Early Access Feedback

1. Power progression feels so good as a player. Slowly filling out your active skills, then getting a few supports, getting a new tier of gems, and filling out the passive tree amounts to SO MANY spicy little granular upgrades, and I have full control over all the choices. It’s so satisfying to look at what skills are coming up and think about what I’m going to level next.

2. The environments and creatures are absolutely gorgeous. I have no idea how you managed to make the game so pretty without melting my computer, but so far PoE2 crashes less than PoE1.

3. I love the worldbuilding. All the different characters and cultures are awesome, and I’m excited to see new places and visit new zones just to see what they’re like.

1. Rare monsters are sometimes too hard to see. I get that rare and magic monsters are no longer just painted yellow and blue- it would be gaudy. I also genuinely enjoy the moment when I’m clearing through a zone and a pack suddenly doesn't die- oh snap, a rare! Roll back and reassess. What mods does it have? Cool. BUT here’s what I don't like, though it only happened a few times: I discover a rare pack, but cant tell which one is the rare! I have to mouse over all the minions and hunt for the rare. They often have big effects, but some of them are too subtle. I wish rare mods had a slightly more visible floor for effect intensity.

2. Shocked ground and shocked corpses (of creatures that died while shocked, I assume) look waaaay too similar. I need to know where my proc-based shocked ground appears so that I can preemptively wind up my Siphoning strike, but the clarity is terrible. I wish that shocked corpses had a much more subtle effect.

3. Portals dying is too punishing. Hear me out, I have a sane take, I promise. Portals timing out after 15 minutes is totally fine, reasonable even- gotta cull instances somewhere. BUT! If I logout for the night, I log back in at my last checkpoint. Why is sitting in town for 15 minutes punished more than logging out for 8 hours? Is it to preserve the challenge of the run from one checkpoint to another? I hope not- I can portal out any time! The 15 minutes at this point is punishing me for shopping too slow (or, more likely, watching skill videos in the gemcutting menu for 20 minutes- love that voiceover guy.) That’s hella weak. So, my suggestion: after 15 minutes, go ahead and kill the instance. But leave my portal there and just connect it to the last checkpoint I hit in a fresh zone, like I just logged in. Maybe add a message or effect on the portal so people don't get mad about items being gone.

4. Okay, nebulous complaint time: Sometimes, something feels off about combat control, especially with quick combo skills (Tempest Flurry for example.) Most notably, and easiest to explain, is that sometimes when I want to attack an area that is next to but not directly towards an enemy, I instead home in on the enemy. The most frustrating time this happens is when I drop my bell and want to swing into the empty corner right between the bell and an enemy, hitting them both- but instead I magnetize to the enemy. It’s also annoying when I magnetize to an enemy just on the other side of a wall from me instead of the enemy standing in the doorway slightly farther away. I don’t know if this is something with WASD movement, namelocking, or if I just suck, but it’s happened enough that I’ve noticed and not been able to fix it through gameplay.

1. It sucks that quality does nothing for martial weapons with no physical damage like the lightning quarterstaff that drops in act 2. I get that having quality affect elemental damage would probably be a balance issue since those flat numbers can get so big on weapons. But I wish it did SOMETHING without needing to roll a specific affix.

2. I can’t find the notable item stash in the quarry. Is it a map tracking bug and I already got it, or am I just blind? Maybe it needs to be in a more sticky-outty locale.

3. Spirits of Balbala can remain after the boss fight. I didn’t die, but someone might. Kinda fun tho.

4. If you dodge roll out of a lever animation in the Trial of the Sekhemas, the lever will play its animation and appear flipped even though the door (or whatever) does not open.

5. Similarly, if you dodge roll out of the animation to offer sacred water to a shrine (i.e to get honour back) you will be unable to attack until the animation would have ended, although you can move normally.

6. Bro, am I critting? Who knows? Crits were equally invisible in PoE1, except for the incidental effect of having your elemental ailments go off. Now that those are their own rolls, I really wish I had a clicky sound or something when I land a dank crit, man. Just a little somethin somethin.

7. Using long wave skills like Storm Wave indoors feels pretty bad. I wish they were easier to thread through doorways or down corridors. Not like a smaller hitbox, it's more that I wish the targeting was smarter, so if I click on a mob halfway through a door I can actually hit it. Maybe a skill issue.

8. The relic locker affinity didn’t work- I toggled it, but items interacted with my stash page as though it wasn’t.

9. You guys haven’t shared anything about other weapons coming out except javelin, but I have a secret hope: Let’s get some parries in here! We have tight timing windows on those just frame skills, we have active blocking- give swords a parry and riposte move, or maybe a sword and board move that has a guard impact point like charge blade in Monster Hunter. It seems like a super fitting and cool power fantasy that nestles perfectly into the ample cleavage of the new combat system.

10. Most important thing of all: speed up the map load!!! Like, the world map, or quest map, whatever it's called. It’s gorgeous, it’s detailed, it's procedural, and it's slow as molasses! I will not budge an inch, it has to stay exactly the same, or get prettier, and load instantly. I demand it.