Path Of Exile 2 Discussion thread

[DXCHASE]

Path of Exile 2 early access is out now and the game will officially release sometime in 2025.

Have been mostly playing this game couch co-op with the wife which, first of all, is somethin a lot of ARPGs, including my beloved Diablo 4 (not 3, 3 had it) do not have. Its actually pretty functional too. So its been (mostly) fun.

My first impressions right now overall is wow. There is a lot here for an early access release, enough to the point where when it finally releases, idk if ill have tried everything it has to offer or have played all the classes (theres 6 to start in EA and 12 all together). Servers were on fire the first day, but for such a huge amount of people, they are pretty stable now and its the first weekend its been out.

The graphics are nice, UI isnt too cluttery, voice acting seems legit and the story is fine and im sure its incomplete (there are 3 acts in ea and 6 total as per the dev team).

So far, ive played as a Mercenary which functions like a twin-stick-shooter and using WASD movement (another aspect you dont always find in ARPGs) makes it feel really nice. I have also been playing the Monk. The skills have been fun to use for both so far.

My biggest gripe with POE ive found right now, is how long it takes to revive and how slow you move. Reviving is... just not feesable to do during bosses or heavy infested areas, you can get it off if youre lucky, but its tough. It takes roughly...5-10 seconds to revive someone and you never have that amount of time to stand still before you get hit and it gets interrupted. Also, resets when you start reviving again. So i think that should be tweaked.

You also move pretty slow, its not terrible but i would like to see a bump in speed.

Also, the game is HARD. It kinda plays like a Souls-like game in these terms here. It isnt diablo 4 where you mow down hordes of enemies (which i personally love) but you do feel more of an accomplishment when you kill a mini-boss or a swarm of adds, but im not that far so maybe this will change as i grow. Its not a terrible pace by any means.

Are you playing?

 

[mjs warlord]

Hello DXCHASE i saw somebody on toms hardware forum having a rant about this because he waited for the 90gb to download and then found out you have to pay for it.

He did not say where he got it from but on steam and epic it tells you its £23 BEFORE you start to download it.

 

[Colif]

I would but I am doing a course and need to put all my time into it because its also summer and every other day its storming. When you get 5 days of rain and two sunny, it would be nice to play a game in the two sunny but I need to use them better.

I had summers like this before, every day I wanted to play a game it would storm. I can't afford to repair PC so I just don't use it during storms. It was annoying when I played wow as storms would arrive just as raids started. So many times...

I didn't realise it wasn't free. POE was. I wait and see what course is like by time it releases. Then I might need to spend a year learning the skill trees.

 

[DXCHASE]

Yes, early access is paid. The cheapest is 30 usd. I opted for the 60 dollar one. If you spent over 480 dollars in POE over the course of the time you played, you get it for free.

The game, when it leaves early access, will be free to play then. So you can really just wait until then but there is SO MUCH STUFF in the game right now for first day of EA, if you like ARPGs you wont be wasting your money imo.

I didnt play POE all that much because i got into it really late (in my mind) so i only have roughly 50 hours in the game over its lifetime and never spent a thing so i personally dont mind paying to have access. GGG is a good studio to support, especially in the ARPG space imo.

Its not a 100/100 omfg wow its perfect! because its ea, but funding it and giving feedback, i feel, goes a little further with a company like this but well have to see if they fix any gripes i may have/may find.

@Colif Summer? Nice! Classes during summer? Boo! lol. No need to rush, early access will be around for at least 6 months.

I forgot to mention, the way GGG does inventory in this game reminds me so much of Diablo 2 and i love that.

 

[Colif]

Online course, runs until June. Only time I get off is any I can make up by getting ahead. Currently one week ahead but as I said, weather getting in way of being able to do course. Like to have Xmas week off at least.

I paid for early access on POE when it first came out. It just never grabbed me, even though I tried game at least 3 times. That is another reason I am mostly ignoring it. Hard to do when the people you watch on YouTube normally are playing it now.

@COLGeek is playing it now as are other mods I think. He might comment in here...

 

[Johnway]

i'm interested in playing POE2 eventually, what worries me is how its moving away from Path of exiles breezy, fast combat. The tactile combat is one of the biggest draws to the game. Blasting entire mobs in one go and earning lots and lots of loot in the process.

The other is the currency/crafting drops it should be plentiful that i can be free to experiment or just craft the best gear stress free because all the currency i need is there. But its a F2P game so its going to skew crafting.

I didnt play POE all that much because i got into it really late (in my mind) so i only have roughly 50 hours in the game over its lifetime and never spent a thing so i personally dont mind paying to have access. GGG is a good studio to support, especially in the ARPG space imo.

Imo i think getting into POE late is a good thing. The game has a lot of QOL features and content. Path of exile 2 is a culmination of all of those updates (especially in end game and for example ascendency) and a few extra bells and whistles with new features. playing Path of exile will give you a taste of some of those mechanics in the sequel.

Speaking of content, the one thing that worries me is the difficulty. Everything is much, much harder to accomplish. For example ascendency is much harder. the trials themselves look pretty difficult, for example the forbidden sanctum content roguelike challenge i never beat and the vaal trialmasters Ultimatum challenge could be pretty tough without the proper builds.

 

[Frindis]

Played through Act 1 and I have some positives/negatives:

+ Very cool bosses and they can be a challenge, meaning you might have to change up skills/gear to be more efficient.
+ The zones look beautiful!
+ The tinkering with passives/gear/gems++ is a lot of fun.
+ The Stash tabs are fun to customize and you can make it so that different currency in your inventory goes straight into the designated tabs for it through affinities. Depending on the stash tabs you have, you can recolor, rename, make folders within folders, and move them about easily.
+ Spells sounds/feels good and has decent animations.
+ The music is spot on!
+ You can respec the primary stats nodes without removing any other nodes. This is super great for changing stats if you need a few more in a stat for gear or skill.
+ I like the forge. Getting rid of quality items you don't need and then getting the materials for putting into the ones you want to upgrade is nice.

- Revive time is slow as @DXCHASE points out. It seems it is faster at first, then it slows down if you revive more times. The first time should be faster.
- Movement speed is slow, but I can live with it since you will get movement speed early on also. Right now I have 15% movement speed, so coming from a slow walk to that feels great.
- I would not mind having free respec or at least free respec before you start to get a lot of gold. It would lessen the risk of experimentation, which would be particularly nice for those who have not played PoE before.
- Wands/Sceptres can't use sockets, which I don't like as I play witch. I'm sure there is a reason behind it, but right now I would have liked to get something similar to the martial runes.

 

[ssssyyyy]

Path of Exile 2's Early Access is a mixed bag. The gameplay is a huge step forward with complex skill trees and diverse classes. The endgame, especially the Atlas, is impressively fleshed out. However, the loot is stingy and not class-specific. Storytelling is okay but not overly original. Technical issues like frame rate hiccups exist. Despite having to replay the first three acts twice to reach endgame and some annoyances, it still shows great potential. It's a time-consuming but promising sequel that offers a lot for ARPG fans, with room for improvement before the full 1.0 launch.