Notebookcheck Logo

CheckMag | I played Path of Exile 2 for 161 hours and now I regret every minute of it

Path of Exile 2 is now available in early access, but I wouldn't recommend playing it now (image source: Grinding Gear Games)
Path of Exile 2 is now available in early access, but I wouldn't recommend playing it now (image source: Grinding Gear Games)
Path of Exile 2 early access kicked off on December 6. In my experience, some classes, specifically the ranged ones, are objectively better than others. Even then, the game is in desperate need of some tuning, especially for late-game content.
Views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the text belong solely to the author.

To be honest, I wasn’t initially chuffed about Path of Exile 2. Sure, it was a highly anticipated sequel to one of the best ARPGs made this decade, but I, as a Diablo 4 enjoyer, never really got into the original Path of Exile because its passive skill tree made me nope out minutes after installing it. But then Diablo 4 Vessel of Hatred happened, and that left a Diablo-sized hole in my heart. I had given Last Epoch multiple tries, but it just wasn’t cutting it because of reasons I still can’t properly convey. Everspace 2, while fun, lacked the depth of a proper ARPG. But both games are still in their infancy and I have high hopes for them. People sang high praises about Grim Dawn, and I must admit I’ve yet to give it a proper chance, mainly because of how it looks. That void left by Diablo, combined with a Steam Sale, prompted me to try out Path of Exile 2. One thing led to another, and I now have 161 hours in the game. It is safe to say I’m pretty much done for a while.  Do note, there are campaign spoilers ahead, so tread with caution.

I'm not kidding (image source: Anil Ganti, Notebookcheck)
I'm not kidding (image source: Anil Ganti, Notebookcheck)

Act 1

Myself, along with thousands of others, eagerly waited for the Path of Exile 2 servers to go live. Unsurprisingly, it took Grinding Gear Games a few hours to get it up and running, but hey, if a company with Blizzard’s resources can give us Vessel of Waitred, GGG gets a pass. And then we got it. As a Sorceress main in Diablo 4, I wanted to switch things up and play melee in POE 2. Big mistake. Little did I know deviating from my usual starter class would result in so much pain and suffering. I fired up the game, hit character select, jumped right in and made my way to the game’s first ‘boss’. And here’s where Path of Exile 2’s true ‘difficulty’ started showing itself. More on that later. Then, when I entered town, I discovered, much to my horror, that the warrior gets all of one weapon: a club. 

That isn’t all bad because that’s kind of how I wanted to play. Get big stick. Bonk. Rinse. Repeat. And so, I did. The first two maps were alright. The devourer took a few tries, but nothing a few bonks can’t fix. Draven, Asinia and Lachlann also took a few attempts. But I was still new, and dying carried no penalty. No harm. No foul. So far. And then the real nightmare began upon entering the Hunting Grounds. Now, on top of a dozen-odd enemies swarming my ostensibly under-equipped warrior, I had to worry about an equal number of poisoned projectiles being hurled in my direction. This early on, mobility skills don’t really exist, so I had to spam dodge-roll like there’s no tomorrow. 

After dying more times than I’m willing to admit, I finally made my way to Freythorn. On paper, it is an optional area, but I wanted to get my money’s worth. Now, on top of the dozen-odd swarms and projectiles, there were goopy landmines to worry about. And then you’re to fight in a constrained area, with laughably bad mob clearing abilities. If that wasn’t enough, Path of Exile 2 throws its first curveball at you. The King in the Mist (area boss) decides to summon half a health bar out of thin air. And unlike Diablo 4, bosses don’t drop healing items, so flask charges are precious. And here started the long and arduous cycle of dealing with GGG’s frustratingly bad boss designs.

With the King done and dusted, the next stop was Ogham Village (and that map in between, but nothing of substance happened there). Here, we get to tango with another brilliantly designed boss: The Executioner. If the delayed swing animation won’t get you the first time, the guillotine drop definitely will. You think you dodge rolled out of that AOE one-shot wave? Nope. You could have sworn you pressed the button at the right time, but nah, hitboxes apparently don’t work the same way they do in other games. And it doesn’t help that you have to chunk down a boss and his minions while hitting like a wet noodle. Still, this is a difficult game, people said. “Skill issue”, says the random scrub on global chat.

