Early Access Feedback

(Game is absolutely incredible.
I have no doubt it can be the base for another great game.
Get the campaign and base aspects complete upto this standard and launch.
Unsure why end game and seasons are being priorities over completing this.
Look after your original game and the supporters that helped along the way.)

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I enjoyed the free access this weekend and am continue playing through the game. I have started this thread to provide feedback notes on things I have encountered in my playthrough.

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-Aesthetics are nice.

-UI is good. I thought this looked a bit simple in the previews, however, in-game it feels crisp and good to use.

-Combat so far feels good. It is a different style to begin with, but feels responsive and clean. Most mechanics felt fair. There was a few boss mechanics that I'm not sure about, particularly large AOE ones, the poison temple boss comes to mind. I'm sure if they are learned they are fine, but a bit tricky on a blind run through. Seems like timing the dodge roll on those is important. I did not use WASD as of yet, but found the control over the movement during skills nice, and dodge roll seems about the right mix of useful without being completely OP, although it might be a little bit strong for getting away from mobs.

-Weapon swap functionalities are nice and makes it a viable tool.

-Boss encounters seem quite dependent on knowing the mechanics and damage types. (Edit: On playing through further, this seems to only be an problem for the act 1 boss. By act2, there is plenty of ways to farm and level as needed. I suggest there needs to be a more reliable way to get cold resistance in act1. The charm reward is a good start, but as stated, if you don't pick the cold one, it is not very useful for the act1 boss. Even with the cold charm, I think there should be a more reliable way to get cold res before act2. It seems to be similar to POE1 currently, where act1 is harder than a lot of subsequent content, as you are tackling it without any gear. I think it is fine to have the first act be a challenge, but there should be reliable tools to be able to overcome early content, beyond just player skill and knowledge. This boss, being undergeared, was by far the hardest encounter of the game for me.) This may be a good design for long term replay-ability, but makes an initial playthrough tough without third part information, or a lot of skill or patience quite challenging and potentially frustrating. Particularly with needing to one turn bosses, which I think is a much better design, but does add further to the difficulty. This is similar to POE1, but even more apparent, and perhaps more difficult to overcome, with seemingly less ways to counter. Over levelling or over-gearing seeming more difficult to do. There seems to be less control over your gear early in the game. It may not be needed, but there may be less reliable ways to overcome the randomness of the drops.

It may be because of my lack of knowledge, that there are strategies I am missing, but for example with comparing act one bosses:

Both encounters, the player will benefit from cold resistance, but this seems easier to get in act1 POE1. The quest reward that offers charms seems useful, but leaves you guessing as to what you might need. On first play through this feel bad if you choose one that becomes not aligned with the damage of the act one boss later on, that is the most difficult content in the act. On subsequent playthroughs this is knows, but as a first playthrough it may not be the best design to have mechanics based on guessing, or needing to delay rewards incase they are needed later, but may also waste their usefulness by not taking them immediately.

-Large areas, in themselves, so far have not been too bad. The problem I see with them, is that the quest locations and areas of interest, do not become clear on the map until you are very close to them. Which makes it hard to know where to path to, and also very easy to miss. It also makes it unobvious where they could be hiding in the fog of war on the map. Which leads to a lot of back tracking on the map if you missed something. This may be intentional, but I would suggest making the radius at where they become visible on the map much larger. It may not need to be as large as in POE1, but it certainly needs to be much closer to that to prevent a lot of running around looking for things on maps that are already largely cleared.

-Mob types are interesting. Maybe the mechanics could have a bit more variety. I was not tested by that many mechanics so far, other than stun, but maybe that is because I have some prior knowledge of knowing about ailments, and the mechanics will be more abundant closer to endgame. Some of the generic rare mobs seem a bit "samey" in their mechanics. I don't think this goes for all rare mobs, but at certain points in the playthrough it seemed like they were a bit similar mechanically. They are also a little hard to identify which is the rare without moussing over them, so they may need to be a bit more distinct visually from other mob rarities.

-No alterations is jarring at first, but it might be better. There appears to be other adequate options for crafting early on, and it makes crafting normal gear on bases found more important.

-No debuff icon for stun. I don't exactly understand why this isn't in POE1. I understand long stuns show an indicator above the players head, but debuff icons in the top left are much easier to see. I think it would benefit both games to have an icon indicator.

