This is WHY I think the game is BAD right now...

Another good review post, but noone from Devs listen.

Devs think that they will downgrade themselves if they take and use some innovative ideas from community.

So this game probably gonna stay as it started.

Hope dies last .. :)

I have made some updates. Bringing the post back up.

One thing that honestly peeves me about PoE2 is the fact that the passive tree has a lot more negatives to nodes than PoE1. In PoE1, if you search for less or reduced stats on the tree, the only actual downsides are from Adjacent Animosity for reduced proj speed. However, the nodes other stats are thoughtful and actually work with that downside.

In PoE2? Lets see...

Lasting Trauma/Crushing Verdict - Less attack speed
Brute Strength - Less maximum mana
Singular Purpose - Less attack speed
Vulgar Methods - Less mana
Roil/Ruin - Less AoE or Less area damage
Wide Barrier - Less global defenses
Thickened Arteries - Less movespeed (this whole sub-tree is useless and a total noob trap)
Goring - Less maximum life

For some inexplicable reason, the strength side of the tree has more nodes with downsides to them than any other area of the tree.

And, in my opinion, the passive tree in a game should NEVER have any downsides to picking up nodes. No node should have a negative effect on a character to reduce a stat, damage or mobility.

Keystones should fill that and they do have have in the past. There is a very specific upside to build around, and a very specific downside to work with.

The game certainly would be a tiny bit better if the nodes with these negatives simply had the negatives deleted from them. Or reworked to not be as poopoo and more thoughtful like the PoE1 example.

I am so tired of exp loss from dying to the constant stuttering.

I'm on 300x300 fiber, I have an I9 1400k and a 4090. This should not be happening.

Great post.

I agree with the entire thing.

There is the core of a great game here but it needs so much QOL stuff to get there.

They even have a cool website that walks you though making a filter, but it's a website instead of just having a simplified version in game. Like just slap Last Epochs filter UI into the game and have it spit out a text doc into the appropriate folder.

Firstly, my assumption is that build variety is coming. I imagine until they get all classes released most skills will be class gated, but looking at PoE 1 I imagine a lot of the draconian weapon restrictions will be loosened with time once all the skills and weapon types are there to be loosened into. If this isn't the case than yeah, it's a huge issue. (still beta)

As for unique I'm always down for more unique that do, well, unique things. Built in skill gems since right now all the built in skill gems other than block and parry are trash auto attacks which feels like a wasted system.

As for chaotic loot though I hard disagree. I'd be ok with 2 minor changes, 1 being a slight but not absolute weight toward your current character. So for example cutting 10% of loot and than making that loot drop on a new table based on class. But even that is kinda iffy because the end goal is for any class to be able to do anything meaning that this weighting could easily harm someone instead of help. The second bit is a little more loot condensing, for the campaign it's pretty good but end game starts spamming so many items that another trim to make less better items would be nice.

But overall that chaos is the point, there are so many different combinations of base types and modifiers that theoretically every time you see is unique. This means a lot of them suck but wit ha decent filter you can choose that items that are good for YOU, which as hinted before, is going to vary heavily between each player as as such needs to be done per player rather than by the designers. So I think the real answer here is having in game loot filter options rather than trying to "de-chaos" loot drops. (This applied to the "TOO MUCH RNG in general" bit as well.)

Assuming I get what you mean by passive bookmarks, I agree. I really want to be able to route a path through the passives, save it and than as I level up just click along the path rather than need to remember where I was going each time I level up.

As for map mods... I'm torn. I like them being itemized, I like the CONCEPT of random mods influencing my gameplay. But honestly in both 1 and 2 I've always just alched and gone which just feels like useless busywork. So my ideal is for the system to be made better. But if there isn't a way to do so than just making normal/magic/rare/corrupted some generic difficulty tiers is honestly fine by me.

On death effects I think should exist for variety but do fear that they are potentially overused and could lead to situations like PoE 1 where the game is "balanced" around one shotting everything but than instantly dying because they left a bunch of on death effects behind.