And so, I persevered. One missed boss later (Candlemass), I found myself squaring off against discount King Leoric aka Count Ogham. All things considered; it was a decent fight. His moves were well telegraphed, there were audio cues before attacks, and the monologue in the fog sequence was enjoyable. Alas, it fell back to the same lazy “Oh, you got me down to half health? I’m coming back with a full health bar now. This time in a new form with new moves” gimmick. I’d still argue it was easier than some earlier battles, but your mileage may vary.

You'll be seeing this screen. A lot. (image source: Anil Ganti, Notebookcheck)
You'll be seeing this screen. A lot. (image source: Anil Ganti, Notebookcheck)

Act 2

Act 2 started off relatively timidly. Go find those annoying hyenas holding up the caravan. Seemed easy enough at first. Until I got to said hyenas. Here, we get introduced to what GGG thinks is a good gank fight. A constant flow of projectiles from off-screen enemies, never-ending waves of trash mobs, that, this early in the game, still hit hard, and an annoying boss who has AoE attacks. Surely, there must be some trick to it. There wasn’t. When I finally dispatched Rathbreaker (four levels higher), the off-screen mobs suddenly made a cameo and trampled my poor warrior to death. But hey, at least I fulfilled what I set out to do. I can go back and collect the loot. Right? Nope. It just isn't there anymore.

But it was just a few ‘blues’. I amassed quite a collection by now, so a few lost items wouldn’t ruin my day. And then, Path of Exile 2 truly opens up in Mawdun Quarry. And not in a good way. It just kept going on and on and on. And then some more. Do ARPGs really need to have maps this big? GGG thinks so. And I must git gud. So I trotted along the unnecessarily labyrinthine region, hoping to find treasures. But what I got instead was a chest with 20 Gold in it and a blue item. After what seemed like hours (probably was, too), I finally made it to Rudja, Dread Engineer, who shows off one of the game’s many one-shot gimmicks.

The Traitor’s Passage and Halani Gates may have annoying mobs, but you don’t have to walk a suburb’s length to get through them. It came as a welcome respite after Mawdun. The boss encounter at the end with Jamanra, the Abomination made me legitimately angry. Seriously GGG, three boss fights where the enemy regains their health halfway through the battle? Thankfully, that was not the case because Jamanra thought it would be better to skedaddle. I’m not complaining, though. One less pain point for me. But, little did I know, the pain was about to get a lot worse. And not in a ‘you will get better after you die a few times’ way, but more of in a ‘we hate fun and want our glorified beta testers to suffer’ way.

Then I found myself in what would be the most frustrating areas in my experience (so far): Mastodon Badlands, popularly known as The Bone Zone. Here, I discovered that elemental resistances were really important because a high health bar alone won’t save you from the near-instantaneous lightning projectiles that the trash mobs throw at you. And then Path of Exile 2 decided to show me the Wish version of Ornstein and Smough. Now, I had to dodge projectiles in a constrained area with shocked ground and an undead horse now prances around the arena. But I have a club and I must bonk. And git gud.

Then came Keth, where the snake lady was nice enough to give me two much-needed skill points. Azarian, the Forsaken Son was in the midst of airing out his mommy issues and did not take too kindly to being interrupted. Here, we get to see another gimmick repeat itself far too often in subsequent Path of Exile 2 boss fights. Area denial. That’s a decently large arena you have out there. It would be a shame if more than half of it would be untraversable without taking damage. Come on, you fought off the necromancer and bony horse under similar conditions. You can do it again. Just git gud.

