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

I would love to enjoy this game but your disconnections are so frequent that the frustration is really beginning to outweigh the fun.

I have played plenty of online games but this one takes the cake for disconnecting people, 15 seconds is way too quick to decide "Yeah we're pulling the plug"

You just did it on my first ascendancy run, all the way through the first time. Took me ages, and then I click on the ascendancy room door.

Nothing

Yes, you disconnected me on the last click.

It's happened several times that deep into a long trial, you get disconnected and really, **** this.

I play in NZ on a pretty decent connection, I gave up on the Australian server as I would be disconnected 5+ times a night. I'm using the CA server and I get maybe 2 or 3 per session. This latest was just the most **** you example.

There's so much to like, why do you need to ruin it?

I just started playing in this league (Perandus), outside of a character I made briefly years ago and never even completed act 1 with.

I like the build diversity and complexity this game offers compared to a game like D3.

The biggest issue I see with this game from playing for a few weeks or so is that this game seems to primarily revolve around trade. Attempting to find any specific gear yourself seems like a massive waste of time and is more or less just an exercise in frustration. Every guide and vet player you ask would never actually advise you to attempt to find your own gear.

Even specific uniques that can be acquired via divination cards seem like kind of a crapshoot at best. In the potentially dozens or more hours it may end up taking you to finish a set of rare divination cards, you probably could have farmed/traded for the currency to buy that item multiple times via trade.

Since I happened to be playing during this years April fools joke, it also seems that GGG thinks the idea of adding better trade tools to the game is one to mock rather than actually implement. I think that's highly unfortunate. The fact that everyone seems to rely on third party tools like poe.trade and various free programs to set up "shops" and what not seems like kind of a huge sign that you're missing some really important highly demanded features in your game.

At the very least a fairly simple tradepost UI would be nice to have. Not an "auction house" like D3 had (and people always seem to be terrified that such things will ruin their games), just a tradepost where you can post some limited number of items for specific set prices so that people can purchase them without hassle or the need for you to be online.

I don't know why that kind of feature would be feared. People already are essentially doing that (or as close as they can get) via third party sites and tools (that you apparently allow since they advertise for them and discuss them frequently in your forums). Those are the kinds of tools that all players need to have if your loot system is going to remain the way it currently is. Players should not have to rely on third party tools to make an otherwise archaic trade system actually usable.

If you had decent trade tools in-game, I might actually participate in trade and have a shot at actually getting at least some items that I want. Not wanting to deal with third party sites and trade tools or what limited out-dated options you have in-game (chat/the notification board) means that I am left with self-found as my only option, and that option seems to suck.

If you're not going to add more modern/sophisticated trade tools to your game, perhaps consider making acquiring specific gear on your own less of a completely and totally hopeless endeavor.

edit: Just to add, the reason not being able to actually find anything for a build yourself is so frustrating is that you see all these really cool build possibilities in this game, but then you can't try that many of them. They are not attainable without trade or extreme luck. What's the point of having so much potential customization if it's not accessible?

edit2: Hadn't really ever tried to throw jewelers orbs and orbs of fusing at an item when I originally wrote my post. So... I just wanted to add that you have one of the most convoluted crafting systems I've ever experienced in any game. Why do people have to waste all of their mats in a failed attempt to get the right number of sockets, give up at a lower number, then use up all their fusing orbs to fail to link the fing things together? Leveling the crafter as an alternative seems to be a horrible grind to have to do during a temporary league. Why do you think that's fun or interesting character progression? It's even worse than re-rolling stats in D3. Why do you want to make it so difficult to complete a build when your leagues only last a few months at a time? Just another mind blowingly terrible thing to deal with, especially if you don't trade. Yet another huge example of how the customization available in your game is an unobtainable illusion without participating in your only true endgame, trading. Obnoxious frustrating and completely unnecessary.

First impressions:

1. Cool characters
2. Great art style, this is what I wish diablo 3 was artistically.
3. Where are my skills... whoah wtf is this nuclear power plant schematic, how will I ever figure out what to do with these skills.
...............
n. This is the game diablo 3 should have been.
n+1. Unique talent nodes, and skill gems are a neat way of doing skills.


