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

Hi, I just wanted to say first that I realize this is a beta so I don't expect everything to be tip top. This game seems a long way from release yet so I expect a lot to change.

Likes

-The Gem/spell system is awesome and from what I have experienced gaming pretty original, though the UI could use some work to make hotkey placement when you change gear more user friendly.

-The char progression tree is really cool and is hands down the best I have seen in any kind of RPGish game to come out yet. Please protect this so that there is many viable possibilities and so that there is not only one right way in a large tree to build your char.

-The gritty hardcore feel to the game.

-The potion system.

Dislikes

This portion is longer but its meant for constructive criticism.

-The mobs in act 2 and 3 have extremely spiky damage and are not challenging, they are annoying. This is probably the largest dislike for me.

-Loosing XP for deaths. In a perfect world where internet connections are good and bugs don't exsist this could work. The progression of mobs way to unpredictable at the present. I realize of course that to keep a hardcore feel to the game (Wich needs to be there!) things need to be challenging even to the most skilled of players. All I can say is the game play just need to be more consistant for me to spend any kind of serious time or money on a video game unless I hate myself. This game has no flow.

-Lack of an Auction. No in game currency is cool but I HATE trade chat personally. I do not need to be spoon fed community. I do not want to monitor the happenings of annoying trolls to get gear. If I like a game I will get involved in the community. I like being able to log on to a game to see of my gear sells. To be honest Auctions keep me interested when a game gets stale for a period. This has happened for me in every game and no matter how good this game will become it will get stale as well. I could live without an AH if the game play was up to par but at this time its just not.

- The story line did not grab me. Its starts out cool but its pretty anti climactic in my eyes. I haven't played through the highest difficulty but it seems there is room being left open for more. The gritty feel to the game is awesome, but there is a reason for a majestic feel to some areas in games and that is contrast. For me Skyrim nailed that really well. The level of detail in this game is pretty mind blowing and it will be cool to see what you guys will do in the future.

-Chaos damage.


This game overall has a lot of potential. The game play is too annoying at the present to really get into, so more than likely I will be shelving this one until release as far as serious game play is concerned. I will definatly be keeping tabs. If the issues that I have posted personally do not change then all I can say is good luck and I wont let the door hit me in the ass.

Thank you.

Loving POE, played D3 and TL2 for hundreds of hours, IMO POE is smarter, harder and more fun. Gameplay was probably tighter in D3 and TL2, graphics obviously better as well, but literally everything else (being everything that matters anyway) IMO makes for a better game in POE.

Item progression and loot seems to work really well, always rewarding and fun. Reading up on the loot system in other threads, I agree with the contention over FFA/Personal loot, looking forward to other solutions/ideas.

Getting a few crashes and force log outs (with crossfire enabled), but for a Beta performance its stable and bugs are few.

Graphics and optimisation seem spot on, consistent performance throughout and looks plenty nice for ARPG fun.

Probably the biggest shortcoming is your introduction to the game and lack of tutorial or explanation of mechanics and/or how things work. Lets not get all Diablo 3 here and hand hold at a snails pace, but that system was good in as much as you knew what stats did and more or less how to build basic characters/classes. POE seems more open, but some basics intros on offense and defense building early would be nice for both new POE and new ARPG players alike. Given its F2P, I expect there will be a lot of non ARPG people checking it out and the game certainly leaves you a bit lost early on.

Would be nice to see some starter/supporter packs available in the store. As an example a 50/100 dollar purchase pack would be good. I personally like this method of purchase that replaces a full game purchase, its simple, easy and I am less concerned with the stuff I am getting. I feel as though this game is good, lets "buy it" and show support. Generally a system more present in fuller microtransaction games where you get item packs etc. But if the packs included some pack only content to reward a "full" purchase, that would be nice (maybe some asthetic content and a real world item etc) kind of like kickstarter rewards or something. As an example, ide buy a 100 dollar pack to show support, but as I dont really want any of the other fluff, I probably wont buy store items as they are atm.


Currently I am playing mostly solo, although co-op is indeed more fun. Loot and the crazy all over the place organisation seems to be the main turn off for (public) co-op, but some voice chat, better UI queues for players (directional arrows?) and whatever loot system works best and I would be co-oping more. Currently for some bosses (as a ranger) I need to co-op, but otherwise solo seems the more consistent experience (again, public parties).

Where are the AUS/NZ servers ?

Likes:

Combat.
Updates
Ambiance

Dislkes:

Chaos gameplay when partying. Can't see enemies, etc.
Itemdrops. I'm still walking in Act 1 gear, while I'm in act 3.

suggestions:

Lower the party-amount of players
Increase drop of better items.

