We welcome First Impression posts! Please be nice to those posts.

Heya Folks!

Comming from D3 and T2 Path of Exile seemed just like the other two, boy was I wrong!

The wakeup at the beach tasted a bit like Age of Conan which I liked a lot for its bloody and grim feel to it! So the start had given me a fitting grim smile on my face.

So my Templar was done killing the first few zobies and within the first few minutes I found my first rare item, it was a bow. However I had the idea of my templar beeing someone feeling a little safer with a well-smithed blade in his hand, now there was this bow and I tried it.
It was quiet some fun and I was stunned about the upcomming chances of defining this hero.

But the best within the first hour or so was entering a dungeon/cave. I was dark like I know and love it from RPGs from about 10 to 20 years back! You had to carry torches or have a someone that can cast light. In some of the following dungeons i wished for a torch ^^

So far so good
regards from germany ;)

So I was brought to POE by a friend and have been playing about a week. Found this thread and thought I would give it a go - I intentionally did not read the posts before me because I did not want to be unduly influenced by other comments. I'll come back and read them later.

Introduction

First some demographics for your "types of players" database. I am 49 years old, married 30 years and am the father of two children, ages 28 and 20, who are also heavy gamers. I am a registered nurse currently enrolled in two concurrent masters degrees and will begin my doctorate in about a year. I have been playing online games since the mid 90's which include Diablo 1/2, Dark Age of Camelot, Guild Wars, WoW, and SW:TOR. I've tried others over the years, but won't include those because I didn't play them past trying them out. I've also been playing offline games since the late 1970's. I have participated in several Betas... to include D3... and I have already signed up for the Elder Scrolls Online beta. I game for 20-40 hours a week depending on RL schedules and responsibilities. I have a good system built specifically for gaming and run my games on the highest settings possible.


So, first impressions after playing about a week and about 20 hours into the game...

What I like about POE:

1. Graphics - I like the gritty, realistic, and dark feel to the game. I, like the developers and others, am very tired of the cartoony feel of many games that are coming out. My early experiences with D1/2 and DAoC spoiled me for this, I suppose.

2. Gear - I like the non-bind aspect of gear... the ability to trade gear between alts. The look of the gear is not bad either.

3. D2 feel - this game has the elements that I liked about D2. The way you interact with NPCs to unfold the story, the interface, and the way maps are set up and unfold have a familiar feel. Another thing about the interface that I like is that everybody's name isn't displayed above their heads and you cannot inspect other players' gear - adds to the immersive feel.

Unfortunately it also contains some of the elements that I disliked about D2 as well (see below).

4. Story - The story keeps your attention and is interesting. It keeps you wanting to find out what happens next.

5. Instanced maps - I like the ability to have my gaming world restricted from annoying boneheads and the ability to explore and kill bad guys at my leisure. Again the graphics here is phenomenal.

6. Group size - 6 people in a group is a good size. I've played games that had more and less. I like the ability to not exclude friends because the group size is too small. Most of my family plays online games as well as my youngest daughter's fiancé.

7. Character customization - Related to "gear" above. I like the customization features with gear that are included with the game. I like the ability to make your character feel like it is unique.

8. Currency - I like the "no gold" currency system. At least they have some use beyond just buying this or that and adds depth to the game. It is a little different than the old D2 economy of SOJs and runes/runewords, but the flavor is still there.

9. Microtransactions - I like the fact that these are not pay-to-win and are cosmetic only. I also like the fact that I am not forced to look at the advertisement for the store every time I pull up a screen and that the icon to click on it isn't a big glaring orange circle on my interface. If I were convinced enough to play the game more than occasionally, I would certainly purchase from there to support the developers of the game. Unfortunately, I don't have that pull that makes me want to make this my main game as yet.

Note: I gladly invest money in games that I enjoy playing. I just haven't found the justification to invest money into a game that will be an occasional visit for me - at least in this incarnation. If changes to some of those items - at least the major ones - that I dislike below are made then I will obviously reconsider.

10. Passive Skill Tree - Absolutely love this, so it deserves its own spot. This was genius for the developers who designed this. Love this aspect of customization.

What I don't like about POE:

1. Graphics - Some of the graphics are not realistic (mostly with NPCs) and takes away from the feel of the game. Not a game breaker, but it is there.

2. Camera - I like to have full range of camera views in the RPGs that I play. The limited camera range is annoying. I like to look around without changing character direction. I like to fully examine the look of my character and those around me (including PCs and NPCs). It helps provide an immersive feel to the game.

