Path of Exile 2 Early Access caused a sensation when it was first released in December 2024. This game has become one of the most popular games among players because of its more complex mechanisms and more challenging bosses than Diablo 4.
On April 4, the first major update of Path of Exile 2, Dawn of the Hunt, which was delayed for 2 weeks, was finally launched. This patch adds a new class, Huntress, new POE2 currency, and more than 100 new skill gems and unique items to the game, while significantly weakening the powerful builds of the previous patch.
Such changes are intended to allow players to actively try to use new classes or new builds to explore the game, but unfortunately, after the 0.2.0 patch was officially announced, the game’s reviews quickly became mixed. Starting from April 4, the game received an astonishing number of negative reviews, and the new patch received only 18% positive reviews.
Reasons For Negative Reviews
Before this update, Path of Exile 2 was already very difficult, and there were also dissatisfactions such as low equipment and currency drop rates and slow upgrade speed, but these were all covered by a lot of positive reviews. But the 0.2.0 patch exposed these flaws again.
Players’ intuitive feeling about 0.2.0 is that monsters have become stronger and they will use more abundant skills to besiege players. Players must use more time on upgrading. But what’s worse is that even if you upgrade, it’s hard to get out of this quagmire because you are always facing tough enemies and can’t get positive feedback.
Reddit forum is full of complaints about Dawn of the Hunt. User FreshmeatOW complained that because of the enhancement of monsters and the weakening of skills, he felt so badly that he would rather go to work than play this game.
Another user LyckaYK expressed how bad this update was in another way. The armor of the common white mobs in the Act 3 was weakened by 30% in this patch, but the developers added a three-second stun for them. Since the players’ skills were weakened, they could not deal with these monsters in time, making it easy for white mobs to rush in front of the players and kill the players.
In addition, the new map is narrower than the previous patch, which makes the character have less space to dodge. The movement speed of monsters is faster than in the 0.1 patch. Even players who have played the previous patch are more likely to die in the 0.2.0 patch.
The drop rate of the new patch is also one of the reasons for players’ complaints. Many players have encountered the problem of no equipment dropping after defeating monsters. A player cleared the first three acts of the game, but he only got 3 POE 2 Exalted Orbs in total.
The comments on Steam are full of complaints such as “not as good as POE 1” or “Slow and no drops”. Can trading an excellent weapon with other players solve this problem? At least not for now. The new league has just begun, and everyone’s starting point is similar. No one has much good equipment. Even if you POE 2 currency buy a lot, there may not be many players willing to exchange their good equipment.
Competitors
In addition to the above problems, there are some bugs in the new class waiting for official hot fixes. If Path of Exile 2 cannot solve this problem in time, its competitors are also eyeing it.
Last Epoch Season 2 will be officially released on April 17, and this game has an excellent reputation among players. Diablo 4 will update Season 8 on April 29, but it is somewhat coincidental that Diablo 4 Season 8 will also increase the difficulty of the game and enrich the content of the endgame. But from the feedback of Dawn of the Hunt, players may not like this adjustment. Maybe the developers of Diablo 4 will adjust the content of the game.
Fortunately, the new patch has just started, and the developers of POE 2 still have time to remedy it. Weakening the strong build of the previous patch is a common method used by POE 2 developers, and this adjustment method is very rough. If only players who use powerful builds that match this patch can get a normal gaming experience, then it is unfair to the remaining 90% of players.
Let alone letting players understand the power of the new class and new skills, the direction that the production team needs to adjust is to allow players to get positive feedback during the game.
If GGG strengthens monsters and weakens players’ skills while keeping the drop rate of POE 2’s currency items at a very low standard, it will definitely be malicious to the players because all players will feel like they are in prison.
Meanwhile, players also need time to explore the potential of new classes and new builds. Therefore, maybe after giving the new patch some time, players will give this game a positive review again.