-I'm a big fan of POE1 flasks, but there is something to be said for just having to manage 2 buttons instead of 5. I think with the extra combat mechanics, it was a good choice to go with the 2 flask slots.

-Quest log not having a minimise/hide option is annoying.

-Game difficulty and loot drops seems well balanced in the early acts. I think throughout the playthrough up to maps it is balanced, though this is coming from player with POE1 experience on a blind playthrough, with no trade prior to maps. I think the game is potentially challenging for new players, where if their tree gets a bit inefficient or have poor understanding of crafting and skill interactions they may run into trouble progressing. This in general is fine, I think it is better for the game to have some challenge rather than it being too easy. However the game feels best when you are making steady progress, rather than hitting a wall. It is difficult to find a balance across all different players, but it should be noted that a lot of POE occurs after the campaign and requires replay-ability of the campaign. The campaign does not feel like it is going to be too long to me, but I think ideally it should be challenging but not longwinded. I personally think it is pretty good the way it is, but would not want any of the fights to be longer than they are. If I did not make a decent weapon, I think the fights may of been getting on the long tedious side, while the difficulty itself, was about right. I don't think it needs adjusting, it is about right, but need to be watched, that the campaign is kept interesting across builds, and feels good to repeat while you are creating new character.

-Having two waypoint travelling mechanics in act2 is a little confusing and I don't see the purpose of it. The travelling town idea is a cool idea, but does add anything to the game that justifies having the player interact with two travel mechanics that seem to do a very similar thing. I think thematically it does. Act two has a very good flow and interesting path, rather than just following a linear trail. I wonder if there is a way to do this without needing both or somehow combining them, so that you only need to interact with one during the act.

-Ancient vows quest! What on earth is going on with this quest. All other quests in the first 2 acts seem completely logic and well described if you are not completing them just by play through. This one tells you to find two things somewhere. The quest itself is fine. Give an indication on the quest log where to look for the relics so players don't get stuck looking in area's where they aren't.

-Ctrl+leftclick relics from Titan extra chest to relic locker inventory doesn't work. It works when relics are in normal inventory, and it works with other items to regular stash from Titan chest, it should also work for this.

-Technically the game runs well. I have little technical expertise so will leave that to someone else, though I am yet to encounter any bugs, crashes or technical difficulty. Also, I was worried about the performance on my current set up, as it is encountering some fps drops with certain POE1 content, but as of yet it is running well, using default settings. Occasionally graphics get a little blurred, but nothing beyond that in the early campaign.

-Act 3 mushroom quest. As with ancient vows, doesn't seem right. Basically all quests are making sense except for these two. Optional, but does not have the same flow as some of the other quests, I think it is also suffering from a bad or missing description. Player is carrying around items in inventory with out clear purpose.

-Cinematics. Game needs a menu for cinematics where you can watch them as you like.

-Leap slam stopped working in Singing caverns. Checked it was not a keyboard problem. Toggling skill did not fix. It started working again when I went to a new zone. Unsure why this would be. Was not changing any items skills or passives.

-Benidictus act 4 boss, slam skill, "let the gods die", seems to be causing big lag spike. Have encountered no lag problems up until this point, but lagged out twice on this skill. Assume it is from processing the animation. I did not have the fps/latency meters showing at the time, so can not provide further details.

-Proccing Shark fin quest act 4 is not intuitive when map marker is not close to location it proceeds from. Again with vague quest description, find fin could mean anywhere on the island. Some of these quests are a bit frustrating when it seems like they are intentionally vague or hard to find things. It's not that sort of game, players don't like running around the landscape searching for something they are not sure exists. It's predominantly a loot based/combat game, not an exploration game. Small amounts of this are fine, but it has been pushed a bit far on some of these quests. When the quests are flowing naturally the game feels better. This is largely only a problem for first play through, but I think that is import, to have the first playthrough not relying on gimmicks. The boss itself and jumping out of the water is cool, but not at the cost of interfering with smooth gameplay progression. Maybe some people find this straight away, but many wont, and it will not be fun, or force looking up guides, which should not be necessary.

-Story and variety of acts is interesting. I have been concentrating mainly on gameplay aspects, but non gameplay aspects, such as voice acting, art, sound effects, music, etc, seem good. I particularly like some of the environments, act 3 and the ultimatum trail encounter was my favorite part of the playthrough.

