Let it Flow - About PoE's User Experience

Greetings!

A tiny bit about me: I have been a UI/UX designer for roughly ten years now, working on anything from websites, phone/web apps and video games.

Please read this with the right mindset: I love this game, and have nothing but respect for Grinding Gear Games - the attitude they demonstrate towards their playerbase is nothing short of stellar, and I wish for the time I took to write this up to be recognized as proof of my respect.



There is a very important concept when designing User Interfaces that must be at the forefront of any decisions made: Flow. Flow is comprised of multiple facets and levels, but the most important idea behind Flow is making the user experience as smooth as possible, with little to no breaks or bumps in the road that might complicate the task unecessarily. The use of conventions, common sense and intuitive design is the key here, which can be much easier said than done.

Path of Exile, from a pure user-interface point of view, has many rough spots in its flow that may seem unimportant when isolated, but can collectively amount to a frustrating, limiting and otherwise irritating user-experience. This is not something most users would be conscious of - they would "feel" it in their gut, but would never be able to put it into words and would likely dismiss the game as "slow, sluggish, boring" without knowing exactly why.

GGG, the world you've created is already meant to be harsh and unforgiving in itself; no reason to have the user experience this way too, agreed? Keeping in mind the amount of respect I've grown to have for your team, vision and project, I've taken a bit of my time to compile a list of some elements I felt were counter to the goal of making players feel welcome and comfortable in Wraeclast.

(I will be adding and making changes to this as I go along!)



LOGIN MENU

When I first fired up Path of Exile, back in September 2012, I was pleasantly surprised by the "metaphor" used where the camera pans to the inside of the boat and shows us the exiles in all their glorious, damp, disgusting state. However, it feels that this metaphor was used and then forgotten - there is no flow in metaphor to having the Character Selection use this same concept, which somewhat breaks the "fourth wall" as being just another interface screen, unfortunately.

The Gateway option here is far from being user-friendly, and is counter-intuitive to most - people are used to having different servers for their online games and this feels like it will limit the player's choices later on, so it acts as a sort of mental barrier right from the start. Having the option is an awesome thing - forcing the player to make a choice, without explaining what the choice means, is far from being fluid. All players I've initiated had the same questioning reaction to this part of the interface, and I had to explain how "it didn't really matter". How about this auto-chooses at the start, and you have an option to change it later on if the need arises?

The new Deal of the Day tab looks and feels tacked on (because it is). It unbalances the beautifully symmetrical design of the page, and the textured black box seems out of line with all other interface elements in the game (and website). In short, ugly design doesn't sell, this should be reworked to be less floaty/blurry/awkward and be part of the experience rather than slapped on.

Here's a quick example of what I mean:




CHARACTER SELECTION

Not being able to see your characters on the character selection screen is very disheartening for a lot of players (everyone I've showed the game to had the same surprised reaction when I had to enter game to show them my characters). I remember playing Everquest back in the day and spending a good amount of time staring at the character selection screen, checking out my rogue's gear in detail, even using this screen as a screensaver with the epic song playing in the background. There's a certain aspect of vanity that many players like to satisfy with these sorts of games, and this is one of the screens to do it in.

Regarding the concept of vanity: Pants, please. Pretty please?

The order in which characters appear on the list has no logic (or a counter-intuitive logic). An option to re-order this list would be paramount, and multiple options would be quite a nice addition. At least having the characters in descending level order, or a last-played logic would help tremendously!

Another thing that doesn't help the character selection is the bulkiness of the buttons. With a maximum of 6 visible characters at one time in the list, we can only see 1/4 of the possible choices (max of 24, without microtransactions). More than half of the character selection screen is wasted space. The left part with the characters standing around in the boat, which is a nice metaphor for character creation, but not for exisiting-character selection.

To keep a flowing logic in metaphor for the character selection screen, I would suggest using a new setting (the beach, or a rock in the middle of the waves next to the boat, for example) where the character is thematically "out of the boat", they have landed on Wraeclast, and are now part of the world instead of still in their initial blank state.

I can only imagine that this is being reworked as we speak, since it seems as though this screen has had no thought given to it.

A quick mock-up of the idea:





LOGGING IN/OUT

Having to log out to change characters is extremely counter-intuitive and a major bump in the user experience flow. (This has been mentioned many times on the boards, no need to go into much more detail here).

What is the reasoning behind a character having to recast all auras each time they log off/on? In the same vein, what is the reasoning behind a summoner having to re-summon pets to start playing? I understand the gameplay aspect of finding corpses to turn into zombies, that's fine and intuitive. However, why do the pets need to disappear when logging off or being disconnected? It slows down the flow and gives the summoner an additional chore each time they start playing or crash, which happens surprisingly often even on very capable machines (but that's another issue). It seems that auras and pets could simply be saved with the character upon logging off, helping to keep a good rhythm in gameplay.



