Literally every single player in POE2 spends 20% of their playtime fat rolling. How is that any better than everyone using Leap Slam, Flame Dash, or Blink Arrow?
Every league in POE2 up to this point was absolutely dominated by 2 or 3 builds because build diversity is so on the rails that once a small handfull of streamers figure out the one build that can actually get you through that slog of a campaign, everyone else flocks to it. So far, POE2's metas have been WAY less diversified than any POE1 league and its not even close.
The fat-rolling comparison isn't really equivalent. Movement skills like Leap Slam, Flame Dash, or Blink Arrow were optional optimizations layered on top of already-functional builds - fat rolling is a baseline consequence of early PoE2 tuning, not a solved mobility meta people are choosing because it's optimal. That's a pacing and balance issue, not evidence that the entire design philosophy is worse. Everyone fat rolling early doesn't replace build expression, it just highlights that early-game mobility values aren't where they need to be yet. Sprint did a LOT to help this.
As for metas being dominated by a few builds, that's less an indictment of "rails" and more a symptom of a young system with limited tuning passes. Early PoE1 leagues were also heavily solved once streamers cracked the numbers. The difference is that PoE1 had years of accumulated complexity and content bloat to disguise how narrow the meta actually was. PoE2 doesn't have that inertia yet, so when something is overtuned, it's more obvious.
Right now, the campaign slog amplifies this effect. When the early game is slow and punishing, players will naturally gravitate toward the few builds that brute-force it efficiently. That doesn't mean the underlying system can't support diversity, it means the onboarding and early balance are doing a terrible job of showcasing it (which is precisely why I keep bitching so much about the early-game). Narrow metas in PoE2 so far say more about unfinished tuning and front-loaded friction than they do about some irreversible flaw in the game's long-term design.
PoE1 has not been on rails since around the time Ward Loop showed up as a build. I think it's a pretty good example because in PoE2 Ward Loop would get nuked out of existence mid league. In PoE1 it (and builds like it) is allowed to thrive.
Ward Loop is actually a good example, but probably not in the way you're framing it. In PoE1 it's "allowed to thrive" largely because the game is so mature and so layered that GGG tolerates a certain amount of absurdity as long as it doesn't completely dominate everything else. That's less a philosophical endorsement and more a reality of maintaining a decade-old system where ripping out every degenerate interaction would cause more collateral damage than it's worth.
PoE2 isn't in that position yet. Early in a game's life, interactions like Ward Loop aren't quirky outliers, they'll start defining metas almost immediately. That's why something like it would get nuked mid-league in PoE2. Not because GGG hates creativity, but because letting an autobomber-style interaction set the tone this early would crowd out every other playstyle before the game even finds its footing. This is the very dangerous ground they were treading with minions, until reigning it in a bit.
The energy gem situation doesn't really prove a "tug of war" so much as iterative correction. Early EA clearly leaned too far in the direction of automated triggers, and once it became obvious how dominant they were, GGG pulled back hard. That's not unusual for early access IMO. It's exactly when you should be discovering where the guardrails need to be. PoE1 didn't have that luxury because it found out in live leagues and then lived with the consequences for years.
I do agree on one thing though - from a player perspective, the signaling has been messy. When you introduce things like Cast on Dodge Roll, it's reasonable for players to assume those interactions are being encouraged. If GGG wants tighter lanes, they need to communicate that intent more clearly and avoid baiting players with mechanics they're not prepared to support long-term. But uncertainty about what survives balance passes isn't evidence that PoE2 is on some uniquely hostile path. It's evidence that the game is still defining its boundaries. PoE1 feels permissive now because those boundaries were set years ago. PoE2 is still in the uncomfortable phase where they're being drawn in real time.
