A feel about the game

DISCLAIMER, this is my personnal view on the actual state of the game, what i have played, and maybe some stuff i read on the forum, based purely on how i feel while doing so.

Game feel somehow good, more so since i decided to play the crossbow with wasd because damn it felt clunky with the mouse clicking.

still in Act I i'll update this post bit by bit the more I go and I find stuff to say.

the pace feel slow, for now but i do hope it will be faster later

Dodge rolling is odd, not necessary (as a game mecanic) and overly overpowered, you don't really need to dodge, spamming dodge roll does the trick, getting hit is now the hardest thing to do in the game.

(down bellow i'm talking about the shield armored skeleton in the Mausoleum and Tomb of the consort in the Act I)

ennemy reflecting projectile is a big no for me, more so since i just had a 0 fun fight against an elite one. this need to stop, having a monster that just cut the whole flow of the game because "eh you can't front hit me in this hallway where you can't even go past me because dodgerolling is bodyblocked". Distance playing character should be weaker and not have to deal with bad game design.

dodgerolling arround a monster that is slow, rotate like a turret, and take 2 mins to take down because he just CAN'T it you, break the already somehow slow pace of the early game.

some alternative would be to add a charge, and remove the anti-projectile, thus still forcing you to reposition and dodge stuff while not being a boring monster to deal with

or to make penetrating spell actualy penetrate the said ennemy

Some boss fight seems to rely too much on the small monster/add spamming for the difficulty to the fight, again dodgerolling make this trivial,

the druid fight was fun, hope to see more of that down the line

more on that once I'll be further into the game

(for those wondering I have arround 300h on PoE 1, wich is not much for some of you I know)

and the game is beautiful, menu feel clear to read / understand, and I think most people problem with gem is due lack of reading what's on the screen. I, who read, didn't have any problem with those for now.

won't talk about the scenario since I'm not here to know it (sorry writer, took me arround 4/5 season and 150h to know somehow what was happening in the first)

will delve more on currency and equipement later when i'll have a need, for now those seems unnecessary (mostly because i got a good roll on my weapon and monster barely hit me)

Alright see you soon for some more feel about the game, bolts need to be shot o7

Well, a support Magnified on Explosive Grenade, made even more easy work on the reflecting skeleton... at least the flow feel less slow now that they die in less time.

DISCLAIMER : Will include SPOILER on boss and boss's mecanics and subsequent unlock.

The king of the mist boss fight had my 2nd death (the first one being circled by monster on a bridge)

while i'm quite ok at dying in an ARPG, the reason need to be my skill issue, not that i didn't took time to read the small passive that the boss inflicted me with while he is bombarding me with spell that i need to actively dodge,

or that i need to stay still for EIGHT (8 ???) SECONDS ?
moving in an arpg is the only thing you always do, thus the passive in the first phase that say "if you stop moving you'll get stun" is mostly useless, but hey, it last 4s,

but the one in the second phase feel like someone who haven't played arpg
there is some leniancy as in you can dodge roll, managed 3 and haven't been stun.

Aside from that, the boss felt good.

Now as to the unlocked stuff, Spirit and Ritual

So well, i don't have much info about spirit aside from what seems to be aura from PoE I, and that there is a ressource now so that it won't eat up Max Mana, more info later when i'll find more.

Ritual, well, i'm not a ritual player, even in PoE I, I mostly avoid them, hordes of monster spawning around you in a really small combat zone with almost no way to move / dodge, prevent yourself from being circled is quite odd in a game where a slow pace seems to be implemented. Ritual doesn't seems to be a good gameplay mecanic for ranged player because you lose the range with the arena size (it's quite odd to explain)

probably a skill issue that will get fixed later with more support gem and skill point.

The CrowBell, nice idea, hope to see more

Disclaimer : Spoiler Ahead

Act I is over,

I liked the executionner but it was a short fight i guess i'm being a bit more powerful now

Essence, yes, i like those, and find them fun (until they will somehow heal more than i can deal and have resist to my main damage source) just had some weird visual glitch where the monster weren't fronzen and had an animation running

and for the act I boss

well i see mostly people not able to kill him, and complain about how hard it is.

I took him down in 2 try, i love the fight, it felt quite good, there is nothing coming out of nowhere that is illogical or anything, it's well designed. both design and visual are well made and i love the vibe that goes along.

it feel like people don't know what PoE is, at some point i felt like i needed more damage so i crafted stuff, RNG did played it's role in that but i almost doubled my raw damage before any modifier.

i'm enjoying the physics of the grenade that bounce and roll with terrain angle, bounce back on monster. just felt like they could, explode furniture, burn wheat fields, dunno if it's planned but burning the whole wheat field of Orgham farm with fire would be a fun thing to see that and exploding all the furniture inside Orgham Manor.

