Feedback after 100+ hours playtime

-- Disclaimer --
- This post is LONG, like literally you gonna be feeling like when you open PoE1's passive tree the first time, i know.
- Its intended for GGG as feedback touching on several topics after spending around 100+ hours on the game.
- Feel free to post your opinions about it, but do it in a respectful way.
- Also i want to point out that this is MY experience with the game - yours might be different but that doesnt invalidate either.
- It is not a bullet point summary, the game is great and too complex to fit everything into bullet points, so let me stop with them ;)

I also am very well aware that this is a unfinished version of the game with many aspects of it being incomplete or subject to change.
I do understand that PoE2 was created with different intentions compared to PoE1 and they are not supposed to be the same, which i appreciate - however there will be some comparisons to PoE1 within this post due to the nature of them being the same genre and PoE2 trying to envolve on many ideas of its predecessor.
Also if during reading this post it feels negative on many subjects, let me say this before:
I think the game has a phenomenally strong base and i enjoy it a lot the way it is already. It's often just easier to point the finger at "what hurts" instead of what does not, so it's often more likey for people to point out what bothers them, than praising the good - and theres a lot of good in this game.
I am also not concerned about the state of the game, there might be issues but i believe GGG will address them in one way or another sooner or later, even if it is in different ways than i suggest at some topics.



-- Introduction --
Just to quickly to introduce myself to give an idea of which kind of player i am and therefore giving some background and scope to this feedback post.
As of time writing this i currently have 110 hours in PoE2. I've played some PoE1, maybe not as much as many of your (~1700 hours, basically playing a league now and then when they look interesting to me).
I've also played some compareable ARPGs with most of my playtime with them laying on the Diablo series (Mainly D2 / D2R, some D3, very little D4 because it felt really shallow)
I do not exclusively play ARPGs and i spend a lot of time with videogames (Not just playing them casually).
As for PoE2 i have been playing a Ranger/Deadeye - currently at Level 81.
I've done some mapping (~ currently doing T11)
I have used any guides or similar content (Basically playing "blind). I did not engage in trading during the campaign or early mapping.
I have tried some other classes like Sorc & Witch but haven't played those at endgame or Cruel difficulty yet. I do plan to try every class.
I also get some insight from my partner playing the game which has little experience with ARPGs. (Basically two attempts at picking up PoE1 which both ended in being somewhat overwhelmed and didn't get far)
That all being said, lets get into some topics.



-- A word on difficulty --
Theres different kinds of difficulty in games like this and not all difficulty is created the same way.
The combat in this game feels more challenging and engaging. The game encourages you to move a lot more, pay a lot more attention and use more of the tools available to you to achieve success.
I think this is a good direction and i am really enjoying it so far. However there are some things that needs to be worked on and some mechanics that got carried over from PoE1 do not work very well with this new approach on combat.
In terms of how hard the game is to pick up, i think theres been major simplifications which lower the entry barrier significantly, without reducing the depth of the game too much - but some things can still be improved or explained better to new players.
As in terms if how difficulty develops over your playthrough i think its sadly pretty frontloaded. Basically Act 1 and start of Act 2 felt the most difficult and after that it actually felt like the game is becoming easier.
The playthrough on cruel difficulty was no real challenge at all for me compared to the first run.
Regarding difficulty in endgame, there will be a seperate section below.



-- Progressing through the campaign --
As for story, i will not rate it since i am the type of person that is easy to entertain in that regards.
I think it is told better than in PoE1 - And it for sure is more intersting than D4's.
It was nice to see some "easter egg" like scenes that reminded me of some stuff from PoE1 if you played it - but do not really affect you if you haven't.
The only thing i found weird is the start. I've seen the Opening Cinematic Trailer on Youtube - But it did not actually play when starting the game.
It feels like if i had not seen this externally before i would've had worse idea about what's going on with the beast in the cage, despite listening to the dialogues.
I'm not sure if the opening cinematic is supposed to play on start of a new game but for me it did not.
The ending of act 3 however for sure left me excited for what is more to come so im looking forward to the remaining acts once they release.

