Did some league practice.. holy wow first act is actually broken.

I somehow cruised through the first act this league and didn't realize how bad it is.

I've been playing since 2013 and while I'm far from a great player the difficulty is just ridiculous at this point.

Adding mobs that can two shot you with a charge/knockback attack in the third zone of the game is questionable already but actually putting 10~20+ of them around the quest items you need is just absurd.

I've done a bunch of runs now for practice and I have died every time due to Roa's. I'm really trying but I'm lvl 2 and have no skills, no movement ability and the low cast speed at that level means one of those Roa's can charge me before the animation finishes.

And it doesn't get much better after that. The passage isn't too bad but the ledge again is ridiculous. 3 arrows from skeleton archers = dead and you have to avoid those while dodging 15+ goats jumping after you buffed by the aura totems.

How do you expect a new player to finish act 1?

I'd be really curious to see how many kills the mudflat Roa's have and how many people die in Act 1. I'd also be curious how many people just log off and never come back in that zone.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Roa's alone have more kills than total players deaths anywhere else in the game combined.

Anyways.. please tune it down a bit it's actually not fun or challenging and just scares off new players.

I for one have no interest in practicing anymore, it's actually pointless. I'll just death zerg through the first act.

2-shot? *laughs in gauntlet voice*

As I remember back in 2013, Rhoas were able to 2shot u as well. So I think the difficulty is just back to how it was at release.

And it's pretty easy to outplay, once u realize u can just run in circles.
People are just not used to it anymore... u autopilot through the first acts without much thinking.

So its back to how it was when GGG was fairly new to developing PoE and had little experience. Seeing it back to that state doesn't really inspire confidence.

If circling the Rhoa's was the only thing you had to do then it be fine but you need to pick up 3 items in that zone and that requires you to walk to that spot, click the thing on the ground for which you need to stand still then wait for the item to drop, which takes time, and then stand still again to pick it up.

In that time the 30 something Rhoa's that surround you have had plenty of time to kill you.

It also doesn't help that the charge attack hit box is wonky at best. I've have many situations where my character and the Rhoa where not touching at all and the charge still hit, stunned and killed me.

It really feels like its more luck than skill that gets you through these zones. One crit from most mobs will one-shot you or stun you long enough that other mobs have time to hit you as well. Now if we actually had abilities or a build we could use to counter these things I'd have no problem with it but at level 3 you got nothing to work with.

And running in circles in the hope of not getting oneshot is not enjoyable to me, and from what I hear, neither do most other players. It also just makes no sense that a corrupted T16 maps are easier than the third zone of the first act.

Act 1 is deterrent. For somebody who is willing to learn basic mob patterns, it gets pretty easy after couple deaths.

It's not that complicated. Or hard. Big fiery ball on monsters saying "do not damage"? The game has less obvious telegraphs on different mechanics.

Brutus breaking walls? Ok, no D1 Butcher cheese behind bars.

Encountering danger early might actually serve more as a motivation - from zero to hero, the perceived character power has nicer progression but I think they should make A2 harder as well. There are almost no ranged monsters, melee mobs are super slow and main danger is in not reading quest log and getting lost in all the side areas.

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Marxone wrote:

Act 1 is deterrent. For somebody who is willing to learn basic mob patterns, it gets pretty easy after couple deaths.

It's not that complicated. Or hard. Big fiery ball on monsters saying "do not damage"? The game has less obvious telegraphs on different mechanics.

Brutus breaking walls? Ok, no D1 Butcher cheese behind bars.

Encountering danger early might actually serve more as a motivation - from zero to hero, the perceived character power has nicer progression but I think they should make A2 harder as well. There are almost no ranged monsters, melee mobs are super slow and main danger is in not reading quest log and getting lost in all the side areas.

Deterrent for what? New players from getting in the game? Returning players getting past zone 3 without death zerging?

I would agree with you on mob patterns if there 5~10 Rhoa's max per quest item location, two might kill you but dodging 10 is very do-able, even for a new player. But those mounds contain easily 20+ Rhoa's of which at least one pack is magical and if you accidentally aggro the unique Rhoa in the area it will follow you through the entire zone.

I also don't understand why so many people are in favor of this? The whole point of the acts is to bring new players into the game. Putting one of the most difficult zones of the entire game in the first act makes 0 sense to me.

