Thoughts On 150 Hours Of ‘Path Of Exile 2’ From A ‘Diablo’ Player

I did not imagine I would get this deep into Path of Exile 2 ahead of its Early Access release, but I have already tripled my total amount of playtime in Path of Exile 1 over the last decade in just a few weeks here with the unfinished sequel.

I thought I’d talk generally about my experience with PoE2, coming from a mainly Diablo background, with several thousand hours between Diablos 2, 3 and 4. The past two games have been viewed as more “casual, mainstream” versions of the harder core D2, and the idea of Path of Exile has always been to channel D2 rather than evolving for a wider audience. Though even in early access, this has…attracted a wide audience, putting up 350,000-500,000 concurrent players since launch a few weeks ago.

• It is really, really stunning just how much Path of Exile 2 emulates Diablo 2, even in the year of our lord 2024 here. The original game came out in 2013, 13 years after the launch of Diablo 2. Now we are a full 24 years later, and it…very much feels like Diablo 2, though with obvious upgrades and changes. Though the core is the same. I would view this as overwhelmingly a good thing, albeit I think some things have made the trip forward for no real reason other than the way it’s how things used to be (the ability to hold only 5-6 pieces of gear in your inventory at a time, for instance). But the look, the feel, even the UI, it’s nostalgia in all the right ways.

• I really enjoyed the campaign, even though it was just half of the Acts that will be released when all is said and done. For the most part, I thought it was the right level of challenge with really engaging bosses that yes, could be frustrating at times, but through trial and error and learning and failing, none felt like a full-on wall for me. The story is…as good as any ARPG story, I suppose, so I’m sort of throwing that out the window, but these locations, these enemies and how it felt to play through this was excellent.
• Cruel difficulty needs more work, and at this point, I don’t think it even needs to exist. You mandatorily play through it in order to hit the endgame on a character, going through the whole campaign twice, but it’s a strange experience because both times I did this, Cruel was way easier than normal. Because at that point, you have enough gear and enough gems and enough skill points to get a true build up and running, and difficulty is tuned where you can pretty much blow through Cruel to the point where it feels like a waste of time. Not that making it a slog would be fun on your way to the endgame, but it’s in an odd spot right now. (Update: I’ve now been informed Cruel only exists right now because the other three Acts are missing, so that solves this problem, it would seem)
• I know that the infamous skill tree of PoE 2 (and 1, for that matter) looks insane and intimidating. I was there too. But I love it (and it’s not actually as crazy as it looks). The way you snake through the nodes and try to pick an optimal path balancing damage, survivability and amplifying your specific build is a much more interesting system than what Diablo has become or yes, even Diablo 2, back in the day. The main issue right now is that “creativity” isn’t exactly a thing with so many very similar powerful builds, but that’s an Early Access thing (a bunch of skills and weapons aren’t even in the game yet, for one, and it’s barely had any balance patches).

• I enjoy the setup of the endgame of Path of Exile 2, the sprawling map filled with nodes you can upgrade with modifiers and bonus rewards through towers or waystones. It’s a very creative idea that I think is more compelling that just stacking higher and higher rift levels in Diablo (though it has evolved from there recently). I like “exploring” that map, and winding my way through points all over the place attempting to hunt down infamous “citadels” with pinnacle bosses (that I wish weren’t campaign bosses).
• The problem with the endgame is that it is way too punishing. Not way too hard, way too punishing, there’s a difference. A single death on any map 1) wipes progress and kicks you out, 2) eats your Waystone entirely, 3) erases modifiers from nearby towers, 4) erases special nodes like Delirium or Bosses, 5) makes you actually lose XP. So, it bricks the map entirely, plus eats both items and your actual XP. On one death. And those deaths can often come in “cheap” ways like one instance of getting stuck on the environment or one flying chaos orb that blows you up when hidden behind a tree. Punishment for dying is one thing, but the current endgame takes things too far.

I really like Path of Exile 2, even unfinished and unbalanced. I would not have put in 40 hours a week here if I did not like it. I may be coming to the end of “testing” mode, though every time I say that, they do some new patch that makes me go back and play more. So see you in the new year, most likely.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.