GGG: Loving the game. Feedback, suggestions, balance, bugs

I already reported this in my first post, three days into EA, but it bears repeating: something really needs to be done about the (I assume crossbow-only) issue where the character randomly won't shoot.

I just died to this again (at lvl 91 that's about half an hour or more of playing erased), and I'd even go as far as to say that this is currently the only or at least top reason I'm ever dying: when my character just randomly doesn't do what I ask it to. Needless to say, half a second or more of confusion in this skill-based game and you're dead.

This time, I even repeatedly clicked and held shoot, I think 3 times, and it just didn't shoot. This is more rare than when it just doesn't shoot once and you release and press first mouse button again, but when it happens, obviously, you're dead. I think to solve this you need to actually reload.

But even the regular issue where you don't shoot, which sometimes happens randomly when you click and hold while reloading; when you click and hold while on an item, or sometimes when you click and hold on a monster which then dies or faces in another direction or something, is not just extremely annoying; makes the entire build much less good (you shoot WAY slower than if you'd just keep on shooting whenever, well, you hold down the shoot button); but it's also just extremely dangerous.

At this point I think I'm actually going to quit playing my mercenary until this is fixed. I feel like I just can't really enjoyably and properly play a legitimate build.

The second reason which futher aggrevates this is that I can't use weapon specialization points with 2 different crossbows; because for some reason they use a different 'Crossbow Shot' skill.

Aside from that, two more general bugs:

- Important bug: not all quality effects of skill gems are shown. E.g. not for Glacial Bolt.
- Ailment protection not shown on character sheet after assigning Natural Immunity. Hence, I can't be sure it's just a visual bug, or whether the node is actually not doing anything and wasting 2 skill points. Bug Report ID: #1490248510

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BlackDeathBE#0559 wrote:

- Do we still need skill *gems*? You probably have given this a lot of thought already, and I'm probably missing some issues, but it really feels like the fact that skills come as *gems* is contrived. What am I supposed to do with those dozens of uncut skill gems? I'd just reward them periodically, e.g. on level up (chosing a new normal skill, chosing one to level up, chosing a support skill, chosing a spirit skill). I think that allows you to keep all aspects about it (moving support gems around, adding quality,...) while making it less contrived, easier to use and understand,...

The skill gem system is literally one of the defining features of the PoE franchise, its not going anywhere. :P

Its embedded (hah) in the Lore, and the flexibility of swapping skills out is part of the franchises identity. As it is, some of that flexibility needs to be returned (skills should be less tied to just one weapon). I feel like they should still be equipped to armor rather than a 'skill' menu, but that's just me (it can be gem clusters instead of slots and links though).

Do agree that being swarmed with uncut gems isn't exactly the most fun thing. I'm thinking that the old system of leveling gems via experience might be best, maybe keep uncut gems as quest rewards for opening up new skills and everything else drops as a cut gem.

Aside from the above-mentioned issues with crossbows and some WASD-related QOL issues, I must say that what's currenly most sapping the joy of playing out of the game, is the flat 10% experience lost on death. Honestly, I'd be playing the game a lot more, and would be having a lot more fun, if this were revised.

I think you should always be rewarded for playing the game, not have the feeling like you wasted hours. It makes people scared to play, which doesn't seem like a good thing.

(background: I'm almost lvl 93, where I get between 1% and 3% per map)

It's too meta-defining, currently:

1. You end up only taking 'risks' just after you leveled up, when it's OK to die (how random is this?!).

2. Sure you could in theory offset the risk partially with an Omen of Amelioration, but...
a. On the market, those are so expensive that if you actually use them, a typical player ends up losing currency instead of gaining, over time (instead of losing experience), so that's not a solution;
b. You could try to find them yourself, either because you can't afford them or if you're playing SSF. I actually tried farming them (after going level up obviously, because ritual is really risky for I presume almost all characters -- especially given the abovementioned clunky QoL stuff; ground and other on-death effects,...), but didn't find anything even close to one after farming several of the rituals available on my endgame worldmap... (until I was again too far progressed in my level to continue taking this risky)

3. I imagine many players at some point now just 'give up' trying to still gain a level, removing one of the two major aspects/pillars of any ARPG, leveling (the other one being improving gear).

4. It causes players to play extremely much more defensively. I understand that we need to build defences, not just go glass cannon for every build. But isn't losing the map (the only thing to do in end-game) on death enough? People still wouldn't be able to play glass-canon builds if they risk dying almost every map.

5. It really forces people to play super defensively in their play-style, e.g. progressing extremely slowly even though it's only like 1% of mechanics that could kill them. Even if 99% is cookie-cutter, the 1% scary stuff (which I don't think can ever get removed entirely) prevents us from moving as fast as our build would actually allow us to. Which feels dumb -- what's the point of all that power if you can't really wield it? As a result, people play as if they're playing on HC, super slowly... but then what's the point of still having a softcore mode? I kind of like having to balance defences too and playing skillfully and carefully, but at the moment, I feel like it's (way) too much.

There are plenty of very easy to implement solutions which make all the sense; such as:

- Increasing the availability of Omens of Amelioration, but I can see that being hard to get right.
- Downright removing the penalty entirely. During campaign it already doesn't exist, during mapping you already lose the map for dying so you are already penalized.
- Significantly reduce the penalty to a smallar flat percentage, e.g. 5% (but to be honest, I can see this getting just as excessive in one or two levels)
- A relative experience penalty, which is always equivalent to more or less 1 or 2 maps' worth of experience.
- Probably the best idea:

Just remove the experience you gained in the map you die in? This would also thematically align perfectly with the concept of 'losing the map', it would be a lot more realistic, it completely removes the random aspect of not having a penalty just after you level up, etc.

Initial post one month old now, most of it still very relevant... :)