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

So far, my first impressions of PoE are fantastic! While there are some (relatively minor) bugs to address, I am vastly enjoying this game! Very in-depth and thoroughly entertaining.

A few points after playing this game a while (and loving it)with multiple classes:

I've been playing a Marauder for ~20 levels and I've noticed that when I right-click on an enemy to walk up and use a skill (Heavy Strike, in this case) and the enemy has moved by the time I get there, I will still use the skill, thus usually missing and wasting my precious mana. This even happens when clicking on open ground; I walk to the spot clicked, and waste my mana on nothing. This should be fixed to where you don't actually use a melee skill unless you, A: click on an enemy, or B: hold shift while using a skill.

Also, when you use a skill on an enemy and they move by the time you walk up to them, you should continue to follow this enemy until you get close enough to use the skill on them or click somewhere else.

This would be completely different when compared to ranged (like Poison Arrow) or AoE (like Firestorm) skills. They, of course, should be used when clicked on open ground for positioning purposes. Actually, maybe not some ranged skills. I could see you would maybe want to only use Cold Arrow when clicked on an enemy (unless Shift is held down) but using Split Arrow on open ground would spray in the direction clicked.

What does everyone think?

TLDR: Using melee skills on open ground should not actually use them and waste mana unless shift is held down

Thanks, GGG, for making a great game and having great communication with your players!

Well... I haven't played much (only a lvl 20 Witch, so far), so these really are some early impressions.

I REALLY liked the game's atmosphere. It's impossible not to mention Diablo. As many here, I expected a darker feel on Diablo 3, like the one found on D2. Didn't get it then, but I definitly found it on PoE. On this aspect, it seems a clear evolution of D2.
This dark, "gruesome" feel really caught my attention.

What I'm even more impressed by is the skill system. Though I haven't had time to explore it, it seems really diversified, with the common passive skill tree and the gems and items providing a LOT (and I really mean a whole fucking LOT) of possible builds, from radicals specialists to versatile hybrids. Can't wait to explore it further and spend hours upon hours thinking of synergies.

And there is the gem leveling system, which rewards you for (kinda) actually using the skill. That's really neat and I think it nicely incentivize experimentation. I didn't think I'd like the Summons Skellies skills until I had a free socket and just put it there to level, and ended up using the skills all the time.

Now, about the negative points, I really don't have many. And the ones I have are rather minor ones.

First, It's impossible to know whether the area you're in have a Waypoint or no when using the global map (the U button). Sometimes, I have to use a portal just to go back to town, press U and check if there was a waypoint there.

Second, as someone else pointed out, the Witch really stand still for too long when casting spells. Maybe she could be a bit faster, so as to facilitate hit'n'run "strategies".

Third... no, nevermind. That's all I can remember right now. I'll come back with more once I've played more.

TL;DR:

Pros: dark atmosphere; highly-customizable skill and item system; nice gem-leveling system.

Cons: Waypoints on global map interface; Witch long cast time.

i was member from closed beta but now in open one i decide to play more and i really enjoy it now :D
I have to say too much good thinks for this game! A very good game full of content(you hear blizzard?)very big replay-ability and pvp(hell yeah!)
You guys in GGG have made a masterpiece but i call it diablo clone. This is not bad at all diablo 1,2 and 3(the last has serious problems but after all still great game)is from the best rpgs ever made and you have add new ideas and mechanisms in the game. Congratulations you maybe make a clone better than the prototype.
I believe that your game need a very special characteristic to be perfect and make an own identity other than diablo. I suggest an event! Make an event that heroes will defeat all together an ancient ultra hard god the time. Make a variety of gods and reveal them week to week sound lovely <3 ? :D
continiou this great game :DDDDD

I started playing last night. I adore the game play. I used to be a hardcore diablo player, back before it started resembling WoW too much. This reminds me of the old school diablo. Unfortunately I might add that in the past 4 hours, I've had to redo the same area 6 times, being disconnected from the game in the same area. I get to a mini boss, kill it, use a portal to go empty inventory, and while loading the town, I get booted. I understand the load issues on the server, but with the instant popularity, along with players like myself who aren't happy with the turn in diablo, the server should have been stabilized and widened before allowing open beta. Just an opinion. Otherwise, this game is everything diablo should still be <3

Edit: As the player above me stated, PoE really needs a little something extra to make it less of a clone and put its own stamp on things. I love the event idea, but taking it a little further, I think the PvP should be utilized more- event quests that take a group of players instead of just one. PvP guilds, factions etc. You have the PvP that diablo didnt-- do something with it to make it an important part of the game (besides trades and Mod talk)

Bad, bad posts are bad. -- Charan

First Impression.

