Quality of Life and cosmetic suggestions

Right now I've played halfway through Cruelty as fire-build Scion, and have come across many things that I love and many things that make me want to take a shotgun to my screen. Some of the latter are fundamental game mechanics and can't really be changed without altering the balance of the game, so I'll just point out some of the things that I feel aren't beyond the pale and would make the game more enjoyable for me.

For those of you that disagree, please put a constructive reason why you feel that my suggestions are unreasonable. Or if you agree, but think that it might be better implemented in another way or with some tweaking, I'd love to hear that too.

1. A better minimap/megamap - The maps right now are really vague about what it is you're walking into. Some things are fairly detailed, while things like hills, collision objects are indistinguishable from the rest of the map, and in the case of the latter, sometimes they just aren't marked on the map at all. Most doors, bridges and other passages are marked with an orange strip on the map, and again some aren't marked at all. I just feel that this is something that should be a little more... detailed. I understand if the intention was to make the map look like something a castaway might have just scribbled down while exploring, but from a gameplay standpoint I as a player don't appreciate this approach.

2. So have you ever tried to put too much stuff into your suitcase or backpack, and turned that last object sideways, upside down, or just stuffed into whatever open hole you could find? Yeah? Me too. With this in mind I feel it would be pretty awesome if we could TURN objects in our inventory to make them fit the jigsaw puzzle better. I have seen this before in a few games and it made inventory management on long adventures worlds easier. For me, ideally the system would work such that when you have 'grabbed' an item, you just press the left and right arrow keys to turn it.

3. Sometimes I feel like the abilities I have are pretty awesome. Sometimes, they feel really underwhelming. With this thought in mind I think it would be pretty awesome if say you killed something with a critical fireball, it's body exploded in a gory mess. I feel that it would really convey the sheer power/force of the blow to the enemy's body, even more so coupled with the screen shake that (at least it seems to me) occurs when I kill something with a critical strike. EDIT: Further playing the game I have noticed that some enemies rush at me and explode on contact, much in the way I am suggesting. With this observation I wonder if this feature would be fairly easy to apply to other character models with the scripting for it to trigger on critical kills.

4. A second cosmetic outfit - Not really a high priority, but some of the armour is... well, I'm sure that the atmosphere was the thing in mind here when the armour was designed but for me, I like my character to be as interesting to look at as it is to play. With this in mind I think that it would be pretty awesome if, as in some other games I have played we had a second outfit that is purely cosmetic, and found as random drops throughout the world or bought from the shop. So that regardless of the functional equipment we are wearing, we go out into the world with the look and feel we want our character to have.

5. Full respec - This is frustrating for me. Like really, I would sooner move onto another game than play through the game over again just to undo a dozen missteps in the passive skill forest. While not everyone cares about this, and there are some people who like having many characters, I'm not one of them. I prefer to focus on perfecting a single character, and spending my time in end game with that one character. With this in mind I think it would be nice if an NPC were added to each town that allowed us to spend a certain amount of one or a combination of currencies to reset our passive skill points. It could even be done in a lore-friendly way. For example you could call it a mind wipe (or something similar), and to really convey the severity of what you are doing to your mind, reduce your total earned experience by 5% or so, even if this means levelling down. Because who knows what ELSE the mind wipe would take?

6. A bonus board-ish system which increases droprates, regeneration, EXP gain and possibly other things for performing certain feats while fighting/exploring, and reset on death. Greater rewards and/or multipliers on higher difficulties and maps.

7. An auto-sort button for the Stash. Should be self explanatory what it is and why. Also a Stash search bar.

8. The ability to fuse resistance flasks into global resistance flasks. There are too many flasks! And they're all awesome! Trouble is, I can't take them all with me. So far I have found one that increases armour by 3000, and three more that increase my fire, lightning, and chaos resistance. Which to choose?! Soo what I propose is that once a lucky person has collected all of the resistance flasks, we sell them all to a vendor and receive an ultimate defence flask which gives a measure of ALL of the effects of the vended flasks.

9. Some kind of global cooldown indication. I find that sometimes after casting a spell or performing an attack of some kind, there is a brief 0.5-1 second period where I cannot take any action other than moving. I am guessing that this game has some kind of global cooldown when switching spells or actions, but there doesn't seem to be any heads up that this is happening or when I will be able to throw my next spell before something eats my face.

10. Tweak the interface a bit so that opening menus does not change the position of the cursor onscreen. I find it both bizarre and aggravating that when I open the inventory, the cursor changes position on the screen and my character changes heading to follow it. I don't know how many multitaskers there are out there, but I tend to do things like check the map, look at inventory and other things while running distances. This isn't a make or break fix but it sure is annoying to me.

