New player feedback, reasons I stopped playing

Hi everyone. I recently started playing PoE and wanted to give some feedback from my perspective. Please don't hate :)

(My profile says I registered early 2015, but I just played a few hours then and now decided to give PoE another go.)

First thing I noticed: It was very hard to do the first steps in campaign, if you want to play right and understand the game mechanics. Besides the help menu I had to look up several external resources to figure things out. I must admit, I was quite frustrated at that point, on the verge of giving up the game, because of its initial complexity.
While a lot of this complexity isn't bad for end game, I feel like a little bit more hand holding is required for newbies like me, in early levels.

But once I understood what to do, it got better and better. I really like the fact that you can modify almost every single item in PoE, even things like Strongboxes on maps to increase drop chances. The passive tree wasn't that scary any more and my initial scepticism about the skill gem system was gone. The fair business model was another plus.

It was quite fun to level my character to 85, do the first maps and get a hint of what the endgame looks like.

I'm really into "grinding games" where you invest a lot of effort to optimize gear, get familiar with the mechanics and see how far you can go.

But there are still some things that bugged me so much, that I lost interest in playing PoE. I want to list those things, just as a feedback. I'm aware that your opinion might differ, but those are the reasons I stopped playing PoE in order of importance.

1. Flasks

Using flasks is an absolute necessity, because they are so powerful. I understand that this makes the game a little bit harder to play, which is okay, but having to use 5 flasks constantly with such a short cooldown (not really cooldown, but you know what I mean) was no fun for me at all.
I'd be okay with having some additional skills, preferably longer cooldown ones, but this repetitive non stop flask pressing was tedious. Some of them could just be something like a hard to obtain passive ability.

2. Trading

While doing my first levels, I simultaneously watched Twitch streamers playing the game and noticed that a lot of them were trading most of the time. Not farming. Trading is such an important part of the game (except in SSF) that you'll have a big disadvantage, compared to other players, if you decide not to participate.
Every second I spend trading felt like wasted time to me. I'd much rather play my character.

3. "Location exclusive" items

It feels like special item drops are way to fragmented. Meaning that there are items, that you can only find in specific areas / parts of the game. As someone new to the game, who hasn't played previous leagues, it requires a lot of effort and wiki reading to find out, how I can farm those special items. I'd prefer if there were only a few, select items (<5) that can drop outside "normal", higher tier maps.

4. Labyrinths

Matter of taste, obviously. But I really didn't expect a game mode like labs in PoE. Obstacle simulator 2000. Sorry.
In my opinion labs are so different from the rest of the game, that rewards like ascendancy class progression should be obtainable by farming difficult maps or something else.

Overall I must say that PoE has a lot of good complexity (skill gems, passive tree, item modifiers) and also some bad complexity like item level e.g.
I don't know, but new players having to visit and understand sites like PoEAffix might be avoidable, if item stat ranges would be based on more obvious values like level requirement or something else. Something that isn't hidden from the game without pressing a button.

I don't know if this helps anyone, just wanted to give an honest feedback about my first PoE experience.

So while the feedback was good, I'm not sure you clearly stated why you stopped playing.

From your comments I'm guessing its that you just want to play the game, not also be reading wiki pages and playing the trade market.

1. well youre right with the flasks in my opinion, i dont like those kinda "Keep using pots ftw" games, but on the other side there are some cool effects, and builds that work fine with Special flasks, so its a cool Feature while its a bad :D

2. trading, yes really bad, first of all it should be ingame, like auction house or anything like this, so for example if you own a premium tab you have Access to insert items there, if not you can still buy items (would make it more interesting to everyone, but on the same side it would be a Punch in faces of everyone trading without premium tab...)
but to take Statement to your comment, if i see streamers trading, they spent like 5 hours mapping before trading, or trading while mapping - but not specially uptrading (sure thats a possibility if youre lucky and fast, but then again you could just go mapping...)

