Feedback from my experiences playing Fate of the Vaal.

I want to start this post by stating that POE 2 is currently my most played game and has been since Early Access became available. I thoroughly enjoy this game, its systems, and its complexity all while being, in my opinion, more player friendly than POE 1. I have played POE 1 (it's how I know about this game) and I like POE 2 so much more that I haven't gone back to the first title since. I think POE 2 becomes more and more enjoyable with each update and I'm eager for the next one.

That being said, I do have feedback about some sore spots, and some ideas I'd like to submit for consideration. Let's get started, shall we?

Expedition:

I spent almost all of 0.3 and 0.4 playing Expedition as my primary endgame option. I do like Breach, Abyss, and Delirium, but I prefer Temple, Ritual, and Expedition because they ask you to stop and make other considerations in your gameplay besides just killing stuff. My choice to play Expedition boiled down to just how profitable Runic Splinters were across both updates. That, however, was my major concern.

The merit of Expedition was in the boss fight and the keys to the boss fight. That's where all the value was found, with next to no worth coming from other aspects of the mechanic. The artifacts you could collect had little value or use, and they were the most prevalent collectible. Their utility lay in the Kalguuran merchants and the Recombinator, both of which were functionally useless. The merchants provided random loot that was little better than ground loot offerings, even with their crafting options, and the Recombinator’s function was quickly overshadowed by Fractured bases + Chaos Orbs. Additionally, the Recombinator was the only league-based crafting option that could potentially leave the player with absolutely nothing for their input, as you're more likely to fail a Recombination, especially later in the game, than you are to succeed. I often felt that without Runic splinters providing so much payout that this entire mechanic would be a huge waste of time.

It seems with the 0.5 update, much of how we’ll interact with Expedition has been redirected, which makes me happy, but I did notice that artifacts still exist, though renamed. I don't know how the merchants will work in the future, but if the Recombinator still exists, I would like to suggest a change to it. My gripes with the mechanic are essentially how disrespectful it is to a player's time, and that comes from the poor chance to succeed. We first need to find items with modifiers we want (probably the hardest part), then collect the currency (easiest part), then use the Recombinator and hope it succeeds (most frustrating part). If it fails, we get nothing and all that time and those resources also amount to nothing, an even worse outcome if we also used the Omen of Recombination too. Getting zero payout for your efforts is the fastest way for players to become discouraged and disregard whatever aspect of your game, something I believe was reflected by the low percentage of players interacting with Expedition.

The change I would like to suggest is the option to funnel more artifacts into the device to improve the chance to succeed, all the way to 100%. How I'd implement that is by improving the percentage by fixed increments of artifacts input. For example, a pair of Ancestral Tiaras trying for (T1) +X to Maximum Energy Shield and (T1) Increased Energy Shield costs 24 artifacts with a 23.13% chance to succeed. With the suggested change, the player would have the option to pay another 24 artifacts to increase the success rate by another 23.13%, and so on until they hit 100%. I understand this seems quite strong on the surface, but again we already have a guaranteed way to do this exact thing with Fractured bases and Chaos Orbs. I would like an alternative method to starting a craft because Chaos Orb spam is maddeningly dull and frustrating. This idea places more emphasis on ground loot and artifacts, and turns the Recombinator into a more accessible technique for starting a crafting project. It's much faster, less cumbersome, achievable by most players, all while yielding the same result as current methods. It's also counterbalanced by how heinously expensive the craft becomes if you pursue rarer modifiers. I'd definitely suggest restricting the Recombinator to just two modifiers if implementing this idea though, else you entertain the possibility of people buying their items outright. The goal here is to give players more agency over their own upgrades, or at least how they start their upgrades. This would also provide a greater sense of reward and accomplishment for time invested in the mechanic itself as it would reduce the amount of currency needed to begin a project.

