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I'll be skipping this league largely due to the lack of co-op integration for the Betrayal mechanics. The bandaid solution of switching off instances each time a zone is created just highlights a supreme lack of foresight on this league's implementation.

I really like this league! Betrayal is one of best league you ever made :) From the other side there is one big problem for me: Game crashing. Since betrayal release my game crashed like 50 times or even more(!!!). IMO the most crash generators are syndicate activities... I'm playing on old PC but I didn't had such amount of crashes during previous leagues. Plz, if you can, monitor game stability and how new syndicate encounters affect old pc species. Once again, very thx for new league!

Dear GGG-Development-Team

A great big THANK YOU for this amazing game and the new BETRAYAL season!

I'm a returner to Path of Exile and have always been a huge fan of the passive skill tree and the overall gameplay mechanics.

Beside DELVE the BETRAYAL season now holds a very special place in my heart because I love the element of playing the detective and messing with the Immortal Syndicate (yeah, they're tough but it really makes you want to deserve the reward). It's so much fun and really exciting to find out more and more about what is happening and why. It makes the game even more addictive!

I'm really a huge fan of the lore in Path of Exile and I love the effort you guys masterfully put into this game.

One of the few things I actually miss about DELVE though is Voricis affectionately patronizing disapproval when you returned to him in your hideout after failing his mission. Vorici is by far my most favourite NPC of all time and easily the most interesting Forsaken Master of the bunch. Amazing voice acting by Calum Gittins by the way, I'm kinda in love!. <3

This being said, keep up the great work and I'm looking forward to whatever you guys have planned out for this game in the future! My pals and I are having a great time in Path of Exile.

Cheers and best regards
LJ

At first, I was really interested in the Betrayal league mechanic and all the things that it would add to the game, however, as I continue to play Betrayal league, I find the encounters far more frustrating and annoying than fun. That said, the new veiled mods, crafting, hideouts, etc are all very awesome and welcomed changes. I am quite happy to see Incursion back as I loved that league and Delve was fun to. Bestiary is now much more tolerable as well and I forgot just how much I missed Einhar despite hating Bestiary as a whole.

The intervention encounters literally spawn right on top of you and often get a free hit on you just from them stepping out of the portal or they can block you from moving if you're in a bad spot when they decide to port in on top of you. Some of the masters have abilities that are just ridiculously overpowered compared to same-level content as well so having to deal with these a$$hats plus the normal content can be overwhelming and annoying especially at lower levels when you don't have the gems, gear, etc. that you need for your build to deal with them-- there is no option to deal with them. The content is forced on you unlike Incursion and Delve were.

The fortification and caravan encounters are kinda meh and also annoying in the sheer number of adds they spawn which also seem to do way more damage, have ridiculous resummoning speed and the necromancer-like enemies that respawn them have ludicrous amounts of HP-- I can one shot most mobs but these guys seem to be able to eat 4 full seconds of DPS before going down. Plus, you have to deal with 4 healing totems inside the fort and if you don't have space to get the masters out of range of them because they spawn in thin corridors, etc. it can lead to a rather frustrating experience.

Second there is the mechanic itself. I am not fond of the mastermind fight, but then I am a dirty casual who gets far too bored with the game before I can actually get gear to do higher end content and that is a source of frustration to me. My luck with RNG is piss poor and I even have trouble keeping my map supply stocked to get into red tier maps with any regularity. But I digress, this is about betrayal.

I feel the build-up to the mastermind takes way too long. Perhaps this is intended not to fight that particular person too often, but its annoying trying to learn the fight and that and I feel the mastermind has way too much energy sheild =/ I dunno, I am not particularly fond of the fight as a whole-- it just drags on and feels more like using a needle to chip a mountain that has rocket launchers and landmines to throw at you =/

As for the strongholds, I feel they are mostly OK with one major exception. There is either a mob, spell, or something that fires all these little black blades and they seem to be able to hit you from huge range and there are like 1000s of them all over the place. 1) the sound effect is really annoying, but more importantly 2) either there are way too many of these mobs or they deal too much damage considering they respawn or are spawned at such ridiculous speeds in these encounters.

