My Awakening feedback (long)

Hi

For what it is worth, here's my feedback so far on Awakening.

Item filter

Made out of a huge amount of gold-plated WIN!

Skill tree

No complaints. The increases in travel distance are a bit annoying and cuts down on build diversity, but jewels may remedy that.

Jewel system

I think this is a great addition. Nothing more to say really. I've seen some decent jewels of all rarites, but have not yet been able to create a character where the jewels are build defining. Once I get a decent stash of them that'll get easier.

Divination cards

Nice addition though I don't think it is something I'll actively farm. Probably just keep the ones I find and once in a while trade them in.

Graphics

Up to your usual high standards. If I have one small niggle it is that the map for the entrance area of A4 (The Aqueduct) is too cluttered.

Lockstep

I'm in two minds on this. First, it is very nice to avoid the desyncs, but I find the 'stuttering' at times annoying. I have good ping to my nearest server (London).
I'm seeing some problems that could be teething ones. For example, at times it seem like I 'teleport' when using skills like Leap Slam or Flicker. With Flicker I've even managed to do so twice before my screen updated. My PC is a 2 month old gaming desktop, so it's not the hardware.

Leech changes

I understand why you thought leech was too effective, but I think you've tuned it down too much. Having to continously teleport to town to refill flasks when in tough boss-fights is in no way 'fun'.
I don't think your statement from the patch notes:
"We made these changes with the goal of keeping leech an impactful mechanic when you need it most -- when you're getting swarmed"
is correct. Given the new bosses you've added (and some of the old ones), you need it much more in single fights. Most builds have AoE damage to handle swarms.

Balancing

On monster damage and the new bosses it seems like you've used the high-end players as your balancing yardstick. This is a mistake. An average player is nowhere near those, is not as obsessive, and play a game like this to have fun... Random one-shots to decently designed and fitted characters in early to mid-game difficulty is not good game design. It should not occur until endgame (which is Merciless and Maps).

Act changes and additions

Act 1:
I rather liked The Coves area :-(

Act 2:
The Western Forest feels 'cramped' with quest objectives. Weavers chambers, opening the passage and one bandit.
Plagueretch was easy to kill, but you had to think a bit to avoid the poison damage. I'll miss him.

Act 3:
Clarissa being moved to City of Sarn creates a contradiction in hargan's timeline. Hargan's first speech to you now is something like "I told you we're missing 2 lovers, not just 1", after you've rescued Clarissa on the way there.

Act 4 Highgate

I do this act because I have to in order to level characters. It is not something I enjoy.
The Dried Lake, Mines and Crystal Vein are good. They're traditional PoE areas where the focus is on killing lots of monster, having fun, and not worry too much. Then it goes downhill...
First bad part are the sequenced multi-objective quests. First of all, this means you have to set aside significant time when you try them (or lose your progress), and secondly (as I found today), if you get kicked off the server, you have to start over.
Second part is that caged boss fights are too WoW-like. The previous acts in PoE didn't really have many of those, but here you have 7(!) in an act that is smaller than any of the others. It feels like that is all you do in this act, with some time-wasting running between them.
Third part is that you WAY overbuffed the bosses (at least in Normal and Cruel), even after you toned them down a little. It seems like you think that 'hard' is better than 'fun'... This is not so for most people.
What you risk here is that they'll function as a 'hard stop' for new players, or even older players too if it becomes too much hazzle to level up new characters.
Being so hard, they also make a mockery of the first acts in the next difficulty levels. If you can advance to those acts, there is absolutely no challenge in them. This should not be so...

Skill gems

Arctic Armour:
While it was possibly too good, changing it like this lose a unique way of mitigating damage. All other ways are also percentages, meaning that it is no longer anything special. It should possibly have been made weaker, but should have kept the dynamic. As it is, its change cuts out a lot of build options.

Tempest Shield:
This is now a pain in the neck... It is IMHO more or less useless now.

Auras:
While I understand the reason behind limiting them, this also cuts down on build options. A better solution might have been to make auras decrease in potency the more you have active at a time. If you only had 2-3 they'd operate at 100%, but at 4 you'd lose 10%, at 5 you'd lose 30% or some such.

Enlighten/Reduced Mana:
Bad change! Why should only the rich kids have access to more auras?

Golems:
IMHO, they don't really add anything... They're just an aura-like effect that happens to move around and can be turned off by hostiles.

My $0.02

Before awakening, this was the relative difficulty levels, based on you having been able to complete the previous act.

A1N: Easy
A2N: Relatively easy
A3N: Going from relatively easy to hard (Dominus)
A1C: Easy
A2C: Relatively easy
A3C: Going from relatively easy to hard (Dominus)
A1M: Relatively easy
A2M: Difficult
A3M: Hard to very hard (Dominus)

This was a well-structured, and quite well balanced progression. It helped players progress to the endgame, and made sure that there was a steady feeling of improvement.

After Awakening, this is now the case:

A1N: Easy
A2N: Relatively easy
A3N: Going from relatively easy to hard (Dominus)
A4N: Easy until... Die, Die, DIE!!!! (times 50)
A1C: Easy
A2C: Easy
A3C: Easy, with Dominus being relatively easy
A4C: Easy until... Die, Die, DIE!!!! (times 50)
A1M: Easy
A2M: Easy
A3M: Easy, with Dominus being relatively easy
A4M: <I haven't tried this yes, and is not going to>

Act 3 is the best balanced, with difficulty going up through the different areas, but act 1 and 2 are not bad either. Act 4 is a disaster...

Basically, Act 4 completely destroys the progression in the game up through the different acts/difficulties. It means that after you've hit act 4 on one difficulty level, the next difficulty level is boring.
Seriously, tone down the act 4 bosses by 50% or so (offensive and defensive) on Normal and Cruel... Merciless doesn't really matter as at that point you can chose to do maps instead for your endgame, but the other two completely ruins the difficulty progression.