I really hope GGG doesn't make the game easier

People are really not used to having to learn a whole new game from scratch again. Don't they remember how hard PoE 1 felt when they were new?

The harder difficulty and slower pace is great! Although, I feel like bosses probably need a bit of tweaking in terms of how quickly they chain up and cast mechanics. Some bosses are spamming out crap back to back so quickly you're basically locked into dodge rolling 99% of the time. It's not difficult, it's just tedious.

It's not about difficulty. It's about core mechanics and gameplay.

I also hope GGG doesn't change the game because they sold to me this game and I bought it because I like this game, not Path if Exile 1.

I got clapped by the count SO EFFING HARD, the phase two is insane (i got through tho)

Dudes running around tryna speed through 😂

I'm sure some speed will be gained later in end game but damn i hope it ain't like Poe 1.

I'm digging it so far. It feels more nuanced in that position and skill timing make a difference. Love the sound and the visual effects.

The animations are the things that need tweaking, at least for warrior. They are so long, and forcing us to move to use some abilities sucks so much.

I'm really not enjoying not having a movement skill. Phasing is going to be insane. I've gotten killed in way to many corners of mobs .

I died 9 times in first area to wolds and the witch . Was funny as heck

I won't lie.. I rage quit yesterday at king of the mist..

It's the clutter of poe1 with poe2 sponge and boss dmg..

And I play melee.. it's.. not a fun experience.

As someone who couldnt get into PoE1 the challenge level feels awesome, Im hooked

that what happens when people followed blind guides for years ;p act 3 here and having no problem

They cooked, very distinct feel so you can enjoy both games simultaneously if you want

I don’t see anybody talking about it but the VA and story have so much soul. I knew it was gas when una humms after talking to you and the callouts when your fighting being just the right cadence

PoE1 was so fast paced I was just spamming buttons and thinking “I should probably blink away now. I don’t know why but it feels like I’m standing in stupid or something might come now.”

PoE2 is “oh I see this enemy trying something. Time to dodge roll out of the way.”

Personally I’m finding PoE2 gameplay a lot more fun, exciting and rewarding.

The Games pacing reminds me of the initial release of Diablo 3. Game was really challenging and literally every class had to kite at an unreal level. The monster mechanics were not that complicated though. The issue with that game was monsters and abilties scaled poorly. They fixed with balance changes.

This game is heavy in mechanics. All the boss fights in this game remind me of the game Hades. Each boss has like 2-3 core patterns and 2 phases.

I'm worried about the end game Ubers. Your going to burn so many resources until you beat them

Overall, the games pacing is on the slower side. The key thing is they have to balance slow pacing with sufficient drops. If it's too hard or grindy people will quit playing.

I think maybe a little tunage could be in order. At least in like boss spam casts. Spending literal minutes rolling around an arena and running because the boss just keeps sending out big aoes that will almost 1 shot me, while I can't do damage because I'm a melee character, is not exactly enjoyable.

Getting violently murdered was all I wanted from Diablo 4. So happy to come to PoE2 and find myself right at home.

I’m pretty much stuck in act 1 with no way to buy different skill or support gems to try something new. I do like 65 damage per hit on bosses which is like a tiny sliver. I roll roll roll and dodge around and barely even see their health go down. The gameplay mechanics are just not enjoyable enough for this level of difficulty imo. At least at the beginning I don’t think it should be this difficult. I can’t even repsec yet.

Monk feels brutal to play against bosses.

Built around palm and falling strikes combos and it's pretty good at clearing most of the map, but with no way to generate charges against bosses I do more damage spamming spark while running backwards than actually using melee skills.

It took me 20 minutes to beat Lachlann only dying twice. Most of the time it was me waiting for my HP and ES to recharge so I could nurse my last two flask charges.

His "my anger" slam happens stupidly fast, seems to move with you a bit as it's coming down, and has a huge AOE that not even dodge rolling can get away from.