Great game! Will recommend to friends.

I've played off and on for quite a while, never really sticking with the game. The depth is amazing, the art and combat are well below average for the genre though.

The issues most likely to push me away again are:

1) There's no combat log to explain my deaths. sometimes it's obvious other times it's not

2) no in game tooltips or explanation of mods and such - I want to play a game not google a million affixes while playing

3) I think maps should never drop map tiers lower than they are and the vendor should have tons of tier 1/2 white maps

4) poe.trade is OK but far from great. I'm sure you'll never add a barter post where stuff is sold for currency. I'm not even sure how that would impact the game. it would be nice if there were zones where we could set up shop while away and set prices in currency.

5) the map overlay is pretty bad. we don't need to see he entire mesh to see the map layout.

The best thing this game could do would be to offer a self found only league with boosted drop rates

I've played for a week now. I wasn't very hooked on the game for the following reasons:

- The control is not very smooth. Not every command that I put in will be executed. I would have to wait for the game to be "ready" for my command, which took away some of the fun for me, as I expected ARPG games to be very responsive (I don't button smash. I just have a very high APM).

- I did not like the overlay map UI and the graphics. It cluttered the screen too much, and the fact that it cannot be zoomed made it very frustrating as I rely on the map to guide me around. When I turned off the overlay, I found the graphics to be very engaging, but when I turned on the overlay, the game seemed too much of a clutter.

- The fact that map layout was an RNG meant I had to play till I found a waypoint or I would lose all the progress I have made since the last waypoint. I wanted to have control over when I quit the game.

I cam back to PoE after a long break after the initial release of 1.0, just after the open beta.

The past few months I've built a tornado shot & frenzy based ranger and a earthquake & leap attack marauder. Both of which have run into brick walls when it comes to difficulty.

Some map bosses, yellow rare bosses and rogue exiles are just way too OP. For example, my Marauder has 70% damage reduction with buffs, max elemental resistances (chaos being crap due to the high trade cost of the gear that's required), 30-34k dps (earthquake) and 4.6k health. Once I get to tier 9 and higher maps, some rogue boss pops out and literally 1-2 shots me. That's not challenging, it's punishing. I don't even have time to react, it's just BAM! my Marauder lies dead with the painful experience loss.

My ranger is evasion based build. This character is like a fragile piece of glass when facing tough bosses. 1 shot deaths are not fun, not even a little fun.

I've read somewhere that the drop rate of orbs is tied to the monster level being killed vs the actual character level doing the killing. As the character level increases and the monster level remains essentially stagnant (without the gear, higher monster leveling killing become a null point), there is a penalty involved for orbs dropping? Oh, this is brilliant, make the game tailored for end game builds, but make it so ridiculously difficult to acquire anything remotely good enough to effectively play end game that the typical player ends up quitting.

Under this model, it strongly favors most of the game wealth to slide into the hands of a very small minority. Sure, we have options of crafting high value items. But has it ever occurred to the game designers that in order to hit gold with a given craft costs the typical player far too many valuable orbs than is realistically obtainable?

It literally takes weeks of game play for many of us to gather a few exalted orbs. So we end up trading for mid-ranged gear rather than make a almost feeble attempt at wasting orbs on crafting. I won't even comment on fusing orbs. And mid-ranged gear doesn't even come close to being able to play end game content.

I've seen this complaint relayed time and time again in the global chats. People reach a certain level or map point, become frustrated and essentially quit after trying a few builds with the same dead end result.

Grinding is an appropriate adjective in GGG. I think that the game has great potential but fails from the above foray of basic game structure.

Many people, including myself, like the overall game play of of PoE. However, with true end game content only being accessible for characters that have the best of the best gear, many everyday players will simply loose interest after running in the same elite gear road block for each and every build.

I'm all for having progressively difficult game play. But PoE is progressively punishing. After a certain character level, there is no point in playing if the only reward is loss of much worked-for exp is gone from a 1 shot kill. Need more orbs for trading? Do higher tier maps with monster levels closer to the character level. It's a catch 22, and not for the better.

