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

just started playing this game, im a big fan of ARPG's, have played countless hours of diablo 3 and grim dawn. the one thing i find annoying so far is the lack of a 'force move' keybind, i typically have my space bar as force move and i use clicking exclusively for attacking. is there any plans to implement this in a future patch?

"

LethalPenguin88 wrote:

just started playing this game, im a big fan of ARPG's, have played countless hours of diablo 3 and grim dawn. the one thing i find annoying so far is the lack of a 'force move' keybind, i typically have my space bar as force move and i use clicking exclusively for attacking. is there any plans to implement this in a future patch?

There is a force move. Click on your ability bar, and choose the icon with footprints.

Hi. I just started few days back and already 20hrs old.
Anyway I actually don't like MMORPG games but something struck me here. The gameplay and mechanics are really fun and didn't get bored after 2 days. I can't help neglecting that Dev team did some really good work here and didn't ruin the fun part of the game. Everything feels balanced and textures are really crispy - never expected these for f2p game. Really good job. Keep it going and please don't get greedy.

Thank you. Please notice my suggestions.

Have had an account since open beta, but haven't had time to play properly until now.
I love the feel of this game, but first I want to get out of way what I really, really don't like.

1) (HUGE) I HATE being virtually forced to buy tabs. It is near impossible with all the various aspects of the game to be able to enjoy (even a bit limited) gameplay with 4 tabs. Give everyone 8 (normal) tabs and 1 free special tab. I know this is a F2P game but then if there is a core company focus on providing free gameplay and paid aesthetics, then the tabs are not satisfying that.
2) Labyrinth - IT REALLY needs reworking. I have a slower computer and slower internet. I find lab virtually impossible. Make the damage not scale based on level. So if people want a challenge, they can play early. If they don't they can overlevel and finish the lab. The traps and Izaro consistently kill me because of my a) lower skill level but more importantly b) computer and internet speeds.
And please make the lab shorter. It does not need to be so long. Make it the length of a trial but a bit more difficult so that you have to figure out how to pass it.

Overall, I really enjoy the gameplay and plan on playing tons of 3.0.

"

sonicman wrote:

Labyrinth <...> Make the damage not scale based on level.

But it isn't scaled based on your level...

"

silumit wrote:

Spoiler

it is just % of you max hp/es

Same idea though...regardless, it doesn't get significantly easier at higher levels

i remember my first impression was "holy shet, act 4 is really hard". i still kinda feel that way today ^_^, good thing i became completely addicted to the game first time i reached the coast :D

Hello all, newbie here.

First impressions...hummm.

1. The journey is just as important as the destination; my kind of play.

2. I both appreciate and have problems with the old school play style. I love it as I grew up with the original ARPGs on the original NES on up to now. I like that there's not much hand holding during general play. The quest mapping system is great, love it!

What I dislike about the retro play style is also one of the games best features: the passive skill tree. The idea that the first couple of characters are expected to be "trash" before getting the hang of the complexities of builds irks me in principle. Beginning players shouldn't, on principle, be expected to re-roll characters over and over in order to get every-single-point-just-right. I did that in D2 more times than I can recall. However, the story wasn't as deep as POEs and the skill trees weren't nearly so extensive so it didn't feel like as much of a setback as it does in this game.

Perhaps adding some sort of training ground that is separate from actual game zones where people can go to freely explore skill point allocation all the way up to the max number? The current calculator/mapping tool is a nice feature, but doesn't really go all the way into how the various decisions/paths actually work or don't work. Letting new players have unlimited respecs for the first calendar month of play would be a nice feature. Especially for those who don't have as much time to play that amount of time, as opposed to a week or two, would still give them the opportunity to freely explore.

3. Nit-pick: Make male and female versions of all classes available. I know this would be costly and is a nit-pick, but it would be a nice little QoL addition at some point in the future.

4. Have some sort of means of giving important info to players (that I wouldn't have known had I not come to the forums). Some that come immediately to mind:
a. exp penalty on death at higher levels
b. exp penalty for killing mobs more than three levels lower (I routinely find myself
overleveled and didn't know about the XP hit)
c. Recommended levels for certain important events: Labyrinth, I'm looking squarely at you.

5. Higher number and variety of end game meta builds than other ARPGs; this is both a positive and negative. For me personally, any sort of meta build requirement is a major turnoff, but we know they're unavoidable in ARPGs. At least PoE gives more options than a Single Build to Rule Them All.

6. Other positives
a. Great graphics that don't bog down a 6 year old computer too much.
b. The gem-for-skill mechanic is awesome and provides a lot of [theoretical] flexibility.
c. Ascension classes expanding the base classes even further.
d. Upcoming major increase in acts; again the journey is as important as the destination.

Thanks for taking the time to read all this,
Drom

1 SMALL CHANGE WOULD MAKE SUCH A DIFFERENCE, ADD AN OPTIONAL DAMAGE NUMBERS ABOVE MOBS, game doesnt feel alive without it, it what gives players the feeling of satisfaction to se it increase. It's standard now a days, and removing it from a game kills the feeling. Pls make it happen, its kind of a game turn of to not have it.

