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remove ultimatum or let me do the other trial again for the 4 points, also boss drop should not dissapear on death

Absolute blastage and amazement. I feel like its 2002 and im playing d2 again as a kid <3

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kesotron#0689 wrote:

remove ultimatum or let me do the other trial again for the 4 points, also boss drop should not dissapear on death

Although, it is frustrating to lose items because you failed at keeping yourself alive, seems like you killed the monster. Maybe you should rethink your life choices, or at the very least the tactics to eliminate a monster.

Honestly, this is great post. I hope the game continues in the direction that excludes the mainstream mobile app nonsense. Having been playing it with a group member the game provides entertainment and collaboration.

Ex. I'm a Warrior with a shield, friend is a ranger. I will lead the party, enter an encounter, shield up, get agro, and the ranger will blast the monsters from the safety of my cover. Once a monster gets to the stunning threshold, I get to execute them in style and the pack of monsters shatters into pieces. Sometimes, monsters overwhelm my block threshold, but for the 1st time since D2 an ARPG has made grouping advantageous (Toggle Paladin Auras).

Also, waiting to use Boneshatter at the right time is faster! Then if I were to attack with Rolling Slam! Its a beautiful synergy that I hope can exist through the entirety of the game. The Ranger can focus on dealing damage, and the time it takes for the warrior to be in position allows for me to finish the enemy off.

A "tank" actually provides body blocking, interrupts, and dmg mitigation.
A "glass cannon" can actually be all dmg.

With variety in how damage is dealt, the speed in which monsters travel, the aoe of dmg. lots of ways to "win" in the game become available, where it isn't all about the DPS on a hero.

Yes, I died to Draven, and the Count. They were great boss fights.

Keep it up, keep the gears a grinding!

Full disclosure: I've played a little, but not that much PoE 1, so most of my impressions are pretty much fresh from PoE 2. I'm playing a Witch and am getting through Act 2. My overall impressions are positive, and I particularly enjoyed playing a minion-based class, the Witch's lines, and the dodging in gameplay. However, I can also empathize with some of the criticisms others have made of the loot and dodge rolling. Here are some of my thoughts:

* I feel magic item identification could be streamlined further, to the point of auto-identifying magic items as they get picked up. Very quickly in Act 1, Scrolls of Wisdom appear to become completely redundant thanks to an auto-identify feature, so I wonder why those were kept.

* Similarly, I feel simply entering camp ought to refill one's Life+Mana+charges, rather than specifically going to the well. I'd forgotten to visit the well on a vendor run a couple of times, including after swapping out my flask, and finding that out only later mid-fight was pretty frustrating.

* I will second what others have said about wanting dodging to let you phase through enemies. Even when I was going fairly methodically through maps, I found myself getting pressed into a corner from time to time and rendered unable to escape.

* Similarly, I think some enemies, and several bosses in particular, need to cool it with the pace of attacks that need to be dodged. Having played Sekiro and Elden Ring, even those games gave their enemies windows where they could be attacked more safely, whereas some bosses in PoE 2 felt like I was spending nearly all of my time dodging non-stop attacks. One particular enemy at the end of Act 1 kept making the "dodge this" sound effect about once every second or so. One boss in Act 2 also had an attack that was meant to be dodged, but that in my experience was simply undodgeable -- you have to run away from the boss, but they're faster than you, so you get blown up and have to hope you have enough Life to tank the hit, multiple times throughout the fight.

* Several enemies, notably rare enemies, probably ought to have their damage reined in and/or their big damage moves telegraphed better. I got chunked several times by Forsaken Miners in Act 2 because their bombs were nearly impossible to see, and I got one-shot in Act 1 by a rare mob in the Ogham Farmlands by volatile plants -- I knew how deadly they were and dodged like mad to avoid them, but still got one-shot from full Life by something I couldn't see.

