1.2.0 Improvements to New User Experience

imo, you need to start the tutorial on the ship, give them different weapons and give them a bunch of different skills to let them test it out with a minimum 2 L + 1 slot

also provide linked slots to allow demonstration of support skills such as knockback or faster attack or add lightning damage

give them unlimited chromes to recolor

thematically,you have asked for some food so you re tasked to killed some rats on the ship before being shipwrecked

this level can be disabled via options check box so old players on new accounts will know they can disable it

Part of GGG's efforts in improving Player Retention is an active process of converting any and all in-game Voice Acting to be done by the [unequivocally sexy and illustrious] voice of Chris Wilson. Though this option will be a purchasable Micro-Transaction "Voice Pack", to cover the costs of having the CEO take time to record it.

While some may argue that this kind of a Micro-Transaction could be seen as "Pay to Win", GGG feels that this is an important step forward in giving players the kind of options they want, or rather, need.

(Basically Chris' sexy voice will make MILLIONS. Plz GGG!)


On-Topic: @June 16 Update, does this mean Templar/Witch/Shadow reworks may release with 1.2? And would the removal of "noob-trap" Passives mean more efficient/useful Clusters [added/buffed] in general?

here is the real issue a new player gets to level 66 in a few days and figures out all of the top end gear is forever out of reach they can never get better.... example lets take shadow, loath bane dagger the cheapest I've ever seen one is 280 ex 280 ex? wtf so I have to do 12k maps with this tired dagger to get anything? pfff why bother.the stuff is out of reach with reality on price this is one piece...every slot is like this

I may have already said this in this thread, but a place to review all loading screen tips (The tip that was most recently displayed on a loading screen will be highlighted in the list) as well as tips/hints in general would be nice to see. Dragon's Dogma accomplished this.

"

Chris wrote:

Path of Exile can have a tough learning curve for new users, especially those who haven't played Action RPGs before. Half of our new users are players who aren't very experienced with this type of game, but may potentially really enjoy it if they play to the point where they discover the depth of character builds possible.

...

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.

...

While a real tutorial would be great, especially for new users, I must point to the lack of a full in-depth manual, issued by GGG so that it has proper authority.

Let me explain by taking an example from my own experience. Just a few days ago I died to Corrupting Blood (Nemesis mod) and was left wondering why. Why did I die this time, I've had so many encounters with CB before, and why wasn't Immortal Call triggered by Cast when Damage Taken.

This made me start searching for a detailed description of how CwDT functions, especially in relation to bleeding damage. I had to dig my may through dozens of pages regarding CwDT, most of them containing irrelevant information, misinformation or complains about changes to the skill which later turned out to be perfectly balanced. Not to mention questions regarding obvious erroneous use like linking it with two active skills and spelltotem without having Ancestral Bond allocated.

Continuing my search I noticed that Immortal Call wasn't even countering bleeding damage, but wait... that was a bug. Luckily I continued reading the topic, or I would be acting upon misinformation.

Digging further I learned about triggering upon damage taken from Righteous Fire. A confusing thread because when explanations from more experienced players followed -some again containing misinformation- links were made to the life lost from Blood Rage.

In the end, after extensive research taking away a good amount of valuable playtime, it became clear that bleeding wouldn't trigger CwDT because it is Damage over Time, not Damage. Huh, Damage over Time is not Damage? Indeed, it's Degeneration, and Degen is not regarded Damage in conjunction to CwDT. New questions arose, how about the fire damage taken from Burned Miscreations. Though irrelevant in this specific case, I really want to know the full spectrum of usability of CwDT.

I still wasn't sure, before and after that part of the thread explaining that DoT is not D, a lot of obvious misinformation was given, and there was no clarification from a dev.
After reading very much information I ended up testing it myself, which finally confirmed what I suspected... bleeding and Unrighteous Fire do not trigger CwDT. I still don't know if this is intended and if so, why, and if not, when will it be fixed, and thus cannot plan my build ahead in anticipation of changes/fixes.

At this point, some players might react with something like "lol, you could've known that if you spend even more time reading the hundreds of threads on the forum." Note that I'm not inexperienced with (A)RPG's, I know the difference between Damage and Life Lost in the context of game mechanics. But I'm afraid that most players will agree that it's quite unintuitive that Damage over Time does not count as Damage. After all, both are damage that lower the players health, the only difference being taken at once or over a short period of time.

Well... to make a long story short: Players need to obtain crucial information from hundreds, if not thousands of threads on the forum. Threads that are mostly filled with irrelevant information, misinformation and even worse, complains and QQ-ing.

I would have loved to have access to a official manual, providing detailed in-depth descriptions of the game mechanics, skill gems, the skill tree and other aspects of the game as well as examples and a more advanced explanation of interactions between the fore-mentioned. Note that I didn't mention a full bestiary, I don't believe that would benefit the sense of exploration through Wraeclast.

Benefits from a detailed, in-depth official manaul are
- Better access to the game for a wider group of players, especially new and inexperienced players,
- More and better theory-crafting,
- Less need to test basics and spend valuable currency on it, resulting in more build-diversity and less mass-following a relative few cookie-cutters,
- Much less misinformation and the spreading of it,
- Much better bug-reporting (at least one knows whether certain aspects are intended or are (temporarily) excepted),
- More efficient fine-tuning for advanced and more experienced players,
- Better separation between feedback/suggestions and questions,
- No need to be confronted with complains and QQ-ing for people that only want to play and thus want technical information,
- Easier for the community to provide help to players (less stating basics and thus more space for providing advanced information),
- Easier administration of the forum by Support.