I know I will probably be in the minority when I ask this, but sometimes, I really wish I could see more content that I didn't have to have gear with full Tier 1 stats in order to enjoy or have a perfect build capable of doing 10,000,000dps to the entire screen at once. I felt Incursion was just about right for that and while Delve was nice, the darkness mechanic with some of the boss fights made it nigh impossible to stand a chance at those bosses in some builds-- I remember totem builds especially had trouble with them.

Edit: Oh, one more thing I thought I might suggest... well 2 really--
1) I would like to see a third option always available to Syndicate members to kill them without doing anything, just having them drop their loot. It seems kinda stupid not to have that option since... well... death is kind of meaningless to them anyway, so might as well keep them out of your hair for a bit. But there are lots of times when I don't want someone to swap with someone or lose rank and It'd just be nice to have a kill with no real benefit to me or them option.

2) I wish there were more options to neutralize trusts. I feel that might be a good way to stop the encounters from becoming difficult early on while allowing players who can handle the challenge to ignore the option.

Anyway, I know this post will probably be largely ignored or ridiculed, but there is my 2 cents added to the pot.

As of my first week playing, creating a build and and getting gear has to be the most exciting part of the game. The encounters are a bit easy for players that are over leveled but I suspect encounters will get harder as I progress as I'm hoping endgame is about challenging content and not clearing speeds. Loving most aspects of the game but here are the glaring issues as a new player that are holding the game back.

- Camera

Being restricted to isometric is no problem. However, not being able to rotate the camera 360 degrees or being able to trail in 3rd person at this angle stunts the game's visual potential as it's visually gorgeous.

- Inventory

As a new player, I probably don't see the reasoning quite yet as to why the inventory is so limited. Deciding what items to keep, juggling the tiles is off putting and will immediately discourage new players who have to go back and sell up, deposit bank items, reveil loot and so on. Adding even one tab for a 2nd inventory slot would do away the frustration of not being able to 'just play on' this causes. Players would easily pay for this option.

- MTX Store Pricing/Monetization Choices

With a full understanding that we get all of the content at no cost, the prices being asked for cosmetic items is too high. At this point in the game's development, asking for people to pay for expanded content leaving the base game free is not too much to ask if it would mean a 25% decrease in item costs from the store. I guessing that better pricing of those items would make up for, if not exceed current revenue with those reductions.

With respect to veteran players and the devs, from what Ive read, these 'issues' will never change but the developers have to realize that it's does contribute to player fatigue and dedication. This game far exceeds other ARPG's of the genre. I understand how difficult these changes may be but like many have stated, it could elevate both the player experience and business aspect of the game's popularity and revenue.

Awesome game, well put together tile maps, lots of variety. I intend to keep playing for awhile but there are things keeping it from being my main game and if you are not hardcore, I can see the pattern as to why people drop off and come back to it instead of sticking with it.

My Delve Suggestion:

-- Update: I am Act 9 now and delving is still extremely rare. --


I am in Act 5 and I must say I have only been able to go delving for one run. I found some of the Sulphite in the very first Mines area in Act 4 and that was it.

This makes delving extremely rare or difficult unless the frequency of finding the sulphite changes significantly later in the game.

Why not provide some type of option within Niko? What if he has scouts which bring back information of which areas have the Sulphite? This would apply to of course only areas you have been to already or areas that are immediately accessible so if you feel like finding Sulphite in those areas you actually can. It can be anywhere from one Sulphite vein or two or more. Depending on the scout. Perhaps you could even pay currency of some form in order to exchange for this information? Perhaps different scouts will desire different items. They might ask for 4 linked gloves for instance. While another might be asking for specific Magic Rings (a reason to pick them up finally). Once you bring them enough items they will share information on the Sulphite areas which basically just 100% guarantee sulphite in that given area. Though certain scouts could provide higher rewards with multiple sulphite deposits in those areas as well as also give you certain perks for your next Delving run such as 3-6% increased movement speed (for 15 minutes) or increased quantity of items found etc.