Also, am I fucking stupid or is there no tooltip dps or way to see if I have an upgrade? I swap out what appears to be a staff with 2x the amount of phys my current staff has and the numbers don't change anywhere. I don't get it.

Loving new difficulty of PoE , hope it would be just more hard!

No lmao the game has some serious issues. Roll getting stuck on stuff 1 in 3 times is kind of a big deal when they make bugs surround you in hallways for simply opening a barrel and you can't play the game anymore. Things like the first act boss having extensive freeze mechanics with no freeze counterplay introduced yet, having the add phase have a huge amount of stun when there's no stun counerplay introduced yet, seem like poor design choices. Adding negative resist penalties immediately in act 2 when the loot system is unironically just ruthless so you have no real counterplay due to resists on the tree now basically not existing, is cooked. Roll for them I hear you say? Haven't seen a single alteration in 2 and a half acts. Have seen approximately 1 regal from vendoring enough yellows. People didn't like ruthless, they won't like ruthless with a new coat of paint and a hat on if that's what they try to go for.

It's always the same two sides of the argument that come out on releases, both unable to admit that whatever they like is actually not the greatest of design and the optimal design choice is somewhere in the middle between the two.

Ah yea its so fun getting bodyblocked with no way to escape, it's so fun "crafting" once per 30 minutes just to get 1-3 roll god damn

I really love it. Played diablo and hated that all enemies just died without presenting a real challenge. World bosses just dissolved after a time and didn't really challenge either. I have fought 3 bosses so far and it's fantastic!! Love the difficulty and find it's just right.

I’m glad it’s not easy. The mindless slogs that loot-based games have become. Over it. Brainless clicking to kill hoards of enemies had me exhausted. Looking at you Destiny/Diablo.

Great fucking game awesome boss mechs

I really hope GGG buff the merc and nerf A1 boss at first stages it TAKES AGES in attempts to kill it

I love the difficulty of bosses/rares

I don’t enjoy taking one step forward and then basic white mobs from seven nations away come zooming at me, surround me and my shield charge can’t even go through them.

Normal mobs are way too dangerous with no phasing or decent aoe.

I shouldn’t ever be overwhelmed by white mobs unless I pull them myself, or an under geared/levelled.

I'm loving this

Speak for yourself. Nobody liked Ruthless.

I snuck in a few hours' play before work and I'm currently on my break. I found it really challenging, but I can't wait to get back home and learn and get better. If they make it easier, I'll be a tad disappointed. Feels rewarding to overcome bosses and make your character better.

Most complaints have nothing to do about difficulty.

Bosses are simple enough, run in circles dodging their skill spam until they stop. Hit them a few times until they start spamming again and you go back to running in circles dodging their skill spam. Rinse and repeat. Its so boring compared to PoE 1.

This level of difficulty is my kinda game, it's about time we got something to make me actually use my brain.

As someone who played poe1 in very early closed beta, poe2 feels very similar. It was years before poe1 became the cocaine speedcrack straight from campaign it is today. It used to take a lot of effort to reach screen clearing levels in the early days. Monsters used to be dangerous beyond random bullshit. Playing this just reminds me of how much I used to love poe1 until around 2016 to 2017. It just feels good. My only issue thus far is the mobs physically pushing you around or preventing you from rolling through them. Same with multi-player bodyblocking, just feels off when you can't move past your party members.

We already have poe1 and while I expect screen clearing shenanigans to still be obtainable, I enjoy the increase in mechanics and difficulty in the early game. Unlike poe ruthless and archnemesis it doesn't feel bad to play around.

I am enjoying the challenge so far I have to die once or twice to get each bosses moves telegraphed and go farm a level or some slightly better gear, I also like how many boss fights there are. I DO NOT like the elite that siphons mana I just died to and had to run away from multiple times lol. Loving this game.

I love it. If I die, it makes me re-think my approach. I'm not good at building, so I'm pretty sure I'll mess up my witch somewhere down the line, but I'm taking it slow and learning as I go.

