My feedback on 3.27 and the current state of the game in general.
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Hello everyone.
I think I'm done with this league, and it's time to share my experience and opinions. I've put a lot of effort into this post; it took me over an 6 hours to write, so I hope it proves useful. I'm a proponent of the idea that players are good at identifying problems, but not always good at finding solutions, as they don't always know the root cause. Therefore, I won't be offering many "the only true one" solutions to problems I've identified. Keepers of the Flame I have mixed feelings about this league mechanics, which mainly depend on the problems I found. On the positive side: • Interesting bosses, Esh and Tul, with cinematic staging and readable attacks. • Increased build variety with the addition of Graft skills (even if it's just one utility). • More forgiving encounter end timers. • Loot drops at the end of encounters. • Foulborn unique items, including some very interesting and useful ones. • A tree for growing wombs, with a moderately flexible reward system. On the negative side: • The Hive is very difficult to ignore when a huge section of the location is altered and filled with walls that disappear only when you get close (limiting movement, vision, and spawn mechanics). • Maximum of 1 Breach per location. • The Hive is like a Tower Defense without the towers. Fully opening the Breach is still hampered by poor placement on awkward maps (when monsters are behind a wall, requiring a run around 2-4 monitors to kill them). • Some Grafts have very complex trigger conditions or insufficiently interesting effects to compete with more useful versions. • The balance between Blood and Wombgift generation is severely disrupted. • Visibility of the Breach area during Delirium is almost non-existent (only the border is visible, in the form of a thin strip, which can be blocked by any delirium decoration and corpses) • While defending Ailith, you're forced to rely solely on the minimap, as monsters are too fast and appear from unpredictable directions, making it easy to miss them, as the view without the minimap isn't very informative. Fighting red dots instead of detailed demons doesn't sound like much fun. • The walls in the center of the citadel, which can be removed before the 4th wave, are not displayed on the minimap, and also contrast poorly with the surroundings (I would like to see them a little better). • Many Foulborn uniques are irrelevant due to the weak base version. • We can't tell the truth to Ailith. :D As a result, I can say that this is actually a good rework, which still needs to be spent some time to bring it to mind, and then safely added to the core. Problems and rough edges in the core game This is probably an unpleasant form of criticism, where there are only comments and dissatisfaction. I believe that if an aspect doesn't catch my eye, it's perfectly fine. It's sufficiently normal and comfortable to the point that it's unnoticeable due to its perfect fit.
Major problems
Threads of Memory At the moment, I don't like this expansion. I'm eager to see the continuation of this story, which, I hope, will improve the situation. • The search for Eagon after completing the quest is too random. Even with the +40% chance for him to appear at level 16+, he doesn't appear after hundreds of maps. • Threads of Memory has some drawbacks: a random selection of maps except for the very first one, an inconvenient launch of these maps, a lack of rehex for these maps, and a lack of significant differences from regular maps with Zana's influence. • The bosses at the end of the threads are not very diverse, except for Sirus, who has a familiar skill set with a pronounced influence on the player's actions. The rest are mostly dummy bosses. • Incarnation of Fear has too much DoT damage, making it extremely difficult to counter. He also has issues with the beam's hitbox (it hits players standing close behind), and with the readability of his spear throw on the ground (it's unclear whether he's throwing the spear at a wall or at your feet; it depends on how far you should move sideways). When re-entering his arena, he can often greet the player with an invisible spear throw from out of sight. • The petal abilities are cumbersome to use, making them undesirable. Instead of a global effect similar to Wisp abilities, there's only a local one, requiring you to run into a crowd of mobs, use the ability, wait for it to trigger, and only then take other actions. The Red Sentinel has a similar issue, but at least it's automatic. • Dropped items with threads are about as much ignored garbage as dropped items with other effects, with very rare exceptions. (I'll write more about this below.) • The item-based Thread system itself doesn't provide an interesting or powerful enough effect to be worthwhile. Going through a more complex crafting process to save threads and use the Orb of Unravelling, which has a chance of having no effect, is cruel. The well-rolled system has a significant problem with obtaining an adequate number of threads to impact success (run 100 maps to looking for Eagon to complete a chain of 4-8 maps to get a boss run that drops an orb that yields 15 threads out of 100). In short, I think the Eagon finding mechanics should be improved, making it more clear and deterministic. The petal system should be refined, for example, by automatically applying skills (like picking up a firefly in Affliction), as well as spawning rare and unique petal monsters on maps, which have increased chances of special loot and can buff nearby monsters. The thread system should be improved by making the minimum thread count at least 50, and adding some special feature, such as a chance for improved T0 modifiers. Influence Items Currently, Influence items, as drops, are mostly junk due to a combination of systems. Enhanced quality on an Influence item with a good base is extremely unlikely. It's easier to use an Influence Exalted Orb. Crafting an Influence item is expensive and generally impractical, as Exarch and Eater Influence are available, granting a seventh affix and making crafting the other six affixes easier. The Exarch and Eater properties themselves are easily obtainable, making random items with this influence absolutely worthless (even if they dropped at the Perfect Tier). I'd classify Synthesis items as Influence, and they're currently in a sorry state, as the sources