Early Access feedback

Hi GGG, really happy with where the game is at so far in Early Access. Will just give some general feedback and break this feedback into Campaign and Endgame as they are quite different experiences in my opinion. Never played PoE1 outside of beta.. So I have no idea about that and will not be comparing PoE2 in any way to PoE1. This feedback is for the non-SSF and non-HC experience.

Campaign
Act 1 - Simply Amazing! Really loved the progression and immersion that Act 1 delivered. I think this is due to the environment audio, voice acting, ease of map waypoint navigation and the quest lines, it really made me want to start new characters just to get another run at Act 1. My only gripe is that other Acts did not seem to have the same NPC interactivity and immersion that Act 1 provided (Act 3 is good, but i'll get to that). Even better when the Item drop patch came in! So really stellar job, I loved it! 10/10

Act 2 - While I loved the idea of the caravan. I just did simply not enjoy the caravan waypoints to get to the 'story/quest location' map UI. I think it's unintuitive and could be easily simplified in line with Act 1 and done the same way with just 1 map WP and then the caravan simply drives and drops you off nearby. The environment audio and voice acting driving the story starts to taper in Act 2. I think this is just a result of the story not following the player-character and there being the central caravan to travel back to, to get the story updates and progression. There is the chase story before being blocked by the storm, but it was just npc follows and narrates some dialogue to help you overcome the 'thing'. I much prefer the characters and NPC's interacting outside in the environment like in Act 1, it allows character development outside of the player-character and I think that's vital to any good story telling. So i felt it came off as a do 'quest' and then interact with NPCs back at the caravan for the most part. I definitely noticed less player-story engagement/immersion in Act 2, specifically in the Act 2 environment. Act 1 did set the bar high! Enjoyed all the boss fights in Act 2 though, but i think that is also consistent across the board until end game! 7/10

Act 3 - Story and immersion picked up again ! I was pleased with how the story and environment changed during this Act. Alva and the other interactive NPC's were great, audio acting and script was really good. This is however where i noticed map size being a bit of a slog, as you are still struggling (at this stage) to find movement speed boots and it just seems like you are running around in each instance forever. Most areas were a 'warren' style layout, and as someone who likes to clear maps to uncover it all, it was tough. Outside of map size I quite enjoyed the look and feel of Act 3, there was quite a bit to look at! One minor map gripe was the town portal only taking you back to the time gate instead of to town. I don't think this breaks immersion by letting the player portal back to the 'present day market/town?', it's just an annoyance, not sure if there are other technical reasons for why that is. 9/10

Systems in Campaign - XP/Item loot/crafting/bosses/skills and passive tree.

Campaign XP - progression was good through Act 1 to 3, only had to attempt more bosses when i was Item power dry etc. But supplemented this with gambling and wasn't really an issue. I liked that i didn't have to constanstly farm to reach certain 'power' to beat boss X. And genuinely thought my boss deaths were mostly justified... mostly.

Campaign Item loot - Felt like the patch that improved campaign rare/unique/boss drop rates was a significant step in the right direction for campaign loot progression. Prefer less Rarity-on-gear, think it can still be fun though. I just don't want the experience of a casual to be that much different to a gear-hungry-Rarity stacker. So maybe an in-between state I would like is less rarity availability on gear, or perhaps more diminishing returns, so that anyone has a chance to find rare things. Not just the rare-stacking sweats.

Campaign crafting - Really liked the ability to slam some items throughout the campaign, it was accessible and didn't dive too deep into the end-game crafting pieces so I wasn't confused at all. Maybe some added instructions on the more nuanced crafting pieces and their interactions is needed. I don't really know what an orb of annulment actually is useful for, nor if a divine orb changes the tier on an item or just re-rolls on the current tiers. I found one through campaign and didn't use it because of its rarity and didn't know its implications, like is it just used for high variation uniques with a low roll or is this intended to be used on a rare at some point..? I still only use it for trading lol.

Campaign Bosses - I think these are fairly well tuned for non-HC, i enjoyed learning the mechanics for the most part and didn't find some of the harder boss fights too daunting. It's refreshing to have so many boss fights with so many unique skills and interactions, heavily enjoyed a lot of them.

