20 mins into the game...

*cough* idiot *cough*

"

cathwallon wrote:

* Weak to no colors at all on more or less everything. Could you possibly make a more boring visual world to travel in. I get it, the starter area is a beach, but hell I'm having problems even seeing monsters against certain backgrounds because well they simply just look like whatever debris is already laying there.

I agree in part with this. I have serious problems with identifying interactive objects and monsters due to how washed out the palette is. Honestly, I cannot tell you that I remember this being an issue I had with D2 ,that palette is hella washed out, so I'm hoping it's something I can just grow accustomed to.

"

cathwallon wrote:

* Interactive objects and hitboxes are a complete swing and miss. Hitboxes are hard to hit, too slow to respond, doesn't stick onto the cursor once you've finally found one and holding the mousebutton clicked on it making my character more likely to run past the mob than hitting it. A complete overhaul of targeting mechanics would be in order.

I can see where you are coming from on this point. However, I solved my issue by rebinding attacks off of my mouse left mouse button. Haven't had a problem since.

Know what... OP is correct... the game is so bad it made 2.2m off of donations from it's fan base.

Honestly, it's not very fair to judge a game in this genre after 20 minutes of playing. This isn't Angry Birds or Call of Duty, the game isn't trying to appeal to the masses as quickly as possible.

However, I do know how you feel as someone who pretty much disregarded this game the first few times I heard about it. I've only been playing a week or so, but I've spent a lot of time digging into the mechanics and systems of this game and I feel like I can address some of your points.

"

cathwallon wrote:

* Outdated graphics. In this day and age I as a gamer have come to expect more, I'm not talking about Far Cry 3 level of graphics here but there is a certain standard that one expects from a product these days and PoE is _FAR_ from it graphics-wise. Unproportionate design of both character models and monsters.

The graphics are actually pretty good in this game. It has a fairly high polygon count, resolution, etc. My guess is that it's probably the aesthetic that you don't care for, which is the more dark, gritty look. There are a lot of effects like Bloom that many developers have been using recently that are not present in this game. These effects often make graphics look "shinier", but as a consequence they can make the game look more cartoony or lighthearted, which is something the developers of this game were explicitly trying to avoid.

I understand your concern with the art style, but realize that this is by design in response to the art direction that D3 and Torchlight have taken.

"

* Weak to no colors at all on more or less everything. Could you possibly make a more boring visual world to travel in. I get it, the starter area is a beach, but hell I'm having problems even seeing monsters against certain backgrounds because well they simply just look like whatever debris is already laying there.

Well, to start, if you only played 20 minutes then you only saw a very small portion of the world. However, the world is supposed to look dark and dreary. You've been exiled, so it wouldn't make much sense for you to be in paradise. The game does brighten up in Act II though.

"

* Interactive objects and hitboxes are a complete swing and miss. Hitboxes are hard to hit, too slow to respond, doesn't stick onto the cursor once you've finally found one and holding the mousebutton clicked on it making my character more likely to run past the mob than hitting it. A complete overhaul of targeting mechanics would be in order.

This one actually surprised me because I haven't had an issue with it at all. However, I've almost exclusively played melee characters and am pretty used to games in this genre. One suggestion I'd make, especially if you're playing a changed character, is to make liberal use of the "Shift" key, which causes your character to stand in place. This can allow you to fire projectiles without risk of moving if you misclick.

"

* Information about what is actually happening... On several occasions i saw fireballs fly straight through mobs and explode behind them or simply vanishing into thin air. Sometimes they'd just explode mid-flight for no appearantly reason, stuck on some invisible roadbump not appearant to the human eye. Did my ability miss, bug out or what happened? Some combat interaction messages would be nice so I know if I'm actually doing the right thing.

Your attacks are probably missing, which is something that caught me offguard at first too. Honestly this isn't the kind of game where you need to account for every fireball you launch though. Generally you're just sort of spamming your abilities at masses of enemies, so that kind of moment-to-moment feedback isn't really necessary.

"

* The combat engine is even worse... Sluggish, unresponsive unimaginative in how skills and soells work. Abilities are laggy, graphics have variying casttimes depending on angle you throw them in. An attack speed of 1.3 should give me the same rate of attack no matter where I cilck on the screen but that's not the case.

I felt this way as well when I first started, but a lot of this comes down to what stats a character starts out with. Your abilities don't feel as responsive until you've gotten some attack/cast speed later in the game. This gives players the option of choosing between investing in that speed to make their character more quick, or being a slow lumbering character with big heavy hits.

"

* Servercapacaty is appauling. Running the download for the client via a 100/100 full duplex line gave a stunning 600 kb/s download rate... That won't go over well on launchday.

