Path of Exile 2

Path of Exile 2 Review – A Diamond with Rough Edges

Path of Exile 2 improves upon its predecessor in many ways, offering deep ARPG gameplay with stunning visuals and smart QoL upgrades. However, several frustrating design choices hold it back from greatness.
✅ The Good: Why PoE 2 Shines

• Clearer & Smoother Progression
  The revamped skill tree and leveling system are more intuitive than PoE 1, making builds easier to plan without sacrificing depth.
  Passive skill choices feel more impactful, and early-game pacing is improved.
  
• Graphics & Atmosphere
  The game looks gorgeous, with detailed environments, improved lighting, and a distinct art style that sets it apart from other ARPGs.
  Monster designs and spell effects are visually striking (even if sometimes overwhelming).
  
• QoL Improvements
  Reconnect feature is a game-changer—no more losing progress due to crashes or disconnects.
  Alva’s Currency Exchange shows the potential for a better trade system (now we just need it for everything else).
  
• Endgame Potential
  The core gameplay loop (maps, bosses, loot hunting) remains addictive, and new mechanics add fresh challenges.
  

• Post-Death Effect Overload
  Killing mobs shouldn’t feel like navigating a minefield, yet PoE 2 insists on filling every encounter with delayed explosions, lingering ground effects, and stacking DoTs. In Delirium, this becomes absurd—waiting 20+ seconds after clearing a pack just to avoid death isn’t engaging gameplay; it’s tedious. The visual clutter makes it worse, as effects blend together, leaving players guessing where to stand.
  
• Corridor Hell: Lack of Open Maps
  The endgame map variety is shockingly bad. Out of dozens of maps, only four (Savannah, Oasis, Rustbowl, Steppe) feel truly open. The rest are claustrophobic tunnels or obstacle-filled pseudo-open zones (looking at you, Creek and Blooming Field). Maps like Augury, Decay, Hidden Grotto, Seepage, and Vaal Foundry are outright miserable, forcing players into repetitive, cramped combat.
  
• Ranged Combat Feels Punished
  The game pretends to support ranged builds but constantly forces point-blank engagements. Mobs burrow, teleport, or materialize out of thin air, nullifying the advantage of distance. Shadow creatures, underground ambushes, and off-screen projectiles make ranged play feel like a lie.
  
• Outdated Trade System
  The trade system is stuck in 2013. Alva’s Currency Exchange proves that automated trading works, yet the rest of the economy relies on:
  [list]
  
• Mandatory third-party tools (Awakened PoE Trade, trade sites).
  
• Being online 24/7 to sell items. As a result trade market was crowded with bots and price fixers until game lost 70% online.
  
• Constantly leaving maps to complete trades.
  
• It’s a time-wasting relic that favors no-lifers and punishes casual players.
  

Never played a ARPG before but as a former drug addict, this game is way more addicting than heroin. 8.6/10

Fixed an interaction where players were having fun in our game.

This was an amazing game, then they nerfed it into absolute trash. They made all fights take 5 times longer, reduced damage and pretty much killed all the fun the game had. Great job devs!

Unfinished as hell Early Access game of a game that is practically a 1:1 copy of the only other game they ever made yet fails to deliver ANY of the fun the first game had (which btw is 100% free to play).
Only listen to the community once they absolutely get sh*t on by said community
And once they are back to ignoring instead of adding any actual content or fixing existing content or balancing classes so half of them aren't completely useless they add more Micro Transactions, which dead serious range from 20$ up to several hundreds $, and Loot Boxes...

Yea GGG can go to hell

didnt play much of the first league and stopped at 26 but now i hit 91 in dawn of the hunt and did the arbiter fight to get the full experience. while i do think the game is worth the money now even though it will be free in the future i have many issues with it in the current state.

1. trading is bad
just makes no sense to me for it to be on an external site it should be a part of the game

2. death report
i didnt die much in mapping but when i did it would be something obscured by a big corpse or 1 shot by a mob. i think there should be something to tell me what damage i took and how much of it right before my death. 90% of my deaths im just left wondering how it happened.

3. crafting
this is literally just gambling and its not very fun. its fine to get through the campaign but when i hit maps i eventually just relied on trading for everything cause crafting is garbage and not worth the effort. i already dont like using a site to trade and then im pushed to use the site cause the alternative is a waste of time.

4. defenses
i played til around 75 just being full evasion at like 88% and swapped to hybrid evasion/energy shield cause straight evasion was trash. full evasion youll inevitably be 1 shot and the same goes for armor which forces energy shield in the current state of the game. i would like more variety cause energy shield is just so obviously the best option you can get its total insanely high to avoid 1 shots and it regens very quickly with the right skills.

5. build variety
i played some of the first game on my ps4 years ago and i remember lightning being part of a lot of the top builds and its the same thing here. i naturally leaned into lightning spear cause it was good and then later i see its good cause its way too strong compared to most other builds. im assuming this will be adjusted in the next league cause i want to play something else eventually that doesnt take years to clear and can effectively kill bosses.

with that said the game is still good and i dont regret the money/time i put into it. my issues can and will most likely be fixed in the future. when these things start to be addressed ill be back to level on a new character cause this game is pretty decent as it is currently.

I have 3.4k+ hours in the first game so i can say i have some knowledge about the mechanics or an overall idea about how things work, so while playing poe2 i came with the following complaints:

1. The campain is to damn long for gods sake, i struggled to finish it and i did that in dawn of the hunt on my 2nd character and it took me 20+ hours, the first playthrough is to damn hard and it take so much time that i do not have at my disposal because of work, loved the first game with a passion but this i despise, coming home to enjoy my game just to be slapped in the face over and over again, maybe i am just a filthy casual but that is just not fun i believe for anyone.

2. 2.1 The Asscendency are unbalanced, most of the points that you want to take to make the build diverse are locked behind another point with no way around or a point is worthless without the one behind it so you are forced to spend 2 points just to make a thing work for example Obsessive Ritual and Ceremonial Ablution on the wihich hunter there is no point in taking the 1st without the 2nd the downsides are to big
2.2 This is just a personal opinion but it influenced my view on the game, the way you asscend sucks real bad i mean cmon Ultimatum or Sanctum, 2 machanics i really really hate with a passion and the way the games plays with monster swarming stuns and all the downsides you get in both you can call it a skill issues but i call it a personal opinion it sucks, never tought i would say this but i miss the Labyrinth. I also find it very stupid that I HAVE TO REDO THE TRAIL TO THE HIGHEST LEVEL PERVIOUS COMPLETED TO RESPEC this is absolut garbage.
3. You get to endgame where monster swarming comes hard in you face,
- It lacks crafing options you need to heavely rely on finding items that you exalt slam and hope for a miracle no deterministic crafting, no crafting bench or you just go on the trade site and buy what you need cuz currency is kinda easy to make.
- The towers are tedious to setup, actually there was no point in setting any tower until you explore the atlas a bit to get atleast some of you points so it finally becomes worth to spend time in a area to farm.
- I got to waystones tier 11 and i got bored, angry and some other negative feelings.
4. I know that this is early access but the devs said that they will treat it as a full game, i could not disagree with that more, bring updates when they need to deployed bring content bit by bit not leagues, this game is not in the state that is needs leagues, they finished something that can be put in the game then put it in the game or at least the presumption that the want to treat this as a full games is pissing me off.

I dont usually write reviews but i loved poe 1 very much i played it since i was a kid in ambush league 2014, i remember being in highschool when poe 2 was announced, since then i watched every live stream and video/ updates related to this game, i want it to be good, to be succesfull, to be the next big arpg, it has the potential, but for now i am disapointed not because poe 2 is not what it's suppoesd to be but because it also dragged poe 1 down with it. For 10 months we didn't receive any new leagues in poe1 because the development of this game, poe 1 was left behind and that hurt more then anything, maybe poe 2 was not meant for me but poe 1 was and this does nothing but build hatred. We used to have 3 months leagues, and after that 4 months leagues cuz poe 2 was demanding more and more resources bringing us in this situation. At the moment i lost all interst in this game, only hope left is that the next poe 1 update in june is good and i wish that GGG will stop putting all the resources in poe 2 and get the 1 st game back on schedule, i don't want to play this anymoe i want my old game back, i believe i am not the only one who feels this way.

