Path of Exile 2

[jmotivator]

Starting this thread in advance of the release of POE2.

This is shaping up to be the biggest ARPG release is a long time in that it seems to have spent the last 11 years looking at why other ARPGs fail and making an honest attempt at being different.

My only worry so far is that the fixed and elevated difficulty walks a tightrope. It runs the risk of turning all boss battles into un-fun D4 Lilith clones where player power is irrelevant and only quick reactions matter.

That's my way of saying I'm old and slow.

Anyway, looking forward to this game, and I've purchased my early release copy. *fingers crossed*

 

[jmotivator]

Haha. Apparently the rush to play POE2 is so huge that it took the Path of Exile website down.

 

[Redress]

Haha. Apparently the rush to play POE2 is so huge that it took the Path of Exile website down.

Somehow that does not surprise me. I am really busy today/tomorrow, so I will see about getting it Sunday.

 

[jmotivator]

Somehow that does not surprise me. I am really busy today/tomorrow, so I will see about getting it Sunday.

There are 400,000+ people trying to log in from Steam alone.

 

[Redress]

There are 400,000+ people trying to log in from Steam alone.

Maybe after the holidays then. I do not do online queues well.

 

[jmotivator]

Maybe after the holidays then. I do not do online queues well.

They resolved the issue and everyone is in the game who wants to be now.

My first impressions is that the Mercenary needs some work, he is way to slow and clunky. But you can still get by with him in, it's just painful.

Luckily, the first real boss I defeated dropped a unique Mage staff that is insane:



I dropped the Mercenary and started playing sorceress immediately. Much faster game when you are overpowered. Haha.

 

[jmotivator]

I played about 10 hours of the game over the evening, into the morning. My initial impressions:

I'll start with some minor disappointments (very minor):

- The open ended spell and class design is not quite as open ended as I had hoped. The spells are gated through weapon types and while you can auto switch between weapons persistent skills that are weapon based only persist when you are holding that weapon.
You can still have skeleton minions as a mage, but you have to to a lot more work than equipping a weapon with raise skeletons. (Inconvenience: Minor)

- The game really is build for WASD movement or a Gamepad. Playing with traditional ARPG mouse controls makes the game harder. Aiming with the traditional system is based on your facing, while with WASD you are always aiming at your mouse cursor. I'm going to have to learn WASD I think to progress in the game much further since everything is faster and hits harder so putting all spells on target is essential but not always doable when you are constantly moving to avoid the onslaught. (inconvenience: Moderate)

Now the good stuff:

- For all of my worry, so far I haven't encountered a boss that I can't defeat through repetition, or over leveling. There are no Lilith-style bosses where no matter how much damage you do you still have to navigate phases. Still early though. Basically most bosses can be made very doable just by moving constantly (not sure is that is entirely a good thing?)

- Spell synergies are pretty cool. My sorceress makes good use of the firewall/lightning synergies.

- I love that item drops in this game are for any and all player archetypes, so I can gather gear for other characters.

- Being able to respec for gold rather than rare currency makes me happy. You no longer have to worry about building a crap spec and not being able to fix it.

- No more town portal scrolls! You can go back to base whenever you want.

- (Spoilery) Midway through Act 1 you free an NPC who offers you free item identification, making identify scrolls not REALLY necessary unless you want to ID and equip gear without going back to base.

- Spell effects are rather nice and the whole art style is very nice.

All in all I rather liked my time with the game, even though I have died a million times.

 

[PoS]

Is it free to play like PoE1? I played the first one in beta stage, but I got too over it by the time it reached 1.0 release.

 

[Redress]

Is it free to play like PoE1? I played the first one in beta stage, but I got too over it by the time it reached 1.0 release.

Steam tells me 29.99$

 

[jmotivator]

Is it free to play like PoE1? I played the first one in beta stage, but I got too over it by the time it reached 1.0 release.

The early release is $30 and it grants you $30 in cosmetics tokens... so "free".

 

[The Mark]

They resolved the issue and everyone is in the game who wants to be now.

