AA-BB: There’s a reason why Strand in PoE is nearly everybody’s favorite map.

BuzzaB77: Us: "areas are too large"

GGG: "so there's not enough monsters?"

Us: "No areas are too large"

GGG: "we've added checkpoints"

Us: "No areas are too large"

GGG: "we've reduced monster health"

Us: "No areas are too large"

GGG: "Lightning spear the only ability that had reasonable damage is now buffed"

Us: "No areas are too large"

GGG: We think there's a bug with stun threshold"

Us: ......

crimsonkraken678: Best part is being gaslight and told "no, you don't actually think the zones are too large, actually you think something else" LOLW

Jordan-qw7yw: Well boys it’s time to play Last Epoch

BRADLIKESPVP: The sooner Jonathan realizes that none of his ideas make any sense in an ARPG, the better.

Arissnadia: Everything was laughs and fun until that map size statement, now it is despairge.

Woolie: just get these Descendancies out of here - we need NOITCEABLE and EXCITING impacts from every single one of the 4 node choices we make that supposedly "define" our class and playstyle.

Chayula monk node should be a 1-pointer that gives universal leech AND grants it to ES.

seems PoE2's development atm can be boiled down to GGG not asking "is this fun?" enough...

FuzzyDuckzy: 100% agree with everything in this video. I bought a similar rant video out expecting to get flamed, but 95% of people who commented were in agreement. This dark souls meaningful combat just doesn't and will never work in ARPGs

crookedlid9653: They are having a massive identity crisis

BuzzaB77: There is NO F*KIN* TIME to Parry. Or attempt any combo. NO TIME.

Elden Ring combat does not work with 20 enemies on all sides that are faster than the player.

Onityn: Huntress has complexity progression backwards. It starts with the most complex "combos" that get easier to execute once you can automate frenzy charges/elemental ground. Bizarre design

mattb1638: Poe 1 development has been stopped for this trash...

dcdcdcdcdful: Poe2 wont affect Poe1 but kills both. It hurts

dedi8517: after 15h playtime im still in act3. And you just showed ppl are printing mirrors. im seriously thinking about going back to poe1. permanently.

DutronComics: After 12 years, I'm officially done supporting this company monetarily. Using ONE dev team to try and develop 2 games at once is absolutely not working.

TripolarBear: Typed Baseg before watching

Liratan: I do not think they have stopped and asked themselves "What is fun about X?"

What is fun about large maps?

What is fun about monsters that move 3x master than you?"

What is fun about a campaign that takes 12-20 hours for the average player?

DAR0k88: GGG doesn't understand the problem because it's so fundamental that they are unlikely to see it right under their nose. There is only one type of encounter for non-boss monsters: swarm. It's not enough to focus on the micro abilities of different enemy units. There needs to be a macro-level hive-mind that sets different AI rules for a given pack (or even for the entire swarm on the screen). With multiple different AI rules to give to different packs, you can have some monsters wait while other monsters are attacking, or have no monsters attack until they all get a trigger to attack sequentially, etc.

Again, GGG will not understand this because they like their non-meaningful ai that allows all monsters to act individually instead of collectively, and then wonder why they can't create meaningful combat.

Rat-f7s: Honestly I hate all of the forced complexity in PoE 2. In PoE 1 as long as you understand basic scaling you can literally think 'I want to throw lightning bolts' and then make your entire build throwing lightning bolts without having to worry about nonsense shit like getting a frenzy first or getting your combo up or whatever.

PoE 1 has a lot of hidden complexity, the difference between a mid build and a godly one is huge and it takes a huge amount of knowledge and understanding to be able to scale a build from hillock to one shotting ubers with 100mil dps. But the thing is you don't need it, the most complexity a new build-maker needs to understand is literally just how to layer defenses and the differences between more and increased damage modifiers.

In PoE 2 you need to fuckin read 13 skills and how they interact with eachother while considering the build defining DOWNSIDES (of ascendancy or support or regular skills) that you need to completely model your playstyle around.

