So genuine question: What happened?

[Xrystus]

I was looking to buy the game, love the playstyle. Suddenly I see the recent reviews are mostly negative! So... what happened? No, seriously, I'm really confused as to what could have been so disastrous to warrant such a nasty response.
Edit: So what I'm seeing seems like the game made a pretty poor decision with multiple things all at once, such as balancing, progression, and items. Have to acknowledge that it's early access, so it seems the best answer to what's going on for me buying the game is "wait until the game improves".

Thanks everyone for giving me details! Internet cookies for you!

[Lyote]

Originally posted by Xrystus:

I was looking to buy the game, love the playstyle. Suddenly I see the recent reviews are mostly negative! So... what happened? No, seriously, I'm really confused as to what could have been so disastrous to warrant such a nasty response.

Some builds got nerfed a bit.
Not every mob is a loot pinata.
A bug at the opening of the league got exploited heavily for trade.

That about sums up the outrage since the new league dropped.

Game is in Early Access, But people are treating it like a fully finished game that won't ever have balance adjustments, despite the devs warning us all at the launch of it that patches may cause early access characters to break.

Gameplay is fine.
Loot just got an adjustment upwards and the exploit got squished.

Just be aware if you do buy that Standard League characters are definitely going to break between patches as they work towards a finalized 1.0 version lol

[RedTrustfactor]

The game sucks.

[Actionhanz]

honest answer: crying minority of vocal internet people that follow content creators and are at home on reddit. They simply cannot accept that the game is in an early access stage of development and therefore:

- balance changes will happen quite often, they nerfed a lot of the completly overpowered and broken builds and items, ofc the average low IQ sheep doesnt like that

- a lot of systems after your normal Act 1 - 3, means cruel and the entire endgame right now are just placeholders to provide a playable gameplay experience

- build diversity etc is not and will not to be fleshed out cause there are at least 5 entire weapon basetypes missing and the ascendancy classes on top, so there is no logic reason to perfectly design a tree or a skillsystem around a current-temporary state of the game that is going to completly change AGAIN after the next new additon of weapon or class drops, they dont get it

-poe1 content creator are crying cause its not poe1 but infact poe2 and even tho they had a great launch on december and they could scam and hype and make money of that situation, right now they fear they have to actually work for their money, cause there is no poe1 league-cycle, there is not enough content in poe2 for a while to do stuff, so yeah, they are fearing for their money, therefore they trashtalk the game aswell, pathetic

- JOnathan rogers, one of the game directors, is constantly demonized as the root of all evil, they blame buzzwords like " THE VISION" as the reason why change is happening blablabla. It just shows how pathetic, low iq and small those people are

My experience with poe2 so far is great, because i know this is a temporary version that is meant to be played and tested and learned. There are tons of reason to always come back and if there is another game that catches my eyes for awhile, its not another ARPG, its usually something else. RIght now there is no reason to play another ARPG, they all suck compared to poe2's EARLY ACCESS TEST VERSION lmao.

[DeepChills]

Classic GGG shills playing the early access card when the same devs are treating the game as a realease product adding all the paid cosmetics/stash tabs. Not to mention that people paid to play it so they're are entitle to cry as much as they want.

[Clyan]

they basically want to reinvent the wheel, but instead of takeing a step forward they take 2 backwards. the whole game feels like a downgraded poe1. its seriously baffling how they just stripped all the good parts out of the game thinking people would like that. they completely gutted crafting for example. whereas in poe1 a small dmg node would give you 5% increased dmg in poe2 it only gives 3%... its almost funny how dumb their attempt at trying to be different is. they also removed all travel skills except one and made it an aura. instead of reserving mana auras now reserve spirit, a new resource they came up with to have an easier time to balance builds. theres also no more crafting bench that allowed you to craft a mod onto your gear, instead we now have runes that fill socket slots on gear...
and of course they went with dodge rolling, a big nono for arpgs in my opinion, and in order to justify it they made all mobs super fast and annoying, plus bosses can oneshot you during the campaign. i made a build that curses enemies around me with more than 50% slow and they still can catch up to me sometimes. its rediculous.

and so on. its a pure sh't show and people hate it. i wouldnt buy it in its current state.

[Count]

a fraction too much friction.

[Xrystus]

Originally posted by Clyan:

they basically want to reinvent the wheel, but instead of takeing a step forward they take 2 backwards. the whole game feels like a downgraded poe1. its seriously baffling how they just stripped all the good parts out of the game thinking people would like that. they completely gutted crafting for example. whereas in poe1 a small dmg node would give you 5% increased dmg in poe2 it only gives 3%... its almost funny how dumb their attempt at trying to be different is. they also removed all travel skills except one and made it an aura. instead of reserving mana auras now reserve spirit, a new resource they came up with to have an easier time to balance builds. theres also no more crafting bench that allowed you to craft a mod onto your gear, instead we now have runes that fill socket slots on gear...
and of course they went with dodge rolling, a big nono for arpgs in my opinion, and in order to justify it they made all mobs super fast and annoying, plus bosses can oneshot you during the campaign. i made a build that curses enemies around me with more than 50% slow and they still can catch up to me sometimes. its rediculous.

and so on. its a pure sh't show and people hate it. i wouldnt buy it in its current state.

I'm taking all the answers in, but I do agree with you that the dodge roll thing is not appealing. It gives an excuse to make, as you said, instant death mechanics that people have to avoid. I personally enjoy a full-on tank that can walk up to anything and out-endure it. So a dodge mechanic kind of goes against that idea... Hmm...

[Xrystus]

Originally posted by (void*)0:

Originally posted by Xrystus:

I was looking to buy the game, love the playstyle. Suddenly I see the recent reviews are mostly negative! So... what happened? No, seriously, I'm really confused as to what could have been so disastrous to warrant such a nasty response.

