For long-time Path of Exile 2 players, the drawbacks of crafting system have become increasingly apparent as the game has progressed. Not only do Path of Exile 1 players understand the difficulties of optimizing crafting system, but Path of Exile 2 players are even more frustrated by its practicality.
Currently, players have many complaints about crafting system. I will start with the most frequently raised issues and discuss from multiple angles what makes the current crafting system unsatisfactory.
Differences between POE 2 and POE 1 Crafting
1. Gems
As all players know, gems cannot be directly socketed into equipment. Players can find them in the skill bar and socket them manually. In Path of Exile 1, gems could only be socketed into equipment. This led to a significant weakening of early-game enhancements like socketables, soul cores, and runes.
2. Crafting Variety
While crafting materials are roughly the same as in the first game, there are currently over 80 different items crafted using almost identical materials. However, with the introduction of new classes and builds, crafting process will undoubtedly become significantly more complex.
The crafting system is meant to facilitate player progression and character enhancement, but the sheer number of crafting options adds unnecessary burden to players.
3. Missing Important Steps
Orb of Scouring Orb of Alteration are two of the most requested items, capable of resetting and regenerating equipment modifiers, respectively.
Surprisingly, PoE 2 lacks these items. Firstly, once equipment is enhanced, its modifiers cannot be changed.
Some argue that these items shouldn't exist in the current game. Their presence would lead to an overabundance of masterful crater items, causing numerical inflation and negatively impacting game balance.
However, I believe this idea is completely untenable. Only a minority of players actually have access to masterful crater items. Whether or not there are enhancement and reset attributes, the impact on this group of players is minimal, and the game content won't undergo large-scale changes because of some powerful weapons.
Introducing Orb of Scouring and Orb of Alteration would not only benefit players aiming for late-game crafting, but more importantly, it would allow newcomers to better navigate the crafting system and smoothly transition into the beginner phase.
4. Crafting Table
In PoE 1 crafting table, I could clearly feel that the approach to enhancing items was very straightforward. Basically, whatever modifiers you needed, you could enhance them accordingly, and it was directly stated on the crafting table.
However, in PoE 2 crafting table, while enhancements cannot be reset, unlocked modifiers can be locked, and an unlimited number of modifiers can be crafted.
To achieve powerful effects, in addition to the usual enhancement operations, many unavoidable steps are added. Even more troublesome is the amount of materials consumed. With some methods now missing, while you can lock in certain modifiers, you'll actually consume more materials.
To obtain more resistances and attributes, more comprehensive sockets are essential, and unlocking these requires another significant material expense.
So, does the current crafting table system truly optimize the crafting process as the developers claim?
More League content forces players to constantly craft
In the ever-changing game content, the frequency of League updates is one of the most important influencing factors. You need to do more than just understand the challenges of each League; more importantly, find the most suitable equipment for your character to face new adventures.
Now, with the continuous increase in League content, crafting suitable equipment requires a massive amount of POE 2 currency to support your crafting, which brings us back to our earlier question.
Does more game content provide most players with more opportunities to experience the game's content and mechanics, or does it simply increase the workload for players?
Low drop rate increases the difficulty of crafting
In the early stages of the game, there are several deliberately placed levels. The purpose of these levels is obvious: they are extremely difficult to complete.
This makes it much harder for players to become stronger. If you can't clear these levels, you can't unlock much of the game content, and you can't obtain many hard-to-find materials.
This has led to two types of players: those who study the characteristics of each level's boss and use one-hit kills to clear them, and mainstream build we're talking about.
Not many people can consistently clear levels using these characteristics; the complex mechanics and timing are beyond the reach of everyone. Most people use the mainstream build when facing these difficult levels. And the mainstream build requires a large amount of game resources to support.
Currently, these deliberately placed levels have led to an unavoidable situation. To achieve a build that most people can clear, you have to face an incredibly low drop rate, spending hours or even tens of hours farming for items. I don't deny that some players enjoy the process, but in reality, do many people truly find such lengthy, repetitive labor enjoyable? I believe that spending so much time farming loot is only enjoyable at the final reward, and this meaningless farming is merely a prerequisite for crafting.
In short, I think PoE 2 crafting system was designed with user-friendliness in mind; they wanted a unique style and features distinct from PoE 1. However, there are still many areas that need improvement to optimize the player experience.
More game content shouldn't offer players overly tedious repetitive tasks or frustrating crafting processes. What players need are other interesting aspects of the game.
I understand that some players feel the current crafting system is already quite good and doesn't need to revert to the old model. My view is that reverting to other models isn't necessary. We should adopt other methods, as long as we solve the existing problems and optimize most of the frustrating aspects, Path of Exile 2 gameplay experience will continue to improve.
