0.3 feedback, hopefully constructive.

First off, this patch has brought a lot of good.
I have two characters in endgame and a 3rd guiding a friend through his first POE experience.
GGG has generally earned a positive sentiment from me, I trust them to continue making good decisions based on them making generally good decisions since release.

There's plenty to praise. The current pace of combat/builds is great, crafting is finally viable, we have a decent number of builds available ect ect ect.

However, i'm going to focus this thread more on what i personally want to see moving forward.
In no particular order:

Campaign Length
- The actual content in the campaign is excellent but the LENGTH of it is still just absurd.
- If the areas were smaller i feel like i would hate it much less.

Campaign Act Boss Difficulty
- In 0.1 i was staunchly in the camp of some bosses being a bit too hard. i feel that it has gone SLIGHTLY too far in the other direction.
If i had to pick between 0.1 and 0.3, i would pick 0.3... BUT i wouldnt be mad if they got SLIGHTLY harder.
0.1 felt WAY off, 0.3 feels a little off.

Game Optimization
- Tragic, tragic, tragic. no other game TANKS my frame rate like POE2.
- Im on a 4080 super / 7800x3d @ 1440p, PC isn't a slouch by any means.

Chilled Ground
- It needs to just go. it adds absolutely nothing but frustration to the game.
- Temporal chains is in the same category.
- Game would instantly improve if they were deleted.

Random Bullshit Deaths
- The majority of my deaths are from some near instant 100-0 bullshit.
im not talking about the monkey or something well telegraphed, im talking about a random ass pack of mobs just thanos snapping me away before i can react.
Stop that.

Ascendancy...
- Trial of sekhemas/chaos are both absolutely miserable. these both need to be SERIOUSLY reworked or just fucking replaced.
A friend of mine is doing his first ever POE playthrough right now and trying to ascend was almost the end of his adventure in the genre.
I absolutely have the words for how much i HATE both trials but they arent allowed on these fine forums.

Endgame
oh boy, we need a lot of work here.
- Pinnacle/Endgame bosses feel about as rewarding as a rare monster. not sure why any of them have an entrance fee, they arent worth the time or effort to run.
- The 'high end' of mapping is similar, its not very interesting or rewarding.
- I feel like the 0.3.1 tower changes were a lateral move at best.
- Not really sure that the current endgame is salvageable. i hope 0.4 brings HUGE changes

Difficulty needs a higher CEILING across the board
low tier waystones/bosses are fine, the high end should be harder.
Mapping:
- Why do we have 15 tiers? if you went in blind could you tell the difference between a tier 1 waystone and a tier 5? a 5 and 10? a 10 and 15?
I suspect not. the difference should be more defined.
Bossing:
- Feels like we need a couple more tiers on these, they get a bit easy in late late game.
- Tier 3 bosses feel about as rewarding as a random rare mob, with 20x the barrier to entry.
The most difficult content also needs to be more rewarding, across the board

Ground drops are almost all vendor trash
- I get that there needs to be some balance here but i feel like 99/100 ground drops could just be gold/disenchant materials and the only change i would feel is less time sorting/selling.
- Some of them need to be more enticing.

Crafting
- Finally seems viable, im scared you are going to nerf it. dont.
- It's convoluted. more than it should be IMO.

Build diversity
We have a really decent number of options right now but i have a HUGE problem with how GGG does balance. this has been a problem with POE games for... well, ever.
- You dont balance a fucking thing, you take the most lazy possible path and ABSOLUTELY NUKE builds.
- You need to buff the trash and stop COMPLETELY shredding the cool things we find.
- Mid league nerfs will never be acceptable until you have a track record of being able to do them nicely between leagues

Build diversity
We have a really decent number of options right now but i have a HUGE problem with how GGG does balance. this has been a problem with POE games for... well, ever.
- You dont balance a fucking thing, you take the most lazy possible path and ABSOLUTELY NUKE builds.
- You need to buff the trash and stop COMPLETELY shredding the cool things we find.
- Mid league nerfs will never be acceptable until you have a track record of being able to do them nicely between leagues
i posted this twice on purpose.

Respec Cost
- Still feels prohibitively expensive at higher levels. would like to see it come down a bit more.
- Dual spec would be neat.
- Free respecs should be more common when you do mid league changes like the twister bug fix, 0.1 sorc nerfs ect. its early access. stop bricking people.