3. Loot system - I absolutely hate having to play "clicky" games to get drops. I am the type of player that is usually just as happy when another person in a group gets a good item as I do. I like it better when the loot is assigned in some fashion so that I can concentrate on beating up the bad guy. This method just promotes the practice of stopping attacking so that you can be first on the loot drop. This is THE reason that I stopped making or entering PUGs (pickup groups) in D2 and only grouped with friends or family that I knew. You also have to fight for your currency items as well.
This method ensures that I will never, ever (did I say never?) join a PUG in this game. I am forced back to D2 practice - group with family or RL friends or play solo. Since one of the main reasons that I play online games is for community and the enjoyment of meeting/gaming with others, these factors are mutually exclusive. This is a game breaker for me and guarantees that this will never be my main game - it will be there for the occasional change of pace unless this system changes. I understand the developers' intent to make the game competitive between players in this way... my view as a heavy gamer is that if I want to compete with other players, I will pvp. I actually find enjoyment helping others that I don't even know in a cooperative way... I like the social aspect of that activity.

I suggest allowing group leaders the option to change the looting rules to at least include round robin assignments for currency/regular drops with the option to roll for better drops.

4. No ingame guild system - self explanatory and I've also mentioned that this is a main reason that I play online games.

5. Story - The story felt fragmented at the beginning. The first time I saw Piety, I wondered who the heck this person was. I found myself looking for lore to read to figure out what was happening and did not find any. Then I thought I might have missed something while playing only half awake over a cup of coffee before getting ready for work and created a new character. Still had the same feeling. I'd like to have more lore or background story in order to immerse myself better in the world.

6. Customization - I like the trend of recent games that allow character customization... even a little bit, but the more the better. I don't like the way that some of the characters look and would like to personalize them to my taste.

7. Crafting - I have been a heavy crafter in every game that I have played that had this feature. It is an aspect of gaming that I enjoy. Unfortunately no one has ever gotten it right. I am forced to believe that game developers do not employ gamers who like to craft. It is either added in as an afterthought or takes so much time and resources that it is ridiculous. I left DAoC specifically because they kept promising to fix the crafting system "in the next patch" and never did. I would prefer that if I want to change a socket color, that I have a chance to pick which one I want - then let the RNG roll to see if I hit it. I understand the concept of money sinks, but the current system doesn't motivate me to spend the resources. So now I am building these stacks of currency items that are just taking up more and more inventory space. If I don't invest the time in the game to build astronomical amounts of them, then they are useless to me.

8. PvP - I don't like arena pvp and will never participate in that. I do like world pvp along the lines that existed in DAoC and have yet to find a game that came close to offering pvp up to this caliber. All other pvp in all other games that I have played has just been boring so far. ESO looks promising along these lines. In the early days of D2, I used to run a PKK clan (player killer killers) and had a lot of fun "griefing" the "griefers". It was fun giving the gamers who had fun annoying others a little bit of their own medicine.

9. No movement customization - I realize the the trend for modern gamers has been to move "mouse only" for some time, but many veteran gamers like myself prefer to use both mouse and keyboard to navigate. I want to customize keys dedicated to movement on my keyboard. Yes, I can make do with the options available... but it feels too limiting to do so. I feel forced to comply with a modern trend and limited in my preferred play style. This is one one of those small aggravating annoyances that detracts from the feel of the game. This was an aspect of D2 that I didn't much care for either, btw.

Ok, this is long enough for a first impression. Overall I think that the game was done very well and my congratulations go out to the small group of entrepreneurs that put a lot of hard work into this project. I like to see small groups like this grabbing a piece of the pie that the big boys think is all theirs. I also like the fact that this group of developers listen to the actual players themselves rather than tell the player-base what they want to see in their games. It is very annoying to hear these big developers tell me what I want to play or what I want to see in my game.


Thank you very much for this opportunity.


Edit: added a note and Passive skill Tree to "likes" section. Added no movement customization to "dislikes" section. Made a couple cosmetic changes.

I've been playing this game a month i really like it but, i recently got into the cruel mode on hardcore and died because a huge desync and a friend is really annoyed too cause of that, and i was thinking you maybe can add a item; on hardcore you can get on normal, cruel and merciless a item that will revive you when you died and you are still in hardcore.
you can't trade the item and will get it once on every difficulty, this item can be added until the desync's are over and people that are high level won't died of a stupid reason.

My first impression of the game is that it has a great deal of potential. It has a nice Diablo 2 kinda feel to it. I could see myself investing some time in this game with my friends. I think you need to improve the mini map. Also, If there was a way to rotate your view 360 degrees around your character that would be great. It drives me crazy that I can't rotate the view. Also, the inventory is way to small.

Hello anyone from GGG or people on the forums that read this!

I've been playing PoE for a little over a month now on one account on/off. It's a love/hate relationship sometimes with this game to be honest. For every Con(-bad-) I give I will try to give a Pro(~good~)

-My first impressions of this game were that it is awfully laggy for my graphics card!
~I'm surprised at the rate of updates/attention this beta receives compared to other games.