The game overall seems to be a bit faster at Act I end, more monster, faster, enough gem to be able to start building something and test thing out

Alright off to Act II

Disclaimer : SPOILER

alright, so i love the moving town

classic endless and good old (please, we dont need those anymore) mineshaft level...
it's like "the sewer level". we can build better environment or at least make them unique

Rathbreaker was a fun boss, made me need to step up my item a bit so that i could have some life regen

but i mainly added more damage, dodged at the right timing and it wasn't that hard

Rudja, the One-Shot engineer, easy boss, don't deal much damage, suddenly hit you with a one-shot attack. i don't even know if there is a strat to pass that but due to high-damage she somehow triggered her next phase and that allowed me to kill her before... this one felt odd, and might need some tinker.

still 2 out of 5 possible support gem, skill are lvl 6 now i have enough dex to equip 14 support gem, enough str for 7, yet i'm still locked at 2 support gem per skill gem, still no support lvl 2 gem in sight too wonder when that will happen because it is beginning to feel long, not slow, the pace is ok now i'd say, but it take too much time ?

Not much else to say for now, gotta keep walking down Act II

Disclaimer : i mean, if you are that far into the post you know

So Balbala, nice boss, it's funny to see a bladefall rogue doing stuff, until you someone die from poison because you can't hit the boss ?

i mean, as a ranged player, my strat isn't to go toward the rogue designed boss to gently pat his back and stab him with a bolt.

the lack of clarity sometime feel like that there is some untested content or baddly designed stuff. being out of option or having no choices left isn't well designed.

there need to be a visual cue, something easy to understand that make you directly think "ho i need to do that"

you can't use sound, most of the player probably listen to something else on the side, you can't use chat, i mainly deactivate it or don't even read it because i play in SSF and well, i don't dialect with NPC i'm about to kill.

and well, most of those side stuff doesn't seems to be much developped in the lore, and since i don't read it or pay attention to it i won't even know if someone told me the strat. Most player here won't pay attention to it too, so visual clarity and indication need to be added so player can easily understand what they need to do.

Next, Jamanra, owned it, almost got one shot, small arena without any solution to reliably dodge his fire aoe spell. the boss in itself doesn't seems to do much damage and i guess i'll see him later. Didn't feel out of the ordinary, i feel like Balbala was better designed than him even with what i see as a negative trait. To put it simply Jamanra felt blend ?

Tinker's Tools seems a bit buggy ? and a lot of people seems to be having the same bug where they don't spawn of the chest. let's hope that fixed soon.


I think there is some change from how PoE I map where positioned from each other ?
like if a map was displayed to be north-west on the world map, the spot to change map would be north-West, etc etc, on PoE II it feel a bit more random ? I feel like i spend too much time walking, almost 100% the map because it's less easier to find where to go next. If it's really random, it's a bummer and PoE I level design is slowly beginning to be better than PoE II. (the wording might be a bit odd but you get the gist of it*)

Also, lvl 22 and still no movement skill, and walking, that slow, is starting to be a problem.


Alright time for Ascendency

Alright, so ascendancy didn't expect it to be fused with... well i didn't do that league so i'll call it reliquary ? i barely did any on PoE I but i do like how it is, feels a bit slow tho without any movement ability.

can't say much more on it, but it still faster than doing the real labyrinth from PoE I so that fine by me.

Azarian was, quite simple to deal with, he did one shot me, too.

At that point i kinda stopped trying to do secondary content, walking arround the map without mobility take too much time and isn't any fun

i'll only do permanent upgrade secondary content

The Mastodon badlands is ok, but damn i love the design of the Bone Pits same goes on Ekbab and the necromancer dual fight that goes in the zone, the right arena size, projectile spam, no weird and unexpected mecanics, the fight felt hard, required me to focus without being an hassle, it felt good to win it.

still hoping to eventually have the gems third slots, i'm collecting gems and i picked the Gemmencer ascendancy more on that later i guess.

Let's go for day 2 and what i think is the worst mob of Act 2

the big weird smashing vulture, damn, they can stunlock, go faster than you,
there is enough monster that you can easily be surrounded and body blocked

and the watchful twins, one of them had life regen and i didn't dealt enough damage to out regen him. But it's ok, dying made them disapear and respawn again with new affix ! (or if you killed one, only one will come back) this felt oddly designed and probably will need a fix ?

the Sister of Garukhan, i did understand upon entering The spire of Deshar that there will be something with those weird statues that felt out of place and yeah, permanent upgrade i didn't even see on the map, now the zone is harder, but still clearable.

the Vulture seems to sometime despawn and respawn ? i did saw some weird stuff about them.

