Path of Exile gets lousy reviews on Steam after new update – from players with more than 2,000 hours

Path of Exile was the big winner of Blizzard’s series of bankruptcies, bad luck and breakdowns in recent years. While Diablo 3 received few updates and Diablo Immortal wasn’t even a game for many Hack’n Slay fans, Path of Exile was able to shine. The big expansion Path of Exile 2 should even take on Diablo 4. But now Grinding Gear Games seems to have screwed up. The new season “Lake of Kalandra”, which started on Friday, is poorly received and Path of Exile immediately gets the receipt on Steam.

What’s happening with Path of Exile reviews on Steam right now? People are venting their bad moods in Steam reviews of Path of Exile right now:

• Overall, the game has had “very positive” reviews on Steam since its release on October 23, 2013 – 89% are positive
• But in the last 30 days, criticism has rained down: only 42% of the reviews were positive. Quite a disaster.

Actually, the league should be cool:

Players with more than 2,200 hours write negative reviews on Steam

What bothers players? Players are dissatisfied with the current patch. A user with over 2,200 hours on Path of Exile criticized (via steam):

Everything nerfed. Enemies buffed to the moon: melee is no longer an option for players who only use uniques. I want to have fun instead of dying in a random stunlock or oneshot.

Steam user Dan Massimo

Addictive – but not in the good way

A German-speaking user with more than 2,000 hours complained (via steam):

Sorry, unfortunately we can no longer recommend it without hesitation. In fact, given the gameplay changes over the last 6 months, I have to strongly advise against installing the game.

Steam user Exalderan

The user compares the game to alcohol or cigarettes: It is addictive, but not in a good way. He also criticizes the fact that the game has become harder and more stingy in recent months. Compared to before, you get 90% less loot, but the enemies have become 10 times harder than a year ago.

He even says that the developers are only interested in selling microtransactions – they have lost sight of the fun of the players.

How does the criticism affect the number of players? Normally, Path of Exile sees a huge surge in players on Steam and the other platforms with a new league. This time, too, there was an upswing in players: At the peak, 151,145 players were online on Steam at the same time, but they didn’t stay this time.

Like the side mmorpg.pl white, the player upswing fizzled out this time:

• As early as Tuesday, only 55% of the players who started Friday’s new league were left.
• It is said that this is the largest player loss in the history of Path of Exile.

Developers themselves seem surprised at how few drops there are now

How are the developers reacting? The developers seem to be surprised themselves (via poet) that the game is now said to be much more stingy with drops, because this loot loss was not planned so blatantly. You did change something, but now you are surprised by this result.

The developers report that they now want to investigate this more closely and counteract the problems with changes.

Some observers criticize the developers for already having their heads on “Path of Exile 2” and neglecting the live game. More on Path of Exile 2:

Everything known so far about Path of Exile 2 – in 2 minutes