Well, Thursday isn't "launch day", it's open beta day. I'm not sure if you can feel too entitled to blazing fast game downloads for a free game that's still in beta. It sucks, and it'd be nice if this was faster, but you only have to download the game once so I'm not sure if it's too pressing of an issue. 600 kb/s isn't that terrible.

Anyways, some of your criticisms are legitimate, but it seems like many of your criticisms are ones that would go away or be significantly reduced just by playing the game for longer. As a result, these might not be things the devs address in the very near future since they're largely focused on making improvements to the deeper long-term play experience.

Not trying to sound mean. But I have a feeling the only ARPG OP has played is D3.

That's not a bad thing. But most people here are from the "old school" or at least a lot farther back. I mean new comers might like the game not saying they won't. The statement about graphics makes me think your new(er) to gaming.

Anyway it's a great game at first takes a bit after about level 10, 15 it starts speeding up. I'm i believe 30 on my marauder and it's getting pretty fast paced and insanely hectic at times. Specially at the end of act 2.

20 minutes is not enough for this game you have to give it a few nights. Keep your mind open. My first 20 minutes i was kinda "Eh" like this game is kinda like a clone of d2 but slower feeling etc. By the end of the night i was like "OMFG this is AMAMZING" same as my friend. But were both were hardcore D1 players till D2 came and then D2 for years and years till D3 which that game we actually quit playing a while ago and just kinda floated around till we played this.

Sounds to me like your ISP is shit and introducing a ton of lag into your connection. GGG's servers will easily max out your download speed (for me that's about 4mb/s). I also have a ping of ~50ms to the servers while playing. I experience none of the issues that you have in terms of responsiveness and combat impact. In other words, don't blame the fact that you have a shitty internet connection on GGG.

As far as graphics and colors go I'm pretty sure GGG achieved what they were going for. They did not want a cartoony style ARPG. They wanted a dark and realistic atmosphere. I have not seen a ARPG do better with this since Diablo 1 (for its time).

Yes the combat is slow and clunky at first especially when coming from Diablo 3. In fact that is one thing I actually do preffer about Diablo is the combat system. Though like people have already mentioned it does get better the further you progress.

Unfortunately I don't think anyone can fully appreciate this game by only playing for 20 minutes. A lot of the things that are remarkable about this game is the complexity, which takes time to understand. It is not for everyone I would say because this day and age is all about appealing to the casuals. If you are just a casual player who doesn't want to try to understand complex systems then this just simply is not the game for you.

I am surprised you wrote up such an objective response that probably took longer to write up than you actually played the game. I would have thought in order to get an objective response from someone like yourself, they would have had to have played the game for a reasonable amount of time. Mainly because it just does not make sense to try to give a reasonable criticism about a game, when you have not actually seen the game for what it really is.

the dl speed you see on the game client is not MBytes, it's MBits. so you get 8Mb/s showing up on the client, you are actually getting 1MB/s (<- that's usually the unit we refer to when talking about speed, except our ISP's)

Though my first expression has been similar. When i was invited during summer last year to play Open Beta i downloaded and installed the game (but then something went wrong, i blocked the game to connect to the internet) and i lost interest to resolve the problem. Because the starting screen and overall impression was lacking, motivating me very very little.

Then i watched some screenshots and thought, uhh that looks a bit boring. Then late last year i thought screw it and bought the beta key (because i watched a streamer). Well the start was still a bit "meh" and the game progresses slowly (if you are noob). BUT as more i play as more i enjoy this game and more addictive it becomes.

To me this game has a lot of potential and the graphics get better after Act 1, though some levels really need some more love and detail.

Overall a big plus in my book would be more random events and more intense weather effects which affect your gameplay.

If you judge POE on 20 mins into the game you missing out!


Cheers

I'll start off by saying that for a big game, like an ARPG or an MMO in general but his concerns, which are that he doesn't like the color palette are his opinion. Some of us, myself included enjoy the rather gritty atmosphere, others don't. He also stated that he thought the combat was slow, and some have responded and explained how the combat picks up pace once you get farther into the game. That being said..

I come from the League of Legends community, and it's super toxic and gives those looking in on it a horrible impression of our game. Going through this thread, and most others on this site, gives a nasty impression on our community. Every bit of critism is met with

'go back to d3'
'gtfo'
'ur stup00d'

etc etc, if you don't agree with the person, and the only response you can think of are the three I mentioned, or a variation of that then maybe it's not the best idea to post. Just let the thread die off, and sink to the bottom of the page lists, or let the other more mature and articulate people deal with the thread.

Thanks,
BigbullyVex