for Synthesis items are anything but Synthesis. Rerolling the synthesis of implicits through the bestiary, and not through the Synthesis systems, is strange (Maybe we should rework the property pool, appearance, and name? Let these be the properties of beasts, since the main sources are Ritual, Heist, and Bestiary. Builds and balance I started playing in 2.5, where it didn't matter what build you used to clear maps; the only bosses were Shaper, his Guardians, and Uber Atziri. This was true up to a point. But at some point, player power became so high that global balance changes (3.15) were needed to return to normal. Twelve leagues have passed since then, and in that time, there have been numerous buffs for some archetypes and almost none for others. While some archetypes are capable of infinite scaling, others very quickly reach their peak power, which is extremely low compared to the first archetypes. And of course, this is all exacerbated by the advent of new content, which requires either being at Ben's skill level to avoid dying from inaccurate boss ability telegraphing, or playing someone else's meta build, which has unfair damage and can survive. It's incredibly frustrating when you're building a unique build around a unique item, and it doesn't scale beyond 1kk DPS and 30k ehp. That's because the build doesn't utilize crit, penetration, armor/ES, block or stacking anything. While one archetype has 10+ different damage multipliers and another only 5, it's an unequal battle. 2 to the 5th power and 2 to the 10th power are incomparable. And it doesn't seem good when players have to find a reliable starter build that can cover everything. And not everyone will level a second character after that. Leveling and building a build are no fun if they're frustrating. I know the joy of building a build when my idea grows with good items and reaches new horizons. And I miss that feeling, because even knowing the game well isn't enough to create a good build. You just need to know that a particular archetype is currently a favorite, consistently the strongest option. I'd like to see some significant progress in this promising direction, such as adding new, accessible character power scaling multipliers that will be available in the endgame, so that character power doesn't get stuck in the midgame. After all, the most interesting and important thing about Path of Exile is the Path, the progress. Running through hundreds of maps without progress is stagnation and routine. Texture streaming. The problem is that some events occur faster than textures can load. This mostly affects lower-end systems. I had to buy a $1,500 PC to partially resolve this issue. The new Incarnation bosses no longer turn into invisible threats with invisible abilities for the first few minutes of the battle. However, there are still instances where critical effects are invisible, simply because the shader hasn't loaded. I really hope this gets fixed. Scaling Content Efficiency I think what's missing right now is a universal scaling multiplier for the difficulty-benefit ratio. Previously, the IIR/IIQ system served this purpose, or tried to. Lowering character strength improved loot. As soon as character strength increased and this "weakening" could be ignored, and other multipliers were introduced, this became incomparable (the effectiveness was many times greater than the loss in strength). The map modifier system is needed to scale efficiency. Content difficulty increases in exchange for improved loot. And this system works. Or did. It's primarily a regex for modifiers that either have no effect on a character, or have a negligible effect (overcome by the strength of the build). The balance question is how many properties different builds can ignore. And the question of difficulty scaling: What to do with content without these modifiers? And why not add a general modifier with universal complications and bonuses? Such a system also motivates scaling your power. The builds I came up with, with a 10D budget, already completed The Feared, T17, and all other content except for ubers. And then, fleetingly, the thought would pop into my head, "Why should I continue to progress if I can already handle such difficult content?" Increasing the map effect creates unfair conditions, where some maps that were "passable, albeit with difficulty," become "impassable." They literally disable fundamental damage mechanics, such as the chance to Avoid Elemental Ailments. This property multiplies damage by 0 for few archetypes. Scarabs on Toughness only work on unique monsters and only in areas where scarabs can be used. Maybe in the next expansion, Zana will teach us to make life more difficult for ourselves for better endgame loot? Without the use of the beautiful Delirium Shroud. Unique items There are over 1,100 unique items in the game. It's truly sad that so many of these items are useless and unclaimed. It seems they're unique not because of their properties, but only because of their appearance and description. A lot of items are outdated. Many items are deliberately useless. It's even sadder when they have to be hidden by loot filters. And when they're dropped by Pinnacle Bosses 98% of the time, it's a travesty. And I hope it's unintentional. These consolation prizes aren't comforting; they're more disappointing. Or when a T0 item drops that's only worth something because of its dust in Kingsmarsh, it's a frustration: "It could have been Mageblood." Some unique items can safely be combined or completely reworked to meet modern standards and match their descriptions. Some unique items were created by sponsors (or the divination cards on them), and they also have the potential to become popular and interesting. I remember how exciting it used to be to find a tabula while leveling. An item with no properties, but with six white sockets. A dream. Now there are tons of 6-link items, and no desire to take 6-links in Acts due to the increased mana cost multiplier. Many melee weapons and bows are left lying around because they are too weak to compete with weapons that used only essence. A lot of armor can't compete with rare armor due to Exarch/Iter properties and because it has outdated defense values. Jewelry, at least, holds up somewhat and remains relevant. Flasks... I plan to gradually post my ideas for repurposing unique items that will be interesting not only as collectibles but also as a nice find that could be useful in at least one build.
