The Problem Isn’t Difficulty, It’s Engagement.

[Mog]

Hey everyone,

There’s been a lot of discussion about Path of Exile 2 lately, and while the community has raised some good points, I feel like the conversation keeps veering off-course. The problem isn’t that the game is "too hard" — it’s that the difficulty is poorly implemented in a way that makes the game boring. Here’s my breakdown of where I think the game falters:

1. Boring Combat, Not Challenging Combat
Slow, deliberate attacks could work if they felt impactful — like one-shotting small enemies. But having to hit even the weakest mobs 4–5 times? That’s not engaging. Players need to feel vulnerable, sure, but we also need to feel powerful. Right now, I feel like I’m swinging a wiffle bat at enemies. All while getting hit by the same small enemies for a 3rd of my HP in act 3, like what?

2. Not Enough Loot Drops
Even the defenders of POE2 seem to agree on this one: loot drops are underwhelming. Loot is the lifeblood of any ARPG. When there’s so little loot, it doesn’t just kill the fun of gear upgrades — it guts crafting and the entire power fantasy of building a character.

3. Inconsistent Boss Scaling
Bosses are a mixed bag. Some fights feel fine, but others are disproportionately punishing depending on your build. If specific movesets hard-counter certain playstyles, it undermines the idea of diverse character building. Boss difficulty should scale in a way that feels fair and rewarding, not like you accidentally picked the "wrong" build.

4. Dodge Roll Lacks Phasing
This might sound like a nitpick, but the lack of phasing on the dodge roll heavily restricts playstyle. If you get surrounded, it’s almost a guaranteed death because you can’t dodge through enemies. This forces players to play ultra-cautiously or full-clear everything, which is slow and dull.

5. Uninspired Character Power
I played a warrior with a massive two-handed hammer, and I never felt strong. None of my skills felt impactful beyond building up stuns. Dealing a fraction of an enemy’s health with each hit doesn’t feel like I’m wielding a mighty weapon — it feels like I’m chipping away with a toothpick.

6. Zone Design is a Chore
Every zone takes 20–40 minutes to clear, which feels like a slog. The lack of clear progression paths makes backtracking painful. If I miss something and decide to come back later, it’s an absolute nightmare to navigate and find that one sliver of the map I overlooked.

In Summary: The core problem with POE2 isn’t the difficulty. It’s the lack of engagement in combat, loot, and progression. There are moments where the game shows promise, but they’re buried under layers of tedium and frustration.

[TimeSpiralNemesis]

I just want to bring my POV to the table, because I'm dumbfounded by all the negativity I see online.

1) I really enjoy the difficulty. Its perfect, I'm going in blind after not really playing the first game and I feel challenged but in control. It's the most well-balanced game I've played in a long time. Act 1 boss was incredible, it took me 2 tries to beat him but ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ was it fun. So far I haven't died to a boss more than once and almost never from regular mobs. Actually hoping it gets a little spicier in later acts.

2) I adore the low loot drops, more ARPGs are cluttered with massive amounts of junk loot. You don't even pick up 99% of the stuff that drops in last epoch, its useless. Here even the common items can be upgraded with an orb if you need some new gear.

3) zones feel fine, they take a few minutes to clear out but that's good, I don't like how hypersonic fast some other ARPGs are, its good to spend some time in an area and enjoy it.

4) I do agree that I wish you could roll through enemies, but it feels okay without it, its more about not getting surrounded in the first place.

5) I've never felt my attacks are too weak so far. They always feel just about right and I enjoy the way they interact with each other, like projectiles getting boosted by firewall. I'm balancing my passive skill points between offense and defense.

Overall, I haven't had this much fun with a game in a looooonnnggg time.

[LemonRush7777]

>Boring Combat, Not Challenging Combat

This makes no sense. With combos, you don't need to hit weak mobs 5 times.

Just as an example, ranger can get those lightning rods with scattershot + lightning bolt doing some insane and fast damage to groups.

I played a bit with Warrior until after the graveyard and every mob was dying to rolling smash + that finisher I forgot the name (skull something?). Since you can cancel the animation, on some mobs I would just let the first hit of rolling smash go, and immediately use the finisher, which would send an amplified shockwave that would kill all surrounding mobs.

Mercenary is who I am playing the most, and you can demolish mobs with many combos, like frozen shots + fragmentation shots (better with Herald of Ash), gas grenades + normal grenades or just shooting from far away with rapid shot and some support gems to spread the damage + empowered grenade on your feet if any survive.