3. big no, i was new to the game and it wasnt fun, read wiki and builds - hell of fun now

4. lab is kinda grind area, i dont like the randomness of enchants but all in all its a cool idea, even if that area dont fit into the style of the rest

maybe you read through this and kinda rethink some of your Points as they arent only bad features

I agree that the game basic design has a good ammount of limitations because of the gem system (so, most builds will spam the same skill -the one with more support gems applied, lol- because of the link/support system)... I miss diablo3 having 4 active skills PLUS the mouse 1, mouse 2 AND a flask (although PoE flask system is way better).

So i guess this game could also use more skills somehow instead of flask spamming only...
Maybe those passive ability (which required to be activated) you said, maybe something related to the pantheon? Or something else entirely new? I don't know, the problem is the power crep, it's hard to balance such things.

For instance, i really like the blink arrow skill in this game, i can even link it to culling strike and other stuff, which is a necessary, cool, inteligent and funny skill that requires no support (but still benefits greatly from some of them)... I use it all the time on all my bow builds and it even has a cooldown like some movement skills in other ARPGs, so it has to be used carefully (which is good, because it requires fast thinking, the more thinking, the better the game imo)

Methinks I'm stating the obvious here, but the OP is saying that one factor leading him to quit is that lab gameplay is not enjoyable and it seems odd and immersion-breaking that your character progresses and actually comes to be defined by playing a mini-game instead of the main game.

If this still doesn't register, then think about this for a bit. Pantheon is distributed throughout the main game and you defeat a gaggle of gods to earn a relatively small bump in power. And, progression in building up pantheon abilities and map-related modifiers requires no repetition of any previously cleared content. And yet, in some corner of the game world there's this way of getting far more power for your character, to actually define your character, and it's locked behind a repetitive mini-game that doesn't look or feel like any other part of the game.

I don't find the OP's objection to lab at all strange and it's actually rather clearly worded. I'm confused about others' confusion, vis a vis the OP's concerns about lab.

More generally, you're getting feedback from a player who enjoys the main game quite a bit, but who isn't fond of all the interruptions needed to make continuing to enjoy the main game possible, when moving deeper into the game.

"

germanstudent wrote:

First thing I noticed: It was very hard to do the first steps in campaign, if you want to play right and understand the game mechanics. Besides the help menu I had to look up several external resources to figure things out.

Can you expand on that at all? I'm not arguing with your experience at all when I say this, but my own experience was that the tutorials guided me effectively through the initial stages.

On the other hand, like the developers at GGG, I have played ... quite a lot of ARPGs over the years, so in many ways my introduction was "oh, gems and sockets are how skills are selected, fine", because I am used to the basic concept.

So, expanding a bit more on why you needed to go to external resources might make this a bit easier to understand. Did you feel like, for example, you were playing the "wrong" build, or that you couldn't choose anything in the passive tree without significant guidance? (Something makes me think that was maybe it, but I can't speak for you obviously.)

"

germanstudent wrote:

1. Flasks

Using flasks is an absolute necessity, because they are so powerful. I understand that this makes the game a little bit harder to play, which is okay, but having to use 5 flasks constantly with such a short cooldown (not really cooldown, but you know what I mean) was no fun for me at all.
I'd be okay with having some additional skills, preferably longer cooldown ones, but this repetitive non stop flask pressing was tedious. Some of them could just be something like a hard to obtain passive ability.
[/quit]

I am absolutely with you on that. I find pressing the flask button for mana/life to be the most tedious part of PoE beyond anything else. It becomes a "don't suck" button very quickly: if you don't press it frequently enough, you suck, and if you do, you are doing normal.

Like "if you die, don't forget to turn your auras back on", that doesn't make the game more interesting, it just means that if I forget some item on a tedious checklist, or don't poke the button all the time, I suck.

If flasks were significantly more situational, rather than constant, that would definitely help a lot. (Counterbalanced by being less frequently usable and/or duration extended.)

I also wonder a bit how much this is influenced by people knowing they should grab those flask duration extension nodes, while the rest of us bypass them, leading to ... us sucking, them doing average.

"

germanstudent wrote:

2. Trading

While doing my first levels, I simultaneously watched Twitch streamers playing the game and noticed that a lot of them were trading most of the time. Not farming. Trading is such an important part of the game (except in SSF) that you'll have a big disadvantage, compared to other players, if you decide not to participate.
Every second I spend trading felt like wasted time to me. I'd much rather play my character.

