boss. im pretty sure that there is level downscaling even if you disable it in parties at least.. .maybe in general and thats why it feels so weird in lower content?

[@OisinClissmann]

Downscaling is wildly unbalanced and dysfunctional at the moment, I hope they know this and take a look at it. I believe the 0 xp for the higher level character is a design decision though.

[@holymolythejabroni9040]

Turning the endgame into some super gameplay heavy Soulslike is not the answer. I think that approach to gameplay works fine in the campaign, but isometric ARPGs are fundamentally power fantasies. The player needs to feel powerful at a certain point. Blasting screens is necessary for that. Skill expression is great in games that support it (Nine Sols is a great recent example). But those kinds of games are NOT intended to be loot/gear centric. It’s one or the other. Because if you give players a ton of loot/gear, they WILL figure out a way to trivialize any skill gate (which any good loot system will allow for). I personally feel that the only answer here is heavily skill gate a small number of endgame bosses. BUT if you do that you have to allow the player to LEARN those fights and get better. Lots of tough choices ahead for GGG. I said early on that Jonathan invoking Dark Souls was a bad sign. Not because Soulslikes are bad (they’re brilliant). But because Soulslikes are fundamentally different game experiences than isometric power fantasy ARPGs like PoE, Diablo, etc.

[@josteves6783]

Some great feedback here, I hope someone at GGG takes it seriously

[@ZagarelisOxf]

We're bringing back Paul Assi to PoE2 with this one

[@valjohnson7112]

its tough to balance games these days. if ben can beat the pinnacle bosses in 30 hours, it will probably take a normal person 2 months. so what do you do? make it hard enough it takes him a week? then a normal person will never get there. people can speed run dark souls in 1 hour. imagine if the devs said 'thats too fast. we need to make the game at least 5x harder.' it instantly becomes unplayable for 97% of the playerbase.

[@MrTnbopp123]

11:16 All of them are unintended interactions what will be patched from what i see

[@motherpigeon1582]

Oh we are seeing the future?;D

[@MrTnbopp123]

@@motherpigeon1582 yea.. super advanced predictions! buggy overpowered interactions-> gonna get fixed.. its a wild idea isnt it?

[@swiftbow2110]

Yea, with crafting they should bring scours to the game where, like you say, each item can only be wiped 2-3 times before it breaks or becomes corrupted with good or bad effects.

[@lasaboteur]

Based review. I know it'll piss off half of the players, but I hope they keep balancing the game in a way that slows combat down. The first couple days felt great, but now that I know what I'm doing, I'm running through the campaign just like it's PoE 1. And the endgame is starting to feel like PoE 1 just without movement abilities. Note I'm talking about combat\monster engagement.

[@newax_productions2069]

Yeah no, endgame should not be slow. Defeats the entire purpose of the power fantasy.

[@lasaboteur]

@newax_productions2069 well if you go actually listen to the dev interviews PoE 2 is built around the idea of engaging combat. If you want to delete the screen and bosses you have PoE 1, and every other ARPG to play. I don't give a shit about what you want, I want what I was sold

[@newax_productions2069]

@@lasaboteur combats engaging the way it is now, changing and making it even more slow only hurts the endgame.

[@paulc5389]

@@lasaboteur stone tier scaling should just go way way higher so the sweats can compete for the highest completion. Think diablo 3 greater rifts. But yeah I'd like to see some rebalancing. Fast would be fine if you weren't pushing higher tiers so long as it's tuned such that the pinnacle bosses are hard even with great gear. Though I have noticed a lot of streamers in the community only run maps with glass cannon builds and don't show themselves fighting the final bosses. Which just makes me think what they're doing is only good for mapping and they've just ran out of tiers and are so overpowered they don't have to care about defense.

[@ThePapaupa12]

@@lasaboteur leave the idea you ain't getting that ever games are patched towards the masses and the majority always wants speed and not slow ass grandma gameplay lmao poe 2 is already poe 1 the second you get into cruel campaign you just fly across screens

[@kolbybauer3712]

I feel like people are so pressured to absolutely delete bosses and end game bosses is because of how punishing the game is. I love the difficulty it feels so good. but let’s say you have a weaker build and you get to a boss and you die on your attempt, boom the maps gone the boss is gone till you find it later down the line in the maps. That doesn’t feel good not even having a second attorney with it then having to clear all the rates again and again just for it to maybe happen again, and really demoralizing them, then I feel like the players feels pressured to go play one of the stronger build to just blast their way through. There is no way to overcome something if you only get one chance at a time, learning their attack will take awhile because you might get a different boss on the next node and then you gotta start all over again. 100% an amazing game just have a few things they need to work out to make it one of the best