11. More loot variety and more meaningful loot. - Don't know how the community feels about this, but I have thought more than once that it would be cool to be a sword wielding battlemage, wearing mail armour that didn't completely mess up my stats. Weapons and armour with a chance to roll any stat combination. Make it happen please! On top of this I find that a good 95% of the loot dropped by enemies is not useful for anything other than vending. This might be intentional as a source of generating currency, but finding that ONE link combination I was looking for on a piece of plate that would be such a stat loss that I may as well keep my old piece of armour that's 15 levels old is kind of aggravating. That being said I would like it if the system had some kind of detection to read where I am going with my passives and the gems I have equipped to generate loot that is more useful to me.

EDIT: So far I have found 3 Unique items, none of which are even remotely useful for a caster of any denomination. This underlines my personal desire to have drops somewhat customised to the build of the character in solo play.

12. Chromatic Orbs - It would be cool if when we could socket an item with gems, and then the orb would only roll the open sockets. I can't describe how infuriating it is to find an item with the socket configuration I want, but the link colours are wrong and then blow 20 orbs and not even get close to the colours I wanted.

13. Have the effects of linked support gems reflect on the tooltip for active gems. I just discovered the reduced duration gem. Experimenting with it's effect on Firestorm, I was quick to realise that linking reduced duration did not change the base duration indicated on Firestorm. I realise that this is because Firestorm is showing me it's BASE duration, but I do feel that if I link a support to an active that changes it's damage output, duration, or adds status effects to it, these things should be shown on the spell itself.
EDIT: Upon playing some more I realised that the total effect of MOST support gems is reflected on the tooltip on my spellbar, for anyone else thinking about this.

I'll finish off by saying that I love this game. It has it's moments when it annoys me enough that I ALT+F4 and walk away (for better or worse) but I always find myself coming back to it sooner or later. I would like to keep coming back to it, and I feel that these changes make that more likely for me.

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Kahlila wrote:

Full respec - This is frustrating for me. Like really, I would sooner move onto another game than play through the game over again just to undo a dozen missteps in the passive skill forest.

GGG was specific and straightforward when they said that there will not be any way to respecialize your skill tree except by Orbs of Regret and a full respec when and if they alter the skill tree.

This is a unique game where a "failed" build has two options. You can either try to respec out of it, or make another character.

Now, making another character is painful because you spend more gear, currency, and gems on getting them up. However, I've easily power-leveled on three gems only without supports to about level 46. Fire Trap, Lightning Trap, and Bear Trap. So gems aren't a problem.

Now, the other thing about Path of Exile is that when you kill things at or around your character's level, you have the highest chance of getting currency drops. Power-leveling a character can actually be beneficial to you by having even more currency drop as you make a new character.

If you don't want to do those things, it's best to just leave Path of Exile. But it's not that bad to just make another character.

1. agreed
2. tp is your friend, and GGG has said in a few comments that it should be important to decide WHAT to take and what to leave
3. nice, but why?
4. you can buy skin transfers - problem solved. Buyable outfits, hmm, I need to think about that
5. OVER MY DEAD BODY
6. to benefit regulars even more than casuals or to help RMT farmers? don't think so

"

Fhedaykin wrote:

1. agreed
2. tp is your friend, and GGG has said in a few comments that it should be important to decide WHAT to take and what to leave
3. nice, but why?
4. you can buy skin transfers - problem solved. Buyable outfits, hmm, I need to think about that
5. OVER MY DEAD BODY
6. to benefit regulars even more than casuals or to help RMT farmers? don't think so

Nice to see someone taking my post seriously. For the two of you above, I literally have 26 hours played and a single character that is now level 34. I didn't spend a half hour making this post just to plea for respecs. I was giving feedback that I felt was worth giving based on my experience during a single playthrough.

The critical messy kills was something that came to mind while playing the game, and noticing that the screen shook when I killed something with a critical spell, but somehow still left the spell feeling like it didn't have much of an impact. This addition I think would really add a sense of awe to the sheer force of critical spells, at least to me.

I am aware of weapon skins and transfers available. That wasn't what I was asking for. I was asking for cosmetic outfits that are always displayed on your character. Maybe the mismatched armour arrangements are what the developers were going for. Maybe I just haven't found the cool stuff yet. But so far my character has managed to look a dozen different levels of ridiculous, in my opinion.

For the person above you... having respecs doesn't change your ability to make 24 characters if that is what you like to do. It doesn't come with a sidebar that says now you may only make 1-2 characters, now go forth and be angry. No, it makes it possible for someone like myself to enjoy the game in a way I like, by making mistakes and paying for them, without having to level a new character with the limited time I have to dedicate to the game between job, girlfriend, and everything else that goes on. I am somewhat offended by the "If you don't like it go play D3" summation. Seriously I got the demo for D3 and was like "What... is this garbage?" and never looked at it again.

I can't say I know what an RMT farmer is, but I can put farmer together with a loot multiplier and see how it might be bad. Anyway the proposition wasn't so much to benefit anyone in particular as to reward the player for careful and intelligent gameplay, involving spectacular feats and most importantly, not dying.

None of these ideas have to be implemented and it isn't likely that I myself will abandon the game if none of these things are added. I discovered the passive skill generator a while ago and while it tedious beyond belief to have to plan my build while still learning to play the game (which has absolutely horrid conveyance, tbh) instead of being given the opportunity to make mistakes, undo them at a price and try to do better next time, it isn't game breaking for me. I can print this out and just put the pegs in the holes as I level and it'll work just fine.

