We welcome First Impression posts! Please be nice to those posts.

Some general suggestions

Controls
Would be great to have axis input options (joycon) instead of wasd for mouse/keyboard
Auto switch between M/K and controller during gameplay; I want to try controller, but menus are so easy to manage with M/K

Campaign
There should be no load time for campaign map; campaign map does not need to randomly generate areas.
Option to disable flashing quest icon because it's annoying and clicking on it opens a map that has a load time.
Zalmarath fight - very awkward targeting and annoying when trying to use toxic growth and throwing poison concoction in a specific place
Chimera - poisoned ground is not visible enough; the amount of time it spends in the air makes the fight just drag
Easy to miss Jiquani's Machinarium entrance and requires re-killing a boring boss
Option to disable certain sounds (pets) while in town. It really ruins the sound design.

Trials
Trial of the Sekhemas system is garbage (in my opinion). Gotten to the floor 2 boss twice now with full honor (and buffed once) and went down in 4 - 5 hits from AoEs.
Trial of Chaos is also garbage (in my opinion). The stair-heavy boss room is annoying and the chimera is just a horrible boss that requires running around half the fight just to find. Successfully killed it and the game crashed before getting to the next area. On logging back in, was not able to re-enter. Which is weird, because crashing during Sekhemas allows it.

Other stuff
Please add a waystone affinity for stash tabs.
Passive tree - Heartstopper passive says "you've haven't" suggest changing to "you've'n't"
Getting the error "[D3D12] Failed to create resource for texture []" happens about half the time the game crashes.
Getting no error the other half, but the display stops working and I can hear skills used; game closes if I hit escape.

I don't know what's going on with this game but I've taken only damage nodes and I'm struggling to deal enough damage to kill trash mobs in act2. I'm not new to PoE so I can't explain this. In its current state doing damage is just too slow so I've given up for now. I will try again when it's out of early access.

so far love the game! playing alot! have played 2 dungons very much, several hours in both i will leave feedback on.




Mausoleum of the preator


Very beautiful design on this dungeon!

There are a lot of running around the map for the sparse entrances that could create more variety in this dungeon. More open walls or entrances so you don't just run around in circles.

Besides these breakable pots, I would appreciate if there was more to press? like paintings on walls, books, or mirrors, or torches.

Cobwebs could be everywhere. Breakable armor? or statues that break, maybe dripping gold? or items.

mice or spiders should be included to create a bit of atmosphere =), as background props.

I like that the monsters are sparse, they create a sense of mystery and you slowly progress, exploring every corner. Sometimes you can't hear when smashing pots? should be so? or not? I like the sound when you break the pots, things drip, more of that =). perhaps larger pots or chests may break.







Ogham Manor

Very beautiful design on this dungeon, I like how the floor shines and the dark brown tree and big red carpets are spread out! the dark brown stone tiles are laid on the ground incredibly nicely done!
The monsters offer really tough and fun fighters!

What I'm missing here are also a few different objects that might push or break, bookshelves, or stuffed animals that hang on the walls, or armor that can break.

When you get further down the floors, there is a place where there is a hole in the floor, you can see down to the boss arena, it would be cool if they were birds that might fly by? as a background effect. Or something to press runs past, could be clothes hanging on a clothesline, or armor lying on the floor.

Best Regards! Its amazing game!

I love this game!!

Just wanted to feedback my thoughts after getting to the second act cruel before going away until the new year!

It's phenomenal, graphics, skills, story but especially the sound design! I could listen to the soundtrack all day.

I love the disgusting details like the Lazer slicers and pyramid apex of act 3. Super gross but awesome. Act 2 town design is superb. Boss and mob design is superb

Please ggg don't turn this game into poe1.5 especially if you plan to keep developing poe1. Don't give in to the haters.

The only thing I've been disappointed by was the first patch and buff to loot drops. I liked the difficulty pre patch. Finding stuff on the ground that actually mattered and could progress my character felt more satisfying.

Peace out until Jan.

Much love.

I am about 70 hours in and mid game mapping currently. I guess I will put my own thoughts down for whomever would like to know.

I may list more cons over my positives, but the devs and community know what their strengths are. The game is beautiful, fun, polished, and all around the gold standard for aRPGs and GGG is the gold standard for how to develop and support them. They are making a game while other companies are stuck making products. It is a pet peeve of mine to list problems without offering solutions to them, so I will address my small list of complaints with a list of possible changes.

Pros


Cons



Changes I would not mind seeing

1. Ascendancy is simply not fun and the chaos trial modifiers become insane by the time you get to the round 10 boss. As for the honor system; it must be scrapped completely. Your team clearly did NOT factor in melee builds when designing this. Lets not forgot that this system borrowed from a season in POE1 that was universally hated. The trial getting locked out on death is far too punishing given how terrible the entire mechanic was designed.

2. Respec costs are WAYYY TOO HIGH!!!! There should be zero cost to respec in the first place. You want people to experiment with builds? let them. Another reason for no respec costs is the nerfs; Players spend HOURS making their builds, crafting items, farming for currency for trading and instead of buffing garbage builds you nerf the only currently known viable ones. If you want to nerf something (which is still a very poor idea) you could at least make respecing free to lessen the pain.