[@tyhjyys]

it's such a sweet game but i'm gonna wait for more updates and classes to release. 1 campaign clear is enough to get the blood flowing for now. real excited for marauder, templar and huntress sometime. you've gotta respect how quick they've been to patch this so far

[@elderwiz3165]

The "blasting" from POE 1 should just be a tpye of map in POE 2 for those who like mowing down hordes of monsters. I wish they design end game more to be like the campaign(normal Act 1-3), where there's more strategy involved. Love to find new interesting combos and supports for different environments and situations. It would be such a shame if they resort to endgame being POE 1 style braindead blasting. Also the not allowing you to die is a bad decision, as that means you'll never put yourself in more challenging situations that would push your abilities.

[@socrates1000]

Great video! I agree with you on most everything you said. I really do love the boss fights in this game.

[@BamboSW]

I understand the sentiment that games need to be distinct, but what can else be in endgame apart from speed clear whatever you choose to farm? You have no guaranteed drops, so if you want to get something good you have to pull the lever as many times as possible. You choose what to farm, you go all in, you may adapt one way or another but you have to be fast to be effective. You may opt out of speed, but it will never be the best way to play

[@M0du5Pwn3n5]

I am really curious to see what will happen with the mapping balance. Every single content creator I see talking about the balance is clearly talking about it under the assumption that the intended balance is going to be close to PoE1. But GGG has said the exact opposite: they don't intend for you to be able to just make a mindless map clear build. And basically everything in the game is balanced around that assumption. That's why it feels too fast if you're playing one of those 3 builds. PoE1 players are looking at the map situation and saying "there are really only 3 builds right now" because there are only 3 outlier builds that get you closer to the absurdly fast mapping you might expect coming from PoE1. And the expectation seems to be that they'll buff a lot of other builds up to that same power level. But I think their intention is the opposite: all the other builds are closer to their intended balance, and those 3 are huge outliers. The gear is the same: the availability of the gear at the start is basically where they want it. That's not something that slipped through the cracks - I'd bet that's one of the things they tested the most! But again the expectation is that stronger gear should be more plentiful, sooner, like it is in PoE1. I am really curious to see which way they'll go. Personally, I hope they stick to their guns and actually make a different game than PoE1, with a different balance target, with a little less power fantasy and a little more gameplay, and let PoE1 continue to do the PoE1 style. But that will require a willingness to do a lot of serious nerfing that the community will react very negatively to. Maybe even to discourage chasing these overtuned builds: if they continue to do big nerfs without offering skill refunds, then it becomes very costly to just immediately respec into the next most broken build over and over as they nerf them. But that's already unpopular and if they keep doing it, it's going to keep being unpopular. I think it would be good for the long-term health of the game, but at the same time, the way they built such a big audience in the first place was by capitulating to player desires rather than making these kinds of hard tradeoffs. The easy thing to do would definitely be to just give up on their seeming goals for PoE2 and go with the formula that everyone expects and that they've already used before and just let you run around killing everything on the screen while watching Netflix.

[@mrfox3459]

Thank you for your opinion. I also see that this is just field 1 and that it does not match in any way with what they promised and what I was waiting for

[@orbitalcracker]

The boss fights are awesome but still doesnt come close to lost ark brelshaza raid

[@Skuffsywuffsy]

Interested to see what will be done about two second boss kills. Seems like they either nerf every skill thats doing super well or just buff boss health and stun bars. Not sure which sounds better tbh

[@togofar]

Agree with everything. For me the on-death effects are by far the biggest design flaw in the game. I'd remove them all. They were already very feel-bad in Diablo 2 and PoE 1 and are even worse in PoE 2.

[@OisinClissmann]

Absolutely, they feel out of place in PoE 2.

[@HuhWhatHuhwhatHuh]

We’ll get deterministic someday. It’s a new game introducing to a shit ton of new ppl. I’m sure they don’t want to add the bench, pre can’t be changed, Hinekora’s lock to the table, knowing it’s not only going to scare them away but also be priced out of their reach to even experiment. If it was me I would introduce the mechanics in a league, and then the next league introduce currency that takes that league mechanics place. That way if it’s an extremely rare item, newer players will have learned to interact during the past league mechanic.

[@brofst]

Why does the gorilla hit for the same amount as big breach boss? There's not some weird level scaling or anything right? Is it just that that gorilla slam is /intended/ to be a 1 shot for appropriate level but the breach hand slam isn't?

[@TheKoarandy]

I think level downscaling might have been at play in that example...

