Feedback (Witchunter/lvl86/150h playtime)

Hello,

So, I stopped playing today and don't plan to touch anything until update with content and rebalancing.

I will split my feedback into three parts:

Campaign

Maps

Bugs

1. Campaign

Done it with a friend in co-op, two mercs (2x witchunters, one mostly with grenades and one with different ammo combinations). Bought the first weapon around the second part of Act 3 and updated it every ~5 levels after. My friend did the same. Without this, bosses become too hard (fights become too long and risk becomes too big). I don't have any special complaints, only the usual "drop rate is terrible," etc. It will be balanced out, I think. Overall, 8/10 experience.

A few merc-specific things:

Combining different skills/ammunitions feels exhausting to do and repeat for every mob pack. For the whole campaign, I was trying to find a solution and simplify everything to a maximum of two buttons, with no ammo switch.

Grenades bouncing off the mob in the opposite direction also feels bad. Just remove the collision from them or give the player a support gem with "remove collision from this projectile."

Mobs are too fast. They usually run out of grenades/other skills with delayed effect areas. I feel that my usual melee pack clearing is either firing grenades at maximum range (mobs are not aggroed on me and stay still) or firing grenades in melee range and tanking mobs with my face. I understand that the devs probably want me to use the detonator with delayed stuff, but it feels bad to do. Maybe give the player a support skill with "this skill becomes a detonator" or "this grenade fuse is 0.1s."

2. Maps

I ended up with Blueflame (unique converts fire damage to frost damage) and an Explosive Grenade Launcher + Fragmentation Rounds combo. Finished on T13-15 maps, overall feels ok. Never met any map mechanics boss. I hope that drop rates will be adjusted. 6/10, fine state for current era early access game.

Want to mention that I couldn't complete the 3rd and 4th ascension on my own. After several attempts asked for help.

3. Bugs

Sometimes Essences spawn at Mektul, the Forgemaster boss arena and block him (maybe fixed already, done him at 2024).

Mektul, the Forgemaster spike attack might break character animations and he will end up T-posing, and no skill can be used (maybe fixed already, done him at 2024).

After switching from melee weapon to crossbow, the character starts moving significantly slower. The animation looks like the game still thinks he holds a melee weapon. To end this state, I need to roll.

Sometimes projectiles fly "over" mobs even when I point directly at them. And yes, I have the Resolute Technique; it's not evasion. I think it's a collision handling problem or something like that.

I'm not sure if this is a bug or not, but I think the Defiance node doesn't work as intended. I assumed that it could work in two ways - either multiplying the final value of armor and evasion (after all modifiers) or before. The value I received did not fit any of the cases.

P.S.

I'm not very familiar with this genre. I played POE1 before a bit, Diablo 2 a long time ago, and that's it.

The lack of information the game provides feels bad.
I cannot test many things myself (or I can, but it's something like "clear the whole map, leave one mob with regen, and stand in front of it testing things") or stay in front of the respec NPC and turn specific nodes on/off to see the effect (not always possible). It would be nice to have a training dummy and more data in the game.

Hope that the game becomes more player-friendly and polished soon.

Thanks!