Longwinded Feedback After No-Lifing POE2

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Glowie_Zigger#5018 wrote:

Least I can do after all these hours is give a little feedback eh?

POE2 has been hugely refreshing for me, coming from the never-ending mind-numbing slog that is OSRS. I love this game, and I have spent more time than I could have possibly imagined playing it this past month. I expect that the fully fleshed out version will be a masterpiece, as this early access already demonstrates it will be. I might have a somewhat unique perspective as I'm not at all acquainted with the ARPG genre - the last game I was seriously invested in was Diablo II. The game essentially died due to Blizzard's neglect and the bots taking over everything, and I never really bothered to try another ARPG after 10 minutes of playing Diablo III and hating it. I found POE overwhelming and never really found the motivation to get invested in it, so tldr; a player you have brought back into the fold after 20 years. Most of my feedback is positive, but I think the negative feedback is more helpful, so I'll probably focus more on that.

- The tutorial is very concise and does a perfect job of teaching the base mechanics of the game without being hand-holdy or over-explaining things. Good job with that one. I love being dropped into a world with minimal dialogue and explanation and figuring out how things work on my own. Being inundated with explanations, pointers, half-baked lore as a first impression is a massive turnoff. Choose your character from the gallows, escape into the river, and start your journey from the riverbed. Tells you all you need to know and makes you curious to find things out. Very good way to start the game (kind of humorous how it pays its respects to the first game too).

- GGG understands the value of itemization, the gamble, the risk and reward, just as Blizzard did back before they became laughing stock of the industry; it is pretty clear what era of that studio they hold in high regard. I hope that there will be a big expansion to items in the future, because there is more excitement in this world than 10 expert slicing quarterstaves on the ground. What we have as a baseline now is great, however.

- The depth of this game, and the passion put into its creation is staggering. There are so many elements that could have been glossed over for the sake of time and "no one will notice anyway". For example, I sat on the front of the Ardura Caravan for a while when I first got there, watching the wheels and footsteps leaving imprints in the sand, and I was waiting to spot a single flaw or even a repeated bit of scenery as the caravan traversed the desert, and I spotted nothing. Creating suspense through things such as the broken floorboards of the Ogham manor with a better view of the Beast and the corruption, and still not having a clue what any of it even really is is - just as an example: it tells a story, keeps you engaged, and is thoughtful buildup to the boss fight. Point is - the campaign, its aesthetics, environments - awesome.

- Campaign character levelling has a good balance. It's nice that I don't have to do the POE equivalent of Tristram / Tomb / Chaos / Baal runs to hit a level threshold where the XP takes off. I imagine this is probably industry standard at this point but as a D2 player that was a refreshing change. At this point, I will begin my criticisms, however. There needs to be more accessibility to difficulty in the end game. I'm stuck here hoping and praying for the stars to align, for corruption and irradiation to unite on a single map, so that I can use the single waystone of the 20 T15 waystones I Vaal orb'd that actually became a T16. Seeking this luxury, you traverse the map to fill towers with tablets, and there it is! You have corruption and irradiation.... on a Crypt, Forge, and Mire. I want some monsters that match my level in the 90s, not struggling desperately to find level 82s. You'll lose a lot of players less masochistic than myself at this point in the game.

- The on-death effects are generally not challenging to deal with. They would be better if they activated quicker and did less damage. In their current state, they are disruptive to the flow of the game and pace of clearing. You just stand outside a circle that is often capable of one-shotting many characters and wait 3 - 5 seconds before you loot your drops.

- Whatever modifier it is that causes unique monsters to resurrect their minions instantly and eternally from the opposite side of the map has got to go. Whether its a maximum distance, a reasonable amount of time between resurrections, or a maximum number of resurrections, I don't care. This is one of the stupidest and most annoying things you occasionally run into, searching for a unique monster you haven't even revealed on the map yet. I presume this was an oversight because it is an absolutely insane thing to have in the game

- The passive tree is something behold as a new player. It's very exciting to open up and to dream up ideas, synergies, so on. When you are a brand new player on a fresh account, you should not be penalized for the stupid choices you will inevitably make. Respeccing should be free on your first character, indefinitely, until the campaign is over. You want to encourage people to try new things and create their own builds, not soft-brick their accounts with stupid nodes they can't afford to get rid of, bashing enemies over the head 50 times per kill to get enough gold to fix the character. In this current state you are rewarding players with knowledge of the game and punishing those without. You are encouraging people to go online and find build guides and sapping a lot of potential fun out of the game for new players. Shouldn't be that way.