-Itemisation seems pretty good. Hard to say exactly with many things still to be added. The variety between items within the same class seems good.

-Currency drops feel balanced with enough to progress but still needing to think about using them effectively. I think essence could spawn a little more often, since certain essences can not be used on all gear types. Though with easy access to regalling, it is not a big impasse.

-Interacting with skill gems is a bit finicky. I think largely it is just adjusting to the new system, which has some improvements, particularly with control, but in some ways it is a bit more cumbersome than the POE1 method of doing it without menus and the skill bar. I think it is fine, but there might be some room for improvement.

-Suggest removing the word "skill" from "passive skill tree" in the menu. It is right bellow "Skills panel" and can be easily confused if player is trying to quickly use the menu directly. Aware hotkeys is possible, but I think it is unnecessarily similar wording in the menu.

-I'm glad sprint function is in the game. Maps did not feel too big or sparse to me at this time, but they may of without the ability to sprint. I don't think it is as game breaking as being able to teleport past everything. Mostly good if backtracking is needed.

-There is an extra item slot on my Titan that seems to come and go, located above left ring on the inventory window. Nothing seems to be able to be equipped there thus far. It looks to have the same silhouette as a ring slot, but can't be used. Some research is saying it might be for Huntress, but why is it sometimes present on the Titan UI?

-Radius as to where things can be seen on the map needs to be increased. I understand this may be intentional so the map isn't releveling everything, but it is pushing it too far. I mention this earlier with act1 zone size, but have also encountered on town encampment map. So example of this, when reaching map device, quest says talk to Alva. She is not showing on my map, so I can not see the quest icon indicator, and wonder if I need to go find her in a previous town. I move slightly down and she is standing right there. Then talk to Doryani at map device, same thing, he is not very far away, but not showing on the map, so I can not see the quest icon. I see not benefit to having these hidden on the map until you walk right on top of them. Act 3 going down the bottom of the temple is another one. If you are following the story it is probably obvious where to go, but otherwise there is not a direct indication. I think some of this is done intentionally, to add an exploration factor, but it often can lead to frustrating gameplay aspects. It reminds me a bit of the old epilogue in POE1, where you had to go and set up the map device in the town and it would be a bit confusing.

-Max 3 charm slots on belt. I have found one, but the third seems largely redundant given both charm slots choices in act 2 give +1 charm slot. So what is the point of having the 3rd on belt, unless you skip this quest? Perhaps there are other mechanics in the game that give negative slots, or further content to be added where and this becomes useful, but so far it seems the third charm slot on the belt is fairly redundant. It would be good if it allowed you to go to 4, or there was a conditional quest choice, where you get benefit from taking the other thing over the extra charm slot, which you have if you have a 3 slot belt.

-I think quests that offer permanent character buffs, should be more highlighted on the world map, above other points of interest, like loot rewards. Optional ones that you can change should also stand out. Currently Tabana's pillar in Interlude is pretty visible, but Medalion Act 2 is a bit hard to see, and same with "Goddess of justice" act 4. Mostly all of the rewards, including chest were pretty good, and I think were balanced, but it wasn't completely clear which were important. I got all of them on the first playthrough, so it didn't matter, but on a second playthrough, I would like to easily know which are permanent buffs. It is probably available in the quest offering dialogue, but I think it could be more clear in the quest log and world maps.

-Venom Draught permanent reward is not a good design. Particularly when other rewards that are interchangeable have already been introduced. It make it so character is no longer optimal in endgame if you pick the wrong choice, or change build. Either have these like the other interchangeable rewards, or add a mechanic like bandits respec in POE 1. Alternatively, have all these options permanent, so that it is known that the choices are very important. However, I do not think it is the best design to have these permanent decisions being made early in the campaign, or in the campaign at all. There is full adjustability available for tree and ascendancy points, it does not make a lot of sense to have these small buffs permanent. The cost off changing them can be a high cost if needed, such as the bandits respec, so it can not be changed on a whim, but player should not need to relevel a new character of the same class if they need to change the buff.

-World map loading is sometimes long. Zone transition loading didn't seem too bad, but having it load when you just want to see the map is a bit tedious. This doesn't seem to always happen, so I assume it has something to do with connectivity or processing.