The skeletons with shields I like because they force you to adapt your playstyle. As a ranged class I typically run up to them, wait for them to start swinging, than dodge roll behind them and kill them. Most enemies with shields have directional protection. This is important because it leans this game more towards tactical gameplay unlike poe 1 where everything was more build oriented with little to no play by play gameplay.

Those currencies should be rare, they should be chased. I do however think there should be a deterministic way to pursue them. Some way to augment a map to drop them more often or some specific boss that guarantees a rare currency or something. Stay rare, but give me ways to challenge myself in exchange for being able to target farm to at least some degree.

Inventory space is supposed to be limited, I could see making it a little bigger like Last Epoch, but overall I think the inventory limitation helps teach you what counts as important enough to pick up. If you play a map and fill your inventory you likely need to pick less up. That being said this process sucks ass with no in game loot filter. If I fill my inventory before finishing a map, I should be able to pull up a filter, look at my inventory and edit my filter to make it a little more strict moving forward.

Presumably the expedition currencies will get their own stash or tab at some point and the relevant vendors will be able to see what is in your stash when talking to them. This is in 1. If there are not plans for this in 2 than yes it is a big deal. (still beta)

Gem tab do indeed suck ass. I hate it. (still beta?)

Trade is hard on purpose, I'm not a fan of balancing it via QoL but I also don't know another way to keep my experience the same. As is I can pick up ground loot and progress smoothly with some crafting, if trade was effortless I imagine this would be less the case. If there is a resolution to make trade easier without fucking my drops than I'm all for it. But I'd rather have my drops than easier trade.

Distilling limited to one passive seems fine. Figuring out what I can distill is horrid though, I agree on that. I just gave up eventually because either I'd have to manually search my passive tree for the passive I want, hope I have the right emotions for it and when I inevitably don't go search again over and over. Or I need to manually place the emotions in every single possible order and hope one of them looks cool AND that I remember which combination made. Both of which are boring.

Better support/skill gem navigation would be nice. Especially since ideally skill gems will be less draconian with weapon reqs which will create a similar problem to support gems with skill gems meaning better navigation will be even more important.

Attribute calculation seems like a nice QoL. Currently you have to respec a bunch of attribute passives, equip the thing and than respec the passives back.

Portals likely expire because it's still an online game and instances time out. Though I do agree the time out could take longer. I've left a campaign zone to craft stuff before retrying a boss, gotten carried away and lost my portal before.

I'm neutral leaning negative on being able to teleport to your ally directly, BUT I think that all party members should share waypoint discovery so you can teleport to a waypoint someone else has discovered.

More things being explained ingame as opposed to out of game is always better in my opinion. (still beta)

Crafting is always gonna be rng but I could see adding more interesting things like omens and essences to make it a little more of a controlled chaos. Overall though I think it shouldn't be deterministic. My approach is picking up good based and making them magic, then either selling them or crafting if I hit something good. Just... instead of looking at one item and crafting it indefinitely with currency gating your tries, look at each item and craft them once with your bases gating your tries. I think Last Epoch's forging potential system is a bit better at accomplishing this than PoE, but it's also way to easy in Last Epoch so finding that middle ground is gonna be hard.

I do hope the forging bench gets used for more stuff. For example PoE 1 had vendor recipes which I could see the forging bench being used to accomplish some of.

Recombinator I think should keep a lot chance of full success BUT I think when you fail you should still get something. Even if it's just a fully randomized rare of one of the input base types. Bonus points if said fully randomized rare is instead slightly weighted toward the input mods. This way you can't be fully deterministic and craft mirror tier gear with ease, but you always get something from the process because right now it just... feels bad. Inputting a bunch of resources and getting literally nothing feels trash. Inputting a bunch of items and getting something worse out than you put in is just gameplay to me. It's the same to me as juicing a map, jumping in and dying before I get a full return on my investment.

In-game loot filter YES. They even have a website to help make simplified loot filters, but having an even more simplified one that you can literally pull up in game and that just spits out a text doc into the appropriate folder would be ideal.