VISUAL:
-UI needs improvements, make it more modern (it feels 90s) and readable. the color palette on the menu (character, options) lacks life and text needs to pop out more. (color-blind people might find it hard to read)

-Duelist spend too much time working out on his upper body, we may want to re-model that.

-improve movement animation ( a little more, make it more fluid and natural)

-improve some skill animations/fx (eg: cleave's "slash" fx)

-improve chat interface. if chat boxes w/ friends are possible (or something like that), that will be great

-the world is beautiful but make my character stand out. (i guess the crown cosmetic could help me here)

Gameplay (nothing much to say)
-boss fights are tough and fun but lack personality. (i've done act 1 and 2, havent reach act 3 boss yet)

-competitive PvP??? rank-pvp, pvp game modes: free-for-all death match/team death match/etc (maybe add this in the future)



Business Model
-better cosmetic items
-add taunts
-male/female class options ??

First of all...Terrific game!!! I love the depth and complexity to character creation.

My first impression feedback regarding gameplay:
- I think the mini map needs to be upgraded graphically as well as the inclusion of scrollover text for instance entrances and waypoints.
- When selling to the vender, it would be great to have the ability to simply click on an item and have it automatically placed in the sell area of the inventory
- I am sure that you hear this a lot, but the character inventory is quite small compared to the size of the items. Since the main "currency" in this game are the bits and pieces of orbs, etc gained while selling items, it would be great to have a larger inventory.
- That being said, it seems weird that daggers and wands take up the same amount of space as swords. Daggers should realistically only take up two inventory slots.
- When using the skill, Raise Zombies, the fact that the minions register when mousing over them gets in the way of combat. Perhaps later in the game there is reason to target minions, but I find that having the click around the zombies is more of a hindrance at this stage.

Keep up the good work!

I would like to congratulate the team, played very little still, but I loved the game. I think very good initiative of you, especially for not being a Pay2Win. Thus, how I adapt to the game, I want to spend a little money to help them keep it. Congratulations!

Chiming in with my first impressions here

General stuff
--Looks great! The skill effects and animations in particular impressed me. I like the character and npc models as well. I wasn't impressed at all by the beach areas at the beginning, but beyond that the environments also look really good.

--General gameplay is very smooth, aside from a few targeting niggles and the occasional rubberbanding, both due to lag.

--Shopping feels pretty clunky. I don't like that you can't switch around your equipment/gems in a shop. I'm always selling junk while checking for upgrades, then having to back out to switch gear and sell the old stuff. Would be much smoother if I could do it all in the one screen. Also don't really like that selling and buying are kept separate, but given the currency system that might be unavoidable.

--Character advancement systems are amazing! It's like D2 with FF7 materia and FFX sphere grid, I love this! Only bad thing I can think of here is that you can't see the stats of the next level of gem before you level it up. You can see stat/level reqs, but not things like damage or (more importantly) mana cost.

--Refillable flasks are a great idea. I'm one of those weird people that never uses consumables even if they drop constantly. These I'm not afraid to use frequently.

--Game is damn hard, frustratingly so towards the end of Act 2 (which I just finished). I'm not saying nerf it to the ground, just that it might need some tweaks. On my end, I still need to try some different builds/classes to see how things pan out.

--Chaos damage feels out of line. Related to the above point, as almost everything in the area does chaos damage and shreds me in 1-2 hits. But on the other hand, Viper Strike far outclasses any other single target ability I've used, almost trivializing the Act 2 boss after spending hours suiciding through the pyramid to get there.

Overall, POE is of such high quality I'm amazed it is F2P.

My first impressions with the game are pretty much on par with the rest of the replies, my only real issue is the current problem with party members have a difficult time targeting enemies with summons getting in the way. That and my friend (who is melee) says that the hitboxes on the enemies seem to be towards the feet of the enemy instead of the entire body.

If these two issues are resolved then I have no complaints!