PoE 2 Isn’t a Souls-like — It’s a Casino Where the House Always Wins

As a huge fan of Souls-like games — and someone who completed NG+4 and The Depths in Nioh 2 with a 1 HP build (for those who know) — I have to say this clearly: Path of Exile 2 has absolutely nothing to do with a Souls-like experience.

What could have been an interesting direction feels like a completely failed attempt. In Souls-like games, the harder the content, the better the reward. Here, it feels like I'm walking through a giant casino, constantly gambling and mostly losing. And if only that was the only issue...


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Patch 0.2 – A Build Diversity Massacre

The massive nerfs introduced in 0.2 are, simply put, absurd. They completely broke most viable builds from 0.1. Playing a mana stacker is no longer even possible. Nearly everything that gave players build freedom or identity is now gone.

Okay, Temporalis deserved a nerf — no argument there. But nerfing everything? That’s just poor design. In every good ARPG or Souls-like, the goal of deep investment is to eventually become powerful. That’s the point. But here? The entire system feels like it’s built to punish you for playing.

PoE 2 is full of massive enemy encounters, yet the game strips you of all the tools to deal with them. This isn’t "difficult". This is frustration disguised as balance.


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The Loot System Makes No Sense

Let’s talk about loot, because this is one of the worst parts right now.

How is it that some players drop a Mirror in Act 3 Cruel, while others — level 90 with 200+ hours — have only seen 3 Divine Orbs? This isn’t "healthy RNG", this is nonsense.

There is zero correlation between difficulty and reward. A T16 map should drop 10x more valuable loot than a T1. That’s basic game design. No one cares if Divines are worth more if you never see them. Loot in PoE 2 right now feels like a bad slot machine: pure luck, no logic.


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Heading Toward Pay-to-Win?

On top of that, with how things are shaping up — the RMT spam, the unrewarding grind, the massive nerfs — it’s starting to feel like we’re heading toward a disguised pay-to-win (or pay-to-go-fast) model.

And make no mistake: frustration ≠ difficulty. It’s not Souls-like. It’s just bad.

If you really want PoE 2 to stand on its own, you’ll need to do more than recycle 80% of PoE 1. You’ll need to rethink your design and actually reward investment instead of punishing it.


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Final Thoughts

PoE 2 Patch 0.1, with all its flaws, was on the right track. It encouraged experimentation, and we felt like the game was evolving. Patch 0.2 is a massive step backwards, and honestly, it makes no sense.

If your goal is to create a frustrating experience, then congratulations — you're succeeding. But a frustrating game is not a difficult game. It's just a bad game.


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To the community:

That’s all I’ll say for now, but there’s so much more to unpack. I’ll let other players add their experiences. Maybe if enough of us speak up, GGG will finally realize the direction they're taking just isn’t it.


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Abusaksak#0859 wrote:

Path of Exile 2 has absolutely nothing to do with a Souls-like experience.

That's great, but did anyone ever claim that it was? Like, for real - as far as I can tell GGG has only ever discussed taking inspiration from the genre, especially in regards to boss mechanics. I feel like a certain very vocal portion of the player population took that and ran hog wild claiming that GGG was trying to turn PoE2 into a souls-like game.

Like, the original Diablo team is on record stating that much of their inspiration came from roguelikes like Moira, which at the time were turn-based RPGs with ASCII graphics. They took inspiration from those games, but never intended Diablo to be a "roguelike experience" as it would have been understood at the time, because saying that your game is taking inspiration from another is just that - it's inspiration.

The only people I've ever seen making definitive claims about PoE2 wanting to be a souls-like game are grumpy folks on forums and social media.

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Kerchunk#7797 wrote:

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Abusaksak#0859 wrote:

Path of Exile 2 has absolutely nothing to do with a Souls-like experience.

That's great, but did anyone ever claim that it was? Like, for real - as far as I can tell GGG has only ever discussed taking inspiration from the genre, especially in regards to boss mechanics. I feel like a certain very vocal portion of the player population took that and ran hog wild claiming that GGG was trying to turn PoE2 into a souls-like game.

Like, the original Diablo team is on record stating that much of their inspiration came from roguelikes like Moira, which at the time were turn-based RPGs with ASCII graphics. They took inspiration from those games, but never intended Diablo to be a "roguelike experience" as it would have been understood at the time, because saying that your game is taking inspiration from another is just that - it's inspiration.

The only people I've ever seen making definitive claims about PoE2 wanting to be a souls-like game are grumpy folks on forums and social media.

You're missing the point a bit.

No one is claiming that GGG officially labeled PoE 2 as a Souls-like. But when a dev team openly claims to be inspired by a genre, and then adds mechanics that resemble it — like slower-paced combat, punishing bosses, and more deliberate positioning — players are naturally going to compare the two. That’s not “forum whining,” that’s engaging critically with what we’re being sold.

And while you bring up roguelikes as an example — ironically, most modern roguelikes have persistent progression. Even when you die and start over, you often unlock tools, upgrades, or knowledge that empower your next run. There’s a sense of growth. PoE 2, on the other hand, kills progression through randomness. Especially when the crafting system is a slot machine, and loot rewards are inconsistent regardless of difficulty.