Sprinting
- Super cool
- Getting knocked down after ONE god damn hit is just stupid. belts are a super weak slot, maybe add an affix to them?
- Needs to be more maneuverable, slamming into walls or a tiny rock is miserable.

Now for some Quality of Life wants:
- Please let us bind abilities to mouse wheel up/down
- Controller/Keyboard hot swapping (i know this is coming, i would like it to be a priority)
- Trade site category cloning (if i have a group of weighted sum affixes it would be nice to copy that category to pick some mandatory ones without completely replacing/remaking it)
- Ability to copy messages from chat would be nice
- I wish the currency exchange had an option to remember what page i was on instead of reverting to 'home' every time i opened it, even if it only remembered for a couple minutes.
- we are still missing some stash tabs. take my money please.

with that said GGG, 0.3 has been pretty damn good.
i want to reiterate my appreciation for your willingness to make changes based on community sentiment. you have earned a LOT of good faith from me.

im excited for druid, endgame changes and whatever other surprises you have in the works for us.

This sounds like some solid, constructive feedback, so I'll just add my opinions here. Overall, I'm quite happy with the current state and direction of the game. Once we get the missing acts, classes, ascendancies, weapon types, and league mechanics (both "old" PoE 1 mechanics and, probably with 1.0, PoE 2's own league mechanics) I'm pretty confident that the game will be even better. Now on to a few specifics:

Campaign Length:
Depending on how large acts 5 and 6 will be, the campaign could turn out to be a 20+ hour slog for less experienced / less efficient players, especially when including the first 3 ascendancy trials (I did the third trial right before the last boss of the interludes for each of my 3 characters this season). At the moment, I think we're in an OK place with the current length, especially on second/third... characters, but I am a bit concerned that adding acts 5 and 6 without trimming parts of acts 1-4 could be a bit too much for my taste.

Ground effects:
According to 0.3.1 patch notes, elemental ground effects are supposed to cover 62% less of a map from Tier 11 upwards. I'm not sure that this is actually the case, it feels like maybe 10% less than pre patch. In general, I'm not a big fan of ground effects as map modifiers (I'm fine with them when they are created by monster / boss abilities) and don't think that they really add anything aside from performance/visibility issues.

Ascendancy:
Don't enjoy either option very much at the moment (also not a huge fan of Ultimatum and Sanctum in PoE 1). Third and fourth ascendancy trials should be much shorter (not easier), it just takes way too long, especially when you fail one of them and have to redo the whole thing. Can sympathize with OP: just yesterday, I ran the third ascendancy trial with my buddy and he got killed by the last boss - not sure if I can get him to try it again, he was genuinely bummed. Hopefully we'll get an alternative way to ascend soon.

Bossing:
I'm pretty happy with the current state of bosses in campaign. New map bosses feel a bit too easy - I'd argue to increase difficulty a bit and, at the same time, increase their loot drops. Pinnacles seem pretty solid as well - as OP suggested, maybe add an additional tier or two for late game min-maxed characters and increase loot drops accordingly.

Infinite Atlas / Mapping:
My number one issue at the moment. This has been discussed at length here on the forums, reddit, YT...so I'll keep it short. 0.3 / 0.3.1 additions certainly improved the overall feel of the endgame, but I still struggle to really keep going (currently, my highest lvl character is 94, and I don't intend to continue playing it), mostly because of two issues that have been brought up a lot already: lack of direction/progress and lack of player agency. I have played a bit of delve during past PoE 1 leagues, but never for too long - because of the exact same reasons. If they intend to keep the infinite atlas, they should add some way to "re-shape" maps (maybe this could be the new functionality for towers). I don't think that prohibiting players from running the maps they like (not necessarily exclusively, but at least more of them) is a good idea in the long run.

Visibility:
My number two issue at the moment. Most skills / skill combos currently available, combined with monster skills, ground / on death effects (+ shrine effects) make it really hard to see anything on screen. There has to be a way to make skills and their effects still look cool without them totally obscuring most of / the entire screen.

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JODYHiGHR0LLER#6171 เขียน:

There's plenty to praise. The current pace of combat/builds is great,

i say this meaning no disrespect but...

hard to take your feedback seriously when you start with this, and immediately make my brain turn off for the rest of your post.

when over half of the playerbase is nascar racing through maps with lightning arrow and herald of thunder, you cannot in good faith say this quote, and be taken seriously for literally anything else coming out of your mouth...


let's be honest here... man...