Summary
Although the game has been out in early access for over two months, not all players may have experienced the full extent of whatPath of Exile 2has to offer once the campaign is over. For veterans of the original, it’s likely a more immediate change from the end of Act 3 on Cruel difficulty toPath of Exile 2’s Atlas, but it can still be daunting for several reasons. Among them is the fact thatPath of Exile 2doesn’t really have an endgame designed around what the gameplay loop is and can be, which can be frustrating at best.
Path of Exile 2’s endgame is multi-layered. When players first complete the campaign on their first character of the League, they will start climbing Map tiers to unlock Atlas Passive Skills and in turn, get more and better rewards from their Waystones. This system all works in tune with its smaller parts, but there are a few issues with the current design of the endgame section. Not only do some Maps make for a frustrating experience when farming endgame Waystones, but the endgame itself doesn’t use the same logic as the base campaign. These flaws can be addressed in time, but it remains to be seen if that matches GGG’s vision for the game.
Path of Exile 2 Needs Better Map Layout
There are a few ways toget the most out ofPath of Exile 2’s Waystones, such as juicing the Atlas in a way that gives a few Maps great bonuses and some League mechanics to get more loot. Breach remains one of the best ways to get more loot inPath of Exile 2, but it is dramatically impaired when run in Maps like Vaal Factory, Augury, and Crypt due to their layout. The same holds true for Ritual and Expedition, and it can apply to Delirium too in some cases.
Map layout is a big part ofPath of Exile 2’s endgame system, as this can determine if that given Map is good enough to be juiced or not. In the case of Crypt, for example, it is made of multiple long corridors with very few enemies and low monster density overall, making it bad for farming from the get-go. On top of that, mechanics likePoE 2’s Breach, Ritual, and Expedition are in most cases wasted here due to the Map’s layout - Breaches will close much faster due to the absence of enemies, Rituals will award very few points, and Expeditions may end up with few connections.
This same principle applies to multiple Maps, with Vaal Factory having a maze-like layout that requires a lot of backtracking and Augury being a square with lots of dead ends. Several Maps should get another pass at their layout in order to makefarming in Path of Exile 2less frustrating.
Path of Exile 2’s Slow Combat Turns Into Fast Gameplay in The Endgame
Likewise, the campaign promotes slower gameplay with more focus on tactical combat - be it against bosses or regular enemies. However,Path of Exile 2’s bossesare currently being obliterated by OP builds in order to skip their mechanics, which is incentivized by fast, aggressive, and very strong regular monsters that require faster and more powerful builds to survive the endgame.
This is something GGG will likely address in the future, but it’s hard to say if the studio will change the way endgame monsters behave, which does the opposite of the campaign in promoting slower combat. Both of these design decisions seem out of place for what is currently one of the best ARPGs on the market, soPath of Exile 2should change this in order to become a better version of itself. Not all Map layouts need to be perfect, but the difference between some of them is too noticeable, as is the shift in build power required to tackle the endgame.