Like others have pointed out, this game is almost solely based on trade. Got the exalted orbs, you can get the gear. Don't have exalted or chaos orbs, well, you'll just have to make due with what one can find. Often times, that's just not that great.

Just as in real life, people who are at the top of the PoE trading world, don't want things to change at all. Once a person reaches a certain threshold of game wealth, they can turn orbs into more wealth.

For the rest of everybody else, it's simply a grind with diminishing returns as the character level becomes higher with essentially the same monster level killing ability.

As an example, I played for around 6 weeks with my Marauder to gather 7 exalted orbs and 40 orbs of regret to trade for a mid-ranged 3 socket Atziril's Vaal axe. I didn't bother trying to craft 6 sockets or 6 links, but it did cost quite a few jeweler orbs and fusion orbs to get 5 sockets with 5 links. Yes, that is doable. But it's not enough for true end game viability. WTF! lol Want a top tier Atziril's Vaal axe? Minimum, 20-30 exalted orbs. Want a top end rare melee weapon? 100-300 exalted orbs. Maybe a mirror or two.

The wealth stratification is less than desirable.

For those that want a higher challenge, perhaps make a super hell difficulty but using the gear that is currently in circulation. Maybe give them some special badge of honor or some special skins as they complete increasing difficulty, but rewarding people with progressively elite gear just further stratifies the already cast based economy.

As of now, the very best gear is not accessible to 98% of the population. Those that have the gear and farm for more items of the same quality, often sell the less than perfect items for many exalted orbs, then buy up the crafting orbs (chaos, jewelers, fusion) from people that have been grinding away to obtain for a bargain price. Often times, people are desperate, selling crafting orbs at a loss for exalted orbs just to obtain a decent item to kill mid-tier monsters.

Anyway, I'm almost at the point of taking an extended break from this game once again.

"

Smear wrote:

I've read somewhere that the drop rate of orbs is tied to the monster level being killed vs the actual character level doing the killing.

That's true, except in endgame. You can farm all areas of level 66 or higher with no drop penalty no matter how high your level is.

As a result, the optimal farming plan is probably going no higher than tier 7 and 8 maps as the cost per map run gets too high later on. With a good build you can clear them fast regardless of mods, you're high enough to do the regal recipe, you can drop 99% of the loot the game has to offer and you can even sell any T9 and 10s that you drop.

Mirror-class gear is pretty much an unnecessary luxury, something to go for if you need a longterm goal of sorts, it isn't really required for anything.

"

raics wrote:

"

Smear wrote:

I've read somewhere that the drop rate of orbs is tied to the monster level being killed vs the actual character level doing the killing.

That's true, except in endgame. You can farm all areas of level 66 or higher with no drop penalty no matter how high your level is.

As a result, the optimal farming plan is probably going no higher than tier 7 and 8 maps as the cost per map run gets too high later on. With a good build you can clear them fast regardless of mods, you're high enough to do the regal recipe, you can drop 99% of the loot the game has to offer and you can even sell any T9 and 10s that you drop.

Mirror-class gear is pretty much an unnecessary luxury, something to go for if you need a longterm goal of sorts, it isn't really required for anything.

My marauder is currently level 91. I've been cautiously trying to gain experience, doing tier 8-10 maps. But the experience gain is so slow, perhaps 1-2% level gain per map run. That's an estimated 70 maps run, presuming I don't get a random 1-2 shot death from some random boss and lose 10% exp.

I was on a in-map secondary level 7 Zana mission; one of those kill the rogue exile types. Everything was fine on rogue #1, no problem, Marauder tanks really well until I get to one of these OP rogues. I could hear it in the distance, so I proceed with caution. The dam thing leap attacks me (I had fortify active with endurance charges, 70% DR active) 75% of my health is gone before I even know what hit me. So I leap attack it, then I'm dead. Mind you, I have massive life leech - 1 EQ multi-strike hit refills all my health. I'm thinking, this is such BS and utter waste of time trying to level anymore.