STASH

The logic behind Ctrl-Click'ing an item to/fro the stash should follow reading direction, ie. Left to Right, then down to next line. The current logic is counter-intuitive and feels faulty for all english users, which probably make up a majority of the user base.

The dropdown menu for multiple tabs is lacking in the visual design aspect, but this may just be a placeholder for now. The arrows for toggling through multiple stash tabs could definitely stand to be bigger, as they feel very cramped as they are now.

An idea for the stash tabs might be to give players an option to merge two (or more) tabs into the same tab, and make the new larger tab scrollable towards the bottom. I know for one that I am currently standing at 3 tabs just for gems (with a mule for duplicates of useable gems), and would love to be able to merge all of this into the same tab to make searching through gems a bit less of a headache.



MERCHANTS

Why can't I reorder items in my inventory when I have a merchant window open? There is no reason for this, and it is quite jarring to a player that wants to make sure they are selling and keeping the right items. Most users develop "methods" to speed up their own flow, like keeping all wanted items to the left, junk to the right for example, so no frustrating mixups happen. With no Buyback option at the merchant, this seems even more crucial.

In the same line of thought, why can't I check /itemlevel when a merchant window is open? A great example of counter-intuitiveness - at the merchant is where most of my /itemlevel needs happen.

Once a character is high level and doing maps, they will see a lot of the Eternal Laboratory. Why not make this area a bit more welcoming, with access to a Stash and a Merchant that would help smooth out the rhythm break that happens when your inventory fills up in a map? As it is currently, the double loading screen that happens in rapid succession (open Portal, load Eternal Lab, click Waypoint, load Sarn, merchant/stash gear, reverse) tickles the nerves each time, for no good reason.



TRADE WINDOW

In the same vein as above, why can't I separate a stack of items when I have the trade window open? I can't count the number of times I had the wrong amount of orbs separated before trading, and once there are 4-5 items on each side, I would end up throwing the whole stack in to the trade and either shrug it off or hope the other player was kind enough to separate the stack and give me the change. This is absolutely frustrating for users and a fundamental flaw in the UI design.

The trade window also overlaps the chat window, which makes communication with the other trader awkward once items are put up.



IDENTIFYING RARES

Identifying rares currently requires two clicks from the user, with one of those clicks being completely unnecessary. In my opinion, Torchlight2 has got this right: once you have an ID scroll in your inventory, right clicking a rare is enough to identify it (using up a scroll). Diablo3 is currently experimenting with an "Identify All" option - this I believe is being added because the flow of the game is incredibly fluid and fast-paced (combat speed, movement speed, amount of loot) in contrast with the identification process which slowed the rhythm down to a crawl, hence users being displeased. The overall speed of gameplay in Path of Exile is much slower, which contrasts less with the identification process - still, a slow down is felt which could easily be remedied.

Another idea for Wisdoms as well as Portals would be to be able to equip them in special slots, with a bindeable key. There isn't really a good reason to have to open inventory to make a portal at the moment, and simply acts as a bump in the flow (tiny, but ever present).

There is a question that keeps popping to mind everytime I use my Portal gem: Why is there not an equivalent to this for identificating items? I understand that there is currently no way to use abilities in towns, and with reason. A large part of the identification process happens inside cities, I would suspect, so the current limitation is somewhat acceptable. What if identification was an exception here, and the skill gem was made to have no accompanying animation and/or sound, so as to keep it impossible for players to spam each other with annoying effects when out of battle instances?

Interesting tidbit: Torchlight 2 has the reverse situation going on... there is currently a Spell (lootable equivalent of a skill gem here) that lets you identify items, but no such item for creating a town portal (without a user-created mod, that is). Both situations tend to tickle the players' intuition.

Itemlevel being quite an important concept in this game, why does the method for finding out the itemlevel on items have to be so complex and awkward? It uses a method that is not in use in any other areas of the interface, and was certainly not designed with intuition in mind. I see no truly logical explanation to having such a complex interaction when the obvious solution is to show itemlevel directly on the item tooltip (it could be made much more subtle than the rest of the information!) As for confusing and making things needlessly complex for players... please see this forum (and obviously, this very post) for an extended list of worse offenders.



ZONE RESETTING

Not being able to Ctrl-Click a zone to reset it while being in the zone is counter-intuitive. Having to load other zones (Crossroads/Church for example) to reset Fellshrine is very annoying and slows down the flow for people with less-than-optimal computers.

The use of Ctrl-Click for zone options is also hardly intuitive (how would I learn about this without the message boards?) Why not have Right-Click options, as when a user clicks on another character's portrait, for resetting zones? Consistent use of the same methods in an interface greatly helps with the learning curve and makes the user experience more stable.

Brought up by PolarisOrbit:
From what I understood by PolarisOrbit's comment, resetting zones was a temporary option intended to ease beta testing and would likely be taken out of the game at a later stage. Could someone possibly confirm this by pointing me to an official post? I would be very surprised if this was the case, and would absolutely love to hear what the intended gameplay flow is supposed to look like without this option!