* Although I do like the slower overall pace of the game, I do think the running animation could be made a touch faster. I would particularly appreciate a feature that let me run at an even faster-than-normal pace when not having attacked or been attacked in a little while, which would make backtracking much smoother.

* Minions and AoE do not mix well at all, particularly during boss encounters. Many enemies create explosives or leave pools of bad stuff on the ground that kill minions very quickly, and the Act 1 end boss has particularly spammy AoE, such that my minions died practically as soon as they respawned (and I'd leveled them up with skill gems). This may be an extreme suggestion, but I'm of the opinion that minions in games generally shouldn't have HP and shouldn't be targetable, and it's up to the minion-mancer to handle aggro and dodge. Failing that, some level of inherent AoE resistance on minions would also likely help.

* The loot system doesn't feel quite right yet -- I've amassed quite the collection of different consumables that modify my gear, but have still not found a better alternative to my crappy level 2 headgear. Stuff like quality and the existence of sockets on gear don't strike me as a truly deep bit of customization either. I can't help but feel that a lot of this could be streamlined too, with gear increasing in rarity when you add a modifier to it past a certain number (so you wouldn't need a bunch of different orbs to upgrade gear in rarity), and automatically getting sockets based on rarity too (so you wouldn't need Artificer Orbs).

* The support gem system feels a little harsh right now, particularly the cap of one support gem of each type. I'm currently at the point where I'm struggling to find a support gem to engrave, simply because most level 1 support gems are taken, and the remaining ones don't look like they'd benefit my build much or at all.

* One other user mentioned how difficult it was to find a new name for one's character, and I have to agree that the current system is very silly -- with so many players playing concurrently and rolling a bunch of different characters to try all the classes out, there's bound to be a lot of overlap, so it would be a lot simpler if naming worked more like on places like Discord, where you can just create whichever name you want and the game stored it with a random assortment of numbers added at the end.

* Similarly, I'm not sure why friending is character-based rather than profile-based -- wouldn't it be easier to just add someone's username and play with whichever character they're using?

* I've run into some performance issues at certain stages, despite playing with what I'd say is a pretty up-to-date laptop. The game chugs quite significantly past a certain mob density (and it appears to do this only on certain maps and with certain mobs, like on the Hunting Grounds).

* I've quite enjoyed the skills that provide inter-ability synergy, and would like more of this -- currently, I feel Chaos magic is a little lacking, almost like worse Lightning skills, and I'd prefer it if Chaos damage skills focused more on debuffing.

* I'm only starting to feel this, but it feels like there are a few artificial barriers to further customization. Strength/Dexterity/Intelligence feel meaningful only insofar as I'm forced to increase the stats for more gems and certain item prerequisites, rather than for their intrinsic benefits, and raising the mana cost of a skill as I level it up has made me run out of mana quicker despite the skill not feeling all that much more powerful. I honestly don't feel like any of these limiters need to exist in the game, and it feels to me like an additional opportunity for streamlining: those attribute-raising nodes in the passive skill tree feel like filler, too, and IMO could easily be replaced with something more interesting.

And those are my criticisms for now. Despite the laundry list, I've actually been really enjoying PoE 2 so far, and am loving its pace and its overall gameplay. I look forward to seeing how the game evolves!

Hey I'm 48 playtime hours in, and just got to maps. wanted to leave some feedback as a warrior who went through the campaign.

Before hand I want to thank you guys for your tireless effort and making a truly unique experience! From the environment to the enemy and boss design everything feels amazing head to toe.

first off I want to address the several elephants in the room, why am I playing hardcore once I get in maps? What's the point? I feel like that is unbelievably restrictive and just like the sanctum trial, unnecessarily dumps on melee players as they have to put forth much more risk than any other playstyle. If your gonna give us six portals, let us USE six portals.

