Hardcore playability

hey guys, I wanted to get the players’ opinion on a topic I don’t see being discussed a lot: the hardcore playability of PoE 2, as it is today and as it will be in the future.

Some background context: I’ve been playing PoE 1 since the open beta days. 95% of my playtime (probably well beyond the 10k hours by now) has been in HC, then in HCSSF when SSF was introduced. I’ve played all PoE 2 patches on and off, for a total of 900+ hours. I’m not a pro gamer, I still regularly fail at some mechanics, most PoE leagues I don’t kill any ubers and Exarch is still a challenging moment, etc… but I have the hours and thus the knowledge to be considered an above-average player (I think).

Now here is where I’m questioning myself: 90% of the time, in a fresh PoE 1 patch, my first char reaches maps in 8–10 hours, then I’m farming there until either I die, or I decide that I’ve had enough of this char and I try another one. Overall, I’d say that 80%+ of my time during a PoE patch is spent in endgame.

Now with PoE 2, it’s a whole different story. I don’t think my first char has ever reached maps, and while each new char in a given league is a bit easier than the previous one due to the accumulated wealth in stash, it’s still very common for me to die in the campaign at some point. In 0.4, I wanted to play a Poison Pathfinder in endgame because it looked cool (yeah, cookie cutter, I know). I’ve built 12 different chars: the first 10 died at random points in the campaign (classic death spots are Viper, Azmadi, Rakkar, sprint stuns into insta one-shots, temples at level 40+ with T3 rooms, more rarely but sometimes bad combinations of rares, etc.). The 11th one made it to maps but died in a temple run in a Spymaster room (I think). The 12th one just died on Azmadi, literally two-shotted in ~150 ms despite 1.8k HP and 200 ES, which, in my opinion, is way above the expected stats level at this stage of the game.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I died because I failed to dodge a boss mechanic, there’s no question about that. But I would expect that the accumulated wealth and time of the 11 previous chars would give me some leeway and some room for error. It does, but not that much. Because the game contains a large number of very bursty mechanics, and the campaign being so long, the odds of making a fatal error along the way are pretty high.

I’m also seeing that most usual PoE 1 HC streamers are not playing PoE 2 HC. While that was understandable early on, we’re 1+ year into the game now. The knowledge should be there for PoE 1 HC veterans to play PoE 2 HC, and yet only a few are doing it.

I’m not complaining, just wondering if you guys see the same thing and imagine that this is going to evolve at some point. My problem is that I don’t have fun in softcore, and while I’m having fun building new chars in PoE 2, I don’t think I can play new patches forever if it means 10% of my time in endgame and 90% in the campaign. This is just too repetitive. Of course, doing that means I’m getting better at the campaign (and I am, for sure), but I feel that with the current state of the game, there are always going to be unexpected deaths because of very small moments of inattention.

Curious to read your thoughts!

I'm a very similar boat as you - well beyond the 10k, hc, then hcssf etc - and I think it's useful to remember back how poe1 was in the 2013-2015 era, which I consider the "poe1 early access", and depending on the build or skill choice you were using the game had a lot of similar roadblocks for many people which were (somewhat) smoothed out over the years.

Poe2 is having a lot of similar balance and progression and difficulty growing pains. It's a complex game and it's tough to make the difficulty and progression curves feel good across the vast combination of character build variances, not to mention that poe2 also has a much larger emphasis on mechanical skill - just another element to fit into things.

I think they're going for a that game feels challenging without being esoterically frustrating - and they do miss this in some aspects, and nail it in others.

I also think they want to do their best to eliminate the "now I can finally play the game" feeling where the campaign is just a "tutorial" or something that resembles poe1's completely forgettable campaign - which basically is an undesirable speedbump on the way to the loot casino.

They want to make that initial campaign playthrough feel like that hc character you just squeaked into maps with, as soon as you step into Clearfell.

Not sure how much of people's distaste is related to a latent "poe1 mentality" which people bring into poe2 that throws them off when the content doesn't fit their expectations or they suddenly realize they can't just stand in one spot and hold down one button in every encounter to access the endgame and it makes them feel bad.

However, once they're in the endgame, farming t5 maps for a whole day to get better boots or pray for a divine or to farm exalts feels fine, but doing it in a campaign zone feels bad to people who have this mentality that by doing something similar in the campaign (whether for gear or to become more powerful to progress) they are forced to farm unrewarding content in order to access the rewarding content.

I would wager that GGG will find ways to tweak the campaign once they flesh everything out with ways to make farming it feel more rewarding for those who wish to do so, or for those ssf players who need to, so that it doesn't need to feel like a sloggy pit-stop on the way to a "real" game, and the campaign and the endgame will kind of just start to blend together in a more seamless manner.

Personally I really enjoy the poe2 campaign and I like how they've made it challenging. I can see how it would frustrate people who are used to it being kind of a brain-off process to setup the foundation of an endgame build.

For a second or third+ campaign playthrough, you can trade for the twink gear, t5 support gems you'll have a stash full of exalts, gold, and jewelers - you can still blast the poe2 campaign nearly as fast as the poe1 campaign, but I can see how poe1 players would still hate having to "learn" a new campaign after being accustomed to being able to swerve any character straight into the poe1 endgame all the time right out of the gate.

They're trying to make you have the same feeling you get while playing your level 90 HC character in a juiced t15 map going to fight Zekoa with your level 70-82 gear that you get rolling up on Azmadi in the campaign with your level 45-57 gear, while also having that zero-to-hero power fantasy you normally get from an ARPG.

It's a fine line to walk, but I'm optimistic.