Brought up by Thristian:
Resetting an instance while in that same instance might give a user a feeling of "sawing the branch they're sitting on", if they follow the metaphor of sending the old instance into inexistence, which isn't a comfortable flow. Thought needs to be given to the method, but the basic idea of not having to uselessly load entire instances to have access to the reset option remains.



CHOOSING SPELLS/ATTACKS

When clicking on a skill tab to choose from the available skills/spells, the pop-up seems to be lacking in the visual design aspect. There is no frame and the interface feels out of line with the rest of the UI elements. The "X" for adding no skill to the slot also seems out of place here. All other skill icons are set in a square, while this one uses a circle - inconsistent.



SKILL & SUPPORT GEMS

Skill and support gem visual design is quite pretty when looking at each gem separately, but very bad when looking at them all side by side. The level of detail doesn't help at all for quick reading and only slows down the flow when searching for a particular gem. Subtlety is the key in icon design (which, in essence, this is).

Support gem visual design is very inconsistent and rough on the eyes. Placement of gems inside the square inventory slots fluctuates massively, which is a major hindrance to the user's eye when searching through. It's paramount in any design to help guide the reader's eye with fluidity and a certain constant rhythm, which the gems definitely don't have.
See figure 1



Gem sizes also vary wildly from one gem to the other, with no rhyme or reason to the fluctuations in sizes. This creates a discomfort when seen side-by-side - again this feels like the icons were designed as singles and without keeping track of the aspect of the gems as a collection.
See figure 2



Gems are also strangely placed within the inventory spaces, with no set margins between the icon and the sides of the squares, which breaks up readability and creates a "clusterfuck" aspect which I believe was the major point brought up when the icons were first introduced. People were saying that the new designs were headache inducing, and I couldn't help but agree - we went from a very homogenous set of icons (albeit very hard to search through, but that's another issue) to an ultra-detailed collection of art pieces that don't fit together.
See figures 3,4,5



There is a strange feeling of discomfort that happens with the new gem designs: how, logically, is my character fitting such complex items (take the Life Leech gem for example, with its long, sinewy gold attachments that look very fragile) into the simple round slots on gear? The parallel with real-life decorative jewelry is inevitable, and some of the gems seem like they would break and fall apart after a few uses, while some seem solid as rocks.

In short, it doesn't matter if your users get used to your bad design - it is still bad design.



LEVELING GEMS

Gems that have not been leveled, because they couldn't for lack of requirements or because of the user's choice, appear at the bottom of the inventory - this placement is slightly awkward and it acts as a distraction each time the inventory is opened. I often end up leveling gems just to get rid of the button at the bottom, out of a hardwired habit of leveling things up whenever possible. However, this is not always optimal (read: never) in this game. It should be possible to hide, or otherwise send these to another less-often visited area of the interface for later use. It is also counter-intuitive to be required to equip a gem to level it up, since gems are seen as separate solid entities from the character.



CHARACTERS

In town, characters can walk and stand inside each other with no problem (see what I mean when there are 15 people in the same Sarn Encampment instance, all standing around the stash). Once we enter any other instance, however, characters are blocked by each other. Why is this a thing at all? What makes the interaction of bumping into another character a more pleasing, fluid user experience? I can understand bumping into mobs, as they must feel solid and must be able to block you from running away when you're cornered - having other players do the same breaks up the game flow more than anything.

For example, my poor ranged Shadow playing in a group with 3-4 Melee Marauders had a hard time ever reaching one piece of loot, since the Melee characters would be standing on it already, and Marauders have very large "hit boxes" for their character. I had to click repeatedly on the same piece of loot (4-6 times per) to have any chance, enough time for the timer to run its course on most occasions - frustrating is an understatement.



FEEDBACK ON ACTION

Giving a user feedback upon each action is one of the most important aspects of any user interface. Using an interface is parallel to having a conversation with a machine/application - there has to be a reply to each interaction or the exchange feels empty and frustrating.

A good example of an action that lacks feedback is attempting to use a melee skill, say Cleave, with a non-melee weapon equipped. The user simply sees the action having no effect, and the first reaction is not to check the game itself, but to check the mouse/computer (tested with a casual player friend just last week) since the assumption is that the application would either not let you equip the skill, or give you some type of "you're doing it wrong" feedback.

Also lacking a bit of feedback is missing an attack - as it is now, when I start a new character and run through the Twilight Strand for the first time, I always have a couple moments of thinking I'm desync'd because I miss and have no immediate feedback for it.

Feedback about players joining/leaving your group pop up to the right-bottom of the screen, over the Inventory interface. There is no option to either have these notifications appear in the chat window, or not appear at all - often I have my inventory blocked off by these, and since some people enjoy having character names such as "Aaaaaaaaaaaaa_Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz" with maximum characters, it can be quite a thorn in the side.

Mouse-over on game elements such as Waypoints or Zone-ins being just a large blank block must be a placeholder, right? As is, it feels very lazy and not in line with the rest of the visuals.