Crafting Currencies:

I’m of the opinion that some of the rarer crafting options are too rare. The specific things that come to mind are the Omen of Whittling and the Omen of Light. I’m not a player that acquires exorbitant amounts of currency. I don’t have the desire or the time for that, so I’m approaching this point from the perspective of a player that actually wants to use the items instead of trading them for other currencies. If 0.3 demonstrated anything, it’s that an abundance of strong crafting options encourages players to use their items instead of hoarding them. I believe the playerbase fears to use the aforementioned Omens simply because they’re rare. I know in my case, I sell them more often than not because it’s too difficult or time-consuming to acquire enough of them for it to seem like using them would be worthwhile. Even currently in 0.4, where I am the wealthiest I’ve ever been in this game (and likely ever will be) I still don’t use these items. Were they much more common, and similar items much more common, I’d feel less reluctant about crafting with these items, and I think other people would too.

I also greatly dislike the separation of the common currencies into Greater and Perfect echelons. I enjoy their use cases, but I’m more a proponent of improving the efficacy of existing items as opposed to making more items to fill a gap. The frustration of the common currencies was their likelihood to roll low level modifiers that, past a certain point, nobody wants anymore or aren’t useful anymore, and Greater and Perfect currencies were meant to alleviate those frustrations. My issue with that decision is how much it degraded the value and utility of the normal currencies. It also puts more items into loot tables, inflating the number of possible rare item drops. In my opinion, that is something to avoid doing, especially at this stage of development, and extra especially with a set items we’re meant to use frequently and regularly. If we’re to use update numbers as a reference, we don’t even have half the game available, meaning the number of things that can drop in the future is only going to go up. That creates competing space for these currency items and many players already complain about how difficult it is to get enough items to work towards a new upgrade.

I think an elegant solution to this would’ve been changing the floor for the levels of modifiers the common currencies can roll based on item level. In other words, the higher level the equipment, the higher minimum modifier level the currency can roll. For example, say you have an iLVL 82 Crossbow. Being at that level, maybe the floor for modifiers from currency could be around 67 or so, such that using an Exalted or Chaos Orb guarantees a mod at or above that floor because of the equipment’s level (noting that this is just a hypothetical example and I would leave such a floor up to developer discretion). That’d likely necessitate having more tiers for each modifier group so that players don’t become too powerful too early, but something like that would’ve had the common currencies maintaining their value at all points of the game without needing additional currencies or an increase in the existing currencies’ drop rates. The inspiration for this idea comes from other loot-based RPG’s with equipment that scales based on level, specifically the Borderlands franchise. Usually in Borderlands games, equipment is dropped at a rough minimum of 2-3 levels below your current zone or player level, depending on the progress of your playthrough. A system like that makes it so wherever a player is in their playthrough, they have the surety of knowing the items they find or make will at least be comparable to their current zone and character progression instead of something that stopped being useful many levels ago. This exact system also keeps loot explosions in those games from getting too overwhelming as they don’t need to make more items to fulfill an existing role. The items scale with the player.

Critical Damage Bonus:

Since this game is currently an Early Access title, I think our responsibility as early players is to explore as much of the game as possible to discover where improvements or changes can be made. To that end, I view Critical Damage Bonus as one of the most egregious obstacles to this game's progressive design.

Firstly, Critical Damage Bonus is homogenous. There are few restrictions to what sort of build can leverage this modifier. Almost every skill in the game can critically hit, and almost all types of damage can be boosted by Critical Hits. The calculation for the bonus is applied after all other calculations for damage modifiers occur, making any other modifiers you’ve taken benefit from this bonus. As a result, it is the easiest damage modifier to take overall because it works with just about everything.

Secondly, Critical Damage Bonus is the largest damage multiplier in the game. Nothing else comes close. By default, Critical Damage Bonus doubles your damage, which is already a bonus other sources struggle to match. For example, to double your damage with Rage, you need access to 100 Maximum Rage, something doable only on specific builds, then you need to invest spirit to use Berserk to gain further effect than that, with few, if any, other sources of investment available. Investment in Critical Damage Bonus dwarfs what is achievable through other sources, as it is much more abundant. I have seen builds push this bonus +2000% or more (a 21x multiplier). I consider that to be an unnecessary and outrageous amount of damage. Even just the default value of Critical Damage Bonus provides a meritable increase to your damage output.