Tor Gul, love the visual design, damage seems to be a bit on the low end for this one, nothing was about to one-shot me, and i didn't change equipement for a while now. his ability Kit seems also on the lower end here, he is probably to slow to turn arround thus droping a balista and going arround made him quite easy.

the Medaillion, i don't even know how i got the first part and there is no indicated reason for me to spend hours searching for something i don't even know how to obtain when the first part felt so random to obtain.

after some search it seems that mount was supposed to be a thing ? and this odd roa at Deshar seems to be IT, yet nothing for now.

i'm almost at 12 hours of game time (not all of this is active gaming, but 9 to 10 are) the density in map feel good now, there is ACTION, but yeah, navigating in those huge map at a snail pace is now the problem, the map feel too big for the amount of stuff to do in i'd say, there is definitly some balance to obtain between map size, point in game to get mount, character mobility and for now it feel unbalanced and not much fun.

Alright of to clear Act II i feel the last map is the next

Alrighty Jamanra Act II Final boss

good fight, had to be serious a bit, died 2 time, third was a slight dodgeroll mistake that led to me being one-shot, fourth time the charm, the fight is great, feel balanced, maybe make the phase 3 portal duration shorter so the player doesn't get stuck in both tornado, wrong side, lot of aoe in the same place and have mostly no choice but to die. overall the fight feels good, mecanics are easy to understand and the visual are great and easy to read.

The map is great, was already in love with the moving act II city, but now the whole map toward act II boss is a moving fortress, a giant, moving, fortress, (a bit too giant to my taste but eh, i'll let it slide cause i like the design)

alright onto act III now, ho, hi sin, who would have guessed... anyway,

Utzaal, Vaal... maybe Atzoalt ? not a big fan of incursion always though it would take too much time to setup for not much reward, guess i'll see if they are back in PoE II soon

see you in a few o7

lvl 33, still dying to see a third slot open for support gem

woohoo first gem at 3 support gem... yeah this is gonna take a while for the gemling to build up.

act 3 not much to say for now, rootdredge was on my way to the next map, cleared it easily

Mighty silverfist earned his spot as the worst designed monster for now, respawn point is next to him so when you move you trigger him, his skill set have probably less attack than even normal monster, sometime his attack will deal like 70% of you life, sometime he will one shot you, you can dodgeroll, so can he, execpt his dodgeroll if it pushed you against a wall, multi-proc and kill you again, the arena isn't close, and the worst danger of this fight was the poorly designed monster that act like the weird succubus of PoE I, those that fire blood spear instead of snake firing poison.

Xyclucian, so i did the fight with -20/-10/-1/0 in fire/cold/lightning/chaos resist, died once, cleared it on 2nd try. The boss have some high and some low. The pillar feel weird, you can cancel spell and animation by breaking focus bar, so why can't you cancel his animation/attack when the pillar is a breaking point ? this interrupt the fighting flow and feel weird. some effect might need to be more visual, the fight felt like a dodgerolling shitshow festival while trying the find the safe spot to not take DoT, i have arround 3% life regen per second, wich is 20 at the moment, and even this feel enough to face tank anything that don't one shot you.

i didn't talk about the whole bestiary yet, but i feel i'm finding some pattern, slow undead everywhere, fast moving beast, giant tank. add some projectile blocking and some weird projectile launcher that stagger you in the mix.

it seems that size give you max health, having a shield allow you to tank fast moving projectile that would otherwise pierce you, the guy behind you, and the past you.

i understand you use and alter some monster from PoE I for PoE II, i see them, love some of the new design and variation and that is ok but it feel like the boss are the only real NEW thing that i find worth to find and fight.

Jungle ruins, in itself is quite ok, didn't think any bad or any good of it

Infested Barrens, we just spend a whole act in a desert, i ran across the zone because i got bored the moment i step foot in it.

Chimeral Wetlands, yes, yes this zone is a big yes, my GPU disagree though. the style, particle effect, the whole design is great, if feel unique, original and i hope to see more of this style too.

Ultimatum, trial of chaos, same as the sanctuary ? (didn't look at what was the league name) i didn't play much of it, but found it was ok, gonna do the quest about it to see what i unlock.

and i do hope i'll be able to gem more CrossBow Shot with a higher tier crossbow, because not being able to add support gem slot felt weird

might spend some time on crafting soon, i don't think i have enough currency to build well enough but resist might be a need soon