Minor problems
Lost Shipments I was surprised that the blight chest changes didn't affect Lost Shipments, which are much more inconveniently located for opening. The chests aren't highlighted, aren't prioritized for loot, and require a half-minute pause (unless you have mastery of opening chests). Please add a feature where opening the main chest opens all the smaller ones. Ore and its processing speed When I invested in ore, 5 for the map + 3 sulphite veins, I forgot to add a scarab, which converts ore into finished bars. One active evening. And now I have 80k+ ore, which will take over a day to mine with level 5 miners. And the most interesting thing I saw on the smelters' timer: 6 days. Level 5 smelters are planning to spend almost a week smelting what I collected in one evening. And all because I didn't use the scarab, which skips both of these stages. It's not funny. 80,000 ore isn't even 2,000,000 in value. Almost a week. I think that's wrong, too long. After all, I would have gotten that ore instantly if I had just used one scarab in 8-10c. I think we could safely increase the smelter limit to 10-12, and increase the efficiency of both miners and smelters. So that they can process 100,000 ore of all types simultaneously in at least two days. But not six days. Also, I'd like to point out that the encounter speed for ore isn't accelerated in any way, unless it's Crimson Ore. A spawn rate boost for Orichalcum and Amber Ore could be added to the tree. For Verisium Ore, instead of channeling, you could make the bar automatically fill after the first interaction and stop after the second. Sanctum I believe this is currently the most niche mechanic in the game, remaining unique only because of the Original Sin ring. If you remove the ring and move Ascendancy to T17 Sanctuary, how many people would even want to try this mechanic? It's mostly annoying. It's not complex, it's unfinished as a draft mechanic. The finished version of this mechanic is currently in PoE 2. It has a much more realistic attitude towards the player. No more "this monster deals 280 damage to you, and you lose 280 resolve, good luck." No more bullet hells without safe zones. You can complete it without overkill DPS with offscreen clears. And at the end, you'll find real rewards, unique rewards, not the small currency that could have been found much more easily in Heist. I love the music from Sanctum, and I like the implementation of Trial of Sekhemas. I would like to see a similar implementation in PoE 1. Please. Leap Slam A long-standing bug. Getting stuck in walls. When Omniphobia got stuck in walls due to this ability, it was fixed in less than a week. When will it be our turn? Development progress and "What we're working on." Please keep us updated on what's going on in the kitchen. Official statements about decisions and their reasons are a great way to combat speculation and rumors. It's also interesting to hear about your progress and delays, as before. We appreciate this transparency. It will give us a better understanding of what you're aiming for. Instilling orbs for tintures Sooner or later, the day will come when such a feature will appear. And sooner rather than later, when someone starts using macros to automate it. A controversial idea to speed up Act progression I'm against the idea of completely skipping Acts, as they are part of the game, and an important one at that. Before you can enjoy flying, you need to crawl a little. I've probably completed the acts over 200 times, and I still enjoy them. The idea is to unlock waypoints in addition to Lily's existing unlocks, the workbench, and leveling items. It's a small speedup that could potentially be helped by friends, who might not be online. If a player is strong enough to skip a filler area, to skip monsters, and to fall behind in level, then that's their choice. On average, I'd predict a 20-25% speedup. I'm not sure that's all there is to the game right now. And I'm sure some of it won't be a problem for some. In any case, I think it's important to try to express my opinions in detail so that interested people can use this feedback for good. Toxic comments like "this game is crap, it's not what I want" don't help at all. Well, see you then. And thanks to everyone who read. my hideouts - https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3228515 Last edited by moonretealoud#1487 on Dec 9, 2025, 10:06:06 AM Last bumped on Dec 9, 2025, 10:05:01 AM
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