Regarding character progression i feel like the difficulty build up more towards the end rather than the start of the game.
I do believe the major difficulty in Act 1 comes from bosses being somewhat equally hard mechanically compared to the later ones - however due to how underdeveloped your character is at that stage (lack of movement speed for repositioning and items in general) these fights feel significantly harder than the later ones.
I think the curve on that could be adjusted a bit. We have seen many people saying the game is "too hard" the first few days but i think the more people progress, they will realise that it actually gets easier and will come to the same conclusion.

Something that bothered me a bit is the heavy emphasis on having to check up vendors on every level up for upgrades in addition to using all my currency items and checking basically almost every item that drops regardless of its rarity.
The system surely encourages you to interact with your loot&currency a lot more trying to make something you can use - which is a good thing - however despite all of that i found myself constantly using items far below my actual level. (i'm not talking about 1-5 levels here - im talking about 20-30 levels in difference)
The passive skill tree and gem system is something i will talk about seperately because thats too complex for this section.



-- The boss fights --
I actually do not have any critique with them. I think they are fun and well designed.
Sure some of them share mechanics that are only visually seperated via effects but are the same at core - or only have slight variation from some abilities other bosses use - but that is to be expected with the large amount of bosses we this game has and thats alright.
I think some of them are significantly harder as melee, due to having to close a gap more often(flying bosses) compared to range classes and due to windup times - but i actually haven't played melee much so i wont really comment more about that.
Overall i love this new style of bosses that you have to be somewhat considerate with when you are engaging them.
However whats still there is the concept of being able to just stack so much damage that you just obliterate them - Yes you will still have to look out for some of the mechanics obviously and dodge them - but it is surely easier to survive a 20 seconds fight having to do some mechanics flawless compared to surviving a 2 minutes fight leaving you more room to do mistakes an die.



-- Character development and build variety --
This is one of the major reasons that give ARPGs replayablity. And i will straight out say it - i feel like build variety is too limited for several reasons in the current state of the game.
One of the main reasons that put me off from a game like D4 is that it felt like there was only like 1-2 viable builds per class and it was pretty much predetermined by the developers on how you are supposed to play them.
And im sorry to say this but the way PoE2 treats its character development somewhat reminds me of it - even tho its by far not as bad as it was with D4.

While the character development is simpler and i think people are actually able to create working characters without a guide now (and thats a important and good thing) - that's mostly because the game has the a basic guide ingame now more or less with recommendations and a passive skilltree that early on is much easier to develop a character on.
The downside of how PoE2 does it at the moment is that many aspects that were somewhat freely available to all classes feel now basically designed to be intended for only one single class.
Every other class that wants to utilize it only theoretically can but when you actually try to build something with it, theres just too many restrictions/bindings with weapon types, support & spirit gems, attributes, altered scalings up to a point where it just does not make sense to do it at all and rather just play the class that's native to it instead.
Now i am aware this is Early Access and we are missing a lot of Gems, Classes and Acendencies at all - However i feel like there are problems with this that are not gonna be solved by "just adding more stuff"
This is a big topic involving the passive tree, gem system, itemization and weapon swap system in detail since they all play into it so i will explain my opinion on them just below here individually.



-- Item and Gem requirements/restrictions --
I will just keep this short because i will keep bringing it up on the other topics again and again.
I dont mind the high level requirements for some stuff.
The attribute requirements on items and gems feel too high for me to make interesting builds that are not just limited to doing "the one thing the class was made for"
We get less attributes from the tree - Resulting in having to allocate more on travel nodes if you actually want to make something like this work or instead get it on gear which the you only have limited amount of prefix/suffix slots on.
Also a lot of gems are essentially bound to specific weapons now and some abilities are literally not available as gem but only on weapons (discipline as example)
This overall feels highly restrictive in terms of build felxibility and variety and literally disables many potential builds because too much focus is shifted on gear/items.