- I'm not sure how I feel about this one, but the dodge-roll almost feels like it is too heavily leaned on, too central a figure, too vital of a mechanic across the board, and negates way too much (all) damage. There is a penalty to using it, but not much of one. You can just dodge roll from one side of a boss to the other repeatedly, for example, and take no damage. You can dodge roll through swarms of mobs and take zero damage in many cases. For larger bosses like Jiquani and Doryani's 2nd phase this is even more true. I like having the dodge roll, it just seems like it could use some refinement - not sure how exactly. Maybe we are running out of buttons here for the controller players, but some secondary (class specific) parry options that don't require rolling on the ground all the time might be a nice alternative down the line

- The delirium meta in endgame. I really hope that this game's beauty is not permanently marred and suffocated by white clouds of delirium. Reducing visibility is not a fun way to create difficulty, and this audio track I always have to listen to is causing me actual delirium IRL. If you don't add emotions to waystones, you're wasting your time and trolling yourself. Even if there was something like a simulacrum node that removes the visual / audio effects of delirium that would be a step up; but still, the opportunity cost of taking that node would negate its value. Perhaps a second stage anoint of the waystone with another emotion that gets rid of this crap? A better end game mechanic than delirium that can't be used in tandem with it?

- I don't understand why the entire levels of Forge and Foundry have been taken without alteration from the campaign and injected into endgame mapping. It isn't that they suck for clearing, mob density, breaches, etc and feel like a waste of a waystone (they do), it's that it feels cheap to not even try to re-use these assets in a creative way. It is completely unlike what I mentioned earlier about attention to detail and a showcase of passion. My first impression of seeing these in the endgame was that it was very phoned-in and lazy - quite surprising until I found out that the endgame was kind of a last minute crunch in response to some bad D4 feedback. The map Crypt also suffers from the same problems as Forge and Foundry, but at least it isn't a carbon copy of the cemetery levels in act 1. Ironically, it would be a much better map if it were.

- Gold is picked up automatically, so why can't breach and simulacrum splinters be as well? Are we worried about the economy of splinters and endgame boss drops should picking these things up no longer be tedious? Or did I just miss a checkbox somewhere in the game options?

- Chaos, ice, fire all are significantly weaker than lightning and rely on Archmage (lightning) to do damage in most cases. The spells are clunkier and have terrible clear speeds, long channeling times and cooldowns. I like that each element has its own strengths and weaknesses, but it feels currently that one is far far superior. With the right gems, Eye of Winter would actually be a really good cold spell alternative (much like Frozen Orb in D2) if it did any damage (even with Archmage applied). Frostbolt can do a lot of damage (with archmage), should it arrive at your enemies before your teammates turn them into corpses. Not a high likelihood of this happening.

- The entire Infernalist ascendancy tree just feels bizarre and useless - maybe I am missing something. Converting 20% of damage to fire damage doesn't feel on par with getting permanent Arcane Surge. 10 Demonflame is an "upgrade" to your demon form that is less powerful than its previous form and also less powerful than a good wand and offhand, so its kind of useless, just like accumulating unsustainable stacks of demonflame is. Multiple options for demonflame would be nice, or some creative way to maintain stacks at a level somewhere between 10 and infinity. Maybe replace some of these Sapphire minion modifiers? Please???????

The endgame is grindy, but I like that (OSRS ironman btw), and I only have one complaint in the realm of difficulty that I can think of. I think the Trial of Sekhema needs a lot of work. For the average player it is ~30 minutes of monotony, stressing about never getting hit by anything, easy bosses followed by an end boss of such astronomical and impossible difficulty that you couldn't possibly prepare yourself for it. I never went back after that boss froze me in place, spat in my face and teabagged me and it is no surprise that people pay for their carries there.

The honour system also sucks. It isn't explained at all to the player, and the game doesn't even tell you that you died to it, if you do. I was searching online for bugs in the trial of sekhemas after I ran out of honour the first time, because I went from full health to none with no indication as to why. I would like to see the difficulty of the Trial of Sekhema greatly increased, and maybe its length reduced, as it just feels boring and repetitive and takes way too long to get back to the boss that I want to fight.

There's a lot more to be said but this is long winded enough. Game is awesome, overall, and I have little doubts that it will become my main game going forward. Just want to see some diversity and balance in the builds and maps, which I have to imagine is already on its way anyway.

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Timbo Zero#8289 wrote:

Great feedback, most but not all I agree with.

One thing I would say is about PoE1. It may have been too complex/daunting to you back when you tried it, but having played PoE2 I think you’ll find it has been a great primer for playing PoE1. I would (as at the moment there is a lack of content imo, waiting on 0.2.0 before I play some more) suggest finding a reputable guide (zizaran or maxroll as examples) for the Legacy of Phricia event that starts tomorrow on PoE1 and give it one more chance. I think that after what you have learnt in PoE2 you will see it with a new perspective and enjoy it, could be wrong and you might still be enjoying PoE2 and not have the time but thought I’d suggest it :)