First Impression

Well first of let me say that as a fan of the genre this game is one certainly fun :)

As to my first impression:

the game is very complex and not newbie friendly.
The reason I say this is because for example there's this huge tree of talents but no way to reset it..
So theoretically i could level to level 30 make tons of mistakes and then in order to rectify my mistakes i will have to start a new character and hope not to make the same mistakes this is rather horrible since EVERY new player makes mistakes and sometimes it takes quite a while to understand you have made a mistake. In other to be competitive you must make the mistake hopefully after one try you'll learn from that mistake and then re-roll a new character and hope to not make a mistake. That's bad design IMO.

I think the gem system is really cool and fun it gives you a new way to play with active abilities which is great :)

Also, as a former Diablo player and in general a fan of the genre the HUD (Heads Up Display or UI if you prefer) IMO must be changed it reminds of diablo too much and not that Diablo was a bad game on the contrary it was and still is a great game, but so is PoE.
What I am trying to say is that the lack of unique touch to the HUD makes the game feel like a cheap replacement for a game that currently represents the entire genre.
If the HUD was more unique it would give the game a new wind in terms or taking the genre a forward and not sticking to what it was 10 years ago (I hope this makes sense :).

Quests - I haven't done too many quests but the world map that shows you where to go is awesome makes it impossible to get lost in terms of looking for the quest.
That said, The quest system feels obsolete.
I mean, if you played SWTOR you would know what a GREAT quest system feels and looks like and while I think end game content and PVP are very important I also know that leveling and questing experience should not be overlooked because in terms of effort what it takes to make the questing system from ok at best to really good is some voice acting and a few cat-scenes.

Well that's it for now.
If this post interests someone ill make sure to follow it up with new thoughts, if not, well just know this game as tremendous potential IMHO.

I really want some cat-scenes too, cats are just too cute to be left out of an awesome game like this. :p

But on a serious note, they are going to add voice acting eventually and flesh out the story line. I don't know whether there will be cut scenes though, this is not a game with a huge budget like Diablo 3 so not sure whether this is feasible.

As for this game not being newbie friendly, personally I had no problem as a newbie getting used to the passive skill tree and the mechanics of this game. This game does tend more towards the hardcore crowd which I personally love, you're meant to make mistakes as you go and learn from them. Making new characters with different builds is part of the fun for me. :)

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AncientZed wrote:

the game is very complex and not newbie friendly.
The reason I say this is because for example there's this huge tree of talents but no way to reset it..
So theoretically i could level to level 30 make tons of mistakes and then in order to rectify my mistakes i will have to start a new character and hope not to make the same mistakes this is rather horrible since EVERY new player makes mistakes and sometimes it takes quite a while to understand you have made a mistake. In other to be competitive you must make the mistake hopefully after one try you'll learn from that mistake and then re-roll a new character and hope to not make a mistake. That's bad design IMO.

There are plenty of ways to reset it. You can get reset points from quests and item drops.

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Also, as a former Diablo player and in general a fan of the genre the HUD (Heads Up Display or UI if you prefer) IMO must be changed it reminds of diablo too much and not that Diablo was a bad game on the contrary it was and still is a great game, but so is PoE.
What I am trying to say is that the lack of unique touch to the HUD makes the game feel like a cheap replacement for a game that currently represents the entire genre.
If the HUD was more unique it would give the game a new wind in terms or taking the genre a forward and not sticking to what it was 10 years ago (I hope this makes sense :).

Big globes for health and mana is simply a good UI design. It makes your health and mana easy to see in your peripheral vision. Even Guild Wars 2 is using a variant of it.

I know there are ways to get some points back but says you spent 40 points you can go reset all 40 points (I may be wrong but this was my impression) which you must admit is a bit odd.

As for the UI, well, I disagree.
Saying its good because some one else used it is no argument to why its good or not.
It maybe used to make the point that to a certain degree its common and there by it may cause familiarity among some players which eases the learning curb for some.

Don't get me wrong, I do think its a good and very viable way to present information such as health mana etc :)
What I was saying, however, is that there are other viable way to present the data that will still benefit players by avoiding tunnel vision and other known gaming phenomena and still be original and appealing.

And still i do assume most of us are gamers and some might even claim that the targeted population for this game is say Hack&Slash veterans and because of that a familiar UI is the best choice.
I personally think that way of thinking is ridicules.
I think the most successful games nowadays are successful because they appeal to both HC gamers and also casual gamers.

