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.

 

[DXCHASE]

POE 2 is getting unfair criticism imo even after tackling a bunch of issues that people had in the first place (bad drops, small amounts of gold, limited fast travel). I think POE's ea is an example of a larger problem where gamers feel they are so extremely titled to have a day 1 ea release to be 100% right.

I just read a post that someone was so mad their wittle skills got a nerfy nerf that it caused them physical gut pain lol.

I think GGG is doing a fantastic job at addressing major issues quickly. Remember this early-access game came out on Friday, so its JUST hitting a week and they've already released pages of fixes. My only biggest complaint (and not to the point to go and put up mindless troll posts) so far is the inability to freely respec your skill tree. I hope GGG allows this, at least in EA at some point, but no biggy.

Other than that, after playing a week, the game is amazing to me. Its solid for where its at and seeing GGG jumping on feedback, im hopeful for its future.

And, since this is also the most common discussion i find around POE, Diablo 4 has its positives over POE. Everyone wants to compare the two and say how bad one is over the other, but im just a chill guy that likes to play ARPGs so i will play both.

 

[Johnway]

POE 2 is getting unfair criticism imo even after tackling a bunch of issues that people had in the first place (bad drops, small amounts of gold, limited fast travel). I think POE's ea is an example of a larger problem where gamers feel they are so extremely titled to have a day 1 ea release to be 100% right.

I just read a post that someone was so mad their wittle skills got a nerfy nerf that it caused them physical gut pain lol.

I think GGG is doing a fantastic job at addressing major issues quickly. Remember this early-access game came out on Friday, so its JUST hitting a week and they've already released pages of fixes. My only biggest complaint (and not to the point to go and put up mindless troll posts) so far is the inability to freely respec your skill tree. I hope GGG allows this, at least in EA at some point, but no biggy.

Other than that, after playing a week, the game is amazing to me. Its solid for where its at and seeing GGG jumping on feedback, im hopeful for its future.

And, since this is also the most common discussion i find around POE, Diablo 4 has its positives over POE. Everyone wants to compare the two and say how bad one is over the other, but im just a chill guy that likes to play ARPGs so i will play both.

i agree. GGG are usually very quick to roll out updates, fixes or changes. Especially when it comes to league starts etc. balancing wise normally they do it for the next update, but i guess that doesn't apply here. But its not uncommon for nerfs to occur, but i think the problem is the rug pull when things are running. Normally they happen in the next league, but since there are no leagues, we're in EA and if we force players to play meta, there won't be any balancing other areas.

i can't say personally (not played POE2) but there should be the same drop rates for currency as it was like in POE, hell make crafting currency plentiful so its easier to craft or experiment easily.

 

[Pifanjr]

I did see some grumbling from players whose builds got nerfed and who didn't have money for a respec available, so they were just kind of stuck grinding for money with a bad build.

 

[DXCHASE]

I did see some grumbling from players whose builds got nerfed and who didn't have money for a respec available, so they were just kind of stuck grinding for money with a bad build.

Yes, this complaint i find legit especially within the ARPG community.

POE is an early access (sorry to call it this) live-service type of game where every couple of weeks/months theres some kind of nerf to a skill that takes out whole builds to the point where people want to change what they are doing.

So, at least in its early access phase it should be free, but even when its released, respec shouldnt be a hassle to do imo and i believe GGG will tackle this issue.


As far as the game is going... only in act 2 on my mercenary. Im getting so many Diablo 2 vibes even down to the type of maps we get in the order we get them lol. Im loving the mercenary class with the WASD movement too.

 

[Johnway]

I did see some grumbling from players whose builds got nerfed and who didn't have money for a respec available, so they were just kind of stuck grinding for money with a bad build.

i had a theory in that currency is pretty limited in EA as you're only playing the first 3 chapters. i suspect in the second half and end game it should be much higher. At least my experience with POE1. But that said, i still agree, make currency drops so plentiful that you are content to leave them behind. In POE end game i usually don't prioritize (dare i say ignore it completely) basic currency as i have so much.

Speaking of currency, anyone know if the Currency and the map inventory tabs in POE2? i believe currency is, but maps is not.

 

[DXCHASE]

So there are a couple of concerning items about the endgame of POE 2 atm, and im going to link a video to probably one of POE's biggest streamers explaining whats wrong with it, warning, its kinda long but he has some good points and also addresses that its still really early.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRCtVMjvXRY&t=5s



Im currently not in endgame yet and im glad not to be because of stuff like this so i cant say how brutal it is for sure, but thats what early access is for.

These people who can sit and play this to no end can find these terrible bugs in an un-finished game, report them to the public/GGG and hopefully have something done by the time i get there but even if it stays the same ill have had my time with it. Currently only in act 2, but ive started 4 characters.

So with how early we are in its early access, and how slowly i work through the game, im still confident a lot of these issues will be addressed, probably the only studio right now i think might work this way lol.

 

[Frindis]

I'm soon finishing Act 2 with my nephews. I have two characters now, a witch (main) and my ranger. Both dish out decent enough damage with my witch focusing on blowing up corpses doing fire damage, chaos damage dotting, and using bonestorm against large crowds of enemies and single target DPS against bosses. My ranger is purely specced into projectile damage/lightning and I am using different spells that chain and do good damage against crowds. I want to get more lightning damage and some fire so I can spec into more damage per elemental damage I do against enemies.

I played for too many hours yesterday and just when I was going to bed I managed to salvage a very good bow I found. Lesson learned!

 

[DXCHASE]

Well GGG pretty much answered most of the problems from the above video by releasing a huge patch this week, along with adding a bunch of new skills and stuff. So im glad to see how closely they are listening.

 

[Frindis]

Started Act 3 with my nephews. I like how the insects look in this act and some of the bioms remind me of Diablo 2. A couple of cool bosses too, which is a plus.

Been spending some time trading and selling also and it feels like a separate mini-game. I find it to be a nice way to learn more about item stats and to get access to items I can use to build my character. It has been particularly nice to get some resistance and life regen on gear, having more survivability against bosses.

 

[DXCHASE]

Are you guys in guilds? Can we do a PCG forum guild? i want to join one.

 

[Frindis]

@DXCHASE I have a guild, but it is only with my nephews and me. We are progressing Act 3 on normal difficulty, so it will be a while before endgame content.

Anyone who wants to make a PCG forum guild could have people PM him their name in the game, just to keep it out of the prying eyes of bots and the like. I might join another guild later on depending on how much my nephews want to play in the future.

 

[DXCHASE]

@DXCHASE I have a guild, but it is only with my nephews and me. We are progressing Act 3 on normal difficulty, so it will be a while before endgame content.

Anyone who wants to make a PCG forum guild could have people PM him their name in the game, just to keep it out of the prying eyes of bots and the like. I might join another guild later on depending on how much my nephews want to play in the future.

Im still on act 3 too, no endgame yet and im kinda glad i havent yet with all the changes they did.

Ive started 3 characters and am leveling them almost at the same rate. 1 for my own grind (mercenary), a second to grind with my wife (warrior) and a 3rd for the couch coop i switch between with her (monk).

I dont mind starting the guild but i was lookin to join a guild so it had members already but will make one if there is interest from others.

 

[Johnway]

Are you guys in guilds? Can we do a PCG forum guild? i want to join one.

My friend set up a guild but no one else plays POE anymore, so i effectively have 4 additional tabs to myself. Still filled them up though...

i would like to join multiple guilds, but it would be a messy execution filled with thieves and stealing.