This is my first time touching PoE and I'm loving it! I'm pretty used to playing harder stuff like Nioh. I've died a little here and there, but haven't found anything all that bad yet with a warrior rocking a 2H weapon.

I've played PoE since 2013, almost every league. After about 2018 I have been begging for this PoE experience every league.

This game is everything I wanted and more. I am level 40 so far, and the challenge is amazing. If they ruin this game with zoomer go fast map clearing explosions and shit like PoE1 I will be incredibly pissed off. Those people can go play PoE1.

o its hard, lol, and i love it😂😂😂

They should not make it easier. I feel they got the balance right here so far, albeit im early in the campaign but its soooo satisfying to explore, kill, and win vs bosses and mini bosses.

Diablo 2 like pacing all over again and i love it.

I'm with you. In PoE1 hardcore doesn't mean much if you have half an idea what you're doing. Wouldn't try it in this game yet. I like dying though; makes it feel like more of a video game and less like clicking a very pretty excel sheet until a specific color shows up.

The difficulty is perfect. Once you learn the mechanics you can easily avoid damage, and until then you die.

When developers want to make darksouls ruthless mode the standard experience.

This type of gameplay is more suited for a really long campaign/end game experience that you play through once per character. Slowly grinding out the acts and getting bit by bit upgrade like people rose tinted glasses version of D2.

The problem with that is:

1. This is a league game were you reset every 3-4 months. The pace needs a bit more smooth, since you are going to redo it multiple times a year anyway. As opposed to playing the same "save" for a very long time.
2. Stuff like gold/other stuff scales to you for some reason, therefore you can never really "Grind out" an part you are having issues with.
3. Path of exile 1 was already hard for majority of players that haven't been playing the game for years. Just because some people can speed run the game in 4 hours does not mean you need to "fix that". Darksouls games can also be speedrun mega fast with 0 hits taken but developers don't need to see that as "make the game even harder".

SLOWER and more tactical gameplay is good but they are definitely nerfing some things on the enemy side to smooth things out lol It's going to be acts 1 - 6 and then an expansive endgame like PoE 1 that is also going to be many hours. We don't need to "frontload" everything in the first 2-3 acts.

Im just gonna say this: 3 months from now, you guys are gonna hate the difficulty. There is a difference between difficult and fair. Getting hit for half your hp or one shot while also having to slog through the campaign...every few months? I can see the complaints now lol

The difficulty is perfect as it is

I don’t mind difficulty, more precision in combat, etc. What I do mind is weak progression feel during campaign. Leveling and gearing are as important as combat, but when you rung through all of act 2 in gear from act 1 because nothing useful drops, it becomes boring fast.

Also, crafting materials drop could be increased as well. I understand it that devs thought that there will be 2 sources for crafting currency: drops and disenchanted gear. But there’s no way I’m prefering currency over gold. I need that gold for gambling, regular gear in shop, passives respec.

My friend sold me on PoE about a week ago and I got hyped pretty quickly for this release. I played 1 all week in preparation for 2. 

Im only level 7 (made is to 22 in 1) but as far as the early game goes PoE2 is soooo much more fun and less spammy. It's actually challenging and the bosses have neat mechanics. 

A different perspective than many of you but I am definitely digging PoE2. I want to finish 1 for the story at some point but I'm certainly not rushing  back. 

Disagree strongly.

You’ve overdone it when people like asmongold (who has more experience than most players) is having no fun due to the difficulty.

Maybe people will say I’m ’too casual’, but I didn’t have much fun last night either because of the difficulty - and also slow level progression.

Just my humble opinion though. Definitely not saying it is the correct/only opinion…

Killed the count on my third try! Loving the difficulty curve so far.

The difficulty of the game depends on the class you play. Play melee / warriror and poe 2 turns into dark souls. This needs some changes.

My char nearly died 50 times in A1 alone, loving the HC experience.