-- The passive skilltree --
The thing with this topic is, its just as large as the skilltree itself so i don't even know where to start, but lets go with the obvious:
The passive tree is a modified version of PoE1's tree - which i think everyone expected and theres nothing wrong with it.
However theres been several changes to it which you can clearly see what the intention with it was - but when transfered to build crafting or gameplay it just does not work out very well and feels like it wasn't fully thought through.

Lets talk a about removing life and resistences from the tree. Instead of being basically forced to pick life on the passive tree now, you are forced to take it on your gear which is overall worse because gear is something strongly depending on RNG while the passive tree isnt.
The same goes for resistences because you can no longer suppliment what you are missing on gear via your passive tree - And thats a major downgrade to character development.
In comparison to PoE1 you were able to get a certain stat on the passive tree to suppliment a stat you were lacking on gear until you get it on gear to free up these points and reallocate them to something else thats useful for you. That is no longer the case - And that in a game where survivability stas are even more important due to the increased difficulty.
This does not really benefit anyone, it does not make it easier for new players to develop their characters while massively reducing flexibility in passive vs item section of the game. (Meanwhile flat ES is still on the tree for some reason which makes it incredibly easy to scale if you decide to play a ES character class)
All it does its create a situation where certain stats are more "mandatory" on gear than they already used to be.
If you wanted to reduce superfical complexity of the skill tree with this, reducing the availability of life is not the way, but rather tweaking the necessatiy.

Theres multiple ways to do this better and i'm no game designer but let me give you an quick example which probably is not fully thought through either but points a possible direction:

- Remove flat ES from the tree
- Increase the base hp per level on characters.
- Increase the life / ES gained per spend point in STR/INT

On a quick thought, what would that change?
1. You dont have the necessity to take life from the tree, but you still have a way to increase it if you want to without having it forced on RNG-Gear stat rolls.
2. You make travel nodes more valueable too especially considering we are only getting half the stats now compared to PoE1.
3. It helps with reaching the requirements on attributes for abilities and gear that is not native to the class allowing more build variety. (Those requirements feel horribly high compared to PoE1 btw the way it is right now)
4. Every class can utilize it due to being able to choose the attribute on the travel nodes now.
5. It still supports the general caster=ES, ranged=evasion, melee=life sterotypes just like before.
6. It makes +attribute modifiers on gear overall more desirable.
7. Its a simpler more flexible system.

Again: This is just an example on how it could've alternatively been done and nothing i demand to be implemented - so don't get too triggered about it my dear people in the comments that actually bother reading this ;)


Regarding resistences, these should just be available on the tree so you can suppliment your bad RNG with it.


Now another topic with the passive tree is class specific nodes.
I do understand that we have more classes in PoE2 and you want to give them something that differentiates them from eachother in the passive tree without having to make an entirely new tree with as many starting spots which would complicate the tree even more.
However the way this currently is, in early game it creates some issues. Let me give you an example:
Lets say i want to play a witch - my goal is to be a fire based infernalist. Now when i start out and want to actually play that way from the beginning, it creates a problem where the starting elemental nodes on witch do not exist, but are actually on sorc's passive tree instead. Witch has minion and chaos damage instead.
Which means especially early on i will have a hard time scaling my damage well without utilizing minions or chaos damage, basically shoehorning me into one of these two playstyles or i will have a bad experience.
I think this should be reconsidered and maybe, since this is not PoE1 actually keep classes like witch/sorc the same at the start and instead differentiate them more with their ascendencies by having larger ascendency trees instead while the passive tree remains more general.