You should totally check the SSF box, and play an ARPG; In my eyes, once you enable trading at all the game stops being "loot drop, bonza!" and becomes "what is the fastest way to earn currency, so I can buy the best in slot item, so I can farm currency faster."

As evidence, I tended the "shaped strand map meta" of older times, where that simple, linear layout was used because it was a very fast and passably rewarding run, so people just did it over and over and over to support exactly the above.

In trade leagues, the person who finds and sells the items, they are the sucker, working hard, while being bypassed by people who simply focus on "buy the best".

Checking the SSF box is annoying, because "solo" isn't really what I want, but "self-found" absolutely is, so I accept that I will never group up, in return for which I get a game that plays like an ARPG: I care about drops, and things that are not "perfect tier 1 rolled rares" are still useful and valuable to me. Much more fun than Path of Trading. ;)

"

germanstudent wrote:

Overall I must say that PoE has a lot of good complexity (skill gems, passive tree, item modifiers) and also some bad complexity like item level e.g.
I don't know, but new players having to visit and understand sites like PoEAffix might be avoidable, if item stat ranges would be based on more obvious values like level requirement or something else. Something that isn't hidden from the game without pressing a button.

In many ways item level really doesn't matter unless you want to min-max the game. I think. Unfortunately, I know about them, so I'm not a good candidate to verify that idea. :)

Anyway, thanks for your feedback, and I hope that my response comes across as intended, which was to support where I thought it was appropriate toward GGG, and to ask questions where it wasn't clear what you intended. :)

"

EnjoyTheJourney wrote:

Methinks I'm stating the obvious here, but the OP is saying that one factor leading him to quit is that lab gameplay is not enjoyable and it seems odd and immersion-breaking that your character progresses and actually comes to be defined by playing a mini-game instead of the main game.

If this still doesn't register, then think about this for a bit. Pantheon is distributed throughout the main game and you defeat a gaggle of gods to earn a relatively small bump in power. And, progression in building up pantheon abilities and map-related modifiers requires no repetition of any previously cleared content. And yet, in some corner of the game world there's this way of getting far more power for your character, to actually define your character, and it's locked behind a repetitive mini-game that doesn't look or feel like any other part of the game.

I don't find the OP's objection to lab at all strange and it's actually rather clearly worded. I'm confused about others' confusion, vis a vis the OP's concerns about lab.

More generally, you're getting feedback from a player who enjoys the main game quite a bit, but who isn't fond of all the interruptions needed to make continuing to enjoy the main game possible, when moving deeper into the game.

Great showcase of cognitive bias.

"

Xavderion wrote:

"

EnjoyTheJourney wrote:

Methinks I'm stating the obvious here, but the OP is saying that one factor leading him to quit is that lab gameplay is not enjoyable and it seems odd and immersion-breaking that your character progresses and actually comes to be defined by playing a mini-game instead of the main game.

If this still doesn't register, then think about this for a bit. Pantheon is distributed throughout the main game and you defeat a gaggle of gods to earn a relatively small bump in power. And, progression in building up pantheon abilities and map-related modifiers requires no repetition of any previously cleared content. And yet, in some corner of the game world there's this way of getting far more power for your character, to actually define your character, and it's locked behind a repetitive mini-game that doesn't look or feel like any other part of the game.

I don't find the OP's objection to lab at all strange and it's actually rather clearly worded. I'm confused about others' confusion, vis a vis the OP's concerns about lab.

More generally, you're getting feedback from a player who enjoys the main game quite a bit, but who isn't fond of all the interruptions needed to make continuing to enjoy the main game possible, when moving deeper into the game.

Great showcase of cognitive bias.

Huh? Four items were listed. The fourth item was labyrinth. If you're finding it difficult to believe that people would have that reaction to labyrinth, I think I'm another example. I played PoE exclusively for years. When labyrinth was released I started playing PoE as my part time game selection and tampering off until I stopped playing it altogether. I came back with the 3.0 release because the loathsome labyrinth play was reduced significantly. I consider labyrinth to be different game play that is boring, horrible and not fun.

