new player's first thoughts

Never played PoE1 or 2 before, started on free period on 29th, now I'm L68 , playing minion Witch - but now I'm stucked. Can't beat the blood priests at the last map of campaign because they heal themself in the blink of an eye back to full life on the minions. And after a disconnect in temple of chaos I can't enter anymore because missing the item to open the gate, so I got only 4 ascendancy points until now. So for now done with the games, waiting for fixes to these bugs.
Like the game so far, but there are some points I absolutely don't like: 6,7 items and your bag is full? I need 3,4 ports back to town and move the stuff in stash just to clean one map. Then after that it took me longer to clean up the stash then I needed to collect them. Taking out a handful of items from the stash, running to identifier, deciding what to sell, dismantle or disenchant and running to the npc's for that, and back to stash for the next handful of items. While doing that I have to check what the npc have to sell for me after each level up because the dropped loot is 99% not useful for me and I find better stuff only at the vendors.
The amount of materials sees so far balanced out fine, always had enough to do the basic upgrading to rare and adding the modifires, but "advanced" upgrading like sockets and quality I needed to the careful not to waste the stuff.
Beside that some technical issues: why after each patch are the language settings reseted? And why I have to leave the game to change them back? Why I have to log out to change input methods?
But beside all the complains the game itself catched me hard and I will now start a second class until the problems with my first char get fixed... You got me... Thanks

You dont get infinite use of the trial keys after your first 2 ascendencies, you'll have to wait untill you find another one to try again.
As far I inventory capacity, you should probably try to be a bit more selective about what you pick up and what you leave on the ground, but I absolutely agree with you that it is ridiculously small, I really hope they decide to increase it anytime soon.
Resetting the default language after every patch is also pretty annoying, it doesn't do it when the game is installed on steam.

Managing inventory is the game. Yeah it's hard when you don't know what's valuable. At first, use a loot filter : https://www.filterblade.xyz/?game=Poe2 .

Then, pick up mostly the small items, your class item, then if you aren't full before going town, you can grab a big one.
You aren't supposed to back to town for sell while you clear an area (maybe if you're full and a boss drop lot of thing, that's ok to go clear the inventory).

Also, get ID scrolls with you to check the items that may be valuable, and just drop them on floor if they are bad (specially the big ones like armor or 2H weapons). A fast way to know if an item is good or bad, is to check the tiers. Further you go in the game, more you will be selective and keep only high tiers items.

the priests are rough for some builds. they are essentially a DPS check at the moment, wouldnt be surprised if they get nerfed tbh.

as for gear, dropped items need to be crafted on. thats a core element of POE.
if you are mega unsure about how to do that just trade for upgrades right now and learn to craft as you progress as a player. dont worry about chasing perfect gear. perfect is the enemy of good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3uNejox4oM
heres a video if you want to learn more about crafting.
havent watched it but wudijo is a very good player, i doubt he will misinform you.
it may be a little intimidating but i promise its not as hard as you think.

stop picking up everything. you dont need it. its a waste of time
some general rules:
- take gear with sockets / quality IF you are low on the currency they give.
salvage gear with sockets, disenchant gear with quality.
this is how you get those currencies, you shouldnt ever really be starved for them.

- if your build uses energy shield gear literally just ignore everything else.

- if you need gold dont bother with white drops. try to only take yellows, blues if you have room at the end.
a white sells for hundreds of gold. a yellow sells for thousands. dont waste your bag space.

- as someone else said, get a loot filter. it hides SO much crap.
https://www.filterblade.xyz/?game=Poe2

- just use semi-strict.

- pick your class

- pick a theme (or dont)
- export to poe

- turn it on


learning poe is a long game, dont expect to know everything right away.

as new player you need to pickup most of the stuff, you need the upgrade materials, the orbs, the gold to be able to craft, and without experience you need more of it as you will make a lot of stuff wrong and waste a lot of materials until you learned what is the right stuff for your char...

and for ssf players the markets are no option, of course, you are even more depending on taking everything you get

some of the systems are just unnecessary complicated. remove the needing for identify items, put dismantle and disenchanting in the same function or at least both at the workbench and put a stash access right beside or even better add the functionality for dismantling/disenchanting to stash directly instead of forcing you running circles

I understand that in endgame, or with your alts you don't will pickup everything, but as new player with your first char it looks different - and is one of the reasons new players dislike the game

A new player should definitely not be SSF - that would be a very silly thing to choose if you are not fully aware of how the crafting systems work.

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RockHeavy#5740 wrote:

A new player should definitely not be SSF - that would be a very silly thing to choose if you are not fully aware of how the crafting systems work.

can't follow you here. how should a new player ever learn how crafting when he is just buys stuff?? sounds silly for me to expect that you learn how crafting works by avoiding to craft...

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remove the needing for identify items

This, in hack & slash, is the equivalent of reload your weapon in a fps or jump in plateformers. It's core design since diablo 1 then all other arpg after.

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how should a new player ever learn when he just buys stuff??

I was thinking the same when i was playing poe1 first years, then when i finally accepted to trade, i've understood that buy stuff is the easy way to progress in the game.

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MykroPsykoz#6286 wrote:

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remove the needing for identify items

This, in hack & slash, is the equivalent of reload your weapon in a fps or jump in plateformers. It's core design since diablo 1 then all other arpg after.

identify items is surely not the equivalent of reload your weapon in a fps - that would be mana/energy consumption and certainly it is not the same like jumping in a platformer- that would be killing npcs for exp.


the 90s are over my friend.... diablo4, last epoch, titanquest 2, torchlight2, grim dawn - none of them is using this outdated feature anymore

the system was originally a solution to old days limited memory and storage sizes. instead of generating full item stats on drop, games stored a compact placeholder and only calculated full stats upon identification.

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MykroPsykoz#6286 wrote:

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how should a new player ever learn when he just buys stuff??

I was thinking the same when i was playing poe1 first years, then when i finally accepted to trade, i've understood that buy stuff is the easy way to progress in the game.

well if "easy way to progress" is enough for you, good for you, I have higher standards