-I think a help glossary would be good. The mouse over of key words is a good improvement. There are however times you want the information and can't mouse over it. An example of this, item gives shocked ground. The keyword says it drops ground but doesn't explain shock. With glossary, you would be able to look up shocked. There are times when you want to look for something where you do not have access to the keyword. Another example, I want to understand why I am falling over when sprinting. The wiki is not going to be up to answering most questions currently, like it is for POE1. It seams like a lot of this information is already created in the game, having a glossary of the collection, and adding to the glossary as needed would benefit players.

-Prefix/suffix/implicit indicator. I played through the whole game looking for this and did not see it until I researched where it was after seeing someone else mention it on the forum. It is very hard to see, the words run on top of each other and it is in the background. Needs some improvement.

-Some tent icon indicators on the world map, such as 'Travelling merchant" appear to be completable, while others, like "The Ferryman" do not. Suggest the all show as complete after having visited/interacted with them.

-/passives command would be useful. Probably other commands as well. I saw /remaining works, which is good, I needed it on the clear the shore quest.

-Fix the quest log tracking and bonus completion information. I did not think this could be worse than the side quest descriptions in POE1, but it probably is already. I know it might make sense to you as the developers, but it has to make sense for people with no understanding of the game. It should be very obvious looking through the log, what is optional, what to do on uncompleted quests and what has been achieved and rewarded from completed quests. The world map UI completion does help with this, but it is not an excuse for having vague information in the quest log. As above, a function like /passives is also needed, that lets the player quickly see anything they have missed.

-Areas that players need to return to repeatedly, such as Trails of Sekhemas, trail of chaos, should have a strong visual indicator on the world map UI (Hot key buttons on side are good, but I think it could be shown on map as well).

-Crafting directly onto equipped items is nice. Unsure if there would be any downside to this, but it is at least going to be useful in most cases.

-Vendor NPC type is not obvious, suggest adding icons. Less of a problem in POE1, because vendors are very similar, except for what they sell. For POE2 there are extra difference. In particular, if you want to vendor for currency shards, you need to go to a specific vendor to disenchant. With quite a few NPC's across the game in each different town, learning and memorising exactly which vendor do what is not a priority with so much other information to learn. Indicators would prevent the need to run around tapping them until you find the one you want.

-Sometimes Doryani doesn't have "Identify items" as an option. Moving and interacting with him again often brings it back. Seems buggy.

-Ascendancy points 5/6 and 7/8 should be based off static content. It does not make sense to have players wanting to farm lower level Djinn barya, to be able to get their ascendancy points. I suggest having them drop as static level 60 for 5/6 and what ever the relative level is for 7/8, while players are needing their ascendancy point. As quest items, in a similar way that contracts from the Heist quest line do in POE1. Maybe they only drop as lvl 60 green item, while you don't have ascendancies 5/6 allocated, have a quest trail in progress, or quest Djinn barya, item in stash/inventory. So that successive high level drops are not blocked if someone wishes to continue faming them before they complete their ascendancy.

-De-levelling, or having a way to purchase lower level gems with high level uncut skill gems is needed. So far I am not seeing this. It seems like low level uncut skill gems stop dropping in higher areas, so if you want to be able to use a lower level skill without the gems, you would likely need to farm a low level area or start an alt character? That does not seem as convenient as being able to purchase base level skills in POE1. Perhaps there is or should be a a way to trade higher level uncut skill for lower level one from the vendor. I have not seen anything like this as of yet. Given that the gems don't level up, it will probably be needed that you can buy any level gem you want, for a higher level gem.

-Honour shrine in trial of Sekhemas take too long. It should be proccing when you click it. If you move away before the long animation completes you don't get it. No reason for it to be like that. The holy water reward does not work like that, you get it very quickly when you click it, honour should be the same.

-Trial of Sekhemas showing ascendancy board, when points aren't being awarded is confusing. Given the points can be respec'd outside of the trial, I see no reason for having it on levels other than the final level, if points are awarded. Really it is probably not needed at all, except for theater. Players could just get the points automatically when they complete the task, and have the available on the tree.

