Feedback after 120 hours- New Player

Good Day,

First off, I have dabbled in POE 1 a bit, completed campaign there a few times and done some mapping, but not much though as I found it very daunting to get into, as I only started trying a couple years back. I wanted to start at the beginning of the POE 2 journey so I could keep up. I have played 120 hours in the last week and I have played every class so far up to Act 2/3. 1 class to endgame, and another will be there tomorrow. Here is my feedback so far. Amazing game, btw, the rest is constructive stuff.

#1- Minions - These really need a balance pass. What I mean by that is the spirit costs are astronomical. ATM you are basically forced to play Witch/Sorcerer to be a summoner. Since spells dont require a weapon to be equipped you can actually have the spirit with a sceptre to be able to use minions. Other classes might get 1-3 minions. The reavers being as high cost as they are, and them being melee is really bad. Considering melee minions can get stuck and then are useless in a fight. With no way to summon your minions to your side like in POE1 this is problematic and they arnt any better than say Arsonists. Cleric seems nice, but doesnt do enough consistently to warrant taking. They cant outheal the damage coming in, and the rez isnt worth a spot. Storm mages are like Arsonists, and cost more, so I mind as well bring Arsonists. I feel like we end up getting pigeon holed into specific minions. Maybe this will be better when Spirit Capture Gems come, but if their Spirit costs are ridiculous, then the variety will be bad. A summoner really relies on the minion nodes and spirit affixes. Any other class struggles to be a summoner both because of spirit costs and location on the passive tree. This will bring me to the other point after this. Melee Minions should be a flat 20 spirit (ex), and Ranged should be 30 (ex). This keeps it the same, and allows you to have a balanced group. With there being persistent gems that demand spirit too, and have increase costs for support gems, even other classes will get punished more for trying something different.

#2- As mentioned above, other classes get penalized hard for not being a witch or sorcerer. A Mercenary for example is a class bc of Gemling Leg. and the double support gems, that people wanted to explore minion builds with, however, there is A LOT of wasted points trying to get to that part of the tree. This just encourages people to play classes as one would expect them too, not how they want. Considering your own interviews you wanted people to really get creative, be a different class summoner etc. This falls short of the reality. SO, here is a suggestion to make this more accessible.
- For each class, there is the starting "Hub" of nodes. Make a convergence point and make a "wormhole" node. If picked, you can pick another starting location wormhole hub and now your connected. 1 point though gets you both nodes. Now you can place your points on that side of the tree. This would allow you to split around easier. A titan can spec into magic side of tree, Merc can pick minions, So on and so forth. This does 2 things. Gives flexibility if someone wants to go super specialized. Gemling Summoner rather than a Xbow user. Sorcerer battlemage etc. This also comes with risks, as if you say go some warrior nodes and some magic nodes, you prevent yourself from maybe going deeper into 1 side of tree.

#3- PS5 Performance. OMG this is so bad, like it is not even a joke. I am actually surprised how bad the performance on my PS5 is. I have to play on Dynamic Resolution, which looks pretty bad as it is, but some areas, TEMPLE OF KOPEC 2nd floor, are almost unplayable. Walls, enemies disappear, I disappear, but effects still happen so I die almost every time on that floor. I have to speedrun it to survive. If there is a mechanic to that temple, i don't know what it is. I absolutely hate going in there. Most maps are, ok. Anything in a crypt, etc is fine, runs very smooth, but the larger maps, ugh, can be a bit rough.

#4- Campaign Map Size. I have loved the plot to the campaign so far, but omg as it goes on, it becomes a slog. Act 1 was nice, Act 2 had more meat, Act 3 was omg slow. Long drawn out maps. Act 3 feels twice as bug as Act 1. The running meme is people hate Act 2, and we tell them you will love Act 2 after you do Act 3. If the remaining acts are anywhere near the length of Act 2 or 3 when they come out, I think you will find a lot of players 2nd guess playing. Sure its a great campaign and nice story, but when you have to redo it, EVERY LEAGUE, Im sorry, No. Especially if you want to play more than 1 character, HELL NO. I think some cutting could happen in Act 2. The Mourning road? cut that. Just right up to the Spires. Skip the Going to the Gate for the first time just to go to Traitor Passage. Just go right to the passage. These little things can trim down a lot. In Act 3, there is a lot that could be adjusted. The witch that gives the spirit. Stick her, just her, somewhere else and remove her map location. Each individual forest map, shrink a bit. Utzaal needs a shrink a bit. The other thing that will help players. IF a boss on the map has an item you need or permanent bonus, give it the plus icon. Festering chick in Utzal has the door idol, but Mektul just gives a gem. Plus her, dont put anything on him. This way, players who don't care about side stuff, can beeline and know what they can skip.

