As an avid PoE1 player who has 8h (act3) so far in the second game: gameplay feels more skill based (enemy/boss attack patterns, synergistic skills, more active defences/survivability) while in original you can faceroll most of the acts and endgame with enough knowledge (vendor recipes, “face tankable” content, automateable defences/damage, simple investable survivability). This might be why people are comparing it to soulslike.
Also the pacing is a lot slower which might add to the feeling of og Diablo/Diablo 2. Of course the progression will be faster after meta is found, but people still theorize that getting to endgame takes more time in PoE2.
I tried to get into PoE1 with my brother and it was nothing but a boring slog of a grind.
PoE2 feels like a fucking game. It’s kinda great. The thin white ice things from that one boss (you’ll recognize it) was like “Wake up, I’m not a harmless damage sponge!” It feels like I’m playing a game, not trying to get to one at the end.
The controller support at least for melee is also great. Especially after Sony decided the PS5 controller’s Bluetooth function should work on PC.
This sounds more my taste. I played a fair amount of PoE1, but a lot of it ended up feeling like I was just running my stats around. I’d win or lose because of gear. Like, I could hand control over to someone who’d never played before and they’d do mostly fine.
Contrast with like Sekiro where handing someone the controller they’ll probably just get stomped, since it has a bigger player skill factor.
A balance of those two extremes sounds nice.
Initial impression for me (4.5k hours in PoE1) was a hard no. Things is I’m pretty bad and I’m pretty lazy. It’s def harder, more punishing and the pace is much slower if you just thought you could aoe spam your way to end game.
About 5 hours in on my third class I’m struggling but having fun. It’s def a steep curve.
Thinking about it, a combination of “You need good gear to win” AND “You need good player skill to win” might not be my cup of tea.
I only have ~250 hours in Path of Exile 1, but I never got really deep into theory or build craft. I don’t really love the spreadsheet and forums mode of the genre that much.
I guess we’ll see!