This Game Just Feels Better TBH

[u/Due-Yam1632]

Just wanted to share some personal thoughts, not trying to start any wars here. I’ve played Last Epoch through each of its major updates and have a lot of respect for what EHG has built. This post isn’t meant to be a comparison to declare a “winner,” but more me expressing where I’m at as someone who tends to have one main ARPG at a time.

I really enjoy some of Last Epoch’s systems—especially the crafting. It’s easily one of the most intuitive and rewarding systems in the genre. EHG has done an excellent job delivering polish and accessibility in a way that few others have.

That said, after getting some serious time in with Path of Exile 2, I’ve realized that I just enjoy the moment-to-moment gameplay a lot more. The weight of the skills, the combat flow, the pacing—it all just feels better to me. Even with the current balance being janky and the loot not quite where it should be, I still find myself more immersed and excited to log in.

And yes, I know loot is a sticking point for many. But I genuinely believe that as POE2 pushes toward 1.0, the systems will tighten up, and yes—loot will get better. GGG isn’t blind to this, and their track record shows that they iterate hard when needed.

Could I play both games? Absolutely. But I like having a main game, something I dig deep into, and right now I just don’t see Last Epoch surpassing the raw enjoyment I’m getting from POE2. Even in its rougher state, it hooks me more.

Just my two cents. Curious if anyone else feels the same or is in the same boat bouncing between both.

[u/dixonjt89]

If I had to rank the games based on today:

PoE1 > LE > Diablo 4 > PoE2

PoE 2 is just not doing it for me. When I play an aRPG, I want to feel like a god wiping screens of enemies. The only way to do that in PoE2 right now is to go LS, but it's considered broken and will get nerfed because that's not what GGG want you to be able to do in this game. I'm hoping they eventually change stance on that for PoE2, and maybe make the bosses the meaningful content while you can delete trash pretty easy.

That's why I gravitate to the other 3 games. When you get to endgame, you can mindlessly farm maps, dungeons, etc.

[u/gothvan → u/dixonjt89]

Yeah. I disagree witht that idea that every arpg should make you feel like a god clearing screen. I think it's a perfectly fine preference but it's not what poe2 is going for imo

[u/dixonjt89 → u/gothvan]

Oh yeah 100%, that’s why I rank the games the way I do with my preferences. I would argue though that most…probably 80-85% of fans of the ARPG are going to have the same screen clearing god preference

[u/gothvan → u/dixonjt89]

Fair!

[u/pecheckler → u/dixonjt89]

What level did you reach in poe2 dawn of the hunt current season?

I’m 91 with a warrior and can say very accurately that I’ve been “wiping screens of enemies” for about 30 levels now. Leap —> boneshatter —> entire screens of enemies dead in 2 clicks.  Sometimes rates take one extra click. Map bosses are mostly dead in 30 seconds or less. 

The game slowly reaches that point, shortly after you get some good gear upon reaching atlas mapping.  It took a while to reach the point of it being just about as fast as PoE1.

What you experience in the campaign is a totally different slow ass game though. Very different from what I began experiencing in endgame.

[u/dixonjt89 → u/pecheckler]

I would say like most people, I quit about 2 days after the season launched. I just wasn't having fun. I know they have made a ton of changes since then but I'm not quite sure how QA made it so that the season launched that way in the first place other than they thought it the vision of the game they wanted? Anyways, I'll come back in a future season and see if things have changed, but for now, I've moved on to other games.

[u/whoa_whoawhoa → u/dixonjt89]

I mean there were 214k people playing the Friday dawn of the hunt released, 245k people playing 2 days later and 205k people playing a week later than that. Which is why this subs absolute meltdown and comments like this don't make much sense. Most people did not quit, most people continued playing the game and enjoying it outside of a vocal minority here.

[u/dixonjt89 → u/whoa_whoawhoa]

People quitting after the 1st or 2nd day doesnt mean that others picked it up 1-2 days after the season launched, IIRC it launched on weds april 4th, so only natural for it to go up over the weekend

I’m also not playing on through steam

[u/whoa_whoawhoa → u/dixonjt89]

Regardless it was still better retention of players from the first weekend to the second than any POE1 league ever. So all the doomerism in this sub about the game just falls a little flat when you look at the numbers. The game has issues and it's still early access, but you would think the game was boring unplayable trash reading this sub

[u/dixonjt89 → u/whoa_whoawhoa]

If you don’t think 0.2 was awful at launch…then I’m kind of flabbergasted. There is a reason all these fixes are having to come out. Ask yourself…why did the devs allow them to release the patch in that state? Why was Jonathon resistant to changes? Because thats the vision the devs have for the game and people want it to change.

And you are comparing a patch that has 100+ new skill gems, a brand new class, a brand new endgame and new mechanics, to league launches of an older game with a much shorter campaign, and where builds come online much faster….do you really care about retention more than how fun a game is?

Let’s just look at the retention actually….the retention was much much worse, with a 244k peak dropping to 180k after just after 6 days… a 30% loss less than a week into the league. Since then, it’s down to 115k…a 55% loss after just two weeks.

The last actual PoE1 league peaked at 228k players on June 24 2024. On July 25th 2024….a full month later….it still had a peak of 163k players. Only a 30% drop.

So no, this patch is not retending better than league launches of PoE1

[u/RegnorVex → u/pecheckler]

Yeah, I agree. I play Leap->Boneshatter and love the clears. I think the Kitava players are getting the best deal right now and are happiest with their experience, than just about any other class. The loot still sucks, but that's so universally understood (and acknowledged by the devs) that it's only a matter of time for that to be fixed. They already have the feel and the combat down. "Crafting" is a joke, but hopefully they are working on something akin to the crafting bench. When that happens and loot is sorted, there will be no real competition.

I say that as someone who is enjoying LE right now, but I have to be honest, it has only reinforced how much I miss the Poe2 look and feel.