That said, casual gamers wont always be familiar with the Hack&Slash genre because... Well because its not as common as we would like it to be (compared to other genres like FPSs and RTSs).
So basically by saying we target only hack&slash fans you give up on that population which is the majority of gamers.
Which brings me back to where we started that I do think a new UI would do better justice to this game then the current diablo like UI :)

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AncientZed wrote:

the game is very complex and not newbie friendly.

for the first part of your opinion, I agree.
But I say, if you consider that its not ready for release right now, especially for some basic information & documentation, and also the fact that the noticed complexity causes some effort (not only but mainly in a learning curve), I can see no details that are not newbie suitable. Of course, that doesnt imply to make your very first steps in (such) a game just to a perfect char - not even a ARPG veteran is immune to mistakes...

For the UI thoughts:

there are simply some basic rules, some fundamental information needed to show - demanding some kind of a core UI to fit... its just the same reason as why steering wheels have a round shape or wings are formed in an aerodynamic optimal way...
You can, of course, make things different, but on some point you can not reach an equal level of efficiency (here: eff. of information) woth most of the possible changes.

I've only been playing the beta for a couple weeks now and I had the same impression of the skill tree. It's extremely intimidating when you're first getting into the game and the lack of ability to undo mistakes is pretty big.

As noted by AncientZed, The handful of point-erasers you get isn't nearly enough to fix a screwed up tree - which is inevitable for any new player.

I've been reading the forums over the last few weeks and I understand GGG's philosophy on this - but I agree with OP that a more comprehensive "eraser" option would help the game appeal more to new players. Maybe give every account two complete tree erases across all characters. That way they can use one on their initial character (which will almost surely be screwed up), and have one in reserve. After that, people will understand the tree better and the points should be sufficient.

My first few characters were pretty fubarred. Thankfully I didn't get far with them before I figured that out.

I'm going to have to disagree with most of the rest of the criticism, though. I like the interface and the quest system is fine given the game is free (SWTOR is $60+ and $15 a month, that's not an apples to apples comparison).

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SwineFu wrote:

I like the interface and the quest system is fine given the game is free (SWTOR is $60+ and $15 a month, that's not an apples to apples comparison).

Well if i didn't make myself clear I am sorry and let me stand my point.
I wasn't comparing PoE and SWTOR I was merely saying that the quest system in SWTOR is a very polished one.
What I was trying to say was that if some voice acting + some cat-scenes were to be added it would improve the overall feel about questing by a great deal.

When I say voice acting let's remember that for WoW's WarCraft's and SC voice-acting blizzard didn't hire professional voice-actors (not at the very start anyway)
And they used company personal (Chris Metzen is know for all sort of voice acting he did for blizzard )

I took Blizzard as an example because its a company I've been following but i pretty sure other game studios have done the same.

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SwineFu wrote:

As noted by AncientZed, The handful of point-erasers you get isn't nearly enough to fix a screwed up tree - which is inevitable for any new player.

Tell me how could a new player screw up their tree so much that they need to undo more than eight to twelve points. They'd have to just be throwing them at random. I mean, the OP suggests that the game allow a complete respec before level 30, yet that implies that more than 40% of their passives were somehow useless. I don't even know how it's possible to do that given how powerful and all-around useful starting position passives are.

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Strill wrote:

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SwineFu wrote:

As noted by AncientZed, The handful of point-erasers you get isn't nearly enough to fix a screwed up tree - which is inevitable for any new player.

Tell me how could a new player screw up their tree so much that they need to undo more than eight to twelve points. They'd have to just be throwing them at random. I mean, the OP suggests that the game allow a complete respec before level 30, yet that implies that more than 40% of their passives were somehow useless. I don't even know how it's possible to do that given how powerful and all-around useful starting position passives are.

You don't need to throw 40% at random you just need to take a wrong turn somewhere at the tree.
You see, problem with trees is that eventually there's a "Cookie Cutter" build (meaning the best possible tree distribution theory-crafting wise) and because you can only go 12 points back you cant go to the "root" of your problem and undo it.

All you are left with doing is starting anew.
And if the game design is as such that in order to rectify a mistake you need to start all over again, then it's by no definition good nor newbie friendly.
Again I am coming from the philosophy that the targeted audience should be all gamers not a specific branch of gamers.