The point is not whether PoE 2 "is" a Souls-like — the point is that it fails both as an ARPG and as a game that borrows from Souls mechanics. It punishes experimentation, it guts build diversity, and it offers a loot system that feels more like a lottery than an earned reward.

Also, the classic “you’re just a forum whiner” defense doesn’t hold up. Dismissing critical feedback as "grumpy whining" is exactly what fanboys do to stay in denial about real issues the game is facing.

You don’t have to agree with everything I said, but at least engage with the actual problems being raised, not with strawmen about whether the devs ever said the word “Souls-like” out loud.

C'mon. Of course Deuce is a casino! They're not even trying to hide it. There's a strongbox which is literally a slot machine: You put in gold, set it off, and hope for a reward! =9[.]9=

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Raycheetah#7060 wrote:

C'mon. Of course Deuce is a casino! They're not even trying to hide it. There's a strongbox which is literally a slot machine: You put in gold, set it off, and hope for a reward! =9[.]9=

Exactly. When I saw that slot machine vault, I honestly thought it was a meme. Like: "Oh, you still didn’t get that you’re wasting your time? Let us spell it out for you."

It’s borderline insulting to anyone actually trying to build, plan, or optimize something. The game isn’t saying “get better” anymore — it’s saying: “spin again, clown, and pray for a Divine.”

At this point, they’re not even hiding it. It’s like GGG is staring you straight in the face saying:
“You’re wasting your time, and we’re laughing about it.”

It's not even a casino.. casinos provide dopamine.

Some of these threads really baffle me because ARPGs are and have always been Casinos where the house always wins.

Whenever you get a drop, there's two things that could happen:
- You get a bad drop, which means you have to keep grinding
- You get a good drop, which means you get a power boost, everything is fine and dandy until you progress to the next challenge tier and suddenly you are in a bad position again and have to keep grinding.

That's how ARPGs are supposed to work. That's why Leagues and Hardcore are such vital parts of these games. All players are doomed to get to the point where their gear is so good it's almost impossible to upgrade and their challenge is too high. Without leagues and withotu hardcore you'd be boosting the same character all day long until they reach this kind of wall.

Arguably, in 0.2.0 the problem is that the wall is reached very soon. But you should make no mistake, the wall will always be there.

Precisely. The qualities of RNG are a feature. You live and die by it in these games. It's the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat; the chase in between is what is most fulfilling. I think maybe because the world got smaller with the internet, forums(this one in particular) have become a funnel for everyone to go in and complain about something so foundational when RNGesus is being a cruel mistress. I think it's not as simple as the OP leads on, and that precisely is the beauty of this game because if it were that simple, it would be mind-numbingly boring. My opinion of course.

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Kerchunk#7797 wrote:

The only people I've ever seen making definitive claims about PoE2 wanting to be a souls-like game are grumpy folks on forums and social media.

+1 on that

souls-like: a few deadly enemies on the screen
PoE2: a screen full of enemies

not having a 3rd person camera simply allows a lot more enemies on the screen without loosing the oversight. they're just that different games from the ground up. the comparison doesn't make any sense to me personally.

i personally do have an issue with the gambling nature however. crafting doesn't exist (yet?) in this game, at least in my book.

let's hope they adapt their "meaningful combat" mentality over to "meaningful crafting" and "meaningful trials". we're only in 0.2 as of now. plenty of time for GGG to turn the ship around.

a "meaningful crafting" system certainly would solve a lot of issues and complaints in a single swoop. at the cost of chinafarmers and who cares about those honestly. they're a bane to our existance since over 2 decades by now.

*fingers crossed*

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Defalto#9237 wrote:

Precisely. The qualities of RNG are a feature. You live and die by it in these games. It's the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat; the chase in between is what is most fulfilling. I think maybe because the world got smaller with the internet, forums(this one in particular) have become a funnel for everyone to go in and complain about something so foundational when RNGesus is being a cruel mistress. I think it's not as simple as the OP leads on, and that precisely is the beauty of this game because if it were that simple, it would be mind-numbingly boring. My opinion of course.

I agree on one key point: RNG absolutely has its place in an ARPG like PoE. It’s necessary to keep the game unpredictable, replayable, and to create that rush when you finally get something amazing. But for it to work, RNG needs to be fair, balanced, and respect the player’s investment.

Right now in PoE 2, RNG isn’t just part of the system — it feels like the entire game is ruled by it. Loot, crafting, even build viability — everything depends on extreme rolls. A lucky player can steamroll the game by Act 3, while another, experienced and committed, sees nothing worth using after 100+ hours.

Good RNG should encourage progression, not block it. It should reward effort, creativity, and smart choices — not just randomly grant power. Otherwise, it’s not tension or depth — it’s just frustration.

A real challenge is when you fail because you played poorly — not because the game decided not to give you anything. That’s where I think PoE 2 still has a serious balance issue to fix.