[Several Feedbacks & Suggestions]

I’m currently playing a Level 90 Titan in Standard mode, with a dynamic rotation based on the following skills:

-Bone Shatter
-Leap Slam
-Seismic Cry
-Infernal Cry
-Hammer of the Gods
-Forge Hammer
-Armour Breaker
-Supercharged Slam

My playstyle aligns with Jonathan Rogers’ philosophy:

“We don’t want you to just spam your big AoE and clear the room. We want you to think about positioning, timing, and enemy behavior.”
“We’re actively tuning the game to prevent ‘one-button clears’ — we want you to feel like you’re fighting, not just watching numbers.”

Although I haven’t finished all the content yet, I’d like to share my impressions and propose improvements for a game that, in my opinion, has the potential to become the best ARPG of its kind — while paying homage to Diablo 2 (act structure, reference to Deckard Cain through the Hooded One, etc.).

🔧 Proposed Improvements

1.Stun Threshold Gauge

Add a visible gauge in the interface to indicate the character’s stun threshold — useful for anticipating interruptions and optimizing combos.

2.Skills issues

Grant the player melee damage immunity during the leap animation of Leap Slam and set a small cooldown to the skill or integrate the Hit and Run Support Gem characteristic to it to prevent skill spam and immunity abuse.
In my opinion Supercharged Slam deals way too much damage compared to Hammer of the Gods.

3.Armour vs Energy shield

It's fair to say that stacking ES is significantly easier than stacking life and it offers better Effective Health Pool than any other defensive mechanic, without major trade-offs.
One way to help balance ES's dominance over Armour would be to make ES primarily mitigate spell damage, while Armour focuses on mitigating attack damage. If I'm not mistaken, players typically go all-in on either ES or Armour, and hybrid ES/Armour body armours are rarely used. This change would improve the utility of such hybrid items.
So ES could remain easy to stack and effective against spells, but with the trade-off of amplifying damage taken from attacks.

4.Revision of Trials

Trials are a good idea, but their random masochistic aspect (choosing among several debuffs) are not satisfying. I would far prefer the Labyrinth from PoE1, a more linear system where difficulty comes directly from traps, monsters and bosses.
→ Idea: A final room filled with mirrors where the player faces one or more Uber copies of themselves (same build, gear, skills) — a true challenge of coordination and adaptation.

5.Visual Effects Adjustment

Because sometimes less is more, add a slider (with 4–5 levels) to adjust/reduce the visual effects and particles of spells and attacks (player + allies). Some effects, while aesthetically pleasing, drown the screen in a “multicolored soup” — making readability impossible.

6.AoE + Speed Caps

Nerf and set a limit to AoE and attack/cast speed for each skill in order to avoid abuse and absurd builds (reference to IAS/FC caps in D2).

Encourage the combination of skills and attacks for optimal efficiency.
Solo farming would be slower but more strategic — the group would then become essential for fast clears. Combined with improved visibility due to the reduced visual effects, group gameplay would be greatly enhanced.
→ Goal: Revalue every player’s participation in the group (since currently group gameplay reduces to running behind the one with the highest DPS and AoE who clears everything alone).
A measure that will surely make some exiles cry out for hanging in the short term, but which in my opinion will be extremely beneficial in the long term.

7.Revision of Skill Gems & Support Gems

Uncut Skill/Spirit Gems: Obtained as quest rewards → later made available from certain vendors.
Uncut Support Gems: Not droppable, but farmable via mining (reintroduction of Delve?).

Gain XP for Skill/Spirit Gems by killing monsters (like in PoE1) — more rewarding and more in line with an RPG-style level grinding than simply dropping a new gem of a higher level. Making gems gain XP could become a concrete farming objective. Recycling gems could grant fragments of Gemcutter’s Prism depending on de gem level.

8.Clearer, More Strategic Map System

Make the map system less confusing with real biome incentives (e.g., specific drops/base items, such as Maraketh gear only found in “desert” biomes). Ensure that paths between maps guide toward a clear objective. Implement clues to determine the direction to take to find Citadels.