I think Critical Damage Bonus is problematic for this game because it is the strongest, easiest option. As such, that makes it the path of least resistance, which means the majority of the playerbase will likely gravitate towards it and ignore the other options available. A regular pattern of games of any kind is that players will favor the option that yields the best results with the least effort. Since that option is Critical Damage Bonus, that means most of us playing this game aren’t exploring other options, we aren’t investigating as much, we aren’t tinkering and discovering and playing with the other toys, and that is contrary to the whole point of Early Access titles. If we keep taking the easy option repeatedly, you as developers receive less information on the aspects of your game that need appraisal and reconsideration.

I would like to elaborate that I DO NOT believe Critical Hits are a problem. They are a long standing RPG staple and I wouldn't want or expect them to be removed. I do think being able to scale the Damage Bonus as much and as easily as we can currently is a diversity, design, and future game health issue. I say this because I have built multiple characters that are capable of clearing all content in the game without investing in Critical Damage at all, and a few of those characters are quite simple. From that perspective, that means Critical Hits are massive overkill in this game. I think having sources of Critical Damage Bonus restricted to specific Unique items, Keystones, or Ascendancy nodes, while having it removed everywhere else, would be supremely beneficial to encouraging the playerbase to experiment and explore, while helping the design team balance around more reasonable and consistent damage outputs. Additionally, I favor the idea of Critical Hits enabling additional effects like the “Critical Hits Poison Enemies” effect on the Unique Helmet Atsak’s Sight. Designs like this turn Critical Hits into a gateway for new build directions and new build supplements as opposed to just your primary damage scalar, and I think more effects like this would encourage yet more diversity.

Quality & Non-Physical Weapons

When POE 2 was first available, one thing that had me excited was the addition of base weapons that implicitly had other damage types besides physical such as Bolting Quarterstaves, Cultist Bows, etc. These items made me hopeful that there’d be more variety in endgame weapon crafts instead of the dominantly favored maximum physical damage weapons that are the de facto choice in Poe 1. Sadly that didn't happen.

Crafting for physical damage is still a better option in this game over pursuing other damage types on your weapons by a wide margin, even if you're using these new base types. I do understand that elemental damage has the benefit of playing into negative resistances on enemies, which hypothetically makes it the stronger option, but considering most skills in the game convert physical to another type, that becomes a much weaker argument. Those conversion mechanics make physical damage continue to be the best option simply by virtue of being able to achieve higher numbers. I genuinely want players to want to pursue other styles of weapon crafts, and I think letting quality apply to non-physical modifiers is a way to narrow that gap and encourage the use of the new base types.

Quality on weapons only applies to the physical damage values of the weapon, and I think that is strangely prohibitive, especially when compared to other equipment. When you apply quality to defensive gear, it works on all the defence types: armour, evasion, and energy shield. With jewelry (and soon jewels, too), you get the benefit of whatever quality type you chose, with many options to choose. Quality on caster weapons adds quality to the item's inherent skill regardless of the item. Weapons, however, can only increase physical damage with quality, even though the game contains weapons that inherently have more than just physical damage. I think expanding the quality bonus to other damage types would provide more freedom to players across the board, and keep people from feeling as if they need to pursue one specific design option for their equipment to achieve maximum results. There's also the benefit to market balance and variety. More designs and more options means more competition and hopefully more affordable prices in trade leagues.

