ACT 1 Difficulty

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Jerexil wrote:

[...]

Solution was to craft a cold resi ring using vendor recipe
blue gem + iron ring
The 27% cold resi was enough to avoid/reduce the freezing.

Do you think any new Poe player would do this?

(I know that recipe is one of the loading screen hints.)

When does the crafting tutorial that mentions these shows up ?

Yeah, I remember giving up on PoE 1 the first time around Mud Flats / Underground Passage... but IIRC it was more the game (especially human(oid) character models) looking bad/weird, and skills not feeling good though ?

I didn't have this issue myself (the second try around), but I'm also confused as to why Brutus has supposedly been moved from its arena to a much more narrow space : isn't that way too hard on brand new players ?

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Jerexil wrote:

1st char in league with poor equip - about 1 year ago.
Act 1, first underground area after Mud Flats.
___________

I was frozen permanently and be killed by 3-5 hits.
The reason was clear, I had zero cold resi.

Ok, act 1 end boss is and was dangerous with low cold resi but now white mobs at level 5-7?

I am playing PoE since 2013 and never experienced that before.


Solution was to craft a cold resi ring using vendor recipe
blue gem + iron ring
The 27% cold resi was enough to avoid/reduce the freezing.

Do you think any new Poe player would do this?

(I know that recipe is one of the loading screen hints.)

OK, now I get why this thread didn't make sense to me at first. Sailed through on my 1st and only char so far, but this comment made me realize something.

Don't know how to link an item from game, but very early on in act 1 I looted a Hrimsorrow, so that made cold attacks pretty trivial. Also found an Araku Tiki before I even hit level 3 (pretty sure it's the first unique I found), and that made things a lot easier as well.

Kept them both, I'll make sure to equip them when I start new characters :)

They've done this intentionally, originally, I believe. So that people start to learn straight away. Also the game was built acts at a time, and not all at once. I don't think it's too hard but I'm not a new player and it's been altered since I was. I'm sure some people play it, find it too hard and just stop. They wanted it to be difficult at the start I believe. I've also had new players tell me they thought it was too easy. So there's wide audience.

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Act 1 was buffed a few* patches ago.
Chris said something about scaling up the difficulty of the Acts.

Yeah, regarding this, they started making things harder one act at a time, then I believe they stopped after the first or second act, either because of backlash or other things came up that they prioritised. I think they never completed all acts, but I don't remember hearing much more about it. It also seemed to make maps harder randomly, because I think the mobs in maps are linked from the campaign. So maps with mobs from act 1 got randomly harder, like goats. I Understand they couldn't do it all at once, but it didn't make sense to me that they started at act one. They should of started at act 10 and worked down. Possibly they need to finish this, so the difficulty is more gradual across the acts, but I don't know, they may of already done this and I didn't hear of it. I don't personally think the campaign is way out of whack, but it's hard to say when I'm not experiencing it as a new player.

My opinion is, its much better for it to be overly difficult, rather than overly easy. Giving people a challenge they can rise to rather than a walking simulator. Part of why the game is good. It is a little strange for a game to get easier as you play though. Certainly seems to get easier as you gear, which is counter intuitive to most other games, even some arpgs that start of fairly easy to begin with then ramp up the difficulty. It would make more sense for act 10 to be more difficult for a new player than act 1, but I agree with you that that's probably not the case currently. To me it seems like the difficulty is fairly similar throughout acts of the campaign. It's not wildly all over the place so I think its fine, but can see some people might think it should ramp up. I don't know if d2 is much different, it certainly gets more difficult as you go up the three difficulties, but I would say between the acts 1-5 its pretty similar. Maybe the character progression is a bit more linear than poe, but for new players, unless they are using a build guide, I think they will still encounter a fair bit of resistance when progressing through the later acts.

What makes you think it isn't the case ?

My own experience is that difficulty does ramp up progressively... but then for normal that's from remembering last season, with affliction mechanics on top to boot, and only up to act 6. (Campaign has had some welcome changes since then, at least for non-new players, adding a bit of diversity.)

And for Ruthless, the ramp up in difficulty is very noticeable (even as a more experienced player).