[@redfish337]

No one can figure out how to do res properly. Seems to be a problem with ARPGs... it's a good filler stat on gear. But especially as the games get more complicated it's too hard to shuffle around resist like you might in a turn based RPG. The extent of it in PoE1 is changing flasks for pinnacle/ubers while you're still at the point that changing flasks still matters. In PoE2, I think one thing is the runes are just garbage. We need a bench. Runes are 12%? When you try to res cap in PoE1 we START with 16-20% and can get dual mod 12-16% by act 7 ("28" resists). Sure, it's a suffix rather than an enchant in PoE1 but early game it doesn't really make a difference since you probably don't have 6 mods on your newest gear so the enchant isn't really competing for the space. Might I suggest that runes have two effects. You can USE them for +16-24% at a bench and have it take a suffix slot. And enchant for the 12%.

[@lucagenovese7207]

Lots of cool thoughts from you and i would say also every comment below. I am sure GGG will hear us. I d love to have the same engagement that i had in campaign also in the endgame, and engame that doesnt feel poe1.

[@nlatole8067]

thank you for the video lily

[@daviddickson4936]

Enjoyed the review. Is the problem really too much power or are the bosses undertuned? I feel like i look at my gear in poe2 and in poe1 it would considered bad. But i am easily clearing t15 corrupted maps.

[@lolleonlolable]

i really dont like how mapping feels, the maps are huge and (if u don play deadeye) your slow and u have to kill every rare so u even have to backtrack and stuff. also stun/freeze etc is way too good, like u just gonna stun/freeze a rare and kill him in that stun or freeze... soo ? thats kinda boring you dont even really fight it. fighting rares in poe1 is really scary alot of the time, in poe2 you proc one stun and its dead, i also dont like the tower stuff i just wanna open maps alc&go and blast, like why do we have to run the tower ? cant we just reach it and put somehting in ? in poe1 for example to even get to the point where u can farm t16s easy you have to work for it, im doing t15s on poe2 now in abselolute trash gear on a build i mostly self created and its just kinda easy the only scary things are on death effects from dead mobs while looting. so im like .. i could map .. to make it even more easy.. or .. i just dont play. i think we have way too much player power from the getgo, i dont even have my 4. lab, because i dont feel like i need it. what i also reaaaally dislike is that im basicly forced to scale es as a sorc for example, the new tree and the gearstart requirements just lock me in on ES scaling and es gear why ? poe1 gives the player all the choises it feels like poe2 wants to move away form that a bit, i dont like it and i hope that changes.

[@drizzl8899]

yea atm i feel like i still prefer the old map system. im not 100% cool with the new atlas yet + all of the huge map layouts but i had to warm up to alot of things in this version of poe

[@lolleonlolable]

@@drizzl8899 yeah i dont like the randomness of it, did like prolly 100 maps ranging from 12-15 and i didnt find anything jet, only that citadel that just tells you "find this 3-4 smaller ones" t15 are just boring, also iding rares is just boring there just all bad i though its gonna change in poe2 but its still basicly a waste to even pick em up it feels like

[@kju-uu8me]

On my first playthrough in act 1 Manor I waited for the on death ground effects to disappear after every other pack because there was no way around and I didn't want to go into the boss with a half empty flask. I actually feel like it made the experience significantly worse. I don't hate ground effects like that but you could just make them last for like 2-3 seconds instead of 10.

[@ginz9r]

they changed them already from 8s to 4s

[@processedsoy]

This was miserable with minions lol they couldn’t get out of the pools in time even if I commanded them because they all get stuck on each other 😭

[@Mike-Dynamike]

There is always a checkpoint before boss that full your flask.

[@marioharrer9999]

@@Mike-Dynamike this, there is not a single boss fight u go into with empty flasks(in campaign)

[@kingsanom1]

Felt incredible during the campaign(refreshing and new) but quickly dropped off after the into to maps/later on(POE 1.5 while having half the tools).

[@lolleonlolable]

agree, once your in maps its basicly poe1 but with WAY less choises. as a sorc your locked into ES because thats the only thing you can do, also your locked in ether plying archmage or "proc on x comet" because everything else is just bad compared to that. what i like about poe(1) is all the choises you have, you wanna scale life and armor ? sure, you wanna be fast ? sure! you wanna be a witch and run arround with a twohander and roleplay a melee ? sure! poe2 is not like that so far. i looked at other ppls skilltrees that play builds like mine 80%of the tree lookes the same everytime its not like that in poe1 skilltrees look waaay more different i hope that changes.