3. The clear Dark Souls gameplay influence is too much... You aren't From Software and you will never be From Software. Developers need to stop with this "we've created the dark souls of <insert game genre> game. See we just as good as those God-tier devs over at From Software"

4. Waystone drop rates are poor and are not really sustainable even when your atlas spec'd for more waystones.

5. Drop rates overall need to be boosted slightly.



I know this is early access and you plan to make more changes in the future. But the current "im going to uninstall this crap and not give you anymore money" issues are the ascendancy and respec issues

First impressions after playing a Stormweaver through Act 1-3 are very positive overall.
- The tooltips on underlined keywords are a great improvement.
- Moving and dodging while casting was weird initially, but its so great.
- I don't like long boss fights, but GGG does :) However, almost all deadly attacks are well telegraphed and make sense -> I can learn, avoid and play around them. The design has become much more intuitive imho.
- Respec via gold was well accessible (and required) for me - I'm selling all magic items to make enough gold for frequent respec experiments.
- Sorceress mana cost quickly goes through the roof. I've dropped curses completely. Not sure, if it is possible to play without the Stormweaver:ArcaneSurge ascendency node that every sorc is taking. I've picked several mana reg nodes but now I'm not leveling some gems now because the of mana starvation? Doesn't feel right. Do not suggest staff attack skills, please.
- Ascending: I don't like the Sekhma honour system, but it worked for me. The trial of chaos on the other hand is mostly luck based: try and try until you get a) lucky modifiers and b) a managable boss. I can hardly compensate some mods with skill/training, while other combos are much easier.

Nevertheless, I love it and you (GGG) did a great job :)

I'll leave my opinion here, sorry if something is written weirdly, but I don't speak English as a first language:

First, what I don't like:

- Act 3 has very big maps. Toooooooo big in some cases... too big. Please make them a bit shorter.

- Why we can go directly to the Trial of Chaos but to go to the Trial to Sekhemas you have to do it manually and then, to leave, you have to go back to the city to go to your hideout? I dont know why.

- I don't like that half of the maps are hallways. They are annoying to go through, you have to open all the doors to make sure you leave less than 200 monsters to see which rare monster you are missing, and when you find it, you might have to backtrack in that maze for a long time because most classes only have the movement speed they get from boots. Also, for a PoE1 player, hallways and doors are an easy way to get exploited by projectiles and AoE.

- Maybe you can reduce the amount of initial maps you have to do at the beginning of the Atlas Quest. Even if you get to that point in the level, you level up fast but the quest makes you do 10, 10, 10, 10, 10... too many maps to make it clear. Make it go faster and if you can't do it, you'll end up doing them but not getting stuck in the quest.

-The ritual marks on the minimap should be persistent. Because of the new way of clearing maps, most people I know clear the map and then do the mechanics so they don't die on them and lose the entire map. But, considering the size of most maps, backtracking and finding the ritual spots again is really annoying. Expedition locations are persistent, rituals, breaches, and shrines are not (I don't mind shrines, but they're not)

- I was going to complain about the volatile crystals that can appear on your feet in hallway maps, but you took care of them ;) Death effects were annoying in PoE1 and you doubled them here... I don't know why, to be honest.

- I think ascendancies shouldn't be so hard. Even if it did, a lot of people rushed to buy carries because they're mechs that unlock power. I don't like that the game blocks your character development and forces you to use a particular mech, which is really hard for people who've never played them before (and still pretty hard without being overbuilt for people who know them).

What I like:
- I like the new gameplay. I feel more involved, even though it's more tiring, you get stuck playing this game.
- The new skill system is really cool. I hope it's clearer on some things and has more skills and gems, but I'm pretty happy with the current state anyway.
- The bosses are great. The mechanics are a beauty and the guy who chose the music deserves a raise.
Well, it's hard to list what I like because I think it's a great game (even in the current state)

I'll try to update if I come up with anything else or find something I didn't know about later on. Keep up the great work!

A little suggestion
Two professions were created, one mercenary and one elemental mage.
The mage was really fragile in the early stage, and the ice ring couldn't freeze the enemies. The enemies piled up and couldn't use spells or roll out, and were directly beaten to death. If the ice ring can freeze for a few seconds and escape, it doesn't matter if it's added to the CD time. At least one life-saving skill.
Mercenaries are much better, with skills that have a repelling effect, making it difficult for enemies to encircle them. Their single shot attack power is also high, and they are unlikely to be attacked by a group.
Another one is the backpack. The space in the backpack is already limited, and items cannot be adjusted in direction. If we can learn to escape from Tarkov, items can be rotated and placed in the same direction, which can save a lot of space.

It takes way too long for my character to respond to a mouse click. This was always a little bit of a problem with PoE1, then one day you fixed that and it became crisp and visceral like the respectable D2 spiritual successor you always wanted.

This, is a successor to Shadowbane. A click, and a boop, and a click, and a boop. Are you trying to draw in Monster Hunter fans? It's exhausting, like pushing an old cat around with your foot.