Mind you, I don't rush into mobs of lethal monsters. I typically hang back and spam a few EQ for some AOE damage before leaping in for finishing kills.

It's this kind of melancholy that is deterring people away from PoE. I have an old D2 friend, known him for over 7 years, quit PoE last month. He gave up after similar grinding, gear trading and building - re-building characters to no avail.

I follow sensible guides, don't matter, same result. There is a wall of difficulty that simply can't be surpassed without high end gear.

And don't get me started on high tier map drops. At character level 91, I really need to be doing at least tier 12 maps to gain any viable experience. Some of the tier 10 and 11 end map bosses aren't doable, even with the tank build marauder. So the odds of getting a tier 12 map is next to nothing. I don't think an extra 500 life at this point is going to make a huge difference. The OP damage of some bosses can blast through 5k health in 2 hits. Beside, If I regret a few armor nodes for life, I ended up having to be more cautious due to more damage taken. So it's about the same effect.

Like I stated above, I'm at the point where it's no longer enjoyable, it's simply a grind and a punishing grind at that, especially if some random boss flings out with stupid damage with crazy attack speed.

As far as orb drops. I have had 1 exalted orb drop in all the map runs I've done. LOL. I had more drop when I was leveling through the difficulties. Lately, it's just a chore of picking up rares sets of items to sell for chaos or regal orbs.

So at this point, it's basically doing the same maps over and over and over for a eventual level to 92. Perhaps enough various orbs to trade for 1 exalted orb. Then what? hope for a lucky random drop to sell for another exalted orb? LOL.

GGG, there are game plateaus that have huge inclined cliffs to reach the next plateau. The plateau before end-game viability is the most severe.

One of the most punishing passive tree aspects is the lack of native chaos resistance. It's simply not there for most viable builds. There are a few minor nodes, but are out of reach for many characters. Decent gear that has chaos resistance is really costly and often sacrifices other very necessary stats.

Many people just simply ignore the chaos resistance in hopes it won't be needed. But in later tier maps, some bosses throw out just ridiculous amounts of chaos damage. I've seen my marauder's life go to 0 in about 1 second from a powerful chaos blast. Oh, that's right, just use a potion for that, but by the time I think about hitting a potion, I'm already dead.

I mean seriously, the massive damage is not fun. It's not even challenging, it's just irritating. Spend weeks trying to make a viable end-game build only to have it crushed in 1 second by some random OP boss. It's not fun GGG. Oh, you just built it wrong, follow this or that guide. It's the same result if you don't have all the gear needed for that specific build.

But it gets even better. If you manage to get gear for a given build, manage to surpass the obstacles of end-game viability, GGG will nerf the crap out of it just for laughs on a given expansion, essentially breaking the build. All the time and effort down the drain.

Map drops are what they are, it's designed to have you able to chain T9 and 10 maps because going above that is optional, it's meant to be a requirement only for players that push for level 100, which is also highly optional. So, it was designed to be expensive and take a long time, for regular players like you and me that works as intended and there's nothing to fix.

As for items, the game is more accessible on that account than ever, if they made items any cheaper nobody would even bother picking them up anymore, which would also be a bad thing as PoE lists engaging trading system and dynamic online economy as a feature.

"

Smear wrote:

I mean seriously, the massive damage is not fun.

It's a necessary evil at this point, I'm afraid. As a result of all that power creep in recent years our characters get too powerful too easy, and if you got a monster running around that obliterates everything it comes across in a fraction of a second there's only one way you can hope to kill it - burst it down in that same fraction of a second before he can clear the screen.

Players wanted more power and players got more power, but it doesn't come without cost. If that ruins the feeling for you I'm afraid there's little helping it because it can't change just like that. The whole game would have to switch to attrition model and become much slower with weaker characters, weaker monsters and less effective ways to recuperate resources mid-combat. Now, some players would probably enjoy that, but just as many would be put off because they came to enjoy PoE for what it currently is.