Before early access launched the developers said EA would last 6-12 months and at release there would be 36 Ascendancy classes and 6 acts.
We're now 6 months into EA and all the developers have done is basic game balance and they've added 2 new Ascendancy classes. We still only have 3/6 acts and 17/36 Ascendancy classes.
PoE 2 is currently in a state where the developers should pay people to beta test it rather than charge money from people. And despite that they're monetizing the game like it's a fully released f2p game. They just added new stash tabs which are arguably p2w to the store and they're introducing and advertising new lootboxes.

A few years ago GGG also promised that all applicable micro transactions from the original poe will be usable in poe 2 and that they would continue releasing new leagues in poe 1 even after poe 2 launched. I'm sure they have intentionally said these things so people keep spending money in poe 1.
The reality now is that the vast majority of mtx that people spent money on in the past is still unavailable in poe 2 and poe 1 development has almost completely halted with no new leage in close to a year. So people who bought mtx a year or two ago with the expectation to use it now got borderline scammed by GGG. And to add insult to injury they're introducing new micro transactions rather than prioritising to imlement the old mtx.

If the game was great I could view past all that because things change and I don't necessarily think GGG intentionally mislead people at the time. But the game is mid at best and development is going at a snails pace so I can't recommend playing poe 2 at the moment.
To be honest I kinda lost hope for GGG. Many of the people who made poe 1 a great game have left the company recently and the remaining team seems to struggle finding a direction for poe 2. Meanwhile Tencent who GGG sold out to is squeezing for money.

I’ve been a PoE fan for years, and I came into Path of Exile 2 with cautious optimism. Sadly, even in its current beta state, the game feels like a massive step backward rather than the sequel fans deserved.

"This isn’t just a bad game — it’s a monument to developer arrogance."

Path of Exile 2 could have been a genre-defining sequel. Instead, it’s one of the worst ARPG experiences I’ve ever had, and that’s entirely because of Grinding Gear Games' (GGG’s) stubborn, out-of-touch, and frankly insulting approach to development.

Here’s why I won’t be touching this again anytime soon:

🔥 The Core Issue: The Developers
GGG no longer listens to the community — they actively ignore it. Years of feedback from veteran players have been brushed aside in favor of whatever "vision" Chris Wilson and team are chasing this time. The end result? A sequel nobody asked for and almost no one enjoys playing.

They've made it painfully clear:

"We don’t care if it’s fun, we care if it's ours."

⚠️ Overengineered Systems
GGG doubled down on complex systems again — but this time without the satisfying depth. New skill gems and weapon-specific skills are neat in theory, but the execution is messy. It's more micromanagement with less payoff. The UI doesn't help either; it feels bloated and overwhelming even for veterans.

⚠️ Boring, Dragged-Out Campaign
The campaign is longer, more linear, and less interesting. The zones are large and empty, and everything feels padded. Even the boss fights — while flashy — get repetitive quickly. This isn't engaging, it's exhausting.

⚠️ Performance & Optimization Issues
Even on high-end hardware, performance is spotty. Stutters, texture pop-ins, and UI delays are common. If you thought PoE1 had bad performance at league start, buckle up — it’s somehow worse here.
It’s 2025, and the game still stutters like it’s running on a potato. Crashes, FPS drops, weird lag in offline zones — it’s not just unpolished, it’s unplayable at times. And don’t expect it to improve; GGG’s track record with optimization is a joke.

⚠️ No Soul, No Urgency
This might be the most damning issue: PoE2 doesn’t feel fun. It feels like work. The grind isn’t addictive — it’s just tedious. There's no sense of urgency, no spark, no adrenaline rush that made the original special.

👎 Final Thoughts
GGG has become the definition of developer hubris. They don’t listen. They don’t adapt. They build what they want, even if nobody enjoys it. Path of Exile 2 isn’t a victim of ambition — it’s a victim of arrogance.

This isn’t the worst ARPG because of bugs or graphics — it’s the worst because the developers made it that way, and they refuse to change.

Avoid until there's a complete leadership change or a miracle patch. If this is the future of PoE, it’s already dead.

endgame mapping is super boring, took hours just to find a citadel then u suddenly died to random one shot & now u have to find another citadel all over again.
need more qol like inventory autosort, death recap, marketplace

I have recommended this game. 3 of my friends came into this game with huge aspirations.
Being D2 players in the day. None of them are here to play it anymore. The moment this game began relentlessly shitting on you with no respect to the players or their time, they all walked away.
And I doubt they return

I now, after 700 hours, cannot earnestly recommend this game.

I have heard time and time again, it's intuitive compared to POE1. If you're comparing games, sure.
If you're a new player entirely, not at all. They hold you hand for the simplest, most obvious of basic things. (ie: 1 to Heal, 2 for Mana, Equip Items, Portal to town - Inventory Full). But fail to give you the simplest explanation over crafting and upgrading, utilizing Resistances, stat usage. Using the Currency Market or Trading. FFS, not even a menu or some kind of journal or context to explain this stuff. To be quite frank, in contrast, the game is very unintuitive.

Despite having this HUMONGOUS skill tree. You do not have freedom within it. Every character is inevitably locked into a few meta builds (literally 3-4 buiilds) that will yield forward progress late campaign through mapping. This is becoming quite stale.

The new Map/Tower system....Let's disrespect the players time even more! Didn't like losing the map, loot and 10% exp with one death? Well now you can die multiple times and lose 10% PER death. But you keep the map and loot! Yeah, we went from losing A map, the unclaimed loot, and ONLY 10% of your experience with a death. To now you can die as many times as allowed per Waystone. The map and loot hang out til then. Buuuttt........you also loose 10% exp EACH time you die. Gimme the old system back.

I've seen GGG game directors constantly take interviews from streamers and the hardest of core players that are vets from POE1, going over issues with the game. Here's an idea. Do an interview with a panel of legit new Poe players. How about you learn why most of your new players have failed to stay here and keep playing?

I'll revise this as I go. But if you don't want to have your time wasted on so many levels. Please go find another game.

I am personally on the brink of walking away myself. For how long, who knows?

It's very mechanically intense with clicking and keyboarding, the skill tree is overly complicated, and the game itself is repetitive. It looks like diablo 2, but it feels emotionally like working a fast food register. I have had more fun in my life playing Microsoft excel.

Let me first say that I am very mixed on this game and want to recommend it to new players. However, each new update to the game feels like a punishment to the players. It is like game developers forgot how to let their players have fun. For a game that relies heavily on loot/gear based play, there is hardly any to speak of.

The only way to reliably find good gear is to purchase it from other players. And ooooohhh boy is that a HUGE hassle. There is no in-game marketplace for players. Yea you read that right. Here we are in 2025 and still the developers did not think to add an in-game marketplace. Instead of making it simple, you must login to your game account on their website while your game is open (sorry single screen gamers). Oh but wait it gets even better. Then when you finally find a gear item with the help(?) of their realllly bad search filters (you have to know what you are looking for, filters don't help much), you have to send a message to the player requesting to purchase it. YEAAAAA a message, you don't out right buy the item for the listed price. So, now you hope the player is online and not in the middle of, ya know, actually playing the game. Then you have to actually meet the player in game to trade with them, watch out for scammers! Good luck!

Selling items is almost just as bad as buying items. You have to purchase (with real money) an in game stash tab to even begin to sell items to other players. After the hours/days long researching and purchasing of gear you can then finally go back to actually doing what you set out to do... playing the game.

The game acts (1-3) are interesting the first time through, if a little long. The game acts are a little draining the second time through (yes you must play thru the campaign twice), but manageable. After playing roughly a couple dozen hours (sorry casuals), the game finally opens up and you are free to start playing the actual fun part of the game which is mapping. Mapping feels fun for the most part and definitely more rewarding (gear/loot) than the campaign. The problem comes when you start a new character and realize a startling truth. There is NO skipping the campaign when starting a new character. That means you must play through the campaign YET AGAIN TWO MORE times to get to the fun part. And if you start another new character guess what? Two more campaign playthrus for you! MUCH FUN, SO WOW

Now, you are probably wondering after all the bashing, why I have so many hours in the game? The simple answer is that I hate myself. The complicated answer is that there is a game with a ton of potential just waiting for the developers to actually give a damn about letting their players have actual fun. Game developers if you are seeing this, please give us GOOD loot, add an in-game marketplace that works without needing to meet other players, and please for the love of all that is unholy let us skip the campaign after playing it once.

tl;dr Game has potential to be amazing if some things are fixed/added

Yes or No?... I am closer to Neutral, for now. GGG collected $30 to play, so the "It's in beta (pre-release)!" excuse is only partially valid. That said, it must be a consideration, because a review of this game as a finished product would be a grim one; It also wouldn't be a completely fair one considering its actual state of development. Considering that the $30 gamble did pay off in the short term, with so many players eager to try it out, we'll see how well it plays out over time.