My first impressions is that the Mercenary needs some work, he is way to slow and clunky. But you can still get by with him in, it's just painful.

Luckily, the first real boss I defeated dropped a unique Mage staff that is insane:

View attachment 67546120

I dropped the Mercenary and started playing sorceress immediately. Much faster game when you are overpowered. Haha.

I was overpowered for a bit with a level 3 freezing shards rare staff with decent spell power boost, but I haven't found a good replacement, and currency drops that can craft rares are...well rare.

Took me about 5-8 deaths to kill act 1 boss.

 

[jmotivator]

Been playing some more this afternoon, and they have been steadily adding in mechanics through out the first act.

I've now been introduced to a system that fixes a complaint I had above.

They have introduced a system called "Spirit" which is essentially mana that is used to activate auras and minion spells. It's kind of like the old POE mana reserve function, but it doesn't use mana.

Through quest rewards and gear you can increase your Spirit, and then spend that spirit to activate a minion, or aura. So for instance, a Skeletal warrior costs 27 spirit, and a quest granted me innate 30 spirit, which would allow me to unlock 1 skeletal warrior.

There are Spirit Gems in the game that give you access to the auras and minion skills in the game and you can mix and match different spirit skills by adjusting how much Spirit to assign to each.

It's a pretty cool system.

 

[jmotivator]

I was overpowered for a bit with a level 3 freezing shards rare staff with decent spell power boost, but I haven't found a good replacement, and currency drops that can craft rares are...well rare.

Took me about 5-8 deaths to kill act 1 boss.

I generally give myself 4 deaths on a boss before I backtrack to farm a level of two and better gear.

The magic classes are pretty interesting since there weapons have no damage stat. I think I like that system since it turns the weapon almost entirely into a bonus provider. In theory you can use a staff with good damane modifiers forever so long as you are relly on gem based skills.

Like my staff above is great if I am casting electricity skills, since the only skill that is locked at Level 2 is lightning bolt.

 

[The Mark]

I generally give myself 4 deaths on a boss before I backtrack to farm a level of two and better gear.

The magic classes are pretty interesting since there weapons have no damage stat. I think I like that system since it turns the weapon almost entirely into a bonus provider. In theory you can use a staff with good damane modifiers forever so long as you are relly on gem based skills.

Like my staff above is great if I am casting electricity skills, since the only skill that is locked at Level 2 is lightning bolt.

My current highest burst damage is if I manage to freeze a target, at which point I cast cold snap on it, if it's off cooldown.

It's a bit clumsy on bosses with higher resists though, as kiting around them and dodging their attacks can sometimes prevent applying freeze.

Might be a skill issue.

 

[PoS]

Steam tells me 29.99$

Boo!

The early release is $30 and it grants you $30 in cosmetics tokens... so "free".

Bah! Forget it then. Not gonna pay money to be a beta tester.

 

[jmotivator]

So I decided to start a third character to see how a minion build works in this game.

After a rather slow start, the Witch class ramps pretty fast after midway through Act 1. Since Minion builds function mostly on the new Spirit mechanic, you get more powerful by increasing spirit. More Spirit = More minions.

Since the witch's spot in the massive passives tree starts with quick access to Minion bonuses, it's certainly easier to ramp up minion power, but since Many minion nodes also have generic spell damage, you can also make the Witch a passable Elemental mage as well.

My main two spells right now also generate large numbers of temporary minions as well, so every fight ends up being a swarm of minions.

Boss fights are now fairly easy since my main job is to keep pumping out temporary minions and running away when my tanky aggro minions die.

Most bosses now die off screen.

This character was finally able to get me through the final boss in Act 1... it's like easy mode for old guys.

 

[Redress]

Very early impressions: it took awhile to get used to it, but the point and click interface, and ease of moving while casting works well for me. I suck at dodging(really badly) so the ability to keep moving, albeit slowly, is a godsend to me. Tried the witch a bit, did not enjoy. Warrior likewise did not enjoy. Sorceress seems to be working well for me and kinda fun.

