Path of Exile 2 is still in Early Access, but players have already discovered a profound issue in the endgame that seems difficult to resolve.
What issue is it? The launch of Path of Exile 2 in Early Access was two months ago, and gamers have had enough time to closely examine the ARPG. They have noticed a significant problem for which there doesn’t seem to be a simple solution.
In the endgame of Path of Exile 2, the player’s character is so powerful that it can effortlessly annihilate all enemies like a deity. The strong builds of PoE2 enable players to eliminate any resistance until their character dies in a miraculous way.
Here, the user Difficult_Grass2441 sees a problem (via Reddit), because the developers of PoE2 actually aimed to provide a slower and more challenging experience. This is still somewhat achieved in the campaign, but it changes drastically in the endgame.
At the end of the game, most enemies can hardly touch the character, and there are rarely any dangerous situations. When an adventurer dies, it is either due to one-shot mechanics or inexplicable events. The community sees this as a profound problem.
Here you can watch the cinematic intro of Path of Exile 2:
The big design flaw of PoE2
Why is this a profound problem? The community of Path of Exile 2 is sure after their two-month playtime that the developers cannot simply solve the problem. The issue seems to be composed of various points, which the community has compiled on Reddit:
- The visibility of effects in the game is too low
- There are too many death and hit effects that suddenly take characters out of the game
- Making PoE2 slower only worked in the campaign; the endgame feels like the predecessor
- The builds and classes are very unbalanced regarding their strengths and weaknesses
- The random factors from enemies sometimes result in unimaginably powerful opponents
- Boss fights should actually be designed so that one doesn’t succeed in the first attempt but learns how the fight works
- The punishment for the character’s death feels frustrating in relation to the game design
In summary, a problematic picture emerges. The interesting moments from the campaign where players genuinely fight for their character’s life and defeat bosses in their last breath fade away later in the game.
Instead, the character grows into an undisputed god who occasionally gets hit in the Achilles’ heel and simply collapses.
What do players say about the current state? Players are frustrated with the current situation. They explain on Reddit precisely what bothers them:
- “Honestly, this is the big design flaw of PoE2. It should be slower, so it doesn’t need one-shot mechanics to kill [players]. But the endgame is just PoE1 again, back to zoom-zoom and one-shots,” finds Isaacvithurston on Reddit.
- “I stopped playing a few nights ago after one of those [unfair] deaths. I told my wife that I don’t know why there are even healing potions, because I’m either at full health or dead. There is rarely anything in between,” describes Revolutionary-Ice-16 on Reddit.
- Moethelion has likely identified the core problem on Reddit: “Recovery. The problem is recovery. As long as players are able to restore their hit pool within a fraction of a second, monsters must be able to bring the player’s hit pool to zero within a fraction of a second, or the game will become trivial. […]”
Path of Exile 2 has been in Early Access for only two months. Since the Early Access launch, there have not yet been any profound changes to gameplay systems. Whether the developers will change the gameplay loop in the endgame remains to be seen. There are also recurring complaints about the trading and crafting system in PoE2: Path of Exile 2 is driving away its new players due to a missing feature