Also i dont know if this is just a witch problem but when i was playing it, it kinda felt like even if you go the chaos damage route theres not much to scale its damage with later on.
Basically infernalist offers nothing and blood mage does not even work because it relies on spell leech while most of chaos damage abilities are delayed damage really undesirable for leech or damage over time which does not work with leech at all.
At the same time if you decide to play minion build theres no ascendency complimenting it either (i think thats something thats gonna be addressed when we get the remaining ones - i hope atleast)

One last thing i want to touch on regarding the passive tree is that theres many nodes been removed or altered which i believe the intention was to prevent people from doing certain stuff they used to do in PoE1
As an example the Aura preservation nodes with introduction of the spirit system kinda implies that you are not supposed to just scale your damage too much over that type of abilities - which is fine however theres certain weighting issues with some of the passive nodes that make them basically absolutely not worth it.
To stay on aura nodes with this - the preservation nodes have mostly been removed and instead we get a few "reduced 6% reservation of herald skills" type of nodes.
Im sorry to say this but theres like 3 nodes of these - which accumulates to 18%. A herald costs 30 spirit which means i get 5.4 reduction on it if i spend 3 skillpoints for it. Thats simply not worth it, considering what else i can get for 3 skill points. I might just try to get more spirit on gear instead which again shifts the weight with stats towards gear.
Now you might say "but you could use multiple heralds and benefit more from those nodes" - Well thats only a theoretical statement considering you need much higher attribute requirements to use them effectively and we are only getting half the attributes.
Also Multi-Element builds are really restricted to begin with due to the amount of skillpoint required to make them work - Which i feel like we do not have available due to the heavier requirements on attributes and travelnodes between them, even when you consider different weaponset allocation for them.
There are more issues with the passive tree that needs to be looked into and requires some second thoughts in my opinion (another example would be removing leech/mana on hit from it - in order to yet again - to gear - and leech basically only working with physical damage) - but i wont go more into detail with it because this section is already pretty long and the main issues created by i believe to be clear.

-- Weapon swap system --
This system looks cool on paper but in actual gameplay it feels like you are self sabotaging whenever you want to build something with it.
Theres basically two approaches to it:
1. You use a entirely different weapon as offset to do something your class is not "native" too (Example Bow + Quaterstaff)
2. You use the same weapon type with different intentions (Example: Multi-Element build / Uniques with passive tree sections to support them)

Now i tried to think of ways to come up with ways to actually utilize that mechanic but it always runs into the same pitfalls either not having enough skillpoints to travel to the actual nodes needed to utilize it efficently or the fact that we simply do not have enough Gem-Slots available despite already using an Unset ring.
It feels like this mechanic is a gimmick at max, everything i came up with ended up in basically having more disadvantages than it actually compliments the gameplay.
Maybe its just that the side of the passive tree where ranger starts at is a bit scuffed for it and it workss better on other classes - or it is intended to be used with weapons/abilities that are released later on but as of the state of right now, the downsides whenever trying to make a build that utilizes the system strongly disencourage me from using it.



-- The flask system --
This system seems to have a bit of an identity crisis.
I love not having to play flask piano. But at the same there is still a ton of flask related skills on the passive tree.
I understood it as the idea about this change being essentially that you use a flask only when you really in that moment need it instead of mindlessly pressing 12345 or spamming them on repeat.
However with making mana sustain harder moving mana on hit & mana leech exclusively to gear i find myself spamming the mana flask just as much as i use my abilities.
I dont have an issue with charge generation it's just obnoxious having to constantly spam the mana flask.
Also the whole tree section of "during flask effect nodes" feels like something that essentially just got copied from PoE1 and essentially is useless unless your class is pathfinder maybe"
It is kinda contradicting that we wanted to remove the whole flask piano and focus on flask being used situational when in need, but we end up having to spam one flask now instead. (Again this is from a Ranger perspective - Not sure how it is on different builds)