Like I said before, corrupted T16 maps are easier than the third zone of the first act. That is, imho, bad design.

I've been playing since 2013 and while I'm far from an amazing player the fact that I die more in the first act than the entire rest of the game combined really shows something is off.

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Souchirou wrote:

"

Marxone wrote:

Act 1 is deterrent. For somebody who is willing to learn basic mob patterns, it gets pretty easy after couple deaths.

It's not that complicated. Or hard. Big fiery ball on monsters saying "do not damage"? The game has less obvious telegraphs on different mechanics.

Brutus breaking walls? Ok, no D1 Butcher cheese behind bars.

Encountering danger early might actually serve more as a motivation - from zero to hero, the perceived character power has nicer progression but I think they should make A2 harder as well. There are almost no ranged monsters, melee mobs are super slow and main danger is in not reading quest log and getting lost in all the side areas.

Deterrent for what? New players from getting in the game? Returning players getting past zone 3 without death zerging?

I would agree with you on mob patterns if there 5~10 Rhoa's max per quest item location, two might kill you but dodging 10 is very do-able, even for a new player. But those mounds contain easily 20+ Rhoa's of which at least one pack is magical and if you accidentally aggro the unique Rhoa in the area it will follow you through the entire zone.

I also don't understand why so many people are in favor of this? The whole point of the acts is to bring new players into the game. Putting one of the most difficult zones of the entire game in the first act makes 0 sense to me.

Like I said before, corrupted T16 maps are easier than the third zone of the first act. That is, imho, bad design.

I've been playing since 2013 and while I'm far from an amazing player the fact that I die more in the first act than the entire rest of the game combined really shows something is off.

They said that they don't have time this league to completed act 2 to 10, so they moved it to 3.17. I hope it will get harder that it's today, and they will.
Better get armor now.

I assume triple g looked at unpatched Evil Islands (early 2000s game from Nival) as an example how to balance early ingame zones.

I remember reading that the devs needed cheat codes to even complete the first quest(s).

Not as extreme as in mentioned example but there is a similarity here making the first zones annoying.

I would not say they are hard but time wasting depending on what starter skill you pick after Hillock.

I agree. I'm not against harder acts, but it should be more gradual: act 1 should be MUCH easier, with act 10 being harder.

To me, honestly, it doesn't make a lot of difference, but I am worried about new players: if I were to start playing this game for the first time right now, I would not give it more than a couple of hours before uninstalling it. You already don't know what you are doing, and you think "holy crap, if this is the beginning of the game, the easiest part, this is worse than Dark souls! No thanks!". This approach discourages new players, and that is not a wise idea.

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Souchirou wrote:

How do you expect a new player to finish act 1?

I've brought mupltiple friends (7 by now) to PoE and even tho they had experience through other RPGs or even D2/D3/Grim Dawn/Torch Light, not a single one of them had the idea of entering mud flats at level 2 after skipping coast and tidal island entirely including gear from there like you did. Yet some of them have been playing games for 20+ years.

That's not something a new player does, not even new players with experience from other games do that.



What you guys need to do is go back and adjust your playstyle through the acts because not even speedrunners enter mud flats naked.

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Scarletsword wrote:

"

Souchirou wrote:

How do you expect a new player to finish act 1?

I've brought mupltiple friends (7 by now) to PoE and even tho they had experience through other RPGs or even D2/D3/Grim Dawn/Torch Light, not a single one of them had the idea of entering mud flats at level 2 after skipping coast and tidal island entirely including gear from there like you did. Yet some of them have been playing games for 20+ years.

That's not something a new player does, not even new players with experience from other games do that.

The new player experience

A new player will be at level 4-6 and will have at least 2 active skills (3 if he completes tidal island, 12+ if he finds the gem vendor). He will also have a bunch of items equipped that will add up to bit of AR/ES/EV.

At that point the player has 80+ life as a witch without using any skillpoints (since he's new and the skilltree is scary obviously) while a rhoa does 15-25 damage (yes, I just made a witch to test this). He also found a chain belt and that's super noice because it 'heals' him without doing a thing even tho he doesn't understand it entirely.

What you guys need to do is go back and adjust your playstyle through the acts because not even speedrunners enter mud flats naked.

THANK YOU! Finally, someone with a brain!