~Feedback in this game appears to be read from time to time unlike other games I have come from.

~The grind isn't that harsh compared to other games which encourages playing with more characters instead of just one.
-On the other hand, it doesn't look like you have given players much room to really level up effectively 70->100. (Maps excluded)

-Looters(Ninjas) in PoE are extremely annoying. *I wish you would make player drops private OR remove the collisions between the character and other players/minions.

-Spam of low level gear in the drop table. This is really a problem when people have a lot of item quantity on because we end up with tons of blues/whites that are far below the area's level.

-Chromatic orbs seem scarce. I think that to receive a chrom orb from the shop the recipe shouldn't require players to have a rgb equip that is linked. It should just be rgb or 2x rgb.
~I like that you have taken action to avoid gold farmers by not implementing a universal gold system. Instead, players are forced to use scrolls/orbs as currency.

-I do enjoy the fact that the microtransactions do not help you in the game in any way.
~The only microtransaction I probably dislike being a purchase only feature would have to be the Stash upgrades. It would be nice if a rare item dropped to add additional stash tabs.

-Passive skill tree first impression: OMFG FINAL FANTASY X ALL OVER AGAIN NO! It was definitely scary at first, but it leads to a massive array of character builds.


Overall: I absolutely despise the drop system right now for groups. I like the amount of skill tree customization to make unique characters. The forum helps new characters make builds to get a feel of the game - this could be changed so there are pre-set builds in-game that make for an average build.


Thanks if you read this.

I've been playing the game for a while now, but haven't really posted any major feedback until now, so even though this is not first impression per se, it's is a impression after spending a considerable time with the game.

Even though I do appreciate the rate at which you guys provide new content, it can get a bit overwhelming a bit. I feel it would be better to take some time and improve on the existing content before adding new. I am on verge on quiting the game, and there's one reason for it - unsatisfying grind.

Blizz took a lot of flak in D3 about the low drop rate, especially on the unique, and I'm getting the feeling PoE has the same problem. This is especially highlighted by the existing end-game state - I've been doing maps for days now and have spent almost every single currency I have on improving maps. In return, I got nothing. I'm out of currency, I can't get anything good to drop and I'm now almost out of maps.

Is it normal for you that a player with total gametime of 159h over 5 different characters has in his inventory:

0 Chaos
0 Alch
0 Chisels
3 Fusing
6 Jewelers
2 lvl 66 maps
2 lvl 67 maps

My one and only chisel dropped in cruel. I had one exalted drop ages ago. Regals, I think I had about 3 drop. I understand that 6L and some high level uniques will be very rare, and I'm fine with that. But when currency needed to progress in end game is so rare, it gets really frustrating.

Uniques are also very rarely seen, I had maybe 4 drop for me, out of which all 4 were rather bad. Again, this is something that Blizz took a pounding about, but for some reasons people let it pass for GGG.

My 'awesome' uniques:


I love this game, but I'm honestly close to quiting. The gameplay at the moment is fun but it's not rewarding. There's quite a lot of games out there, and I don't know how much longer I can force myself to grind and grind, and get nothing in return:| Please do something about solo play, end-game and drop rates.

That's my feedback. Thanks for reading.

Very nice game guys.

You've shown some real talent here. The visuals are very impressive.

The only reason I have to stop playing is because it's getting too difficult to survive.

It doesn't seem like the melee class can keep up with the armour or resistance it needs to carry on. It really doesn't take more than 2.1 seconds to wipe me off the map if i get pinned or jumped unexpectedly. There is zero room for error in this game. Which only leads to frustration i were to keep playing.

Nonetheless, i enjoyed the dialogue. And I enjoyed the visuals.

Keep up the great work.

Not-a-cockroach.

Unbug.

I'm well into my fifth decade, and I have been playing RPGs since the EARLY days of tabletop D&D. Then I would borrow a terminal and strap my phone into the acoustic cups on the back and play text only RPGs, on bulletin boards and mainframes, printed out on rolls of thermal paper. It's hard to find fault with this one. The things I do notice will work out over time. Bravo with this guys.

My son and I play together often.

I have two small "suggestions" that I thought could be incorporated into the game.

1) Zombies and other minions might have the "powers/immunities" of whatever was used to spawn them. ALternatively, only those formed from "bosses" could have those things.

2) I love the way you went with the mana and health potions. I also think putting mana and/or health "fountains" into the game would help. Not to be able to refill the bottles and flasks, but as a quick "jolt" to the character's mana and health.

These are just things I would like to see.

Regards.

My basic first impressions are:

* Graphics from texture perspective are looking great. Loving the look of characters with full armor on.