-- Itemisation --
So this is another big topic and i already mentioned one of its core issues in the passive tree part.
As theres a limited amount of prefixes/suffixes you can have and many aspects removed from the passive tree you are somewhat forced to take these stats on the items because the game did actually not change enough from its predecessor in that regards and they are still somewhat mandatory to have, some actually became even more important.
This moves the focus strongly on gear which is much more RNG depending and therefore frustrating to deal with compared to the passive tree and since theres just a lot fewer open slots to get stats it makes characters actually a lot less flexible and more difficult to build in the later section of the game.
I understand that theres the idea that you have to be more considerate with what stats to get but overall i think it this idea massively restricts player freedom and therefore in the long run will also reduce replayablility if the build options are getting too limited and strcit with it.

Removing of complex crafting while i personally am not the biggest fan of it, i believe is the right choice to make in order to keep the game accessible for new players. You seem to still be able to somewhat target craft certain stats to a degree with later meta crafts which overall makes me feel fine with the system.
I like how the game encourages you more to use the currency you find - and i did that for my campaign playthrough and early mapping - but after that it i simply went back to stacking my currency and trading because it did not feel worth it.
I on every item have to go through the process to finding a good base, get through multiple stages with crafting via essences, argumentation etc - which is fine really - but it i think on a high item level base, the lowest tier rolls should be removed.
It is incredibly frustrating when you finally get lucky with the crafts which is a casino by itself mostly and then you use an exalt and you get +3 intelligence or 2-3 added fire damage to attacks.
Overall it felt like while i can gamble away my currency and most likely get nothing useable within 20 exalted orbs, i might aswell just buy 2-3 upgrades for the same amount of invested currency, which disencouraged me at the end from using the currency that i find.

Another topic are runes - they should be overwriteable.
It's frustrating to basically have "bricked" your old good item for that build because you move some stats around and now would need to change the runes but can not do so.
Make runes harder to obtain but therefore allow to overwrite the existing runes resulting in the socketed runes to get destroyed in order to place in a new one, so it still has some meaning to it - but don't make players build an entirely new item just because they want to optimize their setups and move some stats around, it feels absolutely unrewarding and makes all your current gear feel somewhat temporary at all times.

Additional charm slots should not take a prefix/suffix slot - We already have too much that goes into these and too many stats required only obtainable by gear. These should increase with the item bases. (Have Basic, Advanced, Expert belts for that)

Also i am not a big fan of swapping the Tiers from T1 being the highest to T??? being the highest. It makes it hard for players to actually understand how good of a stat actually is on their items because they never really know how many Tiers for that that stat on that item actually exist without having to open up an external website and look it up.
If you want to keep this system in order to be able to easily add more tiers later on, id suggest to atleast visually display the maximum possible tier aswell.

Regarding item bases i feel like some implicits on them are too powerful and simply eliminate the need for all other bases of that category. Theres simply just some bases that are straight better in every single situation due to their implicits. (Example here would be the Dualstring Bow)

Regarding uniques i feel like most of them are really disappointing and boring.
Yes there is some build enabling and some interesting ones but thats really the minority. Most of them don't feel unique at all, they are just straight bad items that nobody will ever use.
Some of the ones we got from PoE1 feel like watered down versions of them with their actual interesting aspects removed up to a point where there is actually no reason for them to exist anymore. (Briskwrap as example)
Overall i think uniques need to be looked into and some of them might need to be reworked to actually bring interesting traits.



-- The gem system --
I appreciate a lot that we seperated the gem slots from items. Thats a good change.
However the rest of the system seems to be all over the place.
Theres just so many restrictions to it that it is more confusing to me now if a combo will work or not, than it is in PoE1.
First of all we have too many gems bound to specific weapons which just makes the game again feel less flexible and more put on rails.
Many support gems just feel straight boring which gets amplififed by the fact you can not multiuse them on different abilities or they are by default bound to conditions (only when you kill an enemy thats shocked, only when it rains outside, only when the stars align in right order.
I understand not all gems are released yet and you probably restricted this so people dont go too wild with their builds but i think as of right now this shoehorns classes into 2-3 builds and thats about it.
The attribute requirements for gems seem way too high considering we are getting less now - The level requirement however i feel is fine on most of them.

