1.2.0 Improvements to New User Experience

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Early Attack Speed
Compared to other Action RPGs, our early melee attack speed is relatively slow.

This doesn't sound right.

The thing myself and friends immediately noticed when starting out was the lack of animation canceling, and it seemed we were not alone as many forum users complained about during the beta. When you have a 1 second attack rate, but 40% of that is spent just (uselessly) returning to a ready pose during which you cannot move or perform any actions, it feels as though every attack or spell you perform is stunning you for .4 seconds. After years of playing ARPGs, MMOs, DotA, HoN, Leagues, etc., all of which had animation canceling, then getting onto the PoE beta, the lack of animation canceling was the one thing that screamed "incomplete beta low tech indie game" at me. While the rest of the game got mucho polished up, this one lacking of feature still provides that feeling of "incomplete" and feels out of place in a modern game.

Late game feels much less clunky just because the attack/cast speeds are (usually) so fast that the backswing animations on attacks/casts aren't felt and you're safe releasing a few of them between re-positions. Attack speed isn't the primary culprit, it just seems so because a large increase in it masks the issue for high level players.

They could buff accuracy and apply a global nerf when reaching Cruel difficulty (Similar to how the experience penalty is introduced and resistance penalties are applied).

Want to improve new user's experience? Here are a bunch of my ideas (if some1 mentioned these already treat my unknowingly repeating them as my 100% endorsing them)

- every class should start with at least SOME base life regen (I remember not having it being a BIG deal on my first playthrough, and it was confusing too)
- flasks should refill overtime too rather than only when you kill stuff, at least in normal difficulty
- there should be 2 mana flasks + 2 life flasks + 1 quicksilver flask on your belt when you're starting the game - I remember like it was yesterday starting off with that 1 lousy mana flask and having no mana constantly and getting pissed off because of it (yes, I could get another one from the vendor but guess what I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW THAT AT THE TIME... or maybe it was just too expensive, can't remember but I do remember getting PISSED OFF because I was running out of mana constantly)
- gem descriptions should be improved to show their actual use, etc. COMPARE YOUR IN-GAME DESCRIPTIONS WITH WHAT'S ON THE WIKI FOR POINTERS AS TO WHAT EXACTLY SHOULD BE IMPROVED
- every monster in the twilight strand on normal difficulty should drop at least 1 item (a non-currency item obviously) so that the new player can enjoy himself in that first area and see the game wants him to play
- the first weapon you pick up (the one on the ground right next to the dying exile) should be rare & unidentified so that you can learn how to use wisdom scrolls from the get-go and also get a (what feels like) decent item to start with... it would show the new player the good will of the developers (thanks for playing, here's a RARE item to get you started... other games, they want you to start with the worst quality item possible, but here we give you a RARE item)... and yes, I know what you're about to say, OBVIOUSLY it should have a fixed lvl requirement of 1 so that the lvl1 player can use it no matter what mods spawn on it)
- normal difficulty hillock should drop a guaranteed portal scroll so that the new player has at least one to start with (I remember I had zero when I finally got that medicine chest for the first time and it made me effing SAD... I could've just exited to the log in screen and I'd be right back in Lioneye's Watch when I logged back in but guess what, IT DIDN'T OCCUR TO ME, INSTEAD I GOT ANGRY I HAD NO PORTAL SCROLLS AND JUST WALKED ALL THE WAY BACK...lol my first playthrough was awful, I wonder why I decided to keep playing, guess the game was just good or something...

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WxsOnline wrote:

"

Early Attack Speed
Compared to other Action RPGs, our early melee attack speed is relatively slow.

This doesn't sound right.

The thing myself and friends immediately noticed when starting out was the lack of animation canceling, and it seemed we were not alone as many forum users complained about during the beta. When you have a 1 second attack rate, but 40% of that is spent just (uselessly) returning to a ready pose during which you cannot move or perform any actions, it feels as though every attack or spell you perform is stunning you for .4 seconds. After years of playing ARPGs, MMOs, DotA, HoN, Leagues, etc., all of which had animation canceling, then getting onto the PoE beta, the lack of animation canceling was the one thing that screamed "incomplete beta low tech indie game" at me. While the rest of the game got mucho polished up, this one lacking of feature still provides that feeling of "incomplete" and feels out of place in a modern game.

Late game feels much less clunky just because the attack/cast speeds are (usually) so fast that the backswing animations on attacks/casts aren't felt and you're safe releasing a few of them between re-positions. Attack speed isn't the primary culprit, it just seems so because a large increase in it masks the issue for high level players.

It doesn't just mask it, it actually diminishes it. Functionally, attack speed and animation canceling serve the same purpose regarding responsiveness of your character to commands; just two different ways to skin the same cat, if you get my drift. I definitely feel that increasing early attack speeds is the simpler change, since it doesn't involve creating an entirely new system.

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Chris wrote:

Early Attack Speed
Compared to other Action RPGs, our early melee attack speed is relatively slow. We're currently internally testing a change where early weapons have been rebalanced to be slightly faster, while still doing the same overall damage per second. This is tapered so that higher level weapons are unmodified (by then, the player can have vast amounts of attack speed from items, passive skills and support gems). So far, we've found that this helps combat feel more impactful at low levels. We're still investigating the balance consequences of the change (such as its impact on mana when skills are used more often) and haven't yet decided whether and when we'll deploy it to the live realm.