So overall I like a lot of the suggestions, just don't take away my loot, crafting or aspiration content please XD

Interesting thoughts. To some of your points:

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dustin1819#4812 เขียน:

As for chaotic loot though I hard disagree. I'd be ok with 2 minor changes, 1 being a slight but not absolute weight toward your current character. So for example cutting 10% of loot and than making that loot drop on a new table based on class. But even that is kinda iffy because the end goal is for any class to be able to do anything meaning that this weighting could easily harm someone instead of help. The second bit is a little more loot condensing, for the campaign it's pretty good but end game starts spamming so many items that another trim to make less better items would be nice.

But overall that chaos is the point, there are so many different combinations of base types and modifiers that theoretically every time you see is unique. This means a lot of them suck but wit ha decent filter you can choose that items that are good for YOU, which as hinted before, is going to vary heavily between each player as as such needs to be done per player rather than by the designers. So I think the real answer here is having in game loot filter options rather than trying to "de-chaos" loot drops. (This applied to the "TOO MUCH RNG in general" bit as well.)

I like less, more valuable loot, than an infinite number of items that "poisons" the space. Even after using a filter, I still get A LOT of items on the floor, which is overwhelming. What is even the point??
At least if I had a bigger inventory, not to tp to town as much..

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dustin1819#4812 เขียน:

As for map mods... I'm torn. I like them being itemized, I like the CONCEPT of random mods influencing my gameplay. But honestly in both 1 and 2 I've always just alched and gone which just feels like useless busywork. So my ideal is for the system to be made better. But if there isn't a way to do so than just making normal/magic/rare/corrupted some generic difficulty tiers is honestly fine by me.

No comment :) I guess it`s a matter of tase :).

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dustin1819#4812 เขียน:

On death effects I think should exist for variety but do fear that they are potentially overused and could lead to situations like PoE 1 where the game is "balanced" around one shotting everything but than instantly dying because they left a bunch of on death effects behind.

They are simply terrible. It stops the flow of mapping (same as loot issue).

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dustin1819#4812 เขียน:

The skeletons with shields I like because they force you to adapt your playstyle. As a ranged class I typically run up to them, wait for them to start swinging, than dodge roll behind them and kill them. Most enemies with shields have directional protection. This is important because it leans this game more towards tactical gameplay unlike poe 1 where everything was more build oriented with little to no play by play gameplay.

Now this is very interesting, since I hate them a lot. I simply don`t have the means to kill them, especially if the are rare monsters.

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dustin1819#4812 เขียน:

Those currencies should be rare, they should be chased. I do however think there should be a deterministic way to pursue them. Some way to augment a map to drop them more often or some specific boss that guarantees a rare currency or something. Stay rare, but give me ways to challenge myself in exchange for being able to target farm to at least some degree.

No. They should be close in drop rate, because they work in tandem, right? I mean, I use Exalts to augment, then a Chaos or an Annulment, for example, to alter an item as I like.
I can understand that I should have 2-4 times more Exalts than Chaos, or Annulment, for example, but right now I literally have 3 Annulment Orbs and 300 Exalts, after 200+hrs of gameplay.

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dustin1819#4812 เขียน:

Inventory space is supposed to be limited, I could see making it a little bigger like Last Epoch, but overall I think the inventory limitation helps teach you what counts as important enough to pick up. If you play a map and fill your inventory you likely need to pick less up. That being said this process sucks ass with no in game loot filter. If I fill my inventory before finishing a map, I should be able to pull up a filter, look at my inventory and edit my filter to make it a little more strict moving forward.

Totally disagree :). It`s not fun for me at all.
I mean, sure, you can`t have infinite inventory space, right (not talking about stash tabs), but not this limited as it`s in POE.

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dustin1819#4812 เขียน:

Trade is hard on purpose, I'm not a fan of balancing it via QoL but I also don't know another way to keep my experience the same. As is I can pick up ground loot and progress smoothly with some crafting, if trade was effortless I imagine this would be less the case. If there is a resolution to make trade easier without fucking my drops than I'm all for it. But I'd rather have my drops than easier trade.

Agree. I would rather have it removed completely though. Or at least only able to sell some items, not everything.

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overlook360#0773 เขียน:

I am so tired of exp loss from dying to the constant stuttering.

I'm on 300x300 fiber, I have an I9 1400k and a 4090. This should not be happening.

That's not how software works.