Positive:
This game has already been in development for a long time (years), and that work shows in some of the game's aspects: The main story-line; primary character controls (including dodge-roll); graphics; boss design; monster abilities in concept and implementation. It makes sense that these areas would be developed first and foremost, because all players, from the beginning of play, experience them...and these game aspects are, for the most part, polished, well done, and engaging. This bodes well for the game's future. However, while substantial, these parts of the game are probably easier to balance (to treat as a "finished" product, for release) than others, particularly in a game like PoE 2.

Neutral:
Equipment, loot, and crafting seem to be in an early-alpha state. Base items themselves, including their implicit properties, might be closer to a beta state. Item modifiers, modifier values, and crafting mechanics (including loot/dropped crafting items) are in need of development attention from the perspective of balanced game integration. But, I see this as an okay place to be, because these areas can safely start off small in scope even within the framework of a successful and enjoyable game upon its official release...and they can be fine-tuned as the last step in the prep for release. Some equipment properties, including those of unique items, play more heavily into player-character/skill balance and will need added attention.

Negative:
* The character construct
* The end-game experience

The character "construct", and I call it that because it consists of several complex components, is arguably the most important aspect of the game. This becomes clear post-storyline, in the end-game (which is actually the majority of the game). The character consists of these, and other, components: The passive tree; The ascendancy tree; Chosen/worn equipment; The chosen skill and support gem combinations. Characters face the game content using active skills along with passive defenses, and the efficacy of the character is shaped by all of the things mentioned. A huge challenge for the game developer is in the attempt to balance all of the possible combinatorial expressions of player choice here, because there are so many: thousands...tens of thousands. In PoE 1, GGG has so far had its share of success in balance of skills and defenses; In PoE 2, they still have a lot of work to do. I suspect that they lost perspective with respect to the inherent complexity of their character construct, being that PoE 1 has had over a decade of development evolution, and PoE 2's systems are partially being built from scratch (more loosely based on PoE 1's). In short, skill balance does not effectively exist in the version of PoE 2 that can be played right now, and that can be frustrating if one enters the experience with the hope of playing a "close-to-finished" game.

The end-game experience (the play experience upon completion of the storyline) is tedious. It has been made too complex, too much of a grind. This is the most troubling situation in PoE 2, because while I have confidence that GGG will make progress in other areas, they might steadfastly adhere to their current end-game mapping model.
To be clear, I am referring to the fundamental way in which players are expected to interact with the "mapping" system (instanced maps are an integral/core part of the end-game system). The biggest problem is the excessive preparation a player must endure in the management process, outside of actually running maps, I am a huge fan of complexity in a game, and of player agency, but most of my decisions that shape my experience should only need to be configured once or twice unless I *choose* to make a change. The meta, in PoE 2, riddles the player with the need to micromanage, to set up & prepare, their mapping experience after each small cluster of maps. That translates to my needing to reiterate my choices repeatedly, time and time again, as I interact with the mapping system...quite the grind. Some parts of this process might technically be considered "playing the game", but those parts are not fun.
The end-game "maps" themselves are fairly well designed and look good graphically, though many of them seem to have been intentionally riddled with so many obstacles to movement that the overall experience of tedium is, again, reinforced. This theme of tedium, inherent primarily in the meta-interaction with mapping, and secondarily within the maps themselves, is plainly contrary to enjoyment...and, well, enjoyment is really the objective when I am playing a game. In contrast, I do not experience this sense of tedium when interacting with the PoE 1 end-game system, in mapping or otherwise. My suggestion to GGG is that they fundamentally reconsider their design of both the meta-mapping system and the map designs themselves, after reviewing the elegance and easy player-agency of the PoE 1 experience.

Conclusion:
I am interested to see how things shape up over the next half year. Having made the dubious choice of effectively pulling the plug on PoE 1 development (though the game is still accessible and running), Grinding Gear Games left many of PoE 1's devoted players hanging...and in doing so set the bar of expectation quite high for PoE 2. Addictions and emotions are a roiling maelstrom among the die-hard crowd, many of whom had already been riled up by various circumstances in PoE-1-land over the past few years. It seems that GGG's development team will first need to take a couple of objective steps back from their new baby to humbly assess the intended end-game experience, seriously consider major changes to its implementation, then establish a course and burn the midnight oil with testing/balancing player-character skills and creation of a more elegant (less toilsome) end-game experience.

Not to join the hate train but probably the worst state of POE ever. Loot is major ass , Nothing besides Meta Builds is viable, overal performance of the game has been totaly dogshit since the launch and to top it up Updates have been pretty dissapointing by having no content at all .

Worst case of PTSD inducing cancer so far in the industry.
If you are looking for a good leveling experience that you are willing to quit after reaching end game then POE2 is for you.
End game is purely designed to give you cancer PTSD and fill you with anger for the sole purpose of reaching for your VISA card and buy trash gear of the market because if you think you can play the end game with what ever drops for you you are in for a big disappointing !
- end game gear is trash and won't help you survive one shots from a white mob.
- drops are shit, you have to rely solely on buying of the market items if you want to do anything.
- crafting is ever more garbage, 100+ crafts not a single usable or sellable item.
- they managed to fuck every good aspect of the previous league instead of improving on it. well i guess they buffed towers.
- you get to rely on 1-2 over powered builds that clear the map without seeing what mobs are on the map.
- if you don't follow the over power builds strat you get the chance of getting fucked and one shotted by everything on the map because of trash gear implementation and lack of sustainability.
- gear got nerfed, passive skill tree got nerfed, builds got nerfed, mobs and enemy skills got buffed.
This is the perfect game if you are seeking PTSD and cancer development and i hope the developers use every single penny made with this game to cure themselves of the diseases they are causing.
Oh and the time played majority is sitting afk in town selling garbage.
I guess this is what you get from a developer made off ex diablo II and darksouls rejects.
My view on the team behind POE2 is the scene in the Boys Season where Splinter duplicates himself into 7 and they lick each other asses while thinking more ways on how to fuck players in the end game !

Their biggest mistake was calling this path of exile 2 and basically abandoning poe 1 when they said they wouldn't. They gave people the wrong idea with that and people will be constantly comparing 2 completely different games and it is entirely their fault. Despite that I still enjoy POE 2 a lot just needs more endgame.

1045 hours played, 51 hours in last two weeks.

sums it up.

Dawn of the Hunt is so much worse than the original release, they turned you from a glass cannon into a glass noodle.

Everything takes way longer to kill unless you do cookiecutter borebuild meanwhile you die faster than ever (still with no combat log to explain how / why / what killed you half the time).

I get this might be their vision of the game, it certainly isnt mine.

6500 energy shield, maximum resistances, immunity to poison and chaos and the boss kills with 1 hit? No thanks, play such a game yourself.

The video game equivelent of cigarettes. Nice at first but increasing effort for diminishing joy the longer you play.
Best to spend yur time and money eleswhere.

This review is for those with experience playing Path of Exile 2; new players are encouraged to play the game to develop their own opinions.

To be clear, Path of Exile 2 has the potential to evolve into something great… the greatest ARPG ever in fact. Even small design shifts like the introduction of a dodge roll have added substantial tactical depth to the gameplay. But despite these improvements, the game’s publicly stated design philosophy is increasingly at odds with the actual gameplay experience.

GGG has repeatedly insisted that PoE2 is meant to be slower and more deliberate. That’s a fine vision; but in reality, endgame mapping and enemy speed blatantly contradict this claim. The pace remains just as frenetic as it was in PoE1 and there’s just as much onscreen effects which can make it exceedingly challenging at times to even know what’s going on. If the intent was to slow things down, then loot distribution should have been adjusted to match. It hasn't been. On the contrary, this current iteration has made currency even more scarce, doubling down on grind without commensurate reward. The trade system? Still a disaster, faithfully carried over from PoE1 with all its archaic inefficiencies.

GGG seems unwilling to internalize a lesson that should be fundamental by now: punishing gameplay is not the same as challenging gameplay. Many systems are saturated with negative modifiers that drain momentum and morale rather than inspire mastery. Nowhere is this more obvious than in end game mapping, where stacking mods can paradoxically make a map less playable due to sheer mechanical overkill. Several mods outright mean that if you luck into the wrong map suffix you will automatically be throwing that map in the trash (I’m looking at you temporal chains).

