Path of Exile 2 Daybreak of the Hunt — its first main replace because it launched in early entry final yr — has been a catastrophe. When gamers logged in final Friday to strive it out, they instantly realized the sport had develop into nearly comically troublesome. Killing weak monsters within the opening hours of the marketing campaign took ages, and the brand new Huntress class felt limp. Reddit exploded with posts titled issues like “This recreation appears like a large waste of time” and “Sport feels depressing”. Common streamers rage-quit the sport.
In response, developer Grinding Gear Video games issued a number of small patches to offer gamers a preventing probability. Monsters misplaced a few of their life, and a few underperforming abilities, like skeletal minions, have been beefed up. However many gamers nonetheless don’t assume it’s sufficient to repair the sensation that the sport is unrewarding.
Grinding Gear Video games put up a submit addressing the broader issues with patch and what it plans on altering within the coming weeks, most notably the sluggish pacing of its marketing campaign, which you’re required to replay each time a brand new season drops. Whereas a number of the adjustments have already gone by means of, gamers are nonetheless struggling to search out the endurance to play the sport lengthy sufficient to achieve its endgame dungeons.
“I can completely inform you that our objective right here was to nerf the issues that have been trivializing the endgame earlier than you’ve even managed to get your objects and stuff like that,” recreation director Jonathan Rogers stated in an interview with streamer Zizaran on Tuesday.
“There have been some blatant fuck-ups, talking bluntly,” recreation director Mark Roberts added, particularly calling out the underpowered abilities that have been rapidly hotfixed. “We’re firing from the hip quite a bit right here and stuff like that we’re like, ‘Let’s simply get it in there, let’s strive it out, and see how individuals assume and if it’s unhealthy we’ll simply undo it.‘”
“I feel a operating theme with PoE 2 typically is that the goal to hit is smaller [compared to PoE 1] as a result of if we wish the fight to be extra partaking then meaning there’s a smaller goal; it places extra strain on the steadiness to be proper,” Rogers stated.
Rogers defined how he feels PoE 1 rewards gamers who’ve spent 1000’s of hours mastering its techniques and that PoE 2 was designed to keep away from that drawback — it’s simply actually onerous to get proper. On the identical time, the sport is supposed to have the sort of deliberate, dodge-roll-heavy fight you’d count on from a Soulslike. It’s imagined to be onerous.
Each builders say the group is wanting into a variety of issues to alleviate, however they need to watch out about pushing it too far into the opposite path the place gamers begin flying by means of dungeons in only a few hours.
“If we get to the purpose the place participant by no means has to face a single problem ever then I don’t assume that’s going to be a recreation that shall be finally enjoyable in the long run,” he stated.