Quality of Life / Individual Mechanics:

Volatility
My first character in 0.4 was an Acolyte of Chayula that attempted to make good use of Volatility. The struggle of that damage option was needing to do some other step to actualize the damage. I understand that needing another skill to pop the Volatility, i.e. Catharsis, supports the combo-oriented gameplay pursuit, but in practice it makes Volatility rather clunky. Usually by the time I had enough to use, most monsters were already dead, and in boss fights I would have to stop doing anything for 4 seconds to get maximum benefit. The way it’s designed currently, Volatility is best used when you can stockpile as much as you want just before an engagement, with less utility in the midst of combat, and I think it could use a change. I’d suggest making the Extra Chaos Damage usable upfront, stacking with each point of Volatility as it does now, but losing the stacks and taking the damage when the timer expires (which I would change to 5 seconds). I think this would result in more aggressive play when using Volatility, and turn it into an actively escalating damage source with a ‘volatile’ trade-off that gives players reason to consider disengaging to minimize said trade-off, instead of something that prompts deliberate passivity.

Darkness
Speaking of Acolyte of Chayula, I also took the Ascendancy nodes for the Darkness mechanic and I quite like it. I think it’s a solid defensive layer, yet I think the amount you get could use an increase. For comparison’s sake, the Witchhunter’s Sorcery Ward works similarly, but can achieve a substantially higher value without having to sacrifice their spirit pool for the same number of Ascendancy points. I don’t think Darkness needs too much more to feel comfortable. Being able to achieve a value of maybe 3000-3500 I think would make it feel like a worthwhile sacrifice. Some Unique items or other means of using Darkness to scale damage or a specific effect I think would be neat, too.

Knockback
My first character used Knockback as its primary defensive layer and I have to say I love this option. I put the knockback support gem on Spearfield and it became the most impressive obstacle I could put between me and my enemies. My feedback for this is mostly a desire to be able to do more with Knockback. I think it's hilarious when something as large as a map boss gets catapulted across the screen from this, and I think it’d be even more funny if enemies could take physics-based acceleration style damage or immobilisation buildup from colliding with things. The faster they fly, the more bones they break, so to speak. I imagine that’d be quite the coding/implementation challenge, but I think it'd be hilariously worth it. Imagine, for example, a mace or axe skill using a baseball style swing to send enemies flying. I think that’d be a lot of fun.

Frenzy Charges
Since I was using Spears for this first character, I needed a method of generating Frenzy Charges to maximize my efficacy. I've toyed with Frenzy Charge generation on other characters and the system I like most is Armour Break + Resonance Keystone. I've since learned that this is the most commonly used method of generation across the playerbase, which made me look at the other sources of Frenzy Charges and wonder why they weren't being used. The trend I noticed, and what I was avoiding myself, were the limitations on the other methods. Cull the Weak is probably the simplest source, but like the skill name suggests, culling an enemy is necessary to gain a charge which is fundamentally useless without additional enemies to cull. You'll feel this discrepancy most strongly in 1v1 engagements that lack additional enemies. Then there's Disengage and support gem Frenzied Riposte which have the same requirement: consume a Parried debuff. I think this option makes for a nice secondary generator, a supplement to a different form of generation, but I think it's much too passive to be a primary method. The other existing options are Combat Frenzy (which has a timer between uses), Sniper’s Mark (which has a cooldown, and must be used manually if not a Deadeye), and the Unique Charm Valako’s Roar (which is only a consistent option on Ritualists), all of which are slower and less effective than using Resonance and an Endurance Charge method. As is, the best way to get Frenzy Charges isn't even by getting Frenzy Charges, it's through all the Endurance Charge methods. By comparison, generating Power or Endurance Charges takes a fraction of the effort and has more options overall with similar, if not better, payoffs for the skills using them. I think less restrictions on the Frenzy Charge options, and a few more choices overall, would encourage much more diversity with this mechanic and maybe encourage players to start using them again. I don't see much reason to use any non-Resonance method currently because of all the restrictions obfuscating the process.


