Path of Exile 2 started out as an amazing experience for me, especially considering this was my first ARPG. I enjoyed 0.1 a lot and also had a great time in 0.3. Most of my playtime came from those two versions, and I liked the game enough to buy multiple supporter packs. Unfortunately, the newer patches have been much less enjoyable for me.
The biggest issue is how aggressively everything seems to get nerfed. The builds and playstyles I enjoyed the most became almost unusable by 0.5. In previous seasons I could happily grind until around level 97, while in 0.5 I was already losing motivation somewhere around level 85. I understand the idea behind creating "more immersive fights", but making the player weaker and slower doesn't automatically make combat more interesting. For me, it mostly made the game less fun.
Co-op is another missed opportunity. Playing together with friends should be one of the game's biggest strengths, especially with guilds and multiplayer being such prominent features, but from a loot-efficiency perspective you're often better off playing alone. I don't really understand that design. If group play is intentionally less rewarding because of concerns about powerleveling or abuse, then what is SSF for? There should be a meaningful reason to actually play together.
This is especially relevant for adults who might only have a couple of hours to play each day. People naturally want to use that limited time efficiently, and right now playing with friends can feel like deliberately choosing the less efficient option.
Gear progression has also bothered me since 0.1. It often feels almost impossible to find genuinely good gear simply by playing the game. Instead, you're pushed toward sitting in your hideout, trading and crafting if you want to progress efficiently. I'm completely fine with the absolute best items being crafted, but personally I find crafting extremely boring. I don't want crafting to feel mandatory just to make decent currency or continue progressing.
The constant balance changes are exhausting too. I don't enjoy having to read novel-length patch notes every season just to figure out whether the class or subclass I enjoyed last time is still viable. Sometimes I simply want to play the same character again because that's the playstyle I like. I don't necessarily want to be pushed into a completely different build every season.
I'm also still not fully sold on the seasonal structure itself. I know PoE1 works the same way, but repeatedly starting from nothing can make progression feel temporary and somewhat pointless. You spend months building a character knowing that most of that progress effectively becomes irrelevant when the next season starts.
Overall, I still think Path of Exile 2 has a huge amount of potential. 0.1 and 0.3 were some of the most fun I've had with a game in a long time, which is exactly why the newer direction disappoints me so much. By 0.5, buying those supporter packs almost started to feel like something I regretted.
There is still a great game here, and I genuinely want to enjoy it again. I just don't like the direction the balancing, progression and multiplayer incentives have taken. Instead of making me excited to grind another character, the newer patches have gradually made me want to stop much earlier.