Yes, the game is in early access, but GGG seems to have misunderstood what early access is for. It’s supposed to be a testing ground, a sandbox for players to explore systems, theorycraft, and search for broken interactions. In a game that’s loot dependent, that requires access to resources. Instead, loot is miserly. I constantly run over 100% magic find and still see abysmal returns. Divines are rare. Exalts bizarrely drop more often than Chaos, Regals, or Alchemy orbs. Orbs of Annulment or Chance? Nearly mythical (I say this after playing for over 420+ hours).

Crafting is nonexistent in any meaningful form as the entire system has been reduced to pure gambling. The tools are there and were shown to work in PoE1, but in PoE2 there’s no actual semi-deterministic crafting so experimentation dies on the vine.

Defense stats in PoE2 remain deeply imbalanced. Armor is still underwhelming, scaling poorly in the face of high incoming damage. Evasion is serviceable. Meanwhile, energy shield continues to dominate across most content. This persistent asymmetry undermines build diversity and reinforces a stagnant meta. This is further exacerbated by the aforementioned lack of currency and crafting, which often leaves players stuck if they’re not wealthy enough to regear their characters in a different manner.

The Trial of the Sekhema is one of the more baffling screwups in the game. The central mechanic, an “honor” meter that diminishes when you’re hit, actively punishes entire archetypes of play. Builds that rely on taking damage as part of their identity such as anything melee related, thorns-based, armor-heavy, or self-damage synergies, are effectively penalized for functioning as intended. The concept of "honor" in combat might make sense thematically, but from a gameplay perspective it's incoherent. “Oh but honor isn’t an issue if you stack honor resist”, ok, stacking “honor resist” is a lazy workaround, not a solution. “Well you can do the Trials of Chaos then”, sure, let’s talk about the ToC.

The Trials of Chaos continue the trend of stacking punishment under the guise of difficulty. Layer upon layer of negative modifiers are applied to both the player and the environment, creating scenarios where success often feels less like a result of skill and more like surviving Jonathan’s spite. Once again, the issue isn’t that the trials are difficult, it’s that GGG confuses misery with difficulty. These trials don't challenge a player's decision-making or adaptability so much as test their tolerance for suffering. Some of the modifiers will 100% of the time be a death sentence, which is ridiculous for a game mode that demands you run a gauntlet.
To reiterate: punishing gameplay is not the same as challenging gameplay. And until GGG takes that distinction seriously, much of the game's potential will remain unrealized beneath the weight of its own contradictions.

And then there’s the death penalty: a flat 10% XP loss. It’s an outdated design relic that punishes players disproportionately, especially in a game this unstable. The optimization is rough; CPU usage spikes inexplicably, screens freeze, and enemies with invisible on-death effects can wipe you before you even register the threat. The game already limits player through currency scarcity and map restrictions, why stack another misery mechanic on top of it all? Literally nearly every one of my high level deaths has been due to the game freaking out and freezing for a split second at the most inopportune times. This is the mechanic that makes me rage quit. This is the mechanic that makes me put the game down and leave it for extended periods of time. This is the mechanic which makes me rethink spending money on stash tabs, cosmetics, mystery boxes, etc.

Let me be absolutely clear here: the XP penalty is not just frustrating, it’s demoralizing. It actively discourages continued play and reveal a fundamental disrespect for player time. Once you hit the late 80s or early 90s in level, even fully juiced maps roll several levels below your character level, making XP grinding a slog. Combine that with PC performance issues and what you’re left with is a bad experience. And yes, I can already hear the diehard fanbase trotting out the same tired defense: “There have to be consequences, otherwise people will just spam content and they won’t learn how to get good.” Sorry, but no. That argument falls apart under the most basic scrutiny. Players can’t spam the same content; maps are gated behind RNG & limited runs. The system itself is already self-limiting. You don’t need an additional punitive XP penalty to “preserve challenge”; you need a well-balanced game that respects player time and rewards effort instead of eroding it in a hot instant.

Things I would like to see:
• Campaign Skip After Completion
Once a player has completed the campaign, they should be allowed to skip it on subsequent characters.
• Make the Remaining Campaign Choices Reversible
In both Act 3’s, characters are forced to make two decisions regarding stats that are currently permanent. This design is incoherent, especially given that ascendancy choices can now be changed freely. Please allow these decisions to be changed as well (Let Doryani be the interface to make the changes).
• League Character Imports
The requirement to re-run the campaign for each new league or character is, again, tedious. A solution could involve importing characters back into a new league; either starting fresh at level 1 or with a baseline (e.g., level 60 with 500k gold and access to early maps).
• PoE1 Atlas Skill Tree
The Atlas passive tree in PoE1 was amazing. The current iteration in PoE2 is by comparison a poor imitation. Bring back that depth!
• Boots: movespeed is necessary, so make it an implicit
• An Actual Early Access Philosophy: Treat the current state as a live experiment, not a soft launch. Be generous with currency, unique’s, and loot bases (hell let Ketzuli have another few tabs that just sell white bases), focus on testing systems rather than preserving some arbitrary economy that can easily be reset or wiped.

Trial of Chaos is a nightmare currently. Low visibility on ground elements that kill you, lack of information on what ongoing ailments are active, and no real clarity on what is actually killing you. I like most of the game but this is not user friendly at all and it actively makes me hate the game

Too punishing, no balance, no loot, bad crafting, only meta builds mater, boring end game!

This game is a great representation of toxic relationships in life.
It hurts you, but you keep going back to it because you can't find a better one...

Foundations of this game is not very well planned, each patch makes the game worse and developer team and Jonathan needs more vacations, If you(Jonathan) don't understand the player's desires leave that position and bring someone else who can understand that. Worst part is they killed PoE1, RIP. PoE concept was grinding yea but this game is just waste of time with lack of loot and efficiency. Don't cover your mistakes by early access bullshit. GGG has over 10 years of experiences. So bring the PoE1 developer team, bring Chris and just watch what will happen.

Almost every game play decision is made to make it more annoying and tedious.

-Locking talent points between challenges that take HOURS to even attempt (one requiring you to do the same hour long challenge 3+ times to even attempt), only for the boss to be 10x harder than the rest of the challenge you blazed through and kill you.
-Dying and losing not only XP, but maps, modifiers, gears, time, etc.
-One shots from regular mobs while overgeared and leveled while 90% of other mobs tickle you. Of course, no combat log to reveal the BS that went on for that to happen.
-No drops, you need to rely almost entirely on the horrid trade mechanic where 95% of the time people wont reply.

It is like the developers just think of any way to be annoying an inconsistent, and slam those ideas into the game. If you figure out a way to make your character OP enough to finish this content, it will be nerfed into the ground and unusable, forcing you to go broke respeccing and buying new gear (because, oh yeah, nothing good ever drops). Not recommended.

There’s no point in writing an essay to talk about things that have already been mentioned by other players. But I'll just say what really broke me:

This game is extremely dependent on gear in the late game, but the gear can only be obtained through gambling methods—whether through loot, "crafting," or vendors. Without exaggeration, 99.99% of all the gear you obtain is useless. And if that wasn't bad enough, the drop rates are a joke, and the tools you have for "crafting" are a joke too.

I'm a player that has reached T15s on day 2 of both leagues, gotten multiple 90s and multiple mirrors worth of currency and gear, so I've played this game a lot. I want it to improve and do well, and I believe it still has the potential to be great IF the developers get their shit together.

HOWEVER, in its current state I cannot in good faith recommend it to anyone.

NO VISION AND DIRECTION:
The developers don't seem to know what they want for this game. They want it to be "meaningful gameplay" that is different from POE 1, so they slow down character speed, but they took the steroid mobs and mechanics from POE 1 like breach and delirium that favor kill speed. Why would I use your slow ass combos that take a year to set up when I'm being swarmed by hordes of enemies that bum rush me at the speed of light? If you don't want it to be like POE 1 then stop copy pasting shit from it then.

ILLUSION OF CHOICE/ LACK OF DIVERSITY:
Their passives and supports have too many negatives and conditionals. Everything has a cost. On paper, there are a lot of builds and paths to explore, but in game there's actually not that many, unless you want to play very sub-optimally and struggle even harder.

NO LOOT, NO CRAFTING:
"Path of Exile 2 is an Action RPG which is all about making powerful characters and getting epic loot." What loot? There's no loot and no crafting. You just pick currency and buy gear from others. Crafting is nothing but gambling, there's no player agency. It feels incredibly unrewarding and unsatisfying. Not to mention trade league economy being ruined by bots and price fixers. Play SSF you say? Good luck gambling for your loot there.