Hello

So Im playing PoE for a while now and I decided to write down some thoughts I have... this isn't as much "first impression" as "thought over" second impression ;)

When I heard about PoE for the first time, it was about 1 year ago. Im a great fan of Diablo series but the 3rd part was big disappointment for me. The game overall wasn't so bad but couple of "solutions" totally ruined this title for me. The biggest one was... the real money auction house. So I was very excited when I heard that PoE is totally against PayToPlay or PayToWin formulas...
As I progressed through the acts I could see that those acts progress as well. It is clear that the "1st" act was made maybe couple of years ago, opposite to the 3rd act, that looks almost "recent" ;) But thats not a bad thing - just my observation.
Also, the music is superb. Very climatic and not tiring at all - which is very important in games like this, when you grind over and over again.

MAJOR ADVANTAGES:
- caring crew ;) - seeing those updates day after day really shows people that developers are really trying hard to give us the best possible experience. It means a lot
- skill tree - it really makes your eyes pop out ;) Lets only hope it will be well balanced till final realese
- skill gems
- item system - creation, changing and augmentation using orbs
- vendor trading and "recipes"

BEST PLACES:
- church dungeon (act 2)
- sewers (act 3)
- slums (act 3)

BEST MUSIC:
- Solaris Temple
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now the bitter part...

MINOR DISADVANTAGES:
- map overlay - it is often very hard to follow it and see where are the passages, etc. It really needs to be adressed, since I know that lot of people are complaining about it and map is quite important part of this game. Most people use it nearly all the time...
- not showing "next level changes" when gem is ready to be leveled up - this is another annoying thing since at certain levels, gems (skills) tend to need or reserve more mana, etc.\
- no "show dmg" option in chat window - I find this very hard to cope with. In many games I had ability to check how much dmg have I taken just now (what the hell did just kill me ?!) or what is my "true" dmg on different mobs. We don't have this here - and I don't know exactly why... because it CAN'T be hard to implement :>

MAJOR DISADVANTAGES:
- dsync and rubberbanding - Im really sorry to say that, but those issues are just tragic atm. Hope they will be fixed one day...
- "trading" system - I must say it. This is just nightmare :/ There is absolutely no excuse for this. Its like 2013 and you are forcing people to "trade in chat window" O_o
For me, this is undoubtedly the biggest flaw of this game. It is slow, boring time consuming and annoying. Anyone saying that this makes the game more RPG or interacting is just plain stupid or lying. Forcing people to waste their time while searching forums for items is just insane. Same goes for in-game chat... let me quickly present to you some of my "chat trading encounters"...

encounter 1 (P1 - player one - seller, P2 - player two - me):
P1) WTS XXX item /alchemy
P2) I will buy
P1) <opens trade window> -> accepts
P2) <accepts>
P1) ty
P2) thanks

encounter 2:
P1) WTS XXX pm me
P2) what do you want for it ?
P1) offer
P2) 1x chance or alchemy
P1) no
P2) so... what do you propose ?
P1) <no response>
P2) 1x chance AND 1x alchemy
P1) <no response> (player IS online)
P2) pm me if you want
P1) <never response>

Now... you are calling this "role playing " ? Or even interacting ? Oh, please...
The "non existent" system that we have now only wastes our precious time. Thats all and only what it is doing.

BUGS:
- sometimes I cant enter Town Portal - its not so bad when I cant enter from the field. Its much worse and annoying when I cant enter from town to get back on the field...
- sometimes mobs just stop and do nothing, you can kill them easily - this happens form time to time but not only with "normal" mobs. Happens also with bosses. I easily killed Brutus in act1 this way...
[EDIT 16.02.13] Now I know that these are just a huge desync issues. Still... its almost like a bug because the size of this problem is... more then big ;>
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MY IDEAS:
- trading house - something like auction house from D3. You have two boxes. You put the item you want to sell in the first box and you put the orb you want for it and its quantity in the second one. Plain, easy, simple and effective. You can put a limit of 5-10 items you have on sale at the same time to avoid spaming
- achievements - people love that ;) And it is very cool thing to do instead of just grinding all day long. You could also give some small prizes for doing for example 10%, 20%, etc. of all achievements. It could be like +1% to attack speed or + 2% to speed, faster/instant town portal, etc.
- simple guilds/clans - just a simple window with your guild members and another tab in the chat window. It is ultra easy to do but can give people a lot of fun and gives the game itself a new feeling. Also it could profit in the future when PvP is finished :]


