Just Hit Cruel in HCSSF (1 death). PoE2 Feedback from a Casual Gamer

After one death early to Asinia, I finished the campaign and wanted to share feedback for GGG:

Love

- The campaign is AMAZING. There is some clunk navigating Act 2, but the scope, quality and voice acting of the campaign is unbelievable! I cannot believe there are 3 more acts coming.

- Love the size of the maps and the discovery! It feels like a world to explore rather than one narrow corridor from point A to B as in most modern ARPGs.

- Item scarcity and drops. Upgrades feel meaningful and my screen doesn't get cluttered. Salvaging socketed and quality gear is meaningful and helps scale power while leveling.

- Boss fights are epic and mostly devoid of 1-shots (the majority of poe1 deaths). Two bosses in A3 are the exception to this, and frequently one-shot.

- Combat is engaging, intentional and strategic. Mob variety and the blend of unique monster attacks create a number of threats to be wary of in each map.

- Music and sound design are phenomenal! Each town is enchanting (or haunting) with its music and npc voice lines.

- I really enjoy the new town cycle and the options it offers to manage loot. The choice to DE, salvage or vendor loot each has its advantage. Its thoughtful without being overbearing. I also love the unique well design in each town and how it glows when you need to refill flasks or charms.

Loathe

- Pathfinding is terrible. Every little terrain element / mob clips dodge roll and movement abilities. 98% of the path can be clear, and your character will get stuck on the corner of a tree root or tiny mob and not move. This happens to mobs as well. They will try to charge / jump slap and get clipped by terrain. For the level of quality of this game, this feels incredibly janky.

- The new skill gem pane may improve player understanding but it limits build diversification. Far too many skills are weapon locked. It's as if there needs to be a General Martial skills and General Sorcery tab useable by all. For example, I understand rolling slam being a mace skill. But Ice Strike, Perfect Strike, Armour Break feel applicable to many weapon types.

- The Waypoint Map takes forever to load and it not very intuitive. Consider the following changes:

1.The Town icon should be larger than all the other icons, not just a different shape.
2.The Cave icons look too similar to Town
3.Remove the giant border from all non-town marker
4.The underground map is confusing. Put names above each area to indicate they are different zones and not a single cave network

- Respec costs are too high early game. Additionally, changing attribute nodes is not half-price. At level 40, I spent around 750g per respec and I went broke changing a few passives. With such high item scarcity and the need for vendor gear for upgrades, this felt too punishing.

- Salvaging UI: It is easy to see a socketed item and to know to not sell for salvage later. Not the case for quality items. Wish there was a UI element to indicate a quality item as to not accidentally sell it.

- Pause and Respawn at checekpoint. Although I understand this as simple QoL for softcore, it is an extreme detriment to hardcore. I finished a blind run through on HCSSF (with only 1 death), and I feel it's largely due to pause. When s#!t hits the fan, it is too easy to pause and evaluate the situation (i.e. check flask, debuffs, resource values, and threat to life) and make a calm, informed decision how to proceed. It really has killed the feeling of HC for me. Some may say dont use it, but we simply use the tools we are given. And this should not be a tool for HC. Pause is actually worse than Respawn and Checkpoint.

Personally, I feel it would be better to allow portals to be cast (if you can get it off) and the portal would return the player to the checkpoint with the boss fully reset.