Smaller things lacking proper feedback:

No sound effect when picking up a Flask or sending it to stash via Ctrl-Click.

No "you're doing it wrong" feedback when clicking on a Portal scroll in town.



BUFFS & DEBUFFS

Keeping with the theme of feedback on action, but still deserving its own sub-section, I feel, is the fact that buff and debuff icons have no immediate and clear differentiating aspect. For instance, it's not clear when I have the "Shock" effect applied that it is detrimental to my character - until I get destroyed by monsters a few times, then I'll start noticing a pattern. The UI should be giving me much clearer clues that this is a negative effect, and the same applies for all debuffs. Perhaps a different colored frame?

Debuffs could certainly stand to be made much more evident on the character itself, for instance a very clear animation for the "Shock" effect which can be deadly without proper feedback.

Time remaining on buffs and debuffs is also only marked by very small, hard to read numbers. The use of decimal time here is dubious: what buffs last more than a minute in Path of Exile? I have currently not seen one, so the use of the 00:00 formatting may be unnecessary here. Correct me if I'm wrong, of course!

An easy solution would be to use the icons' frame in a more visual way of communicating time information, one that can be understood at a glance. There are multiple ways to do this, but I've illustrated a few here:



Suggested by Wooser69:
Buff and debuff placement within the UI is not optimal, in that it requires the user's eyes to move to the top of the screen whereas every other piece of crucial combat information is placed at the bottom. For debuffs, mostly, this means either ignoring the icons, or moving attention away from actual combat to try and figure out information that should be more readily available.


Suggested by Lyralei:
Buff/debuff placement within the UI also brings about the issue of accidentally clicking off a buff, in the heat of battle, that could result in untimely death and frustration. Although I'm not convinced having the icons towards the bottom of the UI would help alleviate this issue, thought needs to be given to their placement. A question to ask ourselves here: is the ability to cancel a buff in this game a necessity, or could it be done away with?



CUSTOMIZATION

One thing that made quite a difference when playing Torchlight 2 recently was being able to hide the character's helmet. Diablo 3 even went further and allowed you to "color" an item with an invisible ink that would make the item disappear (while still equipped), which made fighting as a naked Barbarian a possibility - awesome, no?

I know item coloring is certainly coming with Microtransactions, but giving the option to hide certain items would undoubtedly enhance many people's experience and enjoyment of their character (some helms are just downright ugly, eh!)

Additionally: Pants, please. Pretty please?



GEAR

I can't inspect my friend's gear.

"Say what?"

I can't inspect my friend's gear! Short of them linking every piece one by one, THERE IS NO WAY FOR ME TO SEE OTHER PEOPLE'S GEAR. If other points brought up in this post are considered bumps in the road, this, to me, is a mountain. People can literally add me on their list to stalk the hell out of me (see next point), but they can't see what I'm wearing? From a user-experience standpoint this feels very much like a missing limb.

Having the possibility of looking at other characters' gear is an expected feature of this sort of game. As a few people have mentioned already in this thread, having the option of allowing/disallowing inspection would certainly be a great addition to gameplay here.

After reading people's reaction to this point, I felt the need to point out that checking equipped items is far off from checking Passive Skill choices, which I am not advocating here. That is an entirely different matter. Checking people's gear choices would hardly reveal anything drastic about people's actual builds, but I understand and agree that the choice to reveal or not their gear should remain in the user's hands.



FRIENDS LIST

Recent online trends make having any semblance of intimacy/privacy a very hard thing indeed. Why is it that just by adding my character's name, any single person is able to keep tabs on my activity (character selection, current level, zone currently playing, etc) without my consent? This is flabbergasting and a huge user-friendliness issue. Newer generations may feel less deeply about this issue than older players, since this is the "new normal" - however here, again, options would definitely shine. How about when declining a friendship offer, the other person doesn't have access to our whereabouts anymore? The same when removing a friend from our list? How about an option to appear offline? These seem to be common sense issues more than anything - again, it's unimaginable to me that this would have been overlooked for so long.

As with the Character Selection screen, buttons in the Friends List are absolutely massive and when I've got multiple friends online, makes scrolling through them an eyesore. There also seems to be little to no logic to the order they appear in - any number of options here would be a welcome addition for user-friendliness.

When adding a new friend, I can't use their account name, but must use one of their characters' name. However, once added, the UI shows their account name - why not make it so I can use either a character name or their account name to add them? This is mostly a hassle when trading from the message boards, and complicates things greatly.

It would also be quite practical to be able to add a note to users, ie. I've just added Joe00445 to my friends list and can add a note saying "75 Spell Dmg Scepter, thread 77484" or something of the sort, since most of my Friends List modifications are trade-related. Useful also for all sorts of non-trade related things, however! (I understand that the trade aspect is probably only temporary, since we are getting an overhauled trade method sometimes in the future.)

