Let it Flow - About PoE's User Experience

"

Phoobrak wrote:

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.

This.

There's been times where players have died or nearly died because another player unwittingly blocks their escape out of the room. It seems counterintuitive to have it so that a marauder sitting in a wide doorway will literally block every ally from crossing over. As big as the marauder is, there's no way they fill up the entirety of the doorway.

Collision spheres for players in maps are just too large. If I want to grab my loot, I shouldn't need to snake through the 3 guys standing over it just so the tiny pickup radius finally triggers.

"

Phoobrak wrote:

Addendum



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.

I have found that this feeling is directly related to your movement speed and attack speed. I have began to run fast attack and movement characters simply because the game feels so much smoother. When rerolling to a fresh character it is always such a shock at how sluggish they are.

"

Ascendic wrote:

I have found that this feeling is directly related to your movement speed and attack speed. I have began to run fast attack and movement characters simply because the game feels so much smoother. When rerolling to a fresh character it is always such a shock at how sluggish they are.

Agreed, absolutely. Not sure if you read through the subsection you quoted or only read that first paragraph, but that's exactly what I said here:

"

Phoobrak wrote:

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.

Thanks for chiming in!

"

Amarena wrote:

"

Phoobrak wrote:

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

I made pants (texture) mods [...] http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/202404

Yep, saw those a while back. Good texture work! I especially liked the bloody Shadow, wicked.

A shame they wouldn't accept using them, but that must mean they have something in store for us... right?

You sir, should actually work for this company. Haven't played in almost 2 month right now because the solo experience (not using gameterms here, I mean playing solo is NOT fun in PoE) in PoE is absolute dirt.

"

MrMeowMeow wrote:

You sir, should actually work for this company.

Thanks for the good word. I'd fly out there tomorrow, if only they'd call ;)

"

the solo experience [...] in PoE is absolute dirt.

Yes, sir. The main point that turns the solo experience into a frustration, in my opinion, is that it only dawns on players after they reach a certain drop-off point that soloing is no longer rewarding, compared with multiplayer.

I played Everquest as a Rogue for 3+ years - I know what it entails to be required to join a team to be able to play a game. I *could* theoretically solo for experience and (some) loot in EQ, but the ridiculous effort and the inevitable frustration made it non-viable by definition. Some other classes (Bards, Shamans, Druids, Necromancers) could solo much more efficiently, so choosing your class in accordance to these limitations was a must.

The exact same thing happens in this game, except all players/classes/builds are equally subject to it. In essence, it feels that a divide exists between the expected possibility of soloing in a ARPG-type game, and this game clearly being built around the usual MMORPG trait of forcing players to interact and play sociably.

One thing I tried to stress in the original post: I don't think this is a particularly bad idea. Personal tastes aside (I'm a definite introvert and keep to myself as much as possible), the basic idea of having an obligatory social setting for what is originally a single-player experience is interesting and could do well, given the right design.

The problem is that this "feature" of an MMO-like progression scheme is not put forth clearly and must be stumbled upon by the user, often after having spent a rather large amount of time and effort on the game. The social aspects of the game are sub-par at best (trading, chat system, PvP, loot system, etc.), yet they are forced upon the user constantly... and this is where the frustration kicks in.

Excellent feedback, well written and well worth the time reading.

I agree with you fully, just a few thoughts on a couple of points that sprung to mind.

An ID All button could be a problem with various recipes that require unidentified items.

"

Real_Wolf wrote:

Firstly selling a RGB is a waste of a scroll since it will chrome before it would alt shard, so don't want to identify it. Secondly there is farming trans shards,

Plus the chaos and regal recipes for unidentified full sets of gear.

I like the idea of either a bindable key for id scrolls (as in hold the key down and click each item to ID) or the right click to id option, still using a scroll each time of course.

Microtransactions, cannot agree with you more here. Once bought a weapon glow on offer only to find that I had already got it on a weapon buried in my stash, or trying to remember what char has what effect if I want to use in on another one.

About the picking up items sticking to your cursor when the inventory is full. I can this possibly causing confusion at times. for example I find it's not unusual (esp on my melee) to accidentally pick up items during a fight and if my inv is full then they just drop to the ground at the moment without distracting me, but the thought of suddenly having a chest piece or 2 handed weapon stuck to my cursor in the middle of battle, could get a bit confusing.

This happened to me some time ago whilst about to run from a mob I hit all the wrong keys and opened my inv and grabbed my chest piece instead of running and ended up with a message asking me if I really wanted to drop it and by the time I had worked out what I had done I was dead.

If you play a shadow you do seem to get pants ;-)

Edit... One minor apparent inconsistency about the UI that has always bugged me is the way that you can access almost every menu etc with just a mouse apart from the exit/logout menu, but after using the keyboard to get the menu up, there is no way to navigate it with the keyboard. Just seems a weird way of doing it.

Very detailed analysis of various aspects of PoE. Throwing out suggestions time to time while approaching every category unbiasedly.

Hopefully your efforts are not in vain.

Regardless, I agree with a lot(if not all) of your points. Keep it up. +1

"

Jaknet wrote:

An ID All button could be a problem with various recipes that require unidentified items.

True, and I definitely wouldn't advocate this solution for this game. It may work in other games where the pace of gameplay demands it, but here it would be out of line with the setting, and wouldn't make much sense for those particular recipes.

"

About the picking up items sticking to your cursor when the inventory is full [...]

You're right, it might make accidentally picking up items a bit offputting, and require some getting used to. There still needs to be much clearer feedback from the game when you're attempting to pick something up with a full inventory. As it stands, other than the character occasionally saying "I need more space", the item falling straight back down and being immediately available for everyone else to pick up is yet another bit of frustrating user-experience.

"

If you play a shadow you do seem to get pants ;-)

The most fabulous of leg protection! I do have alternate characters though :D

This is an amazingly well put together thread.

As for monster health bars, I'd like it if some kind of in-world representation of monster health were possible. Seeing battle damage on enemies, be it from an overlaying texture or animation changes, would definitely make enemies seem less like damage tanks and more like creatures. The "on low life" parameter should probably be universal, so say that once an enemy has reached low life, they start having less light on them and get a similarly blurry red overlay on their model.

OP, your comments about the animations hit hardest, I've tried introducing a lot of people but they often turn it down saying it's clunky, robotic or slow. The difference between the speed of flicker strike or shield charge and regular movement makes these supposed skills seem like they should be considered spells considering.

A bit surprised you didn't bring up how dangerous it is to have buffs in the top left, while debuffs are lumped in, making stuff like viper strike seem like a benefit to a user until they realise their life is draining. Unless I accidently scrolled past that part of the post...


One more thing I would like was if certain effects weren't just for show. Like the floating gems and statues you get around you when using certain flasks, it'd be nice if the rotation of those effects was based off of the duration instead of just circling around and around.

So say I have a 1 second duration effect, the gem could start at my characters head then quickly float around the character until it gets to my head again, over the course of 1 second. A 6 second effect would have it go much slower and still only make one rotation. So you'd end up with a noticable kinetic indicator of how much time your buff has left, rather than it being on/off. The current buff display with a small countdown and no visual sign that a buff is nearing its end doesn't help.