NO FUN
End game just feels like such a slog. Mapping feels like a slog. Setting up their shitty precursor towers before mapping feels like such a slog. Games are supposed to be FUN not so fucking tedious and boring. I don't understand why they didn't seem to learn anything from their 10 years of running POE 1. It actually feels like they took a few steps back.

TLDR: Tedious and confused mess with no idea what kind of game it wants to be. NOT FUN.

By far the best ARPG on the market mechanics wise. The implementation of currency and having zero crafting makes this a miserable experience once you get to maps. This is ESPECIALLY true if you actually rely on the game for curency (SSF) rather than trading.

TRADING is the only way to generate income in the game, it is cancerous and embarassing for GGG to permit this abysmal design into a fantastic game. My last build was lvl 89 huntress before I got rid of it (SSF) because I had not seen a greater or perfect jewelers orb (very important items) in the whole playthrough.

CURRENCY does not drop and you cannot craft it for any meaningful purpose. Basically anyone who denies this is not on SSF and does not have sufficient hours of testing. If you play regular, you can market abuse (which is a horrible mechanic), the only true test of drops is SSF and it is without a doubt dogwater.

LOTTERY the entire game is a lottery, how items drop, whether you get something nice. There is almost no skill expression in the development of BIS gear. You cannot plan it, craft, or even really find it. Rather you find a random S tier item, sell it on market for 1-100 DIV, use the incoming to buy the items you need on the market, rinse repeat.

This game is a 10/10 if GGG gets their massive foreheads out of their way and improve drops and allow us to craft all currency so things actually get USED and aren't artificially inflated rarirty.

Thinking of uninstalling the game after being one shotted by a mosquito.Blood mage 6k life and 2k energy shield, just one shotted.

I have tried 5 characters in the Dawn of the hunt already only to get to end game and find out they are not viable for end contend. Playing through the campaign 10 time it's just not fun. Having to start over is not fun. Tried lich with minion. Absolutely terrible. The chaos damage boost does nothing. Limited amount of spirit on a superposed summoner class. Tried chaos lich. Spells suck and as soon as you want to cast a spell you're dead. Huntress dies if an enemy looks funny at her. Tornado bird with 5 tornadoes while dodging lightning strikes and blood gobbles inside a ring with impending doom well is that supposed to be balanced? Do no damage to bosses. Tried crit builds, tried the broken shock spear, Tried chaos, tried minions none of them function unless you follow so stupid one shot build. No proper loot. Played over 100 T15-T16 maps. Found 3 divines and probably 10 exalts. Can't farm trial of chaos because of the tornado bird's stupid unfair abilities. Half of the time the thing is up in the air and spawning tornadoes. Monsters still chain stun even with over 700 stun threshold.

The ascendancy's are supposed to be this great accomplishment and give your character a big boost. But the downside are just terrible. A real world example will be: Live forever BUT get kicked in the balls by a 1 Ton horse for all eternity. Most classes don't even bother with the 3rd and 4th ascendancy because it is so bad. And why do this big animation upon ascension just for your character to drop down and still look the same. I beginning to think they deliberately make the gear look crap so you can go buy overpriced cosmetics in the store. No customising of gear, hiding helmets changing appearance and no ascendancy animations or appearance changes.

I have bough cosmetics and supporter packs because I wanted to support the game. I thought I will be playing this for the next 5-10 years. But the game is just not fun anymore. At patch 1 coming into POE for the first time. I was locked out of crafting gear because the currency drops are so bad. But I soon became aware of the store and started buying gear as it was cheaper. Then found out currency is still rare in endgame. But I googled and saw the trail of chaos was a viable option to generate some currency. I was still locked out of crafting but at least I could buy some gear. With the new patch it is just terrible. No endgame loot, can't farm trails due to bosses taking to long and not taking damage. And the bosses never give anything good anyway, so there is no point. There is no target farming, there is no reliable way to generate currency. There is no reliable way to craft an Item. All of it is RNG. Only players that can afford to spend 100's of divines on an item can craft in this game.

This is everything wrong with this game:

-Unfair bosses
-Skills suck
-Illusion of choice ( If ascendancy's are taken away, all characters are the same they just start on a different part of the skill tree)
-No specific class skills until ascendancy. Nothing to look forward to after ascending.
-Ascendancy's suck and always have a downside with little to no upside.
-Monsters are overturned
-Everything is a give and take. No power progression
-No way to reliably scale life
-Armour is useless
-Evasion is useless
-No way to customise your character unless you fork over a ton of money.
-Stash tabs suck and need auto-sort
-Ground effects need to be reworked.
-Loot needs to be more common to so you can at least craft items. ( I feel sorry for the SSF players)
-Hundreds of skills, half of them useless like raise zombies. And absolutely no way you can play and upgrade them due to no perfect jewel drops almost ever.
- Level scaling suck and the xp loss is just terrible with character just dying all the time and being 1 shotted by white mobs.
-Multiplayer drops are inconsistent.Some people get good gear others get garbage.
-No dropping of maps or skill points for other players in your party. (you can just trade them the map or they can buy it from the store, why not just make it drop for the also)

What would I do different if I was GGG:

-Make a reliable way to craft an item. Pick up shards or something from bosses. Once you have enough, you can pick a base and pick what attribute you want to put on it. I will also make it account bound. This will give players hope to at least farm good items without relying on trade or RNG. (The reforging mechanic in game now sucks and almost always fails)
-Give all classes unique passives and skills that unlock at different levels to give players more choice and even more things to play with. (Like witch gets 2 spirit per level unlocked at lvl 10)
-Give ascendancy's unique abilities even before you spend a point. (Like Lich raises zombies from corpse's automatically and have a chance for an projectile or a melee attack to miss (because she is a spectre) Bloodmage can turn npc's into blood puppets until they bleed out or die in battle turning enemies against themselves and she cant bleed or get damaged by corrupted blood.)Titan can grab an enemy and throw him like a projectile at enemies) Anything really to make people interested in playing and experimenting with other characters.
-Change appearance of player characters to resemble their ascension.
-Fix stun,freeze and other mechanics to not be instant.
-Fix one shots
-Guaranteed drops from bosses.
-Guaranteed currency drops from bosses and elites.
-Make a quest for Renley for new players to teach them how to craft items. ( I have friend's that didn't even know how to upgrade an item)
-Give useful passive for hp and fix the skill tree and Nerf most of the downsides.
-Make a way to skip campaign on your next play-through per season.
-Give a book or a scroll to re-spec your character for free after defeating the act 3 boss, 1 for normal, 1 for cruel and make it account bound.
-Remove the xp loss as it is unnecessary as you already lose your map and the things that was on it.
-Make armour viable
-Make evasion viable
-Make hp stacking viable
-Make minions viable
-Make a way so the average person can attempt to run trail of Sekemas and obtain temporalis for themselves instead of making it pointless not to sell the relic or even to try for the average person.
-Rework Trail Sekemas so it can work on all builds like thorns
-Remove most of the annoying curses on Trail of chaos and rather boost the number of mobs or something.
-Remove the annoying time wasting totem from Trail of Chaos
-Make more trails and give more ascendancy points targeted at late game.
-Remove ascendancy tree and replace it with a tiered list where you can pick and choose from multiple skills and passives. So player have more diversity and unique choices per build or make cross assertion possible and allow them to combine 2 ascendancy's .
-Remove the ascendancy change and redo it better as it feels slap together just to give people something.(Why not create a new trail with like a genie boss at the end. Upon completion you can pick one of 3 wishes. 1: For 5-10 skill points 2: Get 4 ascendancy points for the cross ascendancy as mentioned above. 3: Change your ascendancy. Players can pick every wish once per character.)
-Make every player in a party have their own drops from every mob if they so choose instead of the current sharing drop mechanic. Players should only see their own loot and not everybody's in the entire party.
-Make upgrading maps guarantee to a drop the items that was use to craft the map.
-Make a new league for SSF players and a trade league for players that want to craft their own gear instead of just buying everything on the market. Currency drops are guaranteed and plentiful so newer players can experiment and craft.

I really hope they find a way to make this game fun again and remove the grind for the average player.

I played the game for more than 850 hours. I played the first season for 750 hours, the first season's score is 6/10. However, the second season is a complete disappointment.

First of all, the game's optimization problems are not solved. I have two friends who quit the game just because of this. Apart from that, the game said that there would be variety in builds compared to its other competitors and that we could have fun with every character at the end of the game. However, especially in the second season, half of the players only play huntress.