* The game seems very slow and boring early on which is in large part due to animations being repetitive and things like the first thing you do in the game being to lose control of your character as it very very slowly stands up. Another big part is the environment not reacting at all to actions.

* The lag/desync!!!! Holy shit this is bad. I haven't checked where the servers are, sort of expected it to get fixed over months especially with store release and all that. I sure hope it's being worked on and some solution is soon to implemented. It doesn't feel like the servers are overworked as it's rather intermittent but when it hits yikes!

* All the leagues giving something to do is nice. Nice to have goals always showing up. Are the main SC & HC leagues ever going to be reset too? Haven't found that info.

* Passive skill tree is a bit overwhelming. Doubly so when combined with the fact that you can't really respec to fix mistakes any greater than choosing the wrong skill by accident and undoing.

* The currency system is an interesting change. I think it's good, still haven't fully grasped all the ins and outs as my highest level char is only about 15 right now.

* Areas are nice and varied from what I've seen which is nice.

Keep up the good work and PLEASE work fix the lag/desync problems.

For the most part i really enjoy the game, however there is still a lot of tweaking that needs to be done.

Some of the mobs you run into hit way too hard even though you have tons of armor. That coupled with the terrible lag and constant desyncs is the only thing that kills me. When it comes to melee classes, they have a HUGE disadvantage.

I can't tell you how many times I have died to a shield charge or a Rhoa charge when my character is nowhere near the mob that killed me. That and the ability of Cinder Elementals to do their roll over attacks and hit you with it before it even appears on the screen. The constant desyncs kill people over and over and over. As of late it's gotten incrementally worse not better.

As with all games of this type, where it requires split second timing to dodge attacks, syncing over the internet is VERY hard to achieve. I have yet to see it achieved with 100% reliability. They need to start thinking of other ways to manage the fights and monsters.

I can't tell you how many times I have been attacked by something and sit there and swung at it for 5+ seconds only to realize that said monster is 10 yards away. Swinging away and all of a sudden your quarry warps to someplace else on the map. About the only way I have seen anything close to this achieved is to have the game server client side.

Partying with others for me is not an option. I can't stand people that take what isn't theirs. I tried grouping with others, but almost every loot that dropped was being ganked by melee classes before I could reach it. I just gave up on the whole "Party to win" horse crap.

I got some friends interested in playing. Their comments were the inevitable "D2 in a new wrapper". Although there are a crap ton of similarities, there is enough of a difference to warrant PoE being a seperate game entity in it's own right. However, there are still some glaring mistakes that they still haven't figured out. (probably haven't even tried)

Of what do i speak you ask? Oh back in the 90's a game came out called "Diablo". (Some may be familiar with this game) but I digress. Even back then, the ability to put things in your backpack sideways (3x2) instead of (2X3), I thought was short sightedness. And PoE still has not managed to figure out a way to do this. I guess none of their dev's ever worked for a moving company.

Skill tree is a sweet addition. You build your characters the way you want. Pure freaking genius on that one. It just some of the "big" skills have such a negative downside to them that they just are not worth picking up, while others are a nice addition to ANY build. But that's minor due to the existence of about 2,000+ more skills you can build.

Currency system takes a little bit of getting used to, but in practice it's an excellent system. I do however think that orb's of regret should be lowered in their place on the currency worth and made to drop more frequently. As a trade off, remove the regret orbs from the act 3 vendor. I like experimenting with off the wall builds, but as it sits, total character respec's just aren't viable.

As a player, I keep seeing new stuff I want to buy and try out, but the ability to experiment with builds in this game is hugely unforgiving to new players. If you want to experiment with new passives to see if it is a benefit, think again. Respecing a character is expensive and very unforgiving. Experimentation with the passives tree is NOT something you want to try with any major extent. What's more, at higher levels, it becomes even more expensive.

What worked at low levels is not necessarily a good idea when you start doing maps. I can't tell you how many times i have died to those damnable goat men, when 3 or more landed on my head in one whack. Even a 500 ms desync in the game is almost certain death for melee players. Witches that are summoners have it soooooo much easier. Desync's on ranged classes have a ton less effect on survivability when compared to melee classes.

Tweak the damage on some of the stupid range attacks or modify their mechanics. Moke armor have more of a pronounced effect vs physical damage and for the love of all that is PoE, do something about the constant desyncs. It's the constant desync's that are responsible for 99.213 % of deaths. (Just pulled that figure outta my hat for the sake of getting a point across). Do that an PoE will be the new baseline to which other games are compared. Not Diablo, since we all know that Blizzard isn't really Blizzard anymore.

May Activision rot in hell for an eternity and be forced to play Donkey Kong on a Commodore Vic-20 while juggling chainsaws.

/flame off or on, which ever floats your boat.