Against my better judgement, I found myself in the Valley of the Titans next, where I met our friendly neighbourhood sand worms. Lisan Al Gaib. They’re particularly frustrating because they can phase in and out of the map. Killing stuff was hard enough due to the random tornados and spells flying around the map, but enemies who decided to nope out of existence bought out another level of gamer rage I never thought I had. True to its name, the map is gargantuan, and so is the Grotto underneath. At the centre, lies a titan with 11,424 HP. Because I didn't take Perfect Strike (yeah, yeah, skill issue and all that) I was supposed to kill it with 100-odd damage per swing. That's a lot of bonks. Zalmarath’s moves are easy enough to dodge, but having to click on a boss over 100 times is tedious.

I really should have given up here and started afresh with a ranged character, but no, the game will surely get better now. It took me to Deshar, where mobs have this annoying habit of leaving behind toxic poison pools when they die. Or shoot out spikes from their dead corpses. One Uber ride worth of walking later, I found myself up in the spires fighting zombies and pots for some reason. It didn’t seem all that bad. Until it did.

The enemies you encounter earlier at the Halani Gates were a preview of things to come. Now, you have swathes of lightning quick mobs that chunk your health down before you can say Unga Bunga. That, combined with tight corridors, and laughably bad mob clear as a Warrior, resulted in me spending more time there than I spent in all of Act 1. Did I mention the map was once, again, a maze-like mess with 50-gold chests waiting for you at dead ends? Well, that’s just about every Path of Exile 2 map from now on. Get used to it, or simply…git gud. A second Jamanra tease ensued, followed by a very forgettable tussle with Tor Gul, The Defiler. It even had the same high-quality hitboxes that I had come to know and love.  

And then came the Dreadnaught, Act 2’s penultimate area. Finally, a proper showdown with Jamanra. GGG, clearly inspired by FromSoftware, decided to take a page out of Demon’s Souls and decided to make the boss run back just as hard as the actual fight. Sort of. It’s more of the same: overpowered, fast mobs with instant gap close, tens of projectiles and narrow walkways. What’s that, you missed a flask input by a millisecond due to server lag? Say goodbye to fifteen minutes of progress. But surely this hassle would be worth the fight with Jamanra again, right? Right? Of course not. All I got is a boss with instant attacks, one-shot AOE sweeps, and get this, more area denial gimmicks.

Here’s where I finally decided to give up on the warrior and try another class. By this point, I should have realized Path of Exile 2 isn’t very melee-friendly, but I didn’t and went on to swap out my club for a quarterstaff.

Global chat spitting facts (image source: Anil Ganti, Notebookcheck)
Global chat spitting facts (image source: Anil Ganti, Notebookcheck)

Return to Monk(e)

To be frank, I had no idea what I was getting into with a Monk and it turned out to be a pleasant surprise. He had decent single-target damage, AOE clear and culling strike, which essentially lets me insta-delete enemies below certain health. Unlike my Warrior who had to leap around to actually hit something, the Monk could do it from range. And by this point, I had a little too much familiarity with all of Act 1 and 2, so getting through wasn’t as difficult. Until I got to Jamanra at the Dreadnaught. Now, this was still within the first week or so of launch, so build guides didn’t exist. And even if they did, I wasn’t too keen on using one because I’d actually like to role-play in the action role-playing game. But, I clearly hadn’t gotten gud enough to beat Jamanra so I left it at that and did what every player does. Bribe someone else. But, as fate would have it, I was playing my Warrior at this time, and in retrospect, I really shouldn’t have been. That monk takes up a precious character slot to date and will probably stay there as a reminder of my failures. In between, I did create a Sorceress and a Witch, but quickly abandoned both because I wasn't thrilled at the prospect of playing the campaign again. Looking at the absolute insane shenanigans people pulled off on Reddit/YouTube with these classes, I regret not sticking to my main character at launch even more. 

Act 3

With the power of one really over levelled Witch Hunter and one fewer Exalted Orb in my inventory, I found myself in Act 3, the final story arc of Path of Exile 2’s Early Access. Things will only get harder from here, I thought. And they did. Despite having no business being this far in the game, I slogged through the initial swamp area to get to the Ziggurat Encampment. By now, I swallowed my pride and added a shield to my repertoire. That, combined with some decent mob clear from Sunder, made the experience nearly not as cumbersome as earlier acts. You know what did? The maps. The absolutely god-awful city-sized jungle maps that don’t properly differentiate between traversable and off-limits terrain. A nice monkey (who killed me over a dozen times because of, you guessed it, wonky hitboxes) gave me two more skill points and the nice lady from the village even hooked me up with a much-needed belt upgrade.