There is no loot in the game, the campaign time is at least 50 hours, because there is unnecessary difficulty. Everything in the game is designed to make you spend more time in the game. I played the second season for 120 hours, not even an item worth 1 divine dropped.

The game may be fixed on the exact release date, but for now it's a waste of time. If we, who played this game for so many hours, are having this much trouble and complaining, I think someone who is new to the game will quit the game in 10-15 hours.

I'm giving up on playing this game for a while. It's in a disastrous state, and there clearly is no vision for it right now. I even have a conspiracy theory that someone in GGG is actively trying to sabotage the game!
I'm not getting into that much detail, because it has been repeatedly mentioned in this forum, Steam and everywhere else, but to sum it up: risk to reward is insanely high, you get almost nothing for your efforts.On top of that, the game just killed the mage build in a very sadistic 'GFY' way by nerfing everything that made it scale with damage 'archmage, mind over matter, and eldritch battery' are completely anti-synergistic thanks to the insane mana penalties and lack of any elemental threshold help if you go with eldritch battery (unlike its potential for being % of ES).
The more I think about it, the more absurd it becomes, honestly. What's this unhealthy fetish with sadistic nerfing of everything (aside from lightning spear because you want money)? Are the devs mentally ok?
I wish I could request a refund, but it's been a while since I've been playing 0.1.0, which was fun, so I guess all I can do is leave a negative review on Steam. Whoever is the leading developer of this game should be ashamed of their actions. This level of 'fk-ups' is just borderline sabotage!

This game was awesome until Jonathan got the lead....

Jonathan want you to:

-dont do dmg
-dont get loot
-dont craft items by your self
-dont progress while playing
-dont have the choose of different build
-dont be able to buy stuff from market ( just 2-3 Build working - prices for those needed items so high - you wont get them without playing hundred of hours)
-dont play this game - you have to work this game

Jonathan vision is that:
-you get mad
-waste your time
-looking for different games to play

I've played this game for over 600 hours. I beat the campaign and all of the end game content with multiple characters. I do not recommend this game. Why? This game loves to waste your time.

Is this game fun? To a point it is. The campaign is the strongest point. If you're at all an OG Diablo fan, then Act 1 will make you grin like an idiot for hours. Its just really well done. Acts 2 and 3 are nowhere near as good but they aren't bad and have some really cool memorable moments and bosses. After you beat the campaign on normal and cruel difficulty, you begin the "end game". This is where Path of Exile 2, goes from fun to WTF:

The Loot:

None. Garbage. Zippo. Zilch. You will be playing the game for hours, go through ten or more levels and still be rocking gear from ten or more levels ago. Why? Because loot drop rate in this game is still absurdly bad. I have had well over 100% rarity find and still barely get any good sort of currency or gear drops. The community has been bringing up the loot issue to the developers non stop and while it has improved ever so slightly, it is still one of the lowest points about the game. Which is ironic, because PoE2 is an ARPG which is supposed to be all about the loot. Unless of course you happen to be a streamer, then you'll get Divines and Perfect Jeweler Orbs dropped like candy... Oh wait we're not supposed to talk about that... Sorry... Streamer Client isn't real....

The "Crafting" System:

This isn't so much a crafting system per se, but more of a let me use some rare currency to "discover" some extra random properties on this item that I thought was going to be good but is now a useless piece of **** just like nearly every other item. There is no crafting. Its pretty much a casino roll. The devs have recently introduced some ways to make the crafting system feel like an actual crafting system, but you guessed it -those ways cost rare currencies that happen to rely on an abysmal drop rate.

The XP Loss on Death:

Probably one of the biggest offenders, the XP loss on death. At levels 70 and above, every time you die you will lose a percentage of your experience. This is egregious in a game that has monster on death effects that will kill you from 100-0, random enemy attacks that you do not see coming because of poor visual clarity or just a floor effect that you weren't aware that you were standing on for the past 0.5 seconds and are now dead. You will die from things that will make you question why the **** you are still playing this game.

And this is where it has brought me. If you plan on playing POE2 for its campaign, then I think you'll find this game to be a solid bit of fun. However, if you are at all a player who likes to take their character to the limit and enjoy the power fantasy aspect of creating a cool build and finding great loot... I can't recommend this game in its current state. Trust me when I say this, this game LOVES to waste your time, so don't take the bait like I did.

I play POE 2 with my son. Though computer games get a bad rap, I find it’s a great way to spend time with him.

Zach is in his 30s and I am so old my number is unlisted. The graphics and gameplay remind me of when I was in my 30s and he was just a teen and we played Diablo 2.

Together Zach and I run through the forest, explore castles, fight side-by-side against spiders, wolves and witches. We plan, plot, and share whatever loot we find, helping each other, gearing up to take on bosses like the Executioner, Putrid Wolf, or the Viper.

Zach is 10x better at the game than I will ever be. The advantages of youth. My clicking finger ain’t what it used to be, neither is my brain. They just don’t move as fast as my son’s. I admire his ability to multi-task far better than I can.

My monk Euryanax is not as quick as his sorceress Social Security. She sprints ahead of me through the Lost City of Keth, but when we’re battling the Titan, Euryanax is on the front line ringing his bell, while Social Security stands behind me throwing her sparks.

Zach and I play hardcore. When you die, you whine, you curse. I spent a week leveling my poison arrow ranger Ariatozah, only for the boss in the Azog Bog to lay her into a muddy grave. My warrior, Idanthyrus, got mauled by the Wolf at the end of Act One. Our witches Epinine and Terminate#5 got simultaneously one-shotted by the Titan.

When I lose an HC character I’m depressed for ten minutes, then create a new one. Where Zach has gotten his monk Splutter to level 75, my highest HC character, a lightning arrow ranger named Maydes made it to 55 only to die at the hands of the Crowbell in Cruel. Have taken a softcore character into maps, but admittedly it’s not as much fun.

Facing Jamanra at the end of Act Two or Doryani at the end of Act Three in hardcore is as thrilling as a roller coaster ride. You’re running, rolling, leaping, shooting arrows, tossing javelins, throwing sparks, swinging two-handed maces. At the end of a good fight, Zach and I can’t help but cheer. My heart is racing. That’s hardcore.

With POE comes a thriving digital community. Streamers like Ziz, Raxx and Darth MT provide an important part of the POE 2 experience. We’ve both gleaned valuable information from them and sharing their YouTube videos becomes a part of the fun.

Hats off to Grinding Gear Games. I appreciate how they’ve provided an entertaining, state-of-the-art ARPG game without the blatant money grab that so many companies succumb to.

I like how accessible GGG is to the gaming community. It’s good to see the streamers interviewing designers like Jonathan and Mark and how they listen to their suggestions. GGG has been responsive to feedback and appears to be continually fine tuning everything from the spells to the monsters to the maps. You gotta respect any company that listens to their consumers and makes changes to improve their product. Kudos to them.

Sorry I’m not listing my pros or cons about POE 2. The streamers have already done a 1000x better job than I can at explaining the game’s intricacies, of which there are many. In that regard, POE 2 is not simple. It’s a thinking person’s game.

Trash game. No loot, can't craft, can't kill shit. No rewards to playing this = no point in playing.

Game is designed so you have to interact with bots, farmers, and currency exchange sites if you want to equip anything good. No loot in a loot game because the devs like cupping their own farts and smelling them.

Game is a joke.

-Removed all fun from the game in pursuit of the "vision".
-Loot is nowhere to be seen, from items to currency.
-Massive amount of skills, all but a few are literally pointless.
-Massive amount of support gems, all but a few are literally pointless and the few good ones have negatives...fun.
-3 second stun should never have made it past the idea phase.
-Combo gameplay will never be fun in an ARPG so stop pushing it.
-Running around an area for 30 mins with nothing to do but look for the exit is not fun.
-I understand they need to sell cosmetics, but the prices are an absolute joke.
-Refuse to implement a player marketplace, which would solve all issues to do with trading. (Like every other game has lol)
-Servers are so bad its actually funny. I understand there is an ongoing DDOS attack right now but there is 0 reason or justification for your disconnects to roll players back and remove progress from them. Remember every input is tied to servers so high ping = input lag. Meaning everything you do up until it disconnects you is being sent to the server perfectly fine... So why the rollback? That's a DC compensation issue, fix it.
-Moderators on Reddit are removing posts to do with the disconnect rollbacks, along with many other negative subjects. Ask me how I know... absolute softies.