Secondly I know it's probably a design choice, but please think about reducing the punishment for Giants Blood Keystone, I have every strength node on my tree in my vicinity, with some on my gear pushing 285 strength. Unfortunately I am still stuck using maces from act 3 cause every mace after that requires like 340+ minimum. maybe like 2 1/2x or 2x with some other downside to balance it, cause as it stands, it feels impossible to use any maces that's not 30 levels under.

Finally, please add the fishing class before spears or axes. Let my people go!. But really bring back Alterations and Scours pls!

Boss feedback as of having completed all content in acts 1-3 solo and started act 1 Cruel, as a Witch infernalist of an own build.

- Names masked because spoilers with one exception -

Many bosses in general.
Unremarkable non-challenges for my witch defeated on first try, that for my warrior were tremendously difficult challenges.

The rest of the unmentioned bosses.
Fair and balanced and absolutely fine, for this character, ones that I finished on 1-3 attempts and felt were fair and balanced. This includes the final boss of act 3 which was a first-attempt neat experience, while the last two on this list gave me an insane amount of deaths.

Acr 1, a certain mourning boss.
Too frequently and easily oneshotting even the tanky warrior I went there with first, compared to the rest of the act 1 bosses it didn't seem right. With the witch it was identically prone to one-shot deaths, but melted far faster.

Act 2, certain witch.
Didn't feel quite ready. Was the idea to make a cool biker, but she was given a broom/spear to ride? Took her out on first try but she stands out in this way as an "eh?". As stated previously it's like it was

Act 2 final boss.
HP sponge ish, but kinda cool, fitting the theme of an act boss experience.

Act 3, treant.
HP sponge?

Act 3, Golden Boy.
For solo players it seems to require either abusing broken abilities, already being on the very right path of a build and gear, or respeccing into something that takes down armor and gives poison.

Act 4, Viper Napuatzi.
I defeated it only because it did NOT resort to a lengthy screen-nuking series of actions when at its last phase of health. I changed nothing in my build or behaviour, it's simply like that, it did not enter nuking mode and I managed to proceed and continue in the game. Could this be a bug? Was I experiencing a Cruel Mode version of it? I get the idea of the boss and would like to see it tuned towards sanity.

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Overall, keep up the good work. I'd rather give someone hints in chat than jump in and carry them through a boss, the satisfaction sense is great - but it can be clouded by a terrible experience.

Hi

Here some feedback from my side. I tried to first give some context of the type of player i am, then some good and "bad" things and in the end a bug (?) i am not sure how known it already is.

First for context:
I am ~25 hours in and i started act 2 yesterday.
I am new to Path of Exile. I played the first one for a few hours and realized it was not for me. But i already loved the complex skill tree back then and wanted to give PoE2 a chance because it looked much more like the thing i might enjoy.
I also like the Diablo games, even Diablo 4. But the lack of build customization is disappointing to me.

Also i am someone who was has some idea in my head and then tries to somehow make that work in a build. In this case i thought a ranger would be cool who runs into enemies up close and shoots arrows in their faces and then leaps away from them. So my thinking process is: "i want to be quick, have high evasion, do cool flips and make lots of damage from close up + have some tools to stun them or other ways of getting myself not overwhelmed".
And i don't like looking up builds. I'm fine with getting some tips here or there but for me part of the fun is to experiment with gear and skills until the character feels the way i want it to feel like.

So far my experience is not too difficult. I think i chose a good "beginner class" for that. The endboss of the 1st act kicked my ass for a bit and i got some respec help (i'll come back to this topic later on). And right now i am having some issues with one of the first bosses of the 2nd act, but i don't worry about it too much.

Now to my actual feedback:

The Good:


The "Bad":


The bug (?):
- something seems broken with refunding passives. I made a video to show it, unfortunately it has no sound and i will add some time stamps here, because i didn't plan to record this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHGkjfEyANQ



I didn't lose any gold from this but i can't find a way to properly respec right now.

