Hi there fellow exiles! returning exile with some feedback!

Hi! I tried the game waaay back when it came out, got a bit frustrated with the combat, and got VERY frustrated with some shipment issues for some supporter pack I purchesd!

history lesson over, on with the good stuff!

I decided to return to the game mainly due to the new act(4+ intelude), and hearing warrior feels good now.
and it very much feels good now! however, I am not here to glaze the progress, I'm here to give feedback :)

1. having the same keybind for both sprint and dodge, feels very awkward during combat. at times I find myself wanting to dodge twice, but for some reason the game registers that as a sprint and then I fall over. not a problem for warrior as I am extremely tanky, yet something I think could be entirely avoided with the option for separate keybinds. as for controllers, gimping keyboard users because of controller support is not really a good idea, it makes me feel like I am playing someone elses game.
2. the skill tree still missing some key QoL to help new players make their own build. which I think misses the entire point of the vast tree that exists, new players should be encouraged and even a bit handguided to make decisions about their build early on I think. the learning curve is already steep enough, I think some key skill tree QoL is what needed to push players into theory crafting themselfs.
a. bookmark nodes on the tree. pretty self explanitory, let me have a almost webbrowser bookmark for passives on the tree. if I am going to play for 2 hours, then need to come back after 2 days, I won't remember what exactly I wanted to do. was I going for physical damage? or was I going for the blood magic? who remembers. with bookmarks players can manage that easier themselfs, and even...
b. save builds. yup... let me plan a route ahead of time, then trace it, with overview of the changes this route will bring(bonus points if it also shows what skills gems it will affect ;) ). this will allow players to do light theory crafting ingame! exactly what we want new players to get into :)
c. I suggest, incorporating synchronizing skill gems and passives into the tutorial, for example if I am playing witch, show me the notables I can look ahead to get that will affect my minions, or my chaos bolt! and how I could infer they are affecting the skill. the ingame wiki is GREAT, but handholding is required with the amount of depth in the game.
d. mapping still makes me feel like a fish out of water, and I'm at tier 6-7(yes I know it goes up to 16...) . the lore is explained WELL, and the UI is intuitive, however, I am BOMBARDED with quests early on and that makes me block them out of my mind. I argu that endgame mapping needs a diff set of UI elements to explain the diff "quests" or mapping progression.
e. the map tab (yes the MTX one) is absolute DOGSHIT, sorry for the harsh words but all it does is contain the mess into diff tabs... there is no neat order like the flasks tab or a neat slot to put an item in to craft a map. I don't want to go to another tab to craft... I already got a map tab, what's the point if all I do is click what tier I want and then i need to sort out the maps myself? kinda weird. here's my suggestion:
* change the tab into the same floor-like setup in the flasks tab, with a suffix/prefix filters builtin. if I want to hide all maps that has temporal chains, let me filter that in a special sub-tab. the tiny regex search box doesn't cut it, the map tab should work for me, I should't need to learn regular expressions or save expressions on a note, or god forbid memorize expressions to search in a premium tab like that.
f. monk feels very strange to play compared to other characters I played, both warrior and witch are intreduced defensive options in the forms of the shield and skeleton warriors. monk seems to have none? I understand I can use them, that's not the point I am making. both a warrior shield and a witches skeletons feel thematic, a monk has no thematic defense option. just felt I should point out how odd that feels.
g. graphic options are good, but the performence are REALLY inconsistent for me, like I would play for 10m at 50-60 fps, then the game will just freeze on some effect an abyss rare monster does. my system is:
* AMD Ryzen 7 7700 (16) @ 5.30 GHz
* AMD Radeon RX 6600
* 32 GiB ram
now maybe it's just my GPU being old... but the difference is large enough to be weird, and inconsistent enough to feel like (the P word) isn't the focus right now. (P word is performance). that, or maybe it's a proton issue sense I am playing on linux.


some closing words... the game feels really good, and it making good strides to being a fantastic(dare I say the best?) ARPG, period.
I understand some decisions has been made regarding the pace of the content released, personally I don't care much, as long as what is released is good, and the quality is high, take the time you need. there is planty of depth to explore, however it is very obscured, outside resorting to excel spreadsheets(which most ARPG players don't wanna use after work... I'm sure you see what I'm getting at :P )

also, uniques don't feel unqiues, more like oddities. only once in a bluemoon did I actually get something cool. the rest felt like borderlands 3 style legenderies that just drop out of nowhere and fit into no build.

cheers! and thank you for reading!