Bored of typing things out now, I'm going to go watch paint dry because its more fun than talking about or even playing this game. Absolute shambles.

Most fitting word to describe the game actual status "UNREWARDING"
im all in for an hard fight if the right reward comes to the end of it... but working my butt off for hours for little to no gain well, we already have that in real life!
pls revert non op solid classes nerf and the poor loot drops

Path of Exile 2 Review — When Vision Gets in the Way of Fun
As someone who's been with Path of Exile since its original release, it's honestly disappointing to see how far the game has drifted from what made it special. Path of Exile 2 feels less like an evolution of the game I loved, and more like a personal project built around one man's vision — Jonathan's vision — rather than the experience of the wider player base.

And that's exactly the problem.

The Original PoE Formula Worked
When Path of Exile first came out, it wasn’t perfect — but it had identity. It had insane build freedom, breakable mechanics, wild scaling, and the kind of messy, beautiful chaos that kept theorycrafters, casuals, and hardcore grinders all engaged in their own way.

There was room for fun. Room for creativity. Room for builds that maybe weren’t intended... but worked.

That’s gone now.

PoE2 Feels Like Dark Souls Wearing PoE’s Skin
Jonathan has gone on record multiple times saying that this is the game he wants to play — slow, punishing, methodical, heavy animation locks, stripped power fantasy. And that’s exactly what PoE2 is shaping up to be.

Unfortunately, just because a developer likes playing a certain way doesn’t mean the audience does.

Path of Exile was never supposed to be Dark Souls. It was supposed to be fast, messy, brutal, and breakable. Now, it feels like a chore. Every decision seems to lean more towards enforcing Jonathan’s vision of "skill expression" — not player freedom.

Mechanics & Builds Are Being Gutted
On top of that, they’ve started systematically gutting mechanics and builds that actually worked — the ones that felt good to play. Either through nerfs, reworks, or outright removals, the sandbox is shrinking fast.

And personally? That killed my interest entirely.

I haven’t even bothered touching the new season. Why would I? The magic of experimenting, creating something powerful (even if unintended), and progressing in your own way is gone. What's left is a slow, rigid, Soulslike ARPG that punishes you for wanting to have fun.

Final Thoughts
Path of Exile 2 could have been something truly special — but right now, it feels like a game made for the developer, not the players.

That's the real tragedy here.

Not having fun. I am not a fan of the vision for this game. "Meaningful Combat" does not exist. Very few viable builds for a casual player like me who plays maybe an hour a day max (weekdays). This game is a game for people who have more spare time but not for casuals like me.

I just don't think it's fun and this community has devoured itself. No matter what your opinion of the game there is an army of players ready to belittle you for that opinion. I do not enjoy the game or the community.

GGG needs to decide if they want to make a successful game for the long run or if they want the campaign to be super hard and weed out anyone who has a life.

Path of Exile 2 – Same Mistakes, Just Better Rendered

Many of us expected Path of Exile 2 to do what Diablo 4 couldn’t—to carry the genre with depth, darkness, and actual respect for the player. But what we got feels like it was copy-pasted straight from Diablo’s Book of Mistakes. And that makes the disappointment hit twice as hard. PoE used to be known for its complexity, its player-first philosophy, its brutal charm. Now? That image is crumbling.

We waited for PoE 2 to build a castle on the wreckage Diablo 4 left behind.
What we got? The same mistakes, just in a shinier outfit.
Combat is sluggish, skills are in diet mode, and the overall pace feels less like an ARPG and more like a retirement simulator. GGG used to pride itself on not being Blizzard. Right now, they’re Blizzard circa 2023.

Combat? Slow. Skills? Nerfed. Fun? Still buffering.
The game feels like it’s on medication. Skills hit like wet noodles, movement is sluggish, and “tactical pacing” is clearly just a euphemism for frustration. Every class feels like it's been hit with a universal debuff. This isn’t depth—it’s deliberate dullness.

The Nerf Hammer: GGG’s favorite tool
Everything that once felt powerful is now a shadow of itself. PoE 1’s creative builds have been replaced with restricted, uninspired shells. Build diversity? Dead on arrival. Want to feel strong? Play another game.

The Season of the Hunt: Or just hunt down your patience
The Huntress class was hyped as agile and deadly. What we got: inconsistent skills, clunky responsiveness, and mobs with the patience of raid bosses. The new campaign feels less like an adventure and more like a stress test.

Community Feedback? Muted. Steam Reviews? Burning.
GGG’s response to backlash? Minor tweaks and vague promises. Steam reviews plummeted to “Mostly Negative” in days. The subreddit is in open revolt. And yet the devs seem to believe a few HP nerfs will fix the fundamental issues.


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Gaming in 2025.
Trust one brand enough and wait how they gonna fuck this up.
As an ARPG? They're following in their father’s footsteps.
Diablo did the same shit.

Here's the thing I know that the game is in early access and by no means is this game a poor quality product, the fact of the matter is it is one of the highest quality arpgs to exist to date.
I would easily recommend this game to be played

but this is one of those times where I wish I could leave a mixed review instead of a positive or a negative one.

My actual issues with this game is that it's just not rewarding AT ALL. I played in a group of 4 and still barely got any loot after doing pinnacles.

YOUR DROP RATES ARE INSANELY STRICT, AND I HATE TO COMPARE YOU TO LAST EPOCH, BUT GENERALLY ITS UNFUN TO GRIND FOR MINISCULE CHANGES COMPARED TO THEM.


Not to mention your ascendancy classes don't even really feel like ascendancy's

the blood witch has no blood skills, the blood witch has to harm themselves with their first node and the rest of their points are kind of trash this isn't a matter of just buffing the blood witch this sort of problem extends to all of your ascendancy classes to a very high extent

I feel like you're looking too much at trying to balance the game instead of making the game fun the ascendancy's that you pick should make you feel like a god
you're ascending you do not need to be capping these power limits in the way you are
no one's going to enjoy the game this way

I was going to leave this review before the 02 update ultimately not because I thought the game was negative but because I don't really know of a way for the devs to look at feedback properly.

truth be told I feel as if going on Reddit is doing not much at all
any place where I can post an opinion is seemingly ignored by the vast masses of people who are extremely negative and not respectful or kind
so in the hopes that the devs see this and make improvements to the game this is what I should say


you are doing everything perfectly based on the vision that you have set up.
I want you to continue the way that you are doing things.
I don't even think the way that you're doing things is wrong but I think that you're forgetting what makes a game fun in the process of trying to do your vision and what makes a game fun for you is not what the majority thinks is fun.
I don't want you to make the game path of exile 1 but at the same time go look at an end game in a souls like game if that's the type of game you're trying to make and realize that end game souls like characters are not weak by any stretch of the imagination it's true that you still have to balance the stuff for Pvp yes but ultimately sometimes just finding one weapon is enough to change your whole playstyle, It's fun at the end of the game it might be hard at the beginning of the game but it's fun at the end
the issue with your vision is that it contradicts fun gameplay


Make more unique items that have skills on them. If you wont add more skills to the asc fine, or the class fine, then make skills on weapons awesome and do it that way.

I am aware that this will be a free to play title and I am aware that a lot of free to play titles make games grindy and have you pay to skip the grind but this is not one of those games

yet


when I see another game last epoch, They got this all figured out
uniques that affect skills directly to a huge degree.
better skills for Ascendancy
better crafting systems
in game auction house
plethora of good loot drops
Set items
another tier besides rare called epic
legendary items
a pretty in-depth skill system that honestly surpasses the support gem system in a lot of ways



it becomes difficult to justify what the positives of this game are in comparison
I don't really care if you have more classes than last epoch if all of your Ascension classes have terrible downsides and just feel bad to play
last epoch's game play and ascension classes do not have these type of downsides
most of the uniques do not have these type of downsides
if not any of them really they might lock you into a specific type of build style but ultimately a lot of those uniques feel good to get
getting a purple item feels good to get
getting set items well that's debatable but with the way that you have your loot set up there's just not enough variety you have normal you have magic you have rare and you have unique and to be honest most of the uniques are kind of trash and most rares making up the bulk of your build
so ultimately it just doesn't feel rewarding to get yellow items
you know everybody plays these type of games to get the really cool items and have a lot of build diversity and I know that you're not quite finished with the game
I know that there are a lot of buffs and nerfs and mixed changes as updates come along
but I struggle with this vision that you have about a souls like type ARPG
in a souls like there are a lot of really good weapons and a lot of upgrades for said weapons
there are a lot of options and variety and even in endgame that is made to punish the shit out of you,
You still go from a weak dagger holding idiot all the way up to a God killing demon
I think that truth be told you, have yet to figure out what that feels like because you're too concerned about balancing it against the top people in your leagues
I don't care about min maxing if the general gameplay is good enough to play the game
BUT IF I FEEL LIKE I HAVE TO MINMAX, THEN I WILL MIN MAX.
I think that you need to be a little more forgiving when it comes to how much loot and the quality you know raise the type of affixes add more types of affixes
go look at last epoch and just look at how satisfying a lot of these stats are
I don't care about two more percent on an affix
I want to be able to notice the difference between a tier 6 and a tier 7
I want to be able to notice the difference between my skills when I put support gems in them and at the moment it Just doesn't feel good to do so. if a support gem just does more damage, then add a effect to the skill ontop of it or something, change the sound effects, make it FEEL GOOD, atm it doesnt.