Okay, functionally new player here, with a fair bit of critique. On the whole, love the game, will sink a lot more time into it, and 3.0 looks cool.

I had first looked at PoE a few years back, appreciated certain mechanics (materia slots? recharging potions? Cooool!) but didnt really sink my teeth into it until recently. likely about 140 hours in last few weeks.

So take this as a noob player just walking into legacy. I rolled up a witch, and started playing around with arc - chain lightning is always fun stuff. Fell into a couple of noobtraps (too much investment into mana nodes, elemental damage, not enough into survivability, crit) so when I couldnt get past kaom in cruel I decided to try again - Id heard that you should expect to throw your first char away. Decided to try again, and built a build that beelined for the survivability stuff. I played around with flameblast (very fun spell, but having to stand still to charge it feels like it could be a lategame killer for it unless you spell totem it) and frostbolt/vortex. frostbolt/vortex interaction is interesting but of dubious effectiveness (sure, I could stop casting frostbolt to cast a vortex or two on the frostbolt's target - Or I could just cast more frostbolts?) but had fun with flameblast+cwc+vortex (eventually went flameblast+cwc+arc+leech, combined with a curse orb each cast fills my mana/es to full)

My first complaint was that the game feels very limited/restricted until you basically beat normal difficulty. The very high level requirements and availability of certain core build dependant gems not being available until mid-late act 4 just feels like "you must grind normal all the way through before you can play with your build". This was the primary reason I didnt get into PoE sooner - my first dalliances with the game made me think "this just isnt clicking with me" when the problem was I just didnt have enough options open to me for any builds to be fun.

Act 4 itself feels quite unbalanced. Act 4 normal feels harder than anything you run into on cruel (until duh act 4 cruel), and there are parts of act 4 cruel I cant figure out how to do without repeated deaths. (the daresso's dream pit fight, kills me in half a second. Got through it with 2 deaths with exploding vaal skeletons. Kaom's fight is rough with summon restless spirits. I dont have the problem with piety that some people seem to talk about.) IMO, it just feels like the incoming damage is too high - more on that in a bit.

Item rarity vs slots - it feels like uncommon (blue) loot is the worst. I would rather find a white, which i can upgrade with essence/orbs, but blue gear isnt worth looking at. My other gripe is that I find myself ignoring rare loot that isnt max slot/link. Maybe im under the wrong impression but even if the stats are marginally better it doesnt feel like its worth breaking up my spell links and sacrificing core functionality? It also feels like its impossible to upgrade 2h weapons/chest to 5L +. Exceptionally good 3l/4l max gear isnt too hard to upgrade.

There is some sort of crafting system with the hideout that I havent really played with or figured out, so maybe im missing something important there (but at a glance it doesnt feel like it)

Single target damage - maybe this is a witch problem, but it seems to me like I have dozens of options for clearing screens - its killing some of these solo targets that is the problem. A lot of the blue gem damage comes from damage that plays off surrounding mobs (various explode on death, arc, aoe spells, proliferation) and not much that is designed for single target killing. My go-to solution has been to throw something like storm call or flameblast into a totem for a boss fight (since standing still to cast those spells is bad)

I also find it difficult at times to determine the damage that im doing, especially crits (unless there was a ignite/freeze proc, but even shock proc is hard to see). I understand why you might, by design, not want numerical damage values popping up on screen, but a log to refer to for testing would be nice (unless its there and I just cant find it)

More on mob damage values. Unless im missing something here, its basically impossible to tank in this game. Ive built my current char around as much es/es regen/leech as possible, but the odd mob/boss just one-shots me. Ive heard others call the game "path of life nodes" and so I built my second witch around this. I certainly had a easier time (less deaths) going through act 4 cruel, but it feels like some sort of gate - I have to be able to survive act 4 before I can breathe a sigh of relief and play the much easier act 1 on the next difficulty. My experiences so far make me think that there is NO REASON to roll a melee char build - they would never survive parts of this game. (maybe im wrong, but thats the impression ive gotten through gameplay)

So basically, while it would likely be a enormously difficult task, I think that damage values (and to compensate, healing mechanics) should be adjusted across the board. Make it more about sustainability/management than hoping something doesnt one-shot you. Getting badly hurt, and having to escape is more fun then just *WHACK!* "Oh... im dead". Off the top of my head, something like half the damage output of mobs and maybe reduce the heal rates/amounts to about 1/3rd of what they currently are to compensate. I dont expect you to do this, because it would be an incredibly daunting task, but I fail to see how forcing your player base to build every char around not getting one shot is "good" - this is something to consider going forward imo, when you look at balance patches and introducing new content.


edit - another thing is the lack of a AH / marketplace. sure, theres a player trade channel, but when I see people say they want 10c for something, right of the bat im wondering if they mean orb of chance, chaos, or something else? Plus, I dont feel like watching WTS spam adds pop up constantly. There is one ring I kinda want for a build I have in mind but the current player trade chat only option is very offputting.