I get all but number 1. But, different strokes for different folks so if you hated flasks I understand from a player perspective of just not liking something.

I can agree with the other 3.

Trading is annoying and sucks, completely takes you out of the game, and if you don't trade, you are going to be far behind. And then its just a cesspool for a new player. You will more than likely get wrecked on some stuff for awhile before you learn the ropes.

I can understand the location drops. You probably mean divination cards. They probably just seem worthless to a new player. You have 500 of them that you will never complete. You probably have no idea where to even farm them to complete them. Some form of in-game codex or something that could lead players to the correct tilesets to farm for the cards wouldn't be the worst idea.

And the good ole lab. It sucks. It really sucks if you roll some character that can't solo it. I'd be for some people its one of the reasons they just up and quit the game after the 5th time dying in uber or something. Yes, they could maybe find someone to carry them, but they are new. Lab is just another one of those mechanics made not for fun, but to just make the game more difficult for little reason at all. I mean you have to strike a balance between difficulty and fun. When something is hard and kills you, you kinda want people to go, "man I died but I wanna try that again" not, "Fk that place!" I personally miss actual boss farming, too. I liked having less tedious things to do besides mapping. One of my most fun leagues in PoE I had a mapper, and a suicide Dominus farmer with cast on death/portal. So, when I was completely burnt out of mapping, I could just go play that MF Dominus guy and faceplant into him and de-stress/relax and make some currency to boot, and it was fun. But now you got these long ass, draining, annoying labs to run through. I mean for as much as people say GGG loved D2, why eliminate one of the more fun aspects of it, which is boss farming? And I dont mean drop tons of currency to boss farm for Atziris and all that crap, I mean just straight, mindless, fun, boss farming that isnt garbage. Like doing Council. Baal. Mephisto.

"

HousePet wrote:

So while the feedback was good, I'm not sure you clearly stated why you stopped playing.

"

鬼殺し wrote:

Seconded. I was on board with the feedback but then was left wondering...but why did you quit? What was the tipping point? I feel like the last page of a book I was enjoying had been ripped out. :(

It was the combination of everything I listed. My idea was to understand the game and then grind the next league, from the beginning. But with trading and flask mechanics I lost interest.

"

SlippyCheeze wrote:

"

germanstudent wrote:

First thing I noticed: It was very hard to do the first steps in campaign, if you want to play right and understand the game mechanics. Besides the help menu I had to look up several external resources to figure things out.

Can you expand on that at all? I'm not arguing with your experience at all when I say this, but my own experience was that the tutorials guided me effectively through the initial stages.

On the other hand, like the developers at GGG, I have played ... quite a lot of ARPGs over the years, so in many ways my introduction was "oh, gems and sockets are how skills are selected, fine", because I am used to the basic concept.

So, expanding a bit more on why you needed to go to external resources might make this a bit easier to understand. Did you feel like, for example, you were playing the "wrong" build, or that you couldn't choose anything in the passive tree without significant guidance? (Something makes me think that was maybe it, but I can't speak for you obviously.)

This might be just my stupidity, but in PoE a lot of aspects of the game are thrown at you from the beginning. Different currency items and recipes/conversions that can help you do something. Ways I could have improved my gear earlier, if I knew.

Understanding what results in more DPS was also difficult. Damage output tooltips aren't helping at all. Lower damage range weapons might be a better choice. Now someone recommends PathOfBuilding to you, where executables from the official GitHub release page will throw a virus warning at you (although possible false positives). External tools that show information that should be in game.

I hate to bring up Diablo 3 in this, but it's the only example that comes to mind. There you won't have Canais Cube (with 10 recipes) in campaign and you focus on the basics. NPCs like the artisan, jueweler and mystic are introduced later in game. A more step by step approach.

Then, like you mentioned, the fear of messing up your passive tree. When I watched Twitch, streamers often said, it's a given, that you'll mess up your first character. That is highly demotivating, putting all the effort in, just to realize that you have to start all over again, maybe even with the same class. You might not know of in game currency to reset the passive tree, or it's too expensive at that point.

A lot of little things, that makes the game harder to understand, when you first play it.