I bought an early access pack for Path of Exile 2. Due to performance issues, I refunded it on Steam. Later, when I tried to log into the original Path of Exile 1, I received an "account locked" error.

Upon contacting support, I was informed that my account was permanently banned because of the Steam refund, which they equated with stealing . I was literally told "The only recourse we have is to ban users who steal from us in this way."

Be advised: if you purchase any supporter packs and later refund them for any reason (performance, dissatisfaction), GGG will lock your entire account. There is no warning, and the ban is automatic and absolute.

P.S. Full response by support looks like this:

"Hey there,

Thanks for your patience.

Your account has been locked due to an unauthorised Steam refund. Please contact Steam and cancel this.

To clarify, customers buying packs and then refunding them is a major problem for virtual sales. The only recourse we have is to ban users who steal from us in this way. Hopefully this is just a mistake that can be resolved with Steam.

If you have any other questions, please let us know.

Kind regards,
Cory"

UPD: I created a discussion topic on PoE 2 Steam page with the same text and it was quietly deleted without any feedback from GGG.

UPD2: I was perma banned at both PoE 1/2 Steam discussion pages for posting this info one more time.

Review time at 380ish hours, 0.4 patch

In spite of it being one of my personal all-time favorites, this is a tough game to truly "recommend" because it's so specific and there are so many caveats. I am a huge ARPG fan, and I tend to play all the releases, all the seasonal updates, etc. but at heart I am more of a "casual" gamer.

In its current state, PoE2 has (for my taste) the best look and combat feel, plus build depth and skill/class system versatility. Add to that (finally) an excellent trade system, and you have yourself a top tier ARPG. The campaign is currently not finished, but even with the existing 4+ chapters, is fairly well done (major kudos for Act 4 which I really enjoy) and there's a complex endgame in place that gives tons of content that essentially lasts forever for the more casual player. Not to mention there are plenty of classes and different build potentials within each class.

So why do I hesitate to give this a more glowing review? While the devs have made numerous improvements over the first few releases, they seem to still be oblivious to the casual gaming audience and potential new players who aren't experienced with the way they do things. The absolute worst part of the game is still the very beginning, and I imagine they lose or turn off a large chunk of potential players with the current design philosophy. Even the very opening sequence/boss can be hard enough to turn someone sour on the game. While Act I is generally well regarded, it can be very frustrating and difficult if you are playing alone, aren't lucky with drops or aren't good with dodging, or simply want to experiment with skills and builds instead of religiously following a guide. I really can't wholeheartedly endorse this game to most of my friends without a revamp of the way Act 1 feels.

Now if you know enough "tricks of the trade" and/or are lucky or patient enough to get your character really going, the game does get better and better, and surprisingly gets easier as you go along. If you follow a meta guide, you can generally start coasting through the campaign at some point. And if you are lucky enough to get a lucky currency drop, it can be a total game changer.

Probably the biggest problem I'd say with the game currently (again from a casual standpoint) is the weird stinginess of uncut skill gems, especially the support ones. It starts out stingy and pretty much stays that way until you finish the campaign. I suspect they want the reward of an uncut gem to be more meaningful during the campaign, and I kind of understand that, but at the same time, it really stymies any opportunity to be more creative or experimental. This coupled with the gold cost of refunding passive points make the early game a choice of either playing the exact "correct" way (generally using a guide) or being consistently frustrated to make progress. It's basically a casual player's nightmare, and this is why the majority of my casual gamer friends steer clear from this game.

Speaking of item drops, this is one of those odd phenomena which constantly amazes me. Throughout both Poe 1 and 2, I probably have played close to a thousand hours, and in all that time, the number of truly good rare drops I've had (ones that are distinctly better than what I could buy through trade) is probably close to ZERO. I often laugh at just how bad the mods are on the items I get, it's almost like a bad joke. I know, I know - RNG. But something is just off with this game in particular. I can search in trade and find dozens of options with, for example, +100 to maximum life, while in the mean time my drops are getting like +7 or something pathetic like that. How is this possible throughout so many hours of play?

The flip side is if you can make it past these annoyances, there is a lot of fun to be had in the content. If you are lucky enough to get even ONE divine orb (I actually did this league!!!) the entire game opens up. You can suddenly afford all sorts of decent gear, plus buy skill gems and orbs, which open the door to experimentation. You'll start to get plenty of gold so passive respecs are also no longer an issue. Basically the whole game just opens up, but it's completely dependent on the RNG of getting a *currency* drop. I guess my ultimate question is this what the developers really envisioned?

0.1 mid league nerf breaking and bricking 70% of character for peopl.
0.2 league was so bad its a joke and yet again mid league nerfs xD
0.3 first decent league and guess what mid league nerf bcs you cant have fun
0.4 promised to rework end game so we can have something to do, lies again. instead of that 1 character that is fun but game still nothing to do, they added temple that was a joke xD people spent 2 weeks reasearching it and trying out things to make it work and fun. GGG noticed that = AGAIN MID LEAGUE nerf to the ground, you are not allowed to have any fun in this game.