Some of the gem recommendations for support gems are literally nonsense and confusing. (As example: Lightning arrow recommends - Chain support - Lightning arrow in its description also states "skill can not chain)

Some gems combination sound like they will work but when you actually get the gems and then try to set that up the game tells you "no you are not allowed to do that" (Example: Herald of Ash (Which ignites) -> Fiery Death support (Ignited enemies have a chance to explode))
It is basically predetermined which gems are allowed to be connected with eachother which removes the whole "think outside of the box" thing from the game.

I understand that you are supposed to use multiple skills in combination with eachother, but limiting each type of support gem to "one use only" just encourages me to put the "best" possible gem setup on one ability and then heavily rely on that single ability with everything else just being suboptimal support for that ability at best.
The idea of "the player has to be considerate which support to use on what skill" sounds nice on paper but yet again disencourages the use of stuff like multiple weapons with swapping that would share the same support gems or alternative attack gems for situational use because you already used those gems on your main ability and without them theres no point to scale secondary abilities effectively.
Essentially what you are supposed to do is decide for one thing your character does and thats it. The moment you want to utilize the whole multi element, weapon swap or alternative build route the systems in place make it incredibly annoying or even directly straight block you from doing it.
Now if the intention is to have it that way i dont think we even need a large complex passive tree and wide range of gems to combine to begin with, it kinda feels like this system is unfinished.


I dont mind the new way of upgrading gems. However i want to point out that it introduces more RNG into your progression and you can't "grind" your way up because you need to be able to actually kill monsters in a zone thats high enough for that gem to drop (unless you ruin your own fun and bypass it by trading)
I just wish there was something to do with these hundrets of uncut skillgems i have now because i got my 6 abilities and the rest just will rot in my storage forever.



--Drop rates--
Well they got adjusted with recent patches.
I still find myself running out of transmuation orbs but that could also just be a "me"-issue.
They seem fine for the most part.
The only thing i want to mention is that if you kill a unique boss on a map it should atleast drop one of the following:
- Rare item
- Waystone
- Superior item
- Socketed item
This does not seem to be guaranteed, i had some cases where i literally got only gold and a bunch of bad blue item bases.
But apart from that its fine.



-- Trails --
So thats a critical topic for most people at the moment.
I think the first trail where you have to complete a sanctum run to introduce people to the mechanic is totally fine.
Also the second trail where you have to complete a ultimatum is fine considering it is to introduce people to the mechanic.
But thats really where "its fine" stops.
I understand that the current way is most likely a place holder and we will hopefully different trails once act 4-6 releases.
I understand that you maybe wanted to get people to test those game modes since it is early access.
But you got your feedback, people hate it. They hated it before, they hate it now. Theres only a small amount of people that did it in PoE1 with specific builds in order to farm currency, not because its enjoyable content.
The honor mechanic in sanctum is, just like in PoE1 extremely melee unfriendly.
Adding boss fights at the end which essentially can remove all your honor even if you went flawless through all previous stages and without the honor system couldve easily sustained the fight is not a fun mechanic.
Having the entire ascendency relying on tokens that are essentially rare drops to even try makes it absolutely ridiclious.
People do not enjoy it, thats your feedback - and that includes me too. Address it.



-- The Endgame --
Now regarding the endgame i can not say much about pinacle bosses because i have not attempted them.
However i can give some feedback on the whole mapping part.

Generally it feels similar to PoE1's endgame. Just that you are slower and some things are massively overtuned.
I like the new atlas but i miss the feature to target specific farm specific maps like you used to be able to in PoE1.
However this isn't PoE1 and there is obviously certainly the intention behind it to move players out of their comfort zones a bit, so i accept that, fine.

