Feedback on the most crucial aspect of the game.

This game feels aimless right now. It lacks a real sense of accomplishment, and the overall design doesn’t seem to have a clear direction. The closest thing to a “vision” seems to be a return to PoE 1’s style — but even that feels inconsistent.

There are so many problems that breaking them all down would take forever, but I’ll focus on what I see as the biggest issues: class balance, lack of meaningful challenges, and a progression system that quickly turns from fun into a mindless grind.

1. The Problem with Headhunter

This item simply should not exist in its current form. Once you acquire it, you can obliterate any map, at any difficulty, bosses included. It trivializes everything. Worse, it’s not even that hard to obtain compared to its game-breaking power. What’s the point of designing encounters, bosses, or systems if one item can instantly bypass them all?

2. Currency, Drop Rates, and the Lack of Accomplishment

This is where the game fails the most. Right now, it feels less like an ARPG and more like a currency simulator. Nearly everything can be bought, so the only time you feel even a glimpse of excitement is when a Divine, Mirror, or Hinekora drops on the floor.

But is that really the peak of fun? That’s it?

To give you an example:

I ran 20 Arbiters, 41 Ritual bosses, 25 Breach bosses, and 12 Expedition bosses — and got essentially nothing worthwhile.

Meanwhile, a random Hinekora drop sold for 300 divs, which let me buy all my gear, grab a Headhunter, and… instantly get bored because I could delete everything in the game.

This design makes no sense.

Hard content should be rewarding. Why not guarantee at least an 80–100% chance of something meaningful dropping after these difficult encounters? At the moment, killing an Arbiter feels the same as killing a random mob in a normal map. 90% of items that drop are completely useless.

The whole risk/reward system needs a serious overhaul. Players shouldn’t be punished for engaging with the hardest content in the game. It’s demoralizing to spend hours fighting tough encounters only to get nothing, and then get a jackpot from a random strongbox. That’s not rewarding — it’s frustrating.

3. Endgame and Replayability

The current “endgame” is practically nonexistent. All you do is repeat the same content endlessly, hoping for another currency drop to trade for… more currency. It’s shallow and unsatisfying.

On top of that, there’s no reason to farm bosses. Why grind when you can just buy the fragments? You’ve given players shortcuts that effectively shorten the lifespan of fun instead of extending it.

Honestly, the most fun I had was the first week of PoE 2’s release, when people were actually struggling against the Manor boss. It was fun, challenging, and different. Now, it’s just speed-clearing screens for loot and currency farming all over again — basically PoE 1 with prettier graphics.

Final Thoughts

At this point, I can’t see much difference between PoE 1 and PoE 2 beyond visuals. If that’s the vision — fine, good job on graphics. But if the goal was to create a deeper, more rewarding experience, the game needs a serious rethink.

Class balance is wildly uneven.

Bosses and challenges feel pointless.

Risk vs. reward is completely broken.

Fun has been replaced by a shallow currency grind.

I really hope you revisit your design vision, because as it stands, the game doesn’t respect players’ time or effort, and it shows.

Peace.

Truth brother, it quickly turned from beautiful idea into mindless hyper speed casino.

That’s what happens when you only play meta builds.
Try playing Hardcore SSF, and you’ll realize you’re not even playing the same game anymore

Just made another post with similar content. OP you nailed it

I feel the vision was there, but now they are backtracking on everything

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Deugs#6297 a écrit :

That’s what happens when you only play meta builds.
Try playing Hardcore SSF, and you’ll realize you’re not even playing the same game anymore

The point is it should not be required to play hardcore SSF to be able to experience meaningful combat and progression, you would eventually trivialize hc ssf aswell.

It's very natural that you keep improving your character and build, it should not be needed to hinder yourself to experience I suppose intended gameplay. The new 65 MS boots and 64 IAS gloves should never be added to the game, instead interesting unique build-enabling items could be presented. Scaling only damage and speed is fun, but there should be limit to this. The game direction is indeed worrying.

Have similar thoughts. Even tho i like the faster endgame than tutorial acts speed. Still you reach the part where ypur progress halts. Im at maybe 300 div gear and whats left - push to mirror gear but thats such unworty investment of time.

Also it doesnt feel like more challange - more reward for some reasons. It feels its just not worth to risk more. Pinacle doesnt drop anything worth to farm except simu jewel which is also very rng. Season 1 i got astramentis from map merchant and built stormweaver, it was fresh and new and doing pinacle content was rewarding, also decided to help some friends with builds so the game had the purpose even after hitting same progress wall but this season it just doesnt work that way.

Well said OP. It feels like there are 2 forces both simultaneously push-pulling on the game and its this constant back and forth with balance. "Inconsistent" is the first word that comes to mind. Times it feels super fun like 9/10, other times a 2/10.

Lvl 97 LA deadeye, and Lvl 96 shield wall titan