Note: still only level 5 so those are VERY early impressions. But the game runs smooth, looks good, skill system seems to be a winner, so generally positive impression so far, except that I suck at it since seemingly every boss fight requires alot of dodging.

 

[PeteEU]

Steam tells me 29.99$

That's for early access.. aka you are paying to beta test the game.

 

[PeteEU]

Boo!


Bah! Forget it then. Not gonna pay money to be a beta tester.

Not to mention there are some serious crashing issues at the moment.. hopefully fixed soon.

 

[Redress]

That's for early access.. aka you are paying to beta test the game.

And yet it is already better than Diablo 4, which I paid a lot more for.

 

[Redress]

I seem to be getting the hang of the game. My witch is now doing really well, though I had to almost completely rebuild her and change how I played her, but all of a sudden bosses are not as scary and clearing zones is pretty quick. Me being me, now I have to do the same with some of the other classes.

 

[jmotivator]

I am stuck on the final battle of Act 2. I really hate the setting for the last battle. It's designed to be a pain in the ass based on the choke points and leaping enemies. There is no way not to get surrounded.

I'm also remembering why I never specced full Energy Shield in POE. It is easily the weakest defensive skill. At full Energy Shield (no armor, no evasion) you get know physical damage mitigation, so most enemies blitz through your shield pretty easily, and even if they are just plinking at you every few seconds they keep your shield from regenerating.

I think I'll have to spend my next gaming session reworking my defenses. Swap out some Energy Shield gear for armor, or evasion gear. It's crazy that I have 500+ energy shield and I might as well have none.

I have max defense against his elemental attack, but when he attacks with physical he ruins me, and he has a phase that is all physical and if I'm caught out of place the fight is over. So I will have to back track to earlier maps and farm some gear... not sure if I have the gold to respec the passive tree.

Pretty frustrating, really. How very Souls-Like!

 

[Redress]

I am stuck on the final battle of Act 2. I really hate the setting for the last battle. It's designed to be a pain in the ass based on the choke points and leaping enemies. There is no way not to get surrounded.

I'm also remembering why I never specced full Energy Shield in POE. It is easily the weakest defensive skill. At full Energy Shield (no armor, no evasion) you get know physical damage mitigation, so most enemies blitz through your shield pretty easily, and even if they are just plinking at you every few seconds they keep your shield from regenerating.

I think I'll have to spend my next gaming session reworking my defenses. Swap out some Energy Shield gear for armor, or evasion gear. It's crazy that I have 500+ energy shield and I might as well have none.

I have max defense against his elemental attack, but when he attacks with physical he ruins me, and he has a phase that is all physical and if I'm caught out of place the fight is over. So I will have to back track to earlier maps and farm some gear... not sure if I have the gold to respec the passive tree.

Pretty frustrating, really. How very Souls-Like!

Do you have Ice Nova? It knocks everyone around you back and can be an awesome save spell. Pretty useless other times, but when you get pinned, it is so nice to have.

 

[jmotivator]

Do you have Ice Nova? It knocks everyone around you back and can be an awesome save spell. Pretty useless other times, but when you get pinned, it is so nice to have.

I do, though I'll probably need to farm up an updated gem for it.

the other problem I've run into is that the item for updating magic user weapons seems to be VERY rare. I can't even find wands and scepters with quality enhancements in order to salvage them. It's getting to be a real pain in the ass since it's the best way to get bonus spirit, which is pretty essential for a Minion build.

 

[Redress]

I do, though I'll probably need to farm up an updated gem for it.

the other problem I've run into is that the item for updating magic user weapons seems to be VERY rare. I can't even find wands and scepters with quality enhancements in order to salvage them. It's getting to be a real pain in the ass since it's the best way to get bonus spirit, which is pretty essential for a Minion build.

It took me an embarrassingly long time(I say about a game a week old) to figure out the connection between spirit and minions. Changed gear, going from one with spirit(which I did not think important) to one without and could not figure out why I had fewer minions...