I will take a break from the game for now and wait for a patch or some more, mostly because the respec doesn't work for me, but also because i am dreading the idea of having to respec again for thousands of gold. But i want to emphasize that i love this game and i'm not regretting spending money for it. I can't wait for the future additions, like new ascensions and the huntress etc.

Thanks for the game and all the hard work you people put into it! :)

So far I love the difficulty of the game, and the fact that I can't just keyboardsmash through every situation.

However, unless I'm missing something, the evasion/accuracy mechanic is slightly confusing. Sometimes visually it looks like I'm hitting an ability or an attack, yet it deals no damage nor has a hit feedback. I'm assuming this is because the monster evaded the attack.

However, it isn't apparent at all that the monster evaded, and it's giving me a gameplay feedback where it feels like I mis-aimed my basic attack, or ability.

How I would fix this is by perhaps making evaded attacks still deal some damage, and have a visual and or auditory feedback when it occurs - just so I don't get a false impression of missing an ability or attack.

After rerolling a new character to play with the improved loot changes, I wanted to provide feedback on things.

I do not think loot was increased enough via drops from monsters. Same thing goes for currency. My Ranger is currently halfway through Act 2 and I'm severely bottlenecked in loot, currency, and gold. As I progress my gear falls further and further behind where it should be for the level of monsters making it harder to progress with no real options to solve my problems.

This resulted in a triple bottleneck in which I don't have gold to buy potential items from vendors, I don't get enough items to create currency to craft items, and I don't have any more currency items to craft based on the rate of drops as it stands.

1 bottleneck in one of these aspects (loot, currency, or gold) would be fine as you could reasonably work around this with more playtime. But a triple bottleneck means that my best recourse is to go back and farm trivial areas for currency/loot. Which is a terrible game design choice if that is the intended design.

I understand you don't want to overwhelm people with loot, but the design of the game doesn't support the lack of items.

The game is too RNG heavy, even with crafting being RNG, you need volume in order to overcome bad rolls. Right now it's possible to just be roadblocked because your RNG was bad, and that is exceptionally poor game design. RNG requires protections to the player, or increased options in order to overcome bad luck.

RNG is a big part of why some people will say items and rewards in game are fine, while others are screaming "NO THEY'RE NOT!". This needs a severe balancing rework. Here are some solutions.

1. Currency orbs give the player the option of 3 random mods to put on an item when used instead of just 1 random one that will probably suck. This keeps things somewhat random but at least offers players a little agency with it. (this could function the same way stat nodes in the passive tree work).

2. Salvaging socketed items give a full armor's orb rather than a piece. Effective allowing us to bounce sockets from old or bad items onto what we're currently using. This will allow sockets to not feel as rare and allow more experimentation for the player.

3. Forget "chance to drop", make EVERY rare mob and boss drop at least 1 rare level item. At least if a player gets stuck they can farm the latest boss they've dropped (or map) for enough items to overcome bad RNG rolls.

4. Either increase the amount of gold that drops or dramatically reduce the cost of items in a shop. Right now item's sell for a couple hundred gold, but items can cost several thousands of gold. What happens if a vendor has an upgrade but you don't have the gold? Well if you go farm for gold, but accidentally level GG you're potential upgrade is lost forever.

Another problem that leads to items feeling too rare is that there is too much to do with items. Sell them for gold, disenchant them, salvage them, try to save them for possible crafts. Too many options for what to do with loot, but not enough loot for players to experiment with these systems.

GGG said they wanted people to be able to craft in the campaign, well you need items and currency to do that. And since it's so low the typical experience is "Oh found these boots with resistance, let me try to craft something I can use and that's my last orb, oh cool it's 'added physical attack damage' welp. I made trash and now i have no currency and no item."

It doesn't make good design sense in an ARPG built on the back of RNG loot systems. The reason RNG loot works is you get a lot of "chances" because lots of loot drops. Without that, you aren't being rewarded and you're going to just bounce people right off the game.