Also, speaking of Maps. There Visibility for locations needs to be enhanced. I shouldnt need to be right in front of an exit to see there is an exit there. I have missed exit so many times only being a tiny bit away on the screen and I walked by it 3x and the map is soo big that it takes forever to get back there.

Another Thing, I thought you mentioned that Boots were going to have MOVEMENT SPEED intrinsically. This should just be auto on any boot that isnt a white. The only stat you care about on your boots. Would help a lot with these larger maps.

#5- Empty Chests. Do I need to say more? I dont know how many times I have opened a chest, white, blue or yellow and received NOTHING. why is this a thing? Enough said.

#6- Why is Light Radius on gear? Tell me the reason for it? I have asked every chat I can find if anyone cares, and not a single person has said yes. It takes up a valuable spot. I understand not every stat should be great, but, it should be useful and serve a agreed purpose? shouldnt it?

#7- River Hags, Act 3/6- I think their bubbles might be a bit overtuned. I know if you can caught and a 2nd forms on you, you are just dead. between the massive slow and the dot, you dead.

#8- Mektul boss- Bit annoying for melee, as he likes to stay in the lava. Lava is 1 shot dead.

#9- Trials/Ultimatum- Umm.. I hate it. Really do. I see them as pointless character blocking of power. Terrible system and has no place. Now that bluntness out of the way, here is criticism. Trials dont teach you to be a better player. They are pigeon holing. Have NOTHING to do with your class. The mechanics have no bearing anywhere else in the game. This should be an endgame thing for pinnacle boss yes, but thats it. There should be no escort mission in Ultimatum. ALSO each trial, should have a video, like the skills do, explaining what they are, and what kind of builds would be good for them, and what a player can expect. This will help new players, kind of like mini tutorial.

Here is the ideal Ascension Trial- 1 boss fight. Harder. Ideally it would be a boss specifically designed for your Class (12 bosses total?) This keeps it unique and fresh for each class. You beat the boss, you get your points. Straight to the point. Earn the kill move on. Each set of points the boss difficulty and move set changes, adapting more etc. Maybe in case of the witch, first fight he has minions, 2nd adds fire element(infernal), 3rd adds bleeding with fire. Every Fight is a culmination of the previous one.
The problem right now, yes you said there will be a 3rd way to Ascend, and you can choose how you do so, but not really, let be real. Who is going to wait till Act 3 to Ascend with Ultimatum, thats lvl 38, when you could at 22? You are still pigeon holed to do them in order. Not really a choice when you look at it. The difficulty of the higher trials is absolutely ridiculous. Most casual players will never get to fully flush out their ascension paths. I don't want to, not worth the headache. I know Ziz has mentioned this a few times, he feels only 1% of players will ever hit 3rd and 4th ascension. This is a problem. Also Ascension being perm sucks. Like, really sucks. If you were unlucky and picked Blood Mage because it seemed cool, and put the time in, campaign etc, only to realize it actually sucks, because it does, now you bricked your character and have to start again. Not sure why this is a thing. Choice matters, but that should be the players choice, they are paying you. IF your insistent to keep Ascension the way it is, remove Honor. just get rid of it. Make boss harder if need to, but honor is so dumb. It punishes melee hardcore, shouldnt apply to the boss room, Uber boss ya, that adds to challenge, but not the standard run. I feel like honor is one of the worst design choices ive seen in a ARPG. I hate traps too, its not a rogue like... its an Action game. They have no place in an ARPG.

#10- STASH TABS- For the most part I am ok with these. I feel like all the tabs that are not premiums, uniques, should be the same price. (gem, currency, delerium, essence). They all offer value, but Currency is such a necessity, it almost seems predatory to make it twice as much as the rest.

As for usefulness. Essence and Delerium barely have anything in them. ATM they have barely appeared.

Flask is the most useless tab I have ever seen made. You might have 5 flasks for some variety or if a Pathfinder. What should happen, Flask tab should also be a Charm Tab. Since Charms use your flask charges, them sharing a tab only seems appropriate.

Currency Tab should also have artifacts as part of it.
Runes should join a tab, maybe Runes and Soul Cores could share their own tab
Waystones obviously need a tab, OR, a designation spot in other tabs so you can set it to waystones and not have to manually drop them in tabs.