[@WikiED]

i dont think they really need to nerf the endgame builds but rebalance the hp/def of the bosses instead. So long there is no hard enrages and zdps Quinn build can beat the bosses, the actual builds should take at least 60s on pinnacle fights. Also in pinnacle fights status effects should still apply but not hinder the ability for bosses to cast mechanics. Like freezing Xesht should allow you to enable all the 'if frozen do x' effects but not stop Xesht from using his abilities. With how much dps ppl have stun+freeze is too much free time and not being able to trigger effects for the build is lame too so it'd have to be hybrid of effects are applied but not allow to bully the boss that has hands tied.

[@Lancer78x]

I agree with most of your takes, I would like to see the end game toned down a bit, more bosses maybe and little more difficulty, or toned down player power.

[@aeggeska1]

Where you are on "day two" is where I am after a month. I think it is fine from that perspective.

[@kekplexis]

exactly this

[@truehonor1347]

Agreed

[@ThePapaupa12]

are you one of the gaming dads with 800 potato farms and 28 jobs?

[@kekplexis]

@@ThePapaupa12 nope, I don't have children, I have one job, but I also have a life and other games to play

[@axelrogers777]

"the game is fine because i dont play it much"

[@Mister_Vintage]

The couple dozen uniques I have found are absolute trash for mapping and beyond. The only use would be for a new alt running early campaign.

[@manvsn8ture]

playing bloodmage chaos build, up until like level 50, and now again in maps the game feels like im playing project zomboid dragging around a giant cloud of shamblers, but this game isnt designed so that my walking speed is always faster

[@sparkVII]

I would be worried if it wasn't early access and they said this is the final product! But I am not cause it is early access and is not the final product.

[@blacklotus1606]

problem with runes is that you will have to change gear if you have already slotted some.

[@basewarrior]

Honestly I loved my time playing POE2, I went through the campaign on 2 characters and enjoyed it both times. But I have to admit that my enjoymeant really fell off when it came to the end game. This is the complete opposite of how I enjoy POE 1.

[@xTobsecretx]

Yup, bosses too easy, trash too hard. The campaign bosses look like they have really cool movesets but it doesn't matter bc my arsonists instaphase them anyways. Also random one-shots were pretty prevalent in PoE1 for years, now they have finally curbed almost all sources of them, making the game a lot more predictable. I actually kinda liked gearing in the campaign. I checked the vendors a lot and I constantly tried to upgrade my build. To be fair, sceptres/minions also are the archetype where it's the easiest. Early on you just scale spirit and that's the only thing that matters. I think my gripe is that currently attributes are too restrictive in the early game. This would be fine if you could spend an extra point or two on some attribute only notables like BEEF in PoE1 but this is sadly not the case.

[@Rickwhyy]

I'm absolutely loving the character building and itemization. I don't mind the crafting. The balance will get fixed in time. My biggest worry is having to run giant layouts with 400 dead ends for the rest of eternity. I need more agency over my map layouts. Also I loved the campaign the first time but its way too long trying to do it on a second character. I'm already burnt out on the game just slogging through the second act again. I don't think either of these things will be addressed in the near future but I hope that they don't leave it in this state for launch. Having played PoE since 1.3, I never once wanted a campaign skip. I'm starting to be convinced by PoE2. I hope that they just change something about the design to make it quicker, or maybe I just need to get better at it.

[@redfish337]

Campaign skip should be in PoE1 too. For 2nd+ characters in a league. And I don't actually agree with a true skip. Just an accelerated light on walking version. My idea for PoE1 was "memory of a godslayer" where you would basically be training by running through a memory of your first character's exploits. So it'd basically be 10 maps long and include all the important storyline bosses. Get all the meat of the action in ~1 hour. That said... part of the problem is just we're still slow in PoE2. Some of that is because movement, part of it is because we just don't know all the tech yet. Them changing the checkpoint system already seems to speed things up a bit though.

[@marioharrer9999]

checkpoint teleport is alrdy ingame now and i can tell u when i did a 2nd char i reduced the time for campaign by 70-80% alrdy skipping not needed side quests, which can become entire zones later on etc.

[@donateloh6894]

Drop are still an issue. Some get decent drops while some of us only get white items, mostly. How can we grind for gear if you aren't getting any? Do we need to play for hours and hours a day to get one good item? I there a timer before you get a good item? POE 2 still has a long long way to go. GGG don't only listen to hardcore players. They want this game to be exclusively only for them and ridicule all casual players out there who also wants to play the game.

[@wiqz5682]

the idea of rune farming from bosses, could be cool but i reckon they should just add it in with vendor recipes so you can sell like some fire runes and a chest to get fire res or whatever (i guess you can just try essence it)