"

DirkAustin wrote:

You reroll or get yourself some regret orbs if you screw up.

... Nice of you to completely ignore every other suggestion a second time.

I am sorry that it seems no one reads your feedback, but the forum deteriorated fast during the last weeks, sometimes it just doesn't feel right do post more than one sentence even to me ...

Let's get to your suggestions

"

Kahlila wrote:

The critical messy kills was something that came to mind while playing the game, and noticing that the screen shook when I killed something with a critical spell, but somehow still left the spell feeling like it didn't have much of an impact. This addition I think would really add a sense of awe to the sheer force of critical spells, at least to me.

I can understand that, and i also think this could improve the early feeling of the game.
The problem i see there is end game where already the screen is cluttered with effects. To add a crit effect could be overkill.
As i am a soloplayer I'd like to see it.
AFAIK there is the option to disable "screenshake", maybe have this possibility added to "critgore"

"

Kahlila wrote:

I am aware of weapon skins and transfers available. That wasn't what I was asking for. I was asking for cosmetic outfits that are always displayed on your character. Maybe the mismatched armour arrangements are what the developers were going for. Maybe I just haven't found the cool stuff yet. But so far my character has managed to look a dozen different levels of ridiculous, in my opinion.

I can see the appeal, I would LOVE to see a monks habit as skin.
The problem there I feel is the animation part. Animations are pricy (that being brought up in every discussion asking for Male/Female choice ingame).
Animating an additional set of "cosmetic armour" would be as pricy ... but if made into an MTX (micro transaction) there COULD be profit.
Again, I'd buy a monks habit for all my chars ;-)

"

Kahlila wrote:

... "respecc" ...

I will not refer to this, sry, please read some respecc threads in the forum to see the stance of many people (pro and con)
Additionally i think your thread will be reduced to this (as it already happened)

"

Kahlila wrote:

I can't say I know what an RMT farmer is, but I can put farmer together with a loot multiplier and see how it might be bad. Anyway the proposition wasn't so much to benefit anyone in particular as to reward the player for careful and intelligent gameplay, involving spectacular feats and most importantly, not dying.

RMT is real money trade. Buying items with your wallet. Which is cheating according to GGG.
Improving ANY droprate will benefit farming, ignoring legit or not.
Otherwise I like the idea of feats having benefical effects .. but tbh i cannot think up any from the top of my head

"

Kahlila wrote:

An auto-sort button for the Stash. Should be self explanatory what it is and why.

Autosort cannot be done without pleasing one and offending the other.
I sort my staff by "gear stat" or "char to use it" this would not work for everyone and any other autosort would screw up my system.
Many people request a search for the stash, I think that would be a better solution.


PS:
Please keep in mind that GGG is always interested in Feedback. so keep it up to post if you feel something should be voiced.
Have Fun with the game!

"

Fhedaykin wrote:

I am sorry that it seems no one reads your feedback, but the forum deteriorated fast during the last weeks, sometimes it just doesn't feel right do post more than one sentence even to me ...

This is incredibly depressing.

"

Fhedaykin wrote:

The problem i see there is end game where already the screen is cluttered with effects. To add a crit effect could be overkill.
As i am a soloplayer I'd like to see it.
AFAIK there is the option to disable "screenshake", maybe have this possibility added to "critgore"

I have a fairly powerful machine so this hadn't even occurred to me. However as you mentioned about the screenshake, it could have an option to turn it off so it doesn't overwhelm lower end machines.

I wouldn't mind paying a small fee for a character skin that was always visible, no matter how many times I changed my functional gear. Having to pay for skin swaps to move it from item to item wouldn't be completely beyond the pale but as buyer would annoy me immensely. A queen's dress, or maybe angel-themed battlegear or something like that I would be all over. TBH the gender locked class suggestions don't bother me, so I don't really see a need to have gender swapping. I also feel that if GGG caves on the gender switching, they would also have to cave on character customisation at the creation screen and like... that is an enormous waste of resources right now, I think. Don't do it guys!

The thing about the autosort, as with the passive respecs is that people who don't want to, don't have to use them. Stash search would definitely be good though. Autosort would screw up some people's systems, sure. But for someone like me who just dumps everything of value into the stash and runs back to the waypoint, then comes back later and says "Wow, my stuff is a mess!" I could click a button and my stuff is sorted into into neat rows of color coded gems, currencies, rings and amulets, weapons and armor based on a priority system. I wants it. Similarly with the respecs. Just because the system is added, doesn't mean people who don't want to pay the penalty ABSOLUTELY MUST USE IT. There will be the people who will be like "I liked it when it was more hardcore, but this system is too convenient to not use!" to which I would say "I hope someone drives over your head." but the more reasonable, like yourself (I think) could simply just choose not to use the feature, and let us casual gamers have a bone here. xD

Added some stuff.