Elemental Infusions
My second character in 0.4 took advantage of Elemental Infusions and was also my first Spell character. I enjoyed playing with the infusion systems and trying to determine the best way to make them work. My largest issue with some of the infusions was how uninspired they were. Many are just “more/double damage” and that’s it. Take Comet, for example. Its infusion increases its base cold damage a bit, then adds an equivalent amount of fire damage and some area radius. I think that’s rather uninteresting, and also gives players zero reason to use the default version of the spell when the infused version is strictly better. My favorite infusion was for Ember Fusillade. It turns that skill from a fireball that explodes on impact to a lightning-fireball that chains. The infusion alters the function of the skill, giving you different use cases for each version if so desired. I like that fluidity and choice much more than just getting a damage boost, and would like to see the other infusions get similar treatment. I think some players would also appreciate not having to engage with the system if they don’t want by making the default spells worth consideration.

I also think some of the methods of generating infusions are too cumbersome without the use of a meta skill. The method I ultimately used was Living Bomb in my meta skill for fire infusions, because manually casting that skill caused more problems than it was worth. I then used the combination of Ball Lightning + Lightning Warp, which I cast manually, for lightning infusions. That pair of skills worked well because the combo works as a primary offensive engagement method that then rewards an infusion afterward. Living Bomb (and other infusion sources) require some additional input or passage of time to achieve their effect and the infusion. I think they would work better with manual use if their effects happened on use, or at least faster than they do currently. There's a bit too much setup and not enough activity happening to make the setup worthwhile. The skills we use are meant to keep enemies at bay or reduce their numbers, and if a skill isn’t doing either of those things when we use it, the incentive becomes to choose a different skill. I think this lack of activity is the largest shortcoming of the infusion system.

Ignite
All three of the characters I made for 0.4 capitalized on ignite as a damage scalar in some capacity. I have to say I like the addition of Flammability as a mechanic. I think it helps separate ignite from the other damaging ailments in an interesting way while keeping its application method consistent with the other elemental ailments. In the interest of making ignite more consistent with the Damaging Ailments though, I believe it could benefit from a unique damage boosting mechanic. Bleed has Aggravate as its unique option, Poisons can stack, but Ignite doesn't have something similar currently, though the skill Incinerate has a function that could serve as a good basis.

Incinerate has an effect called Compound which allows the Ignites inflicted to multiply off each other ad infinitum. Of course, players found a way to abuse that, so I would instead suggest we look at an underutilized mechanic, Impale, for a different scaling model. The way Impale is worded, if it could be applied and extracted by the same skill repeatedly (which is how I would want Compounding to work) then it eventually hits a limit on returns at about 42% magnitude after four applications and doesn't get any stronger from there. The mechanic is inherently logarithmically limited. Apply this system to Compounding Ignites and you have a method of scaling Ignite through reapplication that requires investment in Ignite Magnitude to achieve impressive results. This also makes Flammability another DPS vector as more Flammability would result in faster Compounding.

Salvage Bench
I would love to have the function of the Salvage Bench moved to the player inventory somehow, similar to how the Portal button was implemented. I like salvaging items, yet I dislike having to make trips back to the hideout to do it. Being able to do that on the go would be most convenient and appreciated.

Glassblower’s Bauble & Charms
I don’t understand why we can salvage a Charm with quality to get Baubles, but we can’t use Baubles on Charms. The only option for quality on Charms is finding one that already has it. May we use Baubles on Charms, please?

Uncut Gems
I would appreciate if Uncut Skill and Support Gems could stack for the sake of minimizing clutter and easing currency exchange transactions and movement. Having to move every gem one at a time is rather tedious.

In summation, I do wholeheartedly believe Path of Exile 2 is an excellent game and is going to improve more and more as time passes. No game is without its shortcomings though, and I hope my feedback can provide more insight into the aspects of the game I have discussed here and experienced as a player, while also potentially improving the experiences of players in the future. I thank Grinding Gear Games for all the effort they apply to this game and their playerbase and I can’t wait to experience what comes next.