Feedback from New Casual Player

Been playing this where I can on weekends and evenings after work. The overall gameplay is really fun but I do have a few points of feedback.

1) Better ways to deal with resistance; bosses have been fine up until the Act 2 boss. I'm a Monk and focused on a lightning build for a ton of my damage but this boss is very difficult as believe if has high resistance to lightening and I can't see anyway to combat this. Respec costs gold and not sure how I would change my build for just one boss. This makes the fight take a long time and positive I had it on one occasion before my laptop had latency issues, causing me to lag and die.

2) Introduce all crafting in Act 1 through quests; My brother who I bought an EA pass for was not aware of disenchanting and I didn't know I could break down sockets until later. This indicates that new players could do with some focused quests around crafting. Also wish all the crafting options were available earlier so players can start learning them sooner - apparently there are more crafting options in Act 3?

3) Streamlined crafting; put all crafting in one place, it's annoying to have to speak to different people and interact with a bench for each piece of equipment.

4) More forgiving respec; if you can build wrong where you struggle to beat a boss, respec should be free. It's fine for hardcore players who know how/what to build but as a casual player I don't have the time or patience to worry about where my passive points get allocated. I just want to experiment and play but with the way respecing works right now, if I don't research I feel like it is punishing me and I will hit a brick wall (like in Act 2).

*Edit
5) Improved Melee combat; doesn't feel like any melee combat is actually viable. Feels like it is always high risk low reward, occasionally can get a few smacks in but doesn't seem to do much damage generally (unless I'm shocking, that is fun).
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The difficulty is technically fine but I do feel there needs to be more tools (that isn't more RNG) if respecing doesn't change and resistances could be an issue.

Been really enjoying the game but the Act 2 boss is diminishing my want to play it. Maybe it's not a game for me which would suck when I am enjoying it but just can't put the time in outside of the game to learn a build and restart from scratch.

A point Id add to is make some in game way of knowing what your class ascendancies will be.

See I only played PoE1 many years ago and dont really keep up with things beyond playing poe2 itself. And the way the game laid it out to me was as follows:
The skill tree implies a few things to me. Minions, Elemental stuff, Chaos, Physical ( bone stuff).
Character selection highlights 3 points for witch: "Minions", "Chaos Magic" and "Osteomancy" (Seriously go check it thats what it says).

Through the gameplay my natural assumption was alright. Those must be the ascendancy classes for PoE2! But we get fire mage which is oddly specific elemental and... blood mage? I'll admit this both caught me by surprise and I was also just kind of disappointed. I dont like looking at external media to look things up for a game be it builds or anything.

Just not a fun way to play for me personally, a lot of the fun is making a build myself and hoping it works (In my case pure minion. I do practically 0 damage. Im doing well through act 2 so far! Beat colossus!).

If I knew the options were fire mage or blood mage (for some reason?) Id have definitely built different. It's too late now. Im just ignoring the ascendancy class since its not really offering anything to me at least. But I do feel like it made a moment that was suppose to feel cool just feel disappointing.

Congrats on beating Colossus (honestly found that a buggy and awkward fight).

It is oddly specific, but the demon transformation is cool - would be swéet if you got to pick which element at least. Though all this feels like it leads to the same place if you specialise into a singular elemental damage. Apparently there are skills that help lower them - maybe each class needs a skill to do this or just an item you can craft, buy or find in a drop.

Regardless respec should be readily available if there are avenues which are ineffective. Though they have time to do this - hope they do make it so casuals can at least complete their campaign without going for meta builds and re-think how respec works.

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PatLad7#0112 wrote:

got to pick which element at least.

You know, I feel like this would work if you had some passive that was along the lines of "all fire element is now shock" or ice, or chaos etc. Then that essentially makes it feel like you master the inferno class into your own thing and have it more flexible as well as being possibly useful to other classes!

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PatLad7#0112 wrote:

Regardless respec should be readily available if there are avenues which are ineffective. Though they have time to do this - hope they do make it so casuals can at least complete their campaign without going for meta builds and re-think how respec works.

Agreed. Im pretty casual. Im on break right now but typically I work 12 hours a day, I dont have that much time to game. Ive never found meta fun (mostly because it feels like Im following a guide instead of playing a game. Its why I never really got into PoE1) but easier respecs certainly make it easier to just do your own thing.

For me Im accidentally blood mage, feels bad. Useless ascendancy for me. That's my own fault but looking at it from a more casual perspective having a prestige class feel meh/disappointing feels like a failure to some regard. Its very clunky, and the way to get more points is hell with the honour system that's not worth it. I have no idea how melee classes handle that.

UPDATE

4)
Got into Act 3 and got to reforging. Similarly to breaking stuff down, this is not explained at all. Again, linking to Point 2, this really needs to be introduced earlier with clearer indications to get players to interact.

Crafting is very important to keeping relevant and by Act 3 players should be familiar with this NOT just being given a new one.

Players could get familiar with reforging very early pretty easily and give them a reason to hold onto specific items, use transmutations and introduce another way to try and get desirable items. That way by Act 3 they are more likely to be prepared.

NEW
6) Act 3 is very long. Honestly was getting a bit tired of it but also got stuck on Viper (still not through it yet). Have my own opinions on this and will keep playing but this fights difficulty (mainly Arakaali's Sting section) was very annoying and couldn't play more yesterday and the thought of that fight is demotivating me to load up again. There are a few fights that are just annoying - There was a fight that was basically timed with a titan and flow of lava which I feel could be annoying. Thankfully I did it 2nd time but the failed first attempt was purely because I ran out of time due to them hiding in the lava flow; second time I used shock wave to hit and got closer to the lava but it could be very annoying. Granted this was very achieveable fight whereas Arakaali's Sting is both annoying alongside other skills and really the only part of that fight I am really struggling with.