Just going to flat out say it: The art assets in this game are not up to quality

Grinding gear games seems a little stubborn about a lot of this game, and that's good! They have visions for mechanics and they don't let popular opinions of things slow them down from trying new stuff. Unfortunately the art isn't up to this level of innovation or possibly even passable for a game of this caliber.

This is a revolutionary game mechanically presented by not only dated visuals, but aesthetics that are iffy at best. Core elements of form, proportion, color, composition, anatomy, exaggeration etc. aren't quite done at a professional level. I will say the artists for POE have a tremendous eye for detail, it just appears it's often wasted on details that serve to add noise rather than make the game look better.

Environment art textures are noisy and lacks compelling color palettes. Animations by and large are clunky. It's not a matter of the engine properly handeling and switching animations, it's that the core animations are clunky. And characters and armor... well they needs serious work.

The guys at GGG's obviously have an eye for quality or the game wouldn't be so enjoyable, but the quality of its art isn't in the same ballpark of the genius that's occurring on the other side of the game, and it boggles the mind as to why they haven't hired a professional level character artist, a decent environment artist, and a decent animator. Good artists aren't cheap, but they bring many times more value to a product than they cost. The current art has great direction, you can tell there's a vision and firm belief in it's stylings that's admirable, but it lacks craft in its execution.

GGG your stubbornness in game design has netted you a small passionate fan base, your stubbornness in the mediocre art will prevent this game from ever being a smash hit.

Edit: Lets just say I was having a rough day when i first made this post. Edited some off the unnecessary assholishness out as best I could.

Good point, I changed the title to be even more dramatic and to the point. Good looking out!

Looks fine to me.

@FoldingZebra Your marauder profile pic looks like he has down syndrome.

Yeah, they are ugly.

"

Rebuttal

This

Your hyperbole is ridiculous. First off, art is subjective. Second, a lot of people, including me, like their art style a lot.

There could be some improvements sure, but I think they did really well for what they were aiming for.

Opinions on subjective subject blah blah blah, take yours elsewhere.

Nothing is #*&$ed here?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=bbJ-4vuffhI#t=29s

there is definitely something missing in combat and evnirement animations