So... lets sum it up ;)
I was really sceptic when I first came here. But I do not regret my decision of selling lame Diablo3 and putting some of my money into PoE (although I know it wasnt too much).
This game have great potential, dedicated developers and nice community of players. I hope it will be great success. But in order to achieve that you can't enforce XIXth century solutions like "chat trading"... ;)

Best Regards
Demoniq

By the moment I write this first impression post, I'm a level 42 Marauder on Act 2 on Cruel difficulty. So far I have got high hopes for this game, and the basic mechanism seems very promising. I love the gem system and the passive skill tree; way better than the variants found in Diablo 2 & 3 in my opinion. I love the dark setting in this game, gives me Diablo 2 vibes. I generally like the dungeons, and the Solaris Temple is perhaps my favorite. Act 3 is pretty both in terms of graphics and monster design, while the overworld in Act 1 and 2 could need some more love.

As much as I enjoy this game, I may sound a bit negative now because of the nitpicking of the things I'm not too fond of in the games open Beta status.

The game becomes way too hard on Act 3 on Normal difficulty. I felt like being forced to respec my Marauder to focus on mainly on strength because of the way too powerful enemies. The Marauder felt like a wuss compared Diablo's Barbarian, even with decent armor. Don't get me wrong, that doesn't mean that I want the difficulty to be brain dead easy like in Diablo 3 on Normal. It's just that the difficulty on solo seems like it's more aimed towards the hardcore ARPG players and not the mainstream masses.

I also miss some kind of variation in terms of the way enemies behave. Usually I'm dead meet without the Sweep ability, because the enemies are often many and have the habit of circling around your character. I do like it when the Blood Apes climb down the trees, and I would enjoy it if it was some kind of environment interaction with more enemy-types. Like for example the Snipers sitting around a camp fire instead of them just standing on guard. The overworld areas sometimes feels like the Benny Hill intro were all the people are chasing you around.

It would be awesome if not all the enemy types were allies, because it looks kind of dumb when Blood Apes, Snipers, the stone monsters and the bears are joining forces when fighting you in Act 2. You would still be priority one for the enemies, but it would be cool if they sometimes fought each other.

The combat mechanics feel kind of clunky, but I bet the developers have heard that a couple of thousand times by now. It may just be that the servers struggles with the huge player-base, but too many of my attacks seem to miss. The overall smoothness when it comes to combat is way better in Diablo 2 & especially in Diablo 3.

It's no secret that Diablo 2 is the game I mostly like to compare PoE with. Both the towns in Act 1 & 2 kind of miss the epicness in D2; it may just be that those towns are way too small. I miss some kind of exploration in those towns, and the Forest Camp is especially small, claustrophobic and generally a dull place to be. Act 3s town is a little bit better in my opinion. The towns need more soul (and size maybe).

The ingame music is generally pretty good, but it need more spice in my opinion. Some tracks starts of good, but gradually becomes dull and uninteresting. More epicness needed in the soundtrack area.

The last section in Act 3 before meeting Piety was way too long if you ask me. The sea of blood and all the hellish landscape there seemed out of context. Especially the piles of dead bodies. If this was an Act that was generally based on a hellish setting I guess it would fit in well, but it just seemed over the top in a negative way if you ask me. The last floor before meeting Piety was too hard to be enjoyable if you ask me; I had to use Portals like a boss because my health and mana potions didn't last very long. The projectile shooting tentacle lady did way too much damage, as with many projectile shooting enemies in this game.

The overworld areas can be very repetitive at times, as with the ARPG genre. But I believe there are ways to spice up the overworld areas a bit more to give them a more distinct feeling than just being a place to grind and eventually find waypoints and good items. Maybe environmental factors like weather, earthquakes, threes that fall down, fire, falling boulders or maybe some kind of puzzles could do good?

Maybe some kind of sequence between acts could spice up the in-game feeling? Not necessarily big budget CGI-sequences like in Blizzard games, but something comic book like that's found in Max Payne, that focuses on the in-game story and sets the mood.


That sure was a long post, but I'm glad to be able to provide some feedback from this promising game. I still can't believe that this game is free while not pay2win, and still so darn good.

My first impressions:

Me: Avid Diablo 2 fan, hate how shallow and simple Diablo 3 turned out.

Overall, LOVE the game. I love the crazy skill tree, I love the complicated item and crafting system it's great.

