Dawn of the Hunting for loot: Community backlash creates problems in Path of Exile 2

Dawn of the Hunt, Path of Exile 2’s (PoE2) latest patch, has been met with severe community backlash due to multiple problems. After its release on April 4, patch 0.2.0 should have taken the game’s alpha period in a strong upward trajectory. Unfortunately, this has not exactly been the case.

In recent days, players have highlighted these issues through a flood of posts on Reddit, X, and other platforms. With PoE2 generally setting the standards for action role-playing games (ARPGs), this seems like a step in the wrong direction. However, it is unlike Grinding Gear Games (GGG) to sit back and watch the problems multiply. However, being in alpha, these problems could worsen before getting better.

Despite GGG’s ongoing patches, the community remains largely dissatisfied. The clearest sign of this is on Steam, where recent reviews have dropped to "Mixed".

One of the main issues discussed online is how slow the game now feels. From the campaign progression down to the player’s characters, players feel that this change is extremely poor.

Many have related this change to the original Path of Exile’s Ruthless mode. Ruthless, or Hard Mode, is an opt-in game mode built for a much more challenging experience. With far lower item drops and a wildly steep play curve, Ruthless made the game take on a snail-like pace for those who chose to enter.

The problem with Dawn of the Hunt is that players are beginning to liken the main game’s experience to Ruthless. As they receive little to no rewards, players are trudging through the campaign, only to have their characters tormented by ordinary enemies.

Although addressed by GGG in a recent post, players feel as though it was not nearly enough, with the gigantic size of maps in the game also called into question. Making matters worse, players grew even more annoyed when the response was simply to add additional checkpoints

The next issue players are facing is a lack of loot. While a new League in PoE2 brings a reset economy, players need to farm a lot more to acquire gear and upgrades. It now feels as though the slow pace of the game is making this almost impossible. Players are actively complaining about the sheer lack of feeling powerful. The usual points of power spikes are now largely irrelevant, which is causing problems in Dawn of the Hunt.

Another issue closely related to this is the new Azmerian Wisp feature. Although fairly abundant, these Wisps are useless to most. While they should be a great source of loot, depending on the number of creatures killed while chasing the Wisp – they are lackluster. Players have reported double-wisped bosses dropping nothing more than a Vaal Orb.

For a game that should revolve around loot and power, Dawn of the Hunt has taken that away. An exploit during the first weekend made things worse. Although GGG responded quickly, players remained frustrated that it happened in the first place.

One aspect of PoE that players love is the ability to create unorthodox builds. While we are yet to see spell-slinging Duelists or Witches with swords. A major problem with this comes with the Huntress, introduced in Dawn of the Hunt. The new class comes with the parry mechanic, introduced with buckler items. Much of the class functions by utilizing this mechanism. However, players have voiced their dislike for this, with many wanting a workaround.

On the other side of this is the Smith of Kitava, which is a Warrior Ascendancy, includes a skill called “Temper Weapon”. This skill causes the player to stop moving for 5 seconds while hammering away at their weapon to empower it. This leaves the player vulnerable to numerous attacks, depending on their surroundings. Akin to the parry mechanic, players do not want to deal with such a poorly designed skill choice.

Players are pointing out many more problems, as shown below.

That said, a few new patches were released, and GGG focused on fixing many problems.

All in all, PoE2 is in Early Access. This means that GGG is trying out new ways to make the game interesting with new aspects. Patch 0.2.0 is the most indicative of this, and according to the community, it is not a great look for PoE2’s current roadmap.

Right now, we are expecting multiple patches over the coming weeks as they look to address the player feedback. Hopefully, the developers at GGG can rectify the problems in Dawn of the Hunt sooner rather than later.

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