Directly related to my Friends List is my Ignore List - where can I see all the people I've ignored? How do I un-ignore a user? Can I ignore only one character from a user, but keep other characters from this user visible? This feature seems to be very much unfinished for now.



CHAT WINDOW

As an avid Everquest player (and WoW, why not), the convention for chats has always been that hitting "R" will open chat with reply to the last person to have sent a PM. I don't understand why this conventional method isn't in use for Path of Exile. When reinventing the wheel, make sure your wheel rolls better than all other pre-existing wheels… or just use the old wheel design instead.

Chatting is an extremely awkward user-experience in Path of Exile. To reply to a private message, I will have to first click in the dialog box, then right click on the user's name (hopefully it hasn't been bumped up 20 lines by trade chat yet), hit Whisper this Player then type my reply. This is three clicks added to the user's flow, when a simple hit of the "R" key could have sufficed. There is also the annoying occurrence of hitting Invite to Party or Ignore by mistake, which happens most often in the heat of battle when trying to message someone in a hurry.

Another major hindrance in user-friendliness from the chat window is the impossibility of keeping an item's stats visible without mouse-over. For example, I see someone selling a great pair of gloves in the trade channel , and would like to compare stats with my current equipped gloves. Right now this is impossible, as I must keep my mouse over the item link in the trade window and have to actually follow the link upwards as people keep spamming. Why not let the user click on the link and keep a window with the item's stats open?

Limiting the number of times a player can send repeated (or new) messages in a chat is also a conventional method of giving players a rest from spam. Why is this not applied here? Group and PM chats are fine for spamming (in my opinion), but when reading trade chat for example and people linking the same item over and over every 4 seconds is extremely frustrating from a user standpoint. Limiting the number of lines would also be common sense here - no one is checking 15 items from the same user one by one. (Again, aware that these are temporary and will end up changed one way or another.)



MICROTRANSACTIONS

Items with mictrotransaction effects applied should also have some form of visual cue to more easily identify them. If I like to switch effects from item to item, I shouldn't need to rifle through all the equippable items I have to find the effect - it should be readily available.

How about applying a microtransaction effect doesn't remove it from the microtransaction tab, but simply greys it out while keeping the option of right-clicking to disable it from an item without logging on to the character that has it equipped? It would make it much more user-friendly to switch the effect from one character to the other.

For example: I've applied a Halo Effect to my main's helm, but then begin playing with friends on another character and would like to impress them with my shiny head thingy. I'll have to log off, log back in, enter game with main, disable microtransaction effect, log off, log back in, enter game with new character, enable effect. The new flow would be: right-click on effect in Microtransaction tab, disable from main's helm, right-click on effect again, enable on new character helm. Voilà!


Thanks for reading :)

ANIMATION

There is a certain stiffness that is prevalent in all character animations in Path of Exile, which is a major visual turn off for new users. This stiffness, I believe, is responsible for a lot of the feeling of sluggishness felt by players starting new characters. The concept of a harsh, unforgiving environment is omnipresent when first entering Twilight Strand, but there is also a feeling of unresponsiveness, weight and lack of agility from the character that shouldn't be part of the experience.

It's always necessary in animation to have a certain level of exaggeration applied, depending on setting of course. Animating a living humanoid creature needs a certain "cartoon-esque" elasticity that cannot be replicated in real life - imitating live actions precisely will inevitably make the rendered animation stiff in all sorts of ways, as the eye never gets used to the awkward lack of overlapping and volume distribution. This is even more important in video games, as the animation will be repeated countless times and from every possible point of view.

Of course, movement speed in any ARPG is the bread and butter - nothing sets the pace for the entire game like the basic running speed of a character. PoE's basic run speed is particularly slow: a deliberate choice, no doubt, which by itself is a fine decision. Coupled with the rigidity of running animations, however, it makes the game act a bit like if the FPS was stuck at low setting. Every time I begin play with a new character, I am anxious to equip some form of movement speed gear, be it a flask, a pair of boots or some unique, to alleviate the feeling of unease.

As a recent example, I started a new Templar who dual wields wands. When walking, he keeps his back incredibly straight, so awkwardly so in fact that once I added movement speed (20% from boots, 20% from uniques, 40% from flask), I felt as though my own back had been liberated from the awkward position. (As a side note here, I showed a friend the new character and their first reaction was to laugh at my pantsless character running straight-backed at hyper-speed - humor is great, but I don't believe this is what this game is shooting for).

A massive discrepancy also exists between the respective fluidity of character animations and spell/attack effect animations. In a sense, it feels as though the animators had a gut feeling that their character animations were stiff, and used the highly detailed particle effects, as well as the amazing old aura effects (more on that later) as a blanket to cover up the stiffness.



SPELL EFFECTS

Some spells and attacks in the game are visually stunning, have luscious particle effects, and otherwise feel as organically part of the environment as monsters, chests, etc. A good example of a skill effect that feels visceral is Firestorm - each meteor has a feeling of weight and volume that truly impacts the enemies it hits.