Ever thought about reading them?

Well, with a lot of them just saying "it sucks", "it's like <bad game> now", "uninstall", etc. I had the choice of either spending hours reading through 17,000+ reviews in hopes for a gem or I could just post my question here and someone with immediate knowledge of the situation would enlighten me and I could give them an internet cookie :3.

[dynatierchen]

another sad d2 copy. no big suprise. nothing happened, bcus it wasnt different to begin with

people just realized how bad the game is

[Pönnukaka]

Originally posted by Xrystus:

I was looking to buy the game, love the playstyle. Suddenly I see the recent reviews are mostly negative! So... what happened? No, seriously, I'm really confused as to what could have been so disastrous to warrant such a nasty response.

I think between all the issues (server issues, DC will make you loose all loot[really fun when you invested a lot in a map], multiple instances where if you die at the map, even while having portals, you will lose all content, including at corrupt nexus, where you just failed it and have to find another, if you died during boss fight, the loot being very poor until the latest patch, GGG putting their sweet time to push out MTX and ignore RMT being literally spammed on all possible levels to all possible people and streamers) and poor communication - you get mass negative reviews. Welcome to the reality. In all of this, I actually think it's great, because you can clearly see the shills just inhaling their copium like there is no tommorow. Especially on YouTube, the 'leave poor Tencent run GGG company alone' guys are so lame..

[lstone]

I think it has something to do with the last few patches. They messed up then fixed a little of there mess up then they messed up massively that they had to roll back and now we are at where we are at. Its not some people crying or anything like that its just that people are frustrated with the aimless direction with POE 2 atm. The way its going they will have no option but to turn it into POE 1 and that was not what it was suppose to be. GGG is a bit lost at the moment and people can see it. That is all that is going on.

[Firmament]

I’ve played both version 1.0 and 2.0 of the game. Personally, I found the loot drop rate in 1.0 acceptable. Even though the best gear was still expensive and out of my reach, I saw that as part of the challenge and had no complaints about it.

However… I really dislike RMT (Real Money Trading). I feel it heavily affects the trade economy in POE2, especially when it comes to rare unique items. RMT players often buy them up first, causing prices to skyrocket almost instantly. Because of this, I’m actually against GGG increasing the drop rates, as it might further fuel RMT-driven inflation.

Lastly, I’d like to share something I’ve been wondering about: Is GGG staying committed to their "vision"? Or are they selectively ignoring player feedback about the frustration caused by nerfs? Right now, class and skill balance feels extremely polarized. I personally believe there’s no shame in re-buffing skills and passives that were heavily nerfed. After all, giving players an enjoyable experience should always be a core goal for any game.

[Pastulio]

Originally posted by Lyote:

Originally posted by Xrystus:

I was looking to buy the game, love the playstyle. Suddenly I see the recent reviews are mostly negative! So... what happened? No, seriously, I'm really confused as to what could have been so disastrous to warrant such a nasty response.

Some builds got nerfed a bit.
Not every mob is a loot pinata.
A bug at the opening of the league got exploited heavily for trade.

That about sums up the outrage since the new league dropped.

Game is in Early Access, But people are treating it like a fully finished game that won't ever have balance adjustments, despite the devs warning us all at the launch of it that patches may cause early access characters to break.

Gameplay is fine.
Loot just got an adjustment upwards and the exploit got squished.

Just be aware if you do buy that Standard League characters are definitely going to break between patches as they work towards a finalized 1.0 version lol

I'm just streamlining Meta builds because of that; as I know they are ALL going to be altered at some point -- but at least I'll have the levels to be able to re-spec!

[Underprivileged White Male]

Originally posted by Actionhanz:

honest answer: crying minority of vocal internet people that follow content creators and are at home on reddit. They simply cannot accept that the game is in an early access stage of development and therefore:

- balance changes will happen quite often, they nerfed a lot of the completly overpowered and broken builds and items, ofc the average low IQ sheep doesnt like that

- a lot of systems after your normal Act 1 - 3, means cruel and the entire endgame right now are just placeholders to provide a playable gameplay experience

- build diversity etc is not and will not to be fleshed out cause there are at least 5 entire weapon basetypes missing and the ascendancy classes on top, so there is no logic reason to perfectly design a tree or a skillsystem around a current-temporary state of the game that is going to completly change AGAIN after the next new additon of weapon or class drops, they dont get it

-poe1 content creator are crying cause its not poe1 but infact poe2 and even tho they had a great launch on december and they could scam and hype and make money of that situation, right now they fear they have to actually work for their money, cause there is no poe1 league-cycle, there is not enough content in poe2 for a while to do stuff, so yeah, they are fearing for their money, therefore they trashtalk the game aswell, pathetic

- JOnathan rogers, one of the game directors, is constantly demonized as the root of all evil, they blame buzzwords like " THE VISION" as the reason why change is happening blablabla. It just shows how pathetic, low iq and small those people are

My experience with poe2 so far is great, because i know this is a temporary version that is meant to be played and tested and learned. There are tons of reason to always come back and if there is another game that catches my eyes for awhile, its not another ARPG, its usually something else. RIght now there is no reason to play another ARPG, they all suck compared to poe2's EARLY ACCESS TEST VERSION lmao.

Early access stopped being a "free pass" the moment every game started releasing in early access with a cash shop.

The game has nothing unique about it, and little content.

You can't review a game on promises. As it stands, it's pretty mediocre.

[PmcD]

early access is just an excuse these days. the game is following the same cadence as the poe1 full release. it even has only half the acts, leagues, tons of MTX and just mapping for endgame like poe 1 full release