I've only been playing a week or so but here are my thoughts on areas that I'd like to most see improved:

1. Something needs to be done to facilitate trading better. Trade chat is fine but having one channel seems limited. It seems like there needs to be multiple channels, or perhaps some sort of "What ya got" area people can congregate in (like at trade hub or something). I dunno, just trading needs to be promoted and made easier.

2. Some sort of lobby system like Diablo 2 had, where you can meet up with people of similar interests and stuff. General chat is sort of like this, but having one big channel for everyone to talk is kinda too much. It'd be nice just to have more options to meet others who share the same interests or goals in a more organized measure.

3. The combat feels somewhat slow and clunky at first but you do get used to it. I think the main reason is speed. The character movement and attacks feel just a very wee bit slower than I'd expect. I know changing that might not be easy because of balance issues and such. I'm not talking about much of a tweek though, just a minor default movement and attack speed boost.

4. The towns feel small and cramped (at least acts 1 and 2). I'd like to see the towns made a little bigger. You wouldn't even have to add any more NPC's or anything. Obviously they should still promote efficency and be laid out in a sane manor.

5. More acts needed. I think the act sizes are just about right but 3 isn't enough. 4 seems to be the minimum I would expect (and more than 4 is obviously better). I know this is something that is probably coming down the pipeline but I wanted to mention.

6. The FFA loot timer needs to be just a tad longer. I LOVE the current group loot system. I kinda liked the Diablo 2 everyone can grab everything mentality, however the new system in Path of Exile is probably better. That having been said, I would like to see the timer increased just a tad (even if just another second or two). The reason is it's very tilting to see an item with your name on it and not get to it in time, it's more irritating than having it just be FFA. The timer is currently so short you feel like you don't get a fair chance. With a longer timer if you don't get your items you should feel like it was YOUR fault you didn't get to it in time.

7. There need to be better ways to view the ladder in game, for any league and look up yourself, etc.

8. The minimap is ok but feels like it could be better. Often times it's hard to see where passasges are or things look like passages and they aren't (like random orange or yellow rectangles and stuff). I'd just like a little bit more detail.

As someone who's played for about a week, I absolutely love the skill gem system, the potion system, and the skill tree system.

What I do not like is that stats for certain things can be very challenging to attain. For example, to do maximum damage as a caster, you practically have to use X Multiple Projectile gems, which require at least two large Dexterity node investments.

Another thing is that Intelligence nodes really don't have a significant impact on mana. With 300 Intelligence, it really should add at least 300 mana, if not even more than that. People should not have to try and get Reduced Mana gems just to use passive auras, at least in my opinion.

Great game! People starting the game should know that they will need some knowledge and experience to get pro. These days many people get used to click and go game style, this game is just more than this.

The game is just cool!

I'd also like to say that even though there's a lot of players who firmly stand by their opinions on the forums, there are still a LOT of us who are really nice and helpful..
Don't let a bad experince color your perception of the game..
I myself spend atleast 30% of my gametime on answering different questions ingame, and atleast once a day here on the forums..
So keep asking and keep sharing, it makes the game evolve.

Hey all, I'm really enjoying the game overall, and I like that it's not too easy (D3 was way too easy, and ruined the diablo franchise imo) but my first impressions tell me it's maybe a touch too OTT on the difficulty in places. Some mobs just seem to hit way harder than other stuff in the area, less of a difficulty curve, more a difficulty mountain range!

I think that maybe monster difficulty needs to be normalised a bit, get the difficulty a bit more consistent, maybe a bit easier too (to offset how ridiculously important HP nodes are, and maybe nerf these too) then nerf flasks by increasing charge consumption/reduce gain on kill to introduce a more survival aspect to flask management. Get ti to a point where there is some difficulty without one shotting people that didn't go all out HP!

Another thing I'd say is elemental damage seems a touch OP, making resistances a bit too important compared to other defenses (ideally they should all be equally as important, and all classes have access to being able to go full defense or offense).

Finally I would like to suggest that maybe ES get some sort of absorption value to help offset it's often low HP spend. While you still have an ES, damage is reduced by a bit, but its dependent on damage done, opposite to armour, higher damage is reduced more, but lower damage is barely reduced at all, making it good vs high damage slow hits (bosses) but weak vs lots of weaker hits (rooms of skeletons). It should give it a bit of variety and allows different defense types to play different roles in a group.


Overall though great game, excellent music and atmosphere, absolutely love the variety of choice from that beautiful skill tree (if only going anything other than HP was more viable :P).
Already bought some money to help support the game :)
Hope act 4 is coming along nicely, and don't forget to keep tweaking balance to get it just right! heh.