I'm sure the other characters have similar combos.

>Not Enough Loot Drops

In this game, even blue loot is important at least during the campaign.

You get showered with upgrade orbs. Don't sit on them, use at least the blue ones that are plentiful to upgrade your gear that has some nice mods, and if you find a really, really good one, use the orb to turn it into a rare.

Remember there are other difficulties after you finish act 3, and loot will likely drop more there.

It would be silly if we were showered with Uniques at this point in the game like Diablo 4, to the point where one of them dropping has been entirely trivialized with no dopamine from it.

>Dodge Roll Lacks Phasing

Again, I think characters can deal with being mobbed. Barbs can just stun and explode mobs, Mercs can grenade their own feet, Ranger can use escape shot or whatever.

I like how things are, since mobs should also be dangerous. Individually they are weak, but in groups they should retain some level of danger, and mobbing is exactly how a group of weak enemies should deal with a high level threat like the player.


>I played a warrior with a massive two-handed hammer, and I never felt strong. None of my skills felt impactful beyond building up stuns. Dealing a fraction of an enemy’s health with each hit doesn’t feel like I’m wielding a mighty weapon — it feels like I’m chipping away with a toothpick.

When I played my Warrior, I never used the regular strike. It was shield bashing from one group of mobs to the other, followed by either the finisher to explode the group or rolling smash + finisher if no one got stun prepped. It was very dynamic and felt adequately powerful.

[Rochambeaux]

Add to the list: non Boss Rare mobs. Just started Act II and spending 10+ minutes on trying to kill a non-Boss rare (and getting no loot) is ridiculous.

I'm starting to think that GGG released the "Early Access" way too early and needed something to "slow" down the player base. There's no the game will be successful with it's current game tempo.

[gachi is manly]

I dunno, my experience is much different than you're describing in the OP.

I mean, I can see exactly why people are struggling with it, but it's things that can be overcome. Combat is only a slog if your weapon sucks, or your not speccing right on the passive tree, or you're not utilising the skills and supports available to you properly.

That's a lot of things that can go wrong, though. So I totally get how some people can be breezing through act 1 and 2 and others really struggling and slogging through.

[Boiledteabag]

I agree with the loot part, its annoying when they removed all the resistance nodes from the tree and the intended way is to use runes, but to use the runes you need to have enough gold to buy a piece that has slots or get it as loot.
(currency orbs are plentiful so no issue with it being a common)

The rings and necklaces are a little lacking in drops too, only had one ring drop and filled the other two slots with gold cost items.

If they are going to remove the elemental/chaos resists from the tree then don't make it impossible to get a ring......
(I searched the passive tree and unless I missed anything there is 2 fire resist, one 5% all and the minions actually get more elemental resist nodes then us.)

Also what are you talking about hitting a weak mob 5 times? my guy I'm here building their stagger meter then heavy stunning the entire group to death from one mob.... check the skills and gear you are using xD

[Boiledteabag]

Publicado originalmente por Rochambeaux:

Add to the list: non Boss Rare mobs. Just started Act II and spending 10+ minutes on trying to kill a non-Boss rare (and getting no loot) is ridiculous.

I'm starting to think that GGG released the "Early Access" way too early and needed something to "slow" down the player base. There's no the game will be successful with it's current game tempo.

You phrase the term early access like they secretly gave us the full game, this is an early access playtest.

They will be taking in all the feedback and making changes based on what we report.

[Hormesis]

my suggestion given your complaints would be to copy someone else's build. not trying to be a jerk but if you're feeling like you're hitting enemies with a wiffle ball bat then you're build is far from optimized. it's tough to make a build yourself, fortunately there are lots of people out there willing to help. i play on posting my build eventually, right now i'm reluctant since it'll likely get nerfed.

[HoneyDrake]

- combat is actually what I want other games to copy, including how dodging, body blocking, etc. works. I have played WoW "back in the days" and I had to pay attention to never showing my back to enemies, pay attention to LoS/reach, etc. It disappeared because it was too complex for ... the lesser blessed. PoE2 feels similar and I love it. Finally making me feel like I am playing a game and not a button press simulator, actually having to watch enemies and understand their behavior to dodge/move away even on lower levels.

- Loot is fine, I like it a lot more than previously. I am not some zoomer brain rot child, some casino junky, etc. I don't want to get a dopamine rush every 10 steps for seeing some rare items. The drop rate of certain currency items needs to be adjusted though.

