[Stream]First Impression - Bored

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My Experience Playing PoE Beta
http://www.livestream.com/beros

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Log-in, choose a character, and let the battle begin right? Other then base stats it really does not matter what class you pick, any class can be anything. Upon first entering the game there is little guidance one what you are doing:

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Story/Dialogue

Little of the eventual dialogue is in-game yet, and none of it is voice acted yet. In the short term we plan to make the start of the game more engaging, so that the player has more direction and understanding of what’s going on.

That's fine, so I start at it. Hm, no starting skills at all? Alright, I'll just beat things with my club. You spend the first 10 minutes smacking everything insight and getting some white gear, but typically you won't have any skills to use at this point(and you won't until you get to town and complete the first quest). Grab the quests, continue on, and the next 3 hours will be a straight grind of killing and leveling, with 1-2 skills.

The mobs are simplistic, excluding the one that breaks out into another monster, which can be annoying(they seem like they are 3x harder then any other monster). You find yourself fighting a few basic similar monsters in each zone only with slightly more health and damage.

The hardest thing I had to deal with was the Zoom level, I felt like I was WAY too zoomed in all the time, and this is not adjustable, I image for PvP this will make Spell-casters/Archers very vulnerable to melee. Also when playing a Archery class, I noticed that often I would shoot monsters and arrows would be literally IN them and no damage would be done, not sure if this is a clipping issue or graphics issue, but it happens quite often.

Potions/Flasks, are a neat concept, but I think too much reliance on potion spamming is currently built into the game. I never found myself in trouble of dieing because I could always spam potions easily. Not to mention it takes no time to build up the charges to gain back your potion use, or simply go back to town.

Item modifiers, way cool, only problem is, because it is a one fits all, no one ever wants to use them at lower levels. I tried one out to see what it did, but now they are just stockpiling in my stash until I hit higher level, whats the point of wasting them right?

The game becomes repetitive very fast, complete act 1-x, new difficulty, repeat, same monsters, same gear only slightly better. There is no real character customization yet into the game, so everyone looks the same.

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The list below is just the current game state and opinons, so don't quote things in the Beta Manifesto, yes I know, I've read them.

The Good
Skill Leveling System
Vast Character Passive Skill Tree(Incomplete)
Any Class, Anything

The Bad
Small Scale Monster Encounters
Potion Spamming
1-2 Main Skill Spamming
Slow Paced Game(Combat, Movement, Monsters)
No Male/Female Class types

The Ugly
Zoom Levels
No Character Customizations
Item Modifications Just sitting in your Stash
Party System (Or need to Party)
Chat System

bit silly considering almost all of your complaints, such as:

Unfinished UI
No looting Animation
Slow inventory
Unfinished party system

is all down to it being in a Beta, i think some people really don't understand how early on in the process a closed beta is...

Personally i really hope they don't dumb-down the skill 'forest' because its huge and awesome, less skills and a simplified skill tree, to me, would be like taking content out of game to make it shorter because it was long

No that is where you are wrong, that is typically an "alpha" phase. Beta phases usually are times during which developers get feedback and put finishing touches on the game.

You can't zoom out, which is a huge disadvantage for ranged classes, I feel like I can only see 20 feet around me on max resolution. The Quest log system is simple at best, and the quests in general are just place holders.

The skill tree is so vast, and for a new player who haven't researched the game, you will mess up your first 3 characters until you "understand" how to spec. And speccing a character for PvP vs PvE will be an entirely new challenge, which isn't even in the game yet.

If you didn't tell me this game was in "BETA", I would think it wasn't even in alpha yet.

Ripped the definition of BETA from a software site:

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Definition

Second level, external pilot-test of a product (usually a software) before commercial quantity production. At the beta test stage, the product has already passed through the first-level, internal pilot-test (alpha test) and glaring defects have been removed. But (since the product may still have some minor problems that require user participation) it is released to selected customers for testing under normal, everyday conditions of use to spot the remaining flaws.

A lot of your complaints are already in the process of being taken care of. See the Beta Manifesto which is sticky'd at the top of these forums:

http://www.pathofexile.com/betamanifesto/

For those that aren't, yous should probably post in the beta feedback forums, cause that's what they're for.

Wow OP you come off as a massive tool. I've played through it and think it's one of the most playable betas I have played. Put over 30+ hours on my Marauder and haven't beat ruthless mode yet. There is still tons of other classes I want to try as well. Sure it isn't perfect but I wasn't expecting it to be. Only thing I can complain about is lack of bosses/acts but I actually understand this is just an early beta.

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Oasisbhrnw wrote:

A lot of your complaints are already in the process of being taken care of. See the Beta Manifesto which is sticky'd at the top of these forums:

http://www.pathofexile.com/betamanifesto/

For those that aren't, yous should probably post in the beta feedback forums, cause that's what they're for.

I've read the Beta Manifesto, but the OP does have a point. Monsters are the same with different models. If it's ranged it will always be the same as any other ranged monster you faced. If it's melee, well you know. You spam a certain skill over and over and over and over. You level. You go to the next area and repeat while doing a simple quest. The game feels really basic.

If you really want a 'special' experience, you probably should climb a mountain or something?
Every game has its own concept be it FPS, strategy or RPG. The best games are usually simple in concept but perfect in execution or almost perfect =)

I'm not sure what made D2 that different from PoE. They both are hack and slash games, that in my books, are repetetive by definition.

One thing that PoE is missing at this point is storyline. This, however, is understandable and have already been announced to change as the development of the game progresses.

With a couple of video clips and voice acting PoE will be very close to the depth of D2.

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Bernhardt wrote:

I'm not sure what made D2 that different from PoE. They both are hack and slash games, that in my books, are repetetive by definition...

This is not true at all !
I dont agree with the OP but you cant say a game has to have certain flaws because Diablo 2 had them. Hack and Slash does not mean it has to be repetetive !
There is alot you can do to improve the formula and there is alot GGG has already done to improve it.(collecting every crap and sell 20 times a min, the conflict of a scaling active skill tree, the meaningless role of passive skills like str, agi...)

Of course you should not change the genre (this game is targeted at the diablo 2 fans), but if you start to think Diablo 2 is a perfect game you wont get far.

Diablo 2 is indeed not a perfect game. But it did give gamers hundreds of hours of fun. That to me is Priceless.