My only complaint would be that some bosses are very uneven :

Innocence seems to be harder than Act 5 Kitava across various characters.
Aarakali (Act 7 boss) is extremely hard.
Act 8 Doerdre is way harder than Act 8 boss sisters.
Act 9 Adus is way harder than the parallel mini-boss Gurikhan (?).
Worst of all, Act 10 Avarius seems to be plain unfair to melee characters ?
And of course I seem to be kind of stuck on the Act 10 boss (as a very first attempt), but that's to be expected - currently doing labyrinths 2 and 3 and some extra farming in preparation.

(Though in general across this is 2 challenge league mechanics, not Standard ; and past act 6, that's from single character experience, so YMMV ?)

And of course few players will ever get this far in the game.

act 1 is difficult because they buffed it a while ago. they were supposed to buff all the other acts also but they never did so now act 1 is out of proportion in difficulty compared to other acts.
its really weird because it should be the other way around. acts should get harder as you progress not go from hardest to easiest

Kitava could be harder I agree with that. I think the fight is a good fight. In HC it feels a reasonable difficulty at that stage of the campaign, not too hard, but still dangerous if you're under geared. In SC with no penalty for dying it becomes much easier than 3rd lab and just trivial. Maybe Kitava could have the ruthless regen on death mechanic to make the fight a bit more intense for ending act 5/10. Most bosses in POE just come down to knowing the mechanics though. I found this frustrating when beginning because you cant over gear many mechanics, you just need to learn where to move, then once you know how they work it is much easier. Kitava is a good example of this, if you go in blind the mechanics are dangerous, but once you know how the work they are much easier to avoid. Goes for anything, but in POE it's particularly relevant because deaths happen in a fraction of a second rather than gradually getting worn down over the length of the encounter.

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Paradoxoglanis wrote:

I always got the impression that GGG filled act 1 with freezing and stunning mobs specifically because they dont want your average gamer to be able to get into PoE. They wanted there to be a barrier that filters out anyone who isnt "hardcore" enough.

The game is always hard.

Like in Act 2 you already dealing with monster with chaos damage

Also in Act 2 final area used to be having skeleton mage that LMP. The devs remove them may be in version 3.0


It is the playstyle. Players used to be much much slower and knew that monsters they are facing before engage them.

But nowadays it fall to the trap of zoom zoom

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BlueTemplar85 wrote:

My only complaint would be that some bosses are very uneven :

Innocence seems to be harder than Act 5 Kitava across various characters.
Aarakali (Act 7 boss) is extremely hard.
Act 8 Doerdre is way harder than Act 8 boss sisters.
Act 9 Adus is way harder than the parallel mini-boss Gurikhan (?).
Worst of all, Act 10 Avarius seems to be plain unfair to melee characters ?
And of course I seem to be kind of stuck on the Act 10 boss (as a very first attempt), but that's to be expected - currently doing labyrinths 2 and 3 and some extra farming in preparation.

(Though in general across this is 2 challenge league mechanics, not Standard ; and past act 6, that's from single character experience, so YMMV ?)

My impression here is that you are looking at this from a (self imposed) hard mode perspective. My take (HCSSF, so no beat it with falling corpses skill) is, usually build with indirect or DoT damage, no melee:

Innocence: Easy apart from the one "balls" skill. The "balls" skill is usually easy too but sometimes Innocence can interfere with my dodging while the balls are still going on, then it can be quite dangerous.
Act 5 Kitava: Somewhat dangerous even with good life amount.
Aarakali: The easiest of the second part act bosses.
Act 8 Doerdre: Somewhat hard if DPS is bad but more in an "annoying" way than a dangerous way.
Act 8 boss sisters: Solaris is the most dangerous of all act bosses.
Act 9 Adus: Also quite annoying, depends on build though, very easy on some builds.
Act 10 Avarius: Fairly easy but need to be a bit careful.

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I always got the impression that GGG filled act 1 with freezing and stunning mobs specifically because they dont want your average gamer to be able to get into PoE. They wanted there to be a barrier that filters out anyone who isnt "hardcore" enough.

