Path of Exile 2

[Iormlund]

It plays like a much better Ruthless. I love it.

Gone for Necro, and I'm level 12 or so. I think I'll try the new Mind over Matter & Eldritch Battery combo.
Will probably try Infernalist later on.

[FunkMonk]

Bro this game is hard. But it is so so satisfying once you "get" it. A boss was clowning me a few times so I stopped and did something else. Came back a little stronger and a little wiser about playing Warrior and demolished the guy, barely taking any damage.

Only level 10 now but I can see the vision. I do get a dark souls/elden ring vibe, but in a much more complex ARPG progression system.

[FunkMonk]

This download is    s  l  o  w 

Well look who decided to BUY a beta version of a free game 

 

But man is it with it.  I love that it is hard.  I have had more fun in the first zones of this game than any ARPG.

Really impressed.

I think I stayed in the first zone for like an hour because I was enjoying the combat so much 

This really does feel like the game a lot of people, including me, wish PoE 1 had become.

[crazy canuck]

This really does feel like the game a lot of people, including me, wish PoE 1 had become.

Yes, exactly!

[frunk]

So overall excellent.  Some things that niggle, I like the boss fight resets, it makes for a nice challenge.  I don't like the instance respawn of mobs on death and that the last respawn point discovered is where you respawn.  Respawn point should be the closest point rather than the most recent, and I don't like fighting through a bunch of mobs I already cleared again.

[Syt]

So overall excellent.  Some things that niggle, I like the boss fight resets, it makes for a nice challenge.  I don't like the instance respawn of mobs on death and that the last respawn point discovered is where you respawn.  Respawn point should be the closest point rather than the most recent, and I don't like fighting through a bunch of mobs I already cleared again.

Without context that sounds like describing Dark Souls (though it would be last rested at bonfire, not necessarily most recently discovered one, though it might be same in many cases).

[Iormlund]

Without context that sounds like describing Dark Souls (though it would be last rested at bonfire, not necessarily most recently discovered one, though it might be same in many cases).

It does borrow quite a bit from Dark Souls. It is the main complaint of those who enjoy the zoomie character of PoE 1.

[frunk]

So overall excellent.  Some things that niggle, I like the boss fight resets, it makes for a nice challenge.  I don't like the instance respawn of mobs on death and that the last respawn point discovered is where you respawn.  Respawn point should be the closest point rather than the most recent, and I don't like fighting through a bunch of mobs I already cleared again.

Without context that sounds like describing Dark Souls (though it would be last rested at bonfire, not necessarily most recently discovered one, though it might be same in many cases).

The big difference is that resetting a Souls game means all the monsters are the same.  In PoE you randomize the quantity, position and modifiers of all the monsters.  That means it's not so much a specific challenge to overcome as a series of random encounters.

Anyway, it looks like the bigger problem of respawn point might have been fixed as I haven't been teleported to a far away checkpoint again.

[frunk]

So it looks like they really don't want you to level up too much if you find some of the content too hard.  One is there's a really sharp drop off of EXP, much sharper than PoE.  Second, I think you no longer get flask charges from killing monsters (or the number you get are severely reduced) if you are too high level.  I decided to try leveling up some before trying to beat the Act 2 boss, and now I get zero or almost zero flask charges on the very long section to get to the boss.  I can probably get to the boss if I'm extremely careful, but it's such a long run I think it is now more difficult than when I first tried it a few levels back.

Definitely needs some tuning changes.

[Syt]

What controls are people using?

I first tried the "classic" click to move. It seemed fine, but you basically seem to lose out on the ability to move in one direction, but aim your skills in another.

In WASD, you can move in the 8 cardinal directions, but I noticed I got stuck on the environment a lot, and the keybinds need tweaking for me (e.g. putting skills on the thumb buttons on my mouse). It feels very clunky.

So controller should be ideal, and initially it felt so. However, there seems to be some weird auto-aiming going on. E.g. against the Devourer my melee bro keeps pointing out its tail to me, but no matter what, my attacks all attack the "head" of the Devourer, even when standing next to the tail and moving towards it. (Also, while gameplay is smoother with a controller, inventory management sucks with it )

I guess I will go with WASD for now?

[frunk]

I'm doing both WASD and Controller at the moment, as when I'm playing on my laptop it doesn't have a good keyboard/mouse setup. 

I think WASD is the way to go though.  Controller feels better in some situations, especially when playing a long time, but the lack of good hybrid support to handle menus/management makes it clunky.

One of my favorite elements of PoE 2 is how forgiving pausing/stopping/starting is.  I can stop on one computer, pick it up on another and most of the time start right where I left off.

[crazy canuck]

It depends on the skills.  For melee its definitely old school click to move as I bind the most use attack to that as well.  For range, except sorc and witch, its WASD so I can strafe.  For Sorc and witch its easier for me to use the click to move because the environment, and movement around it, becomes important for kitting.

I tried out all the classes over the weekend.  Witch was the easiest, my firewall summing raging spirits of fire upon case as the easiest.  I used the poison archer and the synergy with fire to explode the gas - great fun.  Second fav is sorcerer, again fire wall but this time combined with static and orb of storms to get the fire + electrical damage. The SRS is an added benefit to the build.

I found the archer and mercenary classes the most difficult - I am not sure how to survive most of the encounters with these classes.

Warrior was fun most of the time, and I enjoyed the shield block mechanic for most fights, but where there is damage that is not blockable, I struggled - a lot.

[Syt]

I was playing as warrior, and the active blocking does take some getting used to, esp. after years of POE1. I didn't quite like the "double roll" attack the game starts you with but Earthquake/Boneshatter combo isn't too bad.

It was a bit of a rough start. Handled the tutorial boss easy enough(ish) but struggled with the controls and learning what is/isn't safe. Lots of muscle memory unlearning (like that my mana flask is on 2, not 5 which was my default in POE1 ).

The snow witch was a bit harder, but still managed to take her down on first try. Only the Devourer caused me real issues and my first death, and as mentioned it felt more a struggle with the controls than with the boss, because I knew what to do, but the game kept me targeting the head instead of its tail and eventually I ran out of healing. I do see a lot of good in it so far, though, but I think I will wait a bit more before going back in, and hopefully some of the bumps will have been smoothed out by then.

[Iormlund]

I'm using WASD.

I'm in Act 3 and I've noticed I do a lot less damage on my Witch than my Merc friend. So I've decided to go full defense. I've invested heavily on minion life, revive timer and resists and let the skellies tank the encounters, making space for my buddy to go full DPS.

I've also started a Monk to play when I'm alone. It feels quite dynamic, weaving in and out of melee range. But I'm only level 10.

[crazy canuck]

Strange, my witch is the closest to a POE 1 fast clear type character. Raging spirits from fire wall, plus contagion, plus my revive minions, plus constant raising of zombies from corpses makes everything melt fast.

Once I unlock corpse explosion and work that into the mix this build will run even faster through the content.