We could even make things more interesting with a few of the scouts being potential traitors or secretly members of the Syndicate. Sometimes you could run into Bandit ambushes around those sulphite veins which the Scout informed you of.

It's unfortunate how rare delving is right now because for me it was 100% the most fun aspect of the game. Providing us with more choices on how to play would do much to improve the longevity and appeal of the game.

This is not a suggestion its a Thank you ,
I'm kinda new to the game I played it a bit a few years ago My husband reintroduced me to the game this league and I am glad he did I have been bashing my head against OW for months and enjoy the change I just wanted to say THANK YOU to the support team you guys rock you helped my husband fix my login issues because I had 2 accounts and I didn't know they were separate less than 20 min to fix it all <3 our friends always asked " when is she going to play POE again " and now I can .
I also want to say I love your in game items like the pets and gear thank you for all your hard work Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
P.S. IDK if this is the right place to post this but if its isn't sorry

Good
- I like the graphics and sound, though sound does cut out some times.

- The number of options is pretty amazing.

- Corrupted and Abyssal interactions are quick, rewarding and a ton of fun.

- Storyline is great and regular play is both engaging and challenging.

- active streamers are fun to watch, sadly I can't respec to try their build ideas.

- Inventory options are excellent, though the ability to resize the pane would be nice.

- Crafting has a ton of options. I would recommend some kind of hint system that tells you what you might get when you chance a base. I spent several hours researching which bases are viable and half of that information is woefully out of date.

Bad
- All those options can leave you with a character that sucks, specifically for those of us who are new, no other way to say it. A global skill reset or 5 is the only way to keep me playing. All the talk about leveling another character is crap for casuals. Level 65 in 2 weeks with a lot of play time so I'm not doing it again any time soon. A great option for Hardcore players just not relevant to me.

- The Syndicate is way too powerful. I don't even bother any more. Them spawning on top of me for 2 seconds to kill me just so I can run back and get nothing for it. Forts are crazy, no place to stand and as a ranged character, which I will never play again, there is no way to keep them at range or shoot over the walls to kill the totems.

- Avoidance is worthless, I've stacked it and health to no affect.

- Trade system is poor at best. I have to install mods not included in the game to make it viable at all. Alt-Tab to look up prices causes the game to crash and there is no troubleshooting assistance. I believe this to be related to GFORCE Experience compatibility issues. I have to leave play sessions to "sell" items which breaks my story experience and is annoying, especially when the buyer "changes his or her mind".

- Guild system is poor. I applied on the forums with no response. There is no in-game app system. To date this has been a solo experience.

- Party matching is a frustrating experience with no chat, no coordination, and usually FFA loot.

Bottom line, as a new player, game is engaging but the power curve in standard play is ridiculous. The ramifications of your choices are way too permanent. Too many third party companion apps are required to play. I won't be recommending it to my friends in it's current state.

I like the Betrayal League very much. The idea and the mechanics are great. I would appreciate it if the syndicate would be permanent afterwards. :-)

Dear GGG: I must say I love so many of the new additions to this game since 2 and a half years ago. Delving, Incursion, Abyss, and others. But A lot of the time the game still feels a bit Vanilla in it's content due to the rarity of some of these encounters. Delving was incredible. I was blessed to try it out a little bit a week before Betrayal.

You have all the tools available to you to make this one of the best games. A top tier quality experience that is worthy to recommend to anyone and yet I went through Act 8 yesterday and it was an exercise in monotony due to the same enemies, same mobs, bosses who do not speak and feel impersonal and incomplete, and of course an entire act where I could not Delve even once. Thankfully one incursion was very thrilling and few other key moments.

You have all these new additions to the game so why hide them? Why make them so rare that the game still sometimes feels like the original base game? It's 2018.

This game could be a 9.5/10 I feel and yet while I am still enjoying it a good deal I can understand why players get burned out. The very best content is really not all that accessible. Furthermore the balance issues with the original content being too easy leads to serious imbalance. If you have crafting benches and so many easy upgrades does it not make sense to buff the white and blue mobs in the game pre-mapping?


Thank you for the great game. I enjoy this game quite a bit but some questionable choices in design I feel are really holding it back.