And yes, like many others, I combed through the Chimeral Wetlands more than twice looking for Jiquani's Machinarium, only to learn that it was being guarded by an actual Chimera. I’m not going to into the intricacies of the actual fight, but I agree with the popular consensus is that it is one of the most poorly designed boss encounters in Path of Exile 2. And that’s saying something because the game has no shortage of such experiences. The insides of Jiquani's Machinarium were no better off. Instead of jungles with weird pathing, I now had to traverse an endless, dimly lit maze with an ‘optional’ boss fight (with more one-shot elements, of course) that gives you all of 10% fire resistance. Why does it matter? Because unlike Diablo, Path of Exile 2 takes 10% off your elemental resistances after every act and not a new game cycle. If not geared properly, you could end up with negative resists. And I wasn't. At least not initially.

Of all the maps in Path of Exile 2, The Matlan Waterways seemed like the least cumbersome. Yes, it is as large as they come, but you’re guided to navigate through it organically, one lever at a time. And I don’t know if it is just me, but in my numerous playthroughs, I could never find a waypoint to get there directly. Did GGG forget to put it in, or is it an intentional design decision? I still don’t know. Just when I thought I was having some fun, I entered The Drowned City and that feeling went away pretty quick. Here, we get to encounter the River Hag, easily one of the most rage inducing enemies created in all of ARPG history. She has everything, awfully long-range homing projectiles that straight up delete you, an energy shield and half a screen worth of range. Those who have encountered her as a melee character will know what I’m talking about, and those who haven’t, you’re better off not experiencing it. The mobs kept getting faster and tankier, the maps kept getting even bigger. This was pre-patch, so jumping between checkpoints was not an option. I’m not exaggerating when I say it took me an hour to fully explore The Drowned City and subsequent areas. And if you die in between, which I did as a warrior, I got to experience peak map design. Again. And again.

The aptly named Apex of Filth does it again. Country-sized map. Check, Obnoxious mobs that can one-tap you at any point. Check. Improper checkpoint spacing. Check. Yep, it’s Path of Exile 2 time. So, what did I get for surviving the obviously overwhelming odds? Did it fill me with a “sense of pride and accomplishment” like EA said? Nope. A chest with trash drops and 150 gold was the best GGG can do. The only feeling I got through the Apex of Filth and The Drowned City was a sense of relief. Like a person who finished Demon’s Souls with a shield and spear. Earlier this year, I sat through half-a-dozen root canals and honestly, I’d relive those moments again instead of suffering POE 2 Act 3 as a melee character.

Then, I found yourself in one of the few small maps of Act 3: Temple of Kopec. Wait, a compact campaign map in Path of Exile 2? There has to be some catch. And there is. In the form of a literal sun that burned my character if I got too close. But as a Warrior, I had enough HP regeneration and fire resist not to worry about it. Thankfully, the next encounter with Ketzuli, High Priest of the Sun, was surprisingly manageable because it actually gave me space to move around. And then the game goes all Lost on you and sends you back in time for some reason— a plot point that may or may have not been borrowed from Last Epoch. There’s a lot of that going around these days, it seems. So, what did I get as a part of my blast to the past package? The same two maps I spent hours on collectively, but this time, with even harder enemies.

The Drowned City and Apex of Filth were infuriating the first time I passed through them, and now, I have to do it again. Yeah, there are no River Hags this time, but I’d argue their replacements are far worse. But hey, at least we get a sneak peek at some upcoming player abilities and an NPC companion that can take some heat off. And yet another boss encounter with the same gimmicks from earlier. It all culminated in The Black Chambers. It isn’t nearly as large as some other areas, but it is filled to the brim with robotic abominations that throw all kinds of projectiles. The visual clutter alone was enough to give me a headache, so I did what every self-respecting player would: dodge-roll everything and high tail it to Doryani, Royal Thaumaturge, the campaign’s final boss, at least in its current state. Now, I don’t know whether it was the hours of gitting gud or a better set of items/skills, but it took me only two attempts to get through it. And what did I get? A cutscene teasing things to come? An open-ended cliffhanger?