In contrast, some spells have very flat, uninspired effects and do not seem to have been designed by the same person or with the same mindset, which can be a bit of a letdown for the unsuspecting user. Try using Ethereal Knives right after spamming Firestorm - the contrast in weight and overall satisfying feeling of these two skills is rather large.

The old aura effects had this feeling of dimension and physical "existence" in the game world. The new effects are incredibly bland and flat in comparison and are far from being in line with the rest of the game's visuals, like adding cardboard decorations to a chocolate cake. I absolutely understand the optimization process that was required to make the game run smoothly on older machines, but going from top-quality particle effects to what would have been considered mediocre in the days of Ultima Online in one fell swoop is a bit intense.

It seems like the exact inverse situation happened with auras and skill gem designs: overcompensation and a disalignment with the true purpose of the change. To put it a different way, the aura (and some spell) graphics do not match the aesthetics of the game anymore.

The new auras are also far out of line with current Microtransaction-purchasable effects, that have a beautiful amount of volume and detail. If the old auras were taken out to be later resold as Microtransactions, why not come clean now and let us know? I will be first in line if they're reasonably priced!



COMBAT

This is very much in line with the Feedback on Action, Animation and Spell Effects subsections, but I feel it deserves its own mention because combat is inevitably the main attraction here, and arguably the most important activity a user will participate in while using the application (on par with identifying/comparing loot).

Feedback when getting hit is unfortunately very poor in Path of Exile. Decisions taken such as not showing damage numbers and not having a combat log, the much-too-subtle animations of recoil when a character is hit, as well as the lack of any other clue from the interface that you have taken a hit amount to a very unresponsive exchange with the interface.

Hitting enemies, on the contrary, feels satisfying enough and seems to have had much more thought given to it. Blood splatter, particle effects, sound effects are used in a satisfying manner here - not much more to say.

However, the contrast this creates between hitting/being hit forces players to find other methods to gather the information they need to keep their character alive - staring at the red bubble is one of those methods, or constantly stopping actual combat to run the character around and manage resources (health, flasks, etc). These methods are fine in and of themselves, but should definitely not be required from the user simply because of the lack of UI feedback.

There is also hardly any way for a player to figure out what their combat situation is, globally, at any given moment. For instance, if I am fighting against a large group of chimps and a few large gorillas, I will usually focus fire on the gorillas while trying to keep the mob of tiny monsters at bay. However, it's quite literally impossible to have any global idea of the level of danger I am currently in without spending precious seconds trying to mouse-over each monster one by one. Are the monkeys all at full health? Will my flasks hold me up for the rest of them, or should I teleport out? Should I switch my focus fire to that nearly-dead chimp to optimize flask uptime?

The reasons given (that I could find) for not having enemy health bars shown basically amount to keeping the game screen uncluttered as much as possible - truly a respectable endeavour! However, the logic doesn't hold any ground - have you ever witnessed a 6-man party killing a double boss in a 100%+ quantity map? That is clutter. A couple hitpoint bars (as an optional addition, of course) wouldn't make or break the visuals of this game, but would massively increase interface feedback and satisfy a natural need for situational information required to play this type of game optimally.

Discussion of this with a friend brought up an interesting idea: why not have the option of having enemy health bars as a Passive Skill in the tree? In essence, the character becomes psychic and can read enemy health, call it Psychopath (Super Mario RPG's Mallow, anyone?), and perhaps have it available in a few different places in the tree so any build can grab it. This would definitely not please everyone, but the option would at least exist and having it as part of the tree would add a certain tactical depth. The truly user-friendly solution is to have this toggleable via the game options, of course.



SOLO/MULTIPLAYER

Is Path of Exile a solo game that has an optional multiplayer aspect? Or inversely, is this a multiplayer game that will try to accomodate solo play?

At the present, the second option is heavily favored. I see no problem with this, but the fact needs to be put forth clearly so that users are expecting the right thing before they begin their experience.

To illustrate a parallel situation, this is similar to entering a book store and finding only magazines and newspapers - some will be satisfied by what they find, perhaps because they were seeking those types of items or are simply satisfied by them, but a great number of visitors will wonder why the place was even called a book store to begin with. The ARPG genre began as a solo experience, in essence, with a tacked-on multiplayer facet that became popular later on, which makes Path of Exile a bit of an outcast here. Again, no worries, that's cool - but if your apple is an apple, it needs to be advertised as such.

One of the problems with the multiplayer-favored aspect of the game is that gameplay only begins to force multiplayer interaction towards the later stages (grouping for optimized returns, trading for gear optimization, etc.), which can be very frustrating for a player who set out with a completely solo mindstate. Don't get me wrong - it can be done (I'm doing it as we speak), but it is far from optimal and while I was in the top 100 for levels in the first few days of Open Beta, I was incredibly quickly left in the dust by people with dedicated teams, as I am sure many were (and still are). Not a problem from a usability standpoint, if expected by the user from the get-go - currently, this isn't the case.