#11- The trade site work great. Send message, see it pop up in game as well instantly, and invite sent etc. I was very happy to see how well it worked right off the bat. Best trade system Ive seen outside of an ingame marketboard.

#12- Stash boxes in Trials, both in the front and the Ascension room are bugged. If you try and deposit into them, the items end up on the ground. You have to manually click and drop into the chest, you cant use the quick deposit button. Does this both in Trial and Ultimatum. There is a couple Campaign chests that do this as well. I think they are in the zones that have a waypoint and stash box in the beginning entrance of the areas, like Act 2 and Act 3.

#13- Chaos Resistance. Does it exist? I dont think I have seen it once in the campaign, you would think it would appear. I know endgame Chaos resist is a problem too, i see people complain about it everyday that it is very rare and a lot of chaos 1 shots happen because of it.

#14- Respeccing your character in Early Access should be free until all classes are released and they have had their initial growing pains. As per your own wishes, this would allow players to experiment a lot more with wild and wacky ideas. Discover the broken things that need to be balanced. Try things you wouldnt unless u had an idea it would work and not waste resources. Titan speccing into Monk for quarterstaff Ice strikes lol. Let the experimentation flourish. Respec costs are way to high anyway. The last part of EA start balancing its costs. Let players focus on playing and having fun. This gives you more Data to base decisions off of, and us more variety and discovery, after all, we are paying to play a future free game. Johnathan said it perfectly in the Livestream "Even we dont know all the ways these can interact". Well he is right, give us free respec and we will discover that.

#15- Classes. Where to start. Invoker monk feels very good to play, HOWEVER, monk start is very rough. The most efficient and best way to play monk at the start is to pick up a bow and be a ranger for most of Act 1. It is painful. Need more damage, and I think, a passive ability, Ill explain more in next section. Mercenary was my first character and I stopped playing it. It felt really slow, really sluggish and clunky. Choose ammo, shoot, switch ammo, shoot, etc etc. I didnt think it was as engaging, and was punishing when wrong buttons hit. Forces you not into variety, but the same thing over and over, just so you can keep up. Reload times are brutal, amount of ammo is bad. I dunno, just doesnt feel good. Witch feels good, although I wish their Ascendency did more for minion support. Demon form is just bad. Removes minions, meh. Hound is good, but really sucks at damage. only take him for the 20% resist. You choose the Spirit for life node always, because spirit is So hard to get, and you want it. pigeon holed again. Blood Mage is atrocious. It would be better if you could mitigate life costs with say DR or some other way, BM feels bad. Stormweaver feels nice. enough said. Ranger feels pretty good, although outside of lightning the rest need some love. Acolyte of Chyula needs ALOT of love. Identity feels misplaced, and it feels very weak. The "No harm protect me" Invoker Node should have an explanation built in about what it means. Everyone says its good, but no one can explain it lol.
Remove "Extra" spirit costs on gems when attaching to a Persistent buff. Not enough spirit in the game, things cost more than enough. Honestly, Persistent Buffs, should be 20 spirit flat. That I would be ok with across the board. The quest spirit rewards, make them 40 instead of 30. Witches get help, and lets other classes get some spirit buffs online a bit quicker.

#16- Endgame. Well here we are, the endgame. First off, Campaign should have all Endgame activities in it, like how Ritual was in Act 1. Breach should be in an act, etc. This will allow new players to engage in it before Endgame.

As for endgame, I love the Atlas. Looks great, and an amazing concept, however there are things I dont like about it. Not having a map boss, is kind of disappointing. If a map doesnt have anything (boss, breach etc), its almost like, why am I doing this? wasting my time? At the very least, all Rares should always be visable, so you can blast your way through maps. Saves time, and keeps you engaged. Trials and Ultimatum should be endgame only, not used to Ascend. Mentioned it above, wanted to mention again. Boss Maps, should just be Boss. No hoard of enemies to kill. Just boss arena.

Even specced into waystone drops, I feel like I barely have any to use. Think drop rates need to be adjusted for this.

I feel like endgame needs a goal. Right now its "cleansing the corruption". Maybe it could have objectives. You do a map, and find a clue telling you to go in ______ direction. There you find another telling you to kill a boss over here. This would give purpose and objectives to do, while exploring the Atlas. Just a rough idea, maybe something to explore. Ive heard a few people mention this.


Thank you for your time GGG and all the hard work you have put in. I think I will leave it at that, there is a lot here to read and digest. I hope there is some good explanation as to why I feel this way and why I feel these points deserve to be looked at and that it came across as constructive, well, as best as it can.

Happy Holidays!