Nope. I got unceremoniously yeeted back to the beach where I started in Act 1. And here starts Act 1 Cruel. Now, I get to go through the same maps again, but this time with even harder mobs. Half a quest into Act 1 cruel and I hung up by boots and decided to create a ranged character. I probably wouldn’t have reached anywhere close to the 160-hour mark had I not, and it bothers me from time to time.

Your average Act 3 map (image source: Anil Ganti, Notebookcheck)
Your average Act 3 map (image source: Anil Ganti, Notebookcheck)

Ranged Path of Exile 2 just hits different

I decided to try out a Mercenary instead. Right off the bat, he reminded me of Slark from DOTA 2 because of his peculiar accent. He may sound like a Peaky Blinders extra, but there’s no denying he packs a punch. Suddenly, the mobs that bum rushed you can’t anymore. The annoying projectile throwers can be dispatched from a distance. Even the annoying Act 2 end mobs could be dealt with easily. Playing as a Mercenary gave me this foreign feeling I hadn’t experienced in a while. I was actually having fun playing Path of Exile 2. Jamanra, who made me quit my warrior, went down in one single attempt, as did most subsequent bosses. The best part is, I wasn’t playing a meta build and made mine up on the go.

To be fair, my Mercenary had an easier time starting out because of the gold/items accumulated by my Warrior and Monk. That made the early game much, much easier because I could freely swap the good gear between characters. My Mercenary carried me through the Cruel versions of Act 1 2 and 3 before eventually hitting a wall in the end game. By now, I swallowed my pride and switched to a popular grenade-based build that has been popular. But, I still have a long way to go in terms of gear and have the left the character at level 72. More on that later. With my pride digested, I switched up the build of my main Warrior (now a Titan) to something that popped up on Maxroll.gg and bulldozed through the campaign for a second time.

It turned out there is a wrong way to play Path of Exile 2. It just took me 30-odd hours to figure that out. And, there’s no easy way to correct your mistakes, either. At launch, switching points on your passive tree could set you back by hundreds of thousands of gold; millions at higher levels. Combine that with the pitiful amounts of gold dropped in the campaign, and one can get stuck with a perpetually broken character. The only reason I could afford a build switch on my Titan was because of the gold I squirrelled away on my Mercenary. 

The endgame ended my passion for Path of Exile 2

Now, I’m not too familiar with the original Path of Exile and how its endgame works. As a Diablo enjoyer, I have a vastly different idea about how that is done. So, it took me a while to fully understand Path of Exile 2’s map-based progression, if you can even call it that. I’m not going to give it much flak because the game is still in early access, but the overwhelming public sentiment around endgame content has been negative. If you die, not only do you lose access to the map and all of its bonuses, but also get a 10% EXP penalty. One could even call this Diabolical.

And this is where I checked out. If my level 76 Titan, with a 2.1K HP pool, nearly capped resistances and 11K armour gets one-tapped by mobs two levels lower than me, the game clearly has balance problems. Now, I could do what I did initially and just power through, but I don’t think I have another 160 hours’ worth of patience left in me. At least not in the current state. I can’t speak for what I haven’t experienced, but there have been numerous instances of players losing hours’ worth of progress because of one lag spike or a mistimed dodge-roll. This is a classic example of poorly implemented game difficulty.