Finally if, by some stretch of the imagination, this game is trying to balance both solo and multiplayer gameplay to make them equally efficient/pleasant/satisfying, it is failing miserably.



ECONOMY

Inherently related to the question of Solo/Multiplayer is the overarching issue of the game's economy, which only becomes apparent to a user after quite some time spent with the application.

A disproportionate amount of the changes that have been brought to the game since I have been a player have clearly had the intent of boosting the game's economy in some form, with seemingly very little attention paid to the players' actual enjoyment of their time spent playing the game as a solo experience (or with a limited social circle). Changes are also made incrementally and with the clear intention of keeping the game's economy stable and controlled, which seems counter to the expected goal of a Beta phase.

Similarly with the above issue of Solo/Multiplayer, this should be made abundently clear before the experience even begins.

One needs look no further than the recent Diablo 3 fiasco for a very clear example of the adverse reaction of users towards the unavowed goal of having a ARPG-style game revolve around its economy, real-money or not, rather than its gameplay.

Again, I am not against the basic idea, and it could eventually make for a very compelling experience if well executed - what I am advocating here is a "clearing up" of the stated intent, so as to align expectations with reality and ultimately make for a much more comfortable ride.



PROGRESSION

There is an inherent expectation by users that time spent on a task will translate to rewards and/or progression, no matter how small and insignificant. This is how most exchanges work (either in real life or in video games) and is the driving motivation behind a majority of things people act on.

Path of Exile attempts to break this rule with its late-game progression model, which can become one of the most irritating aspect of the game for a player that has spent a large number of hours building up a character. Players are not eased into the massively time-consuming, random nature of endgame content - rather, they hit the progression wall at full speed and often just as their character begins to feel fun to navigate and powerful enough to handle things efficiently.

Access to late-game progression, with maps as the main (and, currently, only) method, is based on a large amount of random chance rather than using the usual effort-in, reward-out hamster wheel that gives users a sense of satisfaction.

I believe that the way Maps are interlocked with the Solo/Multiplayer and Economy aspects creates an even more frustrating experience, since a player not only stands to lose a chunk of their time if they don't get lucky enough, but can also enter a negative return state on their investment (time, effort, in-game currency) depending on their map-rolling habits. For players with dedicated teams, the divided cost is made somewhat trivial - players in a less social situation, however, feel the sting all too often.

It seems a clearer separation between the two forms of progress in the game, Experience and Equipment/Currency, could help alleviate some of the frustrations that have been voiced over and over on these message boards. The obvious choices should be given:

• Having a user choose to move their character forward with increased experience gain, while in return lowering (or at least not boosting) their chance at drops. How about a map mod that increases the level of the map, but drastically reduces the amount of items dropped?

• Having the user pick a more loot-orientated path, with a lowered intake of experience. This is what maps act like currently, for solo players at least, but the opposite choice does not exist!

• Having users pick a path with great returns in both experience and drops, but with a much steeper cost, an increase in difficulty and a possibility of seeing no return for their investment.



LOOTING

The pinnacle of user-experience is giving users the ability to customize their experience as much as possible, while retaining the integrity of your application. In this sense, while I understand and respect the desire to go for the whole "cutthroat" ambiance regarding loot, the lack of options is a major hindrance to a majority of users.

Players are currently forced to team up with others (at higher levels at least) to optimize their use or your application. Forcing players to not only join a team but enter in a multitude of mini-conflicts during each use (no matter how you describe it, this is what FFA loot amounts to) is very constricting and lacks common sense. (I believe this is to be changed if I understood correctly, I just felt it was part of the basic idea of this post.)

As a side note here, and as a massive amount of players have already pointed out, having people team up to kill monsters and then having them fight for the reward is counter-intuitive, regardless of how you might want to spin it. From a user-experience aspect, it makes logic stand on its head and will make people doubt their gut.

Another frustrating aspect of looting is having a full inventory when clicking on an item and having the item instantly drop back to the ground, available for all to pick up. Why not have the item that can't currently be looted, for lack of space, stick to the cursor instead? In the advent of a user clicking once to pick up the item, it feels jarring to have the item not looted and will often take 2 or 3 clicks before realizing what is happening.

Suggested by PolarisOrbit:
There is an unexpected behavior that happens when clicking on an item to loot and opening the inventory while the character is running to the item. The expectation is always that once the inventory is open, any item looted will stick to the cursor, which doesn't happen in the above situation and is counter-intuitive.



TRADING

Random Number Generation is a key element in the game, one that permeates every facet from looting, crafting, leveling, and even actual access to late-game content, which is obviously a conscious choice by the designer. Weather or not the randomness in the game should be toned down is up for debate, but isn't the subject of this particular thread.

One thing that has a massive reliance on randomness, and which users may not realize at first glance is the trading aspect of the game. There are multiple layers of RNG (as well as true random) in trading, which collectively act as a hurdle and create a mental barrier for a large portion of users.