The atlas passive tree feels a bit small and boring and overall it feels like i have less reliable ways to customize my mapping experience because most of it got moved to tablets, which are RNG drops.
Map sustain is kinda meh. You are basically forced to fully spec into Waystone tier increase + quanitity and put your highest maps on boss nodes otherwise you will not ever be able to sustain higher map tiers, which is required to get decent xp, better gear, higher level skillgems etc.
Essentially low tiers are worthless the moment you can clear higher ones, there is no real reason to do them.

Monster HP does not seem to scale as much with higher map tiers, their damage however does a lot.
While your character and combat generally is a bit slower, im not sure how to feel about all the monsters essentially still being the same speed as in PoE1 (or atleast it feels like that)
Now im a ranger and i have decent movement speed and kite a lot but even i get outran by some of the monsters at times. Not sure if other classes have issues with this but i can imagine it to feel worse for them. For me its manageable.
Endgame feels very "one-shot" heavy especially at higher tiers, despite having the defenses. Considering my class and my playstyle i can manage most of it fine but again i can see other classes having a much worse time.

What however feels incredibly, and i really mean increadibly bad and this is currently the biggest issue i have with the game is on-death oneshot mechanics combined with the lack of visual clarity.
Lack of visual clarity is not a difficulty trait. And being punished for it feels just absolutely horrible. The issue was not appearing during the campaign but once you get into mapping it certainly shows.
The upgraded graphics look nice but they just amplify the issue we had already in PoE1. Theres more flora & fauna, more effects more overall, different elevations.
And with all that going on on your screen there is somewhere hidden below all that clutter a random mob that you already killed that then just oneshots you via a on-death revenge mechanic out of nowhere.
We had those in PoE1 already, they add nothing but frustration, they dont create good difficulty - they are not a skill issue they are a visual clarity issue. They are not fun. There is no reason to have them.
If you really so badly want to take over a freature that people hated in PoE1 already and also in several other ARPGs where they are just hated similary, then at the very least change them to be delayed damage by turning them into a DOT or apply another mechanic like a debuff/curse instead.
The same goes for hardly visible chasing projectiles that explode - Either you make them so big that they stand out in all the visual clutter so people can actually react to them - Or you just remove them or change the way damage is applied.
The way they are now they are literally a frustrating unfun mechanic and not any sort of actual skillcheck or difficulty at all.

The same goes for offscreen damage btw. Nothing that gets casted outside of your view area should oneshot you. Now you can argue that players cause offscreen damage too but thats just a lame excuse when you can literally just scale those values down for both sides with the stats already in the game doing exactly that thing (aka accuracy etc)

The blood explosion animation every rare monster does now is essentially just adding more to the visual clarity issue even if it was intended as a cool effect, but it results in you never actually knowing if that mob is gonna explode and you can safely pick up your loot or if theres gonna be some sort of delayed garbage explosion after that which will kill you.
Speaking about visual clarity, certain maps are really bad by default with this already.
The Willow map as example has so many blocking trees and hills with different elevations that the moment you add something like "Burning grounds" or anything like that it becomes incredibly exhausting to look at.
On the swamp like map types the moment you have delirium mist going you literally have to use the minimap to even see where you can go.


Regarding map mods i feel like they are mostly fine and since there does not seem to be the build-killing modifiers like "reflect damage" etc i feel did not feel discouraged from basically trying all maps i have regardless of their modifiers.
However the burning ground effect seems way too overtuned damage wise even if you have the resistences for it. I understand you are not supposed to stay in them and play around them and i do believe it should be more dangerous than in PoE1, however i think the damage right now is a bit too high even if you just have to cross it for a split second.
Maybe it might be better to make this increase the damage over time you get dependinging on how long you stand in it instead of burning me to ashes when i just roll through it while using a flask just to get on the other side of it.


