my feedback to GGG - at 500h played

500h.. thats twice what I got in poe.. not saying that poe is not good (played 3 leagues before getting lost amidst the many War on Atlas, getting confused and stopping), but it is a sign poe2 is better.. that said, my 3 cents to GGG as a SSF casual player:



- the Silver Ape.. said it twice, will say it again, the waypoint is way too close - if you die (and you might) you are locked in battle as the waypoint is within agro range, one move and the boss is charging in before you could act... also, it needs an aproach warning, like the chimera roaring, as more often then not I found the ape already charging in for a slam while dodging the many mobs.



- The "drains mana and deals lightning damage" trait.. IMO, this does work.. on an enemy slower then you, one either kite around using ranged attacks and spells, or if melee, goes gerrila pouncing in then back. That so far is fine, if just annoying by slowing down said battle... as for an enemy faster then you, and there are many mobs naturally much faster then a 20% boots, then the battle is either a desperate one, spamming both potions hoping to deal enough damage, or is certain death if said boss is a rare with regen, magma barrier, extra shield, or teleports, things that improove a mob defense extending the battle longer then the best potions against the mana drain and constant DOT.. that on a map as it is, is a frustrating loss by RNG.. not fun.. the DOT should be decoupled from the debuff (or be replaced by shock aura, similar to shock ground but permanent around the boss).



- Trials.. and the pain of bad RNG.
Sekhema - while I am yet to defeat the twins, I see an issue with the many malluses along the way to the boss, far more then boons. considering this trial suffers from RNG while supposedly being a test of mind, with traps and mazes, there should be a way to restore honour at the after-boss room, maybe an altar that work similar to the key one, burning all your water to restore honour.

Chaos - more fun, plenty RNG, but thats Chaos... the tornado bird sure got a lot better, but could the weight of a boss be adjusted, either not to repeat if you start a run right after ending one, or at least not repeat so often? facing that one 4 times in a row was annoying (and the fact it still kills me, even more so).. For the other bird that I barely remember, what I remember is it needs a telegraph before the "seeking-blood-wave" attack, or that attack need a tornado-balance (have the damage ramp up)... Lastly, my favorite, the chimera, the one thing it needs is a QoL, for it to show at the minimap (it is a huge arena, that fits well its many area elemental attacks).



- Atlas.. maps or waystones.. as it is at this moment, is a frustrating not-fun endgame - had more fun making 3 chars get there then playing the atlas..
the one death loses all is annoying but not an "I-quit" reason.. considering a disconect (or crash) keeps the map as it is, acting as if you entered the gate back, one "solution" could be treating death as such (respawns at a waypoint, the map does not reset, and play a note (like sekema's boons and dooms) saying "fate rewinded at the cost of one gate"..
The frustrating and depressing part of death is the loss of the endgame activities.. delirium, expedition, ritual... one need only a boss with a bad trait combo to miss out on those (and I missed many by dieing long before even reaching where said boss or a ritual was).. I feel a solution could be either keeping anything not yet triggered / activated, or moving them to adjacent nodes.. so far, what is ending my fun is this, having to go extra cautious (and bad RNG still get me killed) or skipping nodes with those contents entirely for fear or missing out due to bad RNG..



- Ritual.. fun mechanic, badly executed.. everything seem to spawn hasted, quickly mobbing you.. some builds can deal with that (gas grenades go big boom), but seems in need of a rebalance like the lootboxes. Another issue, rituals with map effects on narrow corridors. not much a problem on open areas but on underground maps (caverns, crypts..) I found at least one ritual at a corridor ot cramped room with pillars and other obstacles, severely limiting movement while the map effect goes unimpeded.. not fun.. those maps have broader rooms, so it needs only code to align those so one can try the ritual mechanic without such severe handycap.



- spamming enemies.. water hag and that "wraith with insta-freeze and invisibility".. the hag spamming the attacks, one hag is not that bad, wirlpool-wirlpool-orb, the issue is on hasted, 3 hag groups or Rares, where the spamming along with other mobs make it a low fun frustrating battle.. the hags range is also silly, making this mob a need to rebalance similar to the cultists.. as for the wraith, the constant ivulnerable invisible movement, often ending by launching the insta-freeze attack is annoying and, if a rare, frustrating (so far did not got a regenerating one, or the battle might be eternal with so much time invisible).

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Sekhema - while I am yet to defeat the twins, I see an issue with the many malluses along the way to the boss, far more then boons. considering this trial suffers from RNG while supposedly being a test of mind, with traps and mazes, there should be a way to restore honour at the after-boss room, maybe an altar that work similar to the key one, burning all your water to restore honour.

I dunno, it feels like i'm reading about bizzarro world where a 500h player can't beat stage 2 of balabala yet likes Chaos. For me it is the opposite, I never had a real problem in Sekhema (yes the twins can be annoying if you don't have some experience with them) while I think Chaos is literally the definition of anti-fun in the game. Bosses with one-shot mechanics paired with one-shot environmental bs that come from the stages, etc.

Anyways, I'm posting because there IS a way to restore honour in the after-boss room. Its Balbala. Are you ignoring her as a vendor in that room? Yeah it isn't a full restore, but it does function as being able to buy some restoration there, more than enough to carry you through to find some shrines in the next floor.

The trial is meant to be an endurance run, where your honour can get whittled away by bad play. If you could just massively restore after every floor, then the floors themselves would have to get retuned to be much harder so there is more honour to risk. I think the tuning itself is fine, the thing that should be changed is the drop rate of the tokens for the trial itself. Without access to the +drop rate from waystones node, getting more coins for additional tries was the hardest part for my main character (I went in blind, had to learn the final bosses' one shot mechanic). Would be cool if there was a vendor you could buy them from for like 200k gold or something (50k per level).

That was just my feeling while attempting the run.. granted, the lack of dropped tokens to even attempt a run is far far worse, as I only got 2 baryas to give a try at the boss, thus am still getting used to their attacks..


while in compare, I got 4 chaos tokens.. sadly, while I got well to the boss, it being allways the tornado bird was a dishearteningly bad RNG

I agree with the hags need to be changed, I made a thread about this as well

hags are the worst enemies in the game. completely overtuned.

not as bad if you play range. but the type of experience that leads to window smashing rage when my keyboard goes through it after dealing with them as mid game melee.