Too many maps, too few waystones (image source: Anil Ganti, Notebookcheck)
Too many maps, too few waystones (image source: Anil Ganti, Notebookcheck)

Difficulty in video games is hard and Grinding Gear Games’ approach to it is wrong

Right after Path of Exile 2 dropped on December 6, it has been endlessly compared with Elden Ring to the point where Elon Musk called it a love child between the two. First off, just because a game has a dodge roll mechanic doesn’t mean it automatically becomes a Souls-like. Second, No Rest for The Wicked exists, and I’d argue that’s more of an isometric Souls-like than Path of Exile 2. Making games hard for the sake of being hard is easy. FPS developers have been doing it all the time by simply cranking up health and making ammo scarcer. RPG makers often employ similar tactics, but those mechanics simply do not work with ARPGs. Pre-Vessel of Hatred Diablo 4 was guilty of this in the pits, where it could easily take you ten minutes to kill a boss at higher levels.

FromSoftware, over the years, has honed the art of difficulty to near perfection. In Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree, getting to Enir-Ilim is nothing short of a nightmare because of the trigger-happy magi that guard it.  But if you do, and decide to go against your instincts and backtrack, parkour and explore your way through an area that killed you a dozen-odd times, you’re rewarded with Euphoria, one of the most powerful weapons in the DLC. Path of Exile 2 offers no such rewards. All you get for effort is an insignificant amount of gold and, if you’re lucky, an item, that, more often than not, isn’t even good for your class.

The git gud philosophy doesn’t apply to POE 2 for one simple reason. The only way to make any real progress in Path of Exile 2 is via gear. While the passive tree is undoubtedly necessary, even 200 extra skill points won’t matter if your gear doesn’t have the right stats. And all gear is based on RNG. So, what is exactly is one supposed to git gud at? Praying that a random number generator tilts in your favour?

In Elden Ring, you get better by learning your opponent’s attack patterns and waiting for an opening. Exploring gives you build-changing weapons that radically switch up how you approach enemy encounters. Every successful boss fight gives you deeper insight into what makes Elden Ring tick. And most importantly. It gives you gear. The good stuff.

Yeah, I know, Path of Exile 2 is still in early access. Full credit to GGG for listening to the community’s concerns and applying often-asked-for quality-of-life fixes, like removing the unnecessary resistance penalty in maps, making respecs cheaper and letting you fast-travel between checkpoints. I’m sure more will come leading up to launch, and I’d recommend you wait until the game is in a more balanced state before buying it.

Conclusion

As mentioned earlier, I had very little idea about what I was getting to with Path of Exile 2. Yeah, some YouTubers said it was ‘difficult’ that its maps were big. None of these are deal breakers because I enjoy a well-designed map and a good challenge as much as any ARPG fan. But, this was clearly not the experience I was hoping for, and against my better judgement, I powered through only to find more disappointment at the end.

I don’t know if I’m the target audience for Path of Exile 2. Yeah, the game is right up my alley, being an ARPG and all, but if this is the first impression GGG wants to portray, I'm not too excited about the final release. Yeah, the POE veteran with 5K hours mentioned above might like it, but is that the only kind of people GGG would like to attract? They’re already in your ecosystem and will play POE 2 regardless.

The whole ordeal reminds me of the classic Jurassic Park quote: Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should. Yeah, a city-sized map looks good on paper, but it doesn’t add much in the way of immersion. If anything, it makes me want to play your game less. I have no qualms dying dozens of times to the same boss, either. But I’m okay with that as long as I get to learn from my mistakes and, y’know, actually git gud without praying for a +92% physical damage modifier on my next weapon. 

For the Diablo-weary ARPG fans out there, I’d highly recommend giving Last Epoch a try. It, too, is in early access and a little rough at the edges, but it will only get better with time. It might not have stuck with initially, but after this harrowing Path of Exile 2 experience, I’m sure I’ll see things differently. And the best part is, you can have as many stash tabs as you want. Without paying real money.  

Source(s)

Own

Read all 28 comments / answer
static version load dynamic
Loading Comments
Comment on this article
Please share our article, every link counts!
Mail Logo
> Expert Reviews and News on Laptops, Smartphones and Tech Innovations > News > News Archive > Newsarchive 2024 12 > I played Path of Exile 2 for 161 hours and now I regret every minute of it
Anil Ganti, 2024-12-23 (Update: 2024-12-24)