Allow to zoom out the Atlas world map more, the integration of a 2D mini map of the whole discovered Atlas would greatly enhance the navigation.

Also, what about the possibility to evolve the Atlas system into a sort of 4X: explore, exterminate, expand, exploit.

9.High-Level Farming in Campaign Zones

The zones and bosses are beautiful, it’s a shame they lose all relevance after completing the campaign.
→ Inspiration: The “Terror Zones” system in Diablo 2 — allow revisiting them at high levels with appropriate rewards.

10.Specialized Farming & Loot

Allow targeted farming of specific zones or bosses (in Campaign for exemple) like in Diablo 2 (Countess, the Forge, Travincal, Uber Keys).

Integrate Skill Gems focused on item finding from corpses, chests and strongboxes and allow Magic Find builds (like the Barbarian Gold Find in D2).

Revalue the Magic Find “Item Rarity” stat: Less loot, but more usefulness for items.
Flooding the screen with Magic/Rare drops without investing in the “Item Rarity” stat is not relevant and reduces the value of loot.

11.Items and Affixes

Replace the “+Skill to Melee Gems / Spell Gems” with affixes granting “+1–3” (up to 3 different skills) to specific attacks linked to the weapon or specific spells to promote item hunting and increase build diversity.

Make Magic items become valuable and sought-after allowing alternatives to Rare items in certain configurations, thanks to specific affixes not found on Rares. (Like some Magic items in D2).

It would also be interesting to increase the maximum number of sockets on item depending of their rarity to improve their utility, either for equipping or for recycling in exchange for currency.
Maximum number of sockets in item: White > Magic > Rare > Unique.

I don’t think that Runewords would be a good idea, but it would be nice to have class-specific set items that improve each of the three ascendancys, or set items for each ascendancy.
Set items could adapt to their wielder and gain new powers through accomplishments, reinforcing narrative and mechanical attachment in addition to full set bonuses.

Make gambling more interesting by revaluing certain Magic/Rare items (gambling in D2 which concerns both the hunt for unique items like SOJ/Gull, but also specific Magic/Rare items like Assassin Claws, Circlets, and Amulets).

Give real value to salvaging/disenchanting items, with currency rewards increasing based on the item level of the disenchanted item, as well as the number of affixes it has. It will encourage players to pickup looted items.

Allow upgrading of Basic Currency Grade I to Perfect Grade III via the Recombinator. For example: 540 Basic Orbs of Augmentation → 9 Greater Orbs → 1 Perfect Orb.

12.Gold & Hideout

Increase the importance and usefulness of gold by allowing purchases of items in the Hideout, unlocking new farming zones (mining spots, etc.) in exchange for gold, hiring and maintaining NPCs (workers, mercenaries) to be engaged in previously cleaned Atlas zones to collect currency or defend them against corruption or other assaults from rogue exiles or bandits.

Possibility to buy dummies with gold to test builds in the Hideout.
Even better: Capture a living monster and chain it in the Hideout to serve as a dummy with infinite or very prolonged life. One could imagine a kind of monster hunt across the various game zones, where reducing the monster’s health to a certain threshold would be a prerequisite for capture, without guaranteeing it. The difficulty of capture would be based on the monster’s health, level, and rarity. The player would need to hire in advance a team of Maraketh mercenaries equipped with nets and harpoons, paid in gold. The player would be offered an item such as a war horn placed in their inventory. Upon activation, a cooldown begins and a portal opens to summon the mercenary team. In case of failure, the monster enrages and kills the Maraketh mercenaries, forcing the player to recruit a new team and wait for the cooldown on the war horn to end.
One could also consider a capture team of varying experience levels, depending on previously completed captures and the gold cost.

13.Cinematics Between Acts

The cherry on top: Add cinematics between each act (like the one with Count Geonor) to reinforce immersion, lore, and the charisma of the bosses.
Reference to the memorable cinematics of Diablo 2 featuring Baal, Diablo, and Mephisto.


Thank you for reading this to the end. (original text translated with AI)

up (editing)