I'm at the point now where I am considering asking for the very first refund that I have ever asked for as far as PlayStation digital downloads are concerned. While I realize that the game is in beta it is still something that I paid for and while bugs here and there are acceptable in a game that is not yet complete, the ability to actually play the game without constant lag and rubber-banding is not.
If you didn't read what I posted before, I got tired of playing Chaosbane but still wanted to have some sort of multiplayer something or other than I could play with the 3 people I have in my friends' list on the PS Network. I saw a trailer for POE2 and it looked just amazing and exactly the sort of thing that I would enjoy playing online for hours on end.
Well the joy that I felt when I fired up the game and went through the very cool and inventive cutscenes and the VERY VERY cool character creation process... well that joy was short-lived.
The issue here is that this game is a game that must be played in an always online sort of sense, even if you are not playing multiplayer at the time, which is dumb. I guess they do it because of the fact that it will be free to play at some point and in order to make money, they will need to be incentivizing the playerbase to spend real-world-money on upgrades, which it is my understanding a lot of people actually do this to the point where free-to-play games that get a large audience can actually make a lot more money than games people pay for the complete package up front.
At the moment there are hundreds, probably thousands of players complaining about lag spikes, rubber-banding, really poor ping results and a lot of things that basically just mean that your machine, be it a console or a computer, cannot maintain a good enough connection with the game servers for the game to run fluidly.
I can definitely identify with what these people are talking about because I don't think I have ever played the game where it wasn't lagging. This can vary from what I call "stutter-stepping" where it appears as though the game is struggling to load the upcoming areas, and can get as bad as the system pausing and unpausing over and over again during a battle because it is seriously struggling to keep up with the connection.
The above is one of the early sub-bosses that at the time I didn't realize was totally optional, haha. Well he does some sort of attack that is seriously telegraphed but the first time you see it you aren't going to know what is going to happen. The problem is that it involves a lot of flickering and summoning of some tendrils that are also mean to attack you. This, even on a brand new PS5 slows the action on screen to a damn near halt. Now my strategy as a ranger was always going to be to kite and attempt to get some damage while rolling around, but the game kept auto pausing and I'm just sitting there mashing the dodge button like crazy and when the network finally caught back up, I had rolled myself into a corner and then been hit. Bosses in this game function like Dark Souls in that you cannot take very many hits from them. Some of their attacks are one-hit kills. So you actually NEED to have quick reflexes and zero lag to deal with them effectively.
Thus far the only way I have been able to progress in the game is to get over-leveled and just beat down enemies by my superior level, which isn't much fun.
I spend a great deal of my time very frustrated because the stutter stepping simply doesn't end.
This game is HARD too, so when the damn thing is pausing on you every 5 seconds it gets old really fast. The only reason I haven't moved on is because of the fact that I really do want to play this game but it needs to be a functioning product.
That's not me but in a shell this is the root of the problem here. There are tons of threads like this one and it seems to be basically unfixable on PS5 because, from what I understand, while the devs are working on it, they are focusing on their primary audience, which will be PC players.
That's another thing to keep in mind: Even if this game was functioning perfectly it is evident that it was designed with PC's in mind and not so much consoles. There are a ton of possible skills, for more than the PS5 has buttons, so this has encouraged me to not even use a lot of the skills that are available to me.
This is a shame because this game looks like it could be absolutely awesome but I am not going to play something that just makes me angry because of the poor performance.
While I understand that Grinding Gear Games has a lot on their plate right now and almost certainly wants to improve things, being part of the beta has kind of encouraged me to not want to play the game even when it is complete. They have remained rather quiet as far a the PlayStation complain crowd goes. In fact, I can't even see where they have addressed it at all. Some comments they have made have been to blame it on the customers though and I really don't like that. They suggest that OUR internet connections are not good enough or that we should be using a LAN cable. I'm calling bullshit on that. I can play games that are far more graphically demanding than a top-down AARPG like this one. I play Destiny 2, Chaosbane, and Helldivers 2 with ZERO issues. Am I expected to believe that this game, which appears as though it has the graphical complexity of something on the PS2, needs more bandwidth than those games? Horsefeathers!
Then you've got people like this who are getting obliterated in the comments section when they suggest things like "make sure your PS5 isn't too hot" and "avoid long gaming sessions."
I am going to apply for a refund today. I actually don't even know what the process looks like. If they say no or whatever, it will just be a $30 mistake. Shame on GGG for releasing this to consoles before it was ready and shame on Sony for allowing it to be sold with issues that are this widespread.