I think of some like the following (very short, examples and various exceptions should be added):

Lowering the players life.
In Path of Exile, there are several ways in which the players life and/or energy shield can be lowered. When the players life becomes zero, he or she dies, unless a specific skill such as Vaal Immortal Call prevents him or her from dying.
A) Damage taken from hits from monsters (referred to as Damage),
B) Degeneration caused by a debuff inflicted by either monsters or the player himself by using a specific skill (referred to as Degen),
C) Degeneration caused by certain environmental circumstances, which can be created by monsters and/or players, like Poison Arrow/Fire Trap/Blood Rain, but also can be native to the environment, like patches of Burning/Desecrating Ground (also referred to as Degen) and
D) Life lost due to use of a certain skill (referred to as Life Lost).

Damage types.
There are ...
1) Physical,
2) Elemental (Fire, Cold and Lightning),
3) Chaos.
[explanation about aspects, bypassing ES, status ailment and interaction etc.]

Dealing damage.
Attacks
[...]

Spells
[...]

Etc. etc.

Skill Gems.

[Skill Gems described]

Cast when Damage Taken.
The skills that are supported by CwDT are cast automatically when a certain amount of damage is taken by the player. Only damage from category A (hyperlink to section about lowering players life) is taken into account.
There are various aspects
[explanation about no mana cost, instant casting etc],
[explanations about accumulating, cooldown per spell, interaction between multiple copies of CwDT and skill gems]

Example:
[examples]

Monster Mods
Regular Mods
Reflect Elememtal Damage
[Explanation, tips and tricks to avoid/counter]
Reflect Physical Damage
Etc etc.
Nemesis Mods
Corrupting Blood.
[explanation about bleeding stacks, when they are applied and interaction with the type of monster they originate from]
[advanced explanation about damage scaling, effects of monster type and monster level]
Etc etc.

I hate to beat a dead horse, so forgive me if this has been answered somewhere else before, but...

Can we get a final verdict on hot-button issues for this game and what the near-future plans are for it?

Namely:

~ Self-Found League (SFL)

~ A New Trade System

~ Anything to do with desync
(Not so much a "final" anything in this regard, but an update would be nice.)

~ News on End-Game Progression

~ "Problematic Currency" such as Eternals/Mirrors

And I'm sure there are several other topics worth including. A new thread from one of you guys at GGG covering these topics would be most appreciated. I don't want to argue about them or have them argued in this thread. I just want to hear your side of it.

Thanks, guys.

What is the status of this development project, when will we see the first results?

To balance utility (skill costs) between low and high level gameplay,
I strongly suggest you start working on a system that focuses on 2 things:

1) lvl 1-40 items have mana/life on kill mods.

2) lvl 41-100 items have mana/life leech mods.

Percentual leech mods at lower levels are absolutely useless.
Even with the best in slot maxed out phys dmg unique builds, and running a 2-3L skill,
you barely leech back 5% of the skill cost, which is simply ridiculious, making most players think "why the hell they even put leech in the game if it's no use to us?"

I think leech works only at later levels, when total dmg goes high enough.
Lower levels should refund costs on kills, and use flasks at boss fights/hard rares.

"

Quantume wrote:

To balance utility (skill costs) between low and high level gameplay,
I strongly suggest you start working on a system that focuses on 2 things:

1) lvl 1-40 items have mana/life on kill mods.

2) lvl 41-100 items have mana/life leech mods.

Percentual leech mods at lower levels are absolutely useless.
Even with the best in slot maxed out phys dmg unique builds, and running a 2-3L skill,
you barely leech back 5% of the skill cost, which is simply ridiculious, making most players think "why the hell they even put leech in the game if it's no use to us?"

I think leech works only at later levels, when total dmg goes high enough.
Lower levels should refund costs on kills, and use flasks at boss fights/hard rares.

Hell no, life leech is amazing at low levels if you focus on physical damage.

Apparently where I posted this question before it was in the wrong location and removed.

I played PoE months ago now but struggled greatly and couldn't finish with such a weak character. By finish I mean I ran through the first 3 chapters three times but could hardly finish off the final boss battles and largely felt thoroughly frustrated with boss battles in general. I ended up with the same frustrations of being to weak and ineffective with bosses playing The Elder Scrolls Online too. I'm too casual about it I suppose and won't change this 'bad' gaming habit to become such a strategist.

So I don't see attempting to play the game again any time soon until several more chapters are added and from what I gather that's years away.

But the real question I'm still looking for an official answer on is whether we will _always_ have to repeat through to Act 3 three times in order to reach a high enough level of difficulty to take on new material?

Repeating the first 3 acts three times was quite boring if you understand when you still end up facing the same bosses over again that are overly challenging. Isn't there a better solution especially when additional Acts are added? It will likely mean all the difference in the world whether I replay in a few more years.

Your start on this thread sounded promising to get new gamers to stick around but somehow I don't feel that that includes me yet and will it ever?

Thanks.