If the game isn't enjoyable for you anymore there isn't much you can do except make a break and come back in a year or two, but it's not very likely that devs will change their design goals fundamentally. They do appreciate the feedback, though.

"

raics wrote:

Map drops are what they are, it's designed to have you able to chain T9 and 10 maps because going above that is optional, it's meant to be a requirement only for players that push for level 100, which is also highly optional. So, it was designed to be expensive and take a long time, for regular players like you and me that works as intended and there's nothing to fix.

As for items, the game is more accessible on that account than ever, if they made items any cheaper nobody would even bother picking them up anymore, which would also be a bad thing as PoE lists engaging trading system and dynamic online economy as a feature.

"

Smear wrote:

I mean seriously, the massive damage is not fun.

It's a necessary evil at this point, I'm afraid. As a result of all that power creep in recent years our characters get too powerful too easy, and if you got a monster running around that obliterates everything it comes across in a fraction of a second there's only one way you can hope to kill it - burst it down in that same fraction of a second before he can clear the screen.

Players wanted more power and players got more power, but it doesn't come without cost. If that ruins the feeling for you I'm afraid there's little helping it because it can't change just like that. The whole game would have to switch to attrition model and become much slower with weaker characters, weaker monsters and less effective ways to recuperate resources mid-combat. Now, some players would probably enjoy that, but just as many would be put off because they came to enjoy PoE for what it currently is.

If the game isn't enjoyable for you anymore there isn't much you can do except make a break and come back in a year or two, but it's not very likely that devs will change their design goals fundamentally. They do appreciate the feedback, though.

"

Smear wrote:

I mean seriously, the massive damage is not fun.

That line should be in context to the entirety of what I posted. It's easy to focus on 1 line of text while ignoring the points that are made around it.

This is why people leave PoE after awhile. Planning, time spent, grinding, trading, thinking to oneself - "I've done everything correctly", only to have all that effort squashed in one abrupt and rude moment by some OP random boss.

I can see having bosses be significantly more difficult to overcome than the base monster stats. But when it's so overwhelmingly more difficult, it serves no other purpose than being a deal breaker for many people.

In my above post, in the zana mission, the rogue boss did so much more damage than the overall map monster level, it was like being in normal difficulty, and then suddenly fighting a merciless difficulty boss. In that very same map, there were two unique end map bosses, both with buffs (considerable more damage) that I killed with some maneuvering and tact. Were they easy? NO, they were not easy, but they were in-line with the difficulty of the map. Not 1 or 2 difficulties higher.

"

raics wrote:

The whole game would have to switch to attrition model and become much slower with weaker characters

Uh, no it wouldn't. There is no reason, as mentioned above, to have a random boss be so out of context with the map difficulty. End map bosses, very hard, I get that. Rare bosses, hard, I get that. But when people build a character for a given task, only to have it squashed in 1 instant of silly OP rogue boss, is punishing to most players.

Yeah, it's only a necessary evil for people that have the best of the best of gear. Fine, give them higher difficulties to make it a challenge. But at the same time, giving access only to those select few to the best of unique drops is economic stratification. It creates hording and a type of wealth cast system. D2 was based on a similar model, bots were created and an economy emerged of the "haves and Have nots". Giving rise to the 3rd party for cash sales of items. So it basically encouraged hording of runes, rune words, botting and people paying real cash for items. There are a plethora of 3rd party sites selling PoE items for cash now. GGG is actively making attempts to detour this, but as the game population evolves, I can see this becoming an ever increasing issue.

I'd like to see the statistic on horded wealth in the overall standard economy. I am betting that most of the orb wealth is horded by less than 1%. Probably more like .2%.

Anyway, you're likely correct. The fundamentals won't be changed. I'm just voicing what many or saying about these OP rogue bosses. We all get the game needs to be challenging. No one will say otherwise. But to put random bosses 1-2 difficulties above the base difficulty isn't creative, it's demoralizing at best.

Bosses should be in-line with the difficulty of a given area. It's not fun at all to have some random boss pop out, even with 70% DR, and kill my character before I have time to react or adjust. It's known in gaming design as punishing.