POE2 Feedback my thoughts so far

Hi, I still haven't covered a lot of the game yet but here's a few things I thought I'd bring up :

1. In the first few maps, you hear more the sound of the rain than you do the sea or the roiling river. I'd love to hear more the environment. BOTW was a game I particularly enjoyed because of the soundscape.

2. The rain seems like a foreground filter (does it make your character wet? I didn't notice). You can't see it fall in the puddles. Could be and On/Off toggle if it's a problem for graphic cards.

3. I personally don't like the quantity of random players I see in town and the way they appear and disappear. It really takes you out of that gritty fantasy. First there should be a way for your friends to be prioritized instead of random stranger (if your friend is online and in the same town, you should be put together. Can there also be a toggle to turn off random people from appearing? I guess in bigger cities, it'll seem more natural but in Clearfell camp it felt wrong.

4. I must say I Hate the characters calling out their skills, it's tacky. "Lightning arrow!" I don't know if it's already possible but I really want to turn this off, the sound AND the text. I don't want to see or hear it.

5. The world system feels a bit dated (very POE1) : a rectangle with 1-3 exits and a loading screen in between. I think we should arrive in the open world era (even D2 had no leading between its different maps, like between Blood Moors and Cold Plains). I love the maps and their feeling, their art right now, but it could be very interesting to see the transition between the two maps, the two environments.

6. I guess I'll stop doing it pretty quickly, but to get money I grab every items on the floor. It fills my inventory very quickly because each item takes massive space in there. I feel like they could take less space maybe? Because I need to go back to town very frequently.

7. I understand the drop system, but I just don't like shared drops. It should be personal drops that you can share afterwards if you want.

8. I don't hate the characters blocking each other. I think it's semi realistic, but I don't like the total blocking. Maybe there could be a resistance, but really for two humans not to be able to overtake one another, it needs to be a very very cramped space. I guess you can roll through players so it's not such a big deal.

9. If you can't be resurrected for some reason, it could be cool to ghost your friends like in Half-Life... just an idea

10. Unique characters name make it pretty hard to create a character sometimes. I wish it wasn't a thing really.

11. Back to Clearfell encampment, what's the squeeling tire noise we hear? I don't get what it is and it doesn't contribute positively to the soundscape.

12. Sorry to say, but the characters look a bit ugly. Could be nice to rework some faces or give a few options to select from (no character customization feels also a bit dated for personal preferences and also might verge on sexism).

13. There might be a solution for that later on in the game, but the monk only getting floating spheres from punching minor monsters is not a great design, especially for boss fights. The is a very easy way to fix this, keep it the same for minor monsters, and make it randomly triggered while fighting a boss. In general, I think this skill (killing palm) maybe needs to be refined? Or maybe it's my skills that need to be refined lol. It's just that it's easy to strike a culled monster with a random attack other than killing palm and loose this opportunity of gaining spheres. So it leads to a more interrupted/jerky fighting, always stopping a fraction of second before next attacking because you need to see if the monster is going to be culled. Anyway, we'll see how this evolves.

14. I barely played POE1 for various reasons, but the passive skill tree was one of them. Starting POE2 I feel a bit overwhelmed trying to figure out a way to put points to best serve my future ascendency. I guess the refunding of points help in this way but still feel a bit lost (as are a lot of people I'm sure) and I'm not sure it's the best system if it's so confusing to a lot of people... It does offer a lot of flexibility for veteran players though so idk. It could be cool, though, if you had build guides accessible directly from your skill tree. Say I want to play Pathfinder alchemist style (like in Ragnarok online, throwing flasks around), I could select it in the list and just follow the highlighted path. No need to go back and forth from game to browser to try to figure out where to allocate my next point.

15. I really love the pace of the game fights. I really wish it won't become too fast at higher level. I don't like the "arcade feeling" or the Sonic (the Hedgehog) feeling of you just running everywhere and things jumping and popping all round you in a continuous explosion/firework.

Anywyay, that's it! So far I'm really enjoying it and am excited to discover more.

Hey, so I stopped playing my monk. Didn't like how weak I felt. Every boss I encounter I get stuck.

I agree with the general feedback that we have either too little opportunity to upgrade our gear (purchase or upgrade to rare) or that the drops need to be adjusted.

So far I feel like the item progression and the "feeling of being cool" with your gear, isn't there yet. Like I don't find items I'm excited about. To be continued.

I have to say that I find the skill system to be a bit annoying, a little boring and not rewarding. I know it's simplified from POE1 and good job on that, but I think gems for your main class should be eliminated entirely. Make skills available through leveling up. Why? Because dropping gems to put in a skill tree is an unnecessary step. You have to wait to drop a gems, then insert it in the skill tree. When you don't like that skill? You unsocket (and basically loose) your skill point and let it sit in your stash, wasting away and taking up room. Then you have to wait again to drop another gem to try a different skill. Skill gems take too much room and importance in this game. I don't like it and I actually think it does not contribute positively to the game. Make your class skills accessible through points and make them reassignable.

The skill gems could be used to get skills from other classes instead, which would give them a unique flavor. If you want to go off paths, then the gems are your way to go, and then I believe it's ok to make mistake because you're literally exploring and it's part of the game.

I'm not a fan of the support gem system either. All classes and all skills sharing the same bunch of modifiers, it feels kind of un-special. Again, I think we should do without the physical gems and I think we should be able to reassign the skill modifier with a reset instead of again looking for another virgin gem (this just contributes to useless manipulations and inventory clogging)

I'm playing the Ranger. I want to go towards the Pathfinder ascendency, but I'm afraid it's not going to go far enough in terms of transformation. I'd really love to be like the alchemist in Ragnarok Online (RO) throw fire potions, throw poison potions (and their mix), throw health potions to party members as support and go deeper in that direction. I would like to completely leave behind my bow and hold a flask and a shield, for example. I feel like I'll be a ranger shooting arrows that's also able to have 1 skill that allows me to throw a flask. I'm not there yet but all I'm saying is don't be afraid to get away from the original class. Maybe out of 3 there could be 1 or 2 that are more anchored to that original class, and the last one being really out there.

For example, another ascendency could be bard and you use music instruments as weapons (again like RO), and dissociate almost completely with the ranger. I don't know if it goes against the game philosophy, but I'm scared right now I won't really be feeling the fantasy of the ascendency.

Really like the moving city in Act 2 wth!.. And the slaves pulling it. I keep going to the front of the city to look at them, that was a cool idea.

Hope you'll read this, especially the part in bold which is my main gripe right now with the game (and I think people that did not play POE1 because of the skill system might share a similar view). Thanks

I Reeeeallly hate the automatic map refresh when you die. If I wanted to play hardcore, I'd play hardcore.

It's already such a pain for a completist to go through the disjointed, large, maps (please make them more fluid and easier to explore), when you have to walk all the way to the other end and look at the unexplored spots it's terrible to have to kill all the enemies again.

I love that exploring then entirety of maps is encouraged by the extra bosses and rewards you can get from killing them.

But you need to at least give the option to refresh or not the map. Also... it could be nice to be able to "teleport" between checkpoints. [Edit, it seems you can teleport not between checkpoints, I need to check that out]

Why are there only bonus effects to poison skills in the Pathfinder ascendency and not to the other elements or effects?

Also, can you have a section on your website like Arreatsummit? Something you can see the whole tree, a skill/power calculator, a list of all unique items, etc. Right now it's really hard to try to plan my ascendancy. I feel like the resources are really lacking. I feel like some skills descriptions are not super clear, making it harder even to plan.