This is the sloppiest league so far.

I don't really know where to start.

1. Performance is horrible. Crashing all the time, game hanging randomly and with different mob spawns, frame drops, missing textures, you name it, it happens. I had some crashes before, but it wasn't 10-15 times a day, with game hanging a couple times per map. Not to mention the FPS dips and drops. Input not registering properly as well.

It has never been this bad. I've died countless times just because the game couldn't handle the content (while maintaining 100-150 fps just seconds before that with pretty much the same amount of monsters, the old monsters). This means that when new mobs spawn there is no recourse to act, if you can't take the burst damage, you dead. Since THE GAME DOESN'T RECEIVE CONTROLS!

2. Visibility is horrible, it has never been this bad. It has being worse and worse with each league, pretty much the screen being filled with particles and stuff, and you just hope that you have targeted the right monster. But now, it is gray on gray on gray. Everything is gray and in mist. Getting oneshot (even after the nerfs) by monsters that are pretty much invisible, or are invisible to begin with, is getting old, and pretty much annoying.

I read in the patch notes that monster telegraphing is improved. That is nice. IF YOU COULD SEE THE MONSTER IN THE FIRST PLACE!

3. BACKTRACKING. This is pretty much the dumbest idea ever. Breach didn't have the issue since the content was localized to the breach. This is pretty much breach but with horrible visibility and map wide. So if you want to pick up the loot, you'll have to backtrack, or waste precious time from the encounter. Lose-lose scenario.

4. Cluster jewels. This is the only worthwhile thing so far.

Now this might sound like an angry rant, but it isn't. POE is a great game, and I've been playing since forever. But it is heading in the wrong direction. League after league there are too many issues left unresolved, poor decisions being made. With each new league release there is more attention put to marketing, rather than to performance and gameplay testing. This wasn't the case a couple of leagues back. Back in the day whenever a performance/gameplay issue was encountered, it was fixed quite rapidly. This sadly isn't the case anymore.

When most of the top streamers aren't happy with the content, and when most of the players feel the downward spiral, it means that you need a better strategy, and probably more communication with the community. Synthesis should have been a wake up call. Just sayin'.

It may be because of the 3 month cycle. They don't have the time to fix the issues. In the situation where you have to constantly think of new things to implement into your game, a majority of stuffs that are not prioritized has to be put aside. To me, POE used to be a great game. Hope they fix their game in POE 2.

Every league starts this way for some ppl. Last one it was for me, this time it is for You. Its Your turn.

"

dmt209a wrote:

It may be because of the 3 month cycle. They don't have the time to fix the issues. In the situation where you have to constantly think of new things to implement into your game, a majority of stuffs that are not prioritized has to be put aside. To me, POE used to be a great game. Hope they fix their game in POE 2.

Yeah, but, if you know that you want to stick to that 3 month cycle, make sure you can keep up with it. I don't want POE to become Wolcen.

"

de99ial wrote:

Every league starts this way for some ppl. Last one it was for me, this time it is for You. Its Your turn.

That is just a poor excuse.

I don't know if it's as bad as Betrayal, Invasion, or Synthesis, but . . . It's definitely up there.

"

GrumpyMcElbows wrote:

I don't know if it's as bad as Betrayal, Invasion, or Synthesis, but . . . It's definitely up there.

Synthesis sucked only because they refused to make the pieces rotatable imo, and that was pretty laughable too

I can only agree. I'm not feeling sad about the state of the league, more... that it's landed kind of where I expected, and my expectations were low.

I haven't given money to GGG since they started lagging me to death with Betrayal mobs. Like when desync made the game a solid 6/10 and never more, I figured if you're not going to address something that ruins the gameplay, then I shouldn't be cheering you on with money, as you'll get the wrong message.

Heck, it's improved quite a bit - I don't freeze up when Betrayal mobs load now, but it's still a shitshow load-wise; and GGG haven't taken a single simple step to make the gameplay better - like changing interventions to not show up and follow you forever. Counterplay, that thing we ask for but don't often get.

They have, however, added more things that lag when loading - legion, conqueror mobs, and an endless parade of mtx.

For that matter, *tiny* easily fixable things like the sulphite meter being a targetable item, or being able to select whether I go for a long walk to some breakable object and then run a long animation to break it while otherwise trying to fight monsters - still around. As are porcupines. Good thing they got rid of immortal call though, for most intents and purposes..

Metamorph was fun for many people, and I enjoyed it to some degree. Grinding out life catalysts got boring pretty quickly though, and one thing concerned me quite a bit - the balance of the league (boss hp etc) pushed the game well back towards where it was at 2.0.

2.0.... the times when some builds were objectively just a dumb choice. No matter what you'd invest, unless you had mirrors to throw around like candy, a build would likely turn out to be a bit shit. Deaths were a matter of grinding your teeth as you got deleted in an instant.

We seem to be back there now, looking at what someone thought would be a slower game. It's not slower. It's more random. Something something dead. Bit like reflect back in the day. Hard to even get excited.

PS this morning I loaded into a map with a delirium, conqueror, tane, einhar, and a legion. What the living fuck?

"

dmt209a wrote:

It may be because of the 3 month cycle. They don't have the time to fix the issues. In the situation where you have to constantly think of new things to implement into your game, a majority of stuffs that are not prioritized has to be put aside. To me, POE used to be a great game. Hope they fix their game in POE 2.

it will all come good in PoE2, its currently band aid upon band aid with make-do solutions, with 4.0 they can build it correctly from the ground up... thats right isn't it? that's what will happen?

?

I agree completely its literally unplayable and I've played since 1.0 Beta almost every league:
* Constant crashes, losing instances and portals because of that.
* Disconnects to log-in screen multiple times
* Now I have a stupid buffer underflow bug happened multiple times again and again
* The one-shot mechanics are still there, in fact sometimes I don't even know what kills me
* Textures aren't loaded quicky enough enough or lagging while it's loading
* Performance is bad but mostly lags are the issue the sudden spikes have been there but not as bad

There is very little to enjoy as well, as delirium content rewards are not rewarding enough even with the latest patch compared to other leagues but it's much more deadlier as well.

Synthesis was as crapy as this league.
most of synthesis maps were corridors that were pretty fast disappearing, you needed zoomzoomchar with large, quick aoe damage. And a lot of times you ended in wrong corner/corridor that was blind and you lost that memory.

Now its same.
They dont learn from mistakes.

In my country, we have that one saying.
Wise man learns from his mistakes,
Dumb does not.