so I will change this review at 1.0 to positive regardless because I think that it is a good game and I think that this company is competent
but I'm going to keep this review here throughout early access and I'm going to change it consistently as things go on because I don't see a better way to feel like I'm actually being heard in a sea of voices that are screaming at you that you are terrible and don't deserve to be making video games
I think you guys are a fantastic company I think you're doing everything that you want to be doing and that's not a bad thing I just think that the core gameplay loop isn't going to be fun when it's not rewarding
You cant be the most complex and deep arpg with surface level progression rewards items
I want to challenge this notion about souls like gameplay
i'm fine with you doing a souls-like game, i'm fine with making it hard, i'm even fine with taking time to kill white mobs but you know if they're going to be hard at least make it to where it drops a magic equiv everytime or something you know it's like if I kill a rare make it drop a unique it's like if I kill a unique monster make it drop like a different type of item like a set item or just a legendary
I just something anything better than what we have because at this moment it just feels so stale and it doesn't help that all of your uniques have all these crazy downsides that just aren't fun to use
you mostly have spent all this time modeling these uniques and adding them into the game that will just never get used in almost any build.


Back to Elden ring I go

This comes from a person who purchased the 100 eur supporter pack.

So...I've decided to quit and uninstall the game.
This is no longer a game for me. And it makes me so so sad. Cause i lost my favourite game.


1. Rares are unfun. They offer 0 reward.

2. The fact that I am lvl 70 and I have not outscaled with lvl 15 skill gems white mobs to the point that they die just by looking at me...is disgusting. They are artifically created damage sponges that just boost play time with no reward whatsoever.

3. Game is a slow sloppy slog; it's an artificially designed grind that is designed to suck out any semblance of entertainment out of you.

4. Instead of me wiping the screen, its the screen wiping me. There is no power fantasy here. There is no damage evolve, there is only feeling of being at the bottom of the foodchain and then when getting to maps feeling like you've progressed to be just about the chicken in the tigers jungle power level.

5. At this point. Even if they brought back the same rarity they had before, so you could get exalts and chaos everywhere and even if currency is guaranteed from rares...it wouldn't be enough. The game just would still be unfun.

I come from work every day to sit down and chill and play a video games and have fun. I pushed through campaign in last 3 days and came to T2 waystones endgame. I don't want to be feeling stressed and scared of every single mob, especially not white grade mobs and I didn't even fail a single waystone at all. Its just not a good experience to me to go in and instead of looking for what loot i will get i am focusing and stressing if the next white mob has text below his name that will make me Esc - respawn at checkpoint or be instantly killed.

Dear Jonathan, I think only you find this slog above enjoyable.

The game feels like when you are a kid and parents tell you that you can only go out to play after the homework. That emotion you get, the feeling of frustration. That is the only constant emotion i have with the game. Few bright spots here and there; like when a div (extremely valuable currency) dropped in campaign for me.

The game was really really fun for me before 0.2 patch. It was literally to me the best experience ever with a few modifications and improvements necessary to what it is now. I went through the slog of the campaign. I did my homework. But now i dont get to go play around blasting stuff. I don't get my reward. I get slapped on my wrist and told to sit the duck back down and re-do the homework just because my handwriting was a little bit too nice and my dad doesn't think that I am allowed to have nice things.

I would say that I might come back if they bring it closer to what it was before. And I see that they are bringing new buffs in...But let's face it, that will never happen. Even with the incoming buffs. It's not going to be fun like it was on original early access release, it's not engaging, it's not rewarding, it's just a path of 30 kilometers you have to walk through, but you are waist deep in mud with people on the side that slap you on the face for fun 98% of the time and then 2% of the time they bring food and water.

Take care guys, was fun while it lasted.

As someone who has never played poe1 I love this game personally. Maybe because I never played poe1 I find the slowness nice. It was weird seeing people insta clear maps with teleport+lightning last season which I might be in the minority but I found that boring like whats the point in playing. Main thing I hate was white minions being harder to kill then the rare mobs but they seem to have fixed this. Cool skills, hate that you cant change ascendancy, hate no slot on my skele wand, fun gameplay, cool bosses, maps to big (hate playing the campaign twice for end game), one of the few people who liked the chaos trials (hopefully they didnt change this on act2 right now), like how many unqiues there are, like the story/campaign (not every 3 months though bit to much), and lot more I forgot just these off of the top of my head. Lots of postives/negatives but I find the game very fun and intersted to see where they go with this.

JUST MY OPINION AS A CASUAL WHO HAS NEVER PLAYED POE1. I UNDERSTAND WHY PEOPLE MIGHT NOT LIKE IT

New patch destroyed the game, I have never been more disappointed in a game I invested 1200 hours in....also have never quit this fast...most negative reviews you read are correct, no reason to rehash

Patch 0.2b; devs removed everything fun about game and pushed exactly the opposite of what players wanted. Instead of making crafting matter, or loot drops matter, it seems as though loot was just outright removed. What was a 3x duration slogfest had to be rolled back to a 2x slogfest from the prior season. Every functional build was nerfed. New class pushing "engaging playstyle" floods chat with requests for help to get past act 2 boss... chat tells them game is not for them.

I really hope devs re-adjust their vision to focus on fun at some point, but until then, I think I'd rather go watch paint dry. Definitely more fun (with faster results!) than playing current iteration.

0.2.0 review

Market a large part of your 0.2 update promotion & hype around Huntress & the new spear skills, while hiding almost all the info on support gems from players until launch
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Release it with only 2 spear skills feeling remotely comfortable past act 2 due to the level scaling, leaving the rest of the class extremely undertuned and feeling horrendously bad, to the point where auto attacking bosses was unironically doing more damage than the skills themselves.
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Introduce a parry mechanic that's completely horrible outside of bosses (not even worth it on them either), as not only do you get 3s stunned if you parry too much, but in groups you parry one enemy to then get hit by 6 more.
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Make the game permanently feel like a dark souls game, but instead of fighting 1-2 enemies at a time, you're weak as hell and fighting packs of 10-15 at a time, and all you're left with is the wish.com version of a dodge roll
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Watch 90% of people reroll their character (and for more casual players, just simply quitting lmfao) due to how insufferable campaign is on the character if you aren't using the only 2 spear skills that actually do anything.

The actual content updates are great, but unless you're wanting to play one of the very limited meta spear builds, you'll be miserable in acts 3-->6 trying to actually play with majority of spear skills. And even after 2 days to be able to theory craft and come up with good campaign builds, it's still the same miserable experience getting to a point where you can actually utilize those builds.

And that's only talking about Huntress. This doesn't get into the fact that they made the game itself extremely slow, very similar to Ruthless in poe 1, where difficulty was raised a lot and drops became very scarce. But instead of it being a mode, it's just now the entirety of the campaign.

GGG wants to push more combo heavy builds that require multiple skills to succeed, rather than 1-2 button nukes, which is perfectly fine, but can't happen if groups of 10+ mobs are running at mach 10 while you're stuck in a 300 year animation to just use 1 ability.

Even with them coming out with an immediate patch that nerfs monster health during campaign, due to the sheer amount of character wide nerfs, it's like putting a bandaid on a limb thats been torn off, it still feels horrible and the pacing between characters & mobs is completely off.

The game is still great, but they're making horrid decisions that absolutely no one asked for. Nerfing the unintended interactions or broken items/builds was needed, but did not have to bleed into nerfing the entirety of the gameplay, while not taking into account how enemy scaling would feel.

endgame gameplay/content updates = good
Campaign experience + class updates = horrible