I think this is mostly correct. I don't think they wanted turn players away when launching the game, but they did want to make a "hardcore" game. When you listen to CW talk, they made the game how they wanted it. I think because the game was built parts at a time, they probably wanted it to showcase difficulty at the start, because if act1 was easy that was a large portion of the game for a long time. So if they didn't add mechanics like freeze/stun they basically wouldn't of been in the game at all to begin with. If they launched all 10 acts at once, maybe it could of been created with easing in and ramping up more, like in D2 when immunities and some other mechanics don't really start to show up until the second difficulty. I don't think they are worried if people do leave because they think it is too hard though, that's the kind of game they are trying to make. Trying to fit the game to the largest possible audience would of made it less of a masterpiece most likely.

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Zrevnur wrote:

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BlueTemplar85 wrote:

My only complaint would be that some bosses are very uneven :

Innocence seems to be harder than Act 5 Kitava across various characters.
Aarakali (Act 7 boss) is extremely hard.
Act 8 Doerdre is way harder than Act 8 boss sisters.
Act 9 Adus is way harder than the parallel mini-boss Gurikhan (?).
Worst of all, Act 10 Avarius seems to be plain unfair to melee characters ?
And of course I seem to be kind of stuck on the Act 10 boss (as a very first attempt), but that's to be expected - currently doing labyrinths 2 and 3 and some extra farming in preparation.

(Though in general across this is 2 challenge league mechanics, not Standard ; and past act 6, that's from single character experience, so YMMV ?)

My impression here is that you are looking at this from a (self imposed) hard mode perspective. My take (HCSSF, so no beat it with falling corpses skill) is, usually build with indirect or DoT damage, no melee:

Innocence: Easy apart from the one "balls" skill. The "balls" skill is usually easy too but sometimes Innocence can interfere with my dodging while the balls are still going on, then it can be quite dangerous.
Act 5 Kitava: Somewhat dangerous even with good life amount.
Aarakali: The easiest of the second part act bosses.
Act 8 Doerdre: Somewhat hard if DPS is bad but more in an "annoying" way than a dangerous way.
Act 8 boss sisters: Solaris is the most dangerous of all act bosses.
Act 9 Adus: Also quite annoying, depends on build though, very easy on some builds.
Act 10 Avarius: Fairly easy but need to be a bit careful.

Interesting that people have different opinions, which is great. I think this is partly because some bosses are build dependent.

My opinion on those, mostly as HC playthroughs but also some SC recently.

Innocence: Probably the hardest and maybe the best fight of first 5 acts. Once you know the mechanics it becomes pretty easy, but its a bit of a gear check and the balls are dangerous. Some of the animations and voice prompts are a bit funky, which makes it a bit unfairly difficult. Overall good challenge though.

Act 5/10 Kitava: Pretty straight forward. Still a good fight and difficulty is fine, but maybe not that spectacular as final boss, particularly for SC. On HC it's pretty good.

Aarakali: Pretty easy once you know the mechanics, still good and and can be tough if your not geared yet, mostly I think people probably just don't have chaos res if they are struggling. The fan projectile skill can be scary in HC. I remember thinking this was one of the harder bosses first few times I encountered it, but not so much anymore, as you can just stand in a safe position.

Act 8 Doerdre/ sisters: Yes Doerdre can be pretty terrifying and one of the only bosses that I pay much attention to during the campaign. Although with damage this fight becomes pretty easy. Sister fight is probably harder. I dont remember it ending many of my playthroughs, but certainly remember getting chunked down many times by Solaris. I think if u have enough hit pool to tank that ability you cant really die though. I would say Yugul can be as dangerous as these fights as well on some builds, if you cant just kite from range.

Act 9 Adus: Yes I think this is definitely the hardest boss in campaign. Perhaps I need to learn the patterns better, but if you mess up or run out of flasks it can get rough. A lot easier with shock immunity and on certain builds.

Act 10 Avarius: Mainly just that one skill, I think it can multi hit you, certainly does high phys dmg, so if your build can't handle it it is dangerous. Sometimes on HC I will leave it to last before kitava just to get a couple more skill points. Staying behind him is usually all that's needed but it can be a bit tricky on some builds if your getting hit by the guard or the beams and trying to dodge his abilities.

Some others that are not completely trivial, particularly if doing something like gauntlet - Brine king, Weaver, Gruthkul, Shakari, Vilenta, Abberath, act4 Doerdre, Piety fights.

Most of these bosses are in part two, so in that regard it does get harder. Just with the way your character ramps, the difficulty is a bit different than the reason the early fights like Brutus and hailrake, rhoas are dangerous.