- if you don't feel any impact, it's an you issue. Learn to craft or properly skill.

[Vespertellino]

4. never gonna happen
6. hard agree, we need some extra traversal mechanics, more teleports or a mount (and prolly make maps like 20% smaller idk)

[Medicles]

Publicado originalmente por Mog:

4. Dodge Roll Lacks Phasing
This might sound like a nitpick, but the lack of phasing on the dodge roll heavily restricts playstyle. If you get surrounded, it’s almost a guaranteed death because you can’t dodge through enemies. This forces players to play ultra-cautiously or full-clear everything, which is slow and dull.

I mean, they included several traps for surrounding into the game, so its fairly safe to say that getting surrounded and not being able to dodge out is a deliberate situation they want to throw the player in, which means it would be a good idea to have this threat in mind. I would assume that the game has at least one item that gives phasing though.

What i do not like is that i have a skill that is called "Escape Shot" with an animation where i should jump over enemies and yet most of the times i cant jump over enemies at all. Not to mention that the animation takes so long that every enemy is in my face again when i land but thats another topic.

[Valgurm]

My opinion is that difficulty it's actually good, usually when you feel "underpowered" it's because of two things: no good equipment and not enough damage on the passive tree or skills. Tbh I haven't died almost at all, if you ask me I would preffer it to be a bit harder.

I also enjoy the fact that the floor is not cluttered with loot which I have to painfully look through to see if anything at all is remotelly usefull, that's what actually made me uninstall diablo on the first place because it stops the game A LOT, it actually makes it really slow.

You have to pick a "base" item that can be helpful to you, try to upgrade it with a random effect and if it's good for you, keep upgrading, if not destroy it.

I can agree with the fact that the maps are maybe way too big and sometimes they take way too much to clear, if you make them this big you have to add stuff that makes exploration actually worth it

[Rochambeaux]

Publicado originalmente por Hormesis:

my suggestion given your complaints would be to copy someone else's build. not trying to be a jerk but if you're feeling like you're hitting enemies with a wiffle ball bat then you're build is far from optimized. it's tough to make a build yourself, fortunately there are lots of people out there willing to help. i play on posting my build eventually, right now i'm reluctant since it'll likely get nerfed.

Mind pointing to a few? I've played PoE since release and feel like I understand the mechanics. Not expecting a race through the Acts but when I have to spend 10+ minutes kiting a non-Boss yellow and then have it drop f@#k all for loot.....

[LemonRush7777]

Publicado originalmente por Medicles:

Publicado originalmente por Mog:

4. Dodge Roll Lacks Phasing
This might sound like a nitpick, but the lack of phasing on the dodge roll heavily restricts playstyle. If you get surrounded, it’s almost a guaranteed death because you can’t dodge through enemies. This forces players to play ultra-cautiously or full-clear everything, which is slow and dull.

I mean, they included several traps for surrounding into the game, so its fairly safe to say that getting surrounded and not being able to dodge out is a deliberate situation they want to throw the player in, which means it would be a good idea to have this threat in mind. I would assume that the game has at least one item that gives phasing though.

What i do not like is that i have a skill that is called "Escape Shot" with an animation where i should jump over enemies and yet most of the times i cant jump over enemies at all. Not to mention that the animation takes so long that every enemy is in my face again when i land but thats another topic.

Escape shot should primarily be used before you get mobbed, as most mobs are approaching.

Or you could shoot the lightning rod skill in front of you and just spam the lightning arrow skill. Should kill them very fast unless its an elite enemy.

[SK]

Publicado originalmente por gachi is manly:

I dunno, my experience is much different than you're describing in the OP.

I mean, I can see exactly why people are struggling with it, but it's things that can be overcome. Combat is only a slog if your weapon sucks, or your not speccing right on the passive tree, or you're not utilising the skills and supports available to you properly.

That's a lot of things that can go wrong, though. So I totally get how some people can be breezing through act 1 and 2 and others really struggling and slogging through.

This is really it.

Loot RNG entirely dictates how hard the game is.

It's like Subtractem found a +3 cold skills staff off the Bloated Miller and cruised through Act 1 with no difficulty killing bosses with no issues.

Really the only advice to people struggling with a lack of resistances or lack of a good weapon, is literally just to set aside 5 hours and grind a lower level zone.

[GodHead]

No one is going to grind in this game.

The combat sucks.

It will need to change or it will die.