The league mechanics like Ritual need some work partially.
I think the expedition part is in a good spot. Delirium is in a good spot too.
Ritual the circle is a bit too small considering how fast mobs are in relation to the slower combat. It also depending on which effect it spawns adds a significant amount of visual clutter.
Breach feels a bit overtuned with the amount of mobs and their speed.
Essence/Shrine/Strongboxes feel fine. I kinda miss the function to merge lower into greater essences. More RNG without workaround again.

As a last point regarding endgame i want to talk about the punishment for failing your maps.
I would generally say losing your portals and all that on first death would not be a big issue if the endgame was not so increadibly oneshot heavy and packed with visual clarity issues.
As for right now i find the punishment too hard. You should not lose the loot of monsters you already killed either.
Right if you die once you essentially lose:

- 10% your xp. (Which can be hours later on)
- All loot you did not pick up.
- All investments on the waystone.
- All investments on the map node.

I don't think that is something that in the long run will appeal to a wide audience as long as the "random oneshots" are not fixed.
Even with them being fixed i still think you should atleast be able to go back in and pick up your loot with mobs despawned because you essentially already lost so much progression there.
I saw someone suggesting on another thread that you should only lose the xp obtained in that map - Which sounds nice but i am not too sure how bad that later on would affect people racing in ladder rankings.
Essentially how it is right now it reindroduces the old problem PoE1 had with people not trying anything dangerous until they leveled up and have their XP set back to 0%.


That's it for the major systems of the game. Surprised if you made it here ;)

I have some minior misc topics and small possible improvements regarding UI aswell which i quickly write at the end.



-- Misc --
- Considering we have a account system with a #Tag to it. Maybe change the whisper system to utilize account names too.
- Character names should not be required to be unique within an account - Or atleast within a league. On the second option just have them expire when moved to standart. This solves the issue where i people have to struggle finding new names every league.
- Would be nice to be able to zoom the camera out a bit more - This would also help with the whole "offscreen-damage" situation a bit.
- Once you completed the endgame on a character the gambler should be at your hideout and not have a restriction in relation to how many unique monsters you killed. Prices and item-level should scale with the character level to have a gold sink. This should only apply to characters finished the campaign.
- The well is useless and can be removed. Just refill our flasks whenever we go to town.
- Respec cost should be lower for characters in the campaign. It should increase once you get to endgame. Notify the player about that the cost will increase once they move to it.
- Give us an option to hide the helmet. Dont force us to buy "Invisible Dye" just to hide the helment later on.
- Activating a lever in a map should not hard animation lock you. You should be able to cancel that action and use dodge roll to get out of it.



-- UI improvements --
- The reforge bench and the other workbench should be one thing with two seperate icons on its menu.
- Allow us to bind the 2nd hotbar slots to keys directly without having to use a modifier key.
- Improve map loading times. At the moment it interrupts the gameflow.
- Give us a way to access the Gem-UI to see all Gems in the game without having to click on a uncut gem.
- Highlighting on the passive tree when using the search function is not great. Maybe try to outline found nodes in a color with more contrast.
- Nodes assigned to a weaponset on the passive tree should be highlighted in a different color.
- Map Objectives during the campaign that you have completed should be easier to distinguish from the ones you still have to do. Maybe outline them more clearly when you have not completed them.
- We should have the damage breakdown PoE1 has when hovering over an ability in the skillbar. At the moment thats not implemented and just shows the ability name.
- Add an "unfiltered" option back to the Unique Stashtab
- Ability preview videos should still play when you hover over a gem that you are unable to equip or carve.


Im suprised if even 5% of the people opening this thread make it here.
I want to again point out that i think the game has a great foundation and i do enjoy playing it a lot. Feedback on games are subjective opinions after all. Don't want it to be PoE1 either. Looking forwards for the game to get even better.

Also there might be spelling mistakes, not a native and been editing this in sentence structure quite a bit. Dont pitchfork me for it.