Campaign Character Skills and passive tree - From playing mostly Monk/Witch, i think the monk was just so much easier to achieve results/outcomes on the skill and passive tree. Witch seemed like it lacked ready power in its skill and skill gem power (Act 3 the power of the character waned), maybe also the passive tree? I never like minion builds so tried to avoid at all costs, but have since started using soul offering just for some extra oomph that I think this character lacks in the hexblast specialisation. Boss fights feel tremendously bad on hexblast as i think it only strips one hex and the scaling seems much harder for wand as there is no easy higher item = more base damage progression that can at least help you scale easier on a martial weapon. Monk just seemed to have the right amount of melee danger but also power when you slam a bell and whack really fast (also feels great). On skill/skill gem UI, I think the only improvements need to be around showing the player what skill gems work or interact with a skill. I really don't care for the 'here's SOME skill gems we think you'll only use' (suggestions) on your skill. I definitely want all listed straight away, and all irrelevant non-interfacing skill gems obfuscated so user doesn't waste these early on when they're important for progression speed and the player experience. Having to click 'all gems' and search and then try to understand if the gem will work on the skill is frustrating. Give me all the options that interact/are possible on that skill gem for skill X and i can then read and have fun trying them out!

Possible Bug report: Soul offering spikes two minions when the tooltip says it does one? Quality is 20%, but it says that just increases duration of buff.. I have 19 + 1 level to the skill

The difference between Act 3 cruel and waystones was significant. Maybe just lesser rolls on the really negative suffixes would help for low tier maps?

Ascendancy zones
Sekhema is so slow and boring I would honestly rather sleep than slog through boring levels of... avoiding traps? This is probably my most hated thing in all of PoE2, the trial of sekhema. This is definitely a 'please change' on my list. Afflictions are even more punishing in a slow and vastly boring environment. The only trials that are decent are the boss rooms and the kill rare enemy style trials, but even then you have to run around and find them in a mostly barren area (blood chalice?)... gosh what a bore. But hey i kicked a few urns along the way.. On that note, please allow curses on urns so hexblast Witch can actually open them up, this actually blocks you on the endgame maps with urns blocking the path (when you only run degen and curses and hexblast)..

Trial of Chaos I think is a much less punishing time experience, the concept and feel of the trial progression is good. Not a fan of the soul core collection trial, would much rather fight stuff but hey at least it aint the sekhema slog. I think the crazy bird fight is still over tuned in damage and the telegraphing gives you nothing useful lol. What the hell is that thing and what is even happening in that fight..


End Game.
As this is a developing space i will just list my main feedback:
Please allow no map node punishment for failing. You just end up bypass the map node and it wastes space. It's more fun to sometimes take a crazy juiced map to check character power, i think the xp punishment and map reset is fine. But removing the waystone AND deleting what made the map exciting?? It's just too much. I would be fine if it was xp and waystone loss, but map modifiers (corruption, boss etc.) from irradiation should stay until you can complete the node, it's what makes the Atlas map interesting.

Delirium vs. Breach
Breach feel good, Delirium feel really bad??
Not sure what to do improve Delirium, but you seem to be punished when not having a movement skill on your bar in delirium. I don't know what i'm supposed to do except search for the glass artifacts? Breach its clear that you need to survive and kill stuff and click the hands to get the good stuff, simple and fun. I don't know what delirium is supposed to do except make me want to squint at the screen to see through the haze. Just missing the fun/challenging element to this activity

Rituals
This end game activity feels average. I think the vendor experience is just another time waste with the illusion of useful items in front of you, but really its just a wait-until-expensive-crafting-item-appears activity. My suggestion is to make it a gamble vendor instead with 1 listed deterministic affix for gear, and it only gives you t1-t12 of that affix, no other affixes. Where you can repeatedly spend the resource the activity gives you instead of finishing all rituals and just walking away with nothing due to all trash options and unused resource. Refresh usually gives you more of the same item trash and just another chance for a crafting material that is actually useful.

Expeditions
I like the crazy variety of modifiers on this activity, makes me clear a waystone map before taking on some of the crazy modifier nodes lol. I just don't like spending time on placing tnt during a waystone map. I want to detonate paths in a logbook activity but i dont really want to stop and think during the waystone endgame activity. I just want to clear a waystone then come back and get blasted by all the modifiers you throw at me!! (by just clicking plunger, not placing explosives.)

Haven't done the other endgame stuff yet.

Obviously skill and passive tree balances to come with new classes and some obvious op/overtuned stuff, so won't go into it too much except to say.

Chaos damage needs some love on Witch caster. Archmage spirit passive shouldn't need to be considered to amplify a chaos Witch archetype, imho. Comparatively we have my Monk deleting screens and offscreen enemies through Herald buff interactions as a 'melee' while my chaos witch has puny AoE hexblast slaps.

I haven't played it but... (like Monk) Spark Sorceress and various Ranger 'delete' builds making all content trivial and non-interactive off-screen isn't what i want to see this game become.

Thanks GGG, Looking forward to your continued updates and what you have in store for PoE2 1.0 release down the track.