-The boon in Trial of Sekhemas that restores honour when you drop below a certain health threshold is not well designed. Honour can, and often does get depleted without dropping to low health. It then creates an insentive to go to low health, which is actually pretty difficult to do without loosing a massive amount of honour in some cases. So the trial can be lost without it proccing. Maybe there are cases where it is useful, but in general I think it is a bad design. Should be removed from the pool, or changed inline with sanctum design, to restore a certain amount of honour, when you drop below a certain level of honour, if that one does not already exist in the pool.

-Transmutation orbs could be more abundant. The are more important for crafting on bases now since there are no alterations. Augments by comparison seem to be alright, but that is only off a sample of 1 campaign playthrough.


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tldr: Act1 boss without gear is disproportionally difficult to the rest of the campaign, improvements should be made to help with gearing leading up to that encounter. Quest descriptions need to be more specific and the quest log needs to clearly show reward progress.

Reserved

Have played through until interlude. Will continue to progress to end game, for now I have provided any feedback for things that I liked and things I think could be improved.

Interlude:

I assume this is all temporary, so providing feedback separately. I have completed up to map device. Overall the interlude is a fine place holder for the unfinished campaign, but I think completing this should be highly prioritised over adding endgame content and leagues, so that 1.0 can be launched.

-Transition from act 4 to interlude and interlude to maps is a little bit confusing. Act 4 does not appear to end and the interlude has started while still doing things in Act 4. Clear separation would be better I think, even if it is possible to run any interlude area as a choice. Not so bad for going to maps, but still a little confusing having to go back to Kingsmarch to reach progressive content and not having a well defined location of the map device beyond speaking with the hooded one.

-Khari Crossing compass? What is this? At first I thought it was cool, but it is sending me to locations I have already interacted with and entrances to zones I have already cleared. As far as I can tell I have finished all the content in the Khari interlude. What is it supposed to be pointing to? Again, 9/10 quest are great, but there is about one aspect per act that has you running around looking for something where it is not obvious what you should be doing and has little or no quest description.

-? for Roving wisps. Another quest which is not well described. "Follow the wisps" has no meaning, especially for a player that may not know what wisps are. The quest idea itself is fine, to introduce players to the mechanic, but it is another thing that will have many players running around looking for something that is not what they should be doing. Why is it simply not "Defeat Lythara while she is empowered by the 3 wisps". This will save players from running all over the map looking for something else.

Further to this, is the completion bugged? I believe I have completed it but the "?" is not showing as complete. First time, defeat her, not noticing the wisps, normal loot drop. Second time defeat her, aware of the wisps, but not paying complete attention to whether she was empowered by all, gave a big loot drop, with 2 unique items, so I assume that was complete. Third time, incase I missed one and only got partial reward, made sure she was empowered by each of the three, normal rare type loot dropped. Perhaps I am doing something wrong, but it appears as though I have received the reward and it is not cleared off. Having these reward icons on the map throughout the campaign is fairly useful I think, but having one not check off for some reason a bit frustrating. I have completed all the other ones in the campaign, I will just leave this one and move on, though this will be very frustrating for some people if it is not completable.

As a rule of thumb, if even a small amount of players are needing to search a guide or ask for help with completing a campaign quest on the forum, there is a good chance that some aspect of it is confusing or misleading. After reading the quest log, it should be very clear what the objective is. It does not mean it should be easy to find or complete, but it should be know what is needing to be achieved. An example of this is in Diablo 2, Kurast quest where the location is in one of many temples. It is not obvious to find the location, but it is obvious what needs to be done. If something needs to be found, it should be clear the location that it needs to be found in and the method to finding it. eg. it will randomly drop off a mob. Another example I can give, where this is not the best design, POE1, find hidden room in library, looking for candle stick. There is some merit to having things not completely obvious, but it is a fine margin between having things fun and random, to things becoming frustrating. Some of the POE2 quest aspects either push the boundaries too far on that line, or have mechanics that are just a once of hidden, until you know how it works, which I would argue is not making either the first or subsequent playthroughs better. Largely this is my opinion though, it is possible some players liked this element or found it interesting looking for things that are somewhat hidden.

-Tabina's pillar reward interaction was a bit confusing, It is obvious how it works in hindsight just clicking on one, but I think it can be improved, something beyond just the text in the chat log. A bit more obvious that you are only selecting one and the other is removed when you change it.

-Khari Bazaar does not have a salvage bench that I can see.