For example, let's say I've figured out the exact stats I'm after on my new Scepter. Random events that must align for me to find the item I'm after:

Trading in-game:
• Be randomly thrown into the correct Trade channel instance.
• Be online at the correct time to see a person posting in Trade channel.
• Sift through the insane amount of chat lines and massive amount of items posted.
• Possess the exact correct combination of currency the other user wants for the item.
• If not, find another user, with luck, that will exchange currency for me.

Trading via message boards:
• Visit the correct sub-forum that contains the item I'm after.
• Stumble upon the correct thread that contains the item I'm after.
• Have the item still available, and the user still an active player.
• Have the seller read my reply to their thread in a timely fashion.
• Have the seller communicate their desire to sell the item, and leave contact info.
• Have the possibility of being online at the same time as the user.

Multiple tools (like poexplorer.com) have been created by users to alleviate much of this randomness. These sites act like virtual auction houses, with parameters that can be used to pinpoint the exact location of certain items, in essence eliminating much of the randomness in trading. It's important to note that these sites have not had any major adverse effects on the balance of economy and gameplay, even if they clearly weren't planned by the creators. They even seem to have had universal approval from the userbase, and no negative mentions by administrators or staff that I could find.

I am aware of future plans from GGG to create a trading system to help ease the process. I am also aware of multiple mentions of their disdain for an auction house system. Sadly, It is curently only possible to theorize on the systems that are to be put in place to smooth out this rather large bump in user flow.

Will the new system use the same amount of random events that permeates trading currently? Will I have to be online at the same time as the other player to see their listing? Will I have to randomly stumble upon their thread (or stash-tab post, all the same) to find the item I'm after?

If not, will there be precise search parameters for finding particular items? Will there also be a way to bid on items, or will the seller be able to add a certain value that they wish to sell the item for? If this is the case, what, if I may ask, is the difference between this system and a true auction house?

The logic is simple: if there are no search parameters, the system remains absolutely based on multiple layers of randomness. Since the entire game seems to be balanced around the economy and players having access to trades for their items, having a trade system based on multiple random events is counter to the end goal of easing gameplay flow and only creates a series of irritating hoops for the user to jump through. Alternatively, if the trade system does have search parameters, how will it, objectively, be any different from having an auction house? Or does the negative stigma attached to the term "auction house" simply force the creators in labeling it otherwise, knowing full well what the intention is?

I posit that it would be quite a good idea, even paramount, for the person (people) in charge of designing the new trade system to come forward with the planned system, since actual user feedback on the difference between current and new systems may be invaluable... but of course, that's a matter of opinion. Here's hoping!


Again, thanks extended to all who've read these words :)

Excellent feedback.

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Inspection may be added as an opt-in choice, though not very high priority. Invisible Ink is planned to be added.

The friends list stalking issue is planned to be fixed, both in making friends mutual and by allowing an invisible mode. Adding notes for the same would also be fantastic (and for the ignore list, and making the ignore list visible).

To quickly reply to whispers, try ctrl+enter.

excellent feedback

I agree with pneuma, very good feedback. I will only post the things I disagree with, so anything not posted I agree with your conclusions:

I like the two clicks for identifying rares, it feels more like an option, and I could easily right click on things I don't want to identify. I don't mind this setup

Zone resetting, I don't completely understand. Do you want to be able to reset the zone from INSIDE the zone, or do you want to not have to ctrl+click then click new. I support some shift+click which resets instance so you don't have to open the list of all instances, but resetting from inside an instance sounds wrong.

Looting to me could use SOME improvements, but in general I actually like how it is now. Problem is mostly that it is TOO visually spammy since theres so many white drops to flavour the occasional rare.

Gear -> Some people don't like to share their build. if its something very unique, they dont' want everyone to be looking at their items. I understand this. Sure, it would be convienient to have it be an option, but an option only that has to be changed by the person, not automatically on.



Other than those, I think this is very good feedback, some of it is addressed already / being addressed. Some actually has existed since CB and have the 'devs don't read forums' feel to it (thinking specifically friends list being overfilled and unintuitive, and the unable to move things while selling to vendors)

Great feedback

You sir are a gentlemen and scholar. I absolutely love your idea for the deal of the day, everytime I hit that login screen I cringe

Really good. I pretty much agree with everything.

Things is you name things that I took the habit for, without even asking myself if it was good or not (logout/ login to change character, reply to whispers ...). Very nice. Hope GGG will read it as it very precious feedback, like a free consulting UI expert!

+1

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pneuma wrote:

To quickly reply to whispers, try ctrl+enter.

Thanks for your quick reply! Very useful, this shortcut... feels like I grew another arm overnight :D

The question that inevitably comes to mind here is: how would I have found out about this otherwise? No one I've asked (and this is not a very simple question to ask clearly) knew about this option - this is a shining example of counter-intuitiveness.