Compare Dark Effigy Totems to Forbidden Rite totems in PoE 2 to PoE 1.

In PoE 1 you need to just build around the self chaos damage enough so that your totems don't one shot themselves. There are multiple ways to achieve this but towards the mid game you can solve it with 2 cluster notables. Forbidden Rite has a big downside you need to build around (hence the creative use of totems as proxies) which when built around leave you with a skill that has huge damage scaling possibilites and crazy high base damage! A great and reliable build!

In PoE 2 to make Dark Effigy Totems work I need to find a way to stack as many Chaos DoT's as possible. So I have like 6 or 7 DoT's I need to apply and I need to do so in a way that isn't absolutely cancer. So now I'm casting a fuckin 3 spell rotation (contagion, ED, Despair) before every pack and then casting my 3 or 4 totems down so they can actually hit shit. You play around this downside by pressing a million buttons and catering your entire gem setup around it while mathing out a whole ass skill rotation and what is the payoff?

You get a mid as fuck mediocre ass totem build that is just okay.

You can argue that the comparison is bad, that it's not exact or that they specifically designed Dark Effigy Totems to be a supportive spell (bad design imo), but there are so many examples of this design in PoE 2 it would just take me way too long to write about.

The beauty of PoE 1 was that it was as simple as you wanted it to be. You could be farming one piece of content on a simple little arc build that makes you feel like a sith lord until you afford upgrades, or you could be planning out your entire atlas strat catering to systems favorable for your build which you hand tailored every step of progression yourself in order to farm out your upgrades the most efficiently, but either way you can enjoy the game how YOU want.

PoE 2 feels like GGG is trying to make you enjoy the game how THEY want, and that is the problem.

Reliquarium: If they want "meaningful combat", they need to delete 90% of the mobs and rework every single league mechanic. Why do they think Dark Souls games only have 1-4 monsters in combat at a time?

mbXtreme: Amen.

BuzzaB77: it's heart breaking after Chris gave that Ted talk explaining his passion of meaningful progression. 20% extra X instead of 2%. Changes you could really feel. Every point on the tree made you happy not because number go up, but because we could FEEL it. now the power fantasy is just straight up erased.

Blagax: Pretty sure 3.26 will be delayed due to this shitshow patch, more than one year settlers here we go!

marfuen3420: Thank you for being so raw, I feel like people need to put it bluntly like this so the devs understand. Right now the game is awful. I can't bring myself to beat act 2 with huntress and I'm not a noob, I decided since lvl 1 to not use parry not realizing that parry was the ONLY way to get frenzy charges, that is just so stupid. Just waiting for the Last Epoch launch now...

dunkdamonk: The problem I see is Johnathan doesn't have very much conviction. This leads to a design by committee issues and when you try to make everybody happy, you usually make no one happy.

Too often when I see him in interviews, he is undecided or indecisive on some pretty core fundamental things. For example the contradictory stance he has on tier ranking poe1/poe2 style. He will disagree with the community on a fundamental technical level about tier ranking, and in his dismissal of the subject, literally use the old ranking when he refers to tier power levels. This is a macrocosm of what's happening all across the board it seems. You cannot have your cake and eat it too.

If the gameplay is supposed to be combat focused, then there should be a way to take zero damage. Look at how games like god of war do it successfully or elden ring etc.

The big thing that is missing for me to interact with long-winded combos, or playstyles is that this game offers no practical way of taking zero damage. If they want it to be combat focused, then i should be able to dodge or maneuver, or strategize/out play the monsters or bosses. Like in god of war for example.

Not having any part of this game where you could potentially be rewarded for playing perfect defense cannot co-exist in a game that wants you to focus on combat. If im going to take damage no matter what, you better believe im going to bum rush through that combat 100%

user-ij3ub5sh6i: PoE2 killed both PoE1 and PoE2, maybe, we will see

That forum thread gaslighted the entire community.

PS: Your video, this f video summerizes the anger, dissapointment and frustration regarding PoE2, atleast mine, i hope they will see this video, you explained everything perfectly!

Apr 09 2025

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