Oh c'mon ! =(
This game feels realistic in many ways, and that's one of them :

The early levels, the character is not good at fighting yet, he should not be able to strike very fast, he can easily do that soon after already ....

It feels so unnatural to arrive in a world with an inexperienced toon that lands 2 attacks/seconds without any training ..... GW1 is a good example of that, I saw it once and was like "WTF is that ? it's ridiculous/stupid :/ it's like it's been done for assisted player that wants everything at start ..."

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Chris wrote:

Tutorial Elements
Currently, the Path of Exile tutorial is a subtle box that says "Hold Alt to show items on the ground". This is insufficient to explain the game to people who haven't played Action RPGs before, so we are working on improving the tutorial for new players.

While I understand that a better tutorial isn't an exciting feature to hear that we are going to spend developer time on (as you all already know how to play), having better new-player retention will be very important for the future of Path of Exile. If people can learn how to play more easily, then the pool of people that you'll eventually be able to play end-game content with will continue to grow and grow.

This is very much needed.
How bout creating a sandbox?
I mean a testing gorund to explain all the things people need to know for this game.

Sugestion:

1:Make it a seperate realm, a mid sized room maybe where enemies or items can spawn wich are rewuired for the tutorial.

2: Let them start with a fixed charakter lets make it a witch in this example.

3: first give them a skill like fireball and make them put in a previosly spawned item.

4: spawn first enemy.

5: After they kill the enemy show a text explaining how support gems work

6: Drop first support gem. (lvl up charakter acordingly aswell or remove requirement)

7: Spawn more creeps.

8: Now drop more support /skillgems and let them experiment with switching them around.

9: Put a shrine in there where they can "order" enemies as testing dummies.

10: give them some passive points aswell.

11: Explain armour, evasion, es and life and maybe even highlight/ explain some passive keynotes.
.....................

What the tuorial should do:

-Explain what stats are, what you need them form and how you get them

-Explain the skill gem system

-Give them a generall idea how the defensive mechanics work.

-Give them an oportunity 2 see how a mid lvl char is going to feel like in combat.

-Explain what currency is, how you get it and what it is worth

- Maybe give them the advice to start with a build they can find a guide for. No one can make an originall build when they start this game anyway. Not one that will reach the end of akt 3 anyway. Thorising, starting, failing builds is part of the game but it is generally better for beginners to get a basic grasp of the overall game mechanics by starting with a allready devised one.
In the end that what we all ended up doing anyway isn´t it? ^^

This might be relevant for tutorials:

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/HugoBille/20120114/9236/The_Invisible_Hand_of_Super_Metroid.php

(the way a game can have a tutorial without being heavy handed)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FpigqfcvlM

(more of the same, but with megaman)

Ideas: first two acts in normal should not drop rare items so players get to play with magic items enough. People don't get hardwired to see magic items as upgrades enough.
Create some situations when a flask effect is the best way to survive, and spawn the flask needed near (like the iron skin one, or the staunching one). And the event should be random, so you can't play the same thing two times.
Maybe it's not that good, but people learn better from experience.

And the most needed feature: a developer sanctioned wiki (maybe outsourced to players) with access to most information!

http://classic.battle.net/diablo2exp/

Teach them the /oos command and then recommend some third party macro programs.

to hilbert:
those who haven't played Action RPGs before.
PoE is more an Asiagrinder or a MMORPG but not ARPG.

- poe is marked as arpg

New players certainly don't leave because of normal.
They leave because or horrible drop rates.

-how many new player have you interviewed to say that? 100? 200? the droprates are exactly how they should. keeps the long time motivation.

Decreased killspeed-->Less drops.
Imagine you would find less and less gold in another game. And crafting is like a rigged slotmachine. That's how PoE feels.

-that rng based unpredictable, is the style of poe game play. if you like another games more that are less unpredictable, then stop whining and play them.

Being forced to trade-->Yes even a paid Dominuskill cruel is a trade.

-trading is an really important aspect to the game.

Gearchecks-->Do you even see how players are playing at the beginning of 4 month leagues. Grace+Determination, Searing Bond etc. just not to be oneshot.

Invasion was a perfect noobtrap because if you meleed invaders in normal you got pretty much oneshot. I even got oneshot at level 3 by a now nerfed frostwall snake in melee range at 200 hp.

-remember: invasion was designed to destroy the gamers.... its in the video, chris sayed it so many times... i recall it: dis league was designed to destroy the player. why are you complaining about oneshot?

Poor unique design-->I already told you in skype that most uniques are "5 levels and throw away uniques"

Goldrim is still the best unique which can be used for many levels.

-there are a lot uniques that allows you to keep them in endgame to... attack speed, and strength are not the only stats you should have a look at.

Build enablers don't work because those builds only do good when you reached certain level.
Others are throw away uniques.

-thats just your opinion... for you most uniques are "throw away", but there a lot of gamers who know the game, and use a lot of your "throw aways" to create nice builds.

I think i would be nicer having the weapons SCALE to level better than almost ZERO change as it is now. It should be far LESS